Fourplay

by Jane Moore

  Placing a hand on his arm, she shook him gently.

  He shot upright, blinking furiously. “What? What?” he muttered.

  “It’s me. I’m back . . . you can go now,” she whispered.

  Bunching a fist into each eye, he rubbed vigorously and stood up, one leg of his creased cords still wedged halfway up his calf. He had a gaping hole in one of his socks, from which his big toe was protruding.

  “I think I’d better have a cup of coffee before I go . . . wake me up a bit,” he said, heading off toward the kitchen.

  Jo’s heart sank, her hope of a fairly early night and one chapter of her latest trashy romance novel rapidly disappearing. She had a sneaking and depressing suspicion that Jeff wanted to talk. She followed him into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea.

  Five minutes later, armed with a cup of coffee and an expectant look, he finally got round to it.

  “So what are your plans for Christmas? Are the tribes of Israel coming here?” He made it sound casual but Jo knew it was a loaded question.

  “It’s only October for heaven’s sake! But if you mean my parents and Tim, yes. The plan is for them to come here.” She gave a heavy sigh, to indicate that this was quite enough people thank you.

  “I was thinking . . .” he said.

  Here we go, she thought.

  “I could join you.” He looked at her with the hopeful expression of an abandoned puppy wanting a home for Christmas.

  She could almost feel the cranks of her resolve tightening. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Because we’re divorced?”

  “That’s hardly the point. The children would love it and it is Christmas, after all.” He spun the dregs of his coffee round the mug and knocked it back.

  Jo sat down adjacent to him at the table. She had hoped to dodge the tricky subject of Christmas and keep things friendly. Still over two months away, the wretched holiday season was causing friction already.

  “You didn’t worry about the children last year,” she said quietly.

  She was referring to the previous year’s festivities, when she’d asked—no, in fact she’d begged—Jeff to spend it with her and the children. It had been many months since he’d left and she was over the emotional worst, but there had still been the faint hope that such a family-orientated time of year would have made him come to his senses.

  But no. Jeff had calmly informed her, without any trace of discomfort or shame, that he and Candy wanted to spend a quiet Christmas together on their own.

  “I deeply regret that now.” He shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “It was really selfish of me, that’s why I want to put matters right this year.”

  It was a nice try, but Jo wasn’t buying it. “Thanks, but we’ll be fine. Really,” she said, standing up and placing her cup in the sink.

  She turned round and was shocked by the snapshot image that bore into her mind as she looked at Jeff’s face.

  He looked old, defeated even, his eyes slightly bloodshot and lifeless. His usually shining hair looked dull and stringy, and he seemed to have lost weight around his girth. In short, he looked a mess.

  Sighing, he glanced up at her. “It’s over.”

  “Sorry?” She was confused.

  “Me and Candy. It’s over. Well, she actually said she wants some space, but it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?” he said with sudden bitterness.

  Jo walked across and sat down at the cluttered table. She reached over and placed a reassuring hand on Jeff’s forearm. “I’m so sorry.”

  And she meant it. Eighteen months ago, she would have been ecstatic to hear him say Candy had dumped him, but now the revelation simply left her cold.

  “I thought something was upsetting you,” she said, removing her hand and leaning back in her chair.

  Jeff stood up and strolled over to the French windows, gazing out into the darkness of the garden, the same garden that a few years ago was the center of many happy summer days for them and the children.

  “It’s not losing Candy that’s upsetting me,” he said, slowly drawing a nonsensical squiggle in the condensation on the glass.

  “Oh?”

  He turned round to face her. “It’s my stupidity for leaving you and the children for something so bloody shallow.”

  So there it was. With depressing inevitability, the validation of everything Jo had first thought about the foolish, transient little affair Jeff had disrupted so many lives for. And with great irony, it had come in the very room where the devastation had first begun.

  But she didn’t feel euphoric at the news she had once been so desperate to hear. She merely felt sad that she and Jeff had come to this. Two estranged people, huddled together in the kitchen of what had once been their home, lamenting his mistake that had cost them their marriage.

  He made an attempt at a smile. “So—to paraphrase Mud—it’s going to be bloody lonely this Christmas.”

  That’s the real reason he’s anxious to come here, thought Jo. It had little or nothing to do with any consideration for her or the children. He just felt sorry for himself and didn’t want to spend it alone in his grim little flat. She’d never actually visited his flat, but in her mind it had always been grim. She felt her jawbone clench involuntarily.

  “Oh nonsense,” she said with false brightness. “You can go to your Mum’s. She’ll be thrilled at the chance to spoil you rotten for a couple of days.”

  “I suppose I could do that . . . if there’s no other option,” he said glumly.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said, determined not to cave in.

  “What?” His face lit up with hope.

  “Why don’t you come and get the children on the day after the day after Christmas and have them for longer?” she said with a winning smile. “You can bring them back New Year’s Day if you like.”

  Jeff’s eyes dulled again as he realized that, despite his sterling efforts, a Christmas lunch invitation wasn’t going to be forthcoming. “Yeah, that would be great,” he said flatly.

  Five minutes later, Jo waved him off to his car across the street and dead-bolted the front door for the night. She switched off the hall lights and climbed the stairs to bed, a small smile on her face. She had to admit that despite her initial feeling of sympathy for Jeff it had felt wonderful to be in control of him for once, to watch him dance to her tune instead of the other way round.

  Better still, her babysitting problems were solved for New Year’s Eve.

  30

  the house resembled a teenage summer camp with bags, bodies, and strange clothes strewn everywhere.

  Her mother and father were crammed into the small spare bedroom that, somewhere along the line, had also become a storage area for all the children’s old toys, spare pieces of furniture you might just need one day, and trashbags stuffed full of old photographs. Not to mention the miles of videotape of Thomas doing little more than gurgling in the days when having a new baby was a novelty for Jo and Jeff. Poor old Sophie had been virtually neglected on the video front.

  Tim occupied a temperamental put-you-up in the dining room that collapsed every time he so much as glanced in its direction.

  “I don’t know why you didn’t take the spare daybed from us when I offered it you years ago,” said Pam to Jo as they watched Tim struggling with his temporary resting place.

  Jo scowled. “Because, Mother, it’s brown and cream, has no springs, stinks of Ratty, and should have been thrown out years ago. That’s why!”

  Her parents had only arrived the previous afternoon and already her mother was driving her to complete distraction. It had taken all her power not to lunge at her on several occasions.

  “Don’t talk about poor old Ratty like that,” sniffed Pam. “He didn’t smell.”

  Ratty was her mother’s now deceased Jack Russell, and never had a dog so lived up to its name.

  “He’s bloody Albert Tatlock reincarnated,” said Tim after Ratty ha
d once tried to bite him for walking too near his dog bowl.

  Overfed by his indulgent owner, Ratty resembled a butter barrel on legs. Once, he had disgraced himself terribly when he “got at” a neighbor’s female King Charles Spaniel whose owner was hoping to breed pedigree puppies. Instead, she got a batch of equally belligerent Ratty-esque mongrels and never spoke to any of Jo’s family again. Ratty had finally slipped this mortal coil three years ago and Pam still hadn’t quite got over it. She was the only one he’d never snapped at and, similarly, he was the only living creature she’d never criticized.

  “Mum?” It was Thomas bellowing from upstairs.

  “Yes?” Jo walked out into the hallway, more to detach herself from Pam than from any maternal consideration.

  “Can we open our stockings now?” he shouted. It was 8 A.M.

  Jo smiled indulgently. “Yes, of course you can sweetie. Bring them down to the living room.”

  When she and Tim were children, their mother had always planned and run Christmas Day like a military operation. The kitchen was her HQ and the rest of the family were her subordinates to be given orders at her behest.

  It was breakfast at nine, then stockings at ten. Well, more a sock each really, with two small gifts and the inevitable, aging satsuma stuffed in the end. Her mother always said she didn’t like to “go over the top” at Christmas, and no one dared point out that when you have children, it’s no longer about what you want anymore.

  Then it was lunch at two, the Queen’s speech at three, and finally, main presents could be opened at three-thirty and not a moment before. Pam didn’t quite synchronize watches over it, but probably only because she didn’t actually think of it.

  Up to that point, the presents had sat there under the tree, like cold drinks in the desert, untouchable until Commandant Pam said so.

  Many times over the years, Jo vowed to herself that when she had children, they would never have to go through the same regimented torment. So Christmas in the Miles household had always been an entirely different affair where the usual house rules went out of the window.

  Red-faced with the exertion, the children dragged in their stockings—well, tights to be precise, each leg stuffed with presents.

  “Now that’s what I call varicose veins,” said Tim, jabbing a finger into one of them.

  “Wow, Father Christmas has been sooooo generous,” said a wide-eyed Thomas with Oscar-winning dramatic zeal.

  A streetwise ten-year-old now, he knew damn well Santa was a myth, but he was under pain of death from Jo if he enlightened Sophie, who was still very much a believer.

  “I just don’t know how he carries everything,” said Sophie, settling herself down in front of the roaring gas fireplace. “And Mummy, guess what? He drank the glass of sherry we left him!”

  Tim sneaked a quick wink at Jo and licked his lips. His eyes resembled rips in a paper bag and his hair was vertical with the shock of being up so early. Jo figured this was the one day of the year he actually saw the morning before 9 A.M.

  Their parents sat on the sofa opposite, together but strangely apart, their very own invisible Berlin wall between them. Jim was looking very Cary Grant in his well-pressed cotton pajamas, paisley dressing gown and leather slippers, and Pam was fully dressed in cashmere turtleneck and tweed skirt, a prim expression on her face. Jo wondered if her father had ever seen Pam naked. She probably had the top button of her winceyette nightie done up for sex.

  The children started to rip through their stocking presents at breakneck speed, delight etched on their faces. Most of the gifts were from the local “everything for a dollar” shop, which might just as well be called “everything falls apart after two days” shop. But Jo knew that, regardless of content and its longevity, it was the simple act of unwrapping a surprise that made Christmas such an unbridled joy to children.

  Two pairs of tights emptied and discarded, they shrieked with excitement as they opened their main presents. Thomas had a color Gameboy and blue Pokémon game, and Sophie had a Barbie jeep and the elusive Barbie bathroom set they had been endlessly seeking for her dolls’ house.

  “Thank you Mummy!” they said simultaneously, both lunging toward her for hugs and kisses.

  “You’re welcome. You deserve it,” she said, beaming at them. She was secretly thrilled that they seemed to be enjoying Christmas without pining for Jeff, as they had done the previous year. To Jo, it was the sign she was looking for that her children had come to accept the split and didn’t seem irrevocably damaged by it.

  It was as if Thomas had read her mind. “The best thing about you and Daddy splitting up is that we get two lots of presents from you!” he said cheerfully.

  “I suppose you can look at it that way,” laughed Jo. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her mother’s disapproving expression at such blatant opportunism from her grandson. Pam was clearly brewing up to some critical comment.

  “So what are they going to do for the rest of the day?” she grumbled, frowning at the vast pile of discarded wrapping paper in the middle of the room.

  Jo was about to respond, but was beaten to it by her father.

  “They’ll probably play with their bloody Christmas presents. Isn’t that the whole point?” he snapped with an irritable expression. “I could never understand why we had to stick to that rigid timetable of yours every flaming year. It strangled any enjoyment.”

  Jo gave Tim a quick, uncomfortable glance, then looked across at her mother who looked like she’d been slapped in the face. She was sitting bolt upright, as still as a statue.

  “Well, why didn’t you say something if you hated it so much?” she whispered with a mortally wounded expression.

  Jim let out an exasperated sigh. “I doubt you’d have listened. You never did, still don’t in fact,” he replied.

  The adults lapsed into silence while an oblivious Thomas and Sophie carried on playing with their new toys. Pam’s mouth set in a firm line and she began smoothing out the lap of her tweed skirt.

  “Right, I’d better get going on our splendid Christmas feast,” said Jo with false brightness. Her father rose to his feet and followed her into the kitchen.

  “Sorry about that,” he said sheepishly, placing his used tea mug on the draining board.

  “Don’t apologize to me. I wasn’t the one you snapped at,” said Jo gently. “It’s Mum you should be saying sorry to.”

  His face clouded. “Don’t hold your breath,” he muttered. “I’m just sorry it happened in front of you, that’s all.”

  Jo looked at him. “Dad? Is everything alright with you and mum?” She was dreading his reply. One divorce in the family was quite enough.

  Jim let out a long sigh and placed a reassuring hand on her forearm. “It’s fine, love,” he said, brushing a stray piece of hair from her eyes. “We’re just going through a bit of a rough patch and getting on each other’s nerves, that’s all. Your mother and I often have words, it’s just that I rarely get to use mine.”

  “Are you sure?” Jo wasn’t convinced and it was written all over her face.

  He gave her a slow smile and studied her for a moment, a melancholy look on his face. “As sure as any of us ever are about anything. Now then, do you want a hand with lunch?”

  Jo shooed him out of the kitchen and started to peel the potatoes. She realized she’d just been fobbed off with a classic hedging tactic, but decided to let her father get away with it. After all, it was Christmas.

  At 3:15—after her mother had insisted on watching the speech of “the baked bean,” as Tim called her—they sat down for the rather splendid lunch Jo had single-handedly laid out on the beautifully decorated dining room table.

  Tim raised his glass of bubbly in a toast. “To the family . . . and all who fail in her,” he beamed.

  Jo laughed as she raised her glass to her lips and drank. There’s many a true word spoken in jest, she thought. There she was, to all intents and purposes a failed wife, and Tim, a failed actor with a pe
rsonal life equivalent to a Siberian winter. And her parents? Well, she knew they’d suffered their fair share of failures, though she’d never really been privy to them, only surmised what she could over the years.

  Only Thomas and Sophie were failure free, those days yet to come. Jo would have given anything to protect them from that, but knew that everyone has to make their own mistakes.

  It was the same story with people the world over, Jo thought. We all witnessed, discussed, and made a mental note of our friends’ so-called “failures” through life, particularly in relationships. Yet when it came to making our own choices, we always thought that, somehow, it would be different for us. That the man we met would never cheat on us, that we in turn would never cheat on them. We had to have that eternal optimism, Jo reckoned, or none of us would ever get married or make any level of commitment in life.

  Looking around the table, she suddenly felt a warm glow to be in the bosom of her immediate family.

  “These carrots could have done with a couple more minutes.”

  “Sorry mother?” Jo’s warm glow evaporated.

  “I said these carrots are a bit hard,” repeated Pam, holding one on her fork as if it were an exhibit in court.

  The sound of cutlery clattering onto a plate made everyone jump. “For Chrissakes woman, can’t we even eat a bloody meal without you making some negative, nit-picking remark?” exploded Jim, his face flushed puce. “That poor girl’s been slaving away to make this, and all you can do is criticize.”

  Tim had turned pale and Thomas and Sophie were staring open-mouthed at their usually mild-mannered Grampy, as they called him.

  “It’s alright Dad,” Jo muttered, wanting the unfolding scene to stop right there before her home became the setting for yet another marital breakdown.

  “No, it isn’t alright Jo, it isn’t alright at all,” said Jim firmly. “These carrots are perfect, far better in fact than the overboiled mushy monstrosities your mother serves.” To illustrate the point, he jabbed his fork into a carrot and popped it into his mouth making dramatic noises of ecstasy as he chewed.