Gabs stroked the cat and wondered where the rest of the evening was going. Since the advent of Maudie, some of the point had been lost, and she for one couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about.
“Where were we?” she asked now.
“Sliding scales?” said Alice.
“Oh yes. Sliding scales. Perhaps I’d better save that for next time?” She glanced towards Maudie, who appeared to be listening attentively. She might not have her own teeth, but there was nothing wrong with her hearing.
Maudie reminded Gabs of her own great-grandmother, a redoubtable woman who had lived to be ninety-eight. Adored by her numerous descendants, she’d managed to stay on in her own home until the very end, regardless of the gloomy prognostications of her family, who were concerned that she would have falls and forget to eat properly. Considerate to the last, she had died in her sleep two years ago on Boxing Day, leaving her relatives with happy memories of a riotous final Christmas and the reassuring thought that she had died in her own home (the fact that they had done their best to remove her from it was conveniently forgotten). Gabs still missed her, for she herself was the black sheep who’d skipped a couple of generations, and she hoped that she would be able to carry on the same feisty heritage of nonconformity.
“Would you ever marry?” Alice asked her suddenly.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“It might interfere with your livelihood.”
“I’d give it up,” Gabs said. “It was only ever a stopgap. I sort of fell into it; I can fall out again — no problem. There’s plenty of other things I could do. I’ve got my care work, for a start. But if I do marry, it’ll be someone rich. My old gran always used to say, ‘Don’t marry for money, but marry where money is.’ I think she had the right idea.”
“And did she? Marry where money was?” Mavis asked.
“No.” Gabs laughed. “My granddad hadn’t got a bean. But I gather it wasn’t for want of trying. What about you two? Would you marry your fellers if you could?”
“Good question,” said Alice. “But yes, I think I would. Well, I’d live with him, anyway. I love Jay, and I think we’d make a good couple. What about you, Mavis?”
Mavis glanced at Maudie, who appeared to be asleep. “I don’t know,” she said. “Once, I certainly would have. But he kept on promising to leave his wife, and I kept pretending I believed him, and now I think I’ve accepted things as they are. I have my home; he has his. He’s got his kids, and I never wanted any. It’s odd, but I think we’re best off as we are. Provided Dorothy never finds out.”
“What about if something happens to him?” Alice asked.
“Yes, that’s always bothered me. No one knows about us, so I’d probably be the last to hear. And then when I did find out, there’d be no one to offer a shoulder to cry on.”
“That bothers me, too,” Alice said. “We’re the invisible ones, aren’t we? There’s no place in the pecking order for mistresses. We sort of hover on the outskirts of other people’s families — skeletons in cupboards, secrets that have to be kept. I often wonder what I’d do if anything happened to Jay. That’s one of the reasons I’ll eventually have to tell Finn. He and I are pretty close, and I’d really need him.”
Listening to them, Gabs felt some sympathy, but she also couldn’t help thinking they were both mad. There must be a moment between attraction and falling in love, and if the guy was married, that was surely the moment to stop. This had nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with practicality. Gabs had no compunction about sleeping with other people’s husbands, but she had no intention of falling for one. That way lay endless complications, and Gabs preferred her life to be straightforward.
“How do you manage to live like that, year after year?” she asked. “Secret meetings and phone calls and never being able to be seen out with your man?”
“That seems odd, coming from you,” Alice said, but without malice.
“Oh, I’m different. I don’t get involved,” Gabs told her.
“How? How do you not get involved?” Mavis asked.
“It’s a job. You don’t get involved with all those socks and ties you sell, do you?”
“That’s not at all the same,” Mavis objected, although she couldn’t help laughing. “No one ever fell in love with socks and ties.”
“True. But it’s the same idea. You approach your job in one way, your social life in another.”
“Well, I couldn’t do what you do,” Mavis said, not for the first time.
Gabs tried to conjure up a mental picture of Mavis stepping out of her sensible skirt and old-fashioned court shoes and preparing to entertain an eager (and paying) client, but failed. “Horses for courses,” she said. “You’ve got your socks and ties; I have my clients.”
“And I,” said Alice, consulting her watch, “have to go. I’ve got a piece to finish this weekend, and I haven’t even started it.”
“Me too. Early start tomorrow,” Gabs said. “No days off in my job. I’ll just phone for a taxi.”
Alice and Gabs gathered up their coats and bags and prepared to leave. As they stood in the hallway saying their farewells, Maudie’s voice could be heard coming from the living room.
“Bad girls,” she called after them cheerily. “All of you. Bad, bad girls.”
Mavis looked shocked, but Gabs laughed. “She’s right,” she said. “No flies on your mum. We are bad girls. After all, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
Part Two
Alice
On the evening after the meeting, Trot and Finn returned home filthy and late.
“Really kind of you to ask me for tea,” Trot said, pecking Alice on the cheek. “I’ve brought wine.” He deposited a bottle of Liebfraumilch on the kitchen table. Alice reflected sourly that this seemed to be a weekend for cheap, nasty wine, but tried to accept the offering with good grace.
“Did you catch anything?” she asked, stirring Bolognese sauce.
“Trot caught an old watering can, and I caught a very small fish. I put it back,” Finn said. “We threw away the rest of the maggots,” he added. “I didn’t think you’d want them hanging around.”
“How kind,” murmured Alice.
Finn opened a cupboard and brought out a box of cereal. “Want some?” he asked Trot.
“Yeah. Why not?” Trot said, taking off his jacket and flinging it over a chair.
“Well, one reason is that I’m serving supper any minute,” Alice said. “And it’ll —”
“Spoil our appetites,” chorused Finn and Trot, giving each other high fives and fetching bowls and spoons. Alice noticed that Trot could always locate anything connected with food or drink, but never knew where to hang his coat.
After supper, they played Monopoly. Trot and Finn, who for some reason loved the game, wrangled and fought, and finally formed a syndicate, winning handsomely. Alice, who loathed it, happily admitted defeat. She had spent much of the game in jail (despite having a “get out of jail free” card), working on her article, and neither of the others had even noticed. Games of Monopoly with Trot had been known to last into the small hours, and she needed to get some sleep.
Afterwards, Finn asked whether Trot could stay the night.
Alice looked at Trot — at his filthy jeans, his unshaven face, and his socks, which were more hole than sock. Trot followed her gaze.
“I’ll have a shower,” he said.
“And I’ll lend him some clean boxers,” Finn told her.
And I, thought Alice wearily, will have to make up the bed, provide clean towels, and afterwards do the necessary laundry.
“Please?” Finn said again, making puppy eyes at her.
“Oh, all right,” Alice said. “You’d better sling your things into the washing machine — both of you. I’ll put a wash on now.”
“You’re an angel.” Trot patted her on the head. “Isn’t she, Finn? Isn’t your mother just the best?”
“Don’t push your luck,” Alice warned,
tidying up the Monopoly money and wishing that Trot was equally good at making the real kind. For if he were, some of it might — just might — come Finn’s way, and at the moment, keeping Finn was not cheap.
Later, lying in bed, listening to the distant chug of the washing machine and the sound of cars swishing down the road outside the house, Alice was unable to sleep. She’d had a disturbing phone call from Jay that afternoon and couldn’t get it out of her mind.
“We need to talk,” Jay had said.
“We are talking,” Alice said, aware that she was deliberately missing the point, but nervous about what that point might be.
“No. Talk properly. Face-to-face,” Jay said. “The phone is — difficult.”
“Tell me about it,” said Alice. “Jay, we’ve been conducting our relationship mainly over the phone for four years now. I know the phone’s difficult. But it’s better than nothing.”
“Well, I still need to see you.”
“You’re — you’re going to dump me.” Alice had a sudden terrifying glimpse of a scenario in which she was despatched from Jay’s life in the course of a conversation in some distant pub, or worse, a lay-by.
“Of course I’m not!”
“Well, what then?” For Alice couldn’t think of anything more serious, and certainly nothing that couldn’t be discussed over the phone.
“Trust me, darling. This is something I need to talk about when we’re together. When I can see your face, and you can see mine.”
“Do you love me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then tell me. Please. You can’t leave me waiting like this.”
“Let’s make it soon, then. Can you meet me for lunch on Monday? I’ve got a good registrar. He can do my ward round, and I can catch up with him later.”
“Possibly. But I’ve got a deadline. I’ve got to get some work done on Monday.” That Jay was prepared to miss a ward round did nothing to reassure Alice.
“I’ll come over then, shall I?”
“You can’t come here! You never come here.”
“That’s precisely why I can come, just this once. Presumably Finn will be at school.”
“Well…”
“That’s fixed, then. I’ll come to your place at one o’clock on Monday. I’ll park round the corner and walk the last few yards. No one will see me. Trust me, Alice. It’ll be fine.”
“What? You parking round the corner, or whatever it is you’ve got to say to me?”
“Both, I hope. And don’t worry.”
Why is it that when someone tells you not to worry, it’s almost invariably because there’s something to worry about? Alice tossed and turned, going over the possibilities in her head. Perhaps Jay was ill. Maybe he had some dread disease — the dread disease (what an irony that would be!) — and that was what this was about. Or perhaps Angela was ill. Or could it be that Jay was tired of the lies and the duplicity, and if not exactly dumping her, was planning to tail off their relationship gradually. How would she feel about being tailed off? Alice decided that she would prefer to be dumped. At least that would be final, unequivocal. She would know where she was.
Sunday dragged. Trot took himself off as soon as his clothes were dry, muttering about having arranged to see someone. Alice knew that this would probably involve a long and jolly afternoon in a pub somewhere, and she felt for Finn, who was obviously disappointed. Finn rarely referred to Trot when he wasn’t around, but was oddly jealous when he was. Trot had never had official “access” to his son; he’d just arranged meetings when he felt like it. So he’d never been a weekend father, and Finn knew better than to expect to have him to himself for two days at a stretch. But Alice guessed that the invitation to stay the night had been issued in the hope that they’d be able to spend another day together, and now that was not to be.
“Never mind,” she said when Trot had said his goodbyes. “He’ll be back.”
“Who said I minded?” Finn said. “I don’t care what Trot does.”
“If you say so. Shall we get a DVD this evening? We could make some popcorn.”
“I’m not a kid anymore, Mum.”
“No one said you were. But I like popcorn even if you don’t, and you can choose the film.”
The DVD was not a success, being one of those incomprehensible American cops and robbers films, where it’s hard to tell who’s on which side, and everyone had such deep southern accents that it was impossible to understand anything they said. Both Finn and Alice had an early night.
On Monday morning, Alice couldn’t concentrate on her article. It was the product of an interview she had been granted by an ageing pop star whom she had never heard of and who had been both recalcitrant and rude, and she was in a quandary as to how she was going to manage to write something that wasn’t libellous. She decided that she was in the wrong frame of mind to solve the problem, and so she caught up on some housework instead. The deadline would have to be stretched, she thought mutinously, finding one of Trot’s socks behind the radiator (how could he have missed a sock when he had presumably come with two?) and rescuing his sodden towel from under the spare bed. Alice had never met Trot’s parents, who lived in Spain, but she had often thought that he must have been overindulged as a child. At least Finn was reasonably well trained, if you discounted his bedroom.
The hands of the clock in the hallway crawled towards one, and Alice went upstairs to change. She put on fresh jeans and a pretty top that showed off her breasts to good effect. She wasn’t sure why she was doing this, since Jay had never been particularly observant, but she felt as though she were arming herself for some kind of conflict, and looking good made her feel somehow stronger.
Jay arrived promptly at one, bearing a huge bouquet of flowers. This was not a good sign, since they had long ago agreed that flowers would attract questions, and therefore should be given only very occasionally (and when Alice could invent an acceptable donor).
“Oh dear,” she said, accepting the flowers and a kiss.
“Why? Don’t you like them?”
“Of course I like them. It’s just that you and I don’t do flowers.”
“Well, we do today.”
“I’ll put them in water.” Alice walked through into the kitchen to look for a vase. “I’ve made soup,” she said.
“Lovely.” Jay sat down at the kitchen table and watched her fetching bread and butter and putting out plates and cutlery. “You’re avoiding looking at me.”
“What do you mean?”
“No eye contact.”
Alice sighed. “I suppose I’m worried what I might see if I look at you properly. Look,” she said as she sat down beside him, “can we get this — this whatever it is — out of the way before we eat? I couldn’t face lunch at the moment.”
“All right.” Jay took her hand and held it between his. “There’s no easy way of saying this, but —”
“Just say it. Please.”
“Angela’s pregnant.”
“What?”
“Angela’s pregnant. I know,” Jay hurried on, “I know it’s a shock. It’s a shock for us, too. We never thought it would happen — never thought it could happen — but it has.”
“But — but how? I thought she — you — couldn’t have children. You had all those tests, all that treatment. You told me you’d both given up hope. That you’d got used to the idea of not having children.”
“Well, we had. But now it’s happened.” Jay shrugged. “Angela’s having a baby. After all this time.”
“But — isn’t she too old? I thought all that was in the past.”
“She’s forty-four. Well, she will be when the baby’s born.”
“You mean she’s going to have it?”
“Well, of course she’s going to have it! What did you expect? She’s always wanted children. You can hardly expect her not to have this baby after everything she’s been through. I thought you’d understand that. After all, you’ve got Finn. You know how much it means to a w
oman to be a mother. You once told me he was the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“That makes it all right, then, does it? The fact that I’ve got Finn makes it okay for you to go and — and make babies with Angela? I didn’t even know you were still having sex!”
“I never told you we weren’t.”
“No, but from the things you’ve said, I assumed that that side of your marriage was over.”
“Well, it’s not. Not quite, anyway. We don’t do it often.”
“How can you do it at all? How can you leave me and then go home and make love to Angela? How can you be such a hypocrite?”
“I have to. Don’t you see? If I stopped making love to Angela, then she really would get suspicious.”
“Oh, very convenient. You just do it for me. Well, thanks very much.” Alice picked up a knife and stabbed at the tablecloth. “And of course, you don’t enjoy making love to Angela. It’s just a duty you have to perform. Poor old Jay. What a chore it must be, keeping two women satisfied.”
“Alice. Darling. Please don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what? I haven’t done anything! I’ve been the nice, undemanding mistress — always there if I’m wanted, but prepared to step down if you’re needed at home. I’m a little sideline, a hobby. An extramural activity.”
“Oh, Alice, I was afraid it would be like this. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to tell you face-to-face. At least when I’m here you can’t slam the phone down on me.”
“Jay, that’s not fair. I have never, ever slammed the phone down on you (or anyone else, come to that)!”
“No. It wasn’t fair. I’m sorry. But Alice, you’re not being entirely fair either. Anyone would think I’d planned this, when in fact nothing could have been further from my mind.”
The argument raged on, the soup burnt, and they ended up for only the second time ever in Alice’s bed, making violent, desperate love.
“I can’t bear it,” Alice sobbed afterwards, as she lay with her head on Jay’s chest. “I probably ought to be pleased for you, but I simply can’t bear it. Angela’s got everything. She’s got you, she’s got marriage, and now she’s having your baby.”
Women Behaving Badly_An uplifting, feel-good holiday read Page 6