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

by Tracy Bloom

  ‘I really want you to be honest about what you think of the show,’ said Tom, turning his back to her at the sink and switching on the taps.

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you how brilliant you are,’ she replied, bending down to pretend to search for teabags in the cupboard.

  ‘Yes I do,’ he said.

  'No you don't.' She stood up to rearrange the mugs next to the kettle.

  ‘I do,’ said Tom, twisting around to face her, up to his elbows in suds.

  She took a breath trying to calm her frustration at his neediness. ‘Look, even from the first performance I could see what a great show it was. You just needed to sort out the teething problems, that’s all. Not give up just because you screwed up casting the lead male.’

  Tom looked startled; he paused before he replied.

  ‘Is that what you think? That I screwed up?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, you did, didn’t you? He ruined what was otherwise a brilliant show.’

  Tom stared back at her as though she’d just told him he was adopted.

  ‘Well, thanks for that.’ He slammed a saucepan on to the drainer.

  ‘You would have given up at that point, wouldn’t you?’ she continued. ‘Admitted defeat. The slightest problem and you throw your hands in the air, down tools and go into a massive sulk.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘Yes you do. You do it every time. You dream big and then when someone puts the slightest obstacle in your path you give up.’

  Tom looked stunned. She was pretty shocked herself. Her current turmoil was clearly driving out some home truths she’d harboured for some time.

  ‘Your dreams are brilliant, Tom,’ she continued more gently, noticing his crestfallen face. ‘I could see all your ridiculous, funny, amazing and utterly bonkers dreams up there in the very first performance. It’s why it’s such a great job for you. You get to put your dreams up there on stage. Where else would you get to explode a dormouse? I mean – seriously?’

  Tom half raised a smile.

  ‘Being an Entertainment Director is a job made in heaven for you,’ she said.

  ‘I hate it,’ he muttered, turning to gaze through the window.

  ‘No you don’t,’ said Laura. ‘It’s the failure you hate, not the job. But instead of facing up to it and doing something about it you blame other people, making yourself look like the victim.’

  He turned sharply back towards her.

  ‘Phillip keeps cutting my budget so my shows are rubbish,’ she continued, mimicking his pained-looking face. ‘My leading man can’t dance for toffee so my shows are terrible. I’ve decided to hate my job because I’m too bloody scared of making a success of it because then I might just be happy and what a disaster that would be, because this wasn’t what I thought would make me happy. The mighty Tom Mackintyre couldn’t possibly be happy being an Entertainment Director at a theme park in his home town with an unglamorous, boring wife who stares at numbers all day and couldn’t do a paso doble if her life depended on it.’ Her voice had risen to a squeak and her heart was hammering.

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Tom, wide-eyed at her outburst.

  ‘Which part?’ demanded Laura. She’d never been this honest with her husband. ‘I can assure you that I cannot, will not ever be able to do the paso doble to save my life.’

  ‘None of it’s true.’ He lifted his hands out of the washbowl and picked up a towel. He was silent as he dried his hands, looking at the floor.

  ‘There’s an audition,’ he said quietly.

  ‘A what?’ asked Laura, thinking she’d misheard.

  ‘An audition.’ He looked up. ‘It’s a musical. They’re looking for men my age who can sing and dance. Really good parts. Carly told me about it.’

  Laura felt all the air get sucked out of her body. He couldn’t be saying this. He really couldn’t be saying this.

  ‘Where?’ she managed to ask.

  ‘London,’ he said. ‘It’s the West End, Laura.’

  ‘Carly told you about it.’

  Tom nodded. ‘She’s trying for a part too. She said I should go and give it a go.’

  ‘What do you expect me to say?’ she asked after an uncomfortable pause.

  ‘I want you to tell me after you see the show today if you honestly think I’m good enough,’ he said. ‘I need to know what you think I should do? Whether it’s a stupid idea. I mean, I know I won’t get it, I’m nowhere near good enough, but maybe I should give it a try, right? You never know, do you? And if I did get it, which I won’t, but if I did then we’d work it out, wouldn’t we? I’d come home when I can and if it looks like a long run then you could move down. There must be loads of jobs in market research in London.’

  Laura looked down at the teabag in the bottom of her mug. She so should have married an engineer or even a plumber. Anything but the torture of this.

  ‘What do you think I should do, Laura?’ he asked again. He was chewing his nails now.

  She looked up at him. ‘So you agree that I’m a boring, unglamorous wife who stares at numbers all day then, do you?’ she asked.

  ‘I never said that,’ cried Tom. ‘You said that. You’re twisting things. You’re not boring or unglamorous, you’re – well, you’re Laura. You’re my Laura.’ He stepped forward, flinging the towel on the table, and took her in his arms. She breathed him in and couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

  ‘Don’t cry, please,’ he said, looking down and wiping away a tear. ‘You’re Laura. You’re wise, you’re funny and you’re my best mate. You know that. What would I do without you?’

  She wished he’d said she was beautiful, thought Laura. She buried her head in his chest.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said to the top of her head. ‘I don’t know what to do to make us happy.’

  She could hear his heart beating very fast. She felt his arms curl tighter around her. She put her arms around him and pulled him in tight as the tears soaked through his shirt. She listened to his heartbeat as they held each other in the middle of the kitchen, dishes half stacked in the dishwasher, saucepans still soaking in the washing-up bowl, the scraps of Sunday lunch strewn over the table and the floor.

  She pulled away and looked up at him. His eyes were rimmed red.

  ‘You just have to listen to your heart,’ she said. ‘That’s all you can do.’ She walked around him to the sink and began scrubbing a saucepan.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Hannah

  Who the hell was it this time, thought Hannah, hurrying to the front door, Sherlock hot on her heels. She’d spent all day answering the door to all shapes and sizes of delivery men as Jerry’s excitement at hosting the wrap party for the Malice in Wonderland cast members materialised into complete and utter over-indulgence.

  Hannah watched horrified as a tall skinny man carried in Jerry’s order from Waitrose. Crate after crate after crate was paraded through the marble-tiled hall to her kitchen. Bag after bag after bag was lifted out as it dawned on her that despite Jerry’s promise to be solely responsible for the party she didn’t want them to have, it was going to be left to her to put away the enormous amount of food, as he seemed to have completely disappeared.

  Why? she thought as she attempted to jam the second ham joint into their enormous American-style fridge-freezer. She had told Jerry when he was ordering the food: They’re performers, they don’t eat. A few bowls of crudités would be more than enough, she’d said. Ten minutes later and he’d come to find her to say that Waitrose didn’t sell crudités; he’d done a search and everything. She couldn’t be bothered to tell him that he was only looking for raw vegetables. She told him to go and buy whatever he thought best and he’d skipped off rubbing his hands together. She knew it had been a mistake. First it had been Marks and Spencer’s, then Majestic Wine, followed by Amazon, who had dropped off several large boxes. God knows what he had hiding in there. There couldn’t be any more delivery companies that could be involved in a party could th
ere? But knowing Jerry anything was possible. After all, he was the man who’d bought a seven-foot-long inflatable crocodile to announce a holiday in Australia.

  Hannah flung open the door with a scowl. She’d tried to contact Jerry to tell him his six bags of ice would be melting on the under-floor heated tiles in their kitchen but he was either screening her calls or somewhere without reception.

  ‘Oh,’ she said when Will appeared on the front-door step, toolbox in hand. Her scowl instantly dissolved. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Jerry sent me round,’ he replied, wiping his boots on the mat. ‘He wants some more disco lights downstairs plus all his speakers connected to the main system. All the other lads are busy so I said I’d do it.’

  ‘Right, right,’ she said. ‘Come in. Can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘If you have the time,’ he replied. ‘He also said I had to put a smile on your face.’

  ‘Oh, why?’ she flustered.

  ‘He said you were cross with him and I had to come over and cheer you up so he dares come home when you’re in a better mood.’

  ‘I’m not cross really, it’s, er, just, er . . .’ she stuttered.

  ‘Just Jerry,’ offered Will.

  Their eyes met. They hadn’t spoken since she’d stuck up for him at the dinner party over a week ago.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ Hannah acknowledged after an awkward pause. ‘Just Jerry.’ She looked away and turned to head towards the kitchen. ‘Come and look at the food mountain that he calls a party,’ she shouted over her shoulder.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Will when Hannah had shown him the supplies that had arrived throughout the day. ‘How many has he invited?’

  ‘God only knows,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m not sure whether he’s expecting me to sort all this food out either. He’s a great starter, but not the best finisher.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. The sight of all the food was actually starting to make her feel sick.

  ‘I could do with a hand,’ said Will. ‘If you need to get out of the kitchen, that is?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said instantly. ‘Definitely. Quite frankly I’ll go anywhere I can’t see cheese puffs floating in front of my eyes.’

  ‘Well then, follow me,’ he said, grabbing his toolbox and heading towards the basement door.

  ‘Are you coming tonight?’ asked Hannah from the bottom of a set of steps whilst Will balanced on the top, trying to screw up a set of disco lights.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Will. ‘Jerry’s asked all the sparkies and the builders who helped with the stage. It’s the hottest ticket in town over on the building site.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Are you kidding me? A party with singers and dancers? Tradesmen don’t get invited to parties like that.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Hannah.

  ‘The plumbers aren’t too happy though. They’ve been offering to fit loos, showers, bidets, full spas, you name it, just to get a look-in. One of them is thinking of retraining to be an electrician if that’s the type of job opportunities you get.’

  ‘So did you enjoy it then?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Working in show business?’

  He laughed. ‘It was all right,’ he said. ‘Best bit was seeing Tom working, really. Made me so proud to see him put that together. I could never do anything like that.’

  ‘But what you do is amazing too, you know – it takes so much skill. You really underestimate yourself. You should blow your own trumpet a bit more.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But I’m not in Tom or Jerry’s league, am I? They’re the real high-achievers. Confidence just oozes out of them. Oops, sorry.’ Will’s screwdriver clattered to the floor. Hannah went to retrieve it and handed it back to him. They smiled at each other. Hannah resumed her position at the bottom of the steps.

  ‘It can be hard being close to someone who’s really confident and outgoing, can’t it?’ she said. ‘It can make you feel like you pale into insignificance a bit. I’m sure next to Jerry I look like the grumpy, quiet one who holds him back.’

  ‘No,’ said Will, looking down at her and shaking his head. ‘That’s not true. No one sees you like that. Honestly. You can’t think like that.’

  ‘I think Jerry thinks like that,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I think Jerry thinks he’s a very lucky man,’ replied Will, holding his hand out to her. ‘Screw, please?’ he asked.

  Hannah silently handed him a screw. Will started humming as he battled with his screwdriver.

  ‘Do you want to know what I think?’ Hannah said eventually.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Will. ‘I’m coming down by the way.’

  Hannah stood back from the stepladder to let him down.

  ‘They aren’t as confident as you think, Jerry and Tom,’ she said. ‘I know they both come across that way, brimming full of it, like they could do anything. But they’re just like you and me really. I reckon everyone’s the same underneath. Exactly the same.’ She paused, looking straight at him as he got to the bottom of the ladder. ‘We all spend our lives trying desperately to say what we mean and hardly ever having the confidence to go through with it.’

  The room had somehow gone really quiet and still. Will’s expression didn’t change. She had no idea whether he understood what she’d said. She held his gaze.

  ‘I think that’s pretty much how most people live their lives,’ she added.

  Will hadn’t looked away. She couldn’t look away either.

  ‘You make life sound very depressing, when you put it like that,’ he said eventually.

  ‘It can be,’ said Hannah. She swallowed. She couldn’t believe what she was doing. She felt a bit faint.

  ‘Did you ever tell her?’ she asked.

  He flinched but said nothing.

  ‘The woman you said you wanted,’ she continued. ‘Did you tell her?’

  Will shook his head. She watched his Adam’s apple travel all the way up and down his neck.

  ‘You should just do it,’ she said quickly.

  He blinked several times, swallowed and then took a step back.

  ‘We should really test these lights and these speakers,’ he said slowly, his brow furrowed.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she sighed.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll just go and try the music and . . . and flick some switches. Don’t move.’

  Hannah gazed after him, rooted to the spot. She felt hot, then cold, then hot again as she watched him disappear behind Jerry’s bar and fiddle with the state-of-the-art sound system. A song Hannah instantly recognised came on and all of a sudden she was plunged into total darkness.

  ‘It’s all right, don’t panic,’ she heard Will shout.

  She wasn’t panicking. Sure, her heart was thumping really fast but she didn’t think that was panic.

  Suddenly her face was illuminated by floating coloured lights as the disco spots Will had put up burst into life. The glitter ball above her head started to swirl, casting sparkles at her feet. She thought she might burst into tears.

  And then there he was standing next to her, looking white as a sheet but with a determined look on his face. Hannah held her breath. What was she doing?

  ‘So we need to test these lights,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The only way to test disco lights is to dance underneath them, isn’t it?’ There was a slight quiver in his voice.

  She allowed a small smile to touch the corner of her mouth. ‘But I don’t dance,’ she replied, and then instantly regretted it.

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Will. He took a step forward and delicately picked up her hand. She could feel the slight roughness of his tradesman’s fingers. Her smile extended to the both corners of her mouth.

  He swayed gently and she found herself mirroring him. They danced like that, smiling at each other, with just their hands touching for most of the Ed Sheeran track. Their eyes roamed each other’s faces, searching, checking fo
r reassurance that this was really happening. As Hannah sensed the tune rising to its conclusion she felt her heartbeat accelerate. Their dance was already coming to an end and still they had only touched with their hands. Dare she take it further, lose herself in the music just for a moment, try it and see what it felt like?

  Yes, she thought, stepping forward at precisely the same moment as Will, who dropped her hands and folded his arms around her shoulders, drawing her into his chest. She sighed with relief as the cotton of his shirt pressed against her cheek, making her feel instantly at home. She slotted her feet in between his and they continued their soft swaying beneath the sparkling glitter-ball lights. She could hear that the song was about to call time on their first dance. But would it be their last? Her breath caught in her throat at the thought of it. Panic gripped hold of her and she jerked her head up to look into Will’s eyes before the tune ended. She had to know whether this was their first or last dance.

  She took one look in his eyes and knew the answer. There could only be one answer.

  ‘You are listening to Radio Cornerstone, and this is me, Colin Campbell, bringing the magic straight to your ears,’ boomed out of the speakers. Will and Hannah sprang apart at the surprise interruption but remained gazing at each other.

  ‘That was “Thinking Out Loud” from Ed Sheeran and hopefully it’s got you in the mood for our next guest, award-winning organic pig farmer, Mike Robson, who’s here in the studio with his prize-winning sausages and with his pigs. Yes, you heard me right, we have pigs live in the studio. Straight after all your local traffic news from Sandra Shephard.’

  ‘That fucker Mike Robson is always on the fucking radio,’ came a voice from the bottom of the stairs.

  They turned in horror to see Jerry’s arms piled high with boxes, staggering towards the bar. How long had he been there?