by Neal Doran
The two women had met at university, and their friendship had been one not quite of opposites attracting, but rather opposites reassuring each other that they were making the right decisions so they didn’t end up like the other. In Sophie, Rebecca had a friend who would do a lot of the things she wouldn’t, someone who took chances, would be spontaneous, inhale glamorous drugs when offered, and get involved in complicated affairs. And seeing the messes that Sophie ended up in as a consequence – how she felt her friend was trapped with an obsession with status and looks, constantly wrestling with the nagging idea there might be something else better out there – these made Rebecca feel happier about herself and her choices. It helped her remember she was getting what she wanted from life.
Sophie meanwhile had always said she couldn’t imagine how Rebecca didn’t go mad with the restricted life she lived. Looking at the wealth of experiences she’d had compared to those of her stay-at-home friend confirmed to Sophie that the drama in her life was worth it. However, all of Sophie’s other friends were people she’d met while pursuing her career or some form of excitement and were more like herself. It was nice to have somebody she could talk to about her latest trauma, who wouldn’t take the conversation and make it about themselves, or wouldn’t store up any admission of insecurity as a weapon for the next time they had a falling out.
‘You know you’ll never pass the birthday knicker test again now,’ Sophie told her.
Sophie had, since the age of nineteen, had a ritual. The annual Knicker Test. Back then she’d prepared for a big night at a university ball by spending money meant for books and food on lingerie from Agent Provocateur to impress her new boyfriend. But even money for books and food could only stretch so far, and all she’d bought had been a pair of knickers. Rebecca, who had the room in halls next to Sophie and would soon move into a student house with her, remembered being stunned at the price of them. It was more than she could imagine spending on pants for a lifetime. But they had looked and felt beautiful when she was examining them on Sophie’s cluttered desk, after her big trip to the shops to get them. They looked pretty amazing on Sophie too, Rebecca had had to concede, when her friend had walked out into the halls corridor wearing just them, a pair of heels, and a ratty old T-shirt bunched and tied above her waist. One of the other girl’s boyfriend’s, who’d popped over to revise a bit of French literature, seemed to think so too, much to the evident displeasure of his girlfriend.
The bra that would go with the pants would need to wait until she got another cheque from her parents or the student loans people, Sophie had said at the time. ‘Or you could just pop down to the by-pass looking like that, and make the money in no time,’ Rebecca had suggested. The rest of the big end-of-term night out had been fabulous for Sophie, and Rebecca remembered she’d had a pretty good time at her first ball too, although it did seem mainly to be a typical night of getting pissed and snogging the same people you always did, just in prettier clothes. The boys in their dinner jackets had seemed even more inclined than usual to pretending their fingers were guns and they were James Bond. Sophie and her boyfriend hadn’t lasted, and the bra had never been bought (‘Let’s face it, I don’t really need one with these bee stings anyway,’ Sophie had reflected), and the knickers had been wrapped up in the crepe paper and box they had come in. But every year they were taken out on Sophie’s birthday and tried on, to make sure she was managing to look as good as she had at nineteen. And she’d pretty much managed it. There was a year in her late twenties when the heels had started getting a little higher to get the same effect, and she wouldn’t do the test without just a touch of make-up, but she was still happy with the outcome.
Sophie seemed to be under the impression that this test was something everybody did. For years Rebecca had wondered how Sophie could even imagine needing to do such a thing every birthday, and what it was her friend was worried about. Sophie always looked great – a walking advert for the slimming effects of a vodka diet. But, at about the same time there was an increase in the height of the heels that Sophie needed to get the right level of bum pertness, Rebecca had noticed maybe not everything in the mirror was where it had once been. It gave her more of a jolt than she expected, never having been that worried about her looks, and always assuming that what she had she’d keep and she’d keep what she had. Her reaction to this development had been that maybe it was another sign that it was time to start thinking about a family, rather than to reach for the taller stilettos.
‘I’ve got tits!’ said Rebecca.
That was one of the main things she liked about talking to Sophie. She could say things like that without either of them batting an eyelid, whereas everyone else looked at her as if their sweet old nan had told a filthy joke, causing her to blush like a schoolgirl.
‘That can happen when you get hideously fat I hear,’ Sophie replied.
‘But that’s the thing! You wouldn’t notice the difference right now, weight-wise. I look exactly the same as I always do. Except I’ve got these breasts that have appeared out of nowhere.’
‘An instant boob job?’
‘Yep.’
‘Lucky bitch.’
‘It’s terrible really,’ Rebecca said. ‘People have been noticing them. It’s like being thirteen again, I’m walking everywhere with my arms folded across my chest trying to hide that they’re there.’
‘Would you like me to take you shopping for a training bra?’
‘Twice different guys in the office have asked if I’ve got a new outfit.’
‘Meaning, I hadn’t noticed them before.’
‘I know! I’ve seen them sneaking peeks as I walk past. This is entirely new for me.’
‘Well dear,’ said Sophie, ‘if you hadn’t been the only non-virgin in the country to insist that Wonderbra’s weren’t for you because they wouldn’t be as comfortable as your ratty old ones, you might have experienced this when you had a chance to do something with it.’
‘I think some of the older women in the office have noticed too and they’ve worked out what’s going on.’
‘Trust an embittered old hag to spot these things. Shouldn’t you tell someone before they sack you first to save on the maternity pay?’
‘They couldn’t do that could they?’ asked Rebecca. The silence at the other end of the line made her think it was the sort of thing Sophie might try and do.
‘I’m telling them next week, after the scan,’ Rebecca continued, ‘they’re always lovely about these things. At least, they always seem to be lovely.’
‘And so what else is new with you?’ Sophie asked. ‘Aside from that husband of yours being like a fumbling adolescent around your new jugs?’
Rebecca thought about mentioning that the whole issue of sex with James had got a bit cagey since the pregnancy was discovered. Sophie would be horrified and fascinated, but she didn’t want to confirm her friend’s suspicions of the horrors of family life too much. The stuff with her dad, Sophie would love too, and want all the gory details of. Rebecca would be able to say anything she wanted about it, without any judgements or repercussions from her friend, just her usual blunt ‘telling it like it is’ declarations getting to the heart of the matter. It might be helpful, ahead of the weekend’s Sunday lunch playing Happy Families. She could tell her everything she’d been bottling up for the last month.
‘No, that’s it. Nausea, knockers, not much else,’ she finally said.
The part of the conversation about her was now officially finished. Sophie could get on to the main purpose of her call, without fear of interruption.
‘Well, work has been hell for me. There’s this horrible sexual harassment case with my boss going through internal procedures at the moment. I mean really, it’s just a bit of fun, and if he doesn’t like it he shouldn’t dress like he does around the office. But of course, you can’t say that to them…’
With the careful precision of a bomb disposal expert who’s just had five pints, James guided his house key towar
ds the front door lock. Just a couple of goes dinked the metal disc of the Yale lock before he heard the crunch of the key finding its home. He turned it 360 degrees for the first click, and again for the double lock, before gently leaning his frame against the door to ease it open silently. Inside he twisted the knob to retract the locking mechanism into the door as he closed it gently, and then slowly released it into the jamb before slipping down the snib with a muffled click. He worried that maybe coming into the house so quietly might actually be a bad idea – that Rebecca might get a fright if the first she heard of him coming in was when he got to the bed. She might confuse him with a silent cat burglar. Then he walked into the coat stand, kicked over her heeled boots, and sent two umbrellas clattering onto the wood floor.
‘Sorry! Sorry,’ he whispered as loudly as he could, ‘just me. I’ll get some water. Sorry!’
Navigating the kitchen, the stairs and a wee sitting down, James crept into bed next to his wife.
‘Good work, darling,’ she mumbled into her pillow, ‘if you hadn’t knocked over the plants, I’d have been worried you were a rapist.’
‘Thanks. It was umbrellas.’
‘Your knees are freezing.’
‘You’ll help me warm up,’ he said softly into her hair, snuggling into her back. A low guttural growl emerged as he slid his arm over her side and his hand found a home on her breast.
‘How was Kam?’
‘Good, good. Seething slightly about everything as usual.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘Yep.’
‘Was he excited?’
‘Oh y’know, he squealed, we hugged, we both cried. Guy stuff. How was your evening?’
‘Sophie.’
‘You tell her?’
‘Yep.’
‘Excited?’
‘Same reaction as Kam. Although she did also mention I’m stuck with you now I’ve ruined myself for other men.’
‘I did that to you a long time ago,’ he said, squashing his groin in closer to her bum.
‘Easy, tiger,’ she said. She knew that he knew that any time spent talking to Sophie was likely to get her a little…revved up. But she had just been in a lovely cosy snooze when he’d woken her with the constant tip-tapping of his key against the edges of the lock when he was trying unsuccessfully to hit the target to get the door open. That doesn’t bode well, she smiled to herself, as she backed further into him, her foot sneaking between his calves.
‘Everything all right in there?’ he asked as his hand trailed down from her breast, and over her belly. He wasn’t going to mention it at a time like this, but he was pretty sure Bompalomp was making his presence felt now on her lower half as well as on the top.
‘All good. Ben & Jerry’s with crumbled ginger nuts on top makes us both happy.’
‘You seem pretty awake now,’ he said, his hand travelling further down towards her thigh, ‘and sexily un-nauseous’.
‘What’s that?’ she asked as an insistent nudging presence reached her lower back.
‘Well, you know. I’m awake, you’re half-conscious, it’s been a while.’
‘You’re not too…?’
‘Worried about waking up Bomp? I was being silly. The blighter’s big enough to look after itself now. Isn’t it?’
‘I was going to say pissed.’
She turned around to face him, slipping her hand into the elastic of his underpants.
‘So all it takes for you to get over being a bit squeamish is four pints and a bit of male bonding?’ she said with a smile. ‘Wish I’d known earlier.’
‘Five pints actually. And some crisps. And Maryland Chicken from outside the station.’
He leant in and they kissed. He thought that he couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a proper snog. He couldn’t understand why they’d left it so long as he manoeuvred his hand around her pajama buttons.
Then he jerked his hips slightly as she snapped the waistband of his briefs back in place.
‘Go brush your teeth first,’ she said, and smiled as he hopped out of bed and across the cold floor to the bathroom, tail wagging ahead of him.
Chapter 9
‘Gay men are being prosecuted in a way that’s almost Victorian – no, worse than that, it’s positively Thatcherite,’ said Margaret.
‘I think the point is rather it’s not gay men, it’s just men,’ Howard replied. ‘Ordinary decent men. And it’s this post-New Labour Tory party that are kowtowing to the arse-backwards political correctness, which is getting us caught up in it.’
‘Funny you should mention the word Victorian,’ said Ben. ‘Of course it was the architecture of the public lavatory system they built, with typically twee facilities that looked like traditional countryside homes, that gives us the term cottages for public toilets. This evolved into the term still used today, although the internet is making it somewhat obsolete.’.
‘Kids were flashed all the time when you were at school, Becky,’ said Howard. ‘I didn’t see it doing you any harm. You had a shriek and a giggle and ran away from the funny little men. They’d be on the comedy shows all the time, being chased around the park.’
‘Not that your father is a flasher of course, Becky. He’s not a flasher, James,’ Penny chipped in.
‘I was wearing my mac on the night mind you. Maybe that’s it, they were prejudiced against my coat!’
‘With all this emphasis on family values that this throwback Prime Minister throws about to justify his raping of the social security system, ridiculous prosecutions such as this were just waiting to happen,’ said Margaret.
‘My Burberry is a victim of society!’
‘I think I’d like to make a really powerful sculpture piece on this,’ said Margaret.
‘It’s those Lib Dems probably, bit of power and they turn into complete Nazis. See it a lot at work. Never let your secretary take on the title of Office Manager is my advice, this sort of thing happens every time.’
‘“Tea rooms” was another term used by the gay community in the United States, meaning roughly the same thing. It’s interesting that they share a similar somewhat genteel quality.’
‘Would anyone like a cup of tea? Or a sandwich?’
Rebecca and James sat leaning into each other in the middle of the overstuffed sofa in her parents’ living room, watching the grown-ups talk at them; Howard, in one of the big leather armchairs with Penny perched anxiously on the arm rest, Margaret sat across from him on the matching one, and Ben by the window gazing through the net curtains.
‘We’ve just finished dinner, Mum,’ said Rebecca.
‘A piece of cake then? A biscuit?’
‘Don’t think I could even manage that, Penny,’ said James. ‘Overdone it on the Wellington again. It was delicious.’
‘Not generally believed to be named after the warmongering duke, despite public perceptions,’ murmured Ben from the window. ‘It’s a name that really only appeared in the sixties, and was obviously embraced by the social-climbing middle classes for their dinner parties where they wouldn’t want to serve anything too “continental”.’
If James could have reached his dad to kick him in the shins, he would have done.
‘It was fabulous, Penny. A classic,’ he said instead.
‘The secret’s wrapping the beef in a pancake. I saw it on Saturday Kitchen.’
The room went quiet again.
‘So you’ll run an interview in the paper next week then? Respected businessman slandered in police sting,’ said Howard. ‘Hey, maybe PC sting? Police being politically correct and all that?’
‘Tory chief a victim of institutional homophobia,’ said Margaret.
‘These days I’m just an ordinary party member. But I suppose Chief’s a fair description for a headline – they do still look to me to advise on the big stuff. Although I don’t think it’s right I’m a victim…’
‘Top Tory fights prosecution persecution,’ mused Ben.
‘Hey, he’s a smart
cookie that husband of yours isn’t he? Wasted on the local rag, he could get a job at the Mail, you know.’
‘He knows people at the Guardian, I keep telling him to call.’
‘He’d run rings around them at the old Grauniad. Say, Lord Beaverbrook, can I offer you a post-prandial cigar?’
‘Oh. I’ve got my own blend thank you,’ said Ben tapping the tobacco tin in his shirt pocket. ‘I prefer the lighter –’
‘What kind are they?’ Margaret interrupted.
‘Montecristos, I believe,’ said Howard.
‘Cuban?’
‘Of course! Viva la revolución!’
‘I’ll have one with you, Howard. Of all the forms for tobacco, cigars are the least dangerous, personally and environmentally.’
‘Is that so? I’ll get you one, rolled on the thighs of some big hairy old communist.’
‘Of course access to them is still often restricted to men in this fragile phallocentric society.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make it a large one. You’re all right there, Penny? You wouldn’t want one of these filthy things…’
‘I’ll just get the dishwasher loaded.’
‘You know,’ said Ben, ‘the idea of rolling cigars on thighs is something of a myth but does have a basis in cultural…’
The last of the parents filed out of the room, leaving Rebecca and James alone with just the Sunday concert on Classic FM to break the silence.
‘What,’ asked James, ‘the fuck. Was that?’
They hadn’t been told his parents would be joining them for lunch. Presumably because her parents had known there was no way they would have shown up if they did, thought Rebecca. Actually, that wasn’t true, she realised. She and James would have been there early, making a concerted effort to ensure the two sets of parents had no opportunity to talk to each other about anything, especially politics after what had happened the last time.