Men I've Loved Before

by Adele Parks

  The odd thing was, the day after his visit to Hush Hush, when his hangover had been raging with such an intensity that he’d started to believe he was being subjected to some medieval torture and his wife was silently sulking in a way that screamed her discontent and disappointment with him, Neil did not feel one hundred per cent awful. Ninety-nine per cent, certainly, but there had been a small glimmer of hope. There was something that was not quite ugly, wrong or painful in his life. There was Cindy. OK, he couldn’t remember her name at first and he called her ‘his dancer’ but now he knew. There was Cindy.

  As he’d expected, it was not her nipples he remembered the next day, but it was a surprise to him to discover he remembered the exact nature of her smile. Not the unconvincing smile that she bestowed as a professional courtesy, no. The smile that he remembered was the one she’d launched his way when she’d asked if he had a wife and kids and he’d replied yes to the former and that he ‘longed for the latter’. At the time her smile had warmed something deep in the pit of his stomach and for a moment he believed that he wasn’t unreasonable for changing his mind about wanting a child (as Nat maintained) or out of his senses (as Karl insisted). He thought his decision might be OK. Might be quite sound. If only Nat could see it.

  It wasn’t standard stripper talk, he was pretty sure of that. Karl could mock and say that these women were just trained to spot your Achilles heel but Neil saw sincerity in her smile, and so what if the smile had been paid for? He was almost certain she would have bestowed it for free. They had a connection. Definitely. Outside of this place, with its plush cushions and sparkly beads, he was sure they could be friends. Not that he was saying he wanted to take their friendship outside these four walls. No way. Neil wasn’t a fool, he could see that would lead to trouble. He was just making the point that he believed there was something real about the way Cindy had listened to him when, after the first private dance, he’d asked her to sit down, put her dress back on and just answer him, was he so unreasonable? She’d been happy to do it. At least, she had been once they’d agreed a price for the next forty minutes. On the way home Karl had pointed out that minute for minute Cindy was more expensive than a trip to the Bahamas, and while Karl had spent approximately the same money on Gina, Lottie and Ava as Neil had on Cindy, Karl thought it was pissing cash down the drain to pay for talk. He’d pay a woman to shut up maybe but to talk? It was inconceivable. But Karl was always sarky, that was his thing. Neil did his best to ignore him.

  ‘When is Cindy in next?’ Neil asked the barman hesitantly. He wasn’t sure of the etiquette. Were the punters allowed to request particular girls or was it a bit creepy? It felt vaguely disturbing. He stood back from the bar so that the guy could see he was wearing head-to-toe Diesel, not a dirty mackintosh. He wanted to say that he had never owned an inflatable doll.

  ‘Wednesday lunchtime.’

  Lunchtime? These girls took their clothes off during the day? It didn’t seem right. Who came to this sort of place during the daytime? Only the seriously sad and desperate, thought Neil

  Which is why he was surprised when, today, he found himself shuffling past the chunky bouncer in broad daylight. The werewolf bar guy nodded in recognition. He passed a bottle of beer across the counter which Neil gratefully picked up and gulped back even though he wasn’t usually a lunchtime drinker.

  ‘On the house,’ said the werewolf.

  ‘Thanks,’ muttered Neil, not sure if he was secretly thrilled or disgusted that he’d turned into the sort of man who was awarded free drinks in a strip joint.

  ‘You should get a membership,’ suggested the werewolf.

  ‘Oh no,’ objected Neil.

  ‘Why not? You’d save lots of dough in the long run.’

  Neil felt uncomfortable as he didn’t see himself as someone who needed a membership to this sort of place. Was he planning on a long run?

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said pathetically.

  ‘Come on. I’ll take you to her. She’s waiting in the VIP lounge.’

  Before Neil had a chance to thoroughly contemplate what the barman said, he was led towards the VIP lounges. There Cindy was waiting for him as promised, or at least she was waiting for someone and it suited everyone’s purposes to pretend that the someone was Neil. She patted the velvet seat next to her. Obediently, Neil sat down; he could feel the warmth of her thigh next to his. She offered him a drink.

  ‘No thanks. I’ve already had a beer and to be honest it’s a bit early for me,’ he said demurely.

  ‘You’ll have to order something, love. Or else I won’t be able to sit here with you. I’ll have to go and see the other punters,’ said Cindy flatly.

  Neil had noted that the place was all but empty, there weren’t any unattended punters but he wasn’t in the mood for a row, those he could get at home, in abundance. Instead he nodded at the werewolf barman who was hovering close by precisely because he was expecting to take an order. The werewolf didn’t wait for explicit instructions but once given the nod, he quickly disappeared and then returned almost immediately with a bottle of fizz in a bucket. The efficiency suggested another rehearsed routine, the thought of which vaguely irritated Neil. He wished he’d specified that he just wanted another bottle of beer. This chat he wanted with Cindy was becoming scarily expensive. He could buy an updated iPod touch for about the same as that bottle of pop (which he had no intention of consuming) had cost him. Cindy sensed his resentment and treated him to a broad smile.

  ‘So, Nile, lovely to see you again,’ she said crossing her legs, causing her dress to fall open, exposing the toned, tanned flesh of her upper thigh.

  ‘Neil,’ he corrected.

  ‘Sorry, angel. Neil, right.’ She shrugged, too shrewd to bother being abjectly apologetic. They both knew where and how they met. They knew the score. ‘I didn’t have you down as a lunchtime visitor,’ she added.

  ‘No. I’m not, really.’

  ‘Would you like a dance now?’ She stood up and started to fiddle with the clasp on her halter neck of her sparkly dress.

  ‘No, not really,’ replied Neil awkwardly. Cindy looked colder than he remembered and her heavy make-up was gathered around the creases of her eyes in a way that drew his attention. She was still an attractive woman, or at least she was still an attractive caricature of a woman which was the best he could hope for in a strip joint. It wasn’t that Neil had gone off the idea of seeing her naked, he just wasn’t sure he was ever on the idea of seeing her naked. That wasn’t why he was here.

  ‘I can’t sit here for free,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Of course.’ Neil reached into his pocket and pulled out a bundle of twenties. He threw them on to the table. Cindy reached for them, snaffling the cash with a feral determination that put Neil in mind of an urban fox rummaging through bin bags late at night. He shifted uncomfortably on the plush sofa. She hadn’t appeared so mercenary the other night. Was he a fool? A prize twat? Of course she was mercenary. She was a stripper, everything was for sale. Neil felt hideously sad. What was he doing here? Was he some sort of desperate, friendless wanker that he needed to pay a stripper for a chat? A moment’s thought revealed the answer: yeah, he was. Mortified, he considered that what he should do right now was stand up and walk out immediately. But Neil had kept his eye firmly on the werewolf’s shoes as he’d followed him into this lair and now he wasn’t sure of his bearings. Nervously, he cast his eyes around, looking for the exit. It was surreal to be in an erotic bar in the middle of the day. From the VIP lounge (a raised area) he had a unique view of the stage where, currently, a woman was performing breathtaking aerobic feats with a pole. Neil wondered at the strength in her thighs.

  ‘In the evening some of the girls are suspended from the ceiling over the stage,’ said Cindy, pointing above where they were sitting. ‘I don’t do the circus bit because the blokes that sit here can see right up when they do the mid-air splits. That’s a bit much for me. Just the midwife who delivered my girl has had that pleasure i
n the past two years.’

  Neil stopped looking for an exit. ‘You have a child?’

  Cindy eyed him warily and wearily. She didn’t usually talk about her daughter to the punters. The two things were entirely separate, they had to be. Cindy remembered something about this Neil. Oh yeah, he wanted kids and his wife wasn’t interested, that was what he’d been going on about the other night. On and on and on about, actually. His wife must be some sort of career bitch, Cindy concluded. Well, he looked trustworthy enough for her to continue.

  ‘Yeah, a daughter. She’s twenty months old. Heidi. You know, like in the book.’

  ‘I never imagined.’ Neil stuttered to a halt. Anything he had to say could only be misconstrued as insulting. What? He never imagined strippers could be mums? He never saw strippers as women? At least not that sort of woman?

  ‘Want to see a picture?’ Cindy, unable to suppress her maternal pride, reached for her glittering clutch bag and pulled out a picture of a smiley, pretty kid sitting in a pool of colourful plastic balls. Neil had seen hundreds of similar pictures but every one moved him to smile.

  ‘Must be tough, bringing her up on your own,’ said Neil.

  ‘I don’t. Her dad is really hands on,’ said Cindy with a shrug. She wasn’t bothered by his assumption that she was a stereotypical struggling, single mum sort of stripper. She was too used to the assumption to waste energy being offended by it. She glanced at the photo, blew her daughter a kiss and then carefully replaced the snap back in her bag. ‘I wouldn’t have married him if he was like the useless bastards you see in here. My Dave understands his family responsibilities.’

  ‘Right.’ Neil didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘God, sorry.’ Cindy put her hand to her mouth and clearly wished she could grab back her words and swallow them. ‘I’m not saying you are a useless bastard. You seem very useful. Erm, I mean, nice. You seem nice.’ All the coldness had melted from her and been replaced by embarrassment. ‘Look, forget it. I shouldn’t have started to get on about me. It’s against the rules, actually. You won’t say anything, will you?’ Cindy looked concerned so Neil shook his head in an effort to reassure her. ‘Thanks. Ruins things if the punters know we’re married. Does their heads in.’ Neil understood that. ‘I wish we were allowed to smoke in here,’ said Cindy desperately. Neil understood that too. Many an awkward social occasion could be eased by simply lighting a fag. ‘Not deathbeds of lung cancer patients, though,’ Nat would say. He could hear her now, loud and clear in his head.

  Neil and Nat had both been smokers when they met. Natalie had given up smoking four years ago, the very day she hit thirty, just as she’d declared she would on her twenty-ninth birthday. Neil hadn’t thought she’d manage it. It had seemed unlikely that if she were ever to give up, that she would do so actually on her birthday as birthdays are a time when it’s accepted you will eat until you’re gross, drink until you’re sick and smoke until you’re hoarse. But she’d stopped. Just like that, as though she was turning off a tap. She didn’t arse around with cutting back, with patches or with hypnotherapy, she just went cold turkey. Neil had used all the above methods and more to try to quit but still sneaked the odd fag whenever he thought he could get away with it. Neil considered Nat’s strength of mind. It was scary really, the extent of Nat’s willpower. Terrifying.

  Neil dropped into a deeper, darker silence as he thought about Natalie’s determination and how fixed and focused she could be. History showed that once she decided a thing, she wouldn’t budge. Oh hell. Fucking hell.

  Cindy poured them both a drink.

  ‘Shall I do a dance, since you’re here?’ she offered half-heartedly.

  ‘Yeah, go on then,’ said Neil because it would seem rude if he said no again.

  ‘I bet if your missus saw my Heidi, she’d want a baby,’ said Cindy as her dress fell to the floor.

  22

  ‘Hello, darling,’

  ‘Hi, Mum, what’s up?’ asked Nat.

  ‘The sky,’ Nina deadpanned in reply, as she was a stickler for grammar and all things proper. ‘Nothing is “up”, darling, if you intend me to interpret that question to mean what is wrong? Did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Nat with a patient sigh. ‘I meant what news?’

  ‘You tell me, dear. What’s your news?’

  If Natalie had been listening carefully, she might have noted that her mother’s tone was not quite as relaxed as usual. Nina was in fact using exactly the same, slightly suspicious tone of voice that she had used when she had asked a fifteen-year-old Nat whether she was bunking off school (having found daytime cinema ticket stubs in her blazer pocket). The same tone of voice that she had used when she asked Nat if she was having sex (having spotted condoms in her purse when Nat was paying for a coffee). A tone of voice she used practically all the time when talking to her sons. But Nat wasn’t listening carefully.

  ‘Oh, you know. Same old, same old. I’m working really hard on a big project on lymphatic filariasis. It’s fascinating,’ Nat replied, having switched to automatic pilot. Her head was full of concerns, very few of which were connected with lymphatic filariasis, despite what she wanted her mother to believe.

  ‘And Neil?’ probed Nina.

  ‘Oh, you know, he’s fine.’

  ‘Working hard too?’

  Frankly, Nat didn’t know for sure. He wasn’t at home much, she assumed he was in the office or hanging out at Karl’s but honestly she hadn’t really delved too deeply as to his exact whereabouts and he hadn’t been especially forthcoming with any information. Not that there was anything unusual there, he never had been. It wasn’t that he was a secretive sort. It was more that they trusted one another enough so as not to have to account for every single moment of their days. Or at least that’s how it had been until recently and Nat found it comforting to pretend that this was how things still stood between them. Although late at night, when she lay awake staring at the shadows thrown at the wall by the light of the street lamp outside their home, she faced the fact that she no longer deserved Neil’s absolute, unquestioning trust. Her guilt stupefied her reasoning and she never went on to wonder whether he still deserved hers.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she replied not lying but not committing or denying either.

  ‘Michael Young called here.’

  The name, so long ago put away and so recently and feverishly retrieved, sounded odd on her mother’s lips. Nat’s stomach lunged nervously as she felt something a lot like guilt churn inside her gut.

  ‘Really?’ Nat didn’t want to say any more.

  Nina waited, giving her daughter enough rope with which to hang herself, but Natalie saw the importance of remaining silent and so Nina was forced to push on.

  ‘I thought it was rather strange hearing from him, out of the blue, after all these years. Lovely boy, of course, well, man now, I suppose. Wonderful to hear from him but a surprise.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nat carefully.

  ‘Not to you, though, dear. Not a surprise to you,’ said Nina. ‘Michael said he’d called us because he was returning your call but for some reason you hadn’t left your home number when you left a message with his mother and Mrs Young took down your mobile incorrectly.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So he called ours. He was wondering why you’d got in touch. He asked me if I knew.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And I was stumped, darling. I couldn’t imagine why you’d be calling a boy you dated in sixth form.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you feeling sentimental?’ Nina’s question was ostensibly polite but was designed to poke. It hit the crux. Natalie panicked. How could she explain to her mother why she’d started calling her exes in her old address book?

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Nat replied. ‘Do you remember that junk I cleared out of my old room? Well, I found some old CDs in there that belonged to Michael and I thought I ought to return them.’

  ‘Really? Do you imagine he’s been missing those old tune
s?’ asked Nina, aware that she wasn’t being given the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; nowhere near.

  ‘Some of them are collector pieces now.’ Nat was rather pleased with her own quick thinking, her excuse sounded plausible. Indeed it sounded more reasonable than the real reason she had decided to call Mike. She squirrelled away the excuse and decided to use it when she did finally talk to him.

  ‘I gave him the telephone number to your and Neil’s home,’ said Nina. Nat thought Nina’s choice of words was a bit odd. Wouldn’t it have been more natural to have said, ‘I gave him your home telephone number’? Nat thought she’d heard some heavy emphasis on Neil’s name but she might be being paranoid. ‘I asked him to remember me to Mrs Young senior. There’s a Mrs Young junior too, now, you know.’

  ‘Erm, no. I didn’t know.’

  ‘Yes, he says he’s been married for nine years.’

  ‘Gosh, he never seemed to be the marrying sort.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Nina.

  ‘Well, he was a bit moody and always thinking about the end of the world. You know, nuclear explosions and the disintegrating ozone.’ Nat hoped she sounded casual and convincing.

  ‘Darling, you were teenagers! Of course he was moody. It was essential.’ Yes, Nat had to agree, she’d briefly considered that herself. ‘He’s grown up now. People change. He has two children. A boy and girl. The salt and pepper set,’ said Nina with a bright giggle. The very thought of such a happy family was enough to lift her day.

  ‘Two children,’ mused Nat. She wasn’t exactly sure why but she had rather liked the idea of Michael not having children, not conforming to the standard 2.4 and a dog that seemed to be expected. She liked the idea of them staying as they were.