by Tracy Bloom
‘My mind has gone blank,’ declared Karen.
‘Mine too,’ said Helen.
‘I really love Judi Dench,’ said a lady called Beth, ‘but I think she’s over eighty now.’
‘Oh, oh, oh,’ said Karen, ‘what about Helen Mirren? She’s amazing.’
‘I’m sure she was seventy this year,’ replied Helen.
‘Seriously,’ said Karen. ‘I need to have whatever she’s having.’
‘Julie . . . You know, Julie . . .’ Suddenly Carol, in the corner, came to life. ‘You know who I mean – dead funny, in Acorn Antiques but then she went a bit highbrow.’
‘Julie Walters?’ offered Beth.
‘Yes, her,’ replied Carol.
‘Mid-sixties, I reckon,’ said Beth.
‘Is it definitely fifties you’re after?’ said Karen, turning to Laura.
‘Well, yes really.’ Laura swallowed. ‘Over sixty isn’t really the target customer.’
‘OK,’ said Karen. ‘Come on, girls, we must be able to think of someone famous in their fifties who we’d like to be?’
The room went quiet for the second time.
‘What TV shows do you like to watch?’ asked Laura. ‘Are there any actors your age in those that you think are good role models?’
‘I love a good crime drama,’ said Beth, ‘but I guess women of that age are always either murdered or kind of in the background. Nobody in a lead part comes to mind.’
Carol shrugged. ‘I only ever watch Strictly. The rest of the telly is rubbish.’
‘Strictly!’ said Laura in relief. ‘Great one. Now, whose shoes would you have liked to have filled on there? There’s all ages on there, isn’t there?’
‘Oh, don’t,’ said Beth, shaking her head. She looked around the room. ‘I don’t know about you, I love Strictly, I really do, but I wish they wouldn’t have the older women on.’
‘Why not?’ asked Laura. ‘Isn’t it great to see women of your age represented in this way?’
‘No,’ replied Beth.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because they’re crap at it?’ added Karen helpfully.
‘They’re mostly like the stooges, aren’t they? There for laughs or for people to feel sorry for.’
‘And a big fat reminder that you can do most things better when you’re younger.’
‘Right,’ said Laura. ‘That’s really very interesting that you feel that way.’
‘To be honest,’ added Karen with a chuckle, ‘me and my husband mostly watch Strictly to see who’s going to fall for one another.’
‘Ooh, I know.’ Carol nodded. ‘You can tell a mile off, can’t you? It’s like watching a love story unfold. Me and my mate have bets on which male celebrity will fall first!’
Laura sighed. She could really do without this conversation right now.
‘Well, it is foreplay, after all, isn’t it?’ said Beth.
‘What is?’ asked Carol.
‘Dancing,’ replied Beth.
Laura looked down at her notes. She needed to move the conversation on quickly.
‘Well, at least it used to be,’ continued Beth. ‘You must all remember those end-of-the-night dances down at Paradise, that nightclub on the edge of town?’
‘Way hey!’ exclaimed Karen, throwing her hands in the air. ‘I can remember rubbing up to some pieces of work in there years back.’
‘Exactly,’ Beth agreed. ‘Come the early hours we were all on that dance floor, weren’t we? Hoping to fall into the arms of some random bloke we’d been eyeing up all night and gyrate away to a soppy love song. Proper turn-on that was. Back then dancing with a man nearly always came before sex.’
‘It’s not like that now,’ sighed Carol before Laura could interject. ‘You don’t need to go dancing to pull any more because it’s all online, isn’t it? Believe me, I know. I’ve been divorced three years.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,’ replied Beth.
‘It’s OK. I’m getting used to it. But it’s all so different trying to date these days. Sexting is the new foreplay now, not dancing. I keep getting messages late at night from pissed-up blokes via dating websites sending me pictures of their you-know-what. What I’d give for a man who just asked me to dance. So much sexier.’
‘You’re right,’ agreed Beth. ‘Who can resist a man who wants to dance with them? Sexiest thing on earth. Me and Terry still dance. We go to festivals and are the daft pair at the back twirling each other round. I reckon couples who dance together stay together.’
‘Aah, that’s really nice,’ said Carol, looking as though she might burst into tears there and then.
‘And it’s exactly why the celebrities end up having it off with their partners on Strictly,’ cut in Karen. ‘They should be at home dancing with their wives, not with someone who can do things with their body that shouldn’t be legal.’
‘I tell you what, ladies,’ said Laura, having heard more than enough and feeling utterly depressed. ‘Shall I introduce the product we’re discussing today?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Karen, cheering up again. ‘Brilliant, I love this part.’
‘Well, it’s a well-known brand that you will all have heard of and who want to branch out and move into a related product category for your age group. It is quite a sensitive area, I must warn you—’
‘Condoms,’ shrieked Karen. ‘It’s geriatric condoms, isn’t it? They’ve finally developed one for the older man that keeps him up longer.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Helen excitedly. ‘A really good idea. Like adding Viagra to the actual condom rather than having to take it as a pill or something.’
‘Are you sure you’ve got no free samples?’ Karen asked Laura again. ‘We’re willing to test them, aren’t we, ladies? In the interests of science, of course.’
Four of the women nodded vigorously; the other two turned bright red and looked at their shoes.
‘That isn’t actually the product,’ replied Laura, surreptitiously writing it down as a good idea to give another one of her clients. She looked up and took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy.
‘Actually,’ she said, clearing her throat and trying hard to remain composed, ‘the product we are discussing today is designer incontinence pants.’
‘Jesus,’ said Karen. ‘Shoot me now.’
Chapter Thirteen
Laura
Laura looked up at Tom as they stood on the doorstep of Jerry and Hannah’s house. They could hear the deep chime reverberating inside as the motion-sensor lights illuminated their warm breath. He was holding her hand but was grinning at Carly. Laura lifted her other hand to wipe off some of the lip-gloss she’d carefully applied half an hour earlier. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to dress up a bit. She’d bought a new top with a daring plunging neckline and she’d spent ages carefully straightening her hair to a smooth and silky finish that looked almost as good as when the hairdresser did it. The lip-gloss had been an impulse purchase that lunchtime. Why not? she’d thought. Why shouldn’t I wear lip-gloss? She wore ‘Matt Rose’ every day to work and so lip-gloss for the evening seemed entirely reasonable. Well, it did until she raced downstairs in some leg-breaking high heels she’d found in the depths of her wardrobe at just after seven to find Tom and Carly waiting to head out to Jerry and Hannah’s for dinner. As soon as she saw Carly she lunged for her coat to cover up her extra special efforts that evening. Her exposed cleavage was soon engulfed in a faithful full-length black wool coat and she discreetly kicked off her heels and plunged her feet into some handy Ugg boots standing by the door.
‘You look nice,’ said Carly.
‘Not really,’ said Laura, buttoning her coat up quickly whilst trying not to notice how good Carly looked in sweatpants, a hoody, no make-up and a high scraped-back ponytail.
‘Jerry said casual when he invited me,’ said Carly, ‘and I was so overdressed last time compared to everyone else. Am I all right like this – should I change?’
‘Right,’ said Carly. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘You look great,’ Tom reassured her. ‘No need to change, is there, Laura?’
Laura felt her lip-gloss smear over her teeth as she forced a smile. ‘You’re fine. Shall we go?’
‘Welcome, welcome, welcome,’ declared Jerry, throwing open his front door. ‘You are so very welcome.’
‘Waistcoat, Jerry?’ said Tom, pushing past him. ‘What’s the occasion? You didn’t tell the rest of us it was fancy dress.’
Laura took off her overcoat and tugged her top up to cover more of her chest.
‘No occasion – well, unless you count the fact I’ve done a bit of a revamp of the bar downstairs, which I’m hoping we’ll well and truly christen tonight.’
‘The bar?’ asked Carly.
‘Jerry has a den downstairs in the basement,’ explained Tom.
‘The den of iniquity,’ announced Jerry with a smirk.
‘It’s where all of Jerry’s bad taste is stored out of Hannah’s way,’ continued Tom. ‘Oak-panelled bar, pool table, fifty-inch plasma, that kind of thing.’
‘Aah, but just you wait,’ announced Jerry. ‘Your brother’s already here putting me some finishing touches up. I’m so excited I cannot tell you. Cocktails downstairs before dinner, anyone?’ He held out his arm towards Carly.
‘Well, I don’t mind if I do.’ She grinned, tucking her hand into his elbow. ‘Lead me to your den of iniquity, kind sir.’
‘It would be my utmost pleasure,’ he replied. ‘Come on, troops,’ he said over his shoulder to Tom and Laura. ‘This is going to blow your mind.’
Laura and Tom looked at each other.
‘What do you think he’s done?’ Laura whispered to Tom as they walked towards the basement door.
‘Knowing Jerry, it could be anything. He has mentioned an underground hot tub in the past. But he was pissed and installing a wax figure of Cameron Diaz was also discussed at the time.’
‘Perhaps we’ll get down there and find Will in a hot tub with Diaz,’ said Laura.
‘Wouldn’t that be a sight to behold!’ Tom grinned, reaching round to squeeze her shoulders. She grabbed his hand tight and didn’t let go as they began their descent of the basement stairs.
‘Oh my God,’ they heard Carly scream when they were halfway down. ‘This is amazing.’
They arrived at the bottom of the steps and turned the corner to enter the large basement area. Laura’s jaw dropped.
‘So what do you think?’ asked Jerry. ‘Looks good, hey?’
Laura and Tom took a few more tentative steps into the room. The pool table had disappeared; the enormous couch had been pushed to the back leaving the vast open space of wooden floor to be lit by tiny little flecks of coloured light that bounced off the enormous glitter ball slowly rotating from the middle of the ceiling. The fifty-inch plasma on the back wall was playing the black-and-white classic movie, Singing in the Rain. Will was balanced on the top of a stepladder to the side of the room screwing something into a lighting track, a workman’s tool belt slung around his waist. As they ventured further into the room he leapt down from his perch and hurriedly started to collapse the ladder.
‘There you go, Jerry,’ he said. ‘They should all be working now.’
‘One word,’ said Tom to Jerry. ‘Why?’
‘Why the hell not?’ said Jerry.
Tom and Laura stared back at him.
‘Come on,’ he cried. ‘How much fun was it dancing at your house last week?’
Laura winced at the memory of Tom and Carly gliding around together.
‘It was great,’ agreed Tom, ‘but not many people learn a few steps of the salsa and immediately build their own dance floor in their basement. And where is the damn Xbox Jerry?’
‘Gone, mate.’
‘What?’
‘Gone.’
‘But I was beating you,’ replied Tom, looking genuinely angry.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ said Jerry. ‘We can have parties, we can dance, you can dance. You never dance any more. You always used to dance.’
‘You used to call me a pink poofter for dancing when I was a kid,’ replied Tom.
‘You so had no sense of humour when you were young,’ replied Jerry.
‘Yes I did.’
‘No you didn’t.’
‘You were a bully.’
‘No I wasn’t.’
‘Oh, don’t start,’ sighed Laura. She didn’t know what to say about Jerry’s creation. She wanted to say it was brilliant. Pre-Carly turning up she would have said it was amazing and she would have shoved her husband straight on to the middle of the floor and danced with him just for the hell of it. She might even have risked showing off their tango, given that Jerry and Will were never going to be the harshest of critics. But she couldn’t do it now – despite what the ladies at the focus group had said the other day. Dancing with her husband when there was a professional in the room somehow sucked all the fun out of it.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in your house this long without being offered a drink,’ she announced.
‘Coming right up,’ said Jerry, dashing across the dance floor and positioning himself behind his bar. ‘How about we start with a little Kir Royale?’ he suggested, reaching into a fridge behind him and pulling out a bottle of Prosecco.
Carly went bounding up and sat on a tall stool. ‘This is seriously cool, Jerry,’ she cried. ‘Gordon didn’t have a bar, or a dance floor.’
‘And who is Gordon?’ asked Jerry, pouring their drinks.
‘My ex,’ said Carly. ‘The bastard who dumped me last week.’
‘Well, cry no more, my friend, you may not have a Gordon, but you now have friends with dance floors and cocktails.’ He handed out the tall glasses. ‘To friends with dance floors and cocktails,’ he said, raising his glass high with an enormous grin.
‘Hell yeah,’ cried Carly, ‘the best kind of friends.’
We are not friends, thought Laura. We will never be friends. She downed half her drink. These are my friends. This is my life, not yours.
‘Where’s Hannah?’ she asked once the warmth of the drink had calmed her.
‘She’s running late. Had to do something at the office. She’ll be here any minute.’
‘And what does she think of your latest addition to the home?’ asked Laura.
Jerry paused before he answered.
He shrugged. ‘She’s not seen it yet.’
‘I thought you said you were going to ask her first,’ said Will as he arrived at the bar having put the stepladder away. ‘I’ll have that pint now, if it’s still on offer, Jerry.’ He nodded at the fully functioning beer pump.
‘I was going to ask her,’ said Jerry, turning to grab a glass off a shelf behind him, ‘but I thought she’d prefer the surprise.’
‘She’s going to love it, right?’ said Carly. ‘Who wouldn’t love coming home to a husband who’d installed an enormous glitter ball in the basement?’
Laura, Tom and Will raised their eyebrows at each other.
‘You’ll have another go at the cha-cha-cha with me now, won’t you, Will?’ asked Carly.
Will spluttered his first gulp of his pint back out.
‘Now there is all this room and a proper dance floor? You can’t look at that and not want to dance,’ she went on, casting her arm around the vast wooden floor.
‘Yeah,’ said Jerry encouragingly. ‘How can you say no to that?’ He pointed at the dance floor. ‘And that,’ he continued, pointing at Carly whilst giving Will a wink.
Will took a long draw on his drink. ‘Like I said last week,’ he announced, putting his pint down firmly, ‘Tom’s the dancer, not me.’
Laura felt herself deflate at Will’s response. Why couldn’t Will behave like any other normal single man and let Carly do whatever she wanted him to do on that dance floor? If he did the dancing foreplay thing with her then she wou
ldn’t have to watch her husband do it.
‘What on earth . . .?’ came a voice from behind them. They all swivelled to see Hannah at the bottom of the stairs, pointing at the enormous glitter ball and looking accusingly at Jerry. Laura couldn’t help but notice that Jerry took another gulp of his drink without replying.
‘Why?’ Hannah asked, looking directly at Jerry. ‘How much?’ she added.
‘It’s all right, love,’ said Jerry, coming out from behind the bar and walking over to her. ‘We’re installing one in a hotel ballroom in Somerset. I got it at cost. What do you reckon? Isn’t it great? You gonna boogie with me later?’ He grabbed both her hands and attempted a shimmy but she stood stock-still and stared right at him. No one dared speak.
‘I . . . I . . .’ she began, glancing over at the bar where the rest of them were poised waiting for her verdict. She looked back at Jerry and let her breath tumble out of her mouth and her shoulders drop. She looked weary. ‘I’ll go and check on dinner,’ she finally replied, pulling her hands away from Jerry’s. She turned and disappeared back up the stairs.
There was silence apart from the sound of Gene Kelly splashing through some puddles and singing about the rain. Jerry turned round to face them, his signature big grin plastered on his face.
‘We’ll give her a drink and she’ll be giving it some Travolta before you know it,’ he said, strutting back across the floor to his bartender post. ‘She’s working too hard,’ he continued, shaking his head. ‘I keep telling her she doesn’t need to spend every bloody hour of the day in that office. What’s the point in running your own business if you can’t play hooky every so often?’
‘I think her putting all those hours in means you can play hooky,’ said Laura
‘Laura Mackintyre!’ exclaimed Jerry. ‘Who gave you too much Prosecco and let you speak your mind so early in the evening? It’s not even eight o’clock.’
‘Well,’ replied Laura, blushing slightly, ‘she does seem to work really hard and you do seem to er . . . er . . .’
‘Swan about a lot,’ finished Tom.