Any Way You Want Me (24 page)

Hold on a minute. ‘Competent? Me? Ha!’ I laughed loud enough to wake Nathan, who had been dozing in his car seat under the table. ‘Liz, I wish I could be more like
you
, with your house always so clean, and—’

She shook her head. ‘A clean house isn’t everything,’ she said. The tears shone in her eyes under the bright kitchen spotlights. ‘I’d swap it like a shot for a happy marriage.’

The smile fell abruptly off my face. Ahh yes. I’d forgotten how all of this had started. ‘So what are you going to do about Steve?’ I asked.

She fiddled with her wedding ring. ‘I suppose I’ll have to ask him about it.’

I stood up, having just seen my daughter push poor old Felix off the plastic truck he’d been riding on. ‘Molly! I’m watching you!’ I bellowed through the window, making Nathan jump and then wail, holding his arms up to be released from his car seat imprisonment. I turned back to my sister, the sister I’d always envied for her perfect life.

‘I suppose you will,’ I said gently.

On Wednesday, I buzzed Mark’s office door as usual and waited for the lock to click open. My hand was on the door, ready to push it and walk through as soon as the click came. But there was no click. There was no reply.

I took a step back and looked up at the windows. Total darkness. I pushed against the door impatiently, buzzed again.

The wind blew a couple of fag ends around my ankles and I wedged my hands into my pockets, leaned in to the building again for shelter. Come on, Mark. What was he doing? I buzzed a third time, but a sick feeling was spreading through me. He wasn’t there. He had gone.

‘MARK!’ I yelled through cupped hands, leaning my head back. A pigeon flapped over my head and made me jump.

I shivered. It was freezing. The weatherman had predicted a ground frost that would no doubt stunt or kill off everything in the garden. And Mark wasn’t there. He wasn’t there. I felt like crying.

After a few minutes’ not wanting to believe it was true, I finally admitted defeat. I bowed my head and sunk my chin into my zipped-up jacket. Then I started trudging back the way I’d come. What was I going to do now? I couldn’t face actually going running, I was too stunned with the shock of Mark’s absence. Oh God, I must have upset him. He must have felt pushed away by me. What if I never saw him again?

Suddenly, all my plans for nipping our fling in the bud seemed ridiculous. I couldn’t bear not seeing him again. How could I even have thought of telling him I wasn’t going to see him again? It was unthinkable. It was unbearable.

I walked along the road, mind spinning as I tried to take in the enormity of the situation. Did this mean it was over? Didn’t he want to see me any more?

The thoughts swam around my brain. No more wild passion with Mark. No more sex kitten Sadie antics. No more . . .

A car was purring along behind me and I stepped up my pace. Oh, typical. Tonight of all nights to be harassed by a sodding kerb-crawler. Didn’t he know there were police cameras all over this area now? All the prostitutes had moved out to the Clapham Park estate, Anna reckoned. So why didn’t this sad old punter just fuck off over there with them?

Then I heard his voice. ‘Sadie.’

I turned round and it was his car, Mark’s car. He was leaning out of the window, an unreadable expression on his face.

‘Mark!’ I cried. I ran over and wrenched the passenger door open, and threw myself into his arms. I found I was sobbing with relief, clutching folds of his T-shirt to my face, tears spilling all over his chest. ‘I thought . . . I thought . . .’

He pulled up the handbrake. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, holding me. ‘Put your seat belt on and shut the door.’

‘Where are we going?’ I asked in a small voice, doing what he told me. I choked on the words as another sob hiccuped out of me.

He passed me a tissue, then put the car in gear. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ he told me. ‘I just wanted to go somewhere else for a change, that’s all.’

I dried my eyes and he drove off. I was passive, didn’t ask any more questions. I suddenly realized I didn’t care where we were going, that was why. As long as I was with him . . .

He pulled up outside a smart, white-painted Victorian semi in Clapham. Wisteria sprawled over its front, and I could smell winter jasmine as we walked up the drive. I didn’t ask a thing, just held his hand as he led me.

He opened the door. The house was dark inside. ‘It’s a friend’s place,’ he said. ‘She’s away and lent me the keys. I thought we could spend the evening on neutral ground.’

I blew my nose. ‘Yeah,’ I said. I didn’t have the energy to speak; I was still reeling from the shock of what had happened. I had thought it was over.

He switched the living-room light on. ‘There’s a phone there,’ he said, pointing to the corner. ‘Why don’t you ring Alex, tell him you’ve bumped into a mate and you’re going to have a few drinks in the pub with her?’

‘OK,’ I said. I had thought the worst, that I would never see him again. Never touch him or hold him.

‘I’ll run a bath,’ he said. ‘Leave you to it.’

‘OK,’ I said again, nodding. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I wanted to look at him every moment I possibly could.

‘And when you’ve finished on the phone,’ he said, ‘I want you to take off every single one of your clothes, and come upstairs to find me.’

I nodded dumbly. ‘OK,’ I said for a third time. I watched him until he had left the room, and then I picked up the phone and dialled.

Thirteen

After I’d phoned Alex and lied into the receiver, I sat down on one of the squashy, honey-coloured sofas, and took off my shoes. Then I took off my clothes. I folded everything up very neatly and left it in a pile on the sofa. Then I went to find Mark.

The house was mostly in darkness. A boiler was wheezing and rattling somewhere further down the hall, and I could hear the faint sound of running water and gurgling pipes coming from above me. I padded back towards the front door, stark naked. The seagrass matting was scratchy under my bare feet as I headed for the stairs.

Mark had lit a couple of tea lights on the stairs. The bright little flames swayed perilously on their wicks as a draught slipped under the front door, but there was just enough light for me to find my way. I held on to the banister, feeling a thrill spreading through me as I walked up, naked, to find Mark. My love.

At the top of the stairs, I glanced up and down the landing, my pupils as wide as a cat’s, as I tried to get my bearings. There was a room straight ahead of me with the door open, a bedroom, I guessed. Then there was another shut door – a cupboard? a loo? – and then, even further along, a door that was also shut, but outlined in a faint light. I breathed in and smelled lavender, heard the noise of the running water. Aha. The bathroom, I deduced.

I started walking along the hall towards it, my heart quickening at the thought of Mark waiting for me – naked, wet, bubbly – when there was a noise behind me. A floorboard creaking, it sounded like. I stopped at once and spun round in the darkness. ‘Mark?’ I whispered. ‘Is that you?’

I couldn’t see a thing. My eyes strained uselessly to make out something, anything in the gloom, but all that was in front of me was blackness. The silence felt deafening. I turned back towards the bathroom and started walking to it again, hand on the banister for guidance.

The noise came from behind me a second time. ‘Mark,’ I said. ‘I know that’s you. Stop it.’

I took another step and then almost fell over in shock as a hand slipped around my waist. He was behind me, kissing my neck, his fingers moving up to my breasts. ‘Not a stitch on,’ he was saying in a pleased sort of way. ‘Not a stitch on.’

‘There’s a name for men like you,’ I said, leaning back against him, my heart beating hard in relief. ‘Pervert. Hanging around in dark corners, jumping out on innocent, naked women . . .’

‘Sounds good to me,’ he muttered, his hand sliding across my belly.

I turned round and we stood there kissing. It was cold; I could hear the wind gusting around the house, branches batting at the windows.

I shivered, and he held me tightly. ‘Come on, let’s have that bath,’ he said. ‘It must be full by now.’

I clasped my arms around him as we walked to the bathroom, a strange four-legged beast shuffling awkwardly along the landing. I was vaguely aware of my own children probably in their bath right about now, far, far away, in a galaxy many miles from here, but the thought didn’t seem quite real. I was tuning their faces out, fading their voices so that they were muffled and distant. And Alex, soaping them, drying them, putting them in pyjamas . . . he was muffled and distant, too. He was hardly there at all.

We were in the bathroom and I glanced around curiously as Mark turned the taps off. The room was lit by candlelight; the claw-footed bath was full of bubbles. There was a large, shell-edged mirror above the sink. A French-style showerhead, the size of a dinner plate. No toys. No suckered safety mat. This was a room strictly for adults.

I gazed at the drifts of steam rising to the ceiling and Mark passed me a glass of wine. ‘I’ll have the tap end,’ he said. ‘See? I know how to treat a bird proper, like.’

‘You’re pure class, you,’ I replied, stepping into the water. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers to us,’ he said.

I was falling in love with him, I realized. I was under his spell, just in the way that he claimed to be under mine. I was hopelessly, utterly hooked.

Dear Sadie,

How’s it going? Hope London is sunny. I don’t think Manchester knows that it’s meant to be spring yet – grey drizzle here day after day. God, it’s tough up north, you know. You southerners don’t know you’re born etc etc.

Anyway – enough about the weather, and on to the thrilling news of my mum’s 60th. She’s having a banging hard-house session at the . . . Oh, no. Hang on. Wrong party. My mum’s having a knees-up with all her old muckers at the community centre on Jacobs Street. Sausages on sticks and warm wine all round. It’s going to be bloody awful – in fact it’s going to be the kind of thing that Channel 4 make sneering documentaries about – but we can always sneak off for a pint elsewhere if Frank Sinatra and Elvis ain’t your bag. Anyway, it’s on the 27th, Saturday, eight till late. Let me know what you think. It’s the only night I’m around to catch up with you while I’m in London, but if it all seems too unbearable for words then we can sort something else out for another time.

Love Dan

Danny’s email gave me a warm, cosy feeling. At least he was writing properly now, not just terse sentences about The Smiths or what have you. And the promise of sausages on sticks and twirling around a sticky parquet dancefloor to Frank Sinatra sounded quite a laugh actually. It would also be a useful way of getting out of too much Channel 4 talk as well. I closed the internet connection thoughtfully, and shut down the computer. Yes, that could work, couldn’t it? Every time he asked me a tricky question about my so-called job, I would jump up, assume an ecstatic expression – ‘Oh, “Viva Las Vegas”, I
love
this!’ – and sprint off to the dancefloor.

I smiled, and put the laptop away. I would email back when I had more time and accept the invitation gracefully.

It was Tuesday, and I’d just put the kids in bed. Nathan was asleep already, clutching his blue bear with a look of sheer contentment, hair fluffing up around his head like a golden halo. Molly was chatting away to her dolls in bed with the light off. I’d just heard her saying, ‘No messing around tonight, Fizz. I told you lots of times,’ in a stern voice, so hopefully she was up for an early night, too.

Alex was late. I had resisted making any digs about Natasha when he’d phoned, just sighed with enough exasperation to let him know that being late was not a good option. ‘Sorry, Sade,’ he’d said. He actually sounded like he meant it for once. ‘I’ve just got one last thing to finish, then I’ll be on my way, promise. And don’t cook – I’ve already ordered a takeaway from the Taj Mahal. It should be ready just in time for me to pick it up on my way back.’

‘Oh.’ The wind was rather taken out of my sails. ‘OK. Great. See you in a bit, then.’

Alex in thoughtful man shock! Alex in ‘Don’t cook’ shock! Alex in apology shock!

What the
hell
was going on?

If anything was going to make me suspicious, this was. Perhaps he was nobbing Natasha and feeling really, really, curry-buyingly guilty about it. Or perhaps he had broken or lost something of mine, and was going to work his way up to a grovelling confession later that evening. Something was definitely up, that was for sure.

It was even more obvious something peculiar was happening when Alex arrived home. Swinging from the handlebars of his bike was a white plastic bag crammed with steaming silver-foil cartons, plus a Threshers’ bag that was clinking in a most pleasing way. And then, from out of the back of his rucksack, he pulled a bunch of flowers.

‘Thank you,’ I said, slightly dazed. Creamy-white narcissi, sulphur-coloured anemones, long sticks of forsythia with yolk-yellow petals like cheerful flags. ‘Lovely,’ I said, clutching the wet paper wrapping in shock. I just about let him take his boots and jacket off before I asked, ‘So what’s all this about then?’

‘What’s all what about?’ He was grinning as he leaned forward to kiss me. Not just a customary peck either, a full smooch of a kiss.

I wrestled the flowers out from between us, worried they would be crushed between our combined smooching weight. ‘Blimey,’ I said, when he finally pulled away. ‘You’re being very . . . er . . . romantic. Any particular reason?’

He unhooked the bags of curry and booze and took them through to the kitchen. ‘Does there have to be a reason?’ he mused. ‘Other than I’m in love with the most gorgeous woman in south London?’

I stared at him. He looked like Alex. He sounded like Alex too. But the things he was saying . . . Was there a secret long-lost twin his mum had never told me about? Or just a body double?

He was unpacking the curry, lifting the foil boxes from the bag and peeling the tops off. Wafts of coriander and cumin and meat were sent up into the air with every new box. ‘There’s a madras and a rogan josh here,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I thought we could share both of them.’