The others took their pizzas much more seriously and embarked upon a summit meeting over the extra toppings and garlic bread possibilities.
George put his lips to Tamzin’s ear, so that his voice buzzed through her hair. ‘Sorry. I got a bit juvenile, there, in front of everyone. I got an urge.’
‘It’s OK.’ She tried to sound casual, as if men were always losing control of themselves over her. A place behind her breastbone was filled with enough fairy dust to set her entire torso tingling.
‘Really OK?’
‘Really OK.’ Tamzin had once had a Tiger’s Eye ring and the stone had held just the golds and browns of George’s eyes.
He grinned. ‘So I could do it again?’
Trying to control her inanely grinning lips, she nodded.
And while the others argued about whether Pepsi Max was better than Cherry Coke, George did it again.
And Tamzin fell in love.
Back at Danny Boyes the place was filling up with teenagers, the bar was busy and two girls with kohl-rimmed eyes, studded noses and sequinned cheeks had taken up station behind a cash box at the door. Tamzin realised instantly that she should’ve bought a dress or skirt. All the girls wore hiked-up skirts or clinging dresses. She was, like, nearly the only one in jeans. Like, noo-oo…
But, before she could be totally swamped with anxiety, she was enchanted to find that not only did she not have to pay £5 to earn an entry stamp of wiggly lines on her hand but that when George said, ‘Tamzin’s with me,’ she received a stamp that declared in thick green ink, BAND. Instantly, she felt sorry for all those who not only had to pay but also received the stamp that marked them out as audience and not as BAND. She was BAND. How cool was that?
One of the other bands was on stage. A portion of the audience stood directly in front, watching, heads nodding. Conversation was impossible, the bar staff must’ve been reading lips as George managed to procure a Breezer for her. She felt pleasantly part of everything with Jenneration around her like minders around a rock star.
Between sets it was possible to talk. That was when the band members slapped palms and linked thumbs with favoured acquaintances – unless the acquaintance was female, in which case they hugged – and discussed the previous band.
The first sign that Jenneration was preparing to go on stage was when Erica unbuckled her belt. ‘Can you hold this for me, Tamz? It scratches my bass.’
Marty dug his money and his phone out of his pocket. ‘Yeah, do you mind? All this crap gets on my tits.’
‘And my phone,’ said Rob.
‘And mine.’
‘Sure.’ Tamzin threaded her arm through the belt, tucked the money in her pocket and held the phones, still warm from pockets.
The promoter materialised. ‘You guys ready?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
And suddenly they were streaming away from her through a door beside the bar, reappearing a minute later on stage with instruments around their necks or drumsticks in their hands, green strobes playing over the audience while the stage flashed silver. It was very Alice in Wonderland – they’d stepped through a looking-glass and become a band.
A cheer, whistles, whoops and much of the audience surged raggedly towards the stage, glasses hastily abandoned on tables. Immediately, Tamzin saw that the number abandoning their stools and pressing the stage was four times what the other bands had attracted.
Guitars plugged into amps with a thunk. George and Erica said, ‘One-two,’ into the microphones. The guitars and bass tuned up briefly, the drums rolled experimentally. Rob moved the snare drum closer to him, flipped a drumstick in the air and caught it. Waited.
Tamzin began to catch something of the expectancy of the crowd edging around on their toes and gazing at the band.
The promoter jumped onto the stage, having to tiptoe to shout into George’s mike. ‘And about time, too! This. Is. JENNERATION!’
The drums banged one, two, three, the guitars raged in on four. George closed his eyes and opened his mouth and the dancefloor exploded as it was hit with a wall of sound.
Tamzin stared at the heaving bodies. And at the band. Whoa! They were good enough to be in the charts! Excitement burst inside her.
With fumbling fingers she fastened Erica’s belt – pulled in a lot – around her waist, forced all the dosh and phones into her pockets and pushed her way into the crowd. It was hot and difficult to keep her feet as the dancers bounced wildly into her from all directions.
It was delicious.
She let loose her hair, threw her arms in the air and whooped as the crowd tossed her around like a cork on a stormy sea. It was wicked.
Chapter Seventeen
Diane stood on James’s doorstep, feeling like an idiot. ‘Tamzin’s out? I’d forgotten it was tonight that she was going out with George.’
James leaned on the doorframe and raised lazy eyebrows. ‘Tonight it is.’
She groaned. ‘I should’ve rung first. I just thought I’d surprise her with her final fitting, with time dragging while I wait for Bryony to come home. And I was so pleased with the tops when they were finished.’ She waved the hangers, sighed and turned away. ‘I’ll ring tomorrow.’
It wasn’t until she was unlocking her car and hooking the garments above the back door that she realised James was right with her, pulling on a wolf-grey fleece. ‘How about a drink at The Old Dog?’
She glanced across the green. In the softening summer evening the windows of the pub glowed yellow. Homely wooden tables stood between tubs of marigolds and children dodged among them while their parents tried to relax.
‘Let me buy you dinner,’ he added, persuasively.
‘I’ve eaten,’ she admitted, sadly, thinking of the sensible but not very interesting chicken with jacket potato and a book propped open for company.
‘You can watch me eat, then. Come on! There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.’ He was very close and warm.
She fiddled with the car door. It wouldn’t do any harm, would it? Bryony’s room had already been given the welcome-home treatment and the freezer filled with her favourites. Alone, Diane would probably spend the evening unable to concentrate on a film or a book or even her sewing while she waited for the clock to tick around to the day after tomorrow, the day that Bryony’s plane landed.
And she hadn’t eaten dessert …
They chose to sit outside with the midges and the kiddies. Both were a nuisance but it was a still evening and Diane liked the idea of letting the dewy twilight close peacefully around them, rather than be seated inside in the cheery but artificial light, washed by roars of approval or groans of dismay according to the fortunes of the darts players.
The creaking pub sign sported a beagle with an erect tail. ‘I call him Frank,’ said James, following the direction of her gaze. ‘He’s a randy old dog with an eye for pretty ladies.’
‘And an up-for-it expression.’
‘Always. He’s currently sniffing around Charlotte the King Charles Spaniel, who has a coquettish eye patch and a cute little nose. He can’t wait to get his paw over.’ His eyes crinkled. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble accentuated the hollows of his cheeks.
Diane snorted inelegantly. ‘How sad – you have a prurient interest in the imaginary sex life of a painted beagle.’
James settled more comfortably on the bench and sank the first half of his pint efficiently. ‘OK, let’s talk about your nephew, George – as he’s taken my fragile daughter out tonight.’
Diane lowered her glass. ‘They were getting on brilliantly the other day. I was pleased to see her cheerful and doing something as normal as taking an interest in a boy. Aren’t you happy?’
He waited as his lamb tikka was placed before him, ripping into an oval of naan bread before replying. ‘Of course I am, because, as you say, it’s normal for a twenty-year-old and Tamzin hardly ever behaves like a normal twenty-year-old. But I have this urge to charge round to George’s house, pin him against the wall a
nd tell him the boundaries.’ His jaw hardened. ‘I hate it that he does drugs. It just needs her to fall for this clown – if he treats her like rubbish, she could be right back at square one. Depression, starving, self-injuring –’
‘Whoa!’ Diane’s voice emerged loudly in the still evening air and two little girls with bunches paused in their game with a toy horse to gaze, wide-eyed. She lowered her voice to a fierce growl, her words rushing over one another in irritated little leaps. ‘George is all right. He sings and plays guitar in a band, he goes to Anglia Ruskin uni, he’s pleasant and polite. He’s been very close to Bryony and has never acted like “a clown” with her. And. He. Does. Not. Do. Drugs.’
James brought his face close to hers. ‘I’m afraid he does,’ he whispered. ‘I heard Tamzin on her phone ask him what was so special about an E and why he had to have one.’
Slowly, Diane relaxed. ‘Don’t be such an arse.’
James hesitated. ‘What?’
She felt the corners of her mouth begin to curl. ‘The only E he uses is his harmonica in the key of E. The key of E is his favourite vocal range. But you might have heard her talk about C or G, too.’
‘Oh ...’ Slowly, James’s smile crept across his fine lips. ‘That is such a relief. I didn’t even know that harmonicas were in specific keys.’ His grin widened. ‘All right, I’m sorry. You can stop your scary voice.’
Laughing unwillingly, Diane pulled a face. ‘Sorry. But George has a special spot in my heart.’
He began to eat. ‘So I see. Quite reassuring, the way you jump to his defence.’
Diane struggled with her conscience. Presently she said, ‘Of course, he’s not a saint. He’s a nineteen-year-old boy and I can’t pretend that he won’t …’ She hesitated. ‘I mean, they’re young adults – ’
‘I get the picture,’ he said, shortly. ‘Testosterone will kick in.’
Diane reached out and pinched a piece of his naan and a plump cube of lamb to go with it. ‘Like you?’
His eyebrows almost flew off his face. ‘What?’
She picked up his fork and stole some more lamb, with rice this time. ‘I said, “Like you?”’ She pointed his fork at him. ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Judge not lest ye be judged. If you’re the pot, don’t call the kettle Burned Arse.’
‘Oh.’ He picked up his beer and stared sightlessly at the tubs of flowers losing their colour in the twilight.
She took up the dessert menu. Chocolate fudge cake. Very pub grub. Probably sticky toffee pudding, too. Yes, there it was near the bottom. Ooh, cherry crumble … Mmm, summer pudding … Lemon meringue, ice cream sundae. ‘What’s dime cake, do you think?’
‘No idea.’ James balled his napkin and tossed it onto the table where it unfurled and hung in his tikka. Diane flinched automatically at such a waste but her mind had turned to dessert. ‘Would you like –?’
‘No, thanks.’
She wiggled her fingers to catch the attention of a waitress who was clearing nearby tables, ordered, then sat back and awaited the arrival of her dime cake, while James scowled into his beer.
The dime cake arrived – chocolate biscuit base, chocolate mousse, marshmallow, meringue and chocolate sauce. Slowly, she dug her spoon through the squidgy mousse and broke into the base. And groaned. The first mouthful was orgasmic. She shut her eyes the better to concentrate on the mousse’s contrast with the biscuit and meringue and the rich chocolate that pervaded them all.
She opened her eyes ready for the next bite to discover James’s gaze fixed on her. She offered him a spoonful.
For a moment he did that thing where his eyes smiled but his lips didn’t bother. Then he leaned forward to close his mouth gently around the spoon. His eyes widened. ‘Mm.’ He signalled a thumbs up. ‘Mm-mmm.’
She agreed with a, ‘Mmmm,’ of her own. His hand closed over hers to guide another load between his lips.
When the last skerrick of mousse and crumb of biscuit had been scraped from the thick white plate by the surprisingly intimate act of taking turns with the same spoon, James sighed. ‘So. Now you’ve had some time to think about it, what’s the state of our relationship?’
Heart thumping suddenly, she blinked, licking crumbs of chocolaty meringue from around her lips. ‘You’re my husband’s brother-in-law?’
‘I made love to you.’
Her blush was so hot that she could’ve doubled as a patio heater and she glanced around to check that they couldn’t be overheard. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. But not every sexual encounter … I mean, it doesn’t follow that you’ve necessarily got a relationship … there are one-night stands.’
He folded his arms on the edge of the table. ‘I don’t want it to be a one-night stand.’
‘But,’ she pointed out, ‘it was just the one night.’
‘That’s just how it worked out. To me it was … an experience. I began the evening hardly knowing you, thinking that you were quiet – if quietly stroppy, sometimes – and probably a bit doormatty where Gareth’s concerned. After all, he’d somehow pulled that crappy trick on you without you even noticing – or you simply hadn’t wanted to see what was under your nose.’
‘So, naturally, you wanted sex with me,’ she observed. ‘Everyone gets uncontrollable passions for quietly stroppy, dim doormats.’
His eyes smiled again, as if he didn’t want anyone else to know that he had something to smile about. ‘I had already noticed you, physically,’ he murmured. ‘Not being blind. Then as we talked over dinner I realised what a great person you are, how switched on, how courageous, how principled. I took the Merc for a burn up purely to show off to you. And when we were alone in the dark, I experienced all the lust of a teenager on viagra. Afterwards – I drove home absolutely dazed. Then I messed everything up by not ringing you the next day, which was bloody crass. But while I was listening for hours outside Tamzin’s door, wondering if she was OK, wondering whether this would be the time when she would slice a vein, all the time I tried to keep that night with me, thinking that when Tamzin’s crisis was over I’d have this thing with you to explore.’ He drew in a deep breath. The smile in his eyes had vanished. ‘Only to find, of course, that the last thing I had was a thing with you.’
The gnats were being a nuisance, spinning around the lamps until they were dizzy and then splashing down in glasses of beer. Weary children were being gathered up by patient parents, the local teenagers had congregated in the middle of the green, their shouts of laughter drifting through the evening.
He slapped suddenly at his arm. ‘Bloody bugs! Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car.’ He settled the bill with a young waitress called Sarah, asking how her sister was doing at uni. They turned through the gap in the flower tubs and headed for James’s house, leaving their footprints in the dewy grass. The part of the drive where Diane had parked the car was screened by rounded green hedges, throwing the area into deep shadow. As she turned to say goodnight she found herself sandwiched between the car at her back and James at her front, a breath away, the heat of his body radiating over the space between them.
‘I want to make love to you again.’ His voice was quiet and almost conversational. ‘Lots of times. Now. In the future. All the time. I want privacy and light and comfort so I can relax and enjoy you. Your body.’
His fingertips brushed against her left hip.
She sucked in her breath. She hadn’t realised she had quite so many jangly nerve endings there. ‘You mean an affair?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re both married.’
‘We were last time, too.’ He lifted his hand to her face, stroking her cheekbone and down to her neck, pushing back her hair. His skin was hot, yet Diane shivered. ‘Diane, it seems to me that your marriage is in injury time and you might be thinking about leaving Gareth. And I shouldn’t have feelings like this about another woman but I view my wife as a responsibility and she views me as an annoyance. Still, I can’t leave home at the moment, regardless of Valerie being
stuck in hospital or whether she even cares about me. Tamzin couldn’t handle it.
‘But none of that stops me wanting you. I want to be with you, to hear your opinions and laugh at your jokes. When we’re alone I want to be able to kiss you and hold you and touch you. I can’t offer you much – certainly not anything that’s fair or equitable. I’m just telling you what I want. However messy.’
Straining her eyes to see his expression in the darkness, her heart thudded so hard that it was almost unpleasant. ‘I haven’t thought about leaving Gareth. Much,’ she amended. ‘Bryony’s coming home in two days and she’s full of happy family stuff. She’s made up a misunderstanding with Gareth – I think he orchestrated that. I –’ She paused. ‘I don’t know what I want.’
‘But it’s not me?’ His voice was gentle but gravelly with disappointment. His hand dropped from her hair.
She caught it and held it between both of hers, her voice husky. ‘That’s not true … I don’t know if there’s any point in beginning an affair. And I don’t know if I can do it. Sneaking around, lying to everyone. Making do in the backs of cars or in fields. Or checking into hotels for a few hours here or there and the staff being terribly polite but knowing. And I’d still be living with Gareth – wouldn’t you mind?’
He laughed shortly and his fingers tightened over hers. ‘I already mind. I mind that you’re his wife, I mind that he’s a shit, I mind that he’s slept with you for years. And, obviously, I’d mind about all the sneaking around, that that’s all I can offer you and all you can offer me. But millions of people do it. They meet when they can and take what happiness there is.’ Each of his fingers slid slowly between hers, lacing their hands together. ‘I think that that’s all there is for us, for now. I’m prepared to take it. Are you?’
She let her head droop until her forehead was lodged against his collarbone, hard and warm and real. ‘I don’t want a lovely thing to be squalid.’ Two hot tears escaped from her closed eyes.
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