Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons

by Lorraine Jenkin

  She sped along, considering her reply. “If no indiv ports of jam, I’m going home”. No, too naff. “Made use of the hotel masseur yet?” – no, too sleazy, especially as she was still unsure about the letter that she’d left at the house. No, she couldn’t beat the one he sent, pressed Reply and started typing out “Sorry, can’t do it like that any more – I need silver tea sets L” , her phone in her right hand over the steering wheel, looking back and fore between the road and the small screen, her thumb dexterously stamping in the letters.

  Looking back to the road, she saw the corner late. She stepped on the brake as she took the bend far too wide to be safe. As she careered around the corner, her wheels rattling over the cats’ eyes in the middle of the road, her heart thumped in fright and therefore she took a couple of seconds longer than usual to work out the scene that was in front of her. She saw a car, then saw skid marks in the road. Tyre marks ripped through the grass on the verge and evening sun glistened off shattered glass.

  It took her a second longer to realise that the car in front of her wasn’t moving any more and a further one to slam on the anchors. She did this with everything she had. Her feet pushed the brake and the clutch pedals to the floor, her hands outstretched to the steering wheel, the mobile phone caught between as she pressed with all of her strength and tried to control the skid. Something looking like a crash test dummy lay sprawled in the road and she pressed again, her tyres screeching over the road. She’d nearly stopped when her wheels found a pool of oil and swung her sideways. As if it was all in slow motion, Lettie felt herself slide not so gently into a tree. She was thrown sideways and then rebounded back within her seatbelt, hitting her head on the door upright. Everything went black as she slumped into the wheel, just feet from the carnage before her.

  She woke as her door was wrenched opened by a paramedic. “It’s OK,” said the lady. “My name is Jennifer and I’m here with the ambulance. Can you hear me? You’ve had a bump in the car.” Lettie tried to say yes, but instead groaned. She wanted to shake the fug out of her head, but it hurt so much. She put her hand up to her ear and felt where the pain was. “Did you bump your head?” asked Jennifer, pulling back Lettie’s hair and investigating the damage. Lettie nodded and felt herself beginning to cry.

  She was aware of the blue lights, their flashing was hurting her eyes. She could hear shouting and footsteps running about and the clicks and crackles of the emergency teams’ radios. The gentle voice of Jennifer chatted to her although Lettie had no real comprehension of what she was saying. At least it was nearly blocking out the screams and crying that was going on around them.

  Lettie tried to tell Jennifer that she wasn’t hurting anywhere else and then tried not to move when a collar was put round her neck. A cold pad was put against the side of her head and she felt some relief from the pain. She was helped out of the car and into the ambulance where she was checked over more thoroughly.

  She felt comforted by the blanket that was wrapped round her along with a friendly arm that allowed her to sob. “We’ll try and contact someone for you, OK? We’ll just get you to the hospital to check you over properly and then someone can come and get you – you’ll have given them all a bit of a fright, eh? Ruined their Saturday night viewing a bit, I’m sure!”

  A policeman took her handbag from the car and put it gently on the floor beside her in the ambulance and arranged to have her car towed away. But he didn’t spot the smashed mobile phone with the passion-pink cover lying in the crumbs and dog hair under the seat that had just sent a message reading “Sorry, cant do it l” before ceasing to function.

  It was Alex the police eventually got hold of as Lettie’s next of kin and it was Richard that came to collect her early the next morning. He helped Lettie into the car holding a compress to her head and managing a weak smile. “We tried to ring Doug last night,” said Richard, “but of course he wasn’t at home. He didn’t have an answer machine, so we couldn’t leave a message, and we didn’t have his mobile number I am afraid and he’d checked out of the hotel by the time we contacted them.”

  Lettie sighed. Doug wasn’t exactly forgotten, but he was very much put to one side – the whole event of pampering herself and preparing for a date seemed suddenly frivolous and vain after what she had since been through. The thought that she had been texting while she was driving made her shudder. She could have so easily been the cause of the accident if she’d been two minutes earlier. Or, what if she hadn’t managed to stop and had just ploughed over that poor soul in the road… No, the whole Dougie/phone thing left a nasty taste in her mouth.

  She rummaged half-heartedly through her bag for her phone, but wasn’t over-bothered when she couldn’t find it. She couldn’t remember his number off-hand – was it 07983, no 07893, no, she gave Richard back his mobile. “I’ll phone him later.” Doug would understand. Anyone would.

  Chapter 39

  Egg Sandwiches Left on the School Bus

  But what Lettie didn’t know was that as she was being helped from her wrecked car into an ambulance, Doug had been sat on a bed in a hotel in Tenby. His head was in his hands and his shoulders were gently rocking to control the sobs that were overwhelming his body and drowning his soul.

  He had checked his mobile phone a thousand times since, but the little bleeps that had come to punctuate his days had stopped and been replaced by an unloving silence. That text, “sorry, cant do it l”, “sorry, cant do it l”. There was no ambiguity there, no misunderstanding. She just didn’t want to meet him. Didn’t want to be with him after all.

  Sadly for Dougie, it was a feeling that was all too familiar. The tears that ran down his face were not just for that weekend – the shame of fifteen years ago had returned to his shoulders to weigh him down once more.

  Just as he now felt ridiculous in the cherished, but daring, red silk boxer shorts, so he had felt ridiculous in that tightly buttoned suit, the uncharacteristically effeminate tie and the unbalanced top hat. If he could have been dumped at the altar wearing his rigger boots and checked shirt, he probably could have coped.

  He could have joined the boys at the bar of the Llew Coch and confessed his actual and very real joy that she’d had the guts to cancel – something he was too gallant to have ever done. But instead, he’d had to stand there being first gently ribbed and then very obviously distracted and then having his hand shaken and his back patted in a supportive “don’t worry about it mate, it happens to us all” kind of way, by one hundred and three people. Women had kissed him, girls hugged him and all he had felt was, “I wish I hadn’t looked like a prat when I was jilted.”

  The shame had been multiplied when the photographer sent him the selection of pre-wedding photos along with his invoice. In those photos, Doug had been moulded and nudged into ridiculous poses: waving his top hat, being carried into the church lobby by his friends, looking at his watch. He had sat at his kitchen table looking at the evidence of his embarrassment and felt incredibly stupid that there should be a record of his humiliation. He had thrown the photos on the floor in tears, then picked them up again and then thrown them down again. He couldn’t burn them, he couldn’t keep them, he certainly couldn’t return them. It had been Rob in the end that had called by and found them scattered on the floor. Whilst Doug had been fetching his jacket, Rob must have picked them up and put them back in the box.

  “Do you want me to hang on to these for a while, mate?” he had said gently. Doug had nodded. The invoice had somehow been paid as Doug received a letter thanking him for his cheque and remarking that if a wedding photographer’s services were needed again, to please let him know. Cameras still made Dougie shudder and whenever people pointed one at him, he shuffled out the way. He just felt like he did not need any more records of him looking foolish, he had cold flushes about the amount of photos out there that had been taken by friends before the wedding and the fun that had been made of them. No, best not to open yourself up to it again.

  Yet, now he had done it
again. Provided the ammunition for more jokes and more ridicule.

  The shame returned as he thought of the interest that the same boys who’d shaken his hand so meaningfully on that hideous day, had shown in his new and slightly unconventional love. As he’d left the bar the night before, he’d been given “a pulling set” that the regulars had cobbled together. A comb, a condom, Dioreeze and a Polo mint. Someone else had given him an old shoehorn, saying, “I hear you’ve a bit of a whopper, Dougie. For God’s sake, treat the girl carefully and ease it in with this.” Dougie had left the pub on a high – his mates were behind him and he was finally going to meet a girl he knew he would love.

  But, now, she had dumped him too. He’d give her another half-hour, and then he’d take off the ridiculous shorts, pay his bill and go back home. He’d left two messages and two texts on Lettie’s phone after receiving hers, desperate for a conversation or at least an explanation, but his calls went unanswered. She never not answered her phone. She just didn’t want to meet him. The charade was over, and that was all that it was. Just like they said it would be. Just like they said it would be.

  The four-poster beds that he’d scoured the town’s accommodation guide for goaded him, with their lace and frills that required the presence of a woman to be appreciated. The spectacular sea view would remain unseen and the champagne on the window table was warming nicely in a bucket of lukewarm water. He felt sickened, he felt foolish, but mostly, he just felt very sad.

  Chapter 40

  The Angel Layer Cake

  It was a difficult week for all…

  Lettie rang Doug on Saturday evening after a very sleepy and painful day and got no answer. Ditto Sunday and Monday, after which she said, “Well if he gives up on me that easily after all I’ve been through, sod him.”

  Doug stayed in on Saturday and Sunday and listened to the phone ringing, feeling sorry for himself. If it were something simple like a puncture, she’d have phoned his mobile on the Friday night. But that message… No, he was fed up with playing silly games; dressing up like a fool to sit in, and then pay for, two empty rooms and yet another no show.

  Lisa slumped back into her tracksuit bottoms and chocolate smears and felt shamed that she’d ever thought any different. How could she have thought that a married man might be interested in her? He’d only smiled at her for goodness sake – she was Lettie’s flatmate; that’s what people do when they meet people who know people they know. Why did she think that just because someone was being sociable, they would automatically want to cheat on their wife and have an affair with her for her convenience? His wife was very nice, she was thin, she wore clothes that fitted her, she didn’t smell. Lisa cringed as she saw herself squeezing into that suit and then squeezing herself into his car. Outrageous flirting. Oh God, she’d sung too? How could she have sung along to Bob Dylan?

  She could just imagine Malcolm chuckling with Jill, “It was all a bit embarrassing, really – I was quite glad that Geoff cancelled. Don’t you ever leave me alone with her again!”

  Rizzo was getting hassle from his tutor about the thesis. He’d rearranged their meeting twice; he hadn’t even shown the professor the hypothesis yet as he feared his tutor would not be impressed. But he still felt that Professor George wouldn’t be able to help being impressed with the finished product. Unfortunately, the finished product was stalling somewhat too and his subject was a little too cross to be toyed with.

  Jill suspected something was up, but just couldn’t put her finger on it.

  Malcolm, no, Malcolm was OK. But, Skinny and Eve – oh dear…

  Skinny had arrived home in an ambulance car, his bag and his body popping with prescriptions to assist his aches and nausea. The leaving committee at the hospital was a delighted one. The romance was now officially the talk of the town and the nurses had revelled in teasing Skinny, who denied all knowledge and resented the accusations. They’d also delighted in chatting to Eve who now seemed to have friends interested in her welfare at every turn and in every shop in town. A number of choice details had been elicited and were now circulating and growing in drama by the hour.

  Chapter 41

  The Forbidden Fruit

  Skinny would have been perturbed – if he’d known in his hazy state what the word meant. People kept referring to how lucky he was to “have” Eve and that she would be “taking care of him” when he got home. So far he’d needed a nurse with him to do everything, including cleaning him up after the bouts of diarrhoea that seemed to follow every meal. All he’d wanted to do was to join his old mates at the Llew and have a laugh and a couple of beers, but when he mentioned this, and then asked for it, and then demanded it of the nurses, they had just tucked him up once more and said that he’d have to wait for Doctor. And, anyway, he couldn’t go out like this – he wouldn’t be able to even lift a pint, let alone piss it against a wall.

  He’d tried to tell Doctor Radcliff that, after their little chat, he thought he had everything under control, but she’d just given him a look that made him feel like a child with his hand in the cookie jar and said, “I am sure we have spoken about this, Peter? It’s going to take a lot longer than three days.”

  He was pleased at the thought of going home and getting his freedom back, but he still didn’t really understand how he would manage. The plastered arms had no strength or flexibility at all and his hands had only a restricted, and painful, level of movement. Eve had brought in a bag of his clothes and although he was appreciative, he didn’t really like the thought of her going into his room and rummaging though his things. However, in fairness, she’d guessed well at the things he usually wore, although his shirts were pretty useless with the plaster.

  He was rather upset to find that the nurses had shown Eve how to adjust his shirts to fit – cutting the sleeves off, although Eve later told him that she’d done the alterations very carefully and had kept the sleeves to be rejoined later. She’d even put tucks in the shoulders to stop him gaping, aware of how pathetically ribby he was. She had actually quite enjoyed doing the preparatory work for Skinny’s homecoming, sitting in her mother’s sitting room with her sewing box beside her, chatting about what she was doing as if knitting for a much-wanted first baby.

  She had also bought some vegetables and fruit and a stock of vitamin pills, taking Doctor Radcliff’s advice very seriously. She’d visited the newsagents to buy him a couple of magazines to flick through to take his mind off his condition, but halfway home realised that he couldn’t actually flick through anything without a willing participant. Therefore she had returned them and swapped them for a crossword book that they could complete together in the evenings.

  The two ambulance drivers that had collected him from the road dropped him off at his home and more than a couple of curtains twitched as the grey-faced man with a brown blanket draped over his shoulders was helped up the steps. Eve welcomed him home and fussed over her new charge and his helpers like a mother hen. The kettle was just off boiling point and a tray was ready laid with ginger cake and china for his arrival. Instructions to see him settled convinced the ambulance crew that they were allowed to indulge in Eve’s tea party, although it was remarked in the car on the return to the hospital that after that ginger cake, it was reckoned that they’d be eating grass on the morrow…

  Eve took the stage and talked the crew through the preparations she’d made, insisting on showing them inside the fridge and the new vegetable rack she had bought and filled, although she was still not entirely sure what to do with the pack of three aubergines. She showed them the wedges she had put in the door frames to stop them slamming shut and trapping Peter in a room, as the old doorknobs were stiff, managing, for the first time in her life, to make a successful smutty double entendre.

  “I’ve told Trefor that he’ll just have to sing in the bathroom!” she chuckled and the crew laughed at the fear imprinted on Skinny’s face. “Mind,” she said, patting the ambulance man on the arm and cackling at the shared crudity, “’e
can’t do a lot in there on hes own, even if he managed to get in by hisself,” and went off into spasms of laughter.

  The worried look on Peter’s brow increased, “But, but hang on, what will I do if I want the, when I want the…toilet?”

  The crew looked at Eve, swigged the rest of their tea, “Time we went, I think? Might as well let you start as you mean to go on, eh?” and they wished Skinny a cheery good luck, winked at Eve, who attempted to wink back, and left.

  Eve popped the last of the ginger cake into her mouth and licked her fingers clean, and Skinny gulped as he wondered what the licked fingers were to pre-empt. She took charge in the fashion of a school matron and, adding insult to injury, pulled down the front of his trousers and pulled his John Thomas out of the front of his boxers before he even left the lounge. Thus the confused man found himself being led whimpering into the bathroom, leaving the last of his not substantial dignity in the lounge.

  He even failed in passing water; couldn’t even bring himself to produce as much as a few pathetic drips. But Eve insisted on shaking for drips anyway and rather more thoroughly than he would normally do and smiled seductively at him as she tucked him gently back in. “Thank God there’s no zip,” was all he could say before he allowed himself to be led back to the chair to be hand-fed, like a baby monkey that has lost its mother.