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

by Tracy Bloom

  ‘No, listen. It’s Carly who’s hurt because Laura might have broken her ankle.’

  ‘Why’s Carly hurt if Laura’s broken her ankle?’

  ‘Because Laura knocked her off the stage.’

  ‘Knocked who off the stage?’

  ‘Carly! For goodness’ sake, what is wrong with you tonight?’

  ‘It’s not me, it’s you trying to confuse me. Just start again and tell me exactly what happened.’

  ‘Laura came up to watch the rehearsal because her company is doing the research.’

  ‘Is that the thingy-majiggy scores that Phillip wants?’

  ‘That’s it,’ replied Tom. ‘But our guy who wears the Wonderbear costume had let us down so Laura offered to stand in.’

  ‘Laura in the Wonderbear costume,’ said Jerry. ‘Strangely alluring.’

  ‘You really need to have sex with your wife if you are fantasising about Wonderbear.’

  ‘I know, I know. Not for want of trying, mate.’

  ‘Anyway, so Laura’s on stage dressed as Wonderbear and knocks Carly flying off the edge of the stage, dropping about four feet on to the ground.’

  ‘I know how high the stage is, Tom, I helped build it.’

  ‘It’s a nightmare,’ exclaimed Tom. ‘I had to carry Carly to Medical. They weren’t sure what she’d done but said she should go and get an X-ray just in case. We’ve been here three hours and she’s only just gone in. What if she’s broken it, Jerry? We’ll have to cancel the show. She’s the only good thing in it.’

  ‘What!’ It was Jerry’s turn to shout in horror. ‘You can’t cancel the show. As your producer I’m telling you: You cannot cancel the show.’

  ‘Producer? Where did you get that idea from?’

  ‘A producer,’ said Jerry, clearing his throat, ‘is the person who makes it all possible, brings it all together. That’s what I’ve done, isn’t it? I have produced your show.’

  ‘You got some blokes to build a stage and you bought some mirrors. That hardly makes you Harvey Weinstein.’

  ‘Us producers all have to start somewhere, my friend. This project has given me a taste for it. I’m enjoying investing money in the arts. I think it’s an extremely worthwhile thing to do and it’s giving me enormous satisfaction.’

  ‘And you get to spend time with young women who treat you like a hero.’

  ‘And why do you think Harvey Weinstein does it?’

  ‘Because he’s brilliant at it.’

  ‘I’d also like to point out that he’s no looker but he still gets to hang out with the best-looking women on the planet. He’s one smart man.’

  ‘All right then,’ said Tom. ‘If you are the self-appointed producer of this production what the hell do we do? We may have just lost our leading lady.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ announced Jerry. ‘I think Harvey would be holding a vigil by the bedside of his leading lady if he was in this situation. Carly needs me right now. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.’

  ‘No, Jerry,’ said Tom. ‘You’ll just make things worse.’

  Jerry had already put the phone down.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Laura

  Laura had tried to text and call Tom, but had not been able to get through. She had no idea where he was, but was beginning to think that maybe he’d had to take Carly to hospital and was punishing her for what had happened by refusing to talk to her. She’d done her best to settle herself in front of the telly with a packet of Oreos and large glass of red wine but every time there was a creak or a bang or the slightest noise her heart leapt into her mouth and she braced herself for what on earth they were all going to say to each other when they eventually arrived home.

  When nine o’clock came without any communication, time she’d also spent stewing over what the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts had told her, she decided she couldn’t face them that night. She dragged herself up from the sofa, turned the television off and walked through into the kitchen to put her wine glass in the dishwasher and switched it on. The gentle hum signalled the end of the day and she felt a sense of relief. Tomorrow she would tackle him. Tonight she needed sleep and to wake up with a fresh head so that she could get to the bottom of what was happening once and for all.

  It was gone ten when Laura became aware of Tom moving about their bedroom. The bedside light went on. He ambled around, undressing; then he reached under the pillow for his pyjamas. Eventually he fell into bed with a thump that bounced Laura’s head at least twice. A thump that no one would sleep through. Laura kept her eyes tight shut. What was she going to say? She wanted to know that Carly was OK and the show would go on but she also couldn’t forget the back stage tittle-tattle she’d overheard.

  He wriggled next to her and then lay still.

  She braced herself to roll over and talk to him, no longer sure if she could wait until the morning to air some of the thoughts that had been trapped in her brain for so long. What would she say? Would she ask him? Are you having an affair with Carly? Dare she say that? Dare she say that right now? Put an end to all this suspicion and distrust. Yes, she would do it now. Right now. She’d waited long enough.

  She took a deep breath and then froze, unable to move. She could hear something. The very faint tinkling of bells, or music perhaps. What was it? She couldn’t quite make it out. Then it dawned on her. Her husband had come home, having not told her where he was for the last four hours, and lain down in bed next to her, not to explain himself or hear her side of the story, but to play Candy Crush!

  Laura clenched her fists in rage. She wouldn’t speak to him now if he begged her to.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hannah

  ‘Just a very slight sprain apparently,’ Laura told Hannah. ‘Honestly, if you’d seen the way she was thrashing about you’d have assumed she’d broken it. Such a drama queen.’

  Hannah wasn’t listening. She was staring at the middle-aged woman sitting opposite them in the Jacuzzi in an attempt to make her feel so uncomfortable that she would leave. She hadn’t come to the Radcliffe Hotel Spa with Laura today to relax. She had work to do but she couldn’t get on with it until the other bloody woman chose to go.

  ‘So she’s just got to rest it for a couple of days,’ continued Laura. ‘Thank goodness she’ll be all right for when the show starts. Tom said she knows her part so it’s not ideal but she can afford to sit out of rehearsals until then.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ Hannah nodded. She coughed loudly, hoping to disrupt the tranquillity of the peaceful, blue-tiled room.

  ‘I told him it was an accident,’ added Laura. ‘I apologised. I don’t think he was listening though. It was like I wasn’t even there. His head is so full of this show that anything beyond it may as well not exist.’

  ‘Did you see they were giving away vouchers for a free massage at the reception desk when we came in,’ announced Hannah loudly. ‘I grabbed us two as there were hardly any left.’

  Before Laura had a chance to respond the other woman rose from the bubbling water, glided up the steps of the Jacuzzi and then set a fast but dignified pace out of the room towards reception.

  ‘Great,’ said Laura, sinking her shoulders down into the warm water. ‘A massage is just what I need.’

  ‘Come on, quick,’ said Hannah, leaping up. ‘Before anyone else comes in.’ She got out of the tub and reached for the fluffy white dressing gown hanging on a peg on the wall. She took a tape measure and phone out of the pocket. ‘Here, hold this,’ she said, holding the end of the measure towards Laura.

  ‘Really! Are we doing this now?’

  ‘Yes. Now hurry up.’

  Laura dragged herself out of the water, grudgingly took hold of the tape and then walked towards the far wall.

  ‘Great,’ Hannah called once she’d tapped the measurement into her phone. ‘Now the other wall.’ Hannah watched as Laura lumbered towards the adjacent wall. Hannah didn’t know why her friend was in such a sulk. Hannah had made the reason for their v
isit very clear. ‘OK, now just stand there, so I can take some pictures.’

  ‘You can’t take pictures. It’s not allowed.’

  ‘Watch me.’ She held her phone up taking some shots with Laura in them to give her a sense of scale; then she moved to get close-ups of all the fixtures and fittings. She was just photographing the intricate Moroccan-style tiles bordering the Jacuzzi when the door to the room flung open and in walked a security guard.

  ‘I have never been so humiliated in my life,’ Laura told Hannah as they were escorted out of the building half an hour later.

  ‘Yesterday you pranced around on stage dressed as a teddy bear. This is nothing,’ replied Hannah, searching around in her bag for her car keys.

  ‘Thank you for reminding me,’ said Laura. ‘I thought that today might bring a sense of peace and tranquillity and perhaps a little perspective to the nightmare I seem to be living at the moment. Yesterday I get ordered off the stage in a bear costume by my husband and today I manage to get myself banned from a spa.’

  Hannah shrugged. She didn’t understand what Laura was making such a fuss about.

  ‘Now I’ve been in one I don’t get what the big deal is anyway,’ she said, unlocking the car. ‘Strikes me as a lot of sitting around, semi-naked, bored out of your mind whilst a bit damp. Too much like school swimming lessons if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever been in one and I have to say, Hannah, you ruined it.’ Laura disappeared, plonking herself in the passenger seat.

  Hannah sighed and opened the driver’s door to join her. ‘You knew we weren’t there to enjoy ourselves,’ she stated.

  ‘I know,’ Laura said. ‘And it was very kind of you and Jerry to offer to pay for me to go in with you but I assumed, particularly as I’ve taken the morning off work, that we were going to really enjoy the facilities before we did Jerry’s spying for him. Besides, if all you needed were a few measurements, why didn’t Jerry go himself?’

  ‘Are you mad?’ exclaimed Hannah. ‘Jerry in a room full of semi-naked women? That’s not good for him. He’d be more likely to come back with syphilis than measurements.’

  Laura buried her face in her hands. ‘I’m so embarrassed,’ she moaned though her hands.

  ‘We’d have got away with it if it hadn’t been for the CCTV. Surely it’s illegal to have cameras in a spa?’

  ‘I’m not sure that your argument about surveillance being an invasion of your privacy was a good one when you were standing there with a camera taking pictures of their light switches and measuring the dimensions of the room.’

  Hannah shrugged. ‘All builders do it. We’re always spying on each other – no big deal. Robinsons are getting all the contracts for spas at the moment. We’re just trying to work out why.’

  ‘People were trying to relax, forget the stresses of their everyday lives and you were frantically snapping pictures like some Japanese tourist at the Taj Mahal.’

  ‘I needed a picture of the tiles,’ said Hannah. ‘They’ve obviously found a really cheap supplier somewhere but I can’t work out who they are because I don’t recognise the tiles.’

  ‘Oh, call the fire brigade, you don’t recognise a tile.’

  Hannah turned to her friend. ‘What has got into you?’ She wasn’t sure she had it in her to calm Laura’s ruffled feathers today. She vaguely remembered Laura saying something about Carly and Tom’s visit to hospital last night whilst they were in the Jacuzzi – perhaps that was winding her up. ‘So he took her to A & E. Big deal. What choice did he have?’

  Laura gave her a wounded look. Hannah sighed. No, she definitely didn’t have room in her brain to cope with anyone else’s emotional problems. She was too busy trying to ignore her own.

  ‘We’re heading for divorce, I just know it,’ declared Laura and promptly burst into tears. ‘I watched him carry her off,’ she sniffled. ‘He never carries me anywhere, does he?’

  ‘No,’ said Hannah carefully. ‘But you can walk, so he doesn’t need to.’

  ‘Even the rest of the cast think they are having an affair. They told me.’

  ‘Really, to your face?’

  ‘No. I was still in costume. They didn’t know who I was.’

  Hannah tried not to smile at the image of Wonderbear hearing such news.

  ‘Just idle gossip,’ Hannah said dismissively. ‘You know it is.’

  ‘He spent four hours in hospital holding her hand and couldn’t even be bothered to tell me where he was.’

  ‘But Jerry was there. Best passion-killer known to man or woman.’

  ‘Don’t you care?’ asked Laura, suddenly angry. ‘Don’t you care that both our husbands care more about bloody Carly than they do us?’ She had clenched her hands and was pounding them on her knees.

  Hannah swallowed. What could she say? That no, actually, she didn’t care? She didn’t give a monkey’s what Jerry did and that was just as difficult for her to make any sense of as it clearly was for Laura to work out what was going on between Tom and Carly.

  ‘I don’t understand how you can turn a blind eye,’ continued Laura. ‘They’re all over her. Why doesn’t it get to you?’

  Hannah racked her brains for a reasonable answer rather than the truth. She couldn’t even admit the truth to herself, never mind Laura.

  She shrugged. ‘Jerry’s always been like that, hasn’t he? His head always has been turned by a pretty girl. I knew that when I married him.’

  ‘When me and Tom got married . . .’ said Laura, pausing to take a deep breath, ‘. . . he was still on the rebound from Natalie, wasn’t he? We should have waited but I was so over the moon that he’d proposed that I shut all thoughts of Natalie out. I wanted to marry him as quickly as possible before he changed his mind. But I knew deep down it was a mistake, really I did.’

  ‘It wasn’t a mistake,’ Hannah consoled her. ‘He was over Natalie by the time you got married.’

  ‘She sent us a card, you know. When we got married. We got back from honeymoon and opened all the wedding cards and there it was, congratulating the happy couple. Tom stared at it for a moment, and then tore it into tiny pieces. Really tiny little bits. He was angry, you could see it by the size of the shreds,’ she said to Hannah.

  ‘Right.’ Hannah nodded. ‘Really small shreds. I get it.’

  ‘That’s when I knew that he wasn’t over her,’ mumbled Laura as the tears began to roll down her cheeks again. ‘He still loved her.’

  Hannah put her arm around her friend. She sniffed, horrified that tears were pricking her eyes too.

  ‘You get married and that should be it, shouldn’t it?’ said Laura, holding her sodden face up for a moment. ‘Your love life should be straightforward from then on. That’s why you get married, isn’t it? To get away from all this crap.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hannah, pulling Laura back into her shoulder before Laura could spot the tear trickling out of her own eye. ‘If you’re lucky.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tom

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Tom. ‘Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.’

  He sat on the toilet with his head in his hands trying to compose himself when he felt that all around him was falling apart.

  ‘Tom. Are you in there?’ Jerry’s voice echoed around the otherwise empty toilet block.

  ‘No,’ he shouted back.

  ‘Mate, you’ve got to come out and look at this.’ Tom heard Jerry stride to a stop right outside the cubicle he was hiding in.

  ‘I’m busy,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ replied Jerry, starting to whistle. ‘Oh my God, I’ve just looked in the mirror,’ he cried. ‘I’m killing it today. Come on, mate, you seriously have got to get out here and take a look at what they’ve done to me.’

  Tom sighed. He had no choice. He’d have to emerge. He got up, unlocked the door and walked out.

  ‘Are you not going to flush that thing?’ asked Jerry. ‘You are disgusting.’
>
  ‘I’ve not used it.’

  ‘What you doing in there then, texting?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s what I do. Forget where I am sometimes.’

  ‘Why are you orange?’ asked Tom, noticing Jerry’s face.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to show you,’ he replied, admiring himself in the mirror. ‘Bianca has set up a tanning booth in the dressing room. Said she’d do me. How could I refuse? A young lady spraying my body all over? Too good to miss.’

  ‘All over?’ asked Tom.

  ‘No, sadly. I did tell her I didn’t like tan lines and I didn’t mind taking my undies off but she admitted she’s a little shy and offered to get Gavin to do it. But I’ve seen Gavin giving me the eye and I didn’t want to encourage the poor lad.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Denying your manhood to anyone is extremely cruel.’

  ‘Too right. Anyway, do you like it? Sets me up to look like a proper local down under in a few weeks I reckon.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Tom, ‘you’ll fit right in. If you’re in an orange grove.’

  ‘Well, I want it to last, don’t I? Don’t want it to have faded to nothing by the time we go.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky if it’s faded to the shade of an orange highlighter pen.’

  ‘Bah, you’re only jealous.’

  ‘You are still going, are you? Thought you said Hannah was showing a lack of enthusiasm.’

  ‘I’ll talk her round, you wait and see. Now, I wanted to ask you about reserved seating for VIPs at the premiere of the show tonight.’

  ‘It’s a Halloween show at a theme park, Jerry, not the next James Bond movie.’

  ‘I know, I know, but it’s my first production so it’s special to me. I want to be front and centre cheering you on.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ mumbled Tom. ‘It’s going to be shit.’

  ‘What?’ cried Jerry. ‘I thought Carly was OK, just a very light sprain.’

  ‘It is, but to make sure she’s OK for tonight she’s had to rest it so we haven’t been able to rehearse with her. That’s fine for her, she’s going to be great, but her leading man is a moron. I’ve been trying to rehearse him all morning and he’s diabolical. He could ruin the whole show.’