by Adele Parks
Robbie started to read out the blurbs attached to each film. Pip was aware of the vampire craze that had started a couple of years ago but hadn’t seen any of the movies or read the books and she hadn’t heard of any of the other films, she didn’t so much as recognise the actors’ names. She’d stopped taking notice of that sort of stuff quite some time ago. When exactly? Chloe was eight now. Before she’d been born Pip had loved going to the cinema, it wasn’t Dylan’s thing.
‘Kristen Stewart is so very un-Hollywood, don’t you think? Which makes her success all the more striking.’
‘Kristen Stewart? I don’t think I know her,’ Pip replied honestly.
‘You must know her. Dark hair, frail-looking. Born for the part.’
‘Not ringing any bells,’ admitted Pip.
‘She was in Panic Room with Jodie Foster. As a child actor,’ added Robbie, which suggested he had some idea that Pip hadn’t mooched out of her house since Noah was taking woodwork classes.
‘No.’ Of course she knew who Jodie Foster was although the last thing she saw her in was Bugsy Malone, at Christmas, on TV. Jodie Foster was a child actor in that.
Pip would usually have been very embarrassed at this point in a conversation. Often when she chatted to mums at the school gate she pretended that she was aware of the latest TV drama or news issue or heart-throb that was grabbing the headlines, she didn’t let on that all her cultural references started with CBBC and finished with the Disney channel. She might as well have worn a hat saying, ‘out of touch’, or worse, ‘opted out’. Not so much a huge D for dunce, the way disobedient kids used to have to wear in schools of long ago, but more likely a great big L for ‘Loser’ or more accurately ‘Lost’. But, with Robbie, Pip felt that it would be OK to say, ‘I haven’t been to the movies for an absolute age. My ex didn’t like the cinema. He hated the sound of people eating, so the popcorn crunching really got to him.’
Robbie started to laugh.
Pip was initially a little taken aback. ‘What?’
‘He hated the sound of people crunching popcorn?’ Robbie asked, not bothering to hide his let out a low whistle of amused disbelief. ‘And for this reason you’ve never seen Avatar or Lord of the Rings or Slumdog Millionaire or even Mamma Mia?’
‘I did see Mamma Mia. My friend, Steph, bought me the DVD.’ Pip felt comfortable with him. Relaxed, frank. ‘And slurping drinks.’ She giggled as she thought about it now. ‘He really couldn’t bear slurping drinks. He wasn’t that keen on any bodily function actually. Sort of squeamish. A bit of a prissy prig, Steph says.’
Pip wondered, not for the first time, whether Dylan used to wash his hands after he’d had sex with his mistresses the way he always did with her. It was something only Stephanie knew. Dylan had womanised, criticised, lied and disappeared but the thing that had been the cruellest, the hardest to understand, the most humiliating was that after sex he always washed his hands and brushed his teeth. If there was time and he wasn’t too tired, he’d shower too. As though she was dirty. Pip longed to curl her body around his or have him hold her tightly but the moment he came he slipped from her and washed her away. Every time. Over a period of years, he’d washed her away until all they had went down the plughole.
As though reading her mind, Robbie let out a low whistle of disbelief and murmured, ‘The man must have been insane. How could he have been married to you and remained prissy? You’re the sort of woman that makes men grateful they have primeval urges.’
‘What do you mean, like howling and thumping your chest?’ Pip was pretty sure this wasn’t what Robbie meant but she wanted to make him spell it out. It had been a long time since she’d been certain she’d made a man feel hot and bothered in the right way. Infuriating traffic wardens didn’t count.
‘I mean something more animal than that.’ His voice cracked a bit under the weight of the confession.
Pip was suddenly aware of his humanity, his manliness and boyishness all mixed together. It seemed as though he was a little nervous; that he was wondering, was his hint a bit much, too early? Pip started to smile to herself, the smile grew to a huge beam that was so wide her face was in danger of splitting. All at once, Pip no longer felt relaxed and comfortable with Robbie, suddenly she felt wildly, delightfully excited. He liked her. Like liked her. In a lusty, healthy, thrilling way.
‘I fancy the romcom,’ she said.
‘Great.’
So this is it, she thought, this is what it’s like to rejoin the human race.
It’s good to be back.
12
Mrs Evans always rang the doorbell when she came to babysit the Blake children. She did have her own key, which she used to let herself in on Mondays and Thursdays when she came to do the cleaning, but she never let herself in in the evenings. She thought it was overstepping some or other invisible boundary, so she always rang the bell to announce her arrival. When Steph answered the door, Mrs Evans thought she must have made a mistake, she’d obviously come on the wrong evening. Far from her usual immaculately turned-out self, Mrs Blake looked – well – frankly, terrible. She was wearing the same skirt and top as she’d had on yesterday. Had she slept in it? It was creased enough to make you think so. She wasn’t wearing even a lick of mascara and she hadn’t pulled a comb through her hair, that much was certain. In summary, Mrs Evans thought Mrs Blake looked a right bloody mess.
Stephanie held the door wide open and mustered something approaching a smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. It was a fragile, unconvincing sort of smile, quite like the type Mrs Evans dredged up for her daughter-in-law whenever she visited, polite but not heartfelt.
‘Come in, Mrs Evans. The boys are watching TV.’
‘Am I early?’
‘No.’
Stephanie watched as Mrs Evans’ gaze fell on her grubby top and, like some sort of homing missile, lock on to the tomato ketchup stain. Steph sighed. She should have changed. She supposed she would have to now, not that Pip would notice the stain or, even if she did, she would not care about it one way or the other, but Mrs Evans clearly expected more from her employer. Did she have the energy to change her clothes? Steph didn’t know. The very idea was overwhelming. She’d have to make a selection, lift her arms and perhaps even fasten buttons. These simple tasks seemed insurmountable.
Unsurprisingly, Steph had not slept last night. She had heard Julian retreat to the library at about nine thirty. She’d dashed out of bed and stood on the landing, straining to hear whether or not he made a telephone call. He hadn’t, not on this occasion, but Steph could recall many, many times when he’d excused himself from dinner parties, family lunches and evening TV viewing with the excuse that he had to make or take a work call. She’d always felt sorry for him for having to work so hard and so proud of him, as she believed he must have a round-the-clock influence and be very important in the office. Now she felt ridiculous. He hadn’t been brokering deals, making an impact on the nation’s gross domestic product or even reordering stationery, more likely he was whispering with his mistress or perhaps calling Highview to check that the champagne was on ice. Bastard.
At ten minutes to midnight Stephanie had heard Julian go to bed. She’d listened to the buzz of his electric toothbrush as he cleaned his teeth, she’d heard him gargle and pee. She knew his routine so well that she could count the moments it would take between him switching off the bathroom light, walking to the bed, checking that the alarm was set for the next morning and then, finally, switching off his bedside table lamp. She had counted the seconds and listened as his feet fell in a predictable beat. She knew that he would throw one pillow on to the floor and knead the other into the shape he preferred. He’d turn on to his right side. He’d fall asleep almost the instant his head hit the pillow, as though he was a man with a clear conscience. As this certainly wasn’t the case, she wondered whether he had a conscience at all. He would snore, very gently. She knew his routines so well but she didn’t know him at all, apparently.
Even t
hough it was after midnight and even though Stephanie had never felt so weary in her life, sleep had eluded her. She’d lain alone in the spare bed listening to the sounds of the house and wondering what she’d done wrong. All she’d ever wanted was to do the right thing. So where had she gone wrong and was there anything, anything at all, she could do to fix this? If only she’d had some warning, some clue that their marriage was a farce, but she hadn’t had any clue at all.
Something shivered and shifted inside Steph’s stomach. Was she being honest with herself? A huge feeling of self-doubt, an acknowledgement that she was self-deceiving, sloshed through her system. No, she was not being absolutely honest with herself.
The truth was that for months now she’d been putting all her effort and energy into appearing perfectly happy but of course she knew that wasn’t the same thing. Every day, she’d told herself she was perfectly happy. She was so lucky. She had everything every woman wanted, didn’t she? Or at least, she’d thought she had (although retrospectively she could see that no wife wanted a faithless bastard of a husband). But before she knew about Julian’s affair – before yesterday – she’d thought she was so lucky and lucky was right next door to happy, wasn’t it? Because if you weren’t perfectly happy when you were so lucky, then you were simply ungrateful and Steph never wanted to be ungrateful.
So she had reasoned.
Over and over again.
But last night Steph had forced herself to think harder about the matter. She’d considered the phrase ‘perfectly happy’. Was anyone really perfectly happy? Did perfect happiness exist? Reluctantly she admitted that no, she thought not. Rallying, she told herself that she had, at least, been perfectly content. She chose not to think about the times when she’d felt a little bored and frustrated. She told herself it was a marvellous thing to always be the wind beneath everyone else’s wings (although truthfully she hated that expression since it had been immortalised in a song). But she was content to support, someone had to, everyone couldn’t be the lead role. Content. Yes. That was good, wasn’t it? Good enough? She’d thought so.
Again, she paused.
Truthfully, she hadn’t been content for quite a while now. She’d tried to be, she’d wanted to be, she’d told herself that she was. But she was not.
Not since the tenth of May last year.
Yes, she could name the exact date when her contentment had flown out of the window. Only, she hadn’t accepted it to be the case. She hadn’t wanted it to be the case. For the hundredth time Stephanie lay awake, stared at the ceiling and catalogued the ‘if onlys’ that might have preserved her contentment, if only one of them had been an actuality.
Quite obviously there were the ‘if onlys’ that every betrayed wife clung to. If only she could turn the clock back twenty-four hours. If only she hadn’t found the phone or listened to the message or read the texts. If only she didn’t know.
Steph had listened to the occasional car sweep along the road outside, sometimes she’d caught snippets of tunes from late-night radio as the drivers often had their windows down, hoping the combination of fresh air and loud music would keep them alert at the wheel. She’d listened to the trees in the garden sway and shudder in the robust spring wind and she’d heard an owl hoot its objection to being blown about. Only once the house fell utterly silent, and Stephanie had been absolutely certain that her sons and Julian were fast asleep, did she give in to her pain which was somewhere deep and dark, it had been buried like a dead body under six foot of dirty ground. But now it was legitimate, now she was entitled to bay, howl and wail like an animal, like a beast – wild, rough and unfettered. She felt nothing like a civilised human being. It had taken every iota of self-discipline for her to push her face into the pillow so that her fierce anger, her ugly and loud sobs, wouldn’t wake her boys.
Somehow she’d got up this morning and taken the boys to school but then she’d returned home to bed and spent the rest of the day hidden under the duvet in the spare room, sobbing some more. It was as though now she’d started, she really couldn’t stop. She cried until her wailing gave her a headache and then on past that, until she was so dehydrated her tears ceased but her body still shook and she was left with a throbbing head and a hoarse voice. She thought it was a miracle that she had a voice at all considering the strain she’d placed on it with baying and then she wondered, what was the point of her voice anyway? What was the use of it? She could say the only thing that mattered. The only thing she thought.
Her life was a sham.
Because there were other ‘if onlys’. Deeper, perhaps even bleaker ones. The other ‘if onlys’ were connected to missed opportunities, wasted months and her self-sacrifice that she had regarded as her self-discipline and now she wasn’t so sure. The ‘if onlys’ that were connected to her secret.
Subhash Sharma.
Since last May, Steph had often lain awake thinking about the ‘if onlys’ that might have preserved her contentment. If only she had chosen a different coffee shop that particular morning. Or, if he had. If only she hadn’t been in such a hurry and they hadn’t actually collided. If only he hadn’t cared that he’d spilt his cappuccino over the dry-cleaning she was carrying, if he’d just flung an insincere sorry her way and continued dashing out of the café. But he had cared. He’d immediately reached for his wallet and pulled out a crisp £50 note, insisting that he must pay for her coat and Julian’s suit to be cleaned all over again. She remembered being slightly surprised by the £50 note, she hadn’t seen many before, people rarely carried them. His ready and sincere apology and the unstinting nature of his offer had impressed her, although she couldn’t possibly have taken the money, it was far too much. If only she had, then maybe he wouldn’t have insisted that he had to buy her coffee and a slice of cake by way of making amends. If only she had accepted the newspaper he offered her, then maybe he wouldn’t have stayed with her as she ate and drank his apology. But she hadn’t accepted it.
‘Would you like a look at the newspaper?’ He’d held out his copy of the Guardian, it was tightly folded into a manageable rectangle. She stared at his dark brown hands and noticed how clean and neat his nails were, it looked as if he was balancing creamy pearls on the tips of his fingers. Stephanie had shaken her head.
‘Oh, no. I never read newspapers. They’re so full of terrible news. There’s never anything jolly in them at all. I liked it in the old days, do you remember? There used to be articles about the construction of marvellous buildings and no one ever felt the need to point out how over-budget the project might be or how much longer than originally planned the construction had taken. And after the main news on the television they’d have a slot about talking dogs or featuring the Queen Mum opening a car factory. Not that anyone opens car factories nowadays. It’s all closures. That’s why I don’t read newspapers or watch the news. The Queen Mother is dead, of course, and everything is closing.’
Stephanie stopped talking. Finally. What had possessed her to blether on for so long to a complete stranger? She’d blushed because she knew she sounded idiotic. More idiotic, it ought to be noted, than she was in fact. Because Stephanie was a woman who had considered and careful views about many interesting issues (youths carrying knives, teachers’ pay, tax bands, and support of single parents), but this man was dashingly handsome and she always found she was rather hopeless around men who were too good-looking. His eyes, big brown lakes of wisdom, were show-stopping.
If only he’d had a squint or a nervous tic.
These had been her bedtime thoughts for months. She’d thought that the problem was that she’d met Subhash Sharma. Now she thought, if only he was my lover. If he were, I would not feel so obliterated, so humiliated. If only.
Focus, focus! Stephanie dragged herself back to the here and now. She rummaged in her wardrobe and pulled out a black roll-neck jumper that might appease Mrs Evans. She’d bought this jumper hoping that it would somehow transform her into Audrey Hepburn as she had looked in the old movie Funn
y Face, sophisticated, modish, elegant and chic. An impossible desire. For a start Steph had size 36C boobs (which were more flab than breast) and, well, a normal face and a normal everything else for that matter. No woman could ever be Audrey Hepburn, the angels broke the mould after she’d been born. Steph knew this but it never stopped her (and just about every other woman on the planet) trying to be a little more Audrey-esque at some moment or other.
Steph stared at the roll-neck with resentment. In that moment it seemed to represent another broken promise, another unrealised dream. She was not and never would be Audrey Hepburn. Steph felt tears threaten again. It wouldn’t do, it was exhausting. With a long sigh, Steph dug about in the depths of her consciousness and mental resources for her more practical self – she needed that Steph to reemerge. The jumper would keep her warm and since yesterday she’d felt miserably chilled, the heat had been well and truly snuffed out of her. She pulled it on and dashed down the stairs. She had to get to Pip’s. She’d wanted to call Pip all day but with a Herculean strength she’d held off. She knew that Pip had to whip up some more samples for Selfridges and if she’d knocked on Pip’s door this morning the samples would never have been completed. Pip was easily distracted by a drama on TV, this would wipe her out. But now Steph could go to Pip with a clear conscience, by now Pip would have completed the work she needed to get done. She had to get to Pip. It would stop her doing something stupid. It was her best chance at remaining sane.
13
Stephanie handed over the bottle of champagne to Pip but she couldn’t manage a smile. It was a miracle that she’d remembered the gift at all and she wouldn’t have, except Mrs Evans had run out of their house and almost thrown herself under the car in an effort to flag down Steph, just as she’d been pulling away.
‘You can’t turn up to your friend’s for a celebration without the bubbles,’ Mrs Evans had admonished.