Within weeks, every plate and cup in the house was chipped, and there was more cutlery down the back of the cooker than there was in the kitchen drawer. A glass Pyrex dish that had been Teri’s mother’s pride and joy for thirty-seven years had lasted one night with Clare. She had also taken an inordinate amount of interest in all of Teri’s boyfriends. Why Teri had thought it would be better second time around with Clare, goodness only knows.
‘You’ve gone a very funny colour, Therese Carter. There must be something fishy going on.’
Teri shot her a filthy look. She could tell that somewhere in the convoluted recesses of Clare’s brain, pennies were obviously dropping. Sure enough, Clare clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘He’s married! Oh my gosh, he’s married, isn’t he!’ She leapt off the sofa and began wearing a tormented path across the lounge carpet. ‘Tell me, Therese, tell me that he isn’t married.’
‘He is married,’ Teri said quietly.
‘Tell me it’s not true,’ Clare wailed.
‘It’s true,’ Teri said, equally quietly.
‘What are you thinking of?’ Clare wheeled on her. ‘You’ve been cooking with that microwave door open again, haven’t you? It’s turned your brains to scrambled eggs.’
‘I have not,’ she said emphatically. Teri thought about sulking, but realised she would be competing with an expert.
‘How can you do this to me?’ Clare was starting to cry again. ‘After all I’ve been through, how can you do this to me?’
Teri held out another man-sized Kleenex. If it looked like a flag of surrender, it was meant to. Clare brushed it aside and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
‘Clare, I’m not doing anything to you.’ Teri spoke softly and calmly. ‘Sit down and stop behaving like a drama queen. You were no good as the Virgin Mary in the school nativity play—a part which should rightly have gone to me…’
Clare shot her a withering look.
Teri realised her mistake and corrected it. ‘…at the time. And theatrical histrionics don’t suit you now either. If you want to discuss this like rational human beings, then we can. If not, then I’m going to bed.’
Clare put her hands on her hips. ‘You couldn’t be the Virgin Mary because you were covered in chickenpox scabs, which didn’t seem entirely fitting for the Mother of the Baby Jesus.’ She could be very caustic when she tried. ‘I seem to remember you crying hysterically until they made you one of the Wise Men—a part which doesn’t seem highly appropriate now either.’
Teri slumped back on the sofa. ‘I agree, it’s very unwise, but I love him.’ Her voice sounded matter-of-fact, but her heart was pounding uneasily like someone trying to play the bongos for the very first time. Why was she admitting this to Clare? She hadn’t even admitted it to herself before now. And why was her pulse racing like this?
Clare snorted derisively. ‘What makes you think that you love him?’
Teri twisted the bracelet on her arm distractedly. ‘He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met. He’s kind, he’s caring, he’s—’
‘Cheating on his wife,’ Clare finished abrasively. They stared at each other. ‘Does she know about this?’
‘I don’t know,’ Teri admitted. ‘We don’t talk about her.’
Clare blew down her nose like an irritated horse. ‘I bet!’
‘He says they’ve drifted apart,’ Teri explained feebly.
‘Perhaps he’s just been paddling in the wrong direction.’ Her tone could be very scathing too. When Teri didn’t answer, Clare continued, ‘Do you know what it feels like to find out that the man you love has been seeing another woman?’
‘No,’ Teri answered reluctantly.
‘Then you are a very lucky person indeed, Therese Carter.’ Clare jabbed emphatically at her stomach. ‘It makes you feel sick—as if someone is pulling your insides out so that everyone can see them. Every miserable, broken-hearted, weepy, sentimental load of old pap that’s played on the radio is aimed just at you. You can’t think, you can’t stop thinking; you can’t sleep, you can’t eat.’ The tears were rolling silently down her face, which was more painful to watch than the dramatic sobs. ‘I lost fourteen pounds in a week. Fourteen pounds! Forget Atkins and his high protein—the adultery diet beats it hands down every time.’
‘I’m losing weight too!’ Teri could hear herself whining, and it was a very unpleasant sound.
‘That’s not emotional strain!’ Clare wasn’t in the mood for being swayed. ‘There’s nothing in the fridge that’s over a hundred and fifty calories.’ She pointed accusingly at the kitchen door. ‘And that’s because you want your bum to look like a firm young peach in your new lacy black thong.’
Teri opened her mouth to speak.
Clare glared at her through slitted eyes. ‘Don’t deny it— I’ve seen the empty Victoria’s Secret box in the bin.’
‘I resent that!’ Teri said—mostly because it was true.
‘She’ll have no idea this is going on,’ Clare said, changing tacks. ‘I didn’t. I thought we were deliriously happy. One minute we were bonking away to our hearts’ content, swinging from the chandeliers like Tarzan and Jane swinging through the jungle….’
‘It was Tarzan and Cheetah who swung through the jungle,’ Teri interrupted. ‘Jane stayed at home and cooked.’
Clare turned on her. ‘Now you’re splitting hairs because you know you’re in the wrong.’
‘If you insist on moralising, at least get your story straight,’ Teri said petulantly.
Clare continued unabashed. ‘The next minute he was gone. No sooner had his feet hit the floor and the Durex was down the loo, than he turned and said: “I’ve fallen in love with someone else.” Just like that!’ She wagged her finger threateningly at Teri while she paused for breath. ‘Instead of basking in afterglow like New Woman says I should, it was “goodnight and thank you” for good.’
‘But David always had wandering eyes—and hands!’ Teri objected.
Clare sagged into the chair opposite her. Teri felt horrible hurting her friend like this. It seemed an appropriate time to confess her own near-miss indiscretion with him to prove her point, but she didn’t dare. No doubt it would come out in time, Chinese burns or no.
‘Jamie isn’t like that,’ she went on, her voice softening. ‘He’s never done anything like this before. It’s taken us both by surprise. We never intended it to happen. And besides, it’s still purely platonic. How can I feel so guilty when we’ve done absolutely nothing?’
Clare made a strange strangled noise, which Teri took to mean that she doubted the validity of her statement.
‘It’s true,’ she insisted. ‘There’s been nothing more than a few drinks and a bit of furtive handholding.’
It was true she was still a virgin adulterer, and even to her it was beginning to feel slightly as if it was verging on the ridiculous. She wasn’t surprised Clare didn’t believe her—she could hardly believe it herself.
‘If that is true, then stay away from him, Teri. End it now before you ruin everyone’s lives.’
‘I don’t know if I can, Clare.’ They were both crying now. ‘When I see him, my heart lurches, I feel sick, my palms sweat and my tongue grows to twice its size so that I can hardly get my words out.’
‘That’s a virus—not love.’
They reached for the Kleenex box simultaneously. ‘It seems so unfair. I’ve waited all my life to meet someone like him.’
‘The minor snag is, Teri, that he’s already got a wife. A small point, but not exactly insignificant.’
‘And two children,’ Teri sobbed. She waited for the backlash, but it didn’t come.
Clare rejoined her on the sofa and pulled the Kleenex box closer to them. She poured the dregs of the wine into their glasses. ‘I could hit you on the head with this bottle, you know?’
Teri laughed and sobbed at the same time, and it made a bubble come out of her nose. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘End it, Teri. Commute by coach. Change your job. Have fa
cial reconstruction. Whatever the cost, avoid him.’ Clare drained her glass and reached for another tissue. ‘There’ll be a price to pay for this, my love, and I’m not sure that you can afford it.’
‘Just tell me one thing.’ Teri looked at her squarely. ‘How will I ever get over him?’
Clare sighed. ‘Love is like a virus. It’s totally debilitating and it takes a hell of a long time to recover from. And when you’re low, it’ll hit you again.’ She slammed her glass on the coffee table with a sobering finality. ‘There’s no damn medicine they can give you for it either.’ She looked ruefully at Teri. ‘If there was, I’d take a bloody great dose of it myself.’
Chapter 10
Out and About had kept Teri constantly busy for the past two hours. It was a news-based programme, transmitted late afternoon just before the channel lost all their intended viewers to the BBC and the lure of Australian soaps.
Out and About—not exactly a ‘totally cool’ title in her opinion—was produced with the emphasis very firmly on youth. Most of the programme—overenthusiastic reports from teenagers with obviously capped teeth and baseball caps on back to front—was pre-recorded on videotape, VTR, with live links provided in the studio by two odious brats in their early twenties pretending to be sixteen.
They were a total nightmare. Unreliable, unresponsive and unrepentant. Their idea of fun was to present the show sitting behind the desk with no trousers on and mooning to the crew while the VTR was being played. To their surprise, they were the only ones who found it amusing.
Despite the technological advantage of Autocue, they fluffed their lines constantly, and the programme was on its third warning from the British Broadcasting Standards Authority about the repeated inadvertent use of the F word.
The producer was a homosexual alcoholic with an ulcer and, for the latter complaint, Teri could lay the blame solely at the feet of these two individuals. He was called Richard Wellbeloved and was universally despised by everyone at City Television from the cleaning ladies up.
The main anchorman was an ex–art student with a ponytail and a suspicious habit of nipping to the toilet for lengthy periods during moments of stress. He insisted on being called ‘Jez’. He was the main F word offender, and similar F words had filtered down from on high—television’s equivalent to God, the Head of Programming—to let him know that he was on probation. Teri suspected that it wasn’t the first time Jez had been on probation. One more deviation from Golly or Wow and he would be sacked. It couldn’t happen soon enough as far as she was concerned.
The producer, unfortunately, relied not on the educational content or on the skillful presentation of a quality programme to attract its rapidly dwindling audience, but on the fact that most kids watched because the whole thing was total chaos and you never knew when the next F word might pop up. The entire programme needed a complete revamp, a mix of maturity and street cred, to stop it from careering off the rails. What was wrong with the likes of John Craven—the clean-cut, well-scrubbed anchorman of the serious side of youth current affairs programmes? His cut-glass, sober tones had made Newsround essential teen viewing in her day. It had made Teri believe, however deluded, that her views mattered. Those were the days—lying on her stomach in front of the television pretending to do her homework while John pontificated seriously about the dire state of the world. What would he have to say about it now? Back then, John was everybody’s idea of a hero. Neat as a pin, clean-cut, unsullied. All right, so the V-necked sweaters with lurid patterns hadn’t lent him the air of street credibility that might be deemed essential these days, but you knew where you were with John Craven. No accidental F words there.
In fact, what the programme really needed was Teri Carter at the helm. Her talents were wasted sitting in the dimly lit glass gallery that overlooked the studio, like some pathetic little fish in an aquarium, counting down the seconds to the links and trying to make sure that Richard Wellbeloved didn’t tip his coffee—heavily laced with whisky—into the control panel. Didn’t teenagers these days warrant someone who respected their views? Did teenagers these days have views?
Her presenting style would add that necessary edge of common sense, sweetened by a girlish charm. And she wouldn’t bare her bottom to the camera crew. Mind you, considering that her rear was infinitely more attractive than the pimply buttocks of the current gormless presenters, this was something that might not go in her favour.
Teri picked up the producer’s abandoned coffee cup and threw it in the bin, glaring at his back as he stamped out of the gallery. All she had to do was convince the inappropriately named Richard Wellbeloved.
She rubbed her eyes as she emerged from the gloom of the gallery into the fierce strip lighting of the office, and noticed that outside in the real world it was still snowing. The snow had been falling steadily all afternoon, intermittently distracting her from the programme schedule. Now great swirls of flakes like lacy doilies floated past her window and landed in drifts in Euston Road; if not transforming it instantly into a Winter Wonderland, the snow certainly made it look marginally less depressing than usual.
She had arranged to meet Jamie tonight too, which always brightened her day no end. If the weather was this atrocious in town, just think what it was going to be like out in the sticks. The journey home would take an age. They would be stranded in the middle of nowhere for hours, listening to the futile slipping of the wheels on the line. And in the absence of any Boy Scouts to rub together, they would have to look to each other to provide bodily warmth.
It would be absolute hell. Her mouth curled into an involuntary smile.
It was hell. There may not have been fire and brimstone and little curly-tailed devils doing obscene things with toasting forks, but it was hell all right. On the departures board there were, predictably, a lot of blanks where there should have been trains. The concourse was packed with commuters, ranging from the frankly bemused to the red-faced irate, who either stood and screamed into their mobile phones or at any hapless human who happened to pass wearing a British Rail uniform.
It was a perverse twist of fate, and an indication of the state of their relationship, that normally Jamie and Teri were the only ones who enjoyed delays. But this was the mother of all delays, one that made Eternity look like the brief and momentary blinking of an eye.
They stood holding hands. All fetters of embarrassment thrown off for the brief hour before they got home. Except that by the look of things, it was going to be ever-so-slightly more than an hour before they reached their respective homes tonight. They listened to the announcement again, hoping that this time it would sound more like the Queen’s English rather than one of the Queen’s corgis.
‘Bugger,’ Jamie said. He translated for Teri. ‘Stock excuse. Adverse weather causing signal failures at Watford Junction.’
‘Typical!’ Teri puffed. ‘Is this what they call the wrong type of snow?’
‘No, it’s the right type of snow—there’s just too much of it.’ There was a look of extreme exasperation on his face. ‘We’ll be lucky to get home at all tonight.’
Teri cleared her throat and said tentatively, ‘We could try to get a room.’
‘You know I can’t do that.’ His answer was more brisk than she thought was necessary.
‘It was only a suggestion,’ Teri said irritably. ‘I was trying to be practical, not seductive.’
‘I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I doubt there’ll be any room at the inn tonight anyway. You know what it’s like when one solitary flake falls in the capital, all the big companies phone round and block-book the rooms.’
‘Ours doesn’t,’ she pointed out unhelpfully.
He sighed. ‘Neither does ours.’ He squeezed her hand. His hands were always warm. Always. Warm and soft. Hers were always like blocks of ice, winter or summer, but particularly in winter when she left her best thermal gloves at home next to the telephone on the one day when it decided to snow. That was another thing she could blame on Cla
re. It was she Teri had been speaking to on the phone. If you could call it speaking.
Clare was doing nothing to hide her disapproval of Teri’s relationship with Jamie. To say that Clare wore her heart on her sleeve was an understatement of the third kind—she wore her spleen there, too. And vented it with a glory that was both Technicolor and alarmingly regular. In fact, she had taken spleen-venting lessons from Sister Mary Bernadette, former headmistress of The Sacred Heart of Jesus Primary School.
Sister Mary Bernadette was known to be a strict disciplinarian with a temper that was never humbled or cowed by the constraints of her black flowing habit or her chosen faith. Today she would have been labelled a sadist and been crushed under the weight of irate and indignant parents. Back then, no one had the gall to question her tactics or her motives. If she wanted to beat someone to within an inch of their lives for not eating their rice pudding, it was entirely her choice. There were times when Teri had been eternally grateful for a simple, if wholly undeserved, tanned backside, for if Sister Mary Bernadette chose to mentally scar you, it was considerably worse.
It was sometimes difficult to have a best friend who still modelled herself on their former headmistress. At six o’clock that morning Clare had phoned to say—in curt, clipped tones—that she was snowbound with the airline in Ireland, and wasn’t likely to be home tonight. It was even less likely now. Even if they managed to dig her out of Dublin, then her intended destination— Luton International Airport—would still be up to its ears in icicles. The weather, like their friendship, looked like remaining distinctly chilly for the foreseeable future.
‘Come on.’ Jamie broke into her thoughts. ‘Let’s go and get some food and give this another try later on.’
They went to their usual haunt— The Pasta Place. Tonight they were the only customers. Even the transvestites next door had been cowed by the weather conditions. The strings of coloured lights in the window of Terrific Transformations had been turned off and the falsie bras hung forlornly. Perhaps they had all decided that it was one night when jeans and hobnail boots were decidedly more suitable attire than stilettos and pencil-slim skirts. And who could blame them?
Let's Meet on Platform 8 Page 9