Other People's Husbands (16 page)

‘I'm making it look like a real fire. The way the colours of the flames go, dark at the bottom, then paler and flickery with blue and green?' Melissa argued with Pete. ‘Only I'm using fruit. It's . . . it's . . .
representational
,' she claimed triumphantly, looking to Sara for backup and pleased with herself for having thought of an end-of-argument term.

‘Looks like half a friggin' trifle to me,' Pete grumbled, well beaten on syllable count, but otherwise unconvinced. ‘You wanna pour some cream and custard on it and we can all have a bit.'

Sara stepped in to keep the peace. ‘Hey, look, there's no need to argue over it! Melissa's had a really good, original idea. I love the way the colours are bleeding together, the way flames do, constantly changing . . .'

Lively debate was one thing, and to be encouraged, but downright personal criticism would thoroughly shake the confidence of someone as flaky as Melissa. Sara wondered how she'd managed to get out of the greengrocer's shop with a selection of fruit that pleased her. She must have been in there hours, dithering between blueberries and blackcurrants. Expensive selection, too . . . though now she came to think of it, Melissa had brought them in all jammed loosely into one carrier bag. Given her previous track record, possibly the goods had not actually been paid for. Or was that harsh?

Just as Sara was turning her attention to Pamela's efforts, the door behind her creaked open. Ben. At last! So . . . now what?

‘Oh Ben! Hi – I'd forgotten you were coming!'

Now why had she said that? Such a lie! How stupid. How flustery, silly and girlish, and why had her heart rate rocketed?

‘Good to see you again, Sara.' Ben came over. He was looking at her intently, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to kiss her. Just in a meeting-a-friend sort of way, but all the same . . . Sara was aware of sudden silence in the room and a dozen pairs of curious eyes of the collected members of Beginners Art staring at the two of them. She could see Pamela Mottram squinting across, shamelessly inquisitive. She had stopped painting to watch them, and, noting Pamela's keen-eared stillness, the others followed suit, making Sara feel as if she was on some kind of stage. Why were they staring? She'd told them he'd be coming and would want to talk to some of them. They hadn't taken this kind of keen interest at the time.

‘You didn't come to visit me,' Ben said, as if Sara had seriously disappointed him. He was talking quietly – Pamela Mottram and Pedantic Pete glanced at each other and, suspicious of such intimacy, stepped closer, pretending to be appraising Melissa's work, yet again.

‘I didn't know I was really expected to. I assumed the invitation was just a neighbourly throwaway remark!' she told him.

‘I don't do throwaway,' he said. ‘Have you got a car with you or can I drive you home after this? You could come and see what I've done to your friend Alma's cottage, tell me if you think I've improved it or wrecked it. I make very good tea and I can promise you Jaffa cakes.'

‘Ah . . . well there's an offer I can't refuse. OK then, I'd love to, though I have got my car and a bit of clearing up to do here after the class, so shall I just turn up as soon as I get finished? I've got a house full of people to go home to . . . it would be good to have a breathing space between this and them.'

This was not a date. Not that she wanted one – she was married and old(ish), not a teenager. Nor was she as sex-crazed as her sister. All the same, she felt skittish and happy. Then she remembered why he was here. It wasn't about her, not at all.

‘You must come and meet Pamela Mottram.' She led him across the classroom to where Pamela was smirking with a disturbing knowingness. ‘Pamela is very much a fixture of this college. Just what you need for your
Guardian
article, I should think. The class is working on a series about the elements . . . today's is fire.'

‘Pamela, this is Ben, Ben Stretton. He'd like to talk to you about the social aspect of this place, how the students interact, that sort of thing.'

‘Hello Pamela,' he said, smiling at her and looking at her energetic rendition of pink spikes on the paper. ‘Oh, and I like that. It's . . . er . . .' He hesitated, looking at Sara rather desperately, and she could see he felt like Prince Charles faced during a gallery visit with some incomprehensible exhibit. In this case, though, she couldn't rescue him. Pamela's interpretations of themes could take any form. One could only take a wild guess. ‘It looks like arrows? Or, er . . .' He was evidently struggling.

‘Penises!' Pamela boomed. ‘They're penises. The fire of passion! They're Aflame with Desire!'

‘Right . . . er . . . great!'

*

‘No. No she doesn't want to speak to you, she's doing some work. She said if you phoned the house to tell you to get lost.' Pandora lay on the purple sofa, flicking between TV channels while very much enjoying giving her sister's boyfriend a hard time. There was something so deeply satisfying about passing on someone else's fury. It saved you having to work up plenty of your own, but at the same time maddened the other person to a delightful degree. She could hear the desperation in Paul's voice. It was a good voice, lazy, articulate and, what was that line in
The Great Gatsby
that she'd recently read? Yes that was it: his voice was full of money.

She'd met Paul a few times, and had hung out with him the day Charlie had been born when they were all up at the hospital when Cass was in labour and alternating between shrieking that no, of course she didn't want drugs she was having Natural Childbirth, wasn't she – and then minutes later squealing for an epidural. Paul had been pretty calm, quite capable and unflapping until Charlie was actually born, then he'd gone sweetly tearful and delighted and the way he'd been hugging Cass when all the parents and Pandora went in to see them had made them all feel very aaaaaah, lovely. Perhaps she was being unfair to him now, because she hadn't actually got any kind of problem with him. This was Cass's gig. Panda was only doing what she'd been asked to do.

Would anyone ever again be like this with her, she now wondered. It was a while since she'd had someone being one hundred per cent loving towards her, desperate to see her. Months, a year nearly, had passed since Ollie had gone travelling, saying he'd only be a couple of months, and leaving the words ‘and then when I get back . . .' hanging in the air with the rest of the future not quite promised. He was never coming back now. The blonde girl in Toronto had a fabulous flat, fabulous body. Panda had seen the Facebook pics, read the comment tags and the between-the-lines messages in the way they looked together, all partied out and cuddly and loving: Ollie had new friends, a new life, a new woman. ‘Over' was the big word that hadn't yet been said, but Pandora was no idiot. She and Ollie were, no question, an ex-relationship.

‘Well if she won't talk to me, how can I sort it out with her? She's blocked me from her mobile and her emails; what am I supposed to do?'

‘I don't know, Paul. Can't you just write an old-fashioned letter and say, “Hey Charlie is my baby too and I've got rights” or something?'

‘I've got responsibilities as much as rights,' Paul said. ‘More than, even.' Pandora was surprised and impressed by this. Did Cass have the first clue how lucky she was? What an idiot of a sister. Work it out with him, girl, why don't you.

‘Can I talk to you about it? And about how to get through to her mad brain?' Paul asked. He sounded so sad, poor boy. Well,
boy
, Pandora thought, he was her own age. But boys mature so much more slowly, which meant that in
real terms
, a bit like dog years or something, he was way younger, surely, barely mid-teens.

‘You
are
talking to me,' she said, feeling a bit more sympathetic. ‘I really don't know what to say to you, though. All I know is what I've just told you. She hasn't got anything to say to you, and if you called I was to tell you to go away. She's doing some college work.'

‘No, I mean talk to you properly. Like, face to face? Just about Cass and Charlie and what to do. You're her sister; you know her best of anyone. Please? I could come and meet you in a bar somewhere?'

There was a long silence while Pandora worked out what was the best thing to do. If she said no, that would be yet more rejection. He'd give up eventually, feel there was no chance. Cass was only being moody and idiotic. She shouldn't slam the door shut on him permanently, not when there was a child involved.

‘OK,' Pandora heard herself agreeing. ‘Tomorrow? Maybe the day after? I'll meet you at All Bar One. But if you ever tell Cass . . .'

‘I won't tell Cass. This is just between you and me, promise. And . . . Pandora?'

‘What?'

‘Just, you know . . . like, cheers for this?'

Sara hadn't had the best afternoon's teaching; or rather, it could be argued that her class hadn't had the top value in terms of an afternoon's learning. Luckily she hadn't needed to say much, because the class members, for once, seemed to be thoroughly focused and had a pretty clear idea of what they were doing. The room was peaceful, with them all quietly absorbed. All she'd had to do was a lot of vague wandering about in a daze, passing the odd unhelpful comment to students who looked more than a little surprised to be interrupted. Ben was still on the premises, and had taken Melissa and Pamela out to the students' canteen to talk to them about what they'd gained in terms of friends from the college. Sara pictured him buying them tea and macaroons, while the rest of the class members painted themselves into a near stupor. The students could tell that Sara was mentally elsewhere. Every now and then she'd catch one of them staring at her with a wondering look. She felt bad about her lack of concentration, at one point absent-mindedly telling Pete the Pedant that she thought his rather ambitious semi-abstract rendition of the Great Fire of London really did capture the essence of an erupting volcano.

‘It was me doing the volcano, not him,' grouched Evelyn, a disgruntled woman with a look of the late Thora Hird, who smelled slightly of Scotch and rarely came out from behind her easel to make any comment in the class at all.

‘Sorry . . . of course it is. Sorry.' Well, it was an easy mistake – it was tricky, keeping up with the class members' varying styles. To their credit, they all had their own arty quirks and preferences, but sometimes, especially with the more bizarrely abstract among them, it was like being in an infant class where you had to smile and say, ‘Ooh lovely . . . and that is . . . ?' with the risk that they'd be horribly affronted that you couldn't immediately identify, say, Windsor Castle painted from directly overhead, or the rocks off Land's End. Sara looked at her watch, looked at the door, willed the time away. At last, close to the end of session time, Melissa and Pamela returned.

‘He says to tell you he'll see you there.' Pamela twinkled at her as the students collected their belongings together and drifted homewards. ‘Nice man, would suit you very well,' she added.

‘I don't need a man,' Sara laughed. ‘I've got a husband!'

‘All the more reason. Every wife should keep a spare,' Pamela insisted. ‘Life is too dull without someone slightly forbidden as a bit of extra; someone to feel a passion for.'

‘Aren't you supposed to feel that for your own partner?' Sara asked her. ‘Isn't that the point of being with them?'

Only the two of them were left in the classroom now. Melissa turned and waved goodbye from the doorway. She was munching a slice of peach from her still life, looking pleased with her afternoon's efforts. ‘Thanks Sara!' she called. ‘See you next time!'

Sara waved to her, smiling. ‘You did really well today, Melissa! It was such a great idea!'

Pamela picked up her bag. ‘That shivery passion is a bit exhausting on a full-time basis,' she told Sara. ‘That's why God decreed that it's better kept for off the domestic premises. Over the years I've always had someone I've had a fancy for; most women do. Even when it was just the man I used to see at the bus stop in the mornings, on the way to work. When he was there, my heart used to beat a bit faster. When he wasn't, I was unsettled till at least lunchtime. Whether you do anything about it that would give your marriage vows a shake-up is down to you. Doesn't stop you feeling that way. Trouble is, most folks don't admit it, and so continues the myth of happy-ever-after in some fairy-tale dreamworld. But if you've got someone else in your head now and then, the one you're actually with gets the benefit of your imaginings, if you see what I mean.'

‘Did you do anything about the bus-stop man?' Sara asked her. Was that impertinent, she wondered. Pamela wasn't of a generation that was used to that kind of talk, although, come to think of it, she couldn't be much older than Conrad.

Pamela laughed. ‘Heavens no! We never so much as spoke! That wasn't the point, you see! I'll see you next time. And whatever you do, have a bloody good time; remember, you'll be a long time dead.'

It wasn't easy, this ending-your-life malarkey. Sara must never, ever suspect that he was in on his own death. She'd be devastated. With that in mind, and in the interests of being certain the life-insurance people wouldn't wriggle out of paying top whack to Sara, Conrad needed to think of some way of dying that wouldn't look even remotely like suicide. The grasping bastards wouldn't hand over a cent if even a hint of self-destruction came up.

He practised scaring himself at least halfway to death, driving much too fast down the M4 on his way back from a visit to Gerry, his publicity-mad agent, and considered a few possibilities along the way. Crashing the car into a concrete pillar could go badly wrong, might not result in instant oblivion and could well hurt very, very badly. He wasn't good with pain. Even a mildly sprained ankle once had him whimpering in agony. One of the things he most dreaded each autumn was the annual flu shot. Having the cute young practice nurse lewdly smirking ‘Just a little prick' at him didn't offset the faintness and nausea he felt when faced with a hypodermic. He had managed in his long life never to have broken a bone, and didn't want to be hauled crushed and shattered from his car by well-meaning paramedics who weren't allowed to give him more than the minimum dose of painkiller in the interests of saving the NHS a few quid.