Mixed doubles

by Jill Mansell

  But this hadn’t happened, which just went to show what a waste of time praying and crossing your fingers was. These days Dulcie simply hoped she wouldn’t see Bibi.

  Now, as the house came into view, she saw a different car on the drive.

  This was interesting, because it might mean there was a new man at last in Bibi’s life.

  Dulcie braked, even though the traffic lights — for once in their contrary lives — were on green.

  A blue Renault behind her tooted irritably but Dulcie ignored it, far too intrigued by the car on the drive.

  This was good news, this was promising news. If Bibi’s found herself a new man, thought Dulcie, perking up at the idea, I can stop feeling guilty about James.

  The lights changed to red and she drew to a halt. The driver of the Renault gave a blast on his horn in disgust.

  And Dulcie realised, too late, that the car on Bibi’s drive wasn’t unoccupied, as she had at first thought. Those headrests weren’t head-rests at all, they were heads.

  Claire Berenger hadn’t only snapped up her husband, Dulcie realised miserably; she’d gone for the job lot and bagged her mother-in-law too.

  Jealousy wasn’t an emotion Dulcie had ever had much to do with, but she couldn’t help feeling it now. It hurt too, like a serrated knife twisting in her ribs.

  Unable to tear her eyes away, she watched Bibi and Claire jump out of the car, laughing and weighed down with glossy carriers. Dulcie recognised several of them; in the old days she and Bibi had indulged in delicious spending sprees, visiting all their favourite shopping haunts and stopping for lunch somewhere gossipy and glamorous. They had both enjoyed their days out together almost as much as the actual buying of the new clothes.

  We always got on so well, thought Dulcie, feeling horribly bereft. Bibi was the best mother-in-law anyone could wish for. And now she doesn’t need me any more. She’s got herself another potential daughter-in-law, a new best friend.

  The lights had changed to green again without Dulcie noticing. The blare of the Renault’s horn behind her made her jump. When she lifted her foot from the clutch, the car jerked in protest and promptly stalled.

  More horns were tooted. Beginning to perspire, Dulcie turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened.

  She tried again.

  And again, harder this time.

  Still nothing.

  From the sound of it, every car in Bath was blasting its horn at her now. The prickle of perspiration had turned into a torrent of sweat. And although Dulcie couldn’t bear to look, she knew Bibi and Claire would be watching with interest. Interest that would turn to amusement, no doubt, the moment Bibi recognised her car. This would make her day.

  The traffic lights, almost with a shrug — ‘You had your chance, you blew it’ — turned back to red.

  To her horror, Dulcie realised the man behind her was climbing out of his Renault. Next moment he hammered on her window, his face as shiny and purple as an aubergine.

  ‘You stupid cow,’ he bellowed. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re playing at? Bloody women drivers — bimbos like you shouldn’t be allowed on the road!’

  Dulcie wasn’t up to defending herself. She was up to here with being shouted at.

  She burst into tears and jumped out of the car, almost cannoning off the Renault driver’s great barrel of a chest.

  ‘The car’s broken down. It won’t go.’ Hating herself for being such a wimp, Dulcie heard her voice go higher and higher. ‘And don’t yell at me because it’s not my fault, okay?’

  ‘Bloody women, nothing’s ever your fault, is it?’ sneered the man, whose wife had run off with a taxi driver, taken the kids with her and stung him for so much alimony his business had gone down the tubes.

  Dulcie lifted her chin. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Bibi and Claire watching the goings-on.

  ‘If you’re so clever,’ she said bitterly to the man, ‘you have a go.’

  He climbed into Dulcie’s car, flicked the key in the ignition and pumped the clutch a couple of times.

  The engine sprang obediently into life.

  The look on the man’s face was unbearable. Nobody, thought Dulcie, should be allowed to do a look like that. She wanted nothing more than to slap his horrid purple cheek.

  ‘Here,’ sneered the beastly man as he climbed out, ‘think you can manage to get past the traffic lights this time, or would you like me to do that for you as well?’

  Gritting her teeth, Dulcie slid back into the driver’s seat. Glancing across one last time she saw that Bibi and Claire were still there, witnessing her humiliation and no doubt enjoying it hugely.

  The lights turned green.

  As nervous as a learner taking her test, Dulcie pulled tentatively away and made it over to the other side.

  A motley bunch of teenagers on bikes who had stopped to watch the free show jeered and whistled and gave her an ironic round of applause.

  And you can all get stuffed too, thought Dulcie. Her lower lip began to wobble again out of sheer relief as she drove past them and headed on into Bath.

  Finding somewhere to park took for ever. By the time she had finished shoe-horning the car into a cramped space outside a wholefood café on Mortimer Street, Dulcie’s yellow shirt was sticking to her back and her palms were so damp she could barely grip the steering wheel.

  Since a mopping-up operation appeared to be in order, Dulcie went inside the café, ordered an orange juice and dived into the loo. There wasn’t much to be done about the shirt but at least she could wash her hands, hold her wrists under the cold water tap, run a comb through her hair and quickly re-do her face.

  The man behind the counter grinned at Dulcie when she reappeared.

  ‘That’s better. Been one of those mornings by the look of it.’

  Nice to know you looked as dreadful as you felt, thought Dulcie, managing a brief nod in return as she paid for the orange juice.

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ he ventured, ‘are you going to stay long?’

  This is all I need, Dulcie thought resignedly. A nosy, chatty health-food freak. What’s more, one with a beard.

  ‘It’s just the car,’ he went on, gesturing apologetically towards the window. ‘You see, I’m afraid it’s blocking my garage.’

  Dulcie stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘It took me ten minutes to squeeze into that space! Why didn’t you come out and tell me in the first place?’

  ‘I’m sorry ... I was busy in the kitchen. There is a notice .. . anyway it doesn’t matter,’ he hurried to reassure her. ‘I don’t need my car for the next couple of hours. You’re welcome to stay until then.’

  Dulcie wondered if anything nice would ever happen to her again, or if she truly was on the downward spiral to hell. Parking restrictions and time limits did her head in. She especially couldn’t cope with them today.

  ‘It’s okay.’ She resigned herself to queueing up to get into the NCP. ‘I’ll move the car.’

  The car, however, had other ideas.

  ‘I don’t believe this, it’s done it again,’ yelled Dulcie, stalking back into the café and hurling her bag on to the counter. ‘The bloody thing won’t start!’

  At table four a group of wholefood enthusiasts glanced up disapprovingly from their nut cutlets and garden-sized salads.

  ‘Well.’ On the defensive, Dulcie tugged down the hem of her short skirt. ‘Sorry, but it pisses me off.’

  ‘Rufus!’ a woman’s voice yelled from the kitchen. ‘Two lentil and broccoli bakes.’

  Rufus, his beard twitching with amusement at the expression on table four’s faces, said, ‘Hang on a sec,’ to Dulcie, and went to fetch the order.

  ‘Now,’ he said, when the lentil and broccoli bakes had been dispatched, ‘tell me what’s wrong.’

  Dulcie wanted to wail, Bloody everything! Instead, she rummaged in her bag.

  ‘Look, it’s okay. If I could just borrow your phone, I’ll call a garage. They can tow i
t away and fix it.’

  ‘Come on.’ Gently, with a hand in the small of her back, Rufus guided her to the door. ‘Garages cost money. At least let me have a look.’

  Dulcie relayed the stalling-at-the-traffic-lights story and Rufus had another go at starting the engine, without luck. ‘When did you last check the oil?’

  Dulcie looked at him. Having first removed his apron, he had lifted the bonnet and was now peering underneath. As he wiped his oily hands on a piece of kitchen roll, Rufus returned her gaze.

  Slowly he said, ‘Okay, put it another way. Do you check your oil?’

  It was all right for him, thought Dulcie. He was wearing a weird hand-knitted grey jersey and brown corduroy trousers. There was grey in his hair. He had a beard, for heaven’s sake...

  Without beating about the bush, he was a man.

  She glanced down at her sunflower-yellow shirt and whiteskirt. Her legs were brown, her sandals gold and her toenails Pomegranate Pink.

  ‘Do I look like the kind of person who checks the oil?’ The dipstick was duly hauled out, wiped on kitchen roll and re-dipped.

  ‘There is no oil in this engine,’ Rufus announced gravely.

  For the first time, Dulcie suppressed a smile. The way he said it sounded like No Wheels On My Wagon. She looked suitably ashamed.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I mean really no oil.’ Rufus shook his head. ‘It’s a miracle the engine hasn’t blown up.’

  ‘Ah.’

  He tut-tutted, then straightened up and smiled.

  ‘My ex-wife was the same.’

  Bored with lessons in car maintenance, Dulcie found herself wondering what his ex-wife looked like. Wholesome, presumably. Like Rufus, only without the beard. She tried to imagine how he would look if he shaved it off.

  With a start, Dulcie realised he was still talking about oil.

  .. a five-litre can of Castrol GTX Protection Plus. They sell it in the garage down by the river. Bit of a hike back up the hill, but that can’t be helped.’

  That was the trouble with these do-it-yourself types: they always wanted you to do it yourself too. Dulcie leaned wearily against the wall.

  ‘Can’t I just phone the garage, get them to do all that?’

  Rufus was looking at her thin arms. In return, Dulcie wondered how old he was – around thirty-five at a guess, though with beards it was always hard to tell. Then she wondered if the grey sweater was older or younger than Rufus.

  ‘Look, you’ll never carry a five-litre can all that way. I’ll go.’

  ‘What about the café?’ said Dulcie, startled.

  Sounding amazingly unconcerned, Rufus said, ‘You’ll just have to take over until I get back.’

  Chapter 37

  It was like visiting your granny in hospital then suddenly being hauled into the operating theatre and told to take over while the surgeon went off for his lunch break.

  Well, Dulcie conceded, maybe not quite like that, but along those lines. Luckily the café wasn’t crowded so she didn’t have to get into a flap. All the prices were chalked up on the blackboard behind the counter, the till was ancient and straightforward to use, and any questions Dulcie had were answered by Maris, who worked in the kitchen.

  ‘How long have you and Rufus been together?’ asked Dulcie during a quiet five minutes. She leaned against the freezer and watched Maris, who was fluffy-haired and energetic, chop a mound of onions.

  Maris looked amused.

  ‘We aren’t together. Rufus’s wife left him six months ago.’ She wiped her eyes, streaming from the onion fumes. ‘They used to run this place together, and I worked here part-time. Now it’s just the two of us keeping the place going.’ She finished chopping, and deftly slid the onions into a pan of sizzling oil, adding fondly, ‘Bless him, he works so hard. Trying to get over his wife, that’s what it is. He still misses her like mad.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’

  Dulcie wondered if it had been the beard.

  ‘Louise? Ran off with the bank manager over the road. You wouldn’t have thought it, to look at her.’ Maris, clearly a gloriously indiscreet gossip, glanced at Dulcie for encouragement.

  Avid for details, Dulcie said, ‘What, was she the prim and proper type? Or a sour-faced old prune?’

  ‘Hairy legs.’ Maris lowered her voice. ‘She never shaved them. Well, you’d have needed a lawn mower.’

  ‘Didn’t put the bank manager off,’ remarked Dulcie. ‘Or Rufus.’

  ‘Poor Rufus. He adored her.’ Energetically Maris stirred the sizzling onions, then reached for a Sabatier and a bulb of garlic. ‘He’s a lovely chap.’

  ‘Seems nice.’ Dulcie nodded. If you liked that kind of thing. ‘Do anything for anyone, Rufus would. Got a heart of gold.’

  ‘Does he drink?’ said Dulcie.

  ‘What, you mean is that why Louise left him? N0000!’ Maris looked shocked. ‘Nothing like that.’

  Dulcie grinned.

  ‘I didn’t mean does he get paralytic and beat up his wife. I was just asking, does he drink?’

  She was busy clearing tables when Rufus reappeared ten minutes later, out of breath but beaming. He poured the oil into the engine, tried the key in the ignition and gave Dulcie a jubilant thumbs-up as the engine burst into life.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dulcie before she drove off. ‘That was really kind.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ Rufus, still pink-cheeked from climbing the hill, smiled at her over the wound-down driver’s window. ‘And thank you for looking after the café. Take care of this car now,’ he reminded her good-naturedly. ‘Try and check the oil at least once every ten years.’

  ‘I met someone really nice today,’ Dulcie told Pru over supper that evening.

  Pru looked doubtful.

  ‘You mean Liam-type nice?’

  Dulcie imagined Rufus and Liam standing next to each other.

  ‘The opposite of Liam.’ She smiled, thinking that if Liam was a pin-up, Rufus was a quick-wash-and-brush-up. ‘He’s not a bit good-looking. Just ... kind.’

  Pru silently marvelled at this piece of information. He didn’t sound Dulcie’s type at all.

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  Dulcie helped herself to more cannelloni. She offered the rest to Pru.

  ‘He mended my car.’

  ‘You mean he’s a mechanic?’

  More and more unlikely, thought Pru. But useful.

  ‘No, I just broke down and he offered to help. He runs a wholefood café in Mortimer Street.’

  Dulcie scraped greedily around the edges of the dish for the best bits and added, ‘He’s got a beard.’

  Pru was beginning to suspect a set-up. Was Dulcie serious?

  ‘Hang on, let me get this straight. You fancy a man who isn’t good-looking. He has a beard and he runs a wholefood café.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m getting a horrible mental picture here of David Bellamy.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, of course I don’t fancy him.’ Forking up her cannelloni with characteristic speed, Dulcie avoided Pru’s eye. ‘He’s just a nice bloke, that’s all. Kind.’

  Pru was by this time struggling to keep a straight face. ‘I see.’

  ‘I don’t fancy him,’ Dulcie repeated stubbornly. ‘I just like him. And you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  Dulcie had been puzzling over it all afternoon. She had only just worked it out. She gazed across the table at Pru.

  ‘All the time we were talking, he didn’t look at my boobs or my legs once.’

  Remembering that she was supposed to be apologising to Liza, and taking advantage of feeling unusually saintly, Dulcie decided to ring her after supper.

  ‘Who do you keep trying to phone?’ said Pru twenty minutes later.

  Still no reply. Fretfully Dulcie hung up.

  ‘Liza. But the bloody selfish, ungrateful old bag’s buggered off out.’

  Maris was serving a family of six when Dulcie came into the café the next day. Up to her elbows in plates, and therefore
unable to wave, she waggled her eyebrows instead and called out cheerfully, ‘Rufus is in the kitchen. Go on through and tell him he owes me fifty pee.’

  Rufus was wearing different clothes today. The sleeves of his blue and brown checked shirt were rolled up and he was kneading vast quantities of bread dough. There was flour in his hair and on his brown corduroys.

  ‘You owe Maris fifty pee,’ said Dulcie.

  He looked delighted to see her.

  ‘Hi! Car okay? No more problems?’

  ‘The car’s fine.’ Dulcie held out the box she’d been clutching. ‘Here, this is for you. Just to say thanks for yesterday.’

  Rufus wiped his floury hands on a clean cloth and took the whisky.

  Glenmorangie. My word, what a treat! Dulcie, you shouldn’t have. I wasn’t expecting anything.’

  ‘I know. But I asked Maris and she said you enjoyed a drop of whisky. She thought—’

  ‘Did she indeed!’ interrupted Rufus. ‘In that case, the bet’s off.’

  Dulcie was puzzled.

  ‘What bet?’

  The doors separating the kitchen from the dining area swung open. Maris stood there grinning.

  ‘Rufus said we’d never see you again. I said we would.’

  ‘Unfair,’ Rufus protested. ‘You had inside information. That’s cheating.’

  Unperturbed, Maris squeezed behind Dulcie, opened the door to the utility room and hauled out a high chair. ‘Table four need this. Hang on and I’ll be back in a sec.’ She gave Rufus a triumphant smile and winked at Dulcie. ‘For my fifty pee.’

  The crash was followed by a scream, closely followed by a baby’s piercing wail. As Rufus and Dulcie simultaneously rushed to the swing doors a terrible dropped-baby scenario flashed across Dulcie’s mind. Her heart leapt into her throat as she tried to remember how you were supposed to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a comatose toddler. She was sure she’d seen it on ER.

  But when they catapulted through the swing doors they found the baby perched safely on his father’s lap, pointing an outraged finger down at the broken bowl containing the remains of his aubergine and tomato bake.