Fourplay

by Jane Moore

“Yes Jeff, it is out of the question.” She couldn’t believe she was saying this, but the comforting thing was that she felt she truly believed it. Almost.

  “So are you saying that’s it, our marriage is over?” He looked dejected.

  This time, Jo had to struggle to keep her voice calm. “No, you said that loud and clear when you walked out. I am saying I have to get on with my life, and I won’t do that unless we divorce.”

  “I see.” Jeff’s voice sounded clipped. He shouted across to the children who had managed to wrestle back their frisbee, and they started to saunter home across the common.

  Back at the house, Jo plunked herself in front of the television in the living room while Jeff crashed about in the kitchen making tea for the children. Afterward, he ran baths for them and laid out their pajamas ready for bed. Pink-cheeked, with hair and teeth brushed, they presented themselves before her for a goodnight kiss at 8:30 P.M.

  Jeff popped his head round the door. “I’m just going to read Sophie a bedtime story. Thomas wants to read his own.”

  “OK.” Jo plumped up the cushions behind her and leaned back on the sofa with a little sigh of pleasure. If only Jeff had been such a hands-on father when they were still together, their marriage might not have suffered quite so badly.

  Jeff had always called himself “the worker,” a description he clearly thought gave him license to sit on his backside watching sports all weekend, while Jo ran herself ragged after him and the children. It would have been me up there now, bathing, dressing, and reading stories, she thought. This new set-up isn’t so bad. Better still, I get to go to bed on my own, read my book as long as I like, and not have to dread the moment Jeff rolls over and tweaks my nipple for some perfunctory sex.

  He reappeared half an hour later just as the film The Goodbye Girl was about to start.

  “Great, I love this film,” he said brightly, settling himself down on the other sofa. “Nineteen-seventy-seven. Bloody hell, I was fourteen when this came out.”

  “Yes, I love it too,” said Jo, frowning as she watched him undoing his shoelaces. “And I’m not being funny, but I’d really like to watch it alone.”

  He had already removed one shoe, but stopped undoing the other. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. It’s nothing to do with you, honestly. It’s just that I rarely get any time to myself these days, whereas you have all week and most of the weekends too, if the truth be known. I quite enjoy my own company, so if you don’t mind . . .”

  His face clouded. “Well, what a fucking great day this has turned out to be. First you tell me you want a divorce, and now you’re throwing me out of my own house.”

  There were a million retorts she could have made to his last remark, but Jo decided to let him get away with it because she’d scored enough victories for one day. She had also quietly removed his family house keys from his jacket pocket—just in case he ever felt tempted to use them in the future.

  16

  It was 11 A.M. and, as usual, Tim was late. An hour late, to be precise.

  She loved her brother dearly, but despaired that he would ever keep a long-term girlfriend because of his flakiness and poor time-keeping. When he was still living at home and Jo was paying a fleeting visit one weekend, she remembered answering the phone to an irate girl who wanted to know where Tim was.

  “He’s watching television in the living room,” Jo had said. “Why?”

  “Because he was supposed to be meeting me an hour ago under the town hall clock and I have been standing here like a complete idiot. Tell him the date’s off.” The girl had slammed the phone down on Jo, who couldn’t really blame her.

  “Damn, I was quite keen on her as well,” said Tim when she interrupted his TV viewing to tell him about the call.

  “How can you be keen on someone and forget you’re supposed to be meeting them?”

  Ten years later and he hadn’t changed a bit. Little wonder he exists on a string of one-night stands, thought Jo, grimacing at the clock.

  Tim eventually pitched up at midday, full of apologies and muttering something about unreliable public transport, despite the fact he only lived a few blocks away.

  More like unreliable brother Jo reckoned, but she said nothing. She’d fought enough battles lately, without taking issue with Tim, who was clearly never going to change.

  “Did you manage to book Smollensky’s?” she asked, now regretting her decision to leave the lunch arrangements to someone with the time-keeping skills of the White Rabbit.

  “Yep. They’re expecting us at one.” He glanced at the fake Rolex that was slowly turning his wrist green. “We’d better get a move on.”

  Smollensky’s on the Strand was a vast restaurant that catered specifically for families at the weekend. It was a popular haunt for parents desperate to have their children kept amused while they tried to eat a meal uninterrupted. There was a large play area for smaller children, a magician who toured the tables to amuse the older ones, and a puppet show. The whole place was geared up to welcome children, unlike many city center restaurants where they reacted as if you had the AntiChrist in tow.

  Seated at a red leatherette booth for four, Jo and Tim forced Thomas and Sophie to sit still while they placed the orders for lunch. Then Sophie raced off to get her face painted and Thomas went to do the thing that, inexplicably, all boys do: skidding across the floor with each other.

  “So, how’s life?” said Tim, taking a crafty slurp of Sophie’s untouched banana milkshake.

  “Looking up,” Jo smiled. “Things have got a bit friendlier with Jeff, namely because I decided it was churlish not to let the children mix with The Cliché.”

  “Blimey,” exclaimed Tim, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “What brought on that sudden attack of reasonableness?”

  “I’m not really sure,” sighed Jo. “I suppose it was partly because I got tired of arguing about it, but also because I listened to some objective advice from that guy, Martin, that I’m doing up the house for. I realized I was against it because of my own insecurity. It just stopped bothering me, I guess.” She waved over at Thomas who had two large patches of floor dust on the knees of his trousers.

  “That’s a good sign,” said Tim, waving too. “A good sign for your peace of mind, anyway. Not necessarily a good sign for any reconciliation though.”

  “True.” Jo took a deep breath. “Neither is the fact that I’ve started divorce proceedings.” She paused and studied Tim’s reaction.

  “It really is a serious split then.” His voice was low but his face remained impassive.

  “Well, Jeff’s not showing any signs of leaving Candy and we seem to have settled into this amicable pattern with the children.” She shrugged. “So there doesn’t really seem any need for me to hang around in limbo. I may as well get on with my own life.”

  Tim nodded slowly. “Yes, it makes sense, I suppose. You could always remarry at a later date if things sorted themselves out.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she smiled. “Anyway, I’m bored rigid of talking about Jeff and me. What’s happening in your life?”

  Tim’s expression changed to glum. “Nothing. There, that didn’t take long, did it? What shall we talk about now?”

  “Oh dear,” laughed Jo. “That good, huh? In that case, how’s Conor? Is he still seeing the woman you told me about?”

  Since her brief liaison with Sean, she realized she didn’t feel so awkward about raising the subject of Conor.

  “He’s still seeing her, but he seems a little half-hearted about it,” said Tim, stuffing a piece of French bread into his mouth.

  “Oh? Conor doesn’t strike me as the type who’d date someone on that basis.”

  Tim didn’t seem fazed by her sudden knowledge of Conor. “It’s not that he doesn’t like her, because he does,” he said. “It’s just that he’s very taken with someone else who doesn’t seem that interested.”

  Jo leaned closer, intrigued by this piece of gossip. “Really? Who?”
>
  Tim looked her straight in the eye. “You.”

  “Me?” Jo slapped the palm of her left hand against her chest, then let out a transparently false laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not,” said Tim levelly. “He told me.”

  “He told you?” Jo was incredulous that such a dark horse as Conor had said such a thing to her rather loud, insensitive brother. “What exactly did he tell you?”

  Tim shrugged in submission. “Not a great deal actually, but the mere fact he told me anything made me realize he’s got it bad, because he’s usually fiercely protective of his private life. He never discusses it unless it’s reached crisis point.”

  “I see.” Jo knew that her brother was so emotionally inept that she was going to have to drag every last detail of the conversation out of him. “So how did he broach the subject?”

  Tim pursed his lips in thought. “Well, he’s been a bit moody lately. So when we went out for a couple of beers the other night I asked him what was the matter.”

  “And?” Jo wished he’d get on with it.

  “And he confessed that he’d always had a bit of crush on you, but that it had increased since you split up with Jeff, and particularly since you and he had dinner together when I couldn’t make it.”

  “And?” Jo was aware her voice was starting to sound shrill.

  “And that’s it, really.”

  “How can that be it? You just said that I wasn’t interested in him, so he must have told you that himself.”

  “Oh yes,” said Tim, glancing around the room and beginning to tire of the subject. “He said he had intimated to you that he would like to see more of you, but that you were patently not interested.”

  Jo leaned back in her seat, satisfied she had wrung out as much as Tim knew. Conor obviously hadn’t told Tim about their passionate necking session, or her brother wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to tease.

  “So is that the case, then?” Tim’s question interrupted her thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Is it the case that you’re not interested?”

  “Well yes, but not quite that . . . bluntly,” she faltered. “He took me by surprise when he said he liked me. I mean, he’s your friend and I’ve known him for years. I’ve never really thought about him in that way.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you did,” said Tim, raising an eyebrow.

  Jo shook her head. “No, I don’t agree. Because if it went wrong, it would be so complicated. I’d be losing a friend and that’s a risk I don’t want to take. Besides, I don’t really think he’s my type,” she added, as an afterthought.

  Tim made a small scoffing noise. “What’s your type then? Dull solicitors with a penchant for younger women?”

  Jo was shocked. Tim had never expressed a view before about Jeff, and it was particularly out of character for him to say something so snide and barbed about someone he knew well.

  “I thought you liked him,” she said, puzzled. “You always seemed to get on well.”

  Tim shrugged his wide shoulders. “He was your husband so I made an effort, but he was never really my cup of tea.”

  “Oh.” Amazing how many truths of the “I never liked him anyway” variety emerge after the demise of a relationship, she thought.

  “I know you went through hell at first, but now you seem much more content without him,” said Tim, looking more placatory.

  “You may be right,” she said. “I do get lonely, though.”

  “I’m sure you do. We all do. The question is, what do you plan to do about it?”

  Jo considered his question for a moment, alternating between glancing at him and looking down to fiddle with a coaster on the table. “Well . . .” She hadn’t been planning to say anything, but suddenly felt a cathartic urge to confide in Tim. “I have been out on a date with someone I really like and we’re going to go out again when he gets back from his latest assignment. He’s a television cameraman.”

  “Very grand. Who for?” But Tim’s question remained unanswered as Sophie bounded up to the table, growling.

  “Oh, my goodness, it’s a scary tiger!” shrieked Jo, recoiling in mock horror from Sophie’s painted face. “Go and get your brother because here’s the food.”

  It was 2:30 before Jo and Tim could resume their conversation, when the children had finished their lunch and rushed off to secure a front row place for the puppet show across the room.

  As the waitress cleared the table, Tim said, “I’ve been thinking . . .”

  “Whoa, steady on,” smiled Jo, anxious for them to get back on the more familiar ground of teasing each other.

  But his face remained serious. “If you don’t mind, I’ll tell Conor that you and I had a brief chat and that you want to keep things as they are between you. That way, he might start to put a bit more effort into making things work with this new woman.”

  “OK,” said Jo reluctantly, preferring he didn’t say anything. “I must say it’s very unlike you to get so involved in stuff like this. You must be very fond of him.”

  “He’s the best person I know,” said Tim matter-of-factly. “And frankly, if you two got it together it would make me very happy indeed, because I know he’d look after you. He’d certainly never behave like Jeff.”

  Jo sighed deeply. “There was a time when I would never have thought Jeff would behave like he has. Still, it’s happened and that’s that.”

  Tim didn’t express any further interest in Sean, and to Jo’s relief their conversation returned to the safer ground of her brother’s beloved Chelsea Football Club and the financial vacuum of his rather static acting career.

  Back at the house, when Tim had gone home and the children were tucked up in bed, she finally had time to mull over their conversation. It had felt nice to have such an honest, heartfelt exchange with Tim, because their relationship had always been on a fairly shallow level. He had surprised her with his depth of understanding over her marital problems, and she regretted not talking to him more in the past. But then she’d never really been the confessional type, preferring to stay silent about any marital problems out of a sense of loyalty to Jeff. But when he’d smashed their loyal little unit, her pain had made her face up to many of the feelings she’d been bottling up for so long. Furthermore, it had put her relationships with others on to an entirely different level because she had leaned on them like never before.

  As the news headlines flickered in the background, she found that Sean kept drifting into her thoughts, with his devastatingly attractive grin and sharp sense of humor. It wasn’t long before she was lost in the fantasy of what might happen during their second date on Friday night. He had just swept her off her feet and was carrying her upstairs to the bedroom with a wanton look on his face when the phone rang.

  “Fuck. I can’t even have a fantasy without someone spoiling it,” Jo muttered to herself as she reached for the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Oh dear, you sound cross. Have I rung at a bad time?” It was Martin Blake.

  “No, don’t worry. That’s just my natural grumpiness.”

  “Well, it’s very effective, so I won’t keep you,” he said briskly. “I was calling because, for my sins, I have to go to a Britney Spears concert at Wembley to link up with one of the European chairmen who’s just over for Wednesday night.”

  “And you want some counseling?” laughed Jo, who found it impossible to contemplate he’d ever sinned.

  “No.” Martin either didn’t hear her quip or chose to ignore it. “I can get four tickets, so I was wondering if you’d like to come along and bring your children.”

  Jo hesitated, but as Martin was a business associate and there was no romantic interest, she couldn’t see the harm in it. More to the point, she didn’t want to deprive the children of such a fun night out.

  “That sounds great,” she said. “I’ll ask the children in the morning, but I’m sure the answer will be yes. I’ll call you tomorrow to confirm.”

 
; 17

  concert and her big date on Friday night, Jo had an ordeal to get through. A dinner party.

  Since her split from Jeff, she’d marveled at how the dinner invitations had dried up, as if she were now some odd number on the table plan of life. Then, out of the blue, Sally Keen had called her. Sally was “Very Keen” to have her round for “a little, impromptu supper.”

  As the call had come a week before the actual event, Sally’s version of impromptu clearly wasn’t the same as Jo’s. But she decided to accept anyway in her newfound spirit of getting out there and starting a new life.

  When Rosie arrived to baby-sit, they discussed the peculiarity of the dinner party circuit.

  “As soon as Jeff disappeared, so did the dinner party invitations,” said Jo, fighting her way into a lycra top. “I’m probably making up the numbers with some other social misfit.”

  “I don’t even get asked to make up the numbers,” said Rosie gloomily. “I’ve been single for so long that all my attached friends have forgotten I’m even on the planet.”

  “Well, believe me, you haven’t missed anything,” said Jo, her voice muffled as she struggled to find the neck opening. “They’re usually a nightmare, and I can’t believe tonight will be any different. I don’t even like Sally that much so God knows why I accepted.”

  Rosie wrinkled her nose. “Remind me who she is again?”

  “We met when I was in the hospital having Sophie. She was having her daughter at the same time—Jacasta, can you believe that?—and for some reason she has stayed in touch with me.” Jo emerged through the neckhole and squinted into the mirror. “Christ, I look like the Elephant Man.”

  Rosie nodded her head in agreement. “Well, it’s nice of her to invite you anyway. She probably thinks you need cheering up.”

  “I doubt it,” said Jo ruefully, pulling out a dress from the closet. “She probably wants to gloat because her marriage is still intact. But her husband is so boring he makes Al Gore seem animated. I couldn’t spend a day with him, let alone a lifetime.”

  “Oh well, have fun,” laughed Rosie. “You’ve always got Friday to look forward to.”