by Polly James
I’m not, though Josh is trying his best to change it for me. You’d almost think he knew what I’m planning to do.
‘What are you so dressed up for?’ he says, as he walks past and sees me checking my reflection in the wardrobe mirror.
‘A meeting,’ I say, poking at what appears to be a stray chin hair, but turns out, on closer inspection, to be an eyelash that’s fallen out. ‘With an energy supplier.’
‘Hmm,’ says Josh. Then, ‘Where’s Dad? Wouldn’t it be nicer to spend an evening in with him? It’d make a change, after the last week or so.’
‘I thought you didn’t like change,’ I say, neatly side-stepping both his questions. I have no idea of the answer to either.
‘I don’t,’ Josh says, then turns away, mumbling something which sounds oddly like ‘That’s my point.’
I’m spared the need to reply when my taxi arrives and the driver honks his horn. Josh doesn’t answer when I shout upstairs to say goodbye.
The cab hasn’t even reached the end of the road before my mobile begins to ring.
‘Mum,’ says Connie. ‘Josh says you’re going out without Dad. And that you look really nice.’
I wish I could see what she’s doing, right now. I bet she’s talking into her sleeve.
FRIDAY, 29 OCTOBER (LATER, THOUGH GOD KNOWS WHEN)
Johnny greets me in the hotel lobby as if we really are meeting for a discussion of the price of oil. He even shakes hands, before leading me into the lift and waiting until the doors have closed. Then he takes my face in his hands, and kisses me, very hard.
I stop the kiss before it really gets going, as I can’t breathe properly. The lift just keeps on going up and up.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I hate lifts. I’ll be all right again, once we get out.’
I’m not, though, not once I see the suite that he’s booked. I’m completely overwhelmed. Plate-glass windows overlook one bank of the River Ease, and I can see the lights of Lichford stretching away on the other side. I can even see the office, and make a good guess as to the roof of my house.
I turn my back on the view and look instead towards the table, which is laid with starched white linen and a number of plates hidden beneath shiny, domed metal covers. They glint like the polished cutlery, and the antique silver candelabra. It holds five thin, tapered beeswax candles.
As Johnny lights the first one, there’s a very loud bong. It’s as if he’s taking part in a religious ritual.
‘What’s that?’ I say, as there is another bong.
‘I don’t know,’ says Johnny, his words followed by bong, bong, bong, bo-o-ong. ‘I think it might be church bells ringing.’
Bong, bong, bong, bong. Bong, bong, bong, bong. Bong, bong, bong, bong.
Oh, God. They must be practising for a wedding tomorrow.
‘Did you have a church wedding?’ I say to Johnny, who looks at me as if I am insane.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘but I don’t want to talk about the past tonight. I want to talk about the future. Our future, specifically.’
‘Ah,’ I say. I didn’t have a church wedding, but I assume the vows are the same, wherever you make them. Johnny waits for me to elaborate, but when I don’t, he raises his eyebrows, then pours me a glass of champagne.
‘I thought we’d stay in the suite this evening,’ he says. ‘So that’s why I ordered a buffet. That way we can decide whether to eat first … or afterwards. Listen to this. I brought it with me specially.’
He walks over to a very sophisticated wall-mounted stereo system, and presses a button. Music begins to play, almost drowning out the sound of bells.
‘Recognise the song?’ he says, putting his arms around my waist, and pulling me close. I nod, and then he says, ‘Dance with me.’
I put my head on his shoulder, and we start to sway. It’s like the end of the fifth-form disco again, but without the Babycham-fuelled nausea.
‘You’re even more beautiful than you were then,’ says Johnny, into my ear. ‘And I am even more turned on.’
‘What’s different about you?’ I say, standing back to look at him. ‘Oh, it’s your glasses. Where’ve they gone?’
‘Contacts,’ he says. ‘Seemed the safest bet. I get to see your face clearly when I kiss you, but without any more accidents. Let’s put the theory to the test.’
He starts to kiss me but, when I open my eyes to look at him, it’s not his face that I see. It’s Max’s, though his eyes are firmly closed – thank God. I blink several times, to make him go away.
I keep my eyes shut when Johnny begins to kiss me again. ‘Turn round,’ he says. ‘I want to undress you, bit by bit.’
He pulls down the zip of my dress, and then everything starts slowing down, except for my thoughts. They are racing everywhere.
By the time I’m down to my underwear, my tights left in a ball somewhere behind the sofa, and my dress abandoned God knows where, we’ve made it across the suite and into the bedroom.
The lights are lower in here, which is obviously a good thing due to Johnny’s bloody contact lenses. I bet he can spot even microscopic hairs with those.
‘How good are they close up?’ I say. ‘What exactly can you see?’
‘This,’ he says, turning me around so that we are both facing the mirror above the dressing table. ‘The stuff of fantasy.’
He can’t be seeing what I’m seeing, then. Connie and Josh’s faces have just popped up, behind our heads. Their mouths are open, in big round ‘O’s, like cartoon characters, and they look appalled. So am I.
‘Bugger off,’ I say. Aloud, by accident.
‘What?’ says Johnny.
‘Not you,’ I say, turning my back on the mirror, and doing some more furious blinking. ‘Sorry. I was just worrying about something.’
Johnny pulls me down to sit next to him, on the bed. ‘Well, stop it,’ he says. ‘I’m serious about you, you know that. This is not just a fling for me.’
‘Hm,’ I say, covering myself with the sheet, though I have no idea why. Then I add, ‘Sorry, Johnny. I’m just not used to having sex, that’s all. Well, not outside my marriage, you know.’
Nor in it recently, but it wouldn’t be fair to tell him that.
He hugs me, as if he understands what I mean anyway. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘But, if it’s any comfort, I just got my AIDS test results back last week.’
Now it’s my mouth that’s forming a giant ‘O’, while I look at Johnny, look away, and then look back again. Several times.
‘What?’ I say, once I get a grip. ‘What sort of test? What are you talking about?’
‘An AIDS test,’ says Johnny. ‘Like I said. I have them every year. What are you doing?’
He tries to stop me as I bounce off the bed, but I wriggle out of his grasp and race out of the bedroom.
‘What the hell does it look as if I’m doing?’ I say, as he follows me, and then stands still, watching while I try to untangle my tights. ‘I am out of here.’
‘Why?’ says Johnny, to the accompaniment of those bloody bells. ‘What have I done?’
I’m hopping now, partly with rage, but mainly because, although I’ve got one leg in my tights, I can’t seem to get the other in. They’re all twisted out of shape, which could easily be a metaphor.
‘Well,’ I say, continuing to hop, ‘what sort of man – who has apparently never cheated on his wife before – and is only doing it now because his marriage is dead and he’s fallen in love with me, ha ha – needs an AIDS test – every year?’
‘But—’ says Johnny, as I finally get my other leg into the tights.
‘But nothing,’ I say, pulling my dress over my head and zipping it up. ‘You must think I was born yesterday, though God knows it should be all too clear that I wasn’t, if the optician got your prescription right.’
Johnny says nothing as I shove my feet into my shoes, grab my coat and open the door. When I look back at him, just before I slam it, it’s his mouth that’s in an ‘O’.
; Much like those of the people in the hotel lobby. I only realise why when I walk outside to get into the cab and find that my dress isn’t pulled down properly at the back.
My mobile rings all the way home, but I’m too busy crying to answer it.
SATURDAY, 30 OCTOBER (DAYTIME)
My bloody phone still will not stop ringing, but I don’t want to speak to either of the buggers who keep calling it – The Boss or Johnny ‘AIDS Test’ Hunter. I’m too busy bursting into tears every time anyone attempts to speak to me. I wish they’d all stop staring at me, too.
‘What on earth’s the matter with you, Mum?’ says Connie when she arrives. ‘Josh said you looked weirdly good when you went out last night, but now you look absolutely terrible.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It’s probably my hormones, or something like that.’
‘If you say so,’ says Connie, sounding as if she doesn’t believe a word of it.
She and Josh take Max out for a long, birthday lunch straight after that – to keep him away from the party preparations – so at least I won’t be under scrutiny for the next few hours. Dinah’s on her way here to help, but she won’t notice anything.
‘I’ve cheered up,’ she says, when she walks in, carrying the cake she’s made and holding Damian, I mean Jake, by the hand. ‘If Dad dies while he’s living in Thailand, or something else happens to him, I’ve got a plan to help me cope.’
‘What?’ I say. ‘How can you possibly find the prospect of Dad dying in Thailand something to be cheerful about?’
‘Well,’ says Dinah, pausing to slap Jake’s hand, to stop him poking the cat with a stick, ‘you know how you hate flying, so you said you didn’t want to have to go and get Dad if anything happened to him while he was there?’
‘Yes,’ I say, removing the stick from Jake’s hand, given that Dinah’s presumably illegal slap had no effect at all.
‘Well, I will do it, instead – so you don’t have to face your cowardly fears.’ Dinah takes the stick from me, and pokes Jake with it, to make him let go of the cat, before she carries on: ‘But only if you agree to one very important condition first,’ she says.
I go to fetch a plaster for Jake’s hand, which Charlie has now scratched, while Dinah drums her fingers on the table, waiting for me to accept the deal.
‘What condition?’ I say, on my return.
‘That we split the costs,’ says Dinah, ‘and I get to take two weeks’ exotic holiday, before I bring the body back. You can look after Jake while I’m away.’
That’s three conditions, isn’t it? Dinah doesn’t wait for me to agree to any of them, so hopefully none of them will ever arise. Especially not the last one she mentioned. I’m starting to wonder about Jake’s scalp myself.
I check it, by virtue of a supposedly affectionate mussing of his hair, but there’s still no sign of the number 666. Maybe it develops gradually over time, like a slow Satanic Polaroid.
‘Aw, your aunty Molly loves you, doesn’t she, Jake?’ says Dinah, when I reach the end of the covert hair-checking operation. ‘Give her one of your extra-special hugs.’
Jake looks even more horrified by this idea than I am, so I recall that I have to check my emails, urgently.
There are stacks of them from Johnny, all of which I delete without reading them first. I’m even more annoyed with him than I am with Dad. He’s sent me three messages, too – presumably from various internet cafes along his route across Thailand to Porn-Poon’s village in the North.
In the first one, he says that he tried to tell me that he was moving to Thailand before he went, but that I was always ‘too busy looking for some silly file’ to talk to him. In the second, he instructs me to tell Dinah that he didn’t inform her that he was going because, if he had, ‘she’d only have made more sarky comments about glittery worktops’. He describes these as ‘completely uncalled-for’, which is pretty much what I’d say about the subject line of his third and final message.
It just says, ‘Hot and wet.’
God knows what I’m going to say to the guests, when they start arriving. Seeing as now I’m wholly lost for words.
SATURDAY, 30 OCTOBER (EVENING)
Well, God knows how I did it, what with Dinah and Jake’s so-called help, but the house is ready, so now it’s my turn to be tidied up.
It only takes ten minutes, seeing as I’m not worrying what I look like any more. When you’re job-less, lover-less and probably soon to be husband-less, fretting about appearances seems a bit of a waste of time.
I put on my little black dress, the one that makes my body appear decades younger than my face, according to Max, and give Dinah a free hand in applying my make-up. The result is better than I expected, and clearly much, much better than Dinah did.
‘You look quite good,’ she says, standing back and appraising me. ‘Considering the state of you before I started.’
Max seems even more impressed than Di when he arrives home to find most of the guests already assembled.
‘You look gorgeous,’ he says, as I hand him a glass of champagne, supplied by Sam. I think he’s about to kiss me when the doorbell rings.
I open it to find Ellen slumped against the doorframe, obviously already drunk. She doesn’t look anywhere near as shiny as usual.
‘Molly,’ she says, swaying slightly as she moves in to give me a hug. ‘Jush the person I need to talk to. Important thingsh to tell you. Ver, ver important thingsh.’
She gives me a meaningful stare as she tries to focus on my face, and then she makes a grab for my hand when I try to lead her along the hallway to join the others at the back of the house.
‘No,’ she says, pulling me towards the stairs instead. ‘Ish private schtuff we need talk about. Men, relationship schtuff. You know.’
Oh, my God. This is it, isn’t it? The moment when Ellen tells me all the things I don’t want to know. I look around frantically, willing someone – anyone – to appear and offer a chance of escape, but there’s no one in sight, and all I can hear are excited voices and loud laughter emanating from the kitchen, which might as well be miles away.
‘Sshit down, and less talk,’ says Ellen, yanking at my hand, which she’s still clinging onto as if her life depended on it.
Bang. The letter-box opens and shuts, nearly making me jump out of my skin, and now there’s a big piece of dog poo on the carpet. Ellen and I both stare at it, but neither one of us says a word.
Then the letter-box opens again, really slowly this time, and a voice booms out, ‘Sur-prise!’
I yank open the door, and Greg immediately falls into the hallway, landing squarely on top of the piece of poo. I laugh at that, but then so does he.
‘It’s a fake,’ he says, picking up the poo and pocketing it. ‘I wouldn’t post a real piece through your door, Mol, even if you have been ignoring me. Now take me to where the alcohol is – and the birthday boy. I’ve got tons to tell you about The Boss.’
This sounds a lot better than whatever it was that Ellen was about to tell me, so I usher Greg down the hallway and get him a drink.
‘Why the hell haven’t you answered any of my messages?’ he says. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the last twenty-four hours. Andrew has been, too.’
‘Huh,’ I say. ‘Why would I want to talk to him?’
‘Because he’s sacked Vicky,’ says Greg, clinking his glass against mine.
My legs feel funny, so I sit down, while Greg explains. ‘Andrew took a phone call yesterday, while Vicky and I were out at lunch,’ he says. ‘From Vicky’s nail technician. She’d just got back from her mini-break.’
I don’t say anything to that. I’m too busy watching Ellen weaving her way unsteadily through the room in search of another bottle of wine.
She keeps looking at Max, then at me, with a very peculiar expression on her face. Maybe she wants to rip all Max’s clothes off, and is only waiting until she’s drunk enough to do it. He does look very handsome tonight. As well as very tall.
‘Earth to Molly,’ says Greg, waving his hand in front of my face. ‘Are you listening to a word I’m saying?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Vicky’s nail woman phoned up. What’s that got to do with me?’
Maybe I could get Connie and Josh to guard Max, until Greg finishes whatever he’s going on about.
‘She said Vicky’d left something behind in the salon during her last appointment,’ he says. ‘And guess what that turned out to be?’
I forget to answer, as I’m still watching Ellen and wondering where she’s off to now. Probably upstairs to the master bedroom, to check how much closer she could get the bed to the window once she moves in here and takes my place.
‘The file, Molly,’ Greg says, or rather, shouts. ‘This is important, so listen to me! Vicky left Mr Sampson’s file at the nail bar, for f*ck’s sake – and Andrew went mad when he heard about it. He fired her as soon as she got back from lunch.’
It’s odd how being vindicated makes you want to rush to the loo – only to find that someone’s already using it. I jiggle about on the landing, cross-legged, until the door opens and Ellen comes out.
‘Molly,’ she says. ‘I schtill wan’ talk to you. I wan’ you tell me wha’ your secret is.’
I stop jiggling, and freeze instead. My secret? Oh, my God. She knows about me and Johnny, and she’s going to tell Max.
‘I’m just going to the loo, Ellen,’ I say. ‘I feel a bit sick. Stay there – I’ll be back in a minute.’
Max will think he can justify leaving me for Ellen now, won’t he? It won’t even matter that I haven’t had any sex with Johnny – and won’t be having any in future, either. And why can’t I actually be sick? I’m sure it’d make me feel a whole lot better.
I run the tap and gulp down several mouthfuls of water before I open the bathroom door. Ellen’s sitting on the top step, waiting for me as instructed.
‘What secret?’ I say. Might as well get this over and done with.
‘To a happy marriage,’ says Ellen. Then she snorts, and I want to punch her for finding this funny.
‘Don’t take the piss, Ellen,’ I say. ‘Isn’t what you’ve already done to my marriage bad enough?’