Fourplay

by Jane Moore

  He stood up and rubbed his face. “I see. So if I don’t dance to your tune, you’ll punish me by using the children as your weapon. Except it won’t just be me you’re punishing, will it? It’ll be them too.”

  Jo knew he was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Not under the current circumstances, anyway.

  “You might see it like that, but I don’t,” she said. “I’m protecting my children from seeing their father make a complete arse of himself over some young girl. I’m not saying you can’t see them, I’m saying she can’t see them. So, if you care as much about your children as you say you do, it won’t be a difficult choice for you, will it?”

  For once, she felt she had the upper hand in her war of words with Jeff. It didn’t happen often and she was rather enjoying it. It didn’t last long.

  “Well, I’d like to think you’re acting in the best interests of the children, but somehow I don’t think you are,” said Jeff. “They got on perfectly well with Candy.”

  “Of course they did, they’re a similar age.” Jo knew this comment simply qualified Jeff’s view that she was bitter, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “Oh, ha bloody ha, you’re such a comedian. It’s clear we’re not able to have an adult conversation about our children, but let me tell you this. I won’t make arrangements to do things with them and Candy, but I won’t ban her from my flat when they’re around either. So there will be other meetings.” He paused and looked at Jo who was silently shaking her head but saying nothing. He continued, “If you start playing mind games over when I can see them, I shall have no hesitation in telling them that it’s your doing and not mine.”

  Jo looked across at Jeff as he sat defiantly staring at her, and felt nothing but pure hatred. Sitting there now, in her kitchen, the man she had shared ten years of her life with seemed like a complete stranger. Spanning a hand across her forehead, she rubbed her throbbing temples as she spoke.

  “Jeff, do you have any idea how many times I have wanted to tell the children the real reason why Mummy and Daddy aren’t together anymore? God, it would be so easy to do and it would feel so bloody good. But, even though it would make me feel better and give you what you deserve, I don’t do it. Purely because it would hurt them to know the truth about what a lying, cheating weasel their father is. I’m protecting them from knowing that, yet just because I don’t want them mixing with your girlfriend, you would quite happily paint a bleak picture to them about me.”

  “Yep. You got it.”

  A Tom and Jerry vision flashed into Jo’s mind, of her burying a frying pan in his face while he hopped around the room. She knew there was a destructive game of Call My Emotional Bluff going on here, and she suddenly felt weary.

  “Get out, Jeff. You’re not an adult, you’re just a child that owes money. Come back when you’ve grown up.”

  Taking his jacket from the back of the chair and walking toward the door, Jeff made a last parting shot. “The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ spring to mind, Jo. When I’ve gone, just think about what you’ve said today and in retrospect you’ll see how unreasonable you’ve been.”

  She didn’t answer, preferring to stare out of the window with her back turned to him. His last remark had reminded her how controlling Jeff had been to live with. Used to planting auto-suggestive remarks into the minds of juries, he would often use the tactic on Jo, to great effect.

  She remembered one occasion, about six months after Sophie was born, when Tim had offered to look after the children at his place so she and Jeff could have the day to themselves. Jeff said he wanted to “chill out” around the house, savoring having it to themselves for a change. But Jo had wanted to do what she missed most in the world since having children: a day of shopping, punctuated by lunch in a trendy café and maybe an early film showing. Under protest, Jeff had agreed. But instead of relishing their valuable, undiluted time together, they’d had an almighty row within the first hour.

  “You seemed to take a shine to him,” he said, almost conversationally, as they emerged from a shop.

  “Who?” replied Jo, looking back over her shoulder.

  “That shop assistant. You couldn’t take your eyes off him.” Jeff looked straight at her, clearly trying to gauge the reaction.

  “What? I don’t even remember seeing a shop assistant. I was looking at the clothes.”

  His face clouded. “Oh, for God’s sake, Jo. Why do you always have to deny everything? It’s not as if I care that you fancy some other bloke anyway. Just bloody admit it. It infuriates me when you play dumb.”

  Jo was not about to admit to an incident that had never happened, so a huge row ensued that resulted in Jeff stomping off home.

  “Don’t you see?” Rosie had said later. “He didn’t want to come shopping anyway, so he simply caused a row so he could go and do what he wanted to do in the first place—sit at home and watch TV.”

  In those days, Jo used to spend a lot of time defending her husband’s moods out of a misguided sense of loyalty. “Oh, that’s a bit harsh, Rosie. I mean, maybe I did look at the shop assistant in a certain way. It’s just that I don’t remember doing it.”

  Rosie raised her eyes heavenward. “That’s because you didn’t. It’s just Jeff controlling the situation as usual.”

  At the time, Jo had pooh-poohed it. But now she was no longer in his thrall she could see her friend had been right. Thinking about it now, this small but significant slice of objectivity empowered Jo and lifted her spirits immensely. I’m finally seeing him for what he is, she thought. Maybe it’s not such a loss after all. She heard Jeff saying goodbye to the children and letting himself out, then the unmistakably brisk footsteps of Pam walking down the hallway. Without even looking at her, Jo raised her hand to gesture for silence.

  “Whatever it is you’re going to say, Mum, I don’t want to hear it, OK?”

  “I was merely going to ask if you wanted a gin and tonic, dear,” said Pam with uncharacteristic sweetness.

  Jo did, and she took it with her upstairs where she had an indulgently long bath and mulled over how she was going to deal with the Candy scenario.

  Tim arrived for Sunday lunch at precisely two minutes to 1 P.M.

  “I see you have timed your arrival perfectly to make sure you wouldn’t get dragged into any preparation,” said Jo, turning her cheek for him to kiss.

  “Sis, you know me so well,” he said cheerily, pushing a rather haphazard bunch of flowers into her hand.

  “Ah, I see the neighbors are missing some of their prize blooms,” she said, tweaking one of the sagging rose petals. “Wouldn’t it be more diplomatic to give them to Mother? You haven’t seen her in almost a week.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” he said, grabbing them back again. “Where is she?”

  “Donning her sackcloth and ashes for your arrival, no doubt. And by the way, don’t even think about leaving early.” She tapped her forefinger on his chest. “You’re on mother duty today, as well as washing dishes.”

  Tim took a deep breath and made the sign of the cross. “Ah yes, some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the tree . . . right, here we go.”

  Ten minutes later, everyone was sitting around the dining table surveying the spread Jo had placed before them.

  “Giant’s booger anyone?” said Tim, holding up the dish of sprouts.

  “Uuuurrrhhhh!” spluttered Sophie before collapsing into fits of giggles.

  “Or how about a glazed hamster poop?” Tim lifted the bowl of kidney beans and both of the children went into paroxysms of laughter.

  “Tim dear, must you? It’s hard enough to get the children to eat vegetables as it is.” Jo noticed her mother’s admonishment of Tim was done with a soft voice and a twinkle in her eye, unlike the harsh tone she often used with her. But she couldn’t hate her affable brother for it.

  “So Bruv, how’s life, love and the universe?” she said, squeezing his arm.

  “Well, life is pretty much the same, really. N
o work equals no money, that sort of thing. Love is pretty shitty—sorry, terrible,” he glanced at Sophie who was clearly oblivious to the remark and trying to insert part of a sprout up Thomas’s nose. “And as for the universe, well I was thinking of going out and saving it sometime next week.”

  Jo smiled indulgently. “So what happened to the girl you went out with when you were supposed to be seeing me and Conor?” There was that name again. Me and Conor. She rolled it around in her thoughts for a moment.

  “Oh, Bernice Winters she was called.” Tim yawned, revealing a mouthful of partially chewed sprouts. “Can you believe that? Her name was Bernie Winters, as in the comedian. Trouble is, she looked more like Schnorbitz.”

  “As you’re being so rude about her, can I assume she’s dumped you?” said Jo, passing him the gravy.

  “Yes, you can. Honestly, I will never understand women. They’re such hard work because they don’t know what they want.”

  “Girls don’t either,” said Thomas, wrinkling his nose in disapproval of the fairer sex.

  “Some of us do,” said Jo, laughing and tweaking her son’s nose.

  “No, Sis, you think you do, then when you get it you try and change it. I read this brilliant thing on the Internet the other day that summed it up, really,” said Tim, leaning over and stealing one of Jo’s crispier roast potatoes.

  “Go on, enlighten me,” she said, ignoring the pinched expression of her mother who was clearly expecting a rude anecdote.

  “It was entitled, ‘How to Impress a Woman,’ and listed things like kiss her, cuddle her, caress her, love her, wine and dine her, spend money on her and go to the ends of the earth for her.”

  “And?”

  “And ‘How to Impress a Man’ was to show up naked and bring pizza,” he said, taking a bite of his stolen potato. “That sums it up really. We are simple creatures, and you lot are infuriatingly complex and difficult.”

  Jo shook her head. “Excuse me, but when I want an opinion from you, I’ll give it to you. You’re right that you’re simple, but that’s because you only think about one thing.” Tim was nodding his head slowly with an expression that said: What’s wrong with that? “A man on a date wonders if he’ll get lucky,” Jo continued, “whereas the woman already knows. So in which criterion did you fail by Schnorbitz’s standards?”

  “God knows.” Tim let out a heavy sigh. “She started wittering on about our mismatched karmas and how her clairvoyant had said that now was not a good time for her to start a relationship. I only wanted a till-dawn-do-us-part relationship, you know, the occasional shag.”

  “Timothy, watch your language.” Their mother always used their full names when she was telling them off.

  Jo was keen to steer the conversation round to Conor, but her guilt stopped her from doing something that, otherwise, would have seemed entirely natural. In the end, she didn’t have to.

  “By the way, Mum, Conor sends his regards,” said Tim, looking hungrily at the apple crumble Jo had just put on the table.

  Pam’s face visibly softened. “How is the dear boy?”

  Conor had been like a second son to Pam and Jim because of the amount of time he spent at their house with Tim as a child. Jo had lost count of the times she had come home to find the two young boys scarfing down chips or a chocolate bar that had originally been bought for her, while an indulgent Pam stood by smiling at them. It had crossed her mind on several occasions that her mother would much rather have had two sons.

  “He’s fine,” said Tim, tickling Sophie under the arm. “He was a bit down for a while, but he’s picked up again now. Probably because he’s got some new girl in tow.”

  “Oh?” said Jo, attempting to sound nonchalant. “Who is she? Anyone we know?”

  “Dunno,” Tim shrugged. “He never talks about that sort of thing. He’d been with the last one for a whole century before I even met her.”

  Jo’s mind went into overdrive, editing her next remark before she spoke. “Yes, he mentioned something about her on the night you didn’t turn up,” she said carefully. “He was pretty cut up about it at the time.”

  Tim pulled a face of surprise. “He told you the full story, did he? Blimey, you’re honored. I thought no one knew except me, him and Sally.”

  “No, no, not the whole story. Just a bit, and that was only because I pestered him to tell me,” said Jo, feeling anxious. The last thing she wanted was for Tim to go home and make Conor think she’d been bragging about knowing his secrets.

  They finished eating the apple crumble, and Tim stood up and started clearing the plates. Jo was wondering how she could return to the subject of Conor’s new woman without looking too interested, when her mother came to the rescue.

  “So, do you think we’ll get to meet this new girl?” said Pam, looking questioningly at Tim.

  He stopped wiping the table and looked at her as if she’d just asked him to explain the theory of relativity. “God knows, Mother, but I doubt it,” he said, lifting Thomas’s arm to wipe under. “I only know he’s seeing someone because I saw her drop him off the other night. He’d told me he was going out on a work-related matter, the crafty old bugger. Yes, yes, Mother, I know it’s a swear word,” he added, before Pam could admonish him.

  “What does bugger mean?” said Sophie, the remains of her apple crumble and ice cream smeared around her mouth.

  Tim winced and took a sneaky sideways glance at Pam who had a sanctimonious expression on her face.

  “Come on, let’s play Charades,” he said, in a transparent attempt to change the subject, scooping up a child under each arm. “You two are on my team against Mum and Grandma.”

  Half an hour later, Thomas and Sophie were doubled up with laughter watching their grandmother trying to mime the second syllable of the film Zulu.

  “I won’t forgive you for this, Tim,” said Pam, as she squatted and pulled a strained expression.

  Jo knew the answer because Tim had used it on her once before, but she wasn’t going to let her mother off lightly. “Something to do with skiing?” she said.

  By now, her mother was pulling an imaginary chain.

  “I know, Casey Jones!” Jo sneaked a look at Tim, who had tears of laughter pouring down his face.

  Jo hadn’t had such fun in a long time and, bizarrely, her mother’s interpretation of Zulu became a pivotal point on her daughter’s road to emotional recovery. Sitting there, laughing with her mother, brother and children, Jo understood that a sexual relationship wasn’t the only source of happiness. It was so long since she’d been single, she’d forgotten that.

  It comforted her to remember it now.

  11

  fast realizing that the relief of her mother’s departure was tainted by the sheer inconvenience of no longer having anyone to collect the children from school. Despite Martin Blake being so reasonable over her working hours, there had been a couple of occasions when she’d had immovable meetings with workmen, and both times she had called Jeff to see if he could take the afternoon off work to help out with the children.

  “Jo, I’m trying to do a job here,” he’d puffed self-importantly.

  Not that this attitude had come as any surprise to Jo. It had always been Jeff’s view that as he earned most of the family income, it absolved him from having to do much else. So if ever Jo had planned to do something while the children were at school, and one of them fell ill, it was her problem. So the likelihood he would have been much help after the split was a faint one. Instead, good old Tim had come to the rescue, thanks to the erratic nature of the acting profession. Today she was about to call on him for a third time, having given up on even bothering to ask Jeff.

  “Hello, my dear, sweet brother.”

  “Yes, of course I’ll pick them up.”

  “Oh God, am I really that transparent?”

  “Yep, but never mind. I love spending time with the children anyway. What time are you stuck till?”

  “It shouldn’t be too bad. I have a meeti
ng with a flooring designer and it might run over slightly, but I should easily be back by, oh, let’s see, four-thirty?”

  “OK, I’ll collect them from school then take them up to the park and wear them out a bit. We’ll come back about five for one of your slap-up teas because I’m getting sick of the thespian diet of Pot Noodle and baked beans. Deal?”

  “Deal. And thank you. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  As it happened, her meeting finished at 3:30 on the dot, so Jo took the opportunity to pop into Marks & Spencer to buy the promised feast. She got back to the house at 4:30, kicked off her shoes, and let out a long, contented sigh as she sat down with a cup of tea. Not long afterward, the doorbell rang and Jo walked back down the hallway, smiling at the sight of two small shapes silhouetted through the stained glass of the front door.

  “Hurry up, Mummy,” said Thomas through the mailbox.

  She flung open the door with a wide smile.

  “Hell . . . o,” she faltered. Standing behind the children was Conor.

  “Hi.” He looked sheepish. “Tim’s agent called for the first time since the Bismarck sank and said there was an audition this afternoon. Rather than bother you with the problem, he asked me to collect Thomas and Sophie. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not, don’t be silly. You’re helping me out for goodness’ sake,” she babbled, wondering anxiously whether to invite him in, or say thanks and goodbye there and then.

  Thomas solved the dilemma. “Can he come in and see my science project? Pleeeease Mummy!”

  “Yes, of course. Unless he has to rush off.” Jo smiled at Conor, who was now being dragged into the house by an enthusiastic Thomas.

  “Coffee?” asked Jo, feeling a faint flush creep up her face as she remembered the last time that particular beverage had been offered.

  “Thanks,” he said, with a quick smile. “I’ll just nip upstairs to Thomas’s room and look at his project, then I’ll be down.”

  As Jo fussed around the kitchen making coffee, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself. It wasn’t that his presence excited her in that way, merely that she realized the way she behaved with Conor now was crucial to their future friendship. If any awkwardness between them could be dispensed with, then no one would be any the wiser and things would return to the comfortable and convenient way they once were, with him popping around with Tim and joining in with family life.