They did not disappoint. As the guys writhed and jiggled in front of me in nothing but tiny gold thongs, Roman poured oil over his chest and arms before turning around to smooth some over his tight, tanned bottom. The margaritas had helped to tear down my inhibitions and all at once, I was no longer a spurned woman in emotional turmoil, I was simply loving the show. Roman had slapped my hand at least seventy-seven times as I pawed his thong while he danced to the sound of The Tweets.
‘We haven’t started yet, lady!’ he laughed saucily, smacking his own backside at me and making me scream with laughter.
All of my anger seemed to have melted. By the time Eydis came running in to tell us the buzzer was ringing, I’d almost forgotten David was coming.
‘He’s here! He’s here!’ she shouted. ‘Change the music, quickly!’
Dominik raced to the CD player to change the disc and I jumped into a seat trying to look unfazed and busy.
A peel of church bells boomed out of the stereo.
‘Sheeeettt!’ Roman shouted. ‘It is the wrong song!’
Dominik reached forward to quickly switch to another disc, but instead, fast forwarded the current one. Now canon fire boomed out. Everyone looked alarmed, not knowing what the hell was happening or what to do next and knowing that David, as planned., could appear anytime. Evidently they had never done an erotic dance rehearsal to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and, until now, I had never seen one either.
As the door to the room burst open, Roman jumped over me on the sofa, putting one leg on the arm and his crotch near my face, and began thrusting in time to each boom of gunfire. The guys behind him all followed suit, arms on the man in front’s shoulder and thrusting in time to each ‘BOOM!’, all the while maintaining their serious, ‘aren’t you turned on by my body’ faces like true, sexy dance professionals. As David entered the room, Roman turned to wiggle his arse in my face and I all-too-enthusiastically twanged his thong, which promptly came off in my hand. I had forgotten an earlier warning about the stripper Velcro.
‘What the FUCK is going on here!’
David’s face was nearly purple. I’d never seen him so angry.
As Tchaikovsky’s canon-fire-filled concerto played on, Roman stopped dancing, stooped to cover his modesty with his cupped hands and trotted away with the rest of the group in hot pursuit. I turned back to look from David’s face to Eydis right behind him. I couldn’t make out who was more surprised.
‘What the hell are you wearing?’ David shouted.
Realising she needed to be out of the way too, Eydis stepped in, grabbed Roman’s thong out of my hand, clicked off the stereo and bolted.
My fuddled, giggly, drunken brain wanted me to say, ‘David, could you go out and come back in again in, say, twenty minutes?’
Instead, I went all out for the ‘best surprised look in sexy underwear’ Oscar.
‘David!’ I exclaimed. ‘How on earth did you find me?’
‘Binnie, how could you do this? I don’t understand . . .’ To my surprise, I saw that he was almost in tears and for a second, my conscience pricked me.
‘Er, David you shouldn’t have seen that. I’m sorry.’
‘What on earth were you doing?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, that little show? It was nothing David. Just a little warm-up for us. I was only enjoying myself a little. Getting myself revved up for you.’
‘WHAT?’
I continued with the script in my head, the one I’d read twelve months earlier on a website for people whose partners were addicted to porn.
‘It’s just, well, our sex life hasn’t really been that . . . you know . . . racy. I wanted to hot things up to help us start over again. So I’ve been spending some time with these guys.’
‘Spending time with these guys? You mean, this isn’t the first time? Shit Binnie, is THIS what you’ve been doing while I’ve been breaking my heart over us? Cheating on me? And us being only a WEEK married?’
This was working better than I’d bargained for. Despite the hurt look in his eyes, I couldn’t help smirking at the irony of it all and he caught me.
‘This is funny to you?’
‘Oh, David, relax!’ I said, putting an arm on his shoulder. ‘I’m not cheating. Just watching. You know, like you do. It’s nothing.’
‘You don’t think this is cheating? I never once, not once, had any other woman in my room! I never touched another woman.’
‘Well, I didn’t touch anyone either and no-one touched me. I was just looking. Like you do.’
‘And doing what?’
‘Well, I might touch myself a little bit. Like you do. Hey, maybe we can do it while we watch them?’
‘Oh, Jesus Christ, I’m going to be sick,’ he said, pushing away my arm.
With each ‘like you do,’ the pain of remembering everything I’d ever caught him doing behind my back came rushing back stronger than before. It was almost as though David was an antidote to the male strippers and margaritas. I pointed to the open toilet door. ‘The lavatory is that way.’
He made a bolt for it and I followed him. As he knelt before the bowl, making what sounded like contrived heaving noises, I pulled my wedding and engagement ring from my pocket and tossed them into the toilet. They landed in the water right in front of him with a spla-clunk.
‘What did you do that for?’ he screamed.
‘So that this time, when you’re shitting all over our relationship, you’ll know it,’ I said, turning on my heels and strutting away.
‘This is nothing like what I did to you!’ he shouted from the bathroom. ‘You were in a room full of men half my age, slobbering all over them. You’re killing me, Binnie!’
I heard the chain flush, although he obviously hadn’t been sick at all, and he appeared in the doorway, ruddy-eyed and looking pathetic. I almost caved, especially as I spied him turning the retrieved rings over in his hand.
‘I love you, Binnie. I do,’ he sobbed. ‘But all this has changed things. I don’t know who you are anymore.’ He put the rings in his pocket, adding, ‘I just don’t know how we can move on from this.’
‘You’re right, David.’ Tears welled in my eyes now. ‘How can anyone stay in a marriage where the other person is lusting over something else? Something more exciting? Getting their sexual gratification outside of their intimate relationship with another person? It can’t work, can it?’
‘You were in a room with a bunch of other men!’ he bellowed, angrily. ‘I never went that far. I wasn’t with anyone!’
‘Yes you were,’ I cried. ‘On a website. In front of a TV screen. On your mobile. You were with lots of other women! Perfectly sculpted, young, sexy, plastically and digitally enhanced women. So much so that when I wanted you to make love to me, you had nothing left to give. You make me sick. Worse than that, you made me sick – inside. I hated myself when I was with you.’
‘Is that what this was about? Revenge?’ he screamed, ‘Well, you got it. You win, Binnie.’ He turned and walked over to the door through which the guys had left – and from the distinct sound of scuffling behind it, I knew they’d been leaning against it to listen and were scurrying away, probably falling over each other in the rush.
‘I’m beat,’ he continued, opening the door to leave. ‘There’s no coming back from this.’
As I looked into his hurt, angry and what I knew were unforgiving eyes, it all became suddenly clear. I loved him more than my own life, but he could never make me feel like I was his priority, as any truly loved women should be. He was never going to stop because he just didn’t get it and I wasn’t going to be the one to make him. Even after all of this. Even long after I was gone, he’d never understand.
‘That’s all I wanted to hear,’ I said coldly, ‘close the door behind you’.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I’m drunk not. Hello phone. Or is this Facebook? Can you send a taxi to number one, oh I don’t know, I’m somewhere in Greece?
As the sun rose on the penultim
ate day of my holiday, I slept the deep, untroubled sleep of someone still drunk from the night before. It was the sound of voices and crunching on the gravel path outside that finally brought me round, and I checked my mobile. It said 1.30pm and alerted me to fourteen voicemails . . . and seventeen texts. I guessed all were from David, but wasn’t in the mood for checking right now. Need. Coffee. And. Pee.
Passing the window en route to the toilet, I peered through the shutters to see Chris and Ginger taking off through the gate towards her car. Again, there was no sign of Edvard. I watched as she shook his hand and walked away. Surely if they were in the throes of an affair, there would be more than the shaking of hands? I sighed. My numb heart couldn’t feel anger at their deceit right now, I was just thinking I could definitely live the life Chris had: six months in Greece, six months in a country cottage in Worcester and zero emotional baggage. If it was a choice between that and spending all my time in four-weeks-of-sun-a year-if-we’re-lucky England, working in a job I hate, with a cheating, lying husband, it was no contest. Maybe Ginger had it all worked out. Get them before they get you.
The girls were both grown up and no longer so reliant on my being around. One thing I knew for sure was that they would love all the free holidays if I stayed. Rubbing my head and remembering my night’s excesses – and the triumph of giving David a sizeable kick to the kerb – brought about a heady mixture of elation and nausea.
Definitely need coffee.
Still, I wondered what on earth Chris was doing with Ginger. He seemed like such a nice person; not at all like David, and this new side of him just didn’t fit with the Chris I thought I knew. Should I just come out and ask him? I put the kettle on and opened the door to let the sunshine pour in. It was another clear, blistery-hot day. Could I ever get tired of this?
I threw on a Saress and my sunglasses and took my coffee outside to the patio where I sat in its leafy shade thinking of the time, almost twelve months earlier, when I’d been called to a meeting with my boss’s PA, Cilla, after asking for a pay rise. The bastard hadn’t even faced me himself.
‘Bernice, the company is very grateful to you for your hard work and enthusiasm,’ she’d said. ‘You are a phenomenal asset to the company. Well done.’ The ‘phenomenal asset’ part being the £18,000 I’d saved the company in just under twelve months, by introducing some radical new administrative changes. ‘But, whilst we appreciate all your hard work,’ Cilla went on, ‘we can’t agree a pay rise. I know this will be a disappointing blow for you, but all the extra work you’ve taken on isn’t within the pay grade for your post. We are grateful of course, but, well, we didn’t ask you to do it.’
She was right; they hadn’t asked me to do it. I had just seen the solution to some major problems that my boss had missed and gone about doing something about them of my own accord. In some business circles this might be called ‘using your initiative’. It might be encouraged, nurtured − even rewarded. But I was being held firmly in my place; the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and one thing I knew for sure was that Cilla loved helping to keep me there. I imagined she had savoured the opportunity to give me the news that no pay rise would be forthcoming. It was clear she hated me. She even called me on her way into work some days, just to ask me to water her plants. On her way in! It was her way of letting me know, that no matter how hard I worked to shine, she had me at her disposal and I was going nowhere. I found out, entirely by accident, that Cilla’s plants didn’t thrive well on the boss’s gin. But that’s another story . . .
I picked up my mobile phone and flicked through the text messages. As I’d suspected, all were indeed from David. Somehow, he seemed more forgiving today and had gone back to begging me to talk to him. Pushing thoughts of him from my mind, I opened my email and typed in my boss’s address.
By the time I’d finished my first cup of coffee of the day I had resigned. To do what? Who cares? It was time to find out what Bernice Dando could do for herself. I was giving myself permission to get a life. It had just been an all-too-short fortnight’s holiday, but my head was now bursting at the seams with endless possibilities.
‘Mum! Dad! I’ve got a weekend job!’
It was the first job I’d ever had and I’d raced in to find him fiddling with a picture frame, looking as though he was struggling to get the back off it with his one, useful hand.
‘Burughh trurdummm at.’ My dad was looking angrily at me, dribble leaking out of the right side of his mouth as he tried to make me understand him. He hit the picture frame hard with his forefinger. ‘Burgggh urtttttt.’
It didn’t do to show you couldn’t understand what Dad was trying to say when he spoke, it always annoyed him. Sometimes pure frustration would make him throw cups across the room – not at anyone in particular – just through the sheer anger he felt at having his speech stolen from him by the stroke. I took the frame from him and saw that it was the photo of my sonogram that I’d given him the previous week.
I looked around desperately for my mother, but she was nowhere to be found.
‘Oh, Dad,’ I continued, trying to sound upbeat. Not at all like I couldn’t understand him. ‘Did you hear what I said? I got a job!’
He sighed heavily, still looking at the picture frame and nodded.
‘At Bernie’s, the fast food restaurant in Mansell Street.’
I perfectly understood Dad’s next communication though. He started to cry. As I rushed forwards to hug him, my mouth brushed the tears. They tasted of disappointment.
‘Oh, Dad,’ I sobbed. ‘I know it’s not the best job in the world but Michael and I need some extra money coming in right now with the baby coming and all.’
He pulled away from me and pointed to the picture frame again. ‘BABY!’ he shouted, his face almost purple with fury.
‘Yes, it’s for the baby, Dad,’ I replied, crying myself now and looking down at the five month old bump in my tummy where she lived. ‘I can still work for a little while longer.’
He tried to speak again, but when nothing would come, he made an angry grab for the picture frame. I instinctively pulled it away, fearing he would smash it in temper.
‘What are you trying to do anyway,’ I asked him. ‘Get the back off? Don’t you want to have a picture of your grandchild? Are you ashamed of me because I’m pregnant? Dad, I gave this to you, please don’t throw it back at me.’
He huffed and turned away from me, reminding me of the moment I’d told them just before he had his stroke. Remembering the way he had been unable to hide his disappointment. Even such a debilitating illness hadn’t mellowed him.
Just one week later, he had another stroke and died.
It took three attempts to sign into Facebook, but finally the signal came through, offering me a brief window to rid myself of some of my more restrictive baggage. There was a long conversation to be had with Beth and Sal later, I knew; but for today, my only job was to unfriend and block Caroline and their father. The pretence was over; I was not their friend, extended family member or otherwise, and our relationship wasn’t even ‘complicated’. I avoided accompanying my ‘unfriend’ with the message I’d like to have sent:
Dear Caroline, you shagged my husband for thirteen years, I wonder if you’d mind awfully just fucking off?
Bernice likes this.
As I stared out at the distant blue horizon, I picked up a swatter and batted away the four hundred bitey, irritating insects that were buzzing around my head; an action that bore a striking resemblance to the rest of my morning’s activities. All I had to do now was today’s planned activity, which was all of my own choosing. Today was my ‘envelope day’ and although I didn’t have it – David did – I recalled the contents clearly:
‘David, for what seems like a lifetime I have hated the sight of my own body. What I wouldn’t give to be free of all that nonsense, the way naturists are. Let’s get naked, in broad daylight, on the beach.’
Not the romantic prose he might have expected from me, but t
he sentiment was clear. Dear David, it’s show the world your arse day. This day I’d planned to throw caution – along with my bra and pants – to the wind, (again, as it now transpired) by enduring an hour on a nudist beach. Even now I couldn’t believe I’d been the one to dream that one up. Calling to mind the free, exhilarating loveliness of my topless horse ride, it didn’t feel quite so daunting as before. Not quite.
Argos called me ‘beautiful Binnie.’ Michaela had told me, more or less, to look in the mirror and find the love of my life. Then there was dear, brave Greta who, just one year after a mastectomy, had led five middle-aged and topless women on a gorgeous, sunset horse ride through the sea yelling ‘titty-ho’ at the sky. She didn’t have to ask me if she looked like the perfect woman. She was perfect in every way and I knew her bravery would inspire me for the rest of my days. My body was a shining, healthy gift that had given life to two beautiful young women; it was time to have my day in the sun.
Taking a couple of aspirin for my head, I packed a good, strong, nipple-saving sunscreen, my iPod and a towel before heading off to the nudist beach. I wasn’t afraid anymore . . . until a series of angry beeps from other motorists in my path made me swerve onto the kerb again. Curse this right hand side driving thing.
The car park at the beach was full of cars and bikes and there was loud music coming from the beachside taverna. There was one thing to look forward to − some gorgeous, young Greek barmen – all of them naked.
I wanted to behave like a man would in this situation, faced with a naked woman waiting to serve him alcohol. ‘You betcha I’ll have a cocktail!’
The New Mrs D Page 19