Prime Time (34 page)

Annabel nodded, seeming to find this analysis of someone I had never met and knew absolutely nothing about, of some comfort.

I tried to reassure her further. ‘They make up a reason that turns everything into our fault because they don't want to admit that they're half-formed, unweaned, dick-led cretins,' I said, warming to my theme. ‘My husband said he was leaving me because of my PMT and mood swings!'

Annabel was wide-eyed. ‘And you didn't have them?'

‘Well, I did, but it was still just an excuse.'

Her husband, it seemed, was even more adept at making excuses than mine. One of the reasons he'd given for dumping Annabel was that she'd once eaten a portion of black cherry cheesecake in bed and left crumbs on his pillow.

‘He didn't care about things like that on our honeymoon,' she said sadly.

I was still making sympathetic noises but getting increasingly agitated inside. Clara had poked her head round the changing room door at the height of Annabel's distress, raising her eyebrows. I'd waved her away but I was afraid she'd come back any minute and I really couldn't bear to discuss anything that had happened. I wanted to stay out of the way until they'd all gone.

‘I've got to go,' I told Annabel. ‘But you've got to eat or you'll make yourself ill and no man's worth that. Next time we'll have a coffee and some cake.' As I said it, I realised that I hadn't eaten today either. I had that strange, light-headed feeling but I wasn't hungry at all. Perhaps I was in ketosis too and had breath like stale cabbage.

‘You'll meet someone else,' I said, trying to sound cheery, although my throat was now tight with tears as well. ‘You get yourself back to normal and they'll be queuing round the block.'

I left her sitting on a bench, still holding the can, staring ahead with the hopeless eyes of a famine victim. ‘I'll see you soon,' I said. She smiled weakly.

The irony of our conversation wasn't lost on me as I hurried upstairs. It would be easy to mock Annabel, to think her reaction to the break-up of her marriage and her hysteria over her diet extreme if not downright deranged, but I wasn't so very different. I was too weak-willed to lose any significant amount of weight – though post-traumatic stress was turning out to be a good diet aid – but look at what I'd done instead.

I shuddered as I got on the treadmill and pressed start. I'd allowed myself to be made a total fool of on television, by believing in the charms of a younger man who, if I'd stopped to think about it for a minute, was never likely to be attracted to someone who was the same generation as his mum.

I pushed the gradient up 15 per cent and set the speed to a brisk walk.

He'd conned and manipulated me and I'd fallen for it every step of the way. Obviously he'd never had any intention of watching the film with me and had been stringing me along from the beginning. He and Tanya probably used to lie in bed at night, laughing together at how gullible I was.

I turned my iPod on, increasing the volume as Oasis began to play.

I recalled yet again what Lenny had had to say – presumably Tanya was hanging out with him to get her own back on Cal for flirting with me – about the power of lighting and how it could make or break you on TV. Why hadn't I thought about that earlier?

I pushed the lever on the treadmill to make it go faster.

And with a horrible sick jolt, I remembered the argument between Tanya and Cal that final night at the hotel, and Cal saying, ‘Let me do it my way.'

They weren't talking about the artistic nuances of the film, they were planning the best way to get a shot of my massive arse in a bikini. The most effective method of getting me to look really sad. Which was for Cal to pretend he wanted to go to bed with me.

I thought of giving that wiggle as I walked to the steam room and moaned out loud in embarrassment.

I pushed the lever on the treadmill again. Noel Gallagher was advising me
Don't look back in anger
. Ha, ha, ha.

I was up to 7.5 kilometres per hour now and had to break into a run. I turned the music up louder and pushed the treadmill further uphill too, wanting my legs to ache, wanting to hurt physically so I could focus on that instead of the terrible sick feeling I had inside.

What did Andrew think of me now? What would Clara and Alfie think when they saw the video? Thank God I'd responded to my mother's lack of interest by not telling her it was on.

Had Charlotte been upset watching it? I missed Charlotte. But Charlotte obviously didn't care about me at all and who could blame her. She was right – I'd been a rotten friend, fucking up the whole Roger-Hannah scenario like I fucked everything up …

I ran on, pushing the speed up to ten, my breath rasping in my chest, legs hurting, T-shirt sticking to me, wanting to flee it all, wanting to empty my head of everything but the throb of the music.

But instead a film reel ran relentlessly on in my mind, as clearly as if it were on a screen in front of me. Me, with my newly raised eyebrows, leering drunkenly at the camera, me slurring my way through a mortifying accolade to my own fading youth. Me in too-short dresses and ridiculous heels.
I'm in my prime? This is my prime time.
Who was I kidding?

I'd told Annabel the blokes would be queuing up for her and they would, but nobody was ever going to want me again. Men were always going to be either nice but married or unmarried because they were tossers or unmarried because they were too young for me with equally young girlfriends who were going to move in with them.

Who was going to look at a washed up 42-year-old who'd let it all hang out on prime-time TV?

I was still running, my limbs weakening, muscles sore. The monitor was flashing, warning me I had a high heart rate but still I kept going, feet pounding one after the other, gasping for breath, realising that I was crying too, the tears mixing with the sweat that was running down my face and chest, running and running, afraid to stop …

Until suddenly, I felt my legs lose their rhythm as the treadmill slowed right up and the gradient lessened and I saw the hand that had come across in front of me and reached out for the big red button to turn the machine off.

‘Stop now,' Andrew said. ‘It's enough.'

As the platform came to a halt, he took my damp hand and pulled me from it onto the floor beside him. I tugged half-heartedly away from him. He held on.

He was wearing dark shorts and a white T-shirt. I couldn't look up to meet his eyes but I felt the soft, dry fabric and breathed in the scent of fresh air and soap laced with the faintest warm, smoky tones of tobacco as his arms went round me and I pressed my wet cheeks into his chest.

Chapter Thirty-nine

He was waiting for me when I came out of the changing room. I'd taken off my sticky T-shirt and underwear and showered but had had to put the same tracksuit bottoms back on and was wearing nothing under my sweatshirt.

‘I need to go home,' I protested, when he offered to take me out for dinner. ‘I can't go out like this and even if I got changed, suppose someone sees me who saw the programme? And I'm not really that hungry and anyway, I know you're being very kind to me, but –' I took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eyes now. ‘What about your wife?'

He sighed. ‘You can't hide away for ever. You need to eat. And if you'll finally let me finish without interrupting or hitting me, I will tell you about Elaine.'

He put his arm through mine as I hesitated. ‘We'll compromise. I'll go and get us fish and chips. You go home and get the plates out.'

I shook my head. ‘I'm not supposed to be eating carbohydrates and there's about a thousand calories and God knows how much fat in cod and chips.'

He nodded. ‘Exactly. I'll get you a large one.'

‘We separated eight months ago,' he said, once we were sat at my kitchen table in front of two heaped plates, the scent of vinegar rising in the steam. ‘Mainly because we could no longer stand living in the same house. She got a transfer and moved back to Woking, where her parents live, taking the boys with her, of course, and terrifying a different set of clerks in the bought ledger department of CGH Building Supplies where her ability to get blood out of a financial stone is legendary.' He gave me a wry smile. ‘We are very different people.'

I nodded, my mouth full of fish. I'd become suddenly ravenous as soon as I'd unwrapped the warm, fragrant parcels and was glad he was talking so I could keep on eating.

‘And that was fine for us,' he continued, a hand cupped beneath his chin, green eyes serious, ‘except that the boys really missed me. Even though I'm not their father I've been around since they were small and I have to say I missed them too. We stayed in touch by phone but the house seemed very big and quiet and I was lonely. Elaine was having trouble with the kids not settling, suddenly she and I were talking a lot, far more than we ever did when we were together.' He took a mouthful of wine. ‘And I guess the doubts set in. We were getting on so well, we decided to have one more go. She took some extended leave and got the boys out of school and into one down here and came back to see if we could make it work this time.'

He stopped to spear a chip with his fork. I waited while he chewed.

‘Except we couldn't. Within days, we remembered why we'd split up. She finds me too messy and sentimental and weak-willed. She was furious that I'd started smoking again once they'd left. I found her too rigid and controlling and judgemental. The final straw came for both of us when she made a chart with colour coded stickers, informing me what I could and couldn't eat, and I cried in front of her at the end of a re-run of
Chariots of Fire
.'

I couldn't help giggling. ‘She doesn't like men showing their feminine side, then?'

He ate another chip. ‘My wife doesn't believe in emotional displays of any kind. That's why when you sat in front of me at parents' evening and burst into tears, I was instantly smitten.'

I examined my plate, embarrassed. ‘You were?'

‘I was. I thought you were beautiful. Even with watery eyes and a red nose.'

I began cutting my cod into small pieces, unable to look at him.

‘I was really disappointed when Clara said you were seeing the director chap. But do I gather that's finished?'

‘It never started,' I said. ‘Only in my head.' I told him the sorry tale. Andrew touched my hand.

‘I'd never defend anyone who works in reality TV,' he said. ‘I think all those programmes are awful. But I bet you, even if he was piling on the charm to keep you sweet for the film, he enjoyed every minute of it. That's why his girlfriend was so upset, because she knew he fancied you rotten – just like I do – and he had the perfect excuse to indulge himself.' Andrew leant over and squeezed my shoulder. ‘He behaved badly, but you shouldn't feel bad about it.'

I cut my food up a bit more. ‘Thank you,' I said awkwardly.

‘Anyway, it was when I saw you losing it in the supermarket that I really fell for you,' he continued easily. ‘I loved the fact that you were so volatile. Even though your eyebrows were a bit scary by then, I was drawn to all that passion. I sometimes used to wonder just what it would take to make Elaine lose control. I've still never discovered the answer to that one'

‘I had PMT,' I said self-consciously. ‘Were my eyebrows really scary?'

‘Yes, they were quite. What did you tell me you said to Annabel in the changing room? You looked better before?'

‘It's nice being a bit thinner.'

‘You're crumpet however much you weigh – am I allowed to say that now? And as for the night the programme had been on, you looked so lovely and you got
so
cross. When you started shouting, I just knew I was going to have to win you round.' He grinned.

‘Why didn't you answer my text then? When I said sorry.'

He looked at me, still smiling. ‘I did. I kept sending texts. You were the one who didn't answer. I assumed you were still in a strop.'

‘I didn't get them. I haven't had any texts at all.' I got up and dug in my handbag for my phone and handed it to him. ‘See?'

He looked at it and smiled some more. ‘Excellent. You are dippy and un-technical as well as given to emotional outbursts. Perfect!'

I peered over his shoulder. ‘There aren't any texts on there. It hasn't beeped or anything.'

‘No – because the phone's full of them.' He pointed to a tiny flashing envelope in the corner of the screen. ‘When did you last delete any?'

‘Not sure I ever have.'

He made coffee while I scanned through weeks of messages, noting before I pushed the button that would erase them all, how many were from Cal.
Can't wait to see you.
I bet you bloody couldn't, I thought.

‘So what's happening now with Elaine?' I asked as a series of beeps told me the backlog of texts was finally coming in.

‘She's gone back to her job and rented house in Woking,' Andrew said. ‘We're going to sort things out properly so she can buy somewhere. And I'm going to have the boys to stay regularly – and go up there for Christmas. I think it's a relief for both of us. Now we know it's really over, we'll be able to be civilised – maybe even be friends, who knows.'

I nodded, but I was only half-listening. The thought of Christmas, about which I'd done nothing, and being here on my own with Stanley, had sent a stab of pain through me. ‘We were supposed to be going to Charlotte's,' I said miserably.

‘You still might be.' Andrew pointed to my phone where the screen was filling up. It read
12 messages received
. ‘Only about six of them are from me,' he said.

When he'd gone into the garden for his post-dinner cigarette, having refused my offer of having one indoors on the grounds that he wanted it all to be as difficult as possible so he finally did give up, I sat and read all the texts, my eyes filling with tears.

There was one from Andrew sent the night I'd thrown him out, saying not to worry about anything and would I let him explain about his wife, please? And one a little later the same evening from Charlotte which simply read
call me, you silly cow.

This progressed to
answer the phone, you silly moo
, when I would have been lying in bed the next day, ignoring the incessant ringing, and
still love you daft bat text me back
this morning and finally, when I'd have been on the treadmill thinking about how much I missed her,
Miss you sorry for everything. Let's stop this now. Call
me or else.

‘Oh my God,' I said, as Andrew came through the back door. ‘She thinks
I've
been ignoring
her.'

‘I know how she feels.'

I looked at the next one.
You're still gorgeous.

‘I don't feel gorgeous,' I said, my chin wobbling all over again.

‘Well, you are.'

I shook my head. ‘I feel and old and unattractive and I've made an idiot of myself in front of thousands of people.

‘You are gorgeous. And you always were. You were badly lit in a TV programme that hardly anyone watched. And most of those who did don't even know you. As the kids would say: get over it.'

‘And I sounded stupid.'

‘You were unfairly edited. It's a lesson for next time. You'll have to get over that too.'

I shuddered. ‘There is never going to be a next time.'

‘So let's concentrate on now.' He reached out a hand and drew me toward him, bringing his dark, curly head close to mine, his green eyes gleaming. I gazed back at him. Part of me wanted to fall into his arms, to feel their warmth around me, to be hugged again, to believe I could be attractive. But the rest of me was still mortified. I remembered the way I'd gazed into Cal's eyes and fallen so readily for his insubstantial charms. Andrew was a lovely man and he was being very kind to me but …

‘But you're Stanley's teacher,' I said lamely, stepping back from him.

‘We can deal with that – I'm not going to snog you in the middle of the classroom.'

‘And you've got all this to sort out with your wife …'

He dropped my hand. ‘I've told you it's sorted. Aren't you just making excuses, Laura?' He looked at me sadly. ‘Isn't it more that you're still hung up on your director chap? Or of course,' he went on flatly, ‘it could be that you just don't fancy me. Perhaps I'm rather jumping the gun here …'

His eyes were searching mine and I suddenly felt miserable and defeated. I wanted to say something nice, to explain, to let him put his arms around me but all I could see was him watching me on TV and I felt awkward and embarrassed and washed over by shame all over again. I looked away from him.

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I just can't.'