It felt the same when Dan stood up to leave. Realising that Mary and Mallory were getting more and more touchy-feely behind the platter of home-grown radishes (Mallory’s, she presumed. They reminded her of Graham’s ears.), Bunty got to her feet too. But she didn’t want to leave. The afternoon stretched ahead of her with no respite, nothing until Charlotte got home from school, and the thought of … well, thoughts, really, filled her with dread. ‘Have you got a job to go to, Dan?’ she said lightly. God, did that sound like a proposition? She’d have to keep that flirt gland in check now it had been released.
‘’Fraid so. Clearing a rat out of a drainpipe two roads over. Seriously.’
Bunty shuffled around for a moment and then blurted, ‘Can I come?’
‘Sure.’ Dan cocked his head on one side for a moment. ‘Funny way to spend an afternoon though. Wouldn’t you rather stay and have a cup of tea with Mary?’ They both looked at Mary, who was laughing so hard and so flirtatiously that her teeth could have been in peril. ‘Okay. No. You come with me then. How are you with rotten vermin?’
‘Dan, I have plenty of experience,’ she said with feeling. ‘I’ll just put my wellies on.’
She felt ridiculously excited at the prospect of an afternoon in Dan’s van, and scampered out of her driveway feeling happier than she had since Ben’s last phone call. ‘You are seriously strange,’ said Dan, seeing her enormous grin.
‘Oh, I’m strange?’ Bunty slammed the door shut behind her. ‘Dan, Dan the Drainage Man makes terrine and cat gravestones in his spare time, and takes his mother to the movies.’
Dan grinned, fluttering his black eyelashes at her. ‘Well, you are aware that sticking my hands up people’s drains wasn’t exactly my first calling. But modelling school was full. And I like helping people.’
Bunty looked at him sideways as his plate-sized hand shoved the van into gear and they juddered around the corner. Help me, Dan, she thought. Could he help her? Right at that moment he looked so enormously capable, so … big, that she was pretty sure he could lift up the whole planet and rest it on his shoulder like Atlas. Or was it Zeus? Anyway, if he could cope with all that, he could certainly cope with her.
‘Graham’s having an affair,’ she said suddenly.
Dan looked momentarily surprised, and then he nodded. ‘I thought there was a strange vibe between you at that dinner party. Have you got proof?’
‘He keeps telling me he’s playing squash with Ryan.’
‘Ryan’s got bad knees,’ said Dan, in a cruelly accurate impression of Petra. ‘Hasn’t he?’
‘So he’s not playing squash.’
‘Or working extra late,’ offered Dan, taking a guess.
‘And I’ve seen him get out at the squash club and kiss this little blonde chippy with a bottom, no, not a bottom, a derrière, and he said he’s going to football –’
‘With Ryan?’
‘With Ryan. And Ryan did drop him off after this weekend away but there was something weird about it, and they definitely hadn’t been to football.’
Dan tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Threesomes with Petra?’
‘Nah,’ they said together.
‘Has he got a bag?’ he asked finally, after a few minutes of concentration.
‘A bag?’
‘Yeah, like a bag he takes everywhere even when he’s not likely to need it, with a change of clothes and a bottle of Lynx.’
Bunty paled. ‘He has. A shag bag. And new clothes too.’
Dan nodded. ‘Then I’m sorry to have to say it, Bunty, but there’s your proof. It does sound very much as though your husband is having an affair.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘Silly bastard. Are you okay?’
Was she ok? He hadn’t actually left her yet, that was true. And she wasn’t sick, or dying, and there were people far worse off in the world and all that. But … ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Not really.’
Dan nodded slowly. ‘Okay. We’ll clear this drain. And then you and I are going to do something really fun together.’
‘What?’ said Bunty, mildly alarmed but more excited than she’d been in quite a few days.
‘Spy on Graham,’ he said. ‘MWAH, ha ha haaaa. Evil genius laugh,’ he added by way of explanation.
Bunty couldn’t help but smile. ‘Look, I’m smiling. Miserable as I am, I’m actually smiling. Dan, you are a very nice man. How come nobody’s snapped you up?’
‘It would be denying the rest of womankind if I got spliced, wouldn’t it? It would have to be a special kind of woman to nail me down these days. One with a very big heart.’ And he spread his hands in a ‘catch-Kat’s-breasts’ fashion. ‘Yeah. But just because I like to play the field a bit, doesn’t mean I approve when a married geezer does it. Especially when they’re married to someone as nice as you. We’ll sort him, Bunty. Don’t you worry.’
She believed him too. True to his word, as soon as they had extracted the decomposing corpse of the rat from the pipe work (which Bunty had to do in the end as her hands were small enough to grab the tail and pull), they piled back into the van, he handed her a cap with his company logo on it, and they set off towards the town centre. ‘Where does he work?’
‘Coleman Street. Farraday Financial Advisors.’
They parked outside for a time, while Dan went in and made spurious claims about the poor drains to the receptionist at Farradays. He emerged ten minutes later, shrugging his door-wide shoulders. ‘They have a squash ladder, and guess what? Graham’s not on it. And neither’s Ryan. But it’s coming up for five now, so we can tail him and see where he goes. He won’t recognise you in my van.’
‘I’ve got to get home for Charlotte!’ Bunty had been so involved in the investigation she’d completely forgotten the one thing she actually had planned that day. ‘She can let herself in but she’ll be wondering where I am.’
Sure enough, her phone bleeped at that very moment. ‘Look, she’s missing me.’
She showed him the text. ‘Wots 4 t, im starving? & where r u?’
‘Home in five,’ she tapped in quickly. ‘I have to go home, Dan.’
‘Sure?’ Dan looked immensely disappointed. ‘We could pick up young Charlotte and come back.’
‘I don’t really want her spying on her own father. Although I think he may be playing her off against me already, taking her to meet the derrière woman.’
‘Silly, silly bastard.’ Dan shook his head again and ferried her home. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, leaning across to open the passenger door for her, ‘you text me when he says he’s going out this week, and I’ll tail him for you.’
‘Yes! And I could come with you if Charlotte’s out.’ Bunty paused before she closed the door. ‘Thanks, Dan. I really appreciate it.’
Dan doffed his cap. ‘All part of the service, ma’am.’ Mellors. He definitely had a Mellors sort of appeal about him.
Bunty almost skipped inside, feeling more positive than she had in ages. Since the vasectomy letter even. What was that about? As Charlotte opened the door to her, hand on hip as she took in Bunty’s flushed face and her clod-covered wellingtons, it came to her. It was a grand gesture. Dan’s assistance was a big solid handshake in her direction, a grand gesture that was enabling her to fulfil her own grand gesture. If she could find out what Graham was up to she could confront him with it. Find out why he’d done it. Perhaps, even so, find something to save their marriage? If there was anything left to save. She threw her arms around Charlotte, planted a huge kiss on her cheek, and swept past her up the hallway.
‘Mu-um. Mu-ud,’ crooned Charlotte behind her.
She’d left a trail of soggy footprints right along the ‘deep vanilla’ carpet. ‘Oh well,’ said Bunty airily.
Charlotte’s eyes boggled. ‘If I’d done that you’d have totally murdered me.’
‘That’s true,’ conceded Bunty. ‘But as it was me, and it’s my carpet, and I always have to clean it anyway, I’m prepared to live with it. I’ll wait till it dries. Cleans up better
that way.’
In a funny way, she thought, as she pulled open the freezer door looking for something for dinner, that was like an analogy for her life at the moment. There were muddy marks on the path of their marriage. Was she prepared to live with it? What she was actually doing, she realised, was waiting for it to dry so she could clean it up more easily. Better to sit it out and wait until Graham’s affair was over or he actually ended it, than end it herself. Better, even, to have sorted herself out with an alternative for when the crunch time came. It was all just waiting for mud to dry.
But now she felt invigorated. With Dan’s help she could get to the bottom of the mystery, face up to Graham with it and take some positive action to sort out the sorry mess that had become her marriage. Her life, in fact. After some more spying.
*
Next evening, with Kristiana supposedly overseeing Charlotte’s homework while Graham ‘played squash’ and Bunty ‘went to the pictures,’ she texted Dan as instructed. ‘Pick you up in ten minutes,’ came the reply.
It was really quite exciting. The date that wasn’t a date. The date that was actually, as a matter of fact, rather like espionage. She felt like Pussy Galore, although she didn’t imagine that Pussy would have been quite so happy to clamber into a Ford Transit that smelt of a strange mixture of sewage, damp earth, and Jazz aftershave.
It was not a van that pulled up further down the street, however, but a rather smart Alfa Romeo. Dan peeked out from under the visor. ‘Well, get in,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t want everybody knowing you’re driving around town with strange men, do you?’
‘Dan, this is lovely. Did my drainage bill pay for this?’
‘No,’ said Dan comfortingly. ‘But it was the down payment on my TVR.’
There was a lot of money in drains, apparently. They chatted about it as Dan skimmed the roads towards the squash club. ‘Let’s face it,’ said Dan, ‘people will always pay more for something they’re not prepared to do themselves. And drains affect everyone.’
Bunty blinked. ‘Wow. I never thought of that. That’s why you take days to turn up. Everyone has drains.’
‘They do. Occasional blockages. Pooh and disintegrated sanitary towels spilling out into the garden. And they don’t all have Dan, Dan the Drainage Man on hand. I could make an absolute mint if I could clone myself.’ Dan pulled into a dark corner of the club car park and dropped the car into neutral. ‘Look, is that him?’
‘Yes. And he is with Ryan. Weird.’
The men were traipsing out of the squash club, not a racket between them but clearly post-exertion of some kind. Ryan was sporting a spectacularly crotch-grabbing pair of shorts that did his long dangly legs no favours whatsoever, and probably accounted in part for the strange gasping way in which he talked. Graham looked very much more at ease; although he was pink and a little glowing, he had showered so that his fair, tufty hair parted over his ears, and his clean polo shirt hung loosely over his jeans. ‘He’s lost more weight,’ said Bunty. He looked almost fit.
‘You do know there’s a gym in there as well, don’t you?’ said Dan.
‘No, is there?’ It sort of made sense, of course, that a squash club might have other fitness facilities too.
‘It’s not a very good one, but it’s got all the right equipment. And it’s bloody cheap.’
‘Cheap? It’s cheap? Oh, of course!’
Bunty could hardly believe her own stupidity. He was looking fitter because he was getting fitter, because he was going to the gym, the gym with Ryan. And it was cheap. Cheap. That’s why they were going to the squash club and not the flash place outside town with a pool and a bar and everything. Because they were a couple of financial advisors! They went for the best financial deal, not the sexiest facilities. And why would he be getting fit? For her! For his own wife! To surprise her with his lean physique and entice her into bed with his dexterous deltoids, and convince her that sex was just for play now as he’d had a vasectomy.
‘He’s not having an affair at all,’ she whispered, wondering why some part of her felt strangely disappointed while the rest of her experienced a surge of elation. ‘He’s been going to the gym!’
But Dan had thrust the car into gear. ‘Let’s not count our chickens,’ he said. ‘Maybe he’s been going to the gym because he’s having an affair. And maybe, Jesus, you don’t think it is with Ryan like Kat said, do you? Only he’s getting into the car with old stringy-legs.’
‘Yeah, but it makes sense to share a lift from work, doesn’t it?’
‘We’ll just check, shall we?’
Dan eased out into the fitful traffic, taking advantage of the dusk, and followed Ryan’s car. Bunty sat with clenched hands, honestly not knowing whether she wanted Graham to go to work, go directly to work not passing go, not passing affair signs; and then not really knowing why she should have any doubts at all about how glad she should be that her husband was dallying. ‘There. Coleman Street,’ she said, pointing through the gloom.
Dan followed her finger and then turned to her knowingly. ‘He’s not turning. Look, they’re going straight on. What are you up to, you strange, silly bastard?’ he muttered under his breath.
‘They’re stopping!’ squeaked Bunty. ‘Pull over, pull over!’
Needing no second bidding, Dan stuck on his left indicator and swerved in behind a parked car. They could just see Ryan’s car idling at the kerbstone. ‘That’s Graham’s car,’ said Bunty, seeing the dark Mondeo just in front of Ryan’s. ‘So they parked out here and drove back in together.’
‘Why would they do that?’ Dan peered around the car in front of them. ‘Hang on. Graham’s getting out. He’s saying goodbye to Ryan. He’s moving towards his car. He’s getting his hand out of his pocket, he’s … ’
‘Dan, I can see all this. He’s … ’ Getting into his car, she was about to say, but then Graham swivelled on his heel and approached the door of a tall Georgian house.
‘He’s knocking on the door. He’s smiling. There’s a blonde woman. He’s kissing her on the cheek. Oh. Now the other cheek. He’s going inside. He’s closing the door.’
‘Dan,’ said Bunty. ‘Will you shut up?’
‘Okay,’ said Dan meekly. He looked at her for a long moment, then patted her arm. It was like being belted by an air hammer. ‘Home?’ he said softly.
Bunty nodded, not daring to speak too soon in case her voice wobbled and gave her away. Home. Whatever that was. She certainly didn’t want to hang around until he came out of the house of the blonde again. The Kylie. The … She glared at the metal plaque next to the front door, hoping for a moment that it might say ‘counsellor’ or ‘psychiatrist’ or even, weirdly, ‘prostitute’ but which in fact said ‘Verity Reynolds, Media Consultant.’
So there it was. Graham and Verity. Graham and Verity and Charlotte. Happy Christmas from buff Graham and Kylie-ish Verity and my bloody Charlotte who would have to call herself Charlie with Verity Reynolds for a stepmother. ‘Home,’ she croaked.
She had to bury her nose in her daughter’s artfully tousled hair. While there was still time.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
What the hell was a ‘media consultant’ anyway? Bunty thought crossly as she slammed the front door behind Graham’s retreating back the next morning.
He had come home an hour-and-a-half later than Bunty. Judging by his usual performance that should have been sufficient to copulate perhaps one, one-and-a-half times. To establish the truth, Bunty resorted to giving him a quick sniff, which she turned into a fake sneeze, but he just smelt the same as always. Only when she remembered the shag bag did she figure out why – he was obviously careful to shower before returning home. Unable to meet his eye, Bunty buried herself in Charlotte’s homework, with only half-faked parental concern, and then lay in the bath until he was likely to have fallen asleep.
Over breakfast that morning he had watched her with a slightly wary eye, as though he was expecting trouble. Well, let him, she thought. It was all right for him with
his Verity Reynolds and his newly honed physique. Where was her Ben when she needed him? She’d not even had sex and she felt more guilty than Graham clearly did. Finally, as she banged her way through the creation of Charlotte’s vegan packed lunch wondering if one large carrot would suffice as she hadn’t bothered shopping for anything else, he ventured to speak.
‘I’m going to be home by six tonight.’
‘Ooooh! Lucky us,’ said Bunty, thrusting Charlotte’s lunch box into her backpack.
‘Um. Shall I bring home some dinner? Chinese?’
‘If you like.’
‘I thought we could eat it in front of the TV. There’s a good financial programme on at seven thirty.’
Bunty paused. Was that what he did with Verity Reynolds? Chinese and a viewing of some financial programme. It hardly seemed likely, and she was suddenly incensed at the unfairness of it all. Verity Reynolds would get keen and clean Graham, trying-hard Graham, look-at-my-new-abs Graham, and then he’d come ‘home’ to them and they’d get bloody takeaways and the same old drone on the TV. How dare he? How absolutely dare he?
‘Graham, I can hardly wait,’ she said with ill-concealed venom.
The first thing she did when left on her own was to make like Charlotte and head for the computer. It was a shame that Graham had taken his laptop with him; it would have been interesting to see how quickly Verity Reynolds popped up in the drop-down list of histories. Pulling herself in close to the computer, Bunty tentatively typed ‘V’ into the Google bar. She was immediately greeted by the list from hell – Vanya, Vagina, Vigina … ‘Oh my God!’ she shrieked, smacking the ‘delete history’ button, and hastily adding an ‘e’ to the existing ‘V.’ Nothing. Even when she’d typed in the whole of the name Verity, there was nothing obvious on the search engine, apart from one Verity Lambert who had been something to do with Doctor Who. That was media, wasn’t it? She was old, though, Bunty noticed when looking at the dates. Dead, in fact. Definitely not the Verity she was looking for.
Only when she’d typed in ‘Verity Reynolds Media Consultant’ did the computer produce any results. Verity, it seemed, offered a broad portfolio of media services (‘Bet she does,’ snarled Bunty. ‘Phone sex. Internet sex. Got them all covered, hey, Verity?’) There was a professional-looking photograph of a pert blonde with a long bob and an expensively veneered smile, and then a list of credits which, to Bunty’s amazement, featured On the Sofa with Pearl and Finn among other TV shows. What did she do with them? Bunty reached for her phone.
As It Is On Telly Page 14