As It Is On Telly

  ‘That’s appalling. How were you even allowed into this Croesus Club? No, don’t tell me,’ she added as an afterthought, seeing Jammy draw in a breath to impress her with his credentials. ‘You have to go,’ she said.

  ‘But I’ve got a lunch date,’ said Jason, clearly enjoying seeing her squirm.

  ‘Jason, we have not got a lunch date.’ Honestly, the cheek of the boy was quite astonishing.

  ‘Not with you,’ he said with a smirk, looking along the hall behind her.

  ‘Oh. My. Christ.’ But how? Charlotte must have been on the same website as her. She was meeting convicts in chat rooms. Even if Jason wasn’t a prisoner yet, he was soon about to be. ‘She’s thirteen, you sick perv. What is it with you and age?’

  At this, Jason at least had the grace to look a bit confused. A flush seeped along his greasy cheekbones. ‘She told me she was twenty-five.’

  ‘Twenty-five? Does she look twenty-five?’

  Jason shrugged. ‘Lot of people don’t look their age these days. Do they, Bunty?’

  This was horrible. Worse than horrible. Everything was sliding into a nightmarish, Technicolor horror-film. Any second now the doors and windows would all slam closed, and she and Charlotte would be left alone with this ghoul, this spotty, over-privileged axe-murdering stockbroker, and it was all her fault. She’d welcomed him into their lives. Agreed to meet him. Lied about herself. Tipped ice in his lap and then come straight home – of course he’d bloody well followed her. And then he’d peered in, rubbing his oily hands up and down his thighs and God only knew what else as he espied her baby, her little girl, and waited for Graham to be gone for him to carry out his master plan. Leering. Leaning over to shake her hand. Let’s think of it as a business venture. Two for the price of one. You, the old trollop, and her, the young floozy …

  Get out, she was about to scream. Get out, get away. She’d miss her date with Ben. Oh God, how could she even be thinking about dates with Ben. Dates with anyone. Look what a previous one had led to. But then his weasel head spun around at the sound of tyres on the gravel. ‘Ah. Here she is,’ he said.

  Kristiana swivelled her long legs out of the door of her ancient Honda Civic. ‘Ah. Jason. You made it.’ She caught sight of Bunty in the doorway. ‘It is all right with you, Bunty, yes? I met Jason after babysitting the other night. His car had broken down right outside! And I thought he could have lunch with Charlotte and I.’

  ‘Charlotte and me,’ corrected Bunty automatically. Of course, she thought crossly. Because correct grammar was really what mattered now.

  ‘You are staying too?’ Kristiana was understandably confused.

  Bunty covered her face with her hands. ‘No. Nobody is staying. At least, I’m going out, and Jason is leaving – not together! But I think you’ll appreciate, Kristiana, that Charlotte is at an impressionable age, and Jason appears to be too, so I think it would be better if you met outside of my home, if you don’t mind.’

  Jason turned pink and then started to gesticulate to Kristiana. ‘And don’t think you can come back the minute my back’s turned, Jason.’ Did he think she was blind? Born yesterday? ‘Kristiana, can I trust you on this? Because if I can’t you’d better say now, and you can find someone else to babysit for in future.’ She resisted the temptation to add ‘Jason, perhaps.’

  It was Kristiana’s turn to go red. It was all Bunty could do not to sneer in Jason’s face. Business deals? She could teach him a thing or two. There was no way Kristiana would take him over Bunty – a higher-than-average pay rate to mind a child who was hardly a child any more meant far more to a struggling student than the odd flash dinner. Kristiana stuttered, her English coming slightly unglued. ‘Of coarseness. I would not dream to make Charlotte imp … impressioned. Jason,’ she added primly, ‘I will give you text. Tomorrow.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jason eventually. He’d clearly been outmanoeuvred, and he looked at Bunty with even more lascivious respect than he had the other night. With a sweep of a pointed finger at Bunty, which she took to mean ‘I might be shagging the help but you are hot, baby’, he slimed his way back across the gravel, clambered into Jammy the Golf and roared off.

  ‘I am sorry, Bunty,’ said Kristiana, looking genuinely contrite. ‘I did not think …’

  ‘It’s okay. I was young once, you know,’ replied Bunty. Young? Once? Young and dating and ‘I remember what its like’? The hypocrisy of the situation made her want to laugh really. She’d stopped the babysitter having a date because she, mother of the babysittee, and married at that, was off on an illicit date herself. Oh yes. I’m such a good mother, Pearl. The best. Salt of the earth. Maldon bloody sea salt at that.

  They were still on the doorstep, so Bunty stood back to let Kristiana in, checking her watch. She followed Kristiana into the lounge. ‘Charlotte needs to get dressed and do her science homework. There’s lasagne in the fridge if you’re hungry, and I’ll … I’d best be going.’

  Now that it actually came to it, her earlier fervour for her date had somewhat dissipated. What did she think she was doing? These dates were highly unreliable. How on earth did Graham stand it? He had to be in constant fear of his mistress turning up at the door, or calling Bunty and screaming at her down the phone for not appreciating him, not loving him like she did, not giving him the mind-blowing sex that they were having, right now, in the back of a mini-bus on the M6.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she said finally to her daughter and her daughter’s minder, who were both staring at her with a sort of vapid curiosity as she struggled with her conscience in the lounge doorway.

  It made her all the more determined. She wouldn’t be long. Just long enough to tell Ben that this was all a mistake, that even if her husband was a philandering pig she didn’t have the right makeup to go finding a new model behind his back; that there had to be some other alternative for her to being thrown out on the street with a couple of black bin liners and her Spandeau Ballet CD collection. ‘I’ll just be an hour.’

  But then she saw him, stacking beer mats in a quiet corner of the Pig and Cauli, clearly as nervous as she was, and her resolve melted again. ‘I can’t stay long,’ she said the moment she arrived at the table.

  Ben had half-stood, probably intending to give her a kiss on the cheek, or possibly some kind of Maori rubbing-noses kind of greeting, but Bunty’s words took the wind straight out of his sails. He hovered uncertainly for a moment in a Neanderthal crouch and then plumped back down into his seat. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, you did say you wouldn’t be able to.’

  ‘And I meant it,’ said Bunty, more fiercely than she intended.

  Ben spread his hands defensively. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’ Bunty pulled out a chair and sank down opposite him. ‘I just had a run-in with the babysitter and I feel a bit … a bit strange being out at this time of the day.’

  ‘It’s just lunchtime,’ said Ben softly, but she could see by the tilt of his head that he understood. It felt strange for him too. Strange, but nice.

  ‘I know.’ She picked up a menu cheerfully. ‘So are we eating?’

  Ben coloured slightly, his tan becoming more pronounced. ‘Well, sure. Or we could just get a drink. Or we could get a drink, and … and room service.’

  ‘Room service?’ Bunty put down the menu, perplexed. Then she looked out of the window. So that was why the Pig and Cauli was so popular with these dating guys. It was one of those inn-type pubs with a Travel Lodge attached. What was actually on the menu was … her.

  Ben watched her face carefully and then shook his head. ‘Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have even suggested it.’

  ‘No, no … but you’re not on your yacht?’

  ‘I thought I’d get on some solid ground for the weekend. I stayed here last night. I didn’t … Oh God, you think I just booked the room for lunch?’ Ben groaned so loudly that the party of six on the next table all looked up at them.

  Bunty leaned in. ‘It did sound a bit ‘by the hour’,
if you know what I mean.’

  Ben slid his hand across the table and grabbed her fingers. ‘I’m so sorry, Bunty. You’re a lovely lady, and you must think I’m some bloody crass Antipodean who’s only after one thing. I really did invite you for lunch. Food only.’

  But the sip of wine, the strange Jason moment, the knowledge that Graham was doing the same thing somewhere else, and the electric jangle of Ben’s touch … Suddenly Bunty found herself picking up the card key from under the stack of beer mats. ‘I’m suddenly not hungry,’ she said.

  ‘You’re going?’

  She smiled in what she hoped was a seductive manner but which she suspected came across rather like a ventriloquist’s dummy. ‘Only to your room. What number?’

  Together, both slightly dazed, they made their way through the maze of tables and out into the sunshine. Ben stopped her on the threshold of Room 13. ‘I don’t want to rush you, Bunty. Are you sure you’re ready?’

  No, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all. But then, how could she have prepared herself for this type of occasion? She couldn’t do rehearsals. Dry runs. There was nothing for it but to jump straight in. Like Graham had done.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ she said. ‘You have to kiss me first.’

  So he did, cupping her head in his enormous hand, pausing, a tiny look of concern in his eyes that was so endearingly sweet, before he lowered his lips to hers, and the soundtrack of From Here to Eternity came to life somewhere under her eyelids as they fluttered closed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Just remind me again why we’re here.’ Kat squinted at the sun that was just about making an appearance over the horizon. ‘It’s bloody freezing.’

  Bunty hopped from one foot to the other. Maybe Lycra cycling shorts were not the right attire for a dawn meeting on a Wednesday, but she hadn’t been absolutely sure what the right attire would be. A green costume? Something Maid Marian-ish? ‘I told you,’ she said, her breath coming out in puffs, ‘I told Ben that this is the kind of stuff I do. Or at least that’s what he took it to mean. I have to try and impress him somehow.’

  They lined up behind the ten metre line as instructed, Kat slapping her hands together to keep herself warm. ‘But I thought you told him you liked fencing. And I know you meant the woody stuff, not lots of lunging and thrusting like he thought, but this, my darling, is archery. Ar-che-ry.’

  Bunty ignored how much Kat sounded like Charlotte, spelling things out for her as if she were some kind of idiot. Fair enough. Perhaps she was some kind of idiot. In fact, there was no ‘perhaps’ about it. Anyone who had had a gorgeous All Black look-alike trapped in a Traveller’s Lodge and completely at their mercy – an All Black who had just delivered a heart-stopping snog right on the very threshold and who was clearly eager to seal the deal, as it were – and who had then completely refused to go through with it, was actually incapable of going through with it … Well, that person had to be an idiot, right?

  It had all seemed so easy, when he removed his tongue from her mouth, dragged his teeth across her lower lip, and looked down into her eyes with just a hint of panting going on beneath his polo shirt. For her part, Bunty suspected she was actively dribbling. The kiss was delicious. He was delicious. And this, behind the door, when he’d fumbled with the key and staggered inside with his arm around her shoulders, was going to be just delicious too. But somehow, when he had her pinned against the back of the door with an exploratory hand sliding up her skirt, she had developed an attack of hysteria. She’d actually laughed right down his throat. It was a wonder she hadn’t given him the bends.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she gasped, leaning her head on his chest as another wave of giggles swept over her. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ said Ben, which just set her off again.

  ‘No, no, I’m really sorry, it’s just that … it’s just that …’

  ‘My kissing’s abysmal,’ he finished for her.

  ‘No! Really, it’s lovely, but … ha …’

  Ben leaned a hand on the door, starting to laugh himself. ‘So I shouldn’t be offended?’

  ‘Oh, please don’t, don’t be offended.’ Bunty wiped a tear from her eye and shook herself down. ‘It’s just that …’

  Just what, exactly? That she’d suddenly remembered she had a husband at home? Well, not at home exactly, but somewhere around. That she’d found herself looking over Ben’s shoulder and noticing that his bag was on the bed and wasn’t even opened, so he really had booked the room that day, possibly by the hour? That it was broad daylight outside, and across the pathway grannies and their grandkids were tucking into a nice carvery lunch with overcooked sprouts? Or that she’d had the opportunity to think, as his hand slid up her thigh, that she’d dressed like she was expecting this – sex; a quickie – and hadn’t she promised herself that the way to bag a Ben was to avoid exactly this situation? It was all of those things, but it boiled down to one inevitable conclusion: the whole thing was bloody ridiculous. She, Bunty McKenna, was bloody ridiculous. Bloody … ha … ha ha … ridiculous.

  She’d finally gathered enough breath to speak. ‘I can’t do this, Ben. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Ben, but with a wry quirk of the lips which at least showed that he wasn’t angry. She couldn’t have stood that too. ‘First time?’

  First time? She was thirty-eight and married with a child, for Chrissakes. No ‘nearly forty-year-old virgins’ here. ‘Oh. First time since my marriage … She faltered. Well, yes.’

  Ben nodded sympathetically, and gave her shoulders a squeeze. He didn’t, she noticed, mention that it was his first time too. But then he was properly separated. He was perfectly within his rights to have slept with other women since his marriage ended, before meeting Bunty. Graham hadn’t even waited for the separation before hopping onto the gym bunny.

  Instead of speaking, Ben leaned in for another kiss. ‘I like you, Bunty. You’re … unusual.’

  In other words, he thinks I’m a freak, she thought. She smoothed down her skirt. ‘I think I’d better go home.’

  At which Ben had nodded regretfully and held open the door. ‘I’ll call you,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  The death knell. I’ll call you. Bunty threw herself into the Mini, almost tempted to turn around and go give him something to remember her by, so that he actually would call her. Adam had been especially good at the ‘I’ll call you’. The one that meant ‘I’ll wait until I haven’t got anyone else lined up and then I’ll call you’ or ‘I need money so I’ll call you’ or, occasionally, ‘I have just remembered we’re supposed to be in a relationship and I feel really bad that I’ve not acknowledged your existence for five days straight so I’ll offer you this little bone and … call you’.

  Oh yes. She knew all about ‘I’ll call you’. That was the last she would hear from Ben.

  She’d driven home despondently, hardly registering that Graham was jumping out of a powder-blue Mondeo in front of her, not a mini-bus at all, and was waving goodbye to the driver who she couldn’t really see but seemed to be tall with short dark hair, or that Jason was parked down the street waiting for Kristiana. I’ll call you. I’m sorry, I’m bloody ridiculous. You’re unusual. I’ll call you. The whole scene played over and over in her head until it was picked so full of holes it could have made a doily.

  ‘I’ll call you!’ shouted Graham to the pale blue Mondeo.

  ‘You twat,’ she muttered, loudly enough for him to almost hear as she stalked past him on the drive. How dare he? She almost had a moment of sympathy for his lover. The tart would never hear from Graham now, that was for sure.

  ‘What?’ Graham dropped his bag on the drive. Bunty resisted the temptation to kick it. A shag bag. Rather like Ben’s, although she didn’t like to draw the comparison. Did all men have them? Were they all ready packed, like women’s cases ready for the hospital when they were about to give birth? Though Bunty doubted that the contents of G
raham’s bag ran to size 0 baby clothes and a pack of super absorbent sanitary pads.

  Graham picked up the bag and followed Bunty inside. ‘Did you just call me a twat?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ said Bunty with a hollow laugh.

  ‘I don’t know ….’

  ‘How about the fact that Chelsea weren’t even playing today? And if they had been playing the match wouldn’t that have been happening right now?’

  Graham faltered and then turned pink. ‘I … I got it wrong. That’s why we’re back early. Ryan just dropped me off.’

  And just for a moment, Bunty felt her lip wobble. ‘Graham, forgive me if I don’t believe you.’ Not giving him a chance to respond, she stalked into the kitchen.

  Amazingly, for some many reasons, at that moment her mobile phone had rung and a deep voice said, ‘Told you I’d call you.’

  ‘Oh! Hi … I … just got in.’

  She could hear the smile in Ben’s voice. ‘Thought I’d better make sure you got home okay. Didn’t laugh yourself off the road or anything.’

  Bunty looked at Graham, still standing flustered in the hallway, then checking in on Charlotte. ‘No. No more laughing.’

  At this, Ben laughed himself. ‘Okay. Well, make yourself a cup of tea,’ he said in an excruciating fake English accent, ‘and I’ll call you tomorrow. If that’s okay.’

  ‘That’s just fine,’ said Bunty warmly.

  Actually, he hadn’t called the next day, but he’d called early the morning after that to say he was out on the boat. ‘Maybe you could join me for lunch?’

  ‘Can’t, sorry. I promised my neighbour I’d help re-bury her cat.’

  Ben paused. ‘You could just say you’re washing your hair.’

  ‘No, it’s true! I wouldn’t make that up!’ said Bunty, kicking herself. Everything she did or said seemed to convince Ben even more that she wasn’t interested in seeing him. Time to turn the tables. ‘Tomorrow? I could bring a picnic.’