As It Is On Telly

by Marshall, Jill

  ‘Kat, what does a media consultant do?’ In her employment services role, Kat was bound to know.

  ‘Oh, a range of things,’ said Kat. ‘It can be advertising, selling media space, buying media space, PR, writing press releases. I think I’ve got a junior role coming up if you’re interested.’

  ‘Course I’m not interested!’ Bunty wished she could pour the image of Verity Reynolds down the phone to her friend. ‘I’ve found the woman that Graham’s been seeing. She’s a media consultant. Verity Reynolds.’

  ‘Right,’ said Kat, ‘let me ask some people and I’ll get back to you. Have to be before tonight, of course.’ And she let out an excited ‘Yes!’

  ‘What’s happening tonight?’

  Kat tutted loudly. ‘Uh, I’m leaving, on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again. Not that you’d care.’

  ‘Oh God. You’re going to see Simon. I’m so sorry, Kat, I forgot.’ Bunty finished with a sigh. She’d been so wrapped up in her own domestic dramas that she’d completely forgotten that her friend was looking forward to meeting up with her own Kiwi man. An image of Ben flitted into her mind and she pushed it to one side. ‘Do you want a lift to the airport?’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Kat. She always forgave her friends so easily. ‘Dan’s dropping me off.’

  ‘Dan? My Dan? I mean, Dan, Dan the drainage man?’ Alarm bells clanged in Bunty’s head. How many Dans did Kat know? Was she going straight from one man to the other? Was everybody in the world – across the world – at it?

  ‘The very same, although I like to think of him as Dan, Dan, with the very big … van. I need the space. For my luggage,’ said Kat. ‘I’ll miss you though.’

  ‘Me too. Give my love to Cally.’

  ‘Right. And I’ll call you back if I hear anything about Veronica Ronald.’

  ‘Verity Reynolds.’

  ‘Right. Big hugs from the big jugs.’

  ‘Kat, you are gross,’ said Bunty, in a pretty good imitation of Charlotte, so that they were both laughing as they put down the phone. Gaaad, she was going to miss that woman, particularly right now when she needed her friends around. Both her best mates on the other side of the globe. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was very bloody fair at the moment.

  And talking of not fair, time for a bit more stalking. Bunty drove across town in a dream, a mental version of some form of Beauty and the Geek playing through her head, where Graham (geek) had to choose between Bunty and Verity (beauties – well, relatively anyway) and Kat ummed and aahed with her finger on her pouty lips between Simon and Dan, and Verity, somehow, wrote press releases about the whole thing for the TV pages of the Evening Standard. Before she knew it, she was driving up Verity’s road and pulling up just near her house.

  She ducked down behind the steering wheel. Quite what she’d intended to do once she got her, Bunty wasn’t at all sure. This was what they’d do on a programme, wasn’t it? Turn up at the house. Confront the lover. Maybe punch her in the face? Bunty shuddered. Violence still didn’t come naturally to her, no matter how satisfying it looked on TV. She closed her eyes. What was she doing here? What could she possibly achieve by turning up at the home (office?) – home stroke office – of her husband’s mistress and sitting outside her house, other than working herself up into an impossible frenzy, which she would probably, let’s face it, take out on Charlotte.

  Tap tap tap.

  Bunty’s eyes flew open. She had slumped so far down behind the wheel that her chin was on her chest. She swivelled her eyes right. Crouching down on a level with her was the beaming face of Verity Reynolds, so close that Bunty could see the artfully applied false eyelashes, adding depth to the corners of almond-shaped eyes, which were a rather startling shade of green. Fake, thought Bunty. Fake eyelashes. Fake corneas. Even the bottom was probably fake – a pair of those wonder tights with false buttocks shoved in them so everybody could get a Beyoncé Bum just by dragging on their fishnets. Verity Reynolds’ arse was probably as flat as her exercised belly.

  Tap tap tap. Verity was signing madly for Bunty to wind down the window. That involved switching the engine on, and as Bunty had temporarily forgotten her own name, she opened the door instead, pulled it to quickly in case Verity Reynolds intended to punch her first, then opened it again.

  ‘Are you my ten thirty?’ Verity Reynolds had the voice of a newscaster, somewhere between headmistress and just plain mistress.

  ‘Your what?’

  The woman consulted the Blackberry in her hand. So she even knew how to use one of those. Bitch. ‘Ten thirty. Susie Williams. Sell your house in thirty minutes.’

  Was that an order? Did she already have designs on her goddamn house? ‘I … I don’t want to sell my house.’

  Verity opened her beautiful mouth and laughed right down a full octave, like someone running their finger across a piano keyboard. ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa. No, silly. You’re not Susie Williams then.’

  ‘No, I’m Bun … Buh … Benito.’ Oh crap. Mussolini. That must be the man version. ‘Benita.’

  ‘Oh. Love. I could help with that stammer,’ said Verity sympathetically, laying a manicured hand across the top of the door. Bunty resisted the temptation to slam the door shut. ‘But if you’re not Susie at ten thirty, then she’s a bit late, but she might turn up so I’d have to pencil you in for another date. Here’s my card. Sorry to disturb.’

  She waggled her fingers at Bunty with a cheery grin and disappeared back in the house. Bunty stared after her, bewildered. What had just happened? She thought she was about to be set upon by her husband’s lover but instead she’d arranged to meet up with her to deal with her non-existent stammer. And … and … and, oh Christ, maybe she did have a stammer, she thought, as her ideas failed to gather themselves into any coherent pattern. And Verity Reynolds was … nice. She couldn’t be nice. She wasn’t allowed to be nice. Bunty did not want anything about her competition to be nice at all. She wanted to hate her. Instead, she could almost see what Graham would see in her, apart from the obvious prettiness (fake as it was); VR seemed efficient, and friendly, and sort of … energetic. If she had kids, and she obviously didn’t, she’d run the PTA with her left hand while media consulting with her right, and still manage to look ‘Stunning in Something Simple’ at the fundraiser while Little Verity and Veritas ran the fruit-juice stand.

  Hmm. Maybe she did hate her after all.

  But overall, it wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair at all. And there was someone else pulling up in a nifty little Nissan Figaro, similarly highlighted, pony-toothed and pony-tailed, and swishing up to Verity Reynolds’ front door and doing that whole ‘mwah mwah, dahling’ air-kissing then tossing her head around while she apologised for being late. It was a clone. A Verity Reynolds clone. Good God, was Graham involved in some sort of Stepford Wives perfect-woman creation plan?

  ‘Calm down, Bunty!’ She really had to get a grip on her imagination. Nonetheless, the meeting with VR, the in-her-face evidence that Graham was looking for something else, brought home an untidy collection of realisations. One, she wasn’t enough for Graham any more. Two, if even she found someone to be attractive because they were efficient and energetic, why wouldn’t your average red-blooded male? And three, if she didn’t even come up to par for Graham, no wonder Ben had lost interest. ‘He’d love Verity Reynolds too,’ she thought mournfully. Someone in charge of her life. Someone vivacious. Fun. Rather like Bunty used to be.

  And she put her head on the steering wheel and sobbed, not for Ben, or for Graham, but for the person she used to be, with dreams and expectations, and a joie de vivre which seemed to have disappeared into the drainage system along with Flinders. Everyone around her seemed to be moving on – Graham, for sure; but Cally too, and now Kat. And pretty soon even Charlotte would be leaving home, off to university, or nannying in America, or Club Med waitressing in Europe, or … something interesting. While she, Bunty McKenna, had not even managed to set herself up successfully with a new h
usband for when the existing one dumped her. She had failed, as a wife, maybe as a mother, perhaps even as a person. She had failed in life. F on her score card. A big fat F.

  As her sobbing eased, Bunty lifted her head. She was still outside Verity Reynolds’ house, with make-up like Alice Cooper and no suitable reason for being there. Enough, she decided. Feeling a little better after wailing like a small child for a good few minutes, she rammed the Mini into gear and set off on a trip around town. Enough. She had moped and circumnavigated, and reacted to the negative and not the positive. Enough. A new plan was needed. A positive one. ‘ENOUGH ALREADY!’ she screamed out of the sun roof, feeling alive again for the first time in ages. She was going to take control. She might even get in touch with Priscilla again.

  As if reading her mind, her phone rang.

  A New Zealand number. ‘Hello,’ she said cautiously. It might be Cally. Or it might not.

  ‘Do you absolutely hate me? I wouldn’t blame you,’ said a deep voice.

  Bunty pulled over instantly, shaking her head in disbelief. Wasn’t it always the way? Just as she’d decided to move on, do something new, the man who’d disappeared, ‘Mr Ten Days On and Ten Days Off’, had decided to rear his not-so-ugly head again. ‘Ben. What a surprise.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He sounded slightly drunk. ‘I piked on you again, and yet you’re still talking to me. I’m so sorry. I just got into a hard time over the kids again, and I couldn’t face talking to anyone, especially – forgive me for this – especially someone who’s kind of going through the same thing.’ Ben sighed, then hiccuped.

  ‘Right. So you had to go into your cave.’ Bunty couldn’t even be mad about it really. She’d read all the ‘Men are off this planet’ books like everybody else, and it was true – men did retreat with their problems. Graham’s answer was to retreat to the study with the Financial Times and a spreadsheet package. Or at least it had been before the cave turned into an attractive Georgian terrace on the other side of town. Ben, on the other hand, clearly took refuge in the bottle.

  ‘Are you looking after yourself, Ben?’ she said softly. ‘It’s not even eleven o’clock and you sound like … like you’ve had a few.

  ‘I have had a few,’ said Ben. He sounded quite proud of the fact. ‘She can’t tell me what to do any more, can she? So I’ve had as much as I want. Sun’s up over the yardarm and all that.’

  The sun’s up … didn’t that mean it was evening. Bunty drew in a breath. ‘Ben, where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the –,’ he paused to gulp down a belch, ‘marina in Auckland. Back in New Zealand. That’s the other reason I didn’t get in touch. I didn’t really want to say goodbye, you know?’

  So he had gone. Bunty gulped herself, fighting down the lump that had appeared in her throat. So much for a new plan. The old one took a bit of beating. ‘You left?’

  Ben sounded close to tears. ‘I had to get the boat back. And the kids … she was threatening all sorts. I had to get back. But I … I do miss you, Bunty. I think we could have really had something. If we just lived a bit closer.’

  ‘I … think so too.’

  ‘Is it okay if I call you? I could be back soon. We could … you know.’

  Actually she didn’t know. Finally shag? Pick up where they left off? Fall in love, get married, have their own children … Any of those sounded very appealing. Hell, all of those sounded very appealing. ‘Ben, what if ...’

  A soft snort stopped her in her tracks. ‘Ben. Wake up. Wake up, Ben,’ she called. ‘Ben!’

  But the snoring continued. He sounded adorable. Like a puppy. Bunty smiled and hit the ‘end call’ button, a bubble of anticipation rising in her chest.

  So here was the new plan. Her own grand gesture. Fingers crossed it would work and she too could move on, get her happy ending. Bunty speed-dialled her number one number. ‘Kat, can Dan pick me and Charlotte up too?’

  ‘Awww,’ wailed Kat, overcome with bonhomie. ‘Are you coming to see me off? Sweeeeeet!’

  ‘Bugger that,’ said Bunty, her heart starting to race. ‘We’re coming with you.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The last time Bunty and Kat had travelled across the world, Bunty had left Charlotte behind with Graham. She was already beginning to regret not doing the same this time.

  It was really not the same as when Charlotte was a little girl. Before the age of five she could have whisked Charlotte away without a moment’s thought, as long as she had enough food and clothes for a couple of weeks. Now it meant protracted negotiation with her school, her grandparents, and with Charlotte herself. She’d approached the school first.

  Bunty: I’d like to take Charlotte out of school for few weeks.

  School Secretary: How many’s a few?

  Bunty: I don’t know exactly.

  SS: Anything up to two weeks is frowned upon but you might just get away with it depending on the circumstances. More than two weeks needs an application in triplicate up to three years beforehand, and then there’s no guarantee we’ll keep your child’s place open. More than one month is tantamount to child abuse, frankly.

  Bunty: Okay, it’ll just be two weeks then.

  SS: Circumstances?

  Bunty: Family emergency.

  SS: Death of a family member?

  Bunty: Yes.

  That was more or less how the conversation had gone, and with threats of Social Services and Truancy officers hanging over her head, Bunty signed Charlotte out of school for two weeks – which ran into half term, thereby affording them three weeks if they needed it. If she decided just to stay away, she doubted the education authority would be bothered to send an officer to New Zealand.

  Her parents, however, were a different matter, although the conversation had run very much along the same lines.

  ‘I’m thinking of going to New Zealand for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What about Charlotte’s school? They don’t like you taking them out for more than a week or so now, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Over two weeks and she’ll be off down the mall in one of those hooded outfits robbing old people.’

  ‘I don’t think Charlotte would do that, Mum.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. It’s what young people do these days. What about Graham?’

  ‘I don’t think he’d do it either.’

  ‘Bunty. You know what I mean. What about his work?’

  ‘He’s not coming.’ In fact, he doesn’t even know we’re going and he won’t be given the option to join us but he should have thought about that before entering the den of Verity Reynolds, she nearly added, but thought better of it. ‘And we’re off in a couple of hours, so I’d better get packing.’

  ‘Oh. We were going to come round to see you tonight. Graham invited us.’

  Graham invited them? Probably the time he was going to break it to everyone that he was leaving. ‘Well, don’t bother, because we won’t be there.’

  ‘All right, darling. I’m sure you know what you’re doing,’ finished her mother in a tone that suggested completely the opposite. ‘We’ll see you when you get back.’

  And then there’d been Charlotte herself.

  ‘Why are we going? Tonight? Why tonight? I don’t want to go. I’ve got orchestra this weekend. I hate flying. How long? I hate flying. Hang on. Will Paige be there? Can I forget about social sciences homework? Can we go now? Come on, Mum.’

  Ever since Bunty had picked her up after school and broken the news to her she had vacillated in a similar fashion, and twelve hours later, on the plane, she was still doing so.

  ‘Am I allowed to watch that? Why not? Everyone at school has seen it, like, twice. Can I? Can I watch it? Oh you’re totally mean. What’s that? That looks good. Can I watch that? That thing that you’re watching. What is it? What’s it about? Well, if it’s right in the middle there’s no point in watching it now, is there. Can I watch the other
thing? Please? Why not?’

  It was a war of attrition. Bunty, wired from the madness of the thing she had done and from eating a curry omelette of some kind at 2 a.m., was going to lose. She knew it. Any minute now she would scream, ‘WATCH WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT AND SEE IF I CARE!’ down the plane, and the two truancy officers parked neatly at the back in matching suits like the FBI would take an aisle each and surround her with guns. She’d be towed away and locked in the toilet until they landed in Singapore, and everyone knew what it was like in Singapore – you couldn’t chew gum let alone swear at your own offspring.

  ‘Breathe,’ said Kat. She was sitting across the aisle, two rows back, as that was the nearest to ‘sitting together’ they’d been able to get. ‘In. And out. That’s good, Bun.’

  ‘How did you know?’ whispered Bunty across the sleeping Singaporean families.

  ‘Your elbows looked very tense.’

  ‘God, Kat. What have I done?’

  Kat gestured to the little space near the toilets, grabbed her newly filled plastic glass of wine and Bunty’s, and squeezed her way down the aisle. Bunty checked on Charlotte, now happily watching some Disney film for six-year-olds, made toilet signals and followed Kat.

  ‘So tell me again,’ said Kat, leaning on the wall of the hostess station. ‘What did you tell Graham?’

  ‘I left him a note. A note! God, how mean. At least he was going to tell me in person. He’d organised a family gathering to pass the news on – my mum said. And Charlotte.’

  ‘And the note said …’

  Bunty sighed and repeated it all in one long breath. ‘Seeing-as-you’re-leaving-me-anyway-I’m-going-with-Kat-to-find-a-nice-Kiwi-man-and-Charlotte’s-coming-too-I’ll-be-in-touch.’