Read Husbands Online

Authors: Adele Parks

Tags: #Romance, #General, #Fiction

Husbands (6 page)

BOOK: Husbands
7.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

It’s about fifteen minutes before the children are safely ensconced upstairs in front of the TV. The pizza is almost ready and the wine is already affecting our brain cells. We lounge around the kitchen, propping up the breakfast bar. Whenever I’m with Amelie my first instinct is to ask her how she is.

‘How
are
things Amelie?’ I cock my head to one side – I read in a magazine that this stance encourages confidences.

‘Oh, you know,’ Amelie holds up the box of chocolates I’ve bought – Swiss – they cost a packet but are worth it. ‘Should we open these before the pizza? Can we risk it? Sweet before savoury?’

‘My mum’s not here,’ laughs Laura, ‘no one is going to tell us off.’

Amelie opens the chocolates and pops one in her mouth, I wait for her to answer my question. She doesn’t. Instead she turns to Laura and says, ‘You look lovely.’

I haven’t had a chance to do more than glance at Laura, since she arrived – I’ve been focusing on the children and Amelie – but Amelie’s right: Laura does look great. Really great, not just the-new-T-shirt-demands-attention great. She’s smiley and relaxed. She’s taken the time to wash and scrunch-dry her hair, allowing her curls to celebrate their bounce. She’s wearing another new top, a pink, floral-print one, it’s cool, not mumsy. And besides these outward changes, I can see that something has shifted on the inside too. She is gleaming.

‘I’ve met someone.’

‘You have?’ Amelie and I sound delighted and incredulous at once.

‘Where?’ I ask. ‘At nursery? Do I know him?’

Laura grins mischievously. She’s enjoying the attention. ‘I met him after I left you on Monday.’

‘You met him on
Monday
and you’ve taken until now,
Friday
, to tell me about him?’ I’m mildly offended. Considering Laura sometimes rings me to talk about a new brand of washing powder, I can’t understand why she’d hold back something of this magnitude.

‘I wanted to see your face and… well, nothing is concrete.’

‘Tell us everything,’ says Amelie, hopping on to a bar stool and patting the one beside her.

‘Well, at first, and I can hardly believe this now, I didn’t notice how cute he is. I just heard him busking—’

‘He’s a
busker
,’ I say with indecorous astonishment.

‘Yeah. So?’ demands Laura tetchily, suggesting that she already knows what point I’m going to make. From the look on her face she is warning me not to pour cold water. ‘He was being moved on by an underground official.’

‘Not even an authorized busker?’ Did I say that? I hadn’t meant to.

‘Actually, that’s not his real job. He’s an Elvis impersonator, a tribute act,’ declares Laura – as though he is more important than the chancellor of the exchequer.

I feel sick. Is there anything worse? I want to tell her that tribute guys are never more than that. I object to the whole premise: if you have to be an entertainer, why be an imitator? Why not be yourself? I can see her now in the audience of working men’s clubs, surrounded by wasters and alcoholics, sipping Blue Nun as her man squeezes himself into his sparkly suit – changing room nothing more than a curtain pulled around a makeshift stage. I contain my criticism as a discontented mumble.

‘Well, that should impress the bank manager.’ Laura glares at me. ‘Sorry, no more interruptions. Go on.’

‘And then I got on the train and the next thing I knew he was sat in my carriage and we got chatting. He’s got the most beautiful smile.’

‘What did you chat about?’


Little House on the Prairie
.’

‘Oh.’

‘And as I got off the tube he kissed me.’

‘He kissed you?’ Even Amelie is taken aback but she’s
grinning as though this forward, stalking busker is a good thing!

‘When are you going to see him next?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know. That’s the problem. I didn’t take his number.’

‘But you gave him yours,’ said Amelie.

Laura shakes her head. She then retells the story of her brief encounter with gory detail. She goes on about ‘connections’ and feeling ‘something in the air’. I tell her that’s smog. She pretends not to hear me.

‘You are insane,’ I pronounce and then I panic. ‘He could have been insane. Really, I mean.’

‘I thought that at first but he was too cute,’ smiles Laura.

‘Insanity comes in all sorts of guises, even practised flirts,’ I point out. I feel like her mother.

‘I’m so glad I was wearing my new T-shirt,’ she says dreamily.

Visions of the countless eligible guys that I’ve trailed past Laura for her inspection clamber into my head. None of them ever raised an iota of interest. None of them made her so much as twinkle, never mind glow as she is glowing now. She looks fantastic. This brief flirtation, not much more than a fleeting moment, that wouldn’t even have registered on my sexual Richter scale, had clearly sent her into a spin.

‘I wonder how you can track him down,’ muses Amelie.

‘Why would she want to do that?’ I demand.

‘Look at her. She’s all shook up.’

Amelie and Laura collapse into giggles. I pour some more wine and search for something else to talk about.
It’s not that I don’t want Laura to be happy – I want her to be
very
happy – I want her to have everything I have but she is not going to find it by hooking up with an Elvis impersonator. There would be no happiness that way. No stability, no regular income. I didn’t marry Philip for his money but I’m glad he has money. Laura needs someone who can help support Eddie. Or if not that, then at least she needs to avoid anyone who is a bigger financial drain and has a similar income capacity to Eddie’s.

‘I bet we could find out which pub he performs at in Richmond, assuming he got the job,’ suggests Amelie.

‘She can’t just turn up like a groupie,’ I argue.

‘Why not?’ asks Amelie. She smiles at Laura. Laura beams back hopefully.

I make lots of noise clattering plates as I serve up the pizza. I hope my protest is registered. My neck clicks with tension and my stomach seems to be performing a complex crunch that isn’t taught in any gym but has a similar agonizing effect to hundreds of sit-ups. I imagine someone pulling out my guts, putting them in a boxing ring to do a few rounds with Tyson and then shoving them back down my throat. I’ve never liked Elvis.

I take pizza and napkins up to the kids although both the mums warn me that I’ll be scraping tomato sauce off the wool carpet for years to come. I ignore them, partly to show how relaxed and easy-going a host I am, and partly because I don’t care about the carpet.

When I come back downstairs my friends are talking about reruns of
Heartbeat
but Laura keeps drifting off into a daydream and the smile on her face makes it clear that
she is thinking about her busker. I refuse to indulge her and so we stumble through conversations about Delia Smith recipes, TV adaptations of great novels and how Amelie should wear her hair (she’s planning a revamp). At midnight, after we have drunk more than a bottle of wine each, I decide to hit the hay. Both Laura and Amelie insist that they want to stay up and watch some terrible eighties movie. As I close the sitting-room door behind me I hear Amelie ask, ‘So, what was he singing?’

I feel strangely excluded and unreasonably narky, even though I know it is self-inflicted exile and the only person I’m annoyed with is me.

8. If I Can Dream

Tuesday 18th May 2004

Laura

Amelie isn’t really my friend; she’s Bella’s, although I’ve met her on a number of occasions at ‘Bella Parties’ (and more recently ‘Bella Events’ as nowadays she is more likely to host something spectacular that outgrows the party category). Obviously, I know all about Amelie’s tragic loss. I want, if at all possible, to make her life a little more bearable – ideally a little more pleasurable. It’s as good a basis for a friendship as any, probably better than a shared postcode.

In my experience women are generally territorial when it comes to friendships. They don’t like mixing. I think the issue is that loose lips sink ships and invariably Friend A has had a good old gossip with Friend B about Friend C’s boring husband/imminent affair/terrible way with money, therefore can’t possibly let Friend B meet Friend C in case a clanger is dropped. To Bella’s credit, she is always trying to get her friends to mix. Take last Friday for example, it was so sweet of her to invite Amelie and me for supper. The kids all got along brilliantly, and that gave Amelie and me the opportunity to get past ‘nice canapés’ and ‘yummy, champagne, how lovely’ which is
as deep as our conversations get at ‘Bella Events’. That said, I’m not sure Bella will be overjoyed with the subject matter that Amelie calls me about today.

‘I’ve found him.’

‘How?’

‘It wasn’t so difficult. I went online and got a list of pubs in Richmond. I called them all and asked if they had an Elvis impersonator performing. I got lucky on the ninth pub. Apparently Stevie Jones has just been employed to be Elvis, on the third Friday of every month at The Bell and Long Wheat. Peculiar name, don’t you think?’

I assume she is referring to the pub. ‘Oh, Amelie, so many calls. What a purler!’

‘Meaning, you’re pleased?’

‘How can I thank you?’

‘I wanted to do it,’ she says firmly.

I didn’t press the point. I figure I must be a pretty desperate case if a friend of a friend thinks I need help with my love life.

‘I could babysit for you, if you like,’ offers Amelie.

‘So you think I should go and see him?’

‘Well, yes, obviously. The landlord of the pub said he’s expecting your Stevie to pull a big crowd. Didn’t you want to see him again?’

Yes. No. Maybe. Suddenly, I am terrified and delighted all at once. Stevie Jones has fallen into my lap.

‘I couldn’t go on my own.’

‘Take Bella,’ suggests Amelie. We both fall silent. ‘No, maybe not.’

Bella has only mentioned Stevie twice since last Friday and both times as the ‘loony, stalking busker’.

‘OK, we’ll get her to babysit and I’ll come with you,’ suggests Amelie. ‘We don’t even have to tell Bella where you’re going if you think it will cause difficulties.’

‘What if he doesn’t remember me?’

‘He’ll remember you.’

‘I’ve nothing to wear.’ The age-old excuse.

‘Nonsense,’ says Amelie, in a tone that suggests she knows nonsense when she hears it and will not be accepting any.

I scramble around my brain for another excuse but the cupboard is bare.

It has been years since I fancied anyone. I hardly dare admit it to myself but the truth is I can’t remember ever fancying anyone as much as I fancy Stevie. I’d been with Oscar forever and while I remember thinking he was a total stud when I first met him that oh-la-la feeling had faded after we’d been together a few years. It was stamped out altogether once I’d got to the stage of searching through his coat pockets for receipts and other incriminating evidence.

After we split I had a brief fling with my osteopath. We rooted energetically every Thursday night. We did not eat together, sleep together or even talk to one another much. I viewed him as a pleasant alternative to Prozac. The affair stopped as abruptly as it started when my backache receded and he got himself a proper girlfriend (someone without a child and a looming divorce case). I don’t believe I ever missed him.

But I miss Stevie already. For days I’ve thought of nothing and no one else. I’ve found it easy to be pleasant to Big Hand I am patience personified with Eddie.
Yesterday, I played Captain Hook and Peter Pan with him for over four consecutive hours. This involves me being endlessly tied up with a soft toy snake, rolling around on the floor until I escape, then being captured again so that I can walk the plank (a line of cushions on the floor). I did it and smiled, so lusted up am I.

I’ve endlessly replayed
The Conversation
and
The Kiss
. Stevie Jones thinks Laura Ingalls is a pretty name, which warms me like a cashmere-covered hot water bottle. I think about his smile, his fingers and the tiny hairs on his ear lobes. I am immortalizing him. Bugger. I’ve only just managed to control the situation by reminding myself that Stevie Jones is a fantasy figure: my feelings for him are not dissimilar to those I harbour for Robbie Williams and the chances of it developing into anything real are similar too. Amelie has taken away the safety barrier. She seems hell-bent on making Stevie more than a hazy mess of ill-defined desires and daydreams.

I wonder if I dare go to The Bell and Long Wheat. Amelie makes it sound so easy.

‘Wear your pink floral T-shirt, your Wonderbra and your best smile,’ she insists.

‘What would we talk about?’

‘You’ll think of something,’ she says confidently. ‘Come over to my place at seven thirty. Bring Eddie. I’ll sort out babysitting with Bella.’

9. I Really Don’t Want to Know

Friday 21st May 2004

Bella

I protest at being dragged into this farce. Every sensible bone in my body is screaming objections but it would be infinitely more terrible to be left out.

Amelie rang and nonchalantly asked if I was doing anything this Friday. I said I wasn’t and she asked if I would babysit for her. Delighted to, I said. Then she added that as she and Laura were having a night out could I babysit Eddie too. I was furious. Of course, I couldn’t admit it.

‘Oh, going anywhere nice?’ I squeaked.

‘A pub in Richmond. The Bell and Long Wheat.’

She didn’t have to explain.

‘The loony busker?’ I demanded.

‘The first guy Laura has shown any interest in for as long as I can remember,’ replied Amelie, calmly; her criticism of my standpoint implicit but loud enough. ‘She’s really keen. A bit of fun would be good for her. Life’s too short not to take all your chances.’

I thought the ‘life’s too short’ line was a mean trick but an effective one. I agreed to babysit.

‘You know what would make her most happy?’ asked Amelie.

‘No.’

‘If you went with her, rather than me. It would mean so much to her if she thought you approved.’

‘I don’t.’

BOOK: Husbands
7.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Reason by Allyson Young
The Revolution by S.L. Scott
Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) by McRae, Killian
Peak by Roland Smith
Run into Trouble by Alan Cook
A Serious Man by Joel Coen
The Street by Brellend, Kay
White Eagles Over Serbia by Lawrence Durrell