by Olivia Ryan
‘Oh, well, that’s an easy one!’ I laugh with relief. ‘No! Not fucking likely!’
‘What’s the matter with him, then?’ giggles Jude.
‘Greg? Oh, I’ve told you how boring he is! He’d probably be as boring in bed as he is in the office.’
‘You don’t actually know that,’ points out Helen, surprisingly. ‘You can’t tell what someone’s like in bed, unless you’ve slept with them.’
I raise my eyebrows at her. A couple of the girls go ‘Oooh!’ in a silly giggly way.
‘I’m just interested in factual accuracy, that’s all,’ she says with a smile and a shrug. ‘If Katie hasn’t slept with him, she can’t actually say whether he’s boring.’
‘I haven’t slept with him! And I don’t want to!’
‘Nor any other boss? Ever?’ persists Emily, taking the slip of paper back from me and holding it up, inviting comment. ‘Do we believe her, girls?’
‘Yeah, I’ve had to listen to her whingeing about all her bosses ever since she started her first Saturday job,’ says Lisa. ‘She’s never had one she fancied.’
‘Never had one I even remotely fancied,’ I agree.
Emily drops the dare back into the bag.
‘Come on, then, Lisa – your turn,’ she says.
Lisa takes a piece of paper out of the bag and I watch her expression change as she reads it. Then I watch her composing her face and looking around the group. I know straight away that she’s going to lie.
‘What’s the question?’
‘It’s a stupid one,’ she says dismissively. ‘Have you ever begged for sex and been turned down?’
‘Well!’ says Mum. ‘Honestly!’
Auntie Joyce nudges her. ‘It’s only a bit of fun, Margie.’
‘Lisa?’ prompts Emily. ‘Have you?’
Everyone else is laughing. I’m still watching Lisa’s face.
‘No,’ she says, with a false laugh. ‘As if!’
‘You’re lying,’ I say, straight away. ‘Give her a dare to do!’
‘What d’you mean, I’m lying?’ she says indignantly, but she’s flushed red.
‘You are, aren’t you!’ squawks Emily. ‘Who was it, Lise? Were you pissed?’
‘Oh, just someone, years ago,’ she says, shaking her head, flustered. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘We’ll get it out of her later!’ Emily whispers to me. ‘Take a dare, Lisa. I can’t believe you’d lie to your friends!’
‘Piss off,’ says Lisa, mildly, recovering herself and dipping into the other bag for another piece of paper. ‘Hop on one leg for thirty seconds. Well, that’s easy, anyway!’
‘She’s too sober!’ says Jude, disappointedly as Lisa jumps to her feet and performs this easily, grinning with relief.
‘Give it time,’ says Emily with a nasty grin. ‘They’ll get harder.’
‘Have you ever had sex on a train?’ reads out Jude. ‘Well, that’s a desperate idea. I haven’t, and that’s the truth, so it is. But I wouldn’t mind a try!’
Everyone laughs, except Mum, who says ‘Honestly!’ again and downs another drink. She’s swaying a bit in her seat. ‘I hope we don’t have to take part in this silly game, Joyce?’
‘We’ll let you off, Margie, if you don’t want to play,’ says Emily kindly. ‘We wouldn’t want you revealing all your deep dark secrets in front of your two daughters, would we, now?’
‘And we wouldn’t want to hear them, either,’ I mutter, but Mum’s got into her stride again about her hen night in Southend.
‘We didn’t need to play silly games like this, you see, because we talked to each other.’
‘I thought you said you got drunk and threw up on the Big Dipper?’ I remind her.
‘Not on the Big Dipper,’ she corrects me quite crossly. ‘It was the Big Dipper that made me feel sick.’
‘Not the booze you had before you got on it?’
‘Don’t be facesh… faceshi…’
‘Facetious?’
‘Of course we had a drink,’ she continues. ‘But we talked in the pub. About… you know. The wedding night.’
‘Oooh!’ exclaims Karen. ‘Get your mum another drink, Katie, while she’s talking about the wedding night!’
‘I think she’s had enough already.’
‘Don’t be mean! Come on, get another round in!’
I don’t like the way Mum’s eyes are going funny. But what can I say? It’s a party, after all.
‘Do you seriously fancy anyone in here?’ Emily reads out, as we’re getting into the next drink, and we insist on her taking a turn at her own game. ‘Well,’ she lowers her voice and takes a quick look over her shoulder, ‘I wouldn’t say no to him at the bar, with the green top.’
We all spin round, instantly, and there’s a chorus of appreciative comments that predictably results in the guy in question turning round and grinning back at us.
‘Would you’ I whisper back to her. ‘If you got the chance?’
‘That’s not fair, Katie! It’s not one of the questions!’ says Jude.
‘So? Would you?’ I persist, watching Emily as she’s still sneaking glances at the guy at the bar.
‘Of course not,’ she laughs quietly. ‘I might like to, though, if I wasn’t seeing Sean.’
‘FORFEIT!’ shouts Lisa. ‘You mentioned Sean!’
‘Oh, fuck! That was Katie’s fault.’
‘Get on with it!’
‘OK, OK.’ She dips into the bag. ‘Approach a stranger and pretend you know each other’.
‘Good one!’ I laugh. ‘Why not try him!’
The guy in the green top’s still looking at us with interest. Emily pushes back her chair with determination, gets up and takes a couple of steps towards the bar. ‘Hello!’ she calls out as she approaches her target. ‘What a surprise to see you! What are you doing in Dublin?’
He picks up his pint of Guinness and takes a long drink, watching her over the top of the glass, before putting it slowly back down on the bar and saying, ‘I live here,’ and turning his back on her.
‘Shit!’ she says, loudly, as she sits back down at the table, her face burning. We’re all falling about laughing, of course. ‘Shit, I don’t fancy him at all, now. Miserable git. I wouldn’t have him if he was the last man in Ireland!’
‘Yer man next to him is all right, though,’ says Jude thoughtfully.
‘Honestly!’ says Mum again. ‘You girls, you’ve all got boyfriends, partners, whatever, but to hear you talk…’
‘No harm in looking, Mum! Just a bit of window shopping!’ I tell her.
‘Just a bit of fun, Marge,’ says Joyce again, giving her another nudge and almost sending her drink flying.
‘It’s where it all starts, though, isn’t it,’ says Lisa, who’s beginning to sound almost as drunk as Mum. ‘Seriously. I know this is just, you know, a bit of fun – but if you’re not careful, playing around, before you know it…’
‘Oh, leave off, Lise! What, you think him in the green shirt is going to jump on Emily and she’s going to go out the back of the pub with him and be unfaithful to… to that person at home that she’s not allowed to mention?’
‘No. But it just shows. Doesn’t it.’ The drink is making her talk in short, staccato sentences. She sways a bit between each one. ‘It just shows. If you fancy other blokes. There must be something. Not quite right. Don’t you think?’
‘Bollocks,’ says Emily.
‘Yeah. Your trouble is,’ I start, and then I forget what I was going to say her trouble was, so I have to stop and have a bit more of my drink until I remember. ‘Your trouble is, your marriage is perfect.’
‘Perfect,’ echoes Emily, who seems to be unable to say more than one word at a time.
‘Your marriage is so bloody perfect!’ I tell Lisa. For some reason it seems like a good idea to put my arm round her and kiss her. ‘You’re so bloody lucky to have such a perfect marriage to Perfect Prick!’
There’s a horrified silence.
‘I
mean Perfect Rick!’ I correct myself, sobered up slightly by the shock of what I’ve said and at the look on Lisa’s face. ‘Rick, perfect Rick!’
‘Yes,’ she says stonily, shrugging my arm off her shoulders.
I put it back round her again.
‘Sorry. Don’t be like that. Didn’t mean it! Rick’s Mr Perfect, isn’t he, you’re always saying how great he is, how you have all this wonderful sex… every bloody night…even now you’ve got two kids.’
‘Not every night. But yes, he’s certainly…’
‘No talking about partners!’ Suze reminds us sharply, just as everyone’s looking like they’re about to throw up. ‘Forfeit, forfeit!’
‘Fuck the forfeits! Let’s get another drink!’ I say slurrily.
‘Not for me, thank you,’ says Mum before anyone even asks her. ‘I think I’ve had…’ She pauses, frowning. ‘I’ve had…’
‘Too much!’ says Joyce, firmly.
‘I think I feel a bit…’ She looks up at me, puzzled. ‘A bit…?’
‘Drunk!’ supplies Joyce.
‘I just feel a bit tired,’ Mum finishes, lamely.
Not really surprised. She started drinking before the rest of us and she’s been putting them away like there’s no tomorrow.
‘Come on!’ Joyce pulls Mum to her feet. ‘Let’s get you back.’
‘Home?’ says Mum, looking around the pub as if she’s wondering where her bedroom is.
‘Home’s a long way away, dear. Over the sea. Over the Irish Sea!’
‘Over the Irish Sea?’ echoes Mum, staggering after Joyce, knocking her chair over in the process. ‘Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…’
‘Oh, bloody hell!’ says Lisa, covering her ears.
‘Will she be all right?’ I ask Auntie Joyce, grabbing her arm as she passes. ‘Should we come?’
‘Don’t be daft! I’ll take her back to the hotel and put her to bed. It won’t be the first time.’
‘Really?’ I’m intrigued by this. ‘Well, OK then, if you’re sure you’ll both be all right?’
‘I’m fine, love. I’ve only had a couple, and the hotel’s almost next-door, isn’t it. See you all in the morning, girls! Be good.’ She winks at us. ‘Or maybe I should say be careful?’
At least we’ve heard the last of bloody Southend for tonight.
We manage a few more turns of Truth or Dare before everyone gets too drunk to be bothered. It’s interesting stuff. Karen refuses to answer a question about whether she’s ever snogged someone else’s boyfriend, so she has to stand up and sing ‘Like A Virgin’ as a dare. She can’t remember the words and her singing is so awful we let her off after the first three lines. And then Helen, of all people, admits to having gone to work once wearing no knickers, but she won’t tell me whether it was before she worked for Greg, or since, which only serves to convince me it must have been recently.
‘Because you forgot to put them on? Or on purpose?’
‘That’s not part of the question.’
‘But I want to know!’
‘Sorry!’ She smiles calmly. ‘Not telling!’
Well, it couldn’t have been for Greg’s benefit so she must have been meeting some guy after work. Or in her lunch-break. Unbelievable! I look at her with a new respect. I know she doesn’t like men but she doesn’t seem to have a problem with having sex with them.
‘Fair play to you!’ mutters Jude, with her face in her wine glass.
‘Go, girl!’ agrees Suze, who sounds too tired to say it with very much enthusiasm.
The tiredness is catching. Before we know it, we’re all yawning.
‘I hope no-one’s expecting me to get up early in the morning!’ says Lisa with a groan. ‘I’m looking forward to a good lie-in. I never get the chance at home, what with Richard being so fucking righteous about getting up early, every fucking day, even at weekends.’
I look at her in total shock. She’s slagging off Perfect Rick? This is unheard-of! I realise she’s drunk, but let’s not go for complete personality changes here – that’s just too freaky.
‘You mentioned your husband,’ says Emily sleepily. ‘Forfeit…’
‘Can’t be arsed,’ says Lisa. ‘It’s too late. Game’s over.’
‘Anyway…’ I can’t let this go, or I won’t be able to sleep tonight. ‘Anyway, Lise – it’s great, isn’t it, Richard getting up early, bringing you tea in bed, doing the kids’ breakfast, all that stuff. You’re so lucky, aren’t you! You know you are!’
‘Am I?’ she retorts. ‘Huh. That’s all you know. That’s all you know, ’cos that’s all I tell everyone. You want the truth, now you’re getting married, little sister? Now I’m pissed enough to tell you? Do you?’
I’ve got a horrible feeling I’m going to hear it, whether I want to or not.
LISA’S STORY
I know what everyone thinks. They’re all looking at me now with those kind of smiles people give you when you’re very drunk and talking rubbish, but they’re going to pretend to go along with you rather than let you get upset, flip out of control and spoil the party. It’s true I’m a bit drunk – but only a bit. I’m not used to it any more, that’s the thing; not like Katie and her friends, still going out to pubs and clubs at the weekend. I’m married with two kids, don’t forget. How could I ever possibly forget?
My marriage, actually, is shit.
There. You weren’t expecting that, were you?
Katie thinks I’ve got a wonderful, perfect marriage, and to be honest I don’t bother to disillusion her. It’s all part of the pretence. I’m a good actress. I don’t admit the truth to anyone – not to Mum, not to my sister or any of my friends.
It started off good. I suppose it always does – otherwise why would we bother? All the time I was a teenager, I wanted to get married and have kids. It isn’t fashionable these days to admit to that. We’re supposed to have fabulous careers or at the very least go and travel the world, if not both, and to not even consider settling down until the tick of our biological clocks becomes so deafening we can’t hear ourselves think. I was actually twenty-seven before I got married, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. I’d had serious relationships with two other guys before I met Richard, and I was considering marrying both of them. One of them turned out to be already married so that was a bit of a non-starter, and the other one cooled off when I started buying Brides magazine and window-shopping in Mothercare. In fact he emigrated to New Zealand. I considered following him but perhaps it would have been taking desperation one step too far.
I was attracted to Richard for a lot of reasons. One: he was older than me, so probably more likely to be ready to settle down than the men of my own age who I’d been seeing. Two: he was sensible. He had a savings account. He owned more than one suit. He knew how to hang wallpaper, lay crazy paving, buy shares. Three: He earned enough to make it possible to buy shares. You can see why I fell in love with him.
I don’t think I ever had a romantic dream, like Katie does. I didn’t long for a tall dark broodingly handsome stranger to sweep me off my feet, flying me off to fantastic destinations, strolling hand-in-hand in the sunset on white coral beaches, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. She gets all that from reading too much romantic fiction, and in my opinion it doesn’t do her any good at all. My dream was far more prosaic. I wanted to live happily-ever-after in a semi-detached house on a nice estate, with a husband in a good job, two well-behaved children and a tidy garden.
A good sex life was kind of taken as a given.
Well, I got the house, the job, the kids and even the garden. Can’t have it all, I suppose.
We lived together for a year before we got married. We rented a flat in the area where we wanted to live, and every Saturday we went out house-hunting. Richard took house-hunting very seriously. He dressed up for it. I think I could trace the very first time I felt irritated with him back to the day I asked him why he was bothering to wear a shirt and tie to go and view someone’s house, and he
looked me straight in the eye and said: If something’s important to me, why would I want to look as if I don’t care? I can remember having the same urge to tell him to go and fuck himself that I used to get when my French teacher closed her eyes, shook her head and told me to try to make my accent sound as though I actually thought my thoughts and dreamed my dreams in French. Of course, I didn’t say anything to Richard, any more than I did to the French teacher. I pretended to be impressed. Perhaps that was the very beginning of the acting career that I’ve made of my life.
We found our perfect house, we got our mortgage, bought our furniture, planned our wedding, and all the time I kept thinking that maybe the sex would get better in due course. I wasn’t sure whether I was expecting too much. After all, if Richard was happy with a quick bonk once a week regularly on a Saturday night, it seemed a bit unreasonable to want more. I wasn’t even sure exactly what I wanted more of, though certainly not the same predictable, unsatisfying and rather unfriendly encounters he saved himself for all week. I’d experienced better sex with my previous boyfriends, but how could I admit that, even to myself, when Richard was supposed to be the love of my life? It was all very confusing.
To take my mind off it, I got pregnant. We were both over the moon when Charlie was born, and Richard turned out to be a great dad. He was there at the birth, talking me through the whole thing with a textbook open on his lap, and took his responsibilities very seriously, as with everything else he did. He’d read all the childcare manuals. He knew about stuff like when Charlie should be started on solid food and potty training and learning the alphabet – whereas I would probably have just muddled through and made lots of mistakes along the way, if he hadn’t been so involved. If I sometimes found myself wishing he’d let me muddle through and make a few mistakes, I told myself I was being very ungrateful and unfair.
I don’t know why I lied about my marriage. I think it kind of frightened me to admit the truth. Look, all anyone talks about these days is sex – and it’s always good sex, perfect sex, amazing sex. Nobody ever admits to rubbish sex – and certainly not to hardly any sex at all, which is what we were having by the time Charlie was born. Maybe if I’d had the guts to be honest about it from the start it wouldn’t have been so bad. I can’t for the life of me remember how Molly was conceived because it sure as hell must have been a one-off, and it obviously wasn’t memorable. Soon I had my two lovely kids, I had my nice house and my nice life, and a good husband who worked hard for us all. And I was living this huge lie, telling Katie and anyone else who would listen to me, how passionately in love we were and how great everything was. It wasn’t. It was so bloody awful that when we were on our own together, we were hardly even talking, never mind anything else.