A Minor Indiscretion (19 page)

J
emma snapped one of those pointless, pencil-thin and tasteless breadsticks in half and risked her very fine sparkly white teeth by biting it. “My sister and your brother are driving me potty,” she said with an exasperated huff. “They are both so bloody stupid.”

It was seven o'clock and Calzone's was already comfortably busy. The pesto sauce and Chardonnay brigade were out in force, and their laughter crackled in the air above the soft jazz. Neil had taken off the yucky jacket before he noticed the £1,700 price tag, and now he didn't know what to do with it. He had hung it on the back of his chair and couldn't stop checking that it hadn't inadvertently fallen on the floor.

He had phoned the potentially topless bridesmaid yesterday to attempt to postpone their “session” until another time and had been met with a stream of invective casting aspersions on his parentage, himself and photographers in general. This made Neil think that she wasn't quite the blushing bridesmaid she had portrayed herself to be. But then again, neither was he the suave, sophisticated society photographer that he'd made himself out to be.

That was the trouble with dating these days—or trying to. You couldn't really be yourself or the chances were no one would want to go out with you. All the women he knew wanted to find themselves dynamic, urbane multimillionaires, or wanted to become
dynamic, urbane multimillionaires themselves. It seemed as if the qualities of kindness, reliability, contented slothfulness and scruffiness were just not appreciated by the new millennium daters. And he was trying very hard to become dynamic, urbane and even just a minor millionaire, but it was all such a lot of effort.

Ed had never suffered from the family trait of lethargy. No sacrifice was too great to make Wavelength the successful, growing company that it was. But no matter what he did, his brother always seemed to harbor the overriding feeling that it was never quite enough. Whereas Neil blamed their father for his in-built apathy where everything was more than enough. Daddy Kingston had been a company director for most of his life—stressed, successful and totally selfish in his pursuit of that success. Then one day he decided he was going to die of an early coronary if he carried on and he resigned. Just like that. He banked his golden handshake, downsized to a smaller, cozier house, somehow discovered a previously untapped altruistic streak and took up a part-time job helping ex-prisoners to rehabilitate by starting their own businesses and, when they weren't away on lavish exotic holidays, he and his wife played golf every afternoon. It was an idyllic existence, and he continually said how he wished he had got out of the rat race earlier. Neil aspired to the same thing—but without the striving, success and ensuing stress in the middle. Ed, however, was definitely taking after his father in his working life. Neil just wished his brother would put a bit more effort into trying to save his marriage.

Alicia was wonderful, Neil mused. He only wished he could find someone just like her. He stared up at Jemma, who was sucking the end of her breadstick and returned quickly to his dish of linguine. There was a certain desperation creeping into his dating habits, he had noted. After all, he had just turned thirty-six, and suddenly from somewhere had unexpectedly sprung the desire to be married and spend his weekend shopping at Ikea and Baby Gap as all his other friends did. Maybe the taste of take-away food was starting to pale. Whatever it was had driven him to join Snappy Setups, and he should have known from the name that it was likely to be a disaster.

Snappy Setups was a dating agency that “specialized” in finding partners for “busy, beautiful, professional people” who were
presumably too tied up in being busy, beautiful or professional to have a life or bother finding people to love for themselves. And the odd photographer. Who was neither busy, beautiful or particularly professional, but was, by his own admission, too lazy.

The concept was sold on the simple idea of why should you need to spend an entire evening deciding if the woman for whom you'd just bought a gin and tonic was Miss Right, when you could get through half a dozen said women in one night. Speed dating. The fast-food version of good old-fashioned courting. It took Neil back to his days of extended adolescence in Scamps disco. Had that been any different? Only financially, he decided. This was an expensive cattle market and, therefore, trendily acceptable.

For the paltry sum of one hundred pounds, Snappy Setups made sure you were herded round a swishy wine bar for the evening by a “fixer”—his had been, inevitably, blond, bubbly and called Felicity—who was intent on finding you the “date of your dreams.” You were allowed half an hour to suss out each prospective soul mate before Felicity appeared to whisk you away to meet the next victim—or predator, depending on your viewpoint. Half an hour to decide whether you could hear wedding bells or the waste bin calling—at which point you were supposed to mark a little white card accordingly to allow Felicity to do further “fixing” and move on without a backward glance. There had been some very attractive women present, but the whole thing had been terribly depressing, and by the end of the evening Neil had lost the will to live and was ready to admit defeat and string a rope up round the beams.

The women seemed even more desperate than he was, and explaining why you were still single at the tender age of thirty-six to the fourth person in a row was enough to bring on a panic attack. The only person he really and truly fancied was Felicity and, when he found the nerve to voice this opinion, she informed him that she'd been with the same man for five years and there was no way she'd ever sign up for this sort of stupid stunt. At least he thought she said stupid stunt. The music was very loud.

There was something very demeaning about hoping to select a woman as if you were going round Sainsbury's looking for a nice bit of rump steak. He wasn't the most romantic soul on the planet—in fact, one or two of his girlfriends had, in the past, felt
moved to remark on it. But even Neil would rather spend Friday nights in with a take-away and an old James Bond film than find a relationship with all the verve and glamour of doing the National Lottery.

“You're not listening to a word I'm saying,” Jemma said.

Neil snapped his head up, and she was glaring at him. “I was thinking.”

“About what?”

He tried to look as if he'd been concentrating. “About what you were saying.”

“And?”

“And, I think you're right.”

“About what?”

“Everything,” Neil said with conviction. “Absolutely everything.”

Jemma smiled. “Good.”

Neil smiled back. “Good.”

“That's what I like about you, Neil. You're so easy to talk to.”

He gave a self-effacing shrug. “Thanks.”

“So you think we should meet regularly to discuss tactics?”

“Yes,” Neil agreed. “Regularly.” This was as easy as falling off a log, and the bill at Calzone's was easily going to be less than one hundred of our fine English pounds.

“Good.”

“Good.”

“God, is that the time?” Jemma drained her wine. “I don't want to beat about the bush. I need to get you out of that outfit right now.”

Neil's smile widened. He loved women who were upfront about what they wanted.

“I've got a date,” she said as she stood and slipped on her coat. Jemma winked at him. “Hot stuff.”

And Neil had that awful sinking sensation in his stomach that indicated she wasn't necessarily referring to him.

E
lliott is clinging to the wooden post which supports our rather elegant, honeysuckle-clad porch and he's screaming.

“I want Daddy to come!”

I look pathetically at Ed for assistance, and he gives me a look-what-you've-brought-us-to glare. I am collecting my children at my predetermined appointed time, and it's a hundred times more agonizing than I ever could have imagined.

When I got up this morning, the sun wasn't shining as my vivid imagination had hoped. Neither were the birds tweeting. The sky was weighed down with grubby clouds and the roads were wet with rain. Christian had a hangover from too much Diamond White last night and was stomping round the bathroom, and I couldn't wait to leave the house. I was so excited about seeing my children, and I thought, hoped, that they would rush into my arms, relieved that I was back in their midst. But, like the weather, they are all being gray, grizzly and depressing.

“I want Daddy to come,” Elliott repeats at full volume, bracing his legs into the gravel.

“Daddy can't come,” I say in my best pleasant and reasonable voice. “Daddy's busy.”

Ed leans on the doorpost, looking like a man who has hours and hours of leisure time stretching far ahead of him. Buckled and
belted into the back seat of the car, Tanya and Thomas hang their heads and try to ignore the rest of us.

“Elliott, please don't be naughty.”

“I'm not being naughty! I'm being upset!”

“Elliott, please!”

“I want you and Daddy to be my mummy and daddy again!”

“We
are
your mummy and daddy. That's a silly thing to say.”

“I'm four. I'm allowed to say silly things. You're the ones who're grown up,” he howls. “You're the ones who should stop being silly!”

I hate the logic of children, which is heartbreaking in its simplicity.

I try the reassuring tack. “Whatever happens, we will always be your mummy and daddy.”

“Daddy says you're not. He says you're like shits that pass in the night.”

“
Ships,
Elliott. We're like
ships
that pass in the night.” I glance up at Ed, and his features are frozen. Perhaps we are shits after all, to be able to do this to our trusting children who don't deserve it at all.

“What if Mummy takes you somewhere nice and then we can talk about it a bit more?”

Elliott releases his death grip on the honeysuckle. His face loses its Jim Carrey contortions, and he shows grudging interest. “Where?”

I smile softly. I absolutely adore my son in between wanting to throttle him, and I've missed him so much this week it's given me stomachache. I've missed all of them. Ed included. “Anywhere you like.”

“McDonald's,” Elliott announces.

My heart shudders. “We can go anywhere,” I state again, hoping that Elliott will get the hint that this is not a good choice. “Anywhere.”

“McDonald's.” He is absolute in his finality. If I am ever going to get him to part with the foliage and his father, McDonald's it must be.

“Okay,” I say with a resigned sigh.

Ed gives a disdainful snort which says, “First day out as a single parent and you can't think of anywhere better to take them than McDonald's?” And he's right.

“I'll bring them back later,” I say, humbled. “About five.”

“Fine,” he answers tightly and closes the door.

“I'd like a Happy Meal,” Elliott trills, and I herd him into the car before he can change his mind.

 

McDonald's is packed. I'll swear that there are children hanging from the light fittings. There are certainly plenty crawling round under the tables. I move my knees for yet another ketchup-smeared three-year-old and note that the place is heaped with the remains of long-dead hamburgers and clearly the McDonald's policy of trying to keep their outlets ultra-tidy has gone somewhat to pot today. We are all sitting round a little red table on the most uncomfortable chairs in the universe in a sectioned-off part of the restaurant that's designed as Ronald McDonald's car. It is painted in the migraine-inducing colors of orange and pink, and I might as well be in hell.

I tried to keep up a cheerful little patter in the car while we drove here and was largely ignored and now I've sort of run out of steam, so I'm doing an impersonation of a hyperactive
Playschool
presenter on speed. Christian comes through the door, and I can sense him recoil in horror. I rang him on the mobile to say don't come, but he insisted. He's trying very hard to force himself to take an interest in the kids, but I can tell it isn't easy. And why should it be? The last time he had anything to do with kids was when he was at school and was one himself. Which, by now, you'll realize wasn't all that long ago.

He approaches the table and, even in my stressed state, I'm overwhelmed by feelings of love and lust for him. I need him desperately, and not in the more usual places, but I need him behind my eyelids and in the crook of my elbow and in the hairs on my neck. I'm far, far too old to be having a crush on someone so young, but I haven't got time to discuss it at length with you now. This is an important meeting, and I want it to go so well.

“Hi,” he says with a feigned casual wave, and all my children stare at him agog. Tanya is the most agog of all. To her it is probably the equivalent of seeing her mother with one of Boyzone. He looks very trendy today in a hungover, pallid way.

“I wanted you to meet someone,” I say in my overbright singsong voice. “This is Christian.”

Christian folds himself awkwardly into a chair that is too small for his long legs.

“Are you our new daddy?” Elliott has always liked getting straight to the point.

Christian looks horrified. “No.” He looks to me for backup.

“He's just a friend,” I say.

“Have you done it yet?” Elliott asks.

“Elliott!”

Christian has blanched. “What?”

“Have you kissed my mummy?”

Christian looks relieved. “Oh…”

“Elliott!”

My son retreats into sulk mode. “I was only asking!”

“Well, don't,” I warn him.

“I thought
he
was my new daddy because we've already got a new mummy,” Elliott informs me brightly.

I'm glad I haven't yet ordered the hamburgers because I probably would have spat mine out. “Have you?” I think my voice comes out.

“She's called Orville.”

“Orla, you limpet,” Tanya snarls. “She's called Orla. Orville was a green duck.”

“Does everyone want a Happy Meal?” I am shrieking and can't stop.

“There's nothing here for vegetarians,” Tanya complains.

“Have a Chicken McWotsit,” I suggest.

“That's got chicken in it.” You can't pull the wool over that girl's eyes.

“Chicken is considered a vegetable in certain parts of the world,” I insist through clenched teeth. Even Elliott looks up at that one, and he is convinced that tinned Spaghetti Hoops count as vegetables.

“Right,” Tanya says, even though she means all adults are liars.

“If you're going to be a vegetarian, Tanya, you'll have to do a bit more research on your subject.”

“I'll compromise my principles,” she states loftily. “Just for today. I'll have the fish thing.”

“Good,” I say. “Thomas? Happy Meal?”

Thomas nods. He is the only one here who realizes that it would be a really bad idea to contradict me. “What do you want, Christian?”

He seems surprised that I'm speaking to him like a five-year-old, but he shouldn't be, because I've gone into bossy, overbearing mother mode and he just happens to be in the way. “A Big Mac,” he says, somewhat bemused. “I'll come with you.”

“No,” I say, or shriek. “You wait here. Get to know the children. I'll be back in a minute.”

His face is horror-struck, but I can't help it. He'll have to cope. My nerves are shredding. I can feel them coming apart from my muscles and the little fibers are ripping away from each other, fraying like an overstretched rope. I need Valium. Lots of it. Not fucking hamburgers and synthetic milk shakes! I also need five minutes alone while I'm queuing up to get our food to think about the fact that even though I've only been gone a week, Ed has apparently managed to find someone else to take my place.

I tap my foot as I wait for the spotty teenager who is serving me to get our order right on the third attempt. Do they all have spots because they eat too many free hamburgers? My insides are seething quietly, and there is probably smoke exuding in comely drifts from my ears. No wonder my husband was standing there so smugly at our front door. I should have taken a bit more notice of this Orla-Orville woman. Perhaps I would then have realized just how many times Ed casually dropped her name into the conversation. Orla this. Orla that. And now Orla the other! My God, and he is trying to make out that
I'm
the villain of the piece. That I, alone, am responsible for this family's breakdown when he too has been quietly contributing to it without my knowing. And I had been feeling terrible. Truly terrible. I was seriously thinking that this whole thing was just one big victory for the fuck-up fairy and was really, really going to sit down and decide what was the best thing to do. For me, for Ed, for the kids. And now I find I wasn't in possession of all of the facts. Well, they say the wife is always the last to know. And I know that I shouldn't feel righteous in my indignation, but I do. Despite the fact that I too have little dark sins lurking on my soul.

I hand over a second mortgage to the spotty young man, hoping that Thomas will be blessed with clear skin, take my tray of Happy Meals, fish burgers and Big Macs and turn to head back toward my family. They have another woman in their lives now, my children, and it occurs to me that they may well like her more than me. Will she be funnier, kinder, more tolerant than I am? For
some reason, I feel as if I'm being edged out of my own life. I wonder if this Orla is young and beautiful too, and realize, with a pang of sharp emerald-green jealousy, that age as well as size really does matter.

 

An uneasy silence descends on us while we eat, and I'm trying not to be too aware that we're all bunched together in a cartoon car. Why, oh why, did I think this had any hope of being a success? Christian smiles at me. He is trying to be understanding, but I can tell from the rod that appears to be holding his shoulders up that he's not what you might term classically relaxed. I feel his hand squeeze my thigh under the child-size table.

“So,” Christian says confidently, “what do you want to be when you grow up, Thomas?”

Thomas looks vaguely surprised at being addressed like this, but is too polite to be dumbstruck. “A paleontologist,” he says quietly and disappears into his Happy Meal box again.

“Thomas loves dinosaurs, don't you?” I say.

Thomas nods.

“And what about you, Elliott?” Christian is clearly feeling emboldened. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A burglar,” Elliott says with conviction, which pretty much ends the conversation. Christian returns shame-faced to his chips.

“I need to go to the toilet,” Elliott says through his burger.

“No, you do not, Elliott,” I say patiently. “You went for a wee five minutes ago. Eat your burger.”

Elliott wriggles pointedly in his chair.

“Sit. Still.”

“I need to go to the toilet,” he insists.

“You do not!”

“I do!” Elliott shouts. “I'm doing a poo! It's peeping out of my bottom!”

The whole of McDonald's turns round to look at us.

Elliott is now purple. “I'm having to try really hard to hold it all in!”

I know just how he feels. Christian puts down his hamburger. “Go to the toilet, Elliott,” I mumble. “Be quick.”

Elliott shoots off at breakneck speed. A steady hum of noise descends on McDonald's again. We are all sitting in silence.

“Well,” I say cheerfully. “This is going well, isn't it?”

Christian, Tanya and even Thomas look at me as if I am completely and utterly barking mad. I stare at my Happy Meal and want to weep. And I seriously contemplate whether it is possible to slit one's wrists with the sharp edge of a chip.