Love Rules (25 page)

Dear Paul
,

No doubt you're already poncing around in your snazzy new shorts – for the record, I did not contribute to the whip-round for you. I wouldn't want you to think that I was paying you for services rendered – I wouldn't want you to feel like a whore … So, here's my mobile phone number – be sure to phone if ever you find yourself in London. I'll be only too pleased to play hooky from work and entertain you in my own inimitable way …

Alice Heggarty

The note made him laugh, made him long for Alice. He'd look up ‘inimitable’ later. First, he'd work on his tan and ponder the logistics of a trip to London some time soon.

Le Retour

Alice could have gone straight into work but she didn't want to, though they arrived back by lunchtime. She could have spent the afternoon at home, reacclimatizing to her life, but she didn't want to do that either. She should have gone to Thea to confide and be guided, but she didn't want to, not yet. What she wanted to do was to be by herself, accountable to no one, for a precious few hours more. She wanted to indulge in memories of the last few days; conjure the look and the taste and the feel of Paul. Transport herself back to Les Baux. Just for a little while longer. Not to daydream. Simply to remember.

So Alice whiled away her afternoon in an Internet café off Tottenham Court Road. She surfed the sights and facts of the Camargue, of the Pont du Gard, of Arles and Nîmes, of Les Baux and flamingos. She visited the O'Neill website and clicked on the same pair of shorts they'd bought Paul. She found the hotel website and clicked on every picture, analysing the tiny, pixillated figures. It was stupid to check the tariff page she told herself as she did just that. She Googled Paul's name but found nothing. He really ought to be nothing, she told herself. It wasn't as if she'd be going
back, or would ever see him again. He had to have no role in her memory other than as a one-afternoon stand, a fantastic shag with no strings attached, guilt-free sex, a zipless fuck and best forgotten.

In his closing debrief, Fritz had told the group to ‘take what we give you and turn it into new tools for your trade’. She'd do that, she would. She could apply it to her life in general. She wouldn't be deifying Paul. She wouldn't long for him or allow the tricks of memory and the mundanity of everyday life to transform him into anything other than a Franco–Australian beefcake she'd shagged. She'd turn the event to her benefit, she'd make sure she was eternally grateful it had happened. After all, her sexual thirst had been quenched and the spring to her step, the glint to her eye, her verve and her smile, had been restored.

Mark arrives home with a bunch of flowers and a legibly excited smile.

‘Hullo, you,’ he coos, embracing his wife. ‘God, I missed you – I did try to ring.’

‘No signal,’ Alice shrugs, hugging him back and thinking to herself that he's had a disastrous haircut.

‘Did you have a great time?’ he asks, taking off his jacket, loosening his tie and top button, rubbing his temples and pinching the bridge of his nose. What a day. Good to be home.

‘It was fine,’ Alice shrugs again. ‘You know these courses – part outward-bound, part bullshit-waffle assertion techniques. We were timetabled to within an inch of our lives.’

‘Was it as dull as you were expecting?’ Mark asks, leafing through the post and leaving it all unopened.

‘I guess not,’ Alice says, ‘but you'll never guess – they made us share rooms! Can you believe that? Three hangers between us!’

Mark laughs as he selects a good Rioja and hunts for the state-of-the-art corkscrew. ‘Well, you look gorgeous, Wife – look at you. You really do. The outward-bound bit must have done you good. All that fresh air and exercise. God knows I could do with some.’

‘It was all very picturesque. Like a Stella Artois advert. And actually the workshops weren't too hug-a-tree or primalscreamish. But I didn't walk the Pont du Gard,’ Alice admits sheepishly, ‘I was too scared.’

‘I don't blame you,’ Mark says. ‘I've done it – and it's pretty hair-raising.’

‘You've been?’ Alice is stunned, appalled, intrigued.

‘During my gap year,’ says Mark, still going through end-less drawers in search of the corkscrew.

‘Did you go to Les Baux?’ Alice asks, almost accusatorily.

‘Don't think so,’ says Mark who's found the corkscrew. ‘Was it good?’

‘So-so,’ Alice shrugs, ‘no big deal.’

What?!

When Thea and Alice saw each other a couple of days later, they were each fizzing with excitement, gabbling unexpurgatedly, demanding that the other listen to me me me.

‘So the estate agent reckons my buyer will be ready to exchange contracts in the next couple of
weeks
! We're looking to complete perhaps a month or so after that. And this place Saul and I have seen is just amazing.’ Thea looked to Alice for a reaction. Her friend was grinning, eyes dancing, stuffing a chocolate éclair into her mouth. Good. ‘It's duplex – with a roof terrace! It's like something you'd see on
Grand Designs
– beautiful flow of space and just the most incredible fixtures and fittings. You are going to die when you see the bathroom! And the kitchen is my dream kitchen. The views – oh my God – just you wait!’ Alice glowed with excitement, which delighted Thea and spurred her to continue. ‘There's just a one-bed flat beneath and guess who lives there? Guess! Rene Overton!’

‘Who?’

‘Actually, I hadn't a clue who he was either,’ Thea laughed into her tea, ‘but we're reliably informed that he's the definitive hairdresser to the stars.’

‘So you'll be popping down, not to borrow a cup of sugar, but rather his ceramic straightening irons?’

‘My hair's too short for those, silly,’ Thea hooted, ‘but I
am
hoping that he likes nothing better on his days off than to pop up to the flat above for a quick blow-dry!’ Alice and Thea guffawed excessively. ‘I'm also hoping never to have to pay for hair products again,’ Thea continued, ‘so the whack of our mortgage repayments will be beautifully balanced by freebie haircuts and industrial-sized bottles of shampoo. As long as our offer is accepted. Anyway, so the king of hair is on the first floor and the ground floor is a snazzy interiors company.’

‘So you're thinking free sofas too?’ Alice laughed. ‘You could offer your home as a kind of living showroom – in return for full furnishing.’

‘Genius!’ Thea exclaimed and they chinked teacups and agreed to share another éclair. ‘So tell me about France? Was it OK in the end? Oh! I've got the
ER
tape for you – here.’

Alice regarded Thea, twitched her lip and let a lascivious smile spread. ‘It was – interesting,’ she said, rolling out the word with cunning. ‘Have you heard of a place called Les Baux?’

‘No?’

‘Cathédrale d'Images?’

‘No.’

‘It's this place, this space – I don't know how to describe it. Dante loved it, Cocteau loved it. You'd love it. It's a defunct quarry – and you walk around while all these massive images are projected all around to amazing music.’

Thea regarded Alice, alarmed. ‘You haven't gone all trippy-hippy, have you?’

Alice threw back her head and laughed. ‘No, of course not! But it was undeniably atmospheric and intense. And had a bizarre impact on us all.
Anyway
, Clare Cabot – you know,
my nemesis – shagged Geoff Sprite. Practically there and then – regardless of their audience.’

‘You are
joking
?’ Thea gasped. ‘Blimey! Talk about scandal –
outrageous
!’

‘And I shagged our guide.’

‘
What?!
’

Alice bit her lip, glanced away and then dragged sheepish but sparkling eyes back to Thea. ‘This absolutely gorgeous bloke called Paul,’ Alice confessed, her brow furrowed above her excited whisper, ‘divine looking – the sort of physique you see on a Calvin Klein underwear ad. Incredibly handsome – half French, half Australian – a real mountain-climbing, nature-loving, sex-god stereotype. Bit of a toyboy actually – not even thirty. Does the ski season half the year. Anyway, so we're in the cathedral –
cathédrale
– and there's this thrustingly sexy rhythmic music and all these images of Africa. And Paul and I have been flirting since I arrived and it's obvious he fancies me. And I don't mind saying it made me feel really fantastic. What a boost – attention like that can certainly restore a girl's pout and wiggle! So, there I am, walking around this quarry with the sights and sounds of Africa and watching my colleagues dancing. It's like everyone was stoned (
stoned? Quarry
? Do you see!). Anyway, suddenly Paul's there – there's been all this chemistry, days of lingering looks and lip licking and brushing past each other accidentally-on-purpose. And he's there, Thea, right up against me. And he just starts fondling me and snogging me. Real snogging – like we used to do at
teenage discos. Greedy, lust-drenched tonguing and groping. It was incredible.’

‘
What
?’

Alice regarded Thea. ‘Then I shagged him!’ Immediately, she covered her face with her hands and groaned.

‘Alice! You did
what
?’

Alice peeped at Thea through the cage of her fingers. ‘When we returned to the hotel. I bunked off to bonk, basically.’ She placed her hands in her lap, chewed at her lip guiltily. ‘We snuck off and had the most rampant, filthy, abandoned wild sex of my life!’

‘What?’

‘Stop saying
what
!’

‘But Alice!’ Thea protested, her eyes skittering over her best friend's face trying to detect a lie, obvious elaboration. Anything but the dance and sparkle that met her gaze.

‘What!’ Alice exclaimed, her face twitching between shame and triumph.

‘You're
married
!’ Thea exclaimed. ‘That's what.’

Alice looked at Thea. She had thought Thea would be surprised – stunned, perhaps – but still she had expected her best friend's approval. She was taken aback by Thea's frown. ‘So what?’ Alice said, with a defensive jerk to her shrug.

‘But what about Mark?’ Thea asked quietly.

‘What about him?’ Alice replied evenly. ‘He's hardly going to find out, is he. I'm not likely to leave Mark for some tour guide, am I – albeit one with an incredible dick and the last word in sexual athletics. Come on, Thea – get off your moral high horse! I had a one-night stand! That's all! And do you know something? I don't regret it and I don't feel guilty. It's what I needed and I feel fucking great. It completely boosted my self-esteem. There will be no repercussions.’

Thea sipped her tea. It was lukewarm and she grimaced as she swallowed it down. Despite that, she sipped again to
give her time to think because, just then, she really didn't know what to say. Thea was gutted by her friend's behaviour. She wanted to whack Alice, to scold her, to say what the hell were you thinking, why the hell did you do that, don't you dare get a taste for it, don't you ever do it again. But she didn't. She couldn't. Just look at Alice – just look at her – gone is the pale complexion of late, the dullness to her eyes, the slump in her demeanour, the fatigued gazing into the middle distance, the disillusionment with her lot. Look at her now – she looks as though she's spent a fortnight being pampered at a world-class spa, she looks as though she's won the lottery, she looks as though she's mid-leap from Cloud 8 to 9, she looks as though she's having the time of her life. She's beautiful and centred and exuding delirious happiness. She's radiating the glow of a well-laid woman.

‘You're wicked, you are,’ Thea decided to say, acting bright and breezy, though privately it irked her to have to do so, ‘you're a slag!’

‘I know!’ Alice said, surfacing from giggles to sigh at the memory of it all. ‘I tell you, if you had to choose between Paul Brusseque and Brad Pitt? No contest whatsoever.’

‘And if you had to choose between him and Mark Sinclair?’ Thea said with a sternly arched eyebrow.

‘Fuck off!’ Alice barked defensively, trying to cover it with a beguiling pout. ‘It was a one-night stand – that's all. A common, simple, one-night stand. Christ, stop giving it more gravity than it deserves. Anyway, I'm telling you, Miss Sanctimonious – if you were faced with someone even half as horny as Paul Brusseque, far from home and safe in secrecy, I'd defy you not to drop your knickers too.’ Alice sucked in her cheeks slightly, as if challenging Thea to retort, to deny if she dared.

‘But I have Saul,’ Thea said firmly. ‘I wouldn't want to.’

‘When temptation confronts you, believe me you are a
helpless, happy slave.’ Alice lowered her voice ominously and wagged her finger with detectable superiority.

It was as if, by being flung far from Alice's conscience, thoughts of Mark were assaulting Thea's. She couldn't rid an image of him from her mind's eye. It was irrelevant that he would not find out about his wife's adultery – still Thea's heart bled for him. She felt like an accessory to Alice's crime. And Thea decreed it a misdemeanour absolute. She deemed sexual fidelity and true love to be inextricably bound. For the latter to exist, the former was unconditional. No one would ever love Alice as much as Mark – and Thea believed he should be loved right back. Just then, Thea didn't know which was worse – the fact that Alice had been unfaithful to Mark or that, as a cuckold, he was to be pitied. On Mark's behalf, Thea felt the humiliation and bewilderment she hoped sincerely that blessed ignorance would keep from him. It was horrible.

‘Are you OK?’ Saul gently tucks Thea's hair behind her ear. He's concerned – she's been withdrawn all evening, chewing at the skin around her fingernails, fiddling with her ring, frowning suddenly, even wincing once or twice.

‘Fine,’ Thea nods with minimal eye contact though Saul notes a gauze of sadness clouding her eyes, ‘just tired.’

‘You sure?’ Saul presses because he's rarely known Thea in anything other than her sunny, happy state. Especially recently – she's been infectiously euphoric. He doesn't like to see her unhappy but he doesn't know how to help and it is not his style to pry.