Straight Talking (11 page)

“I was,” said Jesus, who turned out to be called Sam, “but I came back a couple of months ago.” His accent had a slight American drawl, and as he turned to look at me I knew that he was the only man at that party worth bothering with, and I knew from that first look we’d be going home together.

“You must be Adam’s girlfriend,” he said, shaking my hand.

“No,” laughed Adam, “Tasha’s my friend who happens to be a girl. Unfortunately.”

“Are you anyone’s girlfriend?” asked Sam, and I mutely shook my head, wondering what he’d look like without his T-shirt, how his skin would feel, whether he’d groan with pleasure.

“I’m single, definitely single.” I raised an eyebrow.

“And searching?” His turn to raise an eyebrow.

“I’m always searching.”

“For your other half?”

“Wrong.” I laughed. “About as far away from the truth as you can get. No, just searching for fun, looking to enjoy myself.”

“Permanently or temporarily?”

“Permanently having fun, it’s just the people who are temporary.”

“Men, I presume.”

“Women aren’t my style.”

“So where do you meet these men?”

“Where do you think?”

“Parties like this?”

I smiled knowingly and looked into my beer before looking up again, looking him deep in the eyes and repeating slowly, “Parties like this.”

“I thought you and Adam were together. Are you really just friends?”

I frowned. “Why would you think we were together, just because we arrived together?”

“No, there seemed to be some chemistry between you.”

“Very perceptive,” I smiled. “But very wrong. I went out with one of Adam’s friends once, that was how we met, and we’ve become friends ever since.”

“Good. I’m glad that happened or we wouldn’t have met.”

“Good.”

Adam walked back up to us and put his big arms around my waist. “I hope you’re not chatting up my friend,” he said to Sam, who just smiled. “Careful of him,” he said to me, “the biggest heartbreaker at school, not to mention university.”

“You’ve known each other that long?” I looked at Adam in amazement, and he nodded with a grin.

“Yup, we used to beat each other up on the rugby field.”

“Oh God,” groaned Sam. “Don’t remind me. He was a complete rugger bugger. Thank God that’s changed.”

“Careful,” said Adam, “it doesn’t take much to get on my bad side, and rugby tackling is still my specialty.” We all laugh.

“So what was Adam like at school?” I say to Sam.

“Well,” he smiles at Adam. “No, I can’t lie. The teachers dreaded teaching him but you could always tell they had a real soft spot for him.”

“Why did they dread teaching him?”

Adam groans. “Oh please, not the old school stories.”

“No no,” says Sam. “I’ve started so I’ll finish. He was always clever, but he didn’t, what was that phrase, he didn’t apply himself. He used to sit at the back of the class and drop stinkbombs. I remember one time he got hold of a can of mace and squirted it during a math lesson.”

“Jesus, I’d forgotten that.”

“Mrs. Jenkins didn’t. The whole class had to be evacuated and they had a huge investigation but they never found out who it was. That was one of his better tricks. Although in terms of popularity it worked, he was infamous for years afterward. Now, what else can I tell you about Adam?”

“Stop it now,” warns Adam, but this is all new to me, I’m dying to hear about Adam’s schooldays.

“What about that time you sneaked that girl into the dorm and she had to hide under the bed when Matron came in?”

“I’d hoped you had forgotten that,” says Adam, but he’s smiling.

“This poor girl had to dive under the bed while we all stood in front to hide her.”

“Did she get caught?” I’m fascinated.

“Luckily no,” laughs Adam. “She was really nice,” he says dreamily, obviously thinking back to memories he hadn’t thought about in years.

“But what were you planning to do with her in a crowded dorm, Ad?”

“I don’t think even
I
knew that,” he laughs. “I just wanted to get her up there to give the boys something to talk about. Anyway, Sam was the real heartbreaker, especially at university.”

“I’ve changed,” said Sam. “University was a long time ago.”

“Do people really change?” I said. “I don’t think they do, not that much, leopards not changing their spots and all that. I suspect you probably are still a heartbreaker, and I suspect you probably enjoy it.”

“What about Adam then?” says Sam with a wicked grin. “Is he still dropping stinkbombs and sneaking girls into his bedroom?”

“I haven’t dropped a stinkbomb in at least ten days,” says Adam, laughing, “and as for the girls, I rarely get to sneak them anywhere these days. Unfortunately.”

“Oh, Ad.” I reach up and give him a friendly squeeze. If only he could find a woman, but right at this moment in time I’m more concerned with me finding a man. Or to be more precise, Sam, who is once again holding my gaze so steadily I have to look away.

Adam was aware of the chemistry, how could he have missed it as it hung heavy in the air between the three of us as we stood there not saying anything? “Right, I’m off to get another beer,” said Adam, moving away. “Anyone want anything?” and we both shook our heads as he walked off.

Sam looked at me and asked, “What were we talking about?”

“You. Being a heartbreaker.”

“Oh yes. And you’re so different? I don’t think so. Why do you think we’re talking? You’re the female version of me.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Don’t take offense, please, we’ve only just met, but I could tell as soon as I saw you. You’re a hedonist, taking pleasure wherever you find it and there’s nothing wrong with that, believe me. Nothing wrong at all.”

“I’m glad you think that there’s nothing wrong with it. I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression about me.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you? What kind of impression would you want me to have of you?”

“What kind of impression would you want?”

It was that kind of meaningless, ridiculous conversation that is endlessly going round and round in flirtatious circles, and can only end up in one place . . . the bedroom.

“How about the kind of impression that lingers in the sheets?” It was his turn for the questioning look.

“How about it?” said I, Tasha on self-destruct, Tasha who didn’t care.

“Can you leave Adam?”

“I can leave anyone.”

“Let’s go. I’ll get my coat.”

Sam walked upstairs to get his jacket, and suddenly I knew this was wrong. I didn’t want another stranger, I didn’t need to spend the night in a bed I didn’t know, with a man I didn’t want to know. I wanted to go to sleep in my bed, in my house, alone.

“Adam, we have to go, quickly. I’m sorry.” Adam didn’t question me, he heard the urgency in my voice and he just pushed me out the front door before Sam had even reappeared downstairs.

We got in the car and as we drove off I started laughing. Adam looked at me strangely, carried on driving, and then eventually, while I was wiping the tears of laughter from my cheeks, said, “What the hell is going on?”

“Oh Adam, I’m sorry, I’m sorry to drag you away, but I had to go. Sam was about to whisk me home and I couldn’t go, I can’t do this anymore. Adam, I’m happy. I’m really, really fine. I’m fine without Simon and I’m fine on my own. This feels amazing.”

Adam should have been royally pissed off with me for pulling him away from friends he hadn’t seen for years, but I knew he’d do this for me, and he stopped the car and gave me a big hug. “I knew you’d make it, Tash,” he said, and I could hear he was smiling deep in my hair.

Then he sat back and said, “Let’s go and find somewhere to drink champagne. We need to celebrate and it’s on me.”

12

“So what did Adam do?” Andy’s leaning forward, trying to get every last bit of the anecdote out of me. We’re all here at lunch again, our Saturday ritual, and I’m telling them all about Andrew.

“I don’t know, he seems a bit funny about it, and I can’t really talk to him about it, I just don’t feel comfortable but I don’t know why.”

“Tash, have you ever thought that maybe Adam has a soft spot for you?” asks Mel.

“I’ve always thought that,” says Andy, as Emma adds, “Yeah, me too.”

“Are you all serious?” I look around the scrubbed pine table and see that they are. And don’t you start too. Adam and me? No way.

“Why not?” says Mel. “He’s your best male friend. He’s a good man, he’s honorable, he’s decent and he’s good-looking, what more could a girl ask for?”

“Yeah but he’s
Adam
,” I say, “and there isn’t anything between us, you’re all wrong, I know he feels the same way as me, that we’re just friends.”

“I think you’re wrong,” says Emma. “I don’t know him well but when I have seen you two together he does seem to adore you.”

“Of course he does, in the same way that I adore him, the platonic way.”

They all smile knowingly but they don’t know, I know and they’re wrong.

“But anyway, we’re not here to talk about Adam, we’re talking about Andrew, what do you think?”

“You know what we think,” says Mel. “He’s gorgeous but he’s a total shit, and he’ll hurt you, no two ways about it.”

“I know,” I sigh, “but I don’t know what to do, I’m not sure whether I can stop myself.”

“Of course you can,” says Andy, the woman who wouldn’t know how to stop if all the red lights in the world were flashing, “you just say no. Anyway, there are plenty more where he came from.”

A silence falls on the table as we all contemplate her last statement. We’ve all said it, but none of us really believes it. How easy is it to find a man, I think. A good, kind, decent man who has the required amounts of good looks, charisma, and chemistry?

It’s not easy, not easy at all. Yes there are always men around, but how often do we get it right? How often do we feel the same way as they feel about us?

Emma sits there thinking she has to hang on to Richard, she has to marry him because she won’t find anyone else. Mel is thinking, I do deserve better than Daniel, and maybe I have got the strength to end it all for good, and Andy is thinking, another day another man.

“Have you invited him to my barbecue?” asks Andy eventually. It is her party tomorrow, the party which will doubtless be a huge success because Andy has spent weeks creating the food, the drink, the ambience, the guest list, the numbers of available men.

“Can I?” A grin as I contemplate a whole evening with him, an evening where perhaps, if I look as good as I’ve ever looked, perhaps he might change his mind. Perhaps he might decide that he wants more than a fling, perhaps he might look at me and think I am the kind of woman he could love after all.

“Then we can all meet him!” says Andy excitedly.

“Hands off,” I say, suddenly serious because I know that Andrew will be just her type, in fact, if I think about it they would make a great couple. Andrew and Andy, the perfect match, except they are so similar, they would both be constantly fighting for center stage.

“As if I would,” she says, noticing that I am not joking. “I won’t go near him but what
will
you do if he chats someone else up?”

“What
can
I do?” I shrug. “If he makes a beeline for someone else, there’s nothing I can do, but if any of you lot make a beeline for him, I’ll shoot you.”

“Don’t worry,” says Andy, “I wouldn’t be interested anyway, I’ve had enough of men for the moment.” And then she adds ominously, “After last night.”

“Uh-oh. What happened last night?”

“Remember Tim?” How could we forget? Tim was the man Andy picked up at yet another party, and he’s been phoning her every night for the last two weeks.

“Of course we remember Tim,” offers Mel. “You saw him last night?”

“Yes,” Andy says with a grimace, “I saw
all
of him last night.”

“You mean he shagged you senseless and now you’ve gone off him?” I don’t mean to sound this harsh, but please. This has happened so many times before.

“No, we never actually got to the shagging stage, it was awful.”

We’re all alert now, all desperate to hear what happened, a touch of
schadenfreude
never did anyone any harm. Did it?

“We went out for dinner and then he came in.”

“For coffee?” says Emma, and we all laugh, knowing that none of us ever invites a man in just for coffee.

“For coffee, and then as we were standing in the doorway he kissed me, which was fine.”

“Fine?” I say. “That doesn’t sound encouraging.”

“Well, the kissing was OK, but then he started doing this really peculiar thing, he started banging his groin against mine really quickly.”

“What do you mean? Grinding?”

“Well, not exactly, because that can be quite sexy, but he was banging away and I was standing there thinking, What
is
he doing? Does he think this is turning me on?”

We still haven’t quite grasped it so she stands up to demonstrate, oblivious to the curious stares from other diners in the restaurant. She stands there, in her slim-fitting beige trousers, and effectively simulates sex standing up, sex right at the end, just before orgasm, when the pounding becomes fast and furious, and it looks so ridiculous we all open our mouths in amazement.

“So then what did you do?” Emma’s looking horrified.

“Well, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean after all, this guy’s thirty-nine, I assumed he had to know what he was doing so we went to bed. But he didn’t, he didn’t have a clue.”

“What do you mean? You think he’s a virgin?”

“I really think he might be.” Her voice lowers as she prepares to confide the intimate details. “I got undressed, and he lay on the bed and he started kneading my breasts as if they were lumps of dough.”

“No nipple rolling then?” Yup, me again.

“No, far from it, he ignored the nipples completely. He just kept kneading away and I was lying there getting more and more bored. Then,” she pauses for dramatic effect, “then he moved down my body and I thought, this is better, at least I’ll get some oral sex out of it, but he didn’t seem to know what he was doing.”

“So you did have oral sex?” Emma, despite being the most prudish of all of us on the surface, is not so different underneath.

“No, he sort of knelt between my legs and fumbled at my crotch, but he didn’t actually seem to do anything, he didn’t seem to know where anything was.”

“Didn’t you show him?”

“I thought about it, but I decided it was too much hard work, and I should just lie there and let him get it over and done with.”

“So then what happened?”

“Well, this is the worst part. He knelt there fumbling for ages, and I just lay there with my eyes closed, feeling as if I was having a medical examination, and eventually, after about five minutes he whispered, ‘Andy?’ And I whispered back, ‘Yes?’ And he said, ‘Are you asleep?’ ”

We all screamed with laughter, at the notion of Andy, Andy who is normally so rapacious, being so inert with boredom her partner thought she had fallen asleep in the middle of foreplay.

“That’s how bloody bored I was, can you believe it?”

We start a fresh round of sex stories. Each of us has the worst experience of our life to share with the others, and then, when we have all spoken, we start a fresh round, more memories, more laughter. We stay there, heads huddled together round the table, speaking softly, then moving apart to wipe the tears of laughter from our eyes, for a very long time.

I leave a message on Andrew’s machine. A message that sounds professional, friendly, and cool. “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow, my friend Andy is having a barbecue and I thought you might like to come. It starts at around three, and her address is bottom bell, 15 Queens Gardens. Hopefully see you there.”

I love Sundays. I love the feeling of waking up in the morning and knowing that there’s nothing to get up for. I don’t even mind being alone on a Sunday, not being able to reach out and stroke the man I love.

My typical Sunday? I wake up early, always, and call Harvey and Stanley over for a big cuddle. Harvey’s a big softie, happy for me to tickle his tummy while purring big deep grumbles of love. Stanley’s a bit more independent. Stanley likes to be near me, hates missing out on any of the action, but try to pick him up and he’ll run for cover.

So after our group love-in, or rather my love-in with Harvey while Stanley plays voyeur, I stumble out of bed in my nightdress, sling a coat on top, and walk down the road to buy the Sunday papers.

Every time I do this I thank God I’m not famous. Jesus, if I was Annalise, the tabloids would be falling over themselves to capture me like this.
BLONDE BOMBSHELL BECOMES BAG LADY
I suspect the caption would run. Looking the way I look right now I’d have to opt for homeless.

The papers I buy are always the same—
The Sunday Times
and the
News of the World
. Occasionally, if there’s a story I’ve been following for the show, I’ll buy all of them and frantically skim the relevant bits. But usually it’s just the two, and, walking back along the road to my flat, I hug them to my chest to stop my braless breasts getting too excited.

And back to bed with toast and occasionally a boiled egg. I eat in bed while reading, first
Sunday
magazine, then the
News of the World
, then the Style section, then the magazine—Zoe Heller, my heroine—and then the News Review.

Today I can’t concentrate though, today’s the day I’m going to see Andrew so I give the rest of the paper a quick glance, even though I can’t really be bothered, and then the clock tells me it’s time to get ready. It’s 1:24 and I promised Andy I’d help her with the food. Yesterday afternoon I made a huge salad with roasted peppers and asparagus, and now, pulling it out of the fridge, I add the finishing touches with some fresh parmesan. Next to it is a bowl of potato salad, mixed with
crème fraîche
and mayonnaise and sprinkled with parsley and chives, and I stop at the deli on the way over and pick up some fresh, hot baguettes.

I battle up the path to Andy’s, trying to balance the bread on the bowl on the other bowl, and just as I’m thinking shit, the whole thing’s going to go flying, Andy opens the front door and comes whizzing out to help me. She’s already high as a kite on the excitement of a party, albeit a barbecue during the day, and she flits around her tiny kitchen putting the finishing touches on the food and crisply snapping plastic wrap on before taking the bowls into the garden.

“You’re not wearing that, are you?” I say, looking at her uncharacteristic tracksuit bottoms and graying T-shirt.

“God no!” she laughs. “Are you mad? I’ve got the perfect little number upstairs that I bought yesterday, I just didn’t want to get it dirty. I’ll go up and change in a minute.”

“What about a quick drink before you do?” I look slyly at her, knowing that however much time it will take her to expertly apply her face, she’ll never turn down the offer of a drink.

I proffer a bottle of white wine but she shakes her head before whirling around the kitchen opening cupboard doors, looking for something.

“Pimms, Pimms, we need a Pimms,” she says, finally locating the bottle she bought earlier that week.

We sit there and toast one another. “Here’s to summer,” she says. “To summer. And to handsome men.” We sit there, each thinking of the next one. “To true love,” I say. “To true love,” she echoes. “To passion,” I say, and she laughs and nods her head, echoing loudly and firmly, “To passion!” and we both take big long swigs.

The food is on the table, every available chair has been dragged out into the garden and Andy has proved to be handy with a barbecue which has just caught light, the flames leaping high above the grills. From the stereo perched on the windowsill the Gypsy Kings fill the air, and summer has finally arrived.