And now he and Howard are an item. And funnily enough (oh, I’m laughing fit to bust, me) I was a bit of a catalyst. Howard had, he tells me, always thought a lot of me; always felt we ‘connected’, apparently. Feels for me in every way that it is possible to feel for someone apart from sexually. That if I were a bloke….Oh, God. And he was very upset about what happened with Richard. He had wanted us to become friends because he thought we would be good for one another – that we could support one another. And there was George Michael, of course. Howard rather likes George Michael. It was a big thing, he tells me, when George Michael came out. Like a portent, about him and Nick. Personally, I think George Michael sucks.
I sat and listened for a good hour or so, while Howard told me all about it, then we washed up together and drank cocoa in the kitchen. Then I went home.
Once inside (deep breaths, deep breaths, mantra, deep breaths) I feel better. Home is security, reliability, all things predictable and safe, Pringles etc. I remember four things. I am
Strong
Warm
So lovely
A small glow in Howard’s day
And because to shout and scream and call Howard a bastard (another one) would mean that I am really none of these things, I find myself wanting very much to forgive him all the angst he has caused me. It will, I know, be a learning experience. It will, I appreciate, mean that we can stay friends. It will, I accept, take a while to take in, and it will be, I realise, painful. In the meantime, I must learn to look on the bright side. I have a friend who trusts me enough to open his heart to me. I have a friend who is gay. My life will be enriched. I am part of the real world.
But once again, I am in bed alone and crying. The real world sucks as well.
*
Saturday morning. Lots of sun, lots of birds singing, lots of good old fashioned summertime ambience generally. All things considered the no hangover bonus has the edge on the no sex downer. I may feel sick, but at least I don’t feel sick.
Then I look down and see, on the floor beside the bed, my dress, my stockings and my trendy grey undies, looking swizzled, mis-shapen, cast off and forlorn.
Who am I kidding? I feel like the pits. I should have plumped for the hangover. At least it would have concentrated my mind elsewhere.
And isn’t it strange? Eighteen years of marriage end and I spend at least half of the time I should spend grieving, in daydreaming about lurve, sex and exciting new horizons. Yet dumped after three dates by a bloke I only just realised I even fancied and I feel awful. I am much more vulnerable and insecure than I had led myself to believe. I am a poor, sad little person. I am doubly rejected. I am not desirable. And I have a big slug-like vein up the back of my leg.
I’m just re-considering the whole purpose of my existence when a bang and a crash heralds the return of my children. My children who love me, at least.
‘Mum? You up?’ Max.
‘Good party?’ Emma.
‘No and yes,’ I quip chattily. There is no point in not continuing with the charade. I am a mother. I must laugh at adversity and put on a brave face at all times.
‘Did you have a lovely time at Dad’s?’ I burble on, as their feet fall like boulders up the stair treads. ‘I was just wondering if we should do something today. Go out somewhere maybe. The beach, perhaps. We could give Lily a call. I’m sure she would like a day out…’
Max comes in and sits on the bed.
‘Do we have to?’
‘Well, I just thought….’
‘Mum, I’ve already promised my friend that I’ll go to town with her this afternoon…’
‘No matter,’ I say brightly. ‘It was just a thought. There’s plenty of things I should be getting on with here. Let’s have a nice cooked breakfast, shall we?’
‘Dad took us to MacDonalds on the way home.’
‘MacDonalds? Your father?’
Yeah,’ says Max. ‘Unreal, or what?’
‘I think he’s beginning to realise what normal fathers do,’ says Emma, sagely. ‘Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Not when you’re an absentee father and have to be nice to your kids. Mum, look…’
I am blinking.
‘...I could call and cancel. It would be nice to go out somewhere together, wouldn’t it, Max?’
I shake my head gently, lest tears fly out and soak them.
‘No, no. You don’t want to let your friend down, Emma. You guys stick with your plans. I’m busy busy busy.’
An hour later, however, Max realises that he has left his new Playstation game (Death and Amputation Rally 6) at his father’s and reminds me that the world will come to an abrupt and bloody end if he does not have access to it for the duration of the weekend. And just as Richard has learned to appreciate the importance of skills such as underwear husbandry and food shopping, so I have learned to show more sensitivity in matters relating to that part of the male fore brain that controls mindless recreational pastimes. So I volunteer to drive him round to retrieve it.
Richard’s flat is in one of those streets full of houses that are still wired up for servants, but that have evolved into crumbling piles that house sixteen well -proportioned flat-ettes. Filled mainly, presumably, by the offspring of the sort of people who may well have once had bells themselves.
I pull up outside number seven. Because it is on the wrong side of the street, I am kerbside. Max gets out and jogs up the path to a front door that opens onto what is, I assume, like a second home to him, but that is none of my business, not part of my life. The feeling is strange, and slightly unsettling. I almost want to drive around the block while I wait for him. But Richard comes out. He smells freshly showered. He has aftershave on. He says;
‘Off you go then, Max. hurry along. I’m sure your mother has better things to do than hang around here.’ Then he dips to speak to me.
‘Good do?’ he enquires, clearly assuming my puff pastry features are the result of a wild night. He isn’t, I note, affecting a martyred tone today. Hmmm.
‘So so,’ I say. ‘I’ve been to better. Anyway…thanks for having the kids..you know…’
‘You don’t have to thank me,’ he says, quick as you like. ‘They are my children too.’
‘I know, but…’
‘No buts.’ He waggles a finger. Then squints up the street into the sunshine. And says;
‘So!’
What’s with this ‘so’ all the time? I glance in the mirror and see a car pulling into the kerb behind me. Richard straightens.
‘So. Here we are then. Got your game, Max? Yes? Jolly good. Well then. See you soon…’
As I start the engine, the driver of the car behind me starts to get out. You couldn’t miss her of course; her hair stands a good three inches higher than her head. Big hair – so eighties. She gawps and bobs back down. And that’s the picture I carry back home – of Rhiannon, in simian crouch by her hatchback, while Richard stands horrified, holding his head. I wind down my window, to lean out and wave, and mouth ‘bastard’ quietly, so Max can’t hear.
*
‘Phoning to apologise?’
It’s Sunday. And almost eleven at night. He’s called late, I guess, so the kids won’t be up.
‘No, I’m not, actually. Julia, I don’t have to justify myself to you.’
‘So why did you phone?’
I am feeling very snappy.
‘Because I felt we needed to discuss things. For Christ’s sake, can’t we have a simple conversation without you bristling all the time?’
‘I am not bristling. I just don’t understand why you’ve rung me up to apologise about that woman, because it’s absolutely none of my business, is it?’
‘No, and I’m not apologising for anything, but I could see you were upset….’
‘Well, wouldn’t you be?’
‘Of course I would. And I wanted you to know that the thing with Rhiannon….’
‘I don’t give a stuff what you
and Rhiannon get up to, and furthermore…’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because it’s true! We are separated. You can do what you like.’
‘You don’t mean that..’
‘Yes I do…’
‘Because you’re already hitched up with your toy boy, I suppose.’
‘Since when?’
‘I’m not stupid, Julia. I know all about you and Howard Ringrose.’
‘Oh, do you, now? How?’
‘How do you think?’
Max. And not really unexpected. Or unwanted, frankly. But now hopelessly out of kilter, of course.
‘Well you know wrong, then, don’t you?’
‘So are you saying you’re not seeing him.’
‘Oh, I’ve been seeing him. But as a friend. Not in the way you think. As if you care anyway.’
‘But I do. Of course I do. You have no idea…’
‘I have every idea. I know just what it feels like, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I did. In fact, I hope the thought of me in bed with…’
‘Julia, for God’s sake! Why are you being like this?’
‘Why do you think?’
‘I don’t know! I just want to try to…’
‘Well you can’t.’
‘What?’
So don’t bother, okay?’
‘Julia, for Christ’s sake…’
‘Okay? You’ve left me. It’s not your business..’
‘Julia, I didn’t leave you. I didn’t leave you. You left me. You cannot say…’
‘Goodnight.’
God, I’m horrible. I listen to myself and I sound just awful. I sound like a screaming, ranting, whining, nasty, stroppy, belligerent, argumentative, bitter, sour faced old cow. Is this what is going to become of me now? Am I going to turn into one of those women with grown out perms and moustaches who go on daytime TV and rant about men?
Chapter 17
‘Jacinta Cave? What kind of stupid geeky name is that?’
‘Must be her real one. No -one would make up a name as silly as that, would they?’
‘I don’t know. Tom Cranshaw in my class tried to get everyone to start calling him Spawn of Godzilla last term.’
‘Yeah, but he’s mental, isn’t he? The whole family is mental. Tom Craig’s father is the one who was in the paper doing that sponsored maggot-eat.’
‘Cool! If I could have a made up name it would be Huntok Pincer.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘The one with the special organ dissolving powers in Mutation Ninja Derby.’
‘Max, you’re such a derr-brain. Mum, when is this woman coming? I have to meet Melanie at three by Superdrug. I’ll never get there in time.’
Emma has been in a seriously bad mood since a) I noticed a love bite on her neck and took appropriate grounding action re. the boyfriend she insists she is not going out with, and b) her father (ironically, given a.) decreed her too young to attend the Kite(in fact any) concert, believing, as he does, that not only will she be fodder for every drug dealer/serial killer/rapist (circus press gang?) etc in South Wales, but also that he needs to take a firm line now that her mother has become a hussy, tart and all-round-bad-influence, particularly in the areas of clothing/hair/lifestyle and lack of sensible quiet parenting. He has not, of course, said any of these things. He does not need to. Just as I do not need to tell him he isn’t paying sufficient attention to his ear and nasal hair. A look generally suffices.
It’s all a load of rubbish, of course. I have no life. While he has enjoyed not one but two (if not more, it now seems) jolly sessions of extra-marital sex, I have merely eaten a doner kebab and re-aquainted myself with the perils of crushes. But today is the first day of the rest of my existence, and I intend to give it a good kicking.
Since last Friday, Howard has called me at least five times. I am no longer Mata Hari but Mother Substitute ( his real mother is not au fait with Howard’s sexual orientation as she still calls homosexual men nancy boys/pansies/weirdos/not nice) and am being regaled with many detailed accounts of years of pent up sexual and sociological tension. Furthermore, I must make appropriate politically correct noises vis a vis details of the lurve thing Howard and Nick have going on. Am scheduled also to meet Nick very soon, at dinner party-ette for three at Howard’s (oh, cruel irony! But the pavlova base is now available, at least). Hope I will not get drunk and start asking personal questions about intricacies of their sex life, or stressing about the possibility of them snogging in front of me, as am fascinated and horrified in roughly equal measure.
Ditto situation with Lily. I am very embroiled in Lily’s unplanned pregnancy. She has told no-one, done nothing and is maintaining her relationship with Malcolm while he completes an MDF study nook cum storage facility for her. The girl has a breathtaking amount of nerve re. adult relationships, but is so terrified of babies that she now crosses herself when she passes Mothercare. Much weeping, much wailing, but we have now procured an appointment at a clinic. I am to come also (as Mother Substitute, naturally).
And Richard has phoned to apologise for phoning-to-apologise for having Rhiannon round, and to say that I am absolutely right and that our private lives are now very much our own and that it would be ridiculous to spend any more time and mental energy getting tetchy with one another about them. Hmmmm.
By the time Colin phoned to firm up arrangements about the forthcoming shoot, I fully expected him to tell me that Mrs Colin had run off with Chippendale type character and could he prevail upon me to become a Wife Substitute too. But instead he only commented that I always looked like a good shag but that now I looked like a great shag and that I looked, furthermore, like a woman who was begging for it. And that I have blossomed – finally. Which helped until I realised that I have no idea what Mrs Colin looks like and that she could quite possibly have a face like a bruised aubergine, or something, in which case I could extract little solace from Colin’s slavering tone. I do not want to become the sad recipient of attentions from dirty old men who cannot do any better.
And I don’t feel much like I’ve bloomed, quite frankly; more like I’ve slipped my leafy mooring in a high wind, been blown to the ground and then walked on by a retired Army Colonel in sturdy boots whilst walking his dog (who then piddles on me as well, perhaps?) But though I feel very much like Mrs Unwanted Wife from Abandonedville (despite my situation being entirely my choice) I do have the consolation of my Career Development and can at least look forward to hob nobbing with famous people.
Incidentally;
I read in Emma’s copy of Teen Talk that stomachs are here to stay for yet another summer, and so have decided to tart up my lower torso with either a lick of fake tan or one of those temporary tattoos of barbed wire. In a pair of fashionably loose fitting combat trousers and in the sepulchral glow that Colin assures me still passes for light at pop concerts (as if he’d know), I may yet pass for someone nubile, taut, and entirely free from post-partum abdominal crennelations. Why, oh why, didn’t I show more people my stomach when my belly button was still a deep and mysterious cleft in a landscape of firm and downy young flesh?
So now we’re waiting outside Cardiff Central Station, waiting for Jacinta Cave.
Who is, presumably, young, firm and possession of a perfectly respectable abdominal area, as well as, if what Colin tells me is true, a good arse, so-so tits, and a nose ring.
I am trying to assemble this collection of erotica into something Max could use as an aid to identification, (Emma has by now opted to wait no longer and has removed herself stomp-fashion) when a sinewy young woman slides up to us and dumps an enormous Nike holdall on the ground. She seems to be wearing mainly black leather and sacking.
‘You have to be Julia,’ she announces, grinning through violently red lips.
Why do I have to be Julia? Post-marital hairdo, own teeth, cellulite?
‘And you must be Jacinta,’ I suggest, with appropriate gush
. ‘Good journey?’
‘God-awful. No buffet, crap trolley service, and two blokes poking each other in the toilet most of the way here, right behind my seat…oh! Sorr-ee. Didn’t see him. Oops!’
Max appears to have no concept of poke as a euphemism, thankfully, but I am distracted by unsavoury pictures of Howard and Nick. I still have a great deal of deep rooted prejudice type baggage to deal with, obviously.
‘Well,’ I say, finally, ‘you’re here now. Let’s get back and get sorted out.
I pick up her bag, wondering if it might be full of French cigarettes, illegal substances and condoms, while Max helps her into the car and asks how much it costs to get your eyebrow pierced.
She has, in fact, sufficient metal furniture on her face and ears to hang a good sized net curtain from, and swathes of matt black hair, partly restrained by a clip. Her face is angular and pretty, if a little pale against the scarlet gash. She looks exactly as she should, given the nature of her work.
‘Well, hello Cardiff,’ she sings, lighting up. ‘What’s occurring?’
We have decided to go out.
Jacinta, who as well as writing for Depth, pens thrusting articles for the music press, would like to get the feel of Cardiff’s scene, apparently, and so would like to hang out for a while tonight, soaking up Welsh Youth Culture and suchlike, and getting rat-arsed.
So when we got back, I spent some time considering what I believed to be the basics of the Cardiff scene and all I was able to come up with were;
St David’s Hall
Atlantic Wharf Leisure Village
Arcades (v. trendy shops, but will be closed by time we get there)
Harry Ramsdens
College (whither scene (if any) on campus?)
Julia Gets a Life Page 12