by Adele Parks
‘Is that how you remember it?’ she asks, still smiling, but even through my drunken haze I sense a bite of curiosity. Most people are fairly interested in how they’re remembered by others; Abi has a keener sense of that than most. I think it’s because she’s on TV and it matters what people think of her or say of her. It’s not vanity. It’s a professional interest. A necessity.
‘There were always loads of boys after you. You had your share of casual dates.’ I decide dates is the most tactful way to describe what went on. Our rooms were next to each other. We went headboard to headboard with just a thin wall separating us. I didn’t get much sleep.
Abigail waves her hand dismissively. She doesn’t attach any importance to those hopeless hopefuls, and so they’ve slipped her memory. ‘I only ever wanted Rob,’ she says firmly. ‘I just hung out with the other guys to make him jealous.’
This is possible. I’ve never considered it before but it smacks of the sort of game Abi might have felt she needed to play to secure Rob. To capture his attention, she had to ignore him and run around with various other boys. At the time, I’d assumed she just wasn’t sure about him or was just not that into him. One minute she would be lavishing him with attention, the next, freezing him out. It was exhausting and confusing.
Turning to Becky and Gillian, Abi explains, ‘Rob had more than his share of young women falling at his feet. Everyone was mad about him, weren’t they Mel?’
The air is heavy and forlorn; before it had been light and promising. She should be talking about her new man, not Rob. ‘This is ancient history. Bring us up to date,’ I insist.
‘Oh, yes, tell us all the details. We’re happily married; no news to report, nothing to see here,’ jokes Gillian.
‘By which she means we’re only having very predictable, comfortable sex, we want to hear about your wildness!’ adds Becky. ‘Tell, tell, tell.’
A few couples turn in our direction; the men look uncomfortable, some of the women look envious. We’re having more fun. We order another round of cocktails and sip them while Abi tells us she is winking, poking, tweeting, messaging. She’s meeting, flirting, kissing, and fucking. That’s how she says it.
I’m making a concerted effort and I hope my face is not looking as shocked as I indeed am. I knew she was having sex with a man she calls Stud. She’d told me that much. Which I thoroughly approved of. She is a newly single woman in her thirties with some time to make up, a score to settle, an ego to re-inflate and a heart to glue. There is a lot to be done. Of course, she should be getting busy. But the way she said it. Fucking. The word seems brutal, brave, raw. It confuses me. Shocks and excites me.
It must be the drink. I wonder what it is like to be her. Someone who can say what she likes, dress how she likes, drink, smoke, eat what she likes. I have never been that woman. She can have sex on a whim. I have sex on a Friday. Clockwork. Not complaining, just saying.
‘Ahh, starting a new relationship.’ Becky lets out a fond sigh. ‘So long ago.’
‘It is amazing. Everything Stud says and does is fresh and interesting, you know. The way he talks to waiters. The way he wears his clothes. The way he walks into a room.’ Her eyes are shining wildly. She’s giggling, gleaming, glorious.
‘Really, Stud?’ Gillian’s tone is teasing.
‘Pet names are a minefield, aren’t they? I know it’s not that original but he likes it. I have variations. My Stud, Stud Man, Stud Muffin. Stud Boy. He calls me Honey Butt,’ Abi admits with a slow smile.
‘When will we meet him?’ I ask.
She immediately looks alarmed. ‘Oh no, I don’t think so, I mean, he’s in London.’
‘We could come to London,’ I say eagerly. ‘Actually, Ben and I should get away, have a break.’ We really could do with spending some time together. ‘I’d love a weekend break in London. Liam would look after the girls,’ I enthuse. I’m ready to book the tickets this instant.
‘No. no. That’s far too much trouble to put everyone through. No,’ she says firmly, shaking her head vehemently. ‘I’ll introduce him to you when I’m ready.’
Suddenly I panic. ‘Oh no, Abi, no. He’s not married, is he?’
She looks stunned. Sad. Shocked. All these emotions flash across her face in an instant. ‘No, no of course not. I’d never do that to another woman. I have more self-respect than that.’
‘Then why can’t I meet him?’
‘He’s—’
‘What?’
‘He’s younger than I am,’ she says carefully.
‘So?’
‘Quite a bit younger.’
‘I see. Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?’ I’m thinking of Rob here. His PA was years younger than him. No one ever bats an eyelid when some old fella bags a young beauty.
‘But the problem is, I lied to him about my age.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘I talk about you all the time. He knows we went to university together but . . . ’ She breaks off, shrugs, looks apologetic and embarrassed. She doesn’t need to say any more. She can pass for someone maybe a decade younger than she is, if needs be. I can’t.
‘So how old is he?’ I ask.
‘Young,’ she says with a grin that shows she’s not completely worried about this.
‘How young?’
‘I don’t want to say.’ Her fingers grasp her glass. Her knuckles are white. Becky and Gillian are all eyes and ears.
‘Come on, tell me. What’s the age gap?’ I swizzle my glass between my fingers and thumb.
‘He’s twenty-three.’
‘Abigail!’
‘No, just kidding, twenty-six.’ She says it in a way that sounds like a question. As though she’s not absolutely sure, or maybe not being absolutely truthful. Is she trying to find an age she thinks I’ll consider reasonable?
‘You go, girl.’ Gillian holds her hand in the air waiting for Abi to high-five her. Abi leaves her hanging because she’s watching me, waiting for my response.
‘Oh.’ I take a big slurp of my cocktail and concentrate on what I should say next. The thoughts running through my head are, Well this won’t last, she’s going to get hurt and What do they talk about? I’m also a bit taken aback that she hasn’t told me this thing about the age gap before now, but if I act freaked out I guess she’ll stop telling me anything. I don’t want that. I like her stories. Some of them make me uncomfortable. Maybe even a little envious. Not jealous, exactly, not that. It’s just her world is so exciting and free. She got to be young when she was actually so and now she’s behaving like a teen again. Sometimes it seems that I have never been young.
But then, I think of her arriving on my doorstep, drooping, depleted, despairing and I manage to rein in all my negativity. She is owed some fun.
‘How fabulous,’ I state firmly, or perhaps slur firmly. I probably should stop drinking now. She beams at me, grateful, elated.
‘You think so?’
‘Absolutely. I mean, young men have some obvious advantages, right?’ We all giggle like schoolgirls.
Abigail sees this as permission to reveal every last detail about their sex life. I hadn’t been aware there was anything else for her to tell us, but apparently there is. There really is. She tells us that he can indeed do it two or three times a night, various positions, various locations.
‘I now really know what they mean by a leg trembler,’ she laughs. She divulges that he’s grateful for guidance and very responsive, that he can’t get enough of her. ‘You know, I might be in the shower and he follows me in there.’ She discloses that she’s shaved everything clean away because it’s what he prefers; apparently, he’s clean-shaven down there too.
‘Noooo,’ we chorus in unison.
‘Is that a thing?’ I ask.
‘Seems so,’ she nods.
‘I thought that was just gay men,’ says Becky, trying to sound more worldly wise than she in fact is.
‘Nope. They all do it. It makes their cocks look
bigger.’
I can’t stop myself – my hand goes to cover my mouth, like a cartoon of someone expressing surprise. ‘But why do they need to make their willies look bigger at that point?’ I ask. ‘I mean, you know, you’re there . . . ’ I hesitate, unsure how to finish the sentence. ‘You’ve already demonstrated that you’re into him.’
‘For photos and films and stuff,’ Abi replies, casually shrugging.
I dare not meet Gillian’s or Becky’s eyes. I don’t think I want to see them feign sophistication or look shocked or embarrassed or – and this would be the absolute worst – see that they totally are into photographing and filming their sex lives.
‘I feel so old,’ groans Gillian.
‘Of course, I know this stuff goes on,’ says Becky, in a way that suggests the opposite.
When Liam was a few years younger, his school ran a course about safety on the internet. I remember having that excruciating talk with him about not sharing photos. I remember some parents just advised their kids never to show their faces and their bits on the same shot. I thought this was defeatist advice. Ben said it was perhaps realist’s advice. These things go on. We all talked about it as parents; it was theoretical. It was something our children might get mixed up in. It was not for us. But then, Abigail isn’t a parent. She might be four months older than I am but since she hasn’t given birth three times over, she’s somehow managed to time travel or drink from the elixir of youth. I feel a bit envious.
‘What would Ben say if you suggested filming yourselves making love?’ Abi asks.
‘Well, once he stopped laughing, he’d probably be up for it, but I’d never offer,’ I reply.
‘Why not?’
‘Why would I want to look at my own wobbly body? I put a considerable amount of energy into skirting past the mirror to avoid my reflection.’
‘I can’t imagine Abi has any wobbly bits, at least not other than those you are supposed to shake,’ says Becky.
Abi doesn’t contradict her; she has no time for false modesty. Instead she gives us a lot of detail about where they meet up and what they do. What he says to her. We interrupt from time to time but overall, she waxes lyrical. We enjoy the way she’s telling their story. He sends her cheeky messages on Snapchat – they contrast with a short-term shyness that always dominates the first few minutes of each of their hookups. She tells us about her hesitation about their age gap, his insistence. His sweetness, his selflessness that convinced her they had a connection. It’s passionate and fascinating. She seems really smitten by this guy.
We order more alcohol and it becomes impossible to discern whether she’s drunk on cocktails or on lust. It doesn’t matter. It feels jubilant and exciting and I’m so happy to be a part of it. Even if I’m just an observer. Right now, I feel amazing. Youthful and brilliant. OK, this isn’t my love affair, I wouldn’t want it to be, but I am getting an indisputable high just listening to Abi talk about ‘The Stud’. I’ll take what I can get.
It’s only when we start to realise that there’s no one else in the hotel bar, that the waiters are all stood about in the corners of the room looking resentful, that we think to ask for the bill.
Becky punches numbers into the calculator app on her phone, as none of us seem capable of dividing by four.
‘Have you got a picture of him? This Stud?’ asks Gillian. She’s dealing with quite a severe case of hiccups. It’s hilarious. She lunges for Abi’s phone, which is face down on the table between us, and starts looking through the pics. ‘I can’t see a bloody thing,’ she moans. ‘I’ve drunk too much. Jeez, this is your porn,’ she yells suddenly, almost dropping the phone. The bartender looks up sharply. So do Becky and I.
Abi quickly snatches back her phone. ‘I don’t have the sort of photos I can show you,’ she says with an embarrassed laugh.
‘Make sure you get one next time you see him. One of his face,’ instructs Gillian.
‘Will do,’ she replies lightly. ‘Come on, let’s get a taxi.’
I don’t want to pour cold water but as we are waiting for the cab I can’t stop myself murmuring. ‘Listen, be careful, hey? You’ve been through a lot this year.’
Abi smiles at me. Her face is bright and open. ‘You have nothing to worry about. Honestly, take that expression off your face. I want this. I really do. This is what I need.’
30
Melanie
Abi says she’s going to have a fag before she goes to bed so heads out to the back garden. Politeness dictates that I should keep her company but I don’t want to. It’s late and I’m drunk. I yawn ostentatiously and mumble about having to get up at six forty, as usual, tomorrow. She naturally responds by saying there’s no need for me to keep her company and shoos me. As I walk upstairs, I reach out to the wall to steady myself. Ben is already in bed but not asleep. He’s reading a magazine about the economy.
The alcohol has made me feel a bit frisky.
That and Abi’s talk of her new lover.
It was odd hearing Abi go into so much detail about her sex life. I am at the stage in my relationship that I don’t talk about sex with anyone, not even Ben. We just get on with it. When I first met Ben, I was so absorbed in a wondrous frenzy of lust that I was a bit like Abi was tonight – I’d have told anyone who’d listen every detail. We took a lot of risks back then. It wasn’t that we were thrill seeking, it was that we couldn’t contain ourselves, we seized every opportunity to tear each other’s clothes off. As the years have gone by, more kids have come along and things have, naturally, settled down. It’s not that we have dull sex. It’s intense and incredible sex, but talking about it no longer seems daring and fun, it just seems a bit messy. I get embarrassed by it. I mean, if you think about sex for too long it becomes comical.
I don’t want to think about it.
I want to do it.
‘Boring,’ I say in a sing-song voice, as I snatch the economics magazine from Ben. He looks a bit irritated.
‘Hey, you’ll rip that.’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me about my night?’ I start undressing on the spot. Well, not exactly the spot, I’m swaying ever so slightly, despite my best but doomed intentions, to appear sober. Ben glances at my discarded garments with a hint of a rebuke. I don’t care, I’ll be the one picking them up in the morning, it’s not like I’m asking him to do it. ‘Well, aren’t you?’ I demand.
‘I imagine you’re going to tell me,’ he says pleasantly enough, accepting I’m too hyped to quietly slip into bed.
‘She’s only gone and got herself a toy boy.’ I deliver this news triumphantly. The glamour of it.
‘Really?’
‘A twenty-six-year-old lover.’ The scandal of it. ‘She’s fucking a twenty-six-year-old.’ I feel a bit self-conscious because I’m stood in my bra and pants now. Yes, the flesh-coloured ones. That sort of word demands a bit more from underwear. I’m not sure why I even used it. I should have said dating. Only, that wouldn’t cover it. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Well, what do you think?’
He shrugs. ‘Nothing much.’ I stare at him, stunned by his lack of reaction. Becky and Gillian were far more involved and they’ve only known Abi a matter of hours.
‘I’m pleased for her,’ he adds, yawning.
I punish him, hold back the juicy details and march into the bathroom to clean my teeth. Once done, and naked, I slip under the duvet but my friskiness was fleeting. I’m now at the stage of drunk when I feel sleepy, heavy, achy. I put my cold feet on him and he doesn’t even flinch. There are about a hundred thousand things about Ben that make me smile – his ability not to flinch when I put icy feet on him is one of them.
‘I hope she enjoys it while it lasts,’ he murmurs.
A flash of irritation shimmies through me. It’s the cocktails. I’m never good on spirits. I become unpredictable, unstable. I take offence easily and I’m argumentative. I never remember that when I’m necking them.
‘Why won’t it la
st?’ I demand hotly, even though I had the exact same thought about the unlikeliness of longevity.
‘They’ll want different things. If not now, then a few months down the line. Certainly by a few years down the line. It’s a novelty thing.’
‘Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron seem to have managed.’
‘I suppose, but they’re French. The French have different rules when it comes to sex. No rules at all, actually.’
‘What about Madonna? She’s always dating significantly younger men,’ I point out.
‘Oh yes, she’s everyone’s role model.’
‘Well why not? And Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. There was about thirteen years’ age difference between them.’
‘They divorced.’
‘After twenty-three years. It was a good innings. Anyway, isn’t she dating some guy thirty-one years her junior now? I think. Or she certainly was at one point.’
‘Some people never learn.’
‘You’re being sexist,’ I accuse crossly. ‘No one would care in the least if it was the other way around. There’s a quarter of a century age gap between Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall.’
‘Unquestionably a love match,’ he points out, dryly. He sighs. Bored of my regurgitation of facts gleaned from my favourite gossip magazines. ‘I’m not saying I object.’
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘Nothing. It’s none of my business.’ He rolls over and turns off his bedside lamp. Lies with his back to me.
‘Nothing?’ I mumble grumpily.
I’m unwilling to turn out my lamp too. I start to think of the things Abi told us about her lover. Three times. They had sex three times in one night. Almost a month’s worth of sex! I shuffle closer to Ben, my cool body next to his hot one. I want to caress him, arouse him. My hand comes down a little heavily, more of a flop. Ben slowly rolls over, lies on his back too, staring at the ceiling. He takes hold of my hand and squeezes it. It’s an affectionate gesture but one that says sex is not on the agenda. It’s the gentlest of possible turn-downs. I guess he’s tired. He has his weekly status meeting with his boss tomorrow; the last thing he needs is a shag-hangover. Sometimes it amuses me how long it takes us to recover from sex nowadays; sometimes it makes me feel melancholic.