Strictly My Husband: It's funny, it's romantic and it's got dancing - what's not to love!

by Tracy Bloom

  STRICTLY

  MY HUSBAND

  by

  Tracy Bloom

  For Bruce.

  For being the kind of husband who will drink wine with me and then dance around the kitchen like no-one is watching. You are a legend.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Midnight, the kitchen

  Chapter One: Laura

  Chapter Two: Tom

  Chapter Three: Laura

  Chapter Four: Tom

  Chapter Five: Laura

  Chapter Six: Hannah

  Chapter Seven: Laura

  Chapter Eight: Tom

  Chapter Nine: Laura

  Chapter Ten: Tom

  Chapter Eleven: Jerry

  Chapter Twelve: Laura

  Chapter Thirteen: Laura

  Chapter Fourteen: Tom

  Chapter Fifteen: Laura

  Chapter Sixteen: Hannah

  Chapter Seventeen: Tom

  Chapter Eighteen: Laura

  Chapter Nineteen: Tom

  Chapter Twenty: Laura

  Chapter Twenty-One: Tom

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Laura

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Hannah

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Tom

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Laura

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Hannah

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Laura

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Tom

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Laura

  Chapter Thirty: Laura

  Chapter Thirty-One: Hannah

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Laura

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Tom

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Laura

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Jerry

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Tom

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Laura

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Tom

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Laura

  Chapter Forty: Laura

  Dear Reader

  Tracy Bloom – The Low Down

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Midnight, the kitchen

  Laura cranked the music up to full volume, kicked her high heels across the tiled floor and then moved into position in front of the sink to attack the vast line-up of dirty wine glasses. She tapped her foot in time to the song whilst wondering, as she did every time she cleared up after a dinner party, how on earth they had got through so many damned glasses and how long would it be before she broke one. Moments later, however, she was rescued from washing-up hell as she felt Tom’s hands snake around her waist. She smiled to herself and let her head drop back on to his shoulder.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he whispered in her ear.

  ‘For what?’ she asked, a bigger smile spreading over her face.

  ‘Tango time!’ exclaimed Tom, spinning her round and clutching her in an expert ballroom hold.

  ‘Seriously,’ she said, laughing.

  Tom nodded. ‘Seriously. You’ve nearly got it. You were brilliant the other night. Now listen to the music. It really helps, as I keep telling you.’

  Laura pricked up her ears, instantly recognising ‘Eye of the Tiger’ blaring out of the speakers. Tom must have changed the song.

  ‘We’re going to tango to this?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied Tom. ‘We are going to take this kitchen floor by storm. Are you ready? In one, two, three, four.’

  Laura let Tom thrust her down the length of the kitchen cabinets, past the cooker and then they took a sharp left-hand turn at the fridge-freezer. She stuck her chin high in the air and set her face in a hard glare just as Tom had shown her; but she caught sight of his determined mouth out of the corner of her eye and started to giggle.

  His rigid face softened momentarily as they glided past the breakfast bar where he reached down and squeezed her backside before recovering his solemn air.

  ‘Cheeky!’ She smiled, kicking her leg in the air and flicking her head from left to right as they turned again to strut back towards the utility-room door.

  She managed to regain her composure and just about kept up with Tom’s expert guidance throughout the rest of the dance until they gave a last flourish with a dramatic double-dip finale in front of the goldfish tank at the end of the kitchen counter. He carefully lifted her back up, and held her hand so that they could bow and curtsey to their aquatic audience.

  ‘Fantastic, you’re definitely getting it,’ said Tom as Laura struggled to catch her breath.

  ‘I’ll never be as good as you though,’ she gasped, bending double again.

  ‘I’ve been doing it a lot longer than you, that’s all. It’s just practice. Now, shall we see what the judges have to say?’

  Laura nodded and laughed. They both leant forward and peered into the fish tank.

  ‘I think Darcy is clearly saying wow, that was amazing,’ said Tom, scrutinising a bright orange fish. ‘And Anton Du Beke, well, he looks beside himself with joy as always.’

  ‘It’s a shame he isn’t a judge then, isn’t it, because I think Craig Revel Horwood is saying woeful, over and over again. Look, watch his mouth,’ said Laura. They both watched the jet-black swimmer open and close his mouth several times.

  ‘Craig clearly doesn’t know what he is talking about,’ said Tom, turning to sweep her up in his arms again. ‘Shall we give him our waltz, so he knows where to stick his woeful?’ He darted off to go and find the right track on the iPad.

  Moments later the familiar bars of Elvis’s ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’, filled the room and she was back at her wedding day, five years ago, being waltzed around the room by her new husband. She’d thought initially it was a terrible idea doing a proper dance at her wedding given that Tom was a trained dancer and she was a market research analyst who couldn’t dance for toffee but he’d somehow managed to persuade her. Come their wedding night she’d felt like a princess gliding around the dance floor in her husband’s arms, happy to follow his every move as their guests oohed and aahed around them.

  She melted into him now as they cruised the kitchen, knowing she would probably never do it in public again but very happy that after some limb-loosening refreshment she and Tom could often be found waltzing to Elvis Presley around their kitchen floor after midnight.

  Chapter One

  Laura

  Two weeks later . . .

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Laura, flinging open the front door in exasperation. She looked up, gasped, and then immediately slammed the door shut again. There was a moment’s silence as she stood stock-still before laughter exploded on the other side of the door.

  Had she really just seen what she thought she’d seen? That was definitely female laughing intertwined with her husband’s, wasn’t it? A female who had appeared to be attached to her husband’s arm. Time stood still. She grabbed hold of the table in the hall to check that it was real and she wasn’t simply trapped in her worst nightmare.

  ‘Aw, let us in, Laura?’ came Tom’s voice from the other side of the door. ‘I must have left my key at work.’

  ‘Or in the pub,’ cackled Tom’s unknown female accomplice.

  Laura threw open the door again to be greeted by two happily grinning faces. One she had thought she knew inside out; the other was a total unknown. She took a moment to assess the stranger. She was tall, maybe five foot eight, with cheerleader-blond hair in a high bouncy ponytail and long, fit legs encased in Lycra. She was young, maybe early twenties, around ten years younger than Laura at a guess, but it was hard to tell beneath the layers of dramatic make-up. Yes, she was definitely Laura’s worst
nightmare. Oh, and she looked really good next to her handsome husband. In her book, glamorous, six-foot-tall men who worked in entertainment rarely had five-foot-two short-arsed wives with wayward brunette hair and limited cosmetic ability. No matter how many times Tom told Laura he preferred her girl-next-door natural beauty she couldn’t help but think that the in-your-face obvious attractiveness of the girl standing in front of her now was what people expected someone like Tom to be with.

  Tom and the mystery blonde both looked at her expectantly, as if it was her job to explain the bizarre tableau that had erupted on the doorstep of 25, Lime Avenue at seven thirty on a Friday night. As if she didn’t already have enough to do. The ice-cream dessert experiment had failed spectacularly, the table hadn’t been laid and she wasn’t sure they had enough red wine unless she could persuade Jerry to stick with white instead of guzzling the red as he usually did. It was only quarter of an hour before their guests were due to arrive and here she was standing on her own doorstep staring at her husband who had arrived home attached to some kind of Barbie doll.

  ‘You missed your appointment with the dental hygienist this morning,’ was all she could think of to say, fixing her gaze on Tom and hoping that if the woman were out of her eyeline, she might somehow magically evaporate.

  ‘And,’ she continued, taking a deep breath, ‘Anton Du Beke is dead. I told you he didn’t look well this morning.’

  Tom and his accomplice gasped; the mystery woman looked as though she might cry.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said, forcing Laura to look at her. Then, to Laura’s horror, she rushed forward and engulfed Laura in her arms. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she declared, somewhere way above Laura’s head. ‘He wasn’t that old, was he? And you knew him? You must be in total shock.’

  By this time Laura was being smothered by the woman’s fake purple fur coat, and was feeling deeply uncomfortable in close proximity to so much Lycra.

  ‘She means our goldfish,’ Laura heard Tom announce before collapsing into hysterics. ‘Luckily we still have Darcey Bussell and Craig Revel Horwood. I always thought Anton would be the first to go. It was a bad idea to put a professional in with the judges.’

  ‘Really?’ shrieked the woman, springing away from Laura. ‘I thought . . . I thought’ – she gasped – ‘I thought you meant . . . ’ She started to howl with laughter.

  It’s Friday, Laura was thinking. He’s knows it’s Friday, and he knows it’s our turn. And he’s standing here laughing over the demise of Anton Du Beke, who was still floating on the surface of the fish tank because she couldn’t bear to look at him never mind touch him. She’d hung a tea towel over the tank since getting home and waited impatiently for Tom to return from work and do the deed before their dinner guests arrived. But now he was helping the blonde off with her coat and hanging it up in their hall. What the hell was going on? She found she couldn’t speak, which often happened during high-stress situations, meaning she had to resort to her usual way of communicating with her husband when she was too cross to get the words out.

  Eyebrows.

  She stared at Tom, shooting them to the top of her forehead. He didn’t respond. She put them through a full gymnastic routine until Tom finally appeared to recognise her distress.

  ‘Sorry, Laura,’ he said. ‘So this is Carly.’

  He stopped there, as if giving Laura Carly’s name explained everything. That once armed with this information, it would be perfectly OK for him to arrive home tipsy with an attractive young blonde woman on their regular dinner party night.

  Laura fought hard for a few moments to find the appropriate response. But, conditioned after years of having good manners drilled into her by an obsessed mother, she merely stuck her hand out stiffly and muttered politely, ‘Laura.’

  As Carly laughed and shook her hand, Laura wondered what was stopping her from shoving Carly out into the cold and slamming the door in her face. Oh my God, she’s taking off her shoes. This really has gone too far now, Laura thought as she watched the blonde dump her silver Converses on top of Tom’s muddy trainers.

  ‘Oh, don’t let them get dirty,’ she cried, reaching down to move them before she could help herself and placing them on the other side of the hall, well away from the gathering of marital footwear.

  She stood up and glared at Tom and something in the fierceness of the look must finally have got through.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he cried, slapping his forehead. ‘You’ve not met Carly, have you?’

  Oh my God, you are such a twat, Laura wanted to scream. In what universe would I have met this . . . this . . . ‘No, I don’t believe I have,’ she squeaked.

  ‘I meant to call you,’ he continued. ‘I tried to call you but I left my phone at home.’

  ‘But you left your phone at home,’ said Laura at exactly the same time.

  ‘You see,’ cried Tom, turning to Carly whilst throwing an arm over Laura’s shoulder. ‘This is what I was saying. This woman is the business. She can even finish my sentences.’

  ‘Sooooooo cute,’ cried Carly. ‘You are adorable together, do you know that?’

  Tom grinned down at Laura. Laura grimaced back.

  ‘So,’ said Carly. ‘This is totally embarrassing. You have no idea what I’m doing here. Unbelievable. What must you be thinking?’

  Best you don’t know, thought Laura.

  ‘So, let’s rewind, shall we?’ announced Carly. She stood up straight and did a jerky backwards robot dance whilst making squeaking noises that were presumably supposed to sound like a tape rewinding.

  ‘She’s very funny,’ Tom mouthed to Laura.

  ‘Hello,’ said Carly. ‘I’m Carly.’ She stuck her hand out for the second time.

  ‘Still Laura,’ said Laura, without offering her own hand.

  ‘Your utterly wonderful husband is mending my broken heart,’ Carly explained, smiling adoringly at Tom.

  ‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘I’m just doing what I can.’

  ‘You are a knight in shining armour,’ declared Carly. ‘And you . . .’ she said, pointing at Laura.

  Are the stupid mug who has no idea what is going on, thought Laura.

  ‘. . . you are my fairy godmother,’ finished Carly.

  Excellent, thought Laura. Usually old, wrinkly, overweight and inappropriately dressed for her age.

  ‘Shall we rewind back to this morning?’ Carly asked Tom.

  ‘Allow me.’ Tom copied the backwards robot dance, much to Carly’s delight.

  ‘Picture the scene,’ said Carly, dramatically waving her arms around.

  I’d much rather not, thought Laura.

  ‘I arrive at the audition with a suitcase—’

  ‘Exhibit one,’ interrupted Tom. He shuffled back through the front door and reappeared moments later – to Laura’s horror – with a suitcase.

  ‘And the first person I see is your Tom,’ continued Carly.

  ‘I could see she was upset,’ Tom told Laura gravely.

  This was too much. He could identify when someone he’d only just met was upset, could he? Laura practically had to put a sign over her head wrapped in fairy lights and with cans of beer hanging off it for Tom to recognise when she was upset.

  ‘Me and Gordon have broke up,’ announced Carly.

  ‘Gordon!’ Laura spluttered.

  ‘He came home and said he couldn’t live with me any more.’

  ‘Your boyfriend is called Gordon!’

  ‘Noooo,’ said Carly. ‘Was. Was called Gordon. It’s over. We are no more.’

  No one was called Gordon these days, especially anyone young enough to be Carly’s boyfriend.

  ‘Loaded,’ Carly added tearfully, by way of further explanation. Laura now understood completely.

  ‘He said he couldn’t live with me any more,’ she continued. ‘He said I was messy and selfish and self-ob . . . ob . . . ob . . .’

  ‘Self-obsessed?’ Laura added helpfully.

  Carly nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it. But I don’t thi
nk I am. Do you think I am, Tom?’

  ‘No,’ said Tom, shaking his head vigorously. ‘Not at all. Is she, Laura?’

  ‘I – don’t – really – know – do – I?’ said Laura slowly. Because I don’t know who this complete stranger, wrapped in purple Muppet fur, standing in my hall with a suitcase, is.

  ‘So then Tom . . .’ Carly faltered, her eyes now brimming with tears, ‘. . . Tom said he’d give me a lift to the Red Cow after the audition—’

  ‘She got the part, by the way,’ interrupted Tom, as though Laura had been waiting with bated breath for this information. ‘One of the best auditions I’ve ever seen at Wonderland.’

  ‘Really?’ said Carly, wide-eyed.

  Tom nodded. ‘Really.’

  ‘And what happened next?’ urged Laura, unwilling to pause for admiration just now.

  ‘Well,’ continued Carly. ‘We got to the Red Cow and they had no rooms left, a funeral or something, so we had a drink and then Tom had a brilliant idea.’

  Tom nodded again. ‘I did.’

  I very much doubt it, thought Laura.

  ‘Tom said I could come and stay with you – just while the show is on. You know, rent your spare room.’

  Laura felt her jaw slowly drop as Carly flashed her a watery smile.

  ‘Brilliant, eh?’ said Tom, moving to put his arm around Laura’s shoulders. ‘We were only talking the other night, weren’t we, about getting another lodger?’

  ‘We were,’ said Laura slowly. It was true they’d had a discussion about it. They’d not had a lodger since Laura got a big promotion at work, meaning they no longer needed the extra money to help pay the mortgage. But they’d been talking about starting a family and knew that at some point they wouldn’t be able to rely on Laura’s income. A short-term lodger seemed a good solution to building up their savings.

  ‘Carly says she’ll pay us two months’ rent up front even though she only needs to stay for four weeks,’ gasped Tom, grinning as though he’d just won the lottery.

  ‘It’s cheaper than a B & B,’ said Carly. ‘And much nicer,’ she added, glancing round the hall approvingly.

  When they’d discussed having a lodger again Laura had envisaged someone similar to Rory, their previous tenant. She had happily overlooked his appalling dress sense and chronic dandruff since they rarely saw him – he worked all hours in one of the restaurants at the theme park during the open season then moved out over the winter to cook in a chalet in the Alps. Somehow Laura knew that Carly would not be as easily overlooked, even if it was only for four weeks.