Good Husband Material

by Trisha Ashley

  Sun

  I spotted Tish almost immediately, although she was about as far away from me as it was possible to get and still be present at the dinner, and she was also trying to hide behind a large, flamboyant-looking lady. But that unmistakable red-gold hair shining in the light of the chandeliers gave her away.

  All through the dinner and the award presentation (a singularly tasteless trophy) I was acutely conscious of her eyes on me, and wondered what she was thinking.

  I should have resisted the urge to be here tonight, to see her again, but I didn’t mean to try and speak to her until she positively leaped from the table at the end of the meal and scuttled from the room.

  Just because we once went out together, it doesn’t mean we can’t meet in a civilised manner … does it?

  Only I found I wasn’t feeling very civilised. I wanted to follow after her and drag her back by the hair.

  It was a real effort to be pleasant to the people besieging me, until I spotted the large dark lady clad in flowing cherry red who had been sitting next to Tish among them.

  Ten minutes later I was in possession of the information that Tish was actually putting up at the hotel that night, that her friend knew she had once gone out with me, but that she hadn’t thought I would be there that night and didn’t want to meet me. Also that the small sprightly man circling the edge of the group around me was Tish’s agent, Vivyan Dubois.

  I was also in possession of the lady’s phone number. She said she really preferred blond men, but was always willing to make an exception in a good cause!

  I decided I was going to speak with Tish – be cool and show her that I didn’t mind meeting her – how little she meant to me.

  Nothing else, just a ‘How are you, well, nice to see you again’ conversation.

  In private.

  It took less than five minutes for me to obtain Tish’s room number from her agent: he reminded me of Hywel.

  Chapter 15: Brief Encounter

  ‘Oh God!’ I groaned, starting awake with a pounding heart, throbbing head and dry mouth and staring wildly about the hotel room, empty apart from myself and a scattering of clothes. I felt as if I’d gone three rounds with a grizzly, and the sheets were tied into one big knot.

  For a minute I thought I’d just had the lurid dream to end all dreams – and then it all began to come back to me. I had gone three rounds with a grizzly, and I had the aches in strange places to prove it.

  I went hot from my feet to my head in one giant wave: Miz Scarlett.

  What had I done? Had I done …? Did I …?

  What the hell did I drink last night?

  I clutched my head and tried to remember. Vivyan. Wine with dinner. Drinks with Peggy in the bar … trying to stay upright as I walked the undulating corridor to my room.

  I’d have been all right if Fergal hadn’t been waiting for me, if when he touched me I hadn’t …

  Did I really?

  He must have seen I’d had too much to drink and taken advantage of me … except I have this awful feeling that I took advantage of him. I remember touching him and feeling that I just wanted to wrap myself in him for comfort, like a duvet.

  Some duvet.

  I think my body’s wearing a smirk, even if the rest of me is Disgusted, Ashamed and Mortified.

  It’s all James’s fault – it was the shock of seeing him with Vanessa that sent me off the rails. But now, in the cold light of day, perhaps I made too much of it. There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation. James is not like that.

  But then – I am not like this. Am I?

  Not that infidelity with Fergal really is infidelity, since I knew him first … so it sort of doesn’t count. Well, you know what I mean.

  But when I apply that to James and Vanessa, it does count – if they are – if they did …?

  I wished my head would stop pounding so I could think.

  A knock on the door signalled a big pot of coffee, which Vivyan must have arranged, because I’m sure I wasn’t capable of thinking about it last night. I must apologise to him for getting in such a state.

  After the coffee, some aspirins out of my handbag and a long shower, I began to think I’d live after all. I even began to wonder if I’d dreamed the whole sorry episode, since there was no sign that Fergal had ever been in the room, apart from the odd slight bruise (very odd). No message, nothing.

  But the photocopy, which I do remember crumpling up and hurling away before I went down to dinner, had been smoothed out and now lay on the carpet like a small, strange rug. Ikea might find a market for that design.

  While I was puzzling over the implications of this, the phone rang and it was James.

  ‘Tish? It’s me. Where’s my green and terracotta silk tie?’

  He sounded normal (cross). I cleared my throat and suggested, ‘The tie rack?’

  ‘Are you all right? Your voice sounds a bit strange.’

  ‘I drank a bit too much last night.’

  ‘Welcome to the human race!’

  ‘I hadn’t realised drinking yourself senseless was the qualification,’ I said coldly.

  ‘Look, Tish, I’ll have to go or I’ll be late—’

  ‘I saw you yesterday on my way to the hotel – with a blonde woman. You had your arm round her,’ I blurted, quite without meaning to. (Mouth out of Control Again syndrome.)

  There was a pause short enough for me to think I’d imagined it, then he said aggrievedly,‘You did? Then I wish you’d stopped! I needed a taxi, and there’s never one when you want one. I was taking Beryl home.’

  ‘Beryl?’

  ‘You know, the clerk. Small, blonde, plump, wears glasses. What’s the matter with you? You surely didn’t think …? You did, didn’t you! You thought you’d caught me out! If this is all the trust you have in me, I—’

  ‘Why,’ I interrupted, clasping my aching brow with my free hand, ‘did you have your arm round her? And I don’t remember Beryl.’

  ‘She had a terrible migraine – spots before the eyes and all that. Couldn’t have got home alone. If you’d stopped and asked, instead of swanning off to your hotel thinking the worst, we could have used your taxi.’

  ‘She looked exactly like Vanessa!’

  ‘Vanessa? Vanessa isn’t blonde.’

  ‘I’ve seen Vanessa, James – at our wedding – remember? She is blonde.’

  ‘She was, but she’s let it go back to its natural colour, a sort of reddish brown.’

  ‘She – she isn’t blonde?’ Suddenly I started to feel seriously ill again. ‘Oh! Well – well, I’m sorry, James, but it did look suggestive, you must admit.’

  ‘You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,’ he informed me coldly. ‘It was Beryl, and she’s years older than me, with two teenage children. Look, I’ll have to go. Don’t wait dinner for me tonight, I might have to work late.’

  ‘But, James!’

  The phone went dead. My stomach had gone back to feeling like a big, shivering pit, but by the time Vivyan knocked I was outwardly in control again.

  I’m sorry I misjudged James like that, when he was just being nice to his clerk, but how was I to know? And anyway, I haven’t had an explanation for the photocopy yet. (What did Fergal make of it, if anything?)

  And I refuse to feel ashamed about last night, even if it makes me go hot and cold to remember – mostly hot – because if I had a sex life at home, then I don’t suppose I’d have reacted like that.

  But I never want to see Fergal Rocco again. Ever.

  On my way home, like some callow teenager on her first heavy date, my heart lurched as I remembered: no pills.Then it plummeted like a pebble into an abyss when I thought of the horrible diseases Fergal could have picked up from all those women he’s been with.

  I certainly wasn’t thinking about precautions. I wasn’t thinking, just going on (basic) instinct – and I don’t think I gave him time to think either, did I? (Oh God – I must be a late-onset nymphomaniac.)

  Perhaps he’s so use
d to having women throw themselves at him he comes permanently pre-packaged?

  Ever-ready.

  The second worry is worse than the first, for it’s been months since I came off the pill and nothing’s happened, so I’m probably barren. Also, I’ve been reading up about these things and I don’t think this is the right time of month anyway.

  Realising I needed to ask him about the risks of infection, at least, as soon as I got home I sent him a communication, double-enveloped, via his father’s flagship restaurant.

  It said: ‘Have you any communicable diseases? T.’

  I gave c/o Vivyan Dubois as the return address, since I don’t want him to know where I live.

  After this, I bathed in mild disinfectant and then had another long shower. Guilt may be indelible, but germs aren’t.

  When I heard James’s car I had to brace myself to be normal, which isn’t easy when you feel as if the Sword of Damocles is suspended above your head by a thread.

  He was late, and looking very martyred St Sebastian, but when he nobly said he forgave me, since he could understand how my suddenly seeing him in a compromising-looking position with another woman could have upset me, it had the contrary effect of making me lose any vestiges of guilt and feel cross instead.

  Even the mad urge to Confess All, which had been trying to take over my lips, forsook me at this point.

  He didn’t ask me how the meeting went, either. (Very well, considering my state.) But a day or two later he arrived back from work early, strode in and slapped down a torn-out photograph.

  ‘Fergal Rocco makes flying visit to receive award’ read the caption, but I averted my eyes from Fergal’s dark visage. I couldn’t even look a photograph of him in the eyes at the moment and I just knew I’d turned a guilty pink. ‘I didn’t know you read Trendsetter magazine, James.’

  ‘I don’t, as you know very well. The junior typist had this stuck up on her filing cabinet.’

  ‘You’d better take it back – she might be upset when she finds it gone!’

  In answer he crushed it into a ball and tossed it in the general direction of the wastepaper basket. ‘I suppose you knew he was going to turn up all the time!’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, James! No one knew until the last minute! Urgent business called him back to London.’

  ‘I suppose he told you that?’

  ‘He told everyone that.’

  James eyed me closely. ‘So you didn’t talk to him?’

  ‘We exchanged no conversation,’ I said truthfully. (Bodily fluids, maybe.) ‘And I don’t know why you keep harping on about Fergal, when I’ve never given you the least cause for jealousy. Yet when I quite reasonably asked you why you had your arm round someone else you—’

  ‘That was quite different!’ he blustered. ‘My life is an open book, but you’re so secretive. I mean, you go out with one of the most infamous of rock stars and don’t even mention it in six years of marriage and—’

  ‘He wasn’t a rock star, infamous or otherwise, then,’ I interrupted, but there was no reasoning with him.

  He only shut up after I remembered the photocopy and showed it to him. He denied all knowledge of it at first, but eventually admitted there had been some horseplay at the office Christmas party, though he swore that ‘nothing really happened’, and I would have to trust him. He said Vanessa had probably sent me the photocopy because of his virtuous refusal to take up with her again.

  It sounds quite probable, so I suppose I’ll have to forgive him, even if I feel like dipping him in Dettol too, just in case.

  After this I felt the guilt and suspicion stakes were about equal, and stopped being extra nice to him.

  I’m still worrying about strange diseases, but no longer about pregnancy, since three days after my Brief Encounter I had one of my Brief Periods.

  For some reason I just cried and cried. I don’t know why.

  Yes I do.

  I’ve been feeling so mixed about getting pregnant and yet the thought of carrying Fergal’s baby was not totally repulsive to some part of me – though how I would have explained a black-haired and possibly olive-skinned infant away to James, I can’t imagine.

  So just as well I’m not going to be called on to do it, isn’t it?

  Fergal: June 1999

  ROCCO K.O.s REPORTER IN AIRPORT FRACAS!’

  Sun

  What did I think when Tish threw herself so unexpectedly into my arms? Nothing – I only felt.

  When she touched me every nerve in my body stood up and shivered. (Everything stood up and shivered.)

  It felt right.

  I did have some vestige of control left: enough to ask her if she was sure, for instance …

  She seemed pretty damned sure.

  And it’s just as well that leading a dissolute life means taking precautions comes automatically.

  Afterwards I just might have let the plane leave without me if Tish hadn’t stirred in my arms and murmured, ‘James?’ with a sad catch in her voice, stirring my conscience, because contrary to public opinion, I do have morals and yet here I was in bed with another man’s wife – or she was in bed with me.

  If she hadn’t started it …

  It wasn’t really like her … though how do I know what she’s like now?

  When I disentangled myself and switched on the bedside lamp she was dead to the world – Venus asleep.

  Maybe she’d had a bit too much to drink. But she’d seemed … purposeful was the only word for it.

  ‘Tish?’ I shook her shoulder and she fluttered her eyelashes and murmured.

  Would she regret it when she woke? I needed to leave her some message … I needed to get out of there before I started all over again!

  I got up and retrieved my scattered clothes, dislodging a crumpled paper from under my shirt. I smoothed it out, and one look at that familiar photocopy told me she’d found out about her husband and his tart.

  If she’d seen this, then consoled herself with drink and then me – was I just revenge?

  I felt used. (Well used, but used.) Then my eye fell on the clock. ‘Oh my God!’

  Ten minutes later, clean, changed but unshaven, I was on my way out of the hotel.

  Awaiting me at the airport were Hywel, Nerissa, a camera-man and a reporter. I blinked as the light flashed right in my eyes just as Nerissa flung herself at me and hung from my neck like a small, scented sloth.

  ‘Darling – I’ve missed you so much! Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here?’

  I pushed her off and socked the reporter trying to shove a microphone up my nose.

  My temper was never that good. And I’d been hoping Nerissa would attach herself to someone else in my absence. I certainly didn’t tell her I was making this trip back.

  Hywel was looking smug. This was his idea of good publicity.

  I shook them off and headed for the check-in.

  Chapter 16: Cat’s Paw

  That airport photograph made me feel sick: out of my bed and straight into a clinch with his girlfriend, the bastard!

  I expect he was just in need of a bit, and I was handy and willing. But I thought …

  Are all men tomcats at heart?

  He did answer my note, though, eventually. Vivyan phoned me the other day to tell me he’d just had the strangest phone call. ‘A man’s voice – didn’t give a name but very husky and attractive and sort of familiar. Left a message for you.’

  ‘What did he say?’ I broke in urgently.

  ‘He said, “Tell Tish: No I haven’t, and anyway, I’m like the Boy Scouts, I always come prepared.” Then he rang off. Does that make sense, darling?’

  ‘Yes.’ I suddenly felt a bit better. (No diseases.) But, strangely enough, piqued that he was thinking clearly enough to take precautions when I certainly hadn’t been! ‘Yes it does, thank you, Vivyan – thank you very much.’

  ‘You’re welcome – but what have you been up to? I think you’re very mysterious! Now I’ll just go on and on wond
ering where I’ve heard that voice before.’

  As long as he doesn’t guess.

  James and I are being terribly nice to each other. I’m convinced Vanessa tried to seduce him at the Christmas party, but I’ll have to forgive him since I—

  And I’m sure he didn’t actually … he wouldn’t.

  We’ll start again with a clean slate. Only I can no longer regard James as the dependable cornerstone of my life, now I can see he’s more like a patch of quicksand you know the path across.

  Bit like the gardening: I’ve long since stopped expecting James to show any interest in that, so I came to an arrangement with Bob’s parents through Mrs Deakin, who suggested it, and he now comes regularly. (Well, irregularly – he seems to spend more and more of his time here.) James disapproved, but he couldn’t really complain about it since he didn’t do it himself.

  This afternoon Bob was working cheerfully away at the back garden, in which he is producing a row of neat deep beds full of unidentifiable vegetables. He seems to know what he’s doing, but if I make any suggestions he just smiles, nods and ignores them.

  After making him a mug of tea (in a giant enamel mug I bought specially, so it doesn’t get broken), I went with a parcel of book proofs to catch the bus into the next village. I once asked Mrs Deakin why she didn’t have a Post Office counter in her shop, and she said darkly that she’d had it and lost it, then laughed and added that that was the story of her life.

  There was a pretty tabby cat sitting on the wall near the bus stop, and as I drew level it stalked up to me with distinct signs of friendliness. Flattered, I bent down to stroke it, but saw to my horror that each front paw boasted such a multitude of toes that they could furnish a spare cat with the usual number without being noticeably missed.

  Recoiling, I was wiping my hands on my jeans when there was a ripe, senile chuckle from behind me. A fat old man was leaning over a gate watching from watering blue eyes.

  ‘Surprised you, dinnit? Should have seen your face! Always tickles me, it does, to watch strangers seeing Tibby’s feet for the first time.’