by Sara Downing
‘My head is pounding, but I don't think it's the wine,’ Mark replies, pulling out a chair and sitting at the table. ‘I feel so bad about last night, Grace. I don't know what came over me. You know I would never try to force you to do something you don't want to, don't you?’
But isn't that exactly what is happening in my entire life? By agreeing to try for a baby despite my better judgement? And Mark daring to suggest that I should give up work to help make it happen? I am starting to feel that Mark is trying to control me. Things haven’t exactly escalated into full-scale control-freak level but I feel we have gone from a couple on completely equal footings, to me caving in to Mark when I don't really want to. I am just glad I’d pushed him away last night, and stood up for myself. God knows where we would be now if I had let him go ahead.
‘I thought we'd just have a nice lazy Sunday today,’ Mark carries on, changing the subject and attempting to lighten the tone. ‘How about some fresh air later, a walk up the hill maybe? Exercise is supposed to be good when you're trying for a baby, isn't it?’ He is starting to sound like a broken record. And to mention trying for a baby when there are so many other issues going on between us shows a distinct lack of understanding. Also, whatever happened to me having an opinion on how we are going to spend our Sunday? It would be nice to be asked.
‘Actually, I just fancy a quiet day reading the papers, thanks,’ I reply. Let him go out and climb the hill if he wants to, clear his head and his conscience. A bit of distance between us and time on my own will do me just fine for today.
So Mark goes out on his big hill-climb later in the morning. Given my unwillingness to budge from the sofa and therefore his lack of a walking companion, he has rounded up James and another friend, and they plan to make a bit of an afternoon of it, stopping off at a local hostelry on the way back for a spot of ‘hair of the dog’. Let them have their boys’ afternoon, I am completely happy with my decision not to go. I stoke up the fire in the living room, get a good blaze going, and settle down with the Sunday papers and a book I’ve wanted to finish for a while. I have a fleeting and vaguely guilty notion that perhaps I should be doing some marking at some point, but only for about five minutes and it soon passes. Work can wait till tonight if needs be. Right now I need a bit of indulgent me-time. I know it’s a beautiful day outside, if chilly, and there are all manner of useful things I could be getting on with, but I need a bit of escapism, a good book to get immersed in and help the afternoon float by without having to engage my brain too much.
The ‘beep beep’ of my mobile gives me a start. I must have nodded off mid-page; the fire is roaring, my book open on the floor and my phone flashing with its ‘message received’ alert. I sleepily pull myself up and reach for the phone to see who could be texting me on a Sunday afternoon. Probably just one of the girls wanting to chat. It’s Tom. My heart misses a beat and suddenly there is that strange churning sensation in my stomach again. How dare he shatter the peace of my Sunday afternoon? Why is he texting me today? I will see him tomorrow. What can't wait until then?
‘Had really gr8 time last night, thanx 2 u u were fab company, c u mon,’ the message reads. Here it comes again, that warm and fuzzy feeling, and I smile to myself as I read the text for a second time. Should I text him back or just wait till I see him tomorrow? Dilemmas, dilemmas. But personally I hate it if I text someone and they don't reply within some sort of reasonable timescale, even if it’s just to say ‘OK’ or ‘thanks’. I am a mobile phone company's dream; 10p a go to send a one or two word message, and I do that so often. So I set to it, and type in my reply.
‘Me 2, luvly eve, thanks, enjoy ur w/e,’ I send back, nothing too bland, nothing too encouraging, and quite final I think – I’m not expecting anything back. I still haven't really got my head round what’s happening here, but I do know that Tom is inching his way into my thoughts more than he should do on a normal weekend.
Is it just a knee-jerk reaction to what I am going through with Mark? Surely it can't be more than that? I must have imagined the chemistry between us last night. I am spoken for, after all, and don’t make a habit of spending my time thinking about other men or enjoying frissons of excitement when they accidentally brush against me. I’m not actively looking for attention elsewhere, so why is it seeking me out?
Beep beep. There it is again. Another message. Surely not Tom again? I reach to pick up my phone from the floor, but this time it’s from Evie.
‘Howz ur head? U & T have good chat last nite?!!’ it reads. Oh God, had it really been so blatantly obvious to all around the table that Tom and I had spent pretty much the entire evening engrossed in each other? I hope it hadn't looked too bad. Funny how Mark hasn’t mentioned anything about it, in spite of all that has happened between us since then. I suppose he thinks it’s natural that I should sit and chat all evening to a man who is my boss. After all, we have heaps in common, probably lots to talk about, and see each other every day, so there is nothing unusual in that from where he is sitting, is there? He wouldn't be setting out consciously to look out for any signs of flirting. Nothing above and beyond the way Mark and I flirt normally, anyway. There is no reason for him to suspect that I might have enjoyed being seated next to Tom just a little more than I should.
I reply to Evie, just to shut her up if nothing else.
‘Head fine, having lazy day on sofa. T good co thks.’ There. I will leave it at that, and I press the ‘send’ button quick. Another 10p off into the ether. I don't know why Evie is digging around. After all she had spent most of her evening monopolising my partner, to the extent that when he wasn't pouring his heart out in the kitchen to one of my best friends, he had been deep in conversation with the other.
Beep beep. Not again. I am starting to think turning off my mobile would be a good idea this afternoon. So far I have managed to read one section of the Sunday Times, given that up as it’s a bit large and unwieldy to read in a position of horizontal-ness on the sofa, had two little naps, and re-read the same paragraph of my book several times over. Not very indulgent for a self-indulgent afternoon which is already half way through. Being idle seems to take an awful lot of effort. No wonder I don't do it very often.
I reach down for my phone again. This time it is from Tom. I wish he wouldn't keep creeping into my thoughts, and it’s not helped by him making himself a physical presence in my living room by virtue of modern technology. There he is, blue light flashing away, Read me, read me, you know you want to really. Why doesn't the world outside recognise that I am working really hard at having a lazy afternoon here? Might as well have got on with that marking after all, then all these texts would have been a welcome diversion rather than a pain in the backside.
‘Look fwd 2 c u 2moz. Wear THAT DRESS?? xx’. I sit up in shock. This is getting dangerous. Next he will be telling me what underwear to wear, and to meet me in his office at 10.50 for a quick bit of hanky-panky before the bell rings for the end of break. No, no, no, calm down woman, that’s my fantasy. (Is it?) I astound myself at how easily that thought popped into my head.
Tom's texting is straying beyond the friendly and chatty, off the straight and narrow and back to the flirty and downright naughty. He can't possibly know I’m on my own. For all he knows, I could be sitting across the table from Mark, eating Sunday lunch in some country pub or other, and there are his texts, popping up and interrupting our quiet afternoon à deux. But then I suppose I could have done the sensible thing, chosen not to be interrupted, switched off my phone and ignored it, in order to spend some quality time with my partner.
It almost feels like Tom knows I am alone this afternoon, like he can see me lounging here on the sofa in front of the fire, all by myself. Perhaps he is in the garden, watching me through the window like a stalker. Now I know I’m being silly, he just isn't the type. But still I feel like getting up and closing the curtains.
I take the decision not to reply to that last text; to do so is just asking for trouble. Perhaps Tom is just wai
ting to see how far I will go. Well that’s it, I’m stopping now. The End. I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing he has me twisted in knots.
I switch off my mobile and throw it across the room onto the other sofa. No more interruptions, just me-time now. Mark can always call me on the land line if he needs me, which of course he won't. I lay back on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling, arms folded across my chest, trying to make myself relax. I try doing that thing they sometimes do at the start of a massage; making you consciously clench all your muscles, from feet up to neck, then release them all one by one and relax. It doesn’t work. I still feel tense and my brain is working overtime. I don't hold out much hope for any more reading – I’m not sure I have the concentration. Too many distractions early on have put paid to that and now I just don't fancy it.
I lay gazing upwards, finding shapes and faces in the stain left from when the shower had leaked last year and soaked through the floorboards and down through the ceiling. It has been painted over a couple of times since – Mark hates any imperfection – but still it seems to creep back, as thought it has decided it wants to be a permanent feature of the house, not just a blot on the ceiling. Mark would go bonkers if he knew it was still showing and blame the painter for a bad job; he doesn't do much lazing on the sofa and gazing into space, so probably hasn't noticed it. I make a mental note to give our painter-decorator a call on Monday.
I wake to the click-click of Mark's footsteps on the ceramic tiles in the kitchen. I didn’t hear him come in. What time is it? I must have dozed off on the sofa – again. Today proves I am no good at this lounging around lark; either I lay on the sofa feeling anxious or that I should be doing something more worthwhile, or fall asleep, with no happy medium.
The fire has burnt down quite a bit and the sun has lost its glow, so I guess it must be late afternoon. Oh well, I haven't wasted too much time dozing then. It takes me a few minutes to pull myself up and lose the disoriented feeling that falling asleep in the daytime always gives me. I have to work out where I am, what day of the week it is and what's going on. No different to any normal morning then, Mark might argue. Waking up isn't a thing I do easily at the best of times.
Mark comes into the living room. ‘Ahhh, you're all lovely and sleepy,’ he smiles. He leans over the back of the sofa to give me a kiss; I make sure it lands on my cheek, but he doesn't seem to notice what I think is my obvious slight turn to one side. It looks like the walk has done him good; his cheeks are glowing, although that could be from the cider in the pub rather than the fresh air from a tough hill climb. His eyes are sparkling and he looks as though he has had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
‘You look happy,’ I pipe up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and pulling myself into a sitting position. ‘Good walk? Where did you end up?’
‘Well, James wanted to head over to the Crown at Cherington but then Tom suggested a pub he knows over the other side of the hill so we headed there for a late lunch, then hacked back over the hill afterwards. It was great, we saw deer, foxes, even a badger. You would have loved it.’
I don't really hear much of what he says after the word ‘Tom’. So Tom had been the third person to go with them. That means when Tom was sending me provocative texts earlier, he'd been walking, eating or drinking alongside my fiancé. Sneaking off to one side to send me flirty little text messages, secure in the knowledge that my partner was safely out of reach and that he could text me without Mark accidentally picking it up. Not that we ever share phones anyway, but I wouldn't have wanted to risk it if it was the other way round.
I can't believe the audacity of it. No wonder I'd felt he knew I was alone this afternoon; what sort of weird kick did he get from texting the partner of one of the friends he's spending the afternoon with? It’s just too bizarre. It makes me go all funny inside. But……. somehow it’s exciting too. I can't work out what’s going on with my emotions. Part of me is disgusted that Tom is behaving like this, but on the other hand it makes my knees turn to jelly with excitement and anticipation. I am torn between thinking he is a complete pervert and an absolute charmer. How close the two are, really.
‘So Tom was the third man today,’ I probe. ‘How was he? Did he enjoy last night?’ I try not to sound too much like I am interrogating him.
‘Yes, he said you were scintillating company,’ Mark replies. ‘He was up to something today though, kept texting someone, probably that new girlfriend of his I should imagine. He was very cagey about her, couldn't get much out of him. He must be quite keen, by the look on his face when he was texting her. He had a right old glint in his eye.’
Gulp. That was me then. Unless of course Tom had been doing the dirty and sending flirty texts to me AND to this new girlfriend he had told me about last night. That would really take the biscuit. In that case he would definitely fall into the pervert category and not charmer. I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with seeing him tomorrow. Play it cool and act completely normal, that has to be the strategy. And on no account wear THAT DRESS.
Ten
Monday morning is a weird one. I feel like a teenager with her first crush, nervously waiting to see how the object of her desires will react when he sees her, reading things into actions, words, that aren't really there, looking for signs that he likes her too.
I remember when I really did have my first crush. Ironically it had been on my science teacher, but then teacher crushes must be so common amongst hormonal teenage girls, I suppose. He was a gorgeous, strapping, athletic sort of chap, probably less than ten years older than I was, almost fresh out of teacher training. I can't have been the only girl to fancy him; he was the sort of bloke who could silence a classroom of fifteen year olds just by walking in, pulling out his chair, glancing round the room with a lazy smile and sitting down. Even the boys seemed to be struck dumb by him; he was that much of a god he had them all aspiring to be just like he was, bright and funny, fit and muscled. He used to wear fairly tight-fitting tee shirts which showed off his perfect form: hard, well worked-out pecs bursting forth and triceps displayed nicely where his short sleeves ended. It still makes me go weak at the knees just thinking about him now. I succeed in bringing myself back down to earth when I calculate that by now he is probably forty-something, most likely married with a gaggle of kids, no time to work out any more, and all that hard muscle has probably turned to beer belly and flab. It may well not have done but it calms me down, at least, and stops my pulse racing.
I brace myself for seeing Tom. I have to try to act normally, not give him any indication that he is sending me into turmoil. For all I know, it might be all in a day's normal behaviour for him, just that I haven't been the object of his attention until now.
Our school day generally starts with a brief staff meeting; more of a quick roll-call really to make sure we are all up to date with what’s going on in the school, and to discuss any issues ahead of us that day. Tom breezes into the staff room in his regular high-energy way, filling the space more than I usually notice with his tallness, his wide shoulders and athletic demeanour. I had never really noticed how big and powerful he is. We are a bunch of fairly petite women; today he seems like a giant in comparison. Pull yourself together woman, I say to myself, take your eyes off his muscles and his gorgeous, blue eyes, they have never distracted you before. Focus on your class and the day ahead. Stop being so girly and so easily swayed by a handsome face and a fit body.
‘Morning all, hope you all had a great weekend,’ he begins. He glances round the room at all seated, making eye contact with every one of us, and smiling in that warmly welcoming way he has. His eyes meet mine and hold my gaze for a few seconds. Then I cough self-consciously and look down at the documents in my lap, my hands nervously going to my hair, then back to my lap, pretending to rifle through my papers to disguise how they are trembling.
How on earth am I going to work here like this? Is every day going to be full of highly-charged sexual tension from now on? Gone is the relative peace and tranq
uillity (this is a school, after all) of my normal day; every moment I’m not standing in front of my class will now be spent either avoiding Tom or reading things into his every word. I need to kill this schoolgirl crush before it gets the better of me.
Meeting over, we set off in the direction of our respective classrooms to prepare for the onslaught of the children, who will be arriving in the playground in ten minutes or so.
‘Grace,’ Tom calls behind me as I make to leave the room. ‘Can I have a word?’ Oh dear, here we go. All the others have carried on so I am alone with him.
‘I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable yesterday, I just wanted to say how I really enjoyed your company on Saturday night. It was great to spend some time with you away from this place and get to know you a bit better.’ There is no sign on his face of the flirtatious Tom I had seen at the weekend. He looks every inch the professional. Gone is the teasing twinkle in his eye, and the overtly flirtatious body language. So maybe things will be OK after all. Perhaps it’s all in my head. Well, if he can bottle it up and remain professional, then so can I. I sigh inwardly with relief. Maybe it won't be so bad after all.
‘I need someone to help me with a presentation for the next Parent Information Evening, Grace. I thought you would be the perfect man, or rather woman, for the job? What with your creative talents and how brilliant you are with PowerPoint. Do you fancy it?’
‘Um, yes, fine, OK then,’ I stammer. Barely over the return of Tom from flirty to professional, I feel a little put on the spot but can't think up quickly enough a good reason why I can’t work with him on this. Other than the fact that he flirted with me so outrageously at the weekend, of course. So I find myself accepting the challenge, or rather acquiescing for lack of a valid excuse. ‘No, I can't possibly work with you, I find you far too attractive and dangerous, and I'm afraid of being unfaithful to Mark,’ wouldn't really be an appropriate thing to say right now.