by Fiona Harper
‘Hang on!’ said Candy.
‘Peggy!’ Claire shouted at the same time.
Peggy gave them a weary look. ‘You always order the same bloody thing every time,’ she told them, ‘no matter how long you spend picking the menu apart.’ She fixed her gaze on Claire. ‘Come on then.’
Claire released the smile she’d been hiding. ‘Nothing much to tell really. Lovely venue. Lovely party. Lovely people, darling …’
‘That’s it?’ Peggy asked, sounding more than a little disappointed.
‘Just about,’ Claire replied. ‘Oh, but I did go home with a man’s telephone number tucked inside my handbag.’
Peggy squealed and Candy leaned forward. ‘What’s he like?’ she asked, with the kind of vicarious interest reserved for ‘happily marrieds’ when discussing their single friends’ dating lives.
‘Nice,’ Claire said, her smile growing in wattage. ‘Very nice.’ She pulled the cocktail glass the barman had just placed on the bar towards her. ‘And not my usual type at all and maybe that’s a good thing. He’s the complete opposite of my ex.’
‘Really? How?’ Peggy asked.
Claire took a long cool sip of her Mojito and thought for a moment. ‘In my experience, the kind of man who likes to project a perfect image is always high maintenance in one way or another. Take Philip … No one would have thought that under all that grown-up sophistication lay the heart of a whining little boy.’
Peggy’s snorted in agreement. She’d heard all about Philip over the year or so Claire had known her, but Candy was a newer friend and hadn’t heard the whole story. She frowned slightly. ‘You’ve never really talked about him much. What do you mean “high maintenance”?’
Claire stared past the bartender to the mirrored shelves. In between the multicoloured bottles lined up there she could just about see fragments of her own reflection. How could she explain it? Many of her ‘married life’ friends had been just like Candy – nice husband, nice house, nice jobs – and they often hadn’t understood why she’d been unhappy with Philip. On the outside he’d seemed so dashing, so charming.
‘Oh, I don’t know … Take my work, for example. Things were fine when I was lower down the ladder at the ad agency, but then I was offered a couple of promotions and he didn’t like it much.’
‘He told you to turn them down?’ Candy was reassuringly shocked at the idea.
‘No. He was never that outright about things, much more passive-aggressive. He had this way of making these little comments. They’d sound perfectly reasonable on the surface.’
‘Such as?’
Claire shifted position and took another, longer slurp of her drink. ‘For example, when I’d tell him I had to stay late at the office, he’d say of course he wanted me to do well at my job, but …’ she paused to smile wryly ‘… with Philip there was always a but.’ She changed her tone to mimic the smooth, soothing one he’d used on her. ‘It’s just that you work so hard and I miss you when you’re not here. Can’t you say no? I only ask because I love you so much … And before I knew it I was sabotaging my own career, giving in to please him. It was a long time before I realised he never compromised the same way for me.’
Peggy scowled but Candy gave her a sympathetic look. ‘I’m lucky with Mike,’ she said, ‘but I know what it’s like to get a little caught up in being Mrs so-and-so, of wanting so badly for it to work that you’re prepared to give a little bit more than you should. Between that and the kids being really little, I kind of lost myself for a while. That’s why I joined the film club. I thought it was important to have outside friends, outside interests.’
‘Well, we’re very glad you did join,’ Claire said, smiling back at her, and that was definitely the truth. Candy was often the voice of sanity and reason amidst the other more colourful members of the Doris Day Film Club.
Peggy had been silent for a while, processing. She drained the last of her cosmopolitan and signalled for the barman to hit her again. ‘I still don’t think that sounds like the Claire I know.’
Claire sighed. ‘I know, I know … I let him change me, manipulate me to being what he wanted. It was just, after my father, I was so overwhelmed to have a man who loved me like that, who said everything I did was wonderful, that he couldn’t bear to be apart from me.’
Her soul had been hungry for those things for a long, long time, but, after a while, instead of feeling like a lovely warm nest she could snuggle down in, those little requests, those little things he asked her to do for him, multiplied and multiplied, until she felt hemmed in, until breathing had felt difficult once again.
‘In the end, I realised I’d been allowing him to slowly carve away at me, shaping me into who he wanted me to be.’ She paused to let out a low self-mocking chuckle. ‘You know what?’
‘What?’ Candy and Peggy said in unison.
‘He reminded me of those insect-eating plants – you know the ones I’m talking about?’
‘I think so,’ Candy said.
‘The kind that trap flies?’ Peggy asked.
‘Yup,’ Claire said, ‘that’s them. I saw a programme on the Discovery Channel once. Did you know some of them produce narcotic fluid? Once the flies are trapped in the pitcher they don’t bother climbing out again. They’re so affected by all that lovely, hazy sweetness that they hardly notice they’re being slowly digested.’
‘Ew!’ Candy said.
Peggy just laughed. ‘That’s a bit dramatic!’
Claire gave her a knowing look. ‘Well, firstly, pot calling the kettle black! And, secondly, that’s how he made me feel – as if he was slowly squeezing the life out of me, giving me the appearance of freedom, but keeping me trapped buzzing around him with no hope of escape.’
Candy finished shuddering. ‘But you did escape.’
‘Yes,’ Claire said, her tone grateful. ‘I woke up. It all happened when he got fixated on the idea of having a baby.’
‘You didn’t want one?’ Candy asked, sounding surprised. ‘I think you’d make a great mum.’
Claire felt something warm flood her chest. ‘Thank you. There was nothing – nothing – I wanted more than to have the kind of happy secure family I never had.’
She’d wanted to have babies, like Candy had, that grew into cute toddlers. She’d wanted to love them and cuddle them and tell them they were wonderful and they could fly and be whatever they wanted to be.
‘But contemplating all that with Philip suddenly brought my marriage sharply into focus. It didn’t feel like a dream come true when I thought about it. It felt like a life sentence.’
‘So you left?’ Candy asked.
Claire shook her head. ‘If only I’d been that sensible. I was daft enough to keep on trying. We went to counselling and I felt really hopeful when he said all the right things at the sessions, said how much he wanted to change, but when we got back home he’d just carry on the way he always had. It was like he just couldn’t have a grown-up conversation, you know? Instead, he resorted to emotional blackmail and manipulation. Finally, I asked for some breathing space. I couldn’t think straight with him hovering around me all the time. The more he tried to hold on to me, the more restless I got. We separated. I suppose a part of me still hadn’t given up, although I didn’t realise that until he announced he’d found someone else. Claire, mark two.’
Candy looked disgusted. ‘What? A younger, more malleable model?’
Claire let out a snort of dry laughter ‘Yes, and yes. And the total irony is she actually is called Claire, and she’s just as needy and clingy as he is. They really make the perfect couple.’
Peggy made gagging noises and Claire wanted to hug her for it.
‘Honestly, Peg, I ought to thank her for taking him off my hands. The longer we’ve been apart, the more I see that. And Philip isn’t a monster. He just isn’t the man he pretended to be when we first met. I wish them well.’
‘God, you’re in great shape about it,’ Candy said. ‘I’d be a mess if Mike
did that to me.’
Peggy nodded. ‘Me? When I’ve been dumped, all I can do is fantasise about slashing his tyres – or something else vital – and then I curl into a ball and cry for a week.’
‘I’ve moved on,’ Claire said simply. She didn’t want to think about the other Claire, her belly currently stretched round with her first child, because every time she did she felt a pang of something sharp and ugly. Jealousy. And anger. Anger that Philip had stolen almost a decade of her life on false pretences and that she seemed to have paid the price for that, not him.
‘Anyway, I’m not sure how I got on to digging up ancient history, especially as there’s a new guy on the horizon – maybe – and he’s nothing like Philip.’
‘Yay!’ Peggy said, returning to her earlier cheeky mood. ‘So when are you going to meet up and get naked together?’
Claire let out a throaty laugh then she slurped as much mojito as she could from around the large chunks of ice in her glass with her straw. ‘I’m not jumping into anything too fast this time around. I did that with Philip and look where it got me.’
Peggy made a disappointed face. ‘You’re no fun,’ she chided.
‘So you’re always telling me.’
Claire took once last sip of her drink, making sure she really had got it all, and looked at the woman in the mirror opposite her.
No, no matter what Peggy said, this time she wasn’t going to be blinded by whatever chemicals addled her brain at the start of a relationship. She was going to take things slowly, get to know him, really check him out. And if he didn’t like that, well, maybe he wasn’t the right one for her anyway.
Chapter Thirteen
A Wonderful Guy
Dominic stood outside Pete’s front door, feeling a sense of déjà vu because of the bunch of flowers and bottle of wine in his hands. They were from the petrol station again, but one with a Marks & Spencer food shop, so they were much classier than the previous ones. Pete opened the door. ‘Hey,’ he said, somewhat less enthusiastically than he had last time.
‘Hey,’ Dominic said back, then followed his best friend inside.
Ellen was ready and waiting, hair brushed, blouse ketchupfree. She received his peace offerings gratefully and gave him a hug and a kiss. ‘I’m so glad you could make it.’
Was he mistaken, or did he hear a soft grunt from Pete’s direction?
Ellen shook her head and looked first at her husband then at Dominic. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met two such thickheaded, stubborn men! It’s about time you both stopped sulking and made up.’ She glanced over at Sammy, who was glued to something with robots and strange creatures on the TV. ‘His emotional age is higher than yours at the moment, and that’s saying something after the lie-down tantrum he pulled in the supermarket this afternoon.’ With that, she stomped from the room into the kitchen, which left him and Pete staring at each other.
Dominic scuffed his shoe on the carpet. ‘Sorry I was a bit touchy last time,’ he mumbled.
‘A bit?’ Pete said, but he shot a look over his shoulder towards the kitchen and reconsidered the tack he was taking. Ellen might seem sweet and lovely, but both of them knew she was like a rabid Rottweiler when her patience finally snapped. Dominic was guessing that if Pete wanted to get lucky sometime in the next six months he was going to have to do as he was told. ‘Sorry I opened my big fat mouth,’ Pete mumbled back. ‘I don’t think you’re a loser.’
Dominic let out a weary breath. ‘I know. It’s just …’
Pete nodded, and Dominic knew he knew too. Pete walked towards him and gave him a stiff hug. Dominic patted him on the back and then they pulled apart and looked away from each other.
‘Want a beer?’ Pete asked.
‘Always,’ Dominic replied and, just like that, all the tension between them melted away as if nothing had ever happened.
Pete went to the kitchen, where his wife gave him an approving smile, and got a couple of bottles out of the fridge. Dominic went up to Ellen, gave her another hug and whispered an apology for running out on her and her spag bol as well, then he and Pete sat at the kitchen table and sipped their beers, half watching her as she bustled round the kitchen roasting a chicken. Dominic’s mouth was already watering, even though it looked as if the bird still had a long way to go.
‘What have you been up to since we last saw you?’ Ellen asked. ‘How’s work?’
Dominic shrugged. ‘I’ve been doing more research on that free-diving documentary. It turned out a couple of the top people in the sport were passing through London last week, so I met up with them and asked if they’d like to be involved if I get this thing off the ground. They also gave me some useful pointers about research.’
‘Did they say yes?’
Dominic nodded. ‘The more I find out about free-diving, the more it intrigues me. I mean, going that far beneath the waves without scuba gear is dangerous. It takes intense concentration and training. I’m not sure I could do it.’
Ellen shuddered. ‘Neither could I! All that water above my head …’
‘I’d do it,’ Pete said, with an air of confidence.
His wife turned and gave him a look. ‘Give over. You had a panic attack snorkelling in Spain the other year.’
‘No I didn’t! A speedboat went past and sloshed water into my snorkel, that was all. It was a coughing fit, pure and simple.’
Ellen snorted softly and peered at the chicken in the oven.
‘Well, that’s what I want to explore,’ Dominic said, steering the conversation back on track. ‘I want to find out about the sort of people that do this, about their tight-knit community. How do they not panic when oxygen is just a distant memory, knowing that people die each year doing what they do? How does knowing they’re so far below the surface with no safety net not freak them out of their tiny little minds?’
‘That sounds really interesting,’ Ellen said. ‘Anything else new?’
Dominic sighed. ‘I’ve also been to the physio a couple of times. He’s given me a bunch of exercises to do three times a day – which I’m actually doing, mainly just to stave off the boredom. It’s all thrilling stuff.’
She made a sympathetic face. ‘I thought you loved your job.’
‘I do. It’s just … I don’t really like the desk stuff. I only do it so I can get to the good bit, which is going out there and filming things, seeing the big wide world. Unfortunately, all I have at the moment is desk stuff, stretching on forever and ever, it seems. As you can see, I’m finding it all fairly depressing. Can we talk about something else?’
‘Okay,’ Pete said. ‘In other news … What’s up with you and your upstairs neighbour? Has she hired a hit man to put a bullet through your forehead yet?’
‘No,’ Dominic replied, chuckling to himself. ‘And she’s not going to, either.’
Pete gave him a disbelieving look. ‘And why, pray, would that be?’
Dominic grinned at his best friend. ‘Because for once in my life I’ve decided to take your advice about women.’
Pete slumped in his sear, pretending to faint, but Ellen poked him with a spatula on her way to the vegetable drawer and he miraculously woke up again.
Dominic didn’t mind the theatrics. He knew he was holding the trump card. He kept smiling. ‘I’m going to ask her out to an early bird dinner, just like you suggested.’
That’s when Pete stopped mucking around and looked as if he was going to faint for real. ‘What?’
Dominic just shrugged. ‘I’m going to do everything I can to win her round and make her mine, what can I say?’
Ellen stopped heaping carrots onto the chopping board. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Deadly.’
There was silence in the kitchen.
‘You said I didn’t have what it takes to be romantic,’ he told Pete. ‘You have to admit, if I can woo this particular woman and get her to like me, then you’ll have to admit you were wrong.’
Pete held his hands up. ‘Hell,
I’ll admit I’m wrong now if you want! And that’s not exactly what I said. But, Nic, there’s proving a point and then there’s …’ he paused to shudder ‘… proving a point.’
Dominic couldn’t hold it back any longer. He burst out laughing.
When he’d finally got his breath back and wiped his eyes, he looked them square in the eyes. ‘Don’t look at me like that. What I didn’t tell you is that the old lady who lived upstairs doesn’t live there any more – her granddaughter does.’
The look of relief that washed across his friends’ faces almost set him off again.
‘Why didn’t you say so?’ Pete asked.
Dominic grinned back at him. ‘Because it was too much fun watching you two do the mental gymnastics.’
‘You’re a sadist,’ Ellen said, as she turned back to her carrots, but she was smiling as she shook her head.
Pete thumped him on the back. ‘Good one! Now …’ He leaned forward. ‘Tell me about this granddaughter. Is she hot?’
‘I’m standing right here!’ Ellen called out over her shoulder.
‘Aw, Ellie, you know you’re the only one for me,’ he crooned, all the while nodding at Dominic, egging him on.
Ellie humphed. ‘Come and peel these carrots then and prove it.’
Pete sighed, took his beer with him to the other side of the kitchen and took over. Ellen swiped the beer back while he wasn’t looking and went to sit opposite Dominic. ‘Is she nice?’ she said, getting a dreamy look in her eyes. ‘I could do with some female company when you come round. With him and him,’ she said, nodding in the direction of first Pete then her son in the living room, ‘I’m trapped in a testosterone-filled world, where the punchline to every joke involves bottoms or farts. You raise the standard slightly, but not much.’
Dominic chuckled. ‘She’s nice. Clever. Funny.’ He shot a glance at Pete, hard at work peeling carrots and decided to throw him a bone. ‘And blonde.’
Pete punched the air and mouthed the word ‘result!’ while his wife’s back was turned.