by Voss, Louise
Ken hadn’t quizzed me further, other than to ask if I had a lot of lines, and did it feel good to be working again—both questions which were easily dealt with. Largely because I got the impression that he wasn’t really even listening to the answers.
Still, it had made a refreshing change from when he usually rang me from business trips. For once I hadn’t experienced that crushing sense of envy and stale frustration, because he’d been calling me from Sydney Harbour/ a pyramid in Mexico a golf course in Buenos Aires, whilst I was usually still in my pyjamas at home sitting on an unmade bed with my finger up my nose (metaphorically speaking, of course). I felt positively gleeful after he’d hung up, and far less guilty than I’d been up to that point.
At four o’clock I rang Adam to double-check the arrangements for that evening. It had taken a colossal effort on my part not to call him sooner, but I’d been determined to get myself settled before I did so. And, although it felt strange to admit and I didn’t understand precisely why, I was playing hard to get. I wanted him to be really pleased to hear from me again.
He had been really pleased to hear from me. Touchingly pleased, but in such an utterly disingenuous way that, actually, my heart kind of skipped when I heard his voice. ‘Anna! Brilliant to hear from you, I was wondering what you were up to. How’s the job going?’
‘Fine, thanks,’ I said with my fingers crossed. ‘I’ve done my first four days’ filming - I was in Bristol most of last week.’ Unsurprisingly, lying to Adam was a lot easier than it had been to Ken. In a way that was good, I thought, because I could tell things to Adam first, as a sort of rehearsal before I told Ken.
‘Wow, congratulations. I can’t believe that I know a real TV star. Max will be so impressed. When will we see you on television? Soon?’
‘Fraid not,’ I said, thrilled at his—misplaced—pride. ‘It’s only on cable, in Devon and Cornwall, I think, and maybe parts of Wales.’
‘Oh, well, we’ll have to wait until next summer. Max and I usually go down to Devon to stay with a friend of mine for a couple of weeks. I’ll make sure we catch it then!’
Shit. I tried to take a deep breath, feeling my face heating up, but it appeared that a large brick had lodged itself in my windpipe. Keep calm, Anna, I thought. It’s not an insurmountable problem. You just have to find the name of a real west country cable soap, then whenever anyone says they saw it but didn’t spot you, you pretend that you weren’t in it that month; you were on holiday or something.
Besides, who knew what would be going on by the following summer. I could always pretend that the series had been axed, or else that my character had been killed off in a freak tree-pruning accident. I decided that it was best not to think too much about possible ways to trip up, or it would start to worry me to the point of not being able to keep the charade going at all.
‘Anyway, I just rang to check that we’re still on for tonight,’ I said, changing the subject.
‘Definitely,’ he replied. ‘You’re still coming, aren’t you? Fantastic. We’re meeting at seven thirty in the restaurant—it’s Emandels in Bridge Street, near the clock tower. Do you know it?’
‘I can find it. Who’s going to be there?’
I heard paper flapping. ‘Here’s my list… Let’s see: Serena, Mitch, Margie, Ralph, possibly Pamela, maybe Mary if she can get a babysitter for Orlando, you, and me, of course.’
I’d been hoping that Ralph and Mitch would be washing their hair that night, but no such luck. ‘Is Pamela the pregnant lady?’ I asked.
‘No. That was Paula. She isn’t coming, her baby’s due at any minute. She said she can’t get out of her armchair without a winch, and her ankles are the size of salamis.’
Lucky Paula, I thought with such vehement envy that I felt queasy. ‘I don’t remember Pamela,’ was all I said though. ‘She wasn’t one of the regulars, was she?’
‘No, Pamela didn’t work on the project. She’s the art department administrator at the college—you probably spoke to her on the phone. She babysits for me too sometimes.’
Of course! Love-struck broad-beamed Pamela. How could I have forgotten? ‘Oh yes. I met her, when I came to try and enrol.’
‘Are you still interested in joining a class, by the way? People always drop out after the first few weeks, so it’s worth putting your name on the reserve list if you are.’
‘Oh right. Yes, you know, I might. I’ll have another look at the prospectus and see what I fancy. What would you recommend?’
‘Totally depends on what you like to do. I teach life drawing, and that’s usually a good group. But wasn’t it you who wanted to make a mosaic tabletop?’
Oh yes, so it had been. I’d forgotten about that. ‘Definitely. Maybe I’ll sign up for both, and see which I get a place on first.’
‘Well, I’d better go. Max is round at a friend’s, and I need to go and collect him in a minute.’
‘How is he?’
‘Fine, thanks. He’s great. He’s been asking about you, actually.’
‘He has?’ I hoped that my voice didn’t betray the joy which oozed out of me, coating me with sticky euphoria.
‘Mmm. You made quite an impression.’
‘So did he. I’d love to see him again.’
‘Well, we must arrange to get together. Maybe next weekend.’
I liked the fact that Adam always seemed one date ahead—making plans for something else before we’d done the last thing. We still had our Chinese a deux to come. But I needed to see Ken the following weekend. ‘I’m working, unfortunately. Script read-throughs. How about one day after school, if he’s not too tired?’
‘Yes, perhaps. Although he gets quite booked up, going to mates’ houses, football, that sort of thing.’
It felt like a knockback, but I tried to put a brave face on it. ‘And if you ever need a babysitter, I’d be happy to help out, when I’m not working myself, obviously.’
Then I thought how needy that sounded and, it seemed, so did Adam. ‘I think we’re all right in that department, with Pamela. But thanks anyway.’
In one fell swoop all my confidence and ebullience melted away. I felt like a teenager who’d plucked up courage to ask out her crush, only to be told that he didn’t fancy her. After his initial pleasure on hearing from me, Adam had seemed much cooler than in our last phone conversation. Perhaps he’d decided it was time to Play It Cool—the complicated dance of courtship felt so unfamiliar to me, like a foxtrot or a two-step for which everyone except me knew the moves. Of course it didn’t entirely make sense that Adam would have known either, since he too was—technically - married, but I just got the feeling that while I was fiddling with fans and dance cards and tripping over my feet, he was elegantly waltzing around the room, swooping forwards and backing off in time to the music…Perhaps he’d dated lots of women since Marilyn left. He was certainly attractive enough, once you got to know him.
There was a commotion outside my window, and I looked down to see one of Dora’s dogs running full pelt into the pond, causing the ducks to take flight and flap away in abject panic, with the dog crashing through the shallow water after them. Dora herself stood on the bank, restraining the other one which, although practically throttled by her tight grip on his leash, was still managing to bark itself hysterical in high, strangulated tones.
‘So, see you later,’ said Adam with finality. ‘I really must go, or Max will think I’ve forgotten about him.’
‘Right. See you later,’ I said, and hung up, too flummoxed to even think about running outside to try and offer Dora some assistance. Instead I just watched as a middle aged bald man in a Barbour jacket obligingly ran along the bank after the duck-chasing dog, until it got close enough for him to grab the lead. A small crowd of assorted dog walkers, ramblers, and mothers with toddlers had gathered on the little ornamental bridge straddling the pond, and were watching with fingers pointed and mouths agape—not just the children, either. That was country life for you, I supposed, where the biggest
excitement of your day was a dog splashing after some panic-struck ducks.
I wondered what on earth they’d all think about me, if they’d known. It would probably have kept them in gossip for days. And why did I feel so despondent about a man I didn’t want, and couldn’t have anyway?
I was surprised at how hurt I felt at Adam’s apparent unwillingness to let me babysit. It tainted the euphoria of my day, affecting all my subsequent decisions. As I balanced on the bed in order to check my appearance in the flat’s one small mirror on the bedroom wall, I realized that had chosen a totally different outfit to the one I’d vaguely been planning. I’d replaced the intended smart black wide-leg trousers and silk button-up Agnes B shirt with my short denim mini skirt and my lowest plunge-necked contour-hugging top: Ann Widdicombe to Divine Brown in three easy stages. How had that happened? And how had a simple lack of enthusiasm for my offer to babysit led to me doubting my own attractiveness? I suddenly felt as if I was right back to being seventeen again: anguished and insecure about whether the object of my affections liked me, or whether it was merely wishful thinking.
For the first time I confronted the thought which had, prior to that point, merely been skirting around the periphery of my mind. I had a devastatingly handsome, hugely successful and - reasonably - devoted husband; a good man whom I respected and loved and wanted to grow old with. Yet, for some unfathomable reason—and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just to do with Max—I acknowledged that I had developed a stonking great crush on a paunchy balding ceramics teacher.
It was true, I realised, as I stood on the bed still twisting my torso around to try and look at my bottom. I hadn’t allowed myself to indulge the notion before, but ever since I’d cooked them dinner, I had found myself thinking about them both, constantly—and thinking about Adam in a very different way to the way I thought about Max. Thinking about the way Adam’s blue eyes were so honest, and the openness of his smile. Thinking about his broad shoulders—despite the slight paunch, he was a powerful, well-built man—and strong legs. Seeing him over and over in my mind, bending down to pick up Max’s toys. The way that almost everything he said had either made me laugh, or feel good, or feel admiration for him. The rough skin on his large hands, which had given me a rasping thrill when they’d held mine in welcome and farewell. That hug…
I tried to analyse it, to extrapolate an explanation. Maybe it was solely because he was so different to Ken. Since we’d been married, I hadn’t really spent any amount of time with any other males, not like that. It was only a temporary infatuation, I told myself; a reaction to the strange situation I’d found myself in. I’d get over it.
Of course it had nothing to do with sex. But why, then, was I having mini-fantasies about getting down and dirty with a pottery teacher? Imagining that I got a place on Adam’s life drawing class, and that his hand would guide the charcoal stick in my own, as we gazed on the flawless body of a model (even in my fantasy I couldn’t work out which sex to make the model. If male, it would be sexier for me; if female, perhaps Adam would substitute in his mind my head on her body). Our eyes would meet over my easel, and he’d praise my work with an expression which would tell me that it wasn’t just my drawing he was impressed by.
And why could I not seem to stop trying to picture what his body looked like beneath his loose jeans? I remembered with shame the way that, on the final day of the mosaic project, he’d brushed my hand as he showed me the finer points of grouting, and I had blushed like a schoolgirl. So it had started back then, and I’d been in denial; despite the fact that I had even taken to fits of inane giggling whenever he said something funny—which was often. The like of which laugh I had never heard coming from my own throat before. Hee hee hee, I’d tittered, like a five year old meeting Santa for the first time. It was pathetic.
I sat abruptly back down on the bed. My hands were shaking, and I felt damp and hot between my legs. Then I lay back and closed my eyes, giving myself leave to imagine him pressing me up against the wall of the dingy hamster-cage Ladies toilet in Moose Hall, pinning my arms above my head. Even just thinking about it evoked that scent of sawdust and Dettol again, and there Adam would be, whispering, ‘shhh, Anna, we must be quiet’ (because, even in my erotic daydream, Ralph would be hovering outside the door of the Ladies, waiting for me to emerge so that he could continue to bore me about his bunion operation or his fencing skills).
‘Shhh, Anna’, Adam would say, and with that irresistibly appealing cheeky grin he would lean forward until his broad chest touched my breasts and I would be able to feel his breath on my lips, and he’d inch closer and closer until his bulk would be squashing me, in a nice way of course, and then as the lower part of his trunk came closer, there it would be, the lump in the front of his jeans which would collide with me just as he began to part my lips with his tongue, and he’d exude that divine smell of his, a faint but musky trace of aftershave mixed with bluebells in the forest, blocking out the hamster-cage smell, and then we’d kiss, slowly at first and then—but it wasn’t about sex.
Not at all. He was just a lovely person, that was all. Surely it was natural to want to get close to such a lovely person. There was nothing unusual or worrying about being attracted to another man. It was what you did about it that would get you into trouble. And I had absolutely no intention of ever acting out my daydreams.
Lucky too, I supposed, that Adam clearly didn’t feel the same way about me. He was so obviously one of those easy-going men who most women liked, I thought, and far too much of a gentleman to ever try anything on.
I’d never even considered having an affair and I certainly didn’t want one—but there had just been something about the way Adam had looked at me, especially when I’d been at his house that time. With something approaching almost depression, I realized that if he did, as I suspected, find me attractive, and if he made a play for me, I’d have found it quite difficult to resist.
Oh, see sense Anna, I told myself. The last thing I needed was to have an affair. It would probably finish Ken off altogether. He’d been devastated about Holly too, and it would be a big enough mindfuck if he ever found out that I’d lied about the acting job. I couldn’t have an affair. I couldn’t do that to him, on top of everything else.
I’d read in a woman’s magazine at the dentist surgery that it was healthy for an adult woman to have crushes, just as long as they didn’t make her miserable. A good crush could improve the circulation and boost the immune system, it said, not to mention the excitement of letting one’s imagination run riot. So I granted myself a small, temporary licence to enjoy such new and strange feelings. It was OK to find Adam attractive, because he was an attractive person, inside and out. An attractive person who listened to me, who laughed at my inane jokes and looked genuinely interested in my throwaway comments.
And anyway, he probably didn’t really fancy me. He was probably just lonely.
Chapter 23
By the time I eventually pushed open the door of the restaurant, I was confused and anxious; wrung out with doubts and trepidation. It made me feel exhausted, actually, to think that this was only the beginning. No going back, not for now; not when I had a real chance to be in Max’s life, and I’d paid a three month deposit on the flat in Wealton.
‘Anna! Hi! Come and sit down,’ Mitch patted the seat of an empty chair next to him, so I pretended I hadn’t heard, and headed in the opposite direction towards Adam.
It had not escaped my notice, the way my head swam at the sight of Adam in a clean white shirt, smiling at me, but I tried to ignore it. Unfortunately, since my minicab had been ten minutes late, the seats on either side of him were already occupied by his fan club, Pamela and Serena. They were practically hanging off his arms like groupies, vying for his attention in what I thought was a most unsubtle manner. I had to slide into a space in between Pamela and Ralph, although it wasn’t an ideal position. Ralph and Dutch Margie were holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, and Pamela of course only ha
d eyes for Adam, and so both were leaning away from me, making me feel like I had some kind of dire personal hygiene problem. Everybody said hello to me, of course, and Adam did slide me a sly little resigned look, as if to say, ‘sorry I’m a bit trapped here, but I’ll be with you when I can,’ but I still felt awkward. I occupied myself by studying the menu and, when they weren’t looking, my fellow diners.
There were eight of us present: myself, Adam, Mitch, Serena, Pamela, Margie, Ralph, and Orlando’s mum—I couldn’t remember her name. All the women were far more dressy than I was, sporting chokers and beaded garments, fake flower clips in their hair (Margie and Serena), and I could smell the hairspray which crystallised Pamela’s large coiffure, as well as the perfume from behind her equally large ears. I was glad I’d had my own hair done that day but, as Mitch gazed shamelessly into my cleavage, I fervently wished I’d stuck to the black trousers and sober shirt combo.
We were a mismatched party. Mitch had brushed his long straggly hair, but still wore the grubby tie-dye t-shirt I’d first seen him in, and he looked distinctly at odds next to Orlando’s mum—oh, Mary, that was her name—in her pearls and floral blouse. She was clearly not happy to be seated next to him, and was leaning across the table talking to Serena. I wondered what the other people in the restaurant made of us. Probably thought we were the local branch of Alcoholics Anonymous—at least, until the waiter brought over a bottle of red and one of white, plonking them already opened in the centre of the table without offering anybody the chance to taste them first.