Spin Cycle

by Sue Margolis

  “What a bitch. How could somebody do such a thing? It’s evil. Pure evil. You must be devastated. Look, I have some news too. I’m coming home. Miracle of miracles, Uncle Stan has found a friend of a friend to fill in at the office from next week. So I’ll be home tomorrow, Boxing Day. My plane gets in at one, but don’t bother coming to meet me, I’m getting the shuttle straight up to Manchester. One of the partners in the practice is having a cocktail party in the evening and since I’ve been away so long, I really ought to show my face. I’ll drive down to you first thing the following morning. There’s something really important I need to discuss with you.”

  * * * * *

  It immediately occurred to her that he wanted to tell her he’d met somebody else and that their relationship was over. That would make what she had to say so much easier. On the other hand, she wished she didn’t have to wait an extra day to see him. She was already pretty anxious about this meeting. More hanging around, rehearsing and re-rehearsing what she was going to say to him, would only make her worse. It took a few moments before the solution hit her. Because it was Boxing Day, he would probably have to wait ages for the Manchester flight. She would meet him at the airport and speak to him before he caught the shuttle.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Blimey,” Rachel muttered, staring at the bloke in the Panama hat and cream three-piece suit with a purple silk handkerchief spilling out of the breast pocket. “Where’s that berk off to, tea with Oscar Wilde?”

  It was several seconds before she realized the “berk” was Adam. She shook her head in disbelief. Adam had superb taste in clothes. He was one of the chicest, most understated dressers she knew. He was certainly no poseur. As she watched him push his cart past the first few dozen people standing by the customs exit waiting for friends and relatives, she wondered what could possibly have caused such a bizarre sartorial metamorphosis.

  Must be what le tout Durban is wearing this season, she thought to herself, knowing how easy it is when you’re abroad to go native fashionwise. What about that poncho she’d bought in Guatemala? It never did quite work when she got back to Crouch End.

  By now her heart was pounding. Last night in bed she’d gone over her good-bye speech a dozen times and she still wasn’t sure what she was going to say.

  She began waving at him tentatively—as if he were a black cab and she couldn’t quite make out if he had his light on—but he didn’t see her. He’d stopped and turned to speak to the young woman following him, also pushing a cart. Judging by all the shared laughter and eye contact, they knew each other pretty well.

  “It’s her,” Rachel whispered to herself. The woman was bony, verging on angular, immaculately pressed and coiffed, wearing thin-rimmed gold spectacles and a gray business suit.

  Maybe because she’d never been 100 percent certain Adam was seeing somebody else, it hadn’t occurred to Rachel that he might bring her home with him.

  “No wonder he didn’t want me meeting him at the airport,” she said to herself.

  Adam and the woman carried on walking and chatting, clearly not realizing they were heading straight toward Rachel.

  When they were only yards from her, a holdall suddenly fell off the woman’s cart. Adam bent down, picked it up and stacked it back on top of her pile of cases. Then with a flourish of his Panama hat he performed a deep, theatrical bow. While Rachel screwed up her face—half laughing, half squirming—the woman burst into fits of giggles. He then puckered up in that Mick Jagger impersonating a goldfish way of his and planted little kisses over her face.

  Rachel walked forward a few paces and tapped Adam on the back. “Hiya,” she said brightly. “Hope I’m not disturbing anything.”

  Adam shot round. “God . . . Rachel,” he gasped. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “So I see,” she said. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  She knew she shouldn’t tease him, but she just couldn’t resist it.

  She beamed at the woman who was hovering awkwardly and visibly shocked next to Adam.

  “Er, er, yes,” he spluttered. “This is Yootha. She’s my uncle Stan’s dental hygienist.”

  “I am so pleased to meet you,” Rachel gushed, noticing how well her thin wiry lips accessorized her glasses. “Adam must have been so grateful to have had you around during that terrible locust invasion.”

  Ivana Trump caught buying Birkenstocks couldn’t have looked more humiliated than poor Yootha did at that moment.

  Before Yootha had a chance to say anything, they had both turned to look at Adam, who had started fumbling in his trouser pocket and swearing to himself. Blood was trickling gently out of his nose and down his chin.

  In a second Yootha had produced a wad of tissues from her bag. “OK, Addy, just put your head back and pinch the bridge of your nose.”

  After a few moments he brought the tissues down from his nose and sniffed. “I think it’s stopped. Look, Aardvark, Rachel and I need to have a talk. Why don’t you go and have a wander round Boots? You could check out the different types of dental floss. I’ll come and find you later.”

  “All right, Addy, if you’re sure you’re OK.”

  He assured her he was and she walked off, pushing her cart.

  “Addy and his little aardvark,” Rachel said, grinning at Adam. “How sweet.”

  * * * * *

  They found an empty row of seats. Adam took off the hat and sat swinging it between his knees.

  “Look, Rache,” he said, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean you to find out like this. I wanted to sit down with you and explain.”

  She nodded slowly. “So you and Yootha—it’s pretty serious then?”

  “It’s early days yet but, yes, I think it is. We clicked from the instant we met. You know, we have so much in common. She irons her underwear, just like me.”

  “Yeah, once she’s starched it,” Rachel said, smiling and batting her eyes innocently.

  “And she’s made me change my entire wardrobe. She reckons a man hitting early middle age should look more distinguished.”

  Rachel didn’t say anything. Early middle age, she thought. He was only thirty-six, for crying out loud.

  “You know,” Adam went on, putting his hat down on the empty seat next to him, “I’d been dreading telling you. I’ve spent days psyching myself up to tears and a huge scene. But you seem to be taking it incredibly well.”

  “Ah. Well, you see there’s a reason for that. . . .”

  As she told him about Matt, his shock and incredulity gradually gave way to relief.

  * * * * *

  “You know, Rache,” he said finally, “we were kidding ourselves thinking we could ever make each other happy. We are such different people. You with your comedy . . . me with my . . .”

  “Trouser press?” she volunteered helpfully.

  He gave a half-laugh. “I thought that once we were married, I could change you, make you more like me. But deep down I’ve known for ages we were wrong for each other.”

  “That would certainly explain why you went off sex,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. I should have said something.”

  She patted his knee and said it didn’t matter now.

  “So you really love this Matt, then?”

  “Oh yes.”

  He put his arm round her shoulders and told her how happy he was she’d found someone. She said she was happy for him too.

  “I’m going to miss you,” he said.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  A tear rolled down her face. He wiped it away.

  Then he hugged her, but only briefly. She sensed his emotions were starting to get the better of him too.

  He let go of her and stood up. “I’d better get moving. Yootha will be wondering what happened to me.”

  She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Take care,” she said.

  “Yeah, you too. Give my love to Sam.”

  She nodded.

  He turned to pick up his hat, but a
n exceedingly fat, moley woman in flesh-colored polyester slacks and a T-shirt that said “Pittsburgh: City of Dreams” now occupied the seat on which he’d left it.

  * * * * *

  Feeling a mixture of sadness and enormous relief, Rachel headed off across the concourse toward the car park. It was only when she wandered into Departures and found herself standing next to the Qantas check-in desk that she realized she’d been walking in completely the wrong direction. She had just turned round and begun retracing her steps when she noticed a tiny woman with pigtails heading away from the desk toward the departure lounge.

  Rachel’s face turned Dulux white.

  “Fuck,” she exclaimed, her hand forming an involuntary fist. “It’s Pitsy.” Rachel’s walk turned to a trot. “Janeece,” she yelled across the concourse. “Come back here. Come—back—here.”

  The moment Pitsy turned round and saw Rachel, a look of sheer horror appeared on her face. In a second she was running toward the departure gate. Rachel started running too, shouting after Pitsy as she went. When Pitsy refused to stop, she began yelling at passersby.

  “Stop that woman. Please. Somebody stop that woman.”

  Pitsy was sprinting by now; Rachel was falling behind.

  “Please, somebody. Stop her,” Rachel shrieked. “She stole my jokes! She stole my jokes!”

  By now people were stopping to stare at the crazy woman. One member of a group of laughing Japanese businessmen hurriedly put a video camera up to his eye.

  Rachel stopped and gasped for breath as, ahead of her, she watched Pitsy showing her ticket and passport to the chap at the Departures entrance.

  “Stop her,” she bellowed. “She’s a thief! Don’t let her through! She stole my jokes! She stole my jokes!”

  But it was too late, Pitsy had gone. As Rachel wheezed her way up to the desk, she could see Pitsy heading toward passport control.

  “She stole my jokes,” Rachel sobbed quietly. “She stole my jokes.”

  Rachel stood there for a few seconds, her head in her hands, digging her fingers into her scalp with frustration. When she finally looked up, she let out a tiny, terrified yelp. Looming over her were four policemen in bulletproof vests, machine guns across their chests.

  Rachel’s hands shot into the air in surrender.

  One of the policemen, a middle-aged chap, stepped forward.

  “It’s all right, love,” he said with a gentle smile. “Put your hands down. You just come along with us and we’ll tell you some brilliant jokes.”

  He reached out and took Rachel’s arm.

  “No, you don’t understand,” she pleaded frantically, doing her best and failing to release her arm from his powerful grip. “That woman really did steal my jokes. Honestly. You have to believe me.”

  “Oh, we do. We do,” he soothed. “Come along and you can tell us all about it.”

  Escorted by his three colleagues, he led her away from the crowd that had started to gather.

  “Move along now,” one of the cops said. “The show’s over. There’s nothing left to see.”

  “Now then, can you remember what medication you’re on?” the middle-aged policeman asked Rachel.

  “I’m not on any medication,” she howled, “I’m a comic. I’m a stand-up comic.”

  “Course you are,” the policeman said genially. “Course you are. Now did you hear the one about Saddam Hussein, Hillary Clinton and a camel?”

  CHAPTER 25

  The moment she got back from Heathrow—the police having released her after she’d finally persuaded them to phone Lenny and Joe, who confirmed her story about Pitsy—Rachel tried ringing Matt. She was desperate to tell him it was over between her and Adam. But there was no reply from either the home number or his mobile.

  The following day she tried again and got Tractor, who said he hadn’t heard from Matt either, although he did remember him saying something about maybe staying on in Nottingham for a week or so. She asked if he had a contact number. He hadn’t. On top of that he’d left his mobile at home.

  “Look,” Tractor said, “he wasn’t expecting to hear from you until after the new year. He probably just fancies a complete rest after working so hard on the Donkulator. Anyway, he can’t stay away too long, he’s got the Burkina Faso trade delegation coming next week. I’m sure he’ll get in touch. Stop worrying.”

  But she couldn’t. By the third day she’d convinced herself that Matt was now so angry with her for keeping her relationship with Adam a secret that he never wanted to speak to her or see her again.

  By the end of the week she was aching for him so much that she wasn’t eating or sleeping. She even took her mobile with her on New Year’s Eve (Tractor had gotten himself, Shelley and Rachel invited to Polly the aromatherapist’s party), just in case he decided to call at midnight. But he didn’t.

  At 2 A.M. everybody decided to do a conga down the street. Rachel was last in line, mobile clamped to her ear. By now she was so slaughtered, she was dialing numbers at random in the hope of finding him. Most people hung up on her, but she had a particularly pleasant few minutes exchanging New Year’s greetings with a Mormon family in the Wirral.

  The only thing preventing her falling into a complete decline was the thought of meeting Xantia and the possibility, however remote, that her former employer might help her get her career back on track.

  She assumed Xantia would return from Venice around the third or fourth of January. There seemed little point in calling first to arrange an appointment. That way Rachel would be forced to state her case over the phone and Xantia would probably refuse to listen and hang up. Her best bet, she decided, was to keep driving over to the house, on the off chance of catching her.

  There was nobody home on the third or fourth of January.

  On the morning of the fifth, just as she was about to head off to Xantia’s for the third time, the phone rang. It was Tractor to say he’d found a note from Matt on the kitchen table.

  “It was under the Marmite jar. He must have written it before he went away. Thing is this place is such a pit, plus I’ve been off Marmite recently so I missed it. Anyway it says to tell you that before you go and see Xantia you should ring his mate Phil.”

  Rachel frowned. The name meant nothing to her. “That’s all?”

  “Yeah, and there’s a number.” He read it out loud to her. “Look, I’m sorry if it’s important, but I’ve only just noticed it. Let me know how you get on. Bye, kid.”

  * * * * *

  “God, Rache, that’s amazing,” Shelley said as she sat at her kitchen table attempting to do her mascara, eat toast and breast-feed Satchmo at the same time. She was due at the film studio at eleven and was running late. (Both Rachel and Tractor had begged her not to go back to work so soon after having Satchmo, but the Flowtex people had decided to make a second commercial as a follow-up to the first, and the money—not to mention them being perfectly happy to let her bring Satchmo with her—had been far too tempting to turn down.) “You mean this mate of Matt’s actually built Otto and Xantia’s secret room?”

  “Yep,” Rachel said. “While he was renovating the house for them. All my instincts were right. According to Phil, their love affair with the house is a complete sham. They loathe it. They both think it’s utterly cold and bleak. The secret room is where they go to slob out and get comfortable. Apparently Otto ended up offering Phil and his workmen five hundred quid each to keep quiet about it.”

  “You’ll certainly have no trouble getting Xantia on your side now. All you have to do is threaten to tell the papers about the secret room. Easy. She’ll crumble like a slice of stale cheese. Do my lashes look OK?”

  “They’re fine. What do you mean, all I’ve got to do is threaten to tell the papers? That’d be blackmail. I’d be descending to Pitsy’s level.”

  “Rache,” Shelley said, strapping Satchmo into his portable car seat, “when we discovered the secret room, you said you couldn’t hurt the Marxes, but things have changed. It’s your ca
reer on the line here. Pitsy has to get her comeuppance.”

  Shelley got up and walked over to the fridge. Rachel sat thinking. “I know,” Rachel began, “but—”

  She broke off. Shelley had just opened a Tupperware container and was now stuffing two large green leaves into her bra cups.

  “Cabbage,” she said, seeing the quizzical look on Rachel’s face. “Great for cracked nipples.”

  Just then Shelley’s cordless went off. It was Tractor phoning to wish her good luck and offering to come round in the evening and heat up a couple of Tesco organic pizzas.

  “So how are you two?” Rachel grinned as Shelley put the phone back down on the table. “Have you—you know . . . ?”

  “Leave off,” Shelley laughed. “I only had a baby ten days ago. Now I know exactly what your mum meant about walking around with a giant eggplant between her legs. . . . No, we’re just taking things really slowly.”

  Rachel nodded approvingly.

  “So,” Shelley went on, “are you going to come on heavy with Xantia or not?”

  “Not. I just don’t have the stomach to start threatening her.”

  “Well,” Shelley said, still arranging cabbage leaves in her bra cups, “it’s up to you, but unless the woman’s undergone a lobotomy and complete personality change over Christmas, I think it might be your only option.”

  * * * * *

  Almost as soon as she’d rung the bell, Rachel heard the clack of stilettos on limestone. Xantia’s new housekeeper, she assumed.

  The door was answered by a tarty-looking middle-aged woman wearing skin-tight red satin trousers and black patent heels. A giant gold hoop hung from each earlobe.

  Rachel introduced herself and explained she used to work for Xantia. “I know she’s probably very busy, but I was just wondering if she might be able to spare me a couple of minutes. There’s something important I need to discuss with her.”

  The woman said nothing. Instead she stood looking at Rachel, a vague smile on her lips, her head bent slightly to one side. The silence was making Rachel feel awkward. She smiled back sheepishly, taking in the woman’s platinum blond bob and tight black Lycra top. Across the front was an embossed red-and-gold tiger’s head—mouth open, teeth bared. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but there was something vaguely familiar about her.