The Whiskerly Sisters (14 page)

When Celia's wound had been fully examined, appropriately soothed and properly bandaged, Tiffany decided to go next and told the group the sordid story of her humiliation at the hands of Fat Taff. Fresna's secret came out next and it seemed that each of the women had a story to tell; a story of injustice or victimisation, hurt or outrage, the inevitable baggage of misdirected choice. Only Bex and Sly stayed quiet, feeling no need to contribute, both choosing to remain slightly aloof, listening intently and revealing little about themselves as was their habit.

Still, something amazing was unfolding. As each woman began to open up and reveal a little about her situation, her past or her vulnerability, the bond between the little group who met in the bar after class began to blossom. The dynamics were changing even as they spoke so that the power of one became the power of eight and the possibilities were endless.

The Whiskerly Sisters had been born.

“Oh my god, it's happened to all of us. We've been shafted. Every one of us,” declared Tiffany, although that was not quite true.

“You're right,” replied Fresna.

“In a variety of different ways, mind you,” added Tiffany, trying for clarity.

“Is it us do you think?” asked Izza. “Are we giving out something – you know – like negative vibes?”

“Don't be daft, Izza. Of course, we're not. It's just a coincidence,” replied Charley.

“No such thing,” retorted Jax, disagreeing.

“It's just that shit happens,” added Celia.

“Mmm maybe so, but it seems to me that most of us get to be standing right under the bucket when it gets poured out and I for one am getting mightily fed up with it,” said Charley.

“Me too,” agreed Tiffany, “but what are we going to do about it?”

“What can we do?” asked Izza.

“Buy an enormous umbrella and crowd under it?” suggested Sly, making them all laugh.

“I know what I'd like to do to Patrick,” remarked Celia with a sour look on her face. “Cut off his balls and feed them to the fish in the foyer.”

“Ouch,” said Sly, drawing his legs up under him and protecting his groin with both hands. “Bit harsh!”

“Sorry,” offered Celia. “There are some decent men in the world – it's just that he isn't one of them.”

“Damn right,” declared Jax. “You're being way too soft on the bastard.”

“Yeah, so take his dick off too,” giggled Izza.

“And hang him out to dry on top of CenterPoint,” added Fresna. At this point, the girls had to stop and laugh at Sly, who had got down from his chair and was trying to take cover under the table.

“I surrender,” he cried, “and I'm claiming the Fifth Amendment.”

“Not you, you goose,” said Charley, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him back up into his chair. Any excuse for a little physical activity with the adorable man.

“I'd enjoy taking Fat Taff down a peg or two,” mused Tiffany. “Not that I've seen hide nor hair of him since I left and, since I hope never to see the arsehole's ugly face again, I guess I'll just have to suck on it.”

“Eew, that is not a good image,” said Sly, who had been persuaded back into his seat.

“What isn't” asked Tiffany, confused.

“Sucking on the arsehole's ugly face, darling,” came the languid reply.

“Oh shut up,” she replied and hit Sly lightly on the arm, much to the annoyance of Charley, who believed he was her territory.

“I guess we all will,” said Izza hopelessly.

“All will what?” asked her mother.

“Der! Have to suck on it. Like she said,” replied Izza.

“There must be something we can do,” said Celia. “I couldn't live with myself if I let Patrick get away with this. The bastard lied to me – straight faced lied to me and he damn well knows it.”

“And I am not for one second going to let the gooneys next door get away with setting me up and laughing at me,” Charley added fiercely.

“But what can we do?” asked Tiffany, frowning.

It was at this point that Bex, who had barely said a word all evening, sat up very straight in her chair, took a very deep breath and replied, “Subversion. It's the obvious answer.”

“Subversion?” enquired Charley. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about getting your own back. Going in under the wire. Guerrilla warfare if you like,” replied Bex with spirit.

“Guerrilla warfare? Where are we – sodding Mozambique?” asked Celia.

“Joined the ANC have we?” mocked Tiffany.

“What? You mean combat trousers and blacking our faces with boot polish and crawling around on our stomachs with frigging machine guns?” suggested Celia. “Are you insane?”

“If that's what it takes,” asserted Bex. The girls looked at each other in amazement. What had happened to their mild-mannered, serene friend?

“Oh goodie,” interjected Sly, clapping his hands together and breaking the mood. “I know just where to get the uniforms.”

“Cool,” said Izza practically. “I'm game. When do we start?”

“And just what the Holy Mary do you know about guerrilla warfare, Bex?” asked Celia, her voice rising with incredulity.

“You'd be surprised,” replied Bex and there was something in her voice that made everyone shut up. For the second time that evening, several pairs of surprised eyes were fixed on one single member of the group.

“You know about guerrilla warfare?” asked Jax. “What from a book or the Open University or something?” she added, doubting her friend.

“You are taking the piss,” decided Celia, although not quite with her usual force, “aren't you?” and her voice wavered a little with uncertainty.

“Actually, I'm not,” replied Bex firmly and sitting up even straighter. “If you must know, I am in fact something of an expert on the subject.”

It was at this point that Bex opened up and allowed her friends a glimpse into the secret side of her nature and it transpired that she was right – when it came to guerrilla warfare, Bex was indeed something of a seasoned campaigner.

L
ike so many things, it had started out as a tiny, tiny nugget of an idea, a whisper of a notion, a fleeting thought, but it had blossomed. As the proverbial acorn grows into the study oak, branch by branch, stem by steam, leaf by leaf – just one hundredth of a millimetre at a time until, one day, Bex realised that this thing was enormous and had grown out of all proportion until it had become part of the fabric of her life. In some ways, whilst it was way beyond acceptable, it was, to her at least, really quite ordinary. Not worth thinking about really, just something she did routinely such as putting out the recycling or plumping up the cushions, which of course it wasn’t. Anything but.

It had started almost insignificantly as these things do. Malcolm had had a particularly bad day at the office. Revolution was in the air and, although he was supposed to head up the small, yet dynamic Transformation Team and take responsibility for ensuring effective change within the business, Malcolm actually loathed change. As a creature of almost unalterable routine and habit, anything even slightly different unsettled him, made him feel upset, even agitated and Malcolm couldn’t bear feeling that kind of discomfort. There was no way he could express this at work where he had to put his best foot forward, seize the day, embrace the challenge and all the rest of the rag, tag and bobtail bullshit rhetoric his boss enjoyed shoving down his throat. So Malcolm did the next best thing.

He kicked the cat. Not that Malcolm and Bex owned a cat. Jesus Christ no – think of all that unwanted fur on the back of the sofa or the unsightly vision of half eaten cat food strewn across the parquet flooring or, god forbid, the height of all things disgusting, a soiled litter tray. Mr A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place Tidy Shorts couldn’t have dealt with that, shouldn’t have to in fact. So the cat he kicked was Bex. He had done it many times before and it always worked. It made him feel better. He didn’t enquire as to how it made Bex feel. He simply kicked. Job done.

On the evening in question, he found fault with the tidiness of the towels in the linen cupboard, complained about the consistency of the sauce Bex had spent hours slaving over and admonished her over her somewhat unkempt appearance. All this was done in a calm, patronising tone. He tisked and he tutted; he hummed and he hawed; he fussed and he whinged. He got under his wife’s feet and up her nose. He behaved as though he was being perfectly reasonable, totally justified and completely objective when all the time he was being a perfect idiot, a total prat and a complete tosser.

After complaining mightily about dinner, but managing somehow to devour all of it, he dabbed his napkin over his moustache, requested a cup of ground coffee and retired self-satisfied to the lounge to watch the news, oblivious to the upset he had caused yet content to have transferred his anxiety onto another.

As Bex swallowed a sigh and rose to fill the kettle, it crossed her mind that it might be enormous fun to add some ex-lax to the brew to pay him back for his putdowns. Not a lot, of course, just enough to perhaps give him an eensy teensy tummy ache. She killed the thought almost as soon as it arose, horrified with herself. Acutely aware of her disloyalty to the marital breadwinner, she quickly ran upstairs to tidy herself up and to change into something a little less comfortable before nipping back to the kitchen to pour a perfectly perked cup of his favourite Columbian brand. Contrite, she served it to him alongside a couple of home-made macaroons, her specialty. Malcolm accepted her offering with a grunt of dismissal, failing to notice either her change of appearance or her culinary attentions to detail, being totally engrossed in a trailer about painting the Firth of Forth Bridge. Bex, still feeling guilty, returned to the dining room to clear the debris and then scurried mouse-like to the linen cupboard to give it a thorough sorting.

It was only in the quiet of her bedroom after midnight that her thoughts disturbingly meandered once again towards the subject of laxatives and, although she tried hard to dismiss them, to think other less alluring thoughts, time and time again, over successive pre-dawn awakenings, her imagination refused to be diverted, but stubbornly forced her to explore the delicious, far away horizons of payback time. She fantasised about adding a variety of substances to Malcolm’s coffee – garden rubbish (too bulky), bleach (too smelly), shampoo (too frothy), something next door’s cat had been playing with. Stop it! But she couldn’t. Passive aggression will have its way. It was delightful, it was fun, it was simply irresistible and Bex was hooked.

Over the next few weeks, Bex began a little scientific experimentation. Naturally, the first thing she tried was her original idea – a little ex-lax in Malcolm’s after dinner coffee. It failed to have any effect because Bex, feeling scared and anxious, could only bring herself to put the tip of a spoonful into an entire cafetiere. She spent the rest of the evening feeling so bad about what she’d done that she had to retire to bed early, complaining of a headache. Not a very good start.

Over time, however, she began to gain confidence and gradually grew bolder until, eventually, she got a result. Malcolm phoned her from the office just before lunch, complaining of a dickey tummy and asked her to drive round to the factory with some Milk of Magnesia. Covertly, mind you! She wasn’t to be seen marching into the building with a bottle of medicine in her hand. She had to pretend she was just passing and had popped in to see if Malcolm was free to take her to lunch. As if! Bex could barely contain her excitement. Her tiny addition to the cornflakes had worked. Grabbing her coat and the required remedy, she hurried to catch the bus. And guess what she added to the milky white remedy before she left. Oh yes, she did.

And so it began. A sprinkle of hoover dust in the jalfrezi, a splash of washing up liquid in the steak and kidney pie, a trickle of glue in the syrup pudding.

And then it continued. A couple of squirts of carpet cleaner in the sauce au poivre, cat food and pickle sandwiches for lunch, a pair of sweaty socks included in a marinade.

And then she graduated. A teaspoon of spit in the coffee, a little bit of shit in the spaghetti bolognaise, a globule or two of snot in the gravy.

Bex became quite the little womble, gathering here, collecting there, judicious in her choices, eager to try out an alternative recipe or two, to pepper up the menu, to spice up her life and to give Malcolm a thorough taste of her spleen. Being a long time vegetarian, Bex was easily able to pass over her adulterated meals and, since she was always watching her weight, preferring to eat either yoghurt or fruit for dessert, it was no problem for her to add a little unexpected variety to Malcolm’s puddings.

Growing increasingly daring, she turned her attention to Malcolm’s laundry. A little dash of itching powder applied to the heel of his socks or the collar of his shirt or even to the crotch of his underpants and he was sure to be scratching himself surreptitiously.