Young Wives' Tales (21 page)

‘My friends think I was in lust,’she says. Her voice sounds unfamiliar, she’s breathing too shallowly.

‘You’ve never been one to bend to peer pressure,’I point out, digging deeper and complimenting her independence of spirit at the same time. Connie is vain and responds as I hoped.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘So?’

She waits and waits. About a million years, then, ‘Yes. I was in love with you.’

Now she can meet my eye. The words are out. The truth is out. She’s staring at me now, challenging. Waiting for my response. I don’t say anything, so she goes on.

‘I was deeply in love with you for a very short time. I experienced the whole shebang. I could not sleep, or eat, or work.’She says these things very slowly. Normally she speaks too quickly, gabbling her words. But she wants to be as plain and clear as possible. Her chest rises and falls. ‘You were my waking thought, my last thought; you filled all the moments in between and my dreams. For a brief time there was nothing I would not have done for you, including perhaps leaving my husband.’I believe her. ‘You talked about fate earlier, John, and you are right, I do believe in fate. You were supposed to come into my life. You changed everything. You woke me up. I was sleepwalking until Paris. I was
living a half life. Not seeing what I had. Not knowing what I wanted.’

I’ve heard it all before, but never from these lips and as I watch her lips (pink, plump and wet) tip out this confession my cock stirs, almost shudders. And more unusual yet, there’s a tightening in my chest. I wonder whether I should kiss her. I watch her lips move. Temptingly. Tauntingly? What’s she saying now?

‘But that was then and this is now. You completely destroyed what I felt. I’m not in love with you any more and I never will be again.’

She stares at me with the gaze of one who owns an uncomplicated soul. Where has her tortured soul gone? When did she work everything out? When did she still the longings and find the answers? Why haven’t I yet? A wave of excitement begins to slosh over me. It starts at my toes and seems to swell and build until, by the time it rises to my chest, it overpowers me.

I watch Connie gather up her bag. She fishes out some notes from her purse and leaves them on the bar, insisting that this bottle of champers is on her. She walks out of the bar with the jaunty step of a free woman. She thinks she has just closed a chapter. She’s finally had the opportunity to say her piece after it festering for years. She thinks she’s just got even. She’s generous enough to be happy that she’s paid me the compliment and I’m that bit closer to knowing and understanding her. Women have complicated thoughts like that. And she’s thrilled that now it’s all over.

But she’s wrong.

By admitting she was in love with me, she has not slammed shut the door and drawn the bolt, as was her intention. Instead, she’s just pushed the door ajar. Opportunity scuttles in like a determined cockroach.

If she was once in love with me, she can be in love with me again. And now, for the first time in a long time, I know what I want. What I need. What I must have. Connie.

‘We should go on holiday,’says Peter.

There, that’s why I love him. He knows me so well. He’s always with me. No, he’s a step ahead of me. A holiday is just what we need.

‘Alone,’I say. I’m trying to remember when we last got away alone and I mean truly alone, without nannies or Auriol, or the twins or even a BlackBerry. Peter has wandered through to the bathroom and is splashing water on his face to remove the day’s grime. He clearly hasn’t heard me.

He says, ‘Auriol will love it.’

Fuck what Auriol will love. Auriol would love staying at home with Eva if we left her enough DVDs and Smarties. I realize that this would be a terrible thing to say to Peter so I try another tack.

‘Do you remember the Maldives?’I call through to the bathroom.

‘Oh God, yes, it was beautiful there. I loved the Maldives.’

We went a year before Auriol was born. We stayed
at the Banyan Tree. It was beautiful, relaxed, spoiling and sophisticated. I spent the entire holiday wearing skimpy bikini bottoms and not much else. That was when cellulite was still something that only other women had to worry about.

Peter re-emerges from the en-suite, sits on the edge of the bed and takes off his socks; he starts to cut his toenails. I hate it when he does this in the bedroom. I’ve spent a great deal of time and effort creating a love haven but no amount of chocolate velvet throws, walnut floorboards and slate-grey lacquer consoles can battle against the reality of treading on toenail clippings. It’s a passion-killer, no questions. Before we married I never saw him cut his toenails. Or sniff his armpits. Or scratch his bollocks. Or check for dandruff. He had standards. I push this extremely irritating line of thought to the back of my head and try to concentrate on wangling the holiday I desire. At all costs I must avoid a week at the middle-class equivalent of Butlins, an all-inclusive break at Center Parcs
en famille
.

I kneel behind him on the bed and wrap my arms around his neck. I’m wearing matching Agent Provocateur bra and pants and a short silk wrap – he must have noticed. If he hasn’t, he certainly will when the Visa statement arrives.

‘It was so hot in the Maldives, I hardly had to pack a thing,’I whisper into his ear.

Peter thinks about it and then a slow smile stretches across his face. He’s taken the bait and chosen a jaunt down Memory Lane. No doubt he is remembering
undoing the side ties of my bikini bottoms with his teeth, as we made love on the private beach our rooms backed on to. Men are very simple.

I start to nibble his ear. I can almost hear the sea lapping the shore as I remember his kisses. Back then, they still varied in intensity, hastening from dreamy to devilish. Nowadays kissing stays pretty neutral; I sometimes have to remind him to use his tongue. And we didn’t worry about the sand getting in uncomfortable places, or being spotted, or being bitten by mosquitoes. In those days we never worried about anything much. If I close my eyes now I can almost feel his careful caress, the exciting frisson. In the Maldives we made love on the beach, in the hotel room and on the veranda and we made honest love. We honestly made love.

I clearly remember Peter confidently and expertly easing me from one position to the next, leaving me feeling fragile and cherished, while making him appear vigorous and robust; a cliché but a delicious one. Of course he was stronger then, no sign of a paunch. In those days he dared to confidently drag his T-shirt over his head in one, swift, practised movement. Now he’s more likely to want to turn off the light; he often sleeps in pyjamas.

God, I feel hot just thinking about how it used to be. Remembering him and how he used to be. I wish he’d stop cutting his toenails and just turn to me and cup my breast in the cool, confident way he used to. I wouldn’t even make him wash his hands, despite the
fact that he’s been touching his feet. I just long for his fingers to wander over my body again, to find the hottest place between my legs and to push upwards to reclaim me, to reignite me.

I start to kiss his neck. Sod the holiday; we can talk about that later. What I need now is Peter. My Peter, the one who anticipates where I’d like to be touched next and knows the exact pressure I’d like him to apply. I need him to make me grunt, and growl, and moan.

Suddenly Peter is kissing my lips. And I mean kissing. He pushes hard, sensing my urgency and the fact that, in this instance, I want a certain amount of authority from him. He pushes me back on to the bed and climbs astride me. He pulls my robe apart and sits back to admire the view.

‘You are so sexy,’he mutters.

Finally, the penny has dropped. Yes, I am. He’d do well to remember as much and I don’t just mean once a fortnight. I pull his face back down to mine and start to kiss him again. I gently chew his lips and probe with my tongue. I feel his cock solid against my body. He’s clearly eager to go. I’m tempted to ask him to simply ride me hard and now. I so want to feel him inside me again, it’s been far too long, but I resist. I tantalize to increase his longing and mine. I want to please. To be desired. To desire and then to fuck.

His kisses sear my lips – each one dissolves a jot of resentment or tension between us. I feel myself falling into the moment and it’s a glorious moment. I close my eyes and my mind and open my legs. I feel my limbs
stretch and flex, ready to push and pull and fuel desire. I can smell my own cum. It smells fantastic. Raw and brave and young. It smells like chances and our history and the future.

He licks, strokes and eventually strikes with the exact precision to leave me gasping, grateful, powerless, powerful. Sex, when executed correctly, can be the most complex contradiction; a daily mystery. We ride firm and fast and then change gear to luxuriate in the lust. I cling to him. Like a monkey, I wrap my legs tightly around his waist. We roll on our sheets, over and over and over again. Our limbs become tangled as we grab and grasp at one another, desperate to consume one another, to gorge and to satiate. Sweat runs down his back and slips between his buttocks, making his skin look like the luminous treasure I know it to be. I chase the stream with my pointed tongue. I come again and again. And with each delicious wave of ecstasy the weeks of frustration are forgotten and the gap between us is washed away.

He howls and then falls off me.

See, we can still do it with style and meaning.

I wish this hadn’t been my first thought.

Peter beams at me. I try to focus, something I struggle with if I orgasm violently. ‘So I should book us all a holiday?’

‘Yes,’I agree, with a broad grin. Men are so simple.

The school hall is, as usual, horribly cold and draughty. There are six mothers gathered in the hall; as we chat to one another our breath billows in the air. Lyn Finch jokes that we look like a gang of dragons. We, the class reps who make up the Parents’Association, always arrive earlier than the governors. I suppose the businessmen and the vicar are busier with more important things to attend to, or at least they like to give that impression. The majority of class reps are the type of mums that have not been able or not wanted to go out of the home to work and can no longer remember when something could be considered more important than these meetings and all that they represent.

Mr Walker, bless him, always tries to be on time, preferring to throw his lot in with the mums, rather than the men, on the committee. We’re all particularly fond of him because of this consideration and many others. Today when he bustles into the freezing hall, clapping his hands together in an attempt to keep warm, I hardly recognize him. He’s had his hair cut. He now
wears a style which suits him and adds to his attractiveness, whereas before his hair fulfilled a more functional role – it gave his hat a target.

‘Mr Walker’s wearing new clothes,’whispers Lyn Finch.

He’s got rid of his hacking jacket with the patches on the elbows and has ditched the brown cords. He’s wearing French Connection trousers and a Ted Baker top.

‘He must have a girlfriend,’she adds.

‘Why do you say that?’I ask. I’m irritated. How come Mr Walker can just waltz out and get himself a new partner when I’m failing miserably? Life is easier for men. Fact.

‘Well, he’s rather lovely, isn’t he? Very kind, great smile. I’d imagine lots of women would class him as quite a catch, except his dress sense used to be dire and gave the impression that he collected model aeroplanes. Some bright young woman has spotted his potential and realized that clothes do make the man – all she had to do to upgrade him was pop to High Street Kensington.’

I don’t like Lyn Finch’s line of thinking. Mr Walker’s girlfriend shouldn’t be trying to alter him – he’s perfectly lovely as he is. Why do people have to go around changing things? Haircuts? Clothes? Marital status? Why can’t people leave well alone?

‘Is it just me, or is it cold in here?’asks Mr Walker.

‘It is a bit nippy,’I confirm.

‘How old do you think he is?’whispers Lyn.

‘I don’t know – thirty-three, thirty-five at tops.’

‘He always sounds like someone’s dad. “Is it me or is it cold in here?”’she mimics. ‘I bet he’s the sort of man who always asks about parking before he goes anywhere and he probably has a shed.’

I always ask about parking before I go anywhere and I have a shed, so I don’t understand Lyn’s point.

‘The Vicar, Mr Jones and Mr Watkinson have all sent their apologies. I wonder, without them, can we squeeze into my office? It’s much warmer there,’says Mr Walker.

‘Are you being rude about the size of the gentlemen’s girths, Mr Walker?’asks Lyn. She can’t resist teasing him.

I think she ought to have more respect. He’s young, yes, but he is the headmaster. Besides, with this new haircut he finally looks more manly. It’s not that the haircut has aged him – it’s more that it’s unearthed a new presence that presumably was there all along but hidden under the bowl-cut, circa 1979.

Presence aside, Mr Walker blushes. ‘No, no, of course not.’

The governors are extraordinarily fat. They look like characters from a Charles Dickens novel; the sort who run orphanages on a shoestring and gobble the profits.

‘You must call me Craig, at these meetings. Mr Walker is so formal.’

‘Righto, Craig,’laughs Lyn. ‘You can call me Mrs Finch.’

Poor Mr Walker. He blushes again but marches us all out of the hall towards his office, with something akin to grim determination. He
is
young to hold such a position. When he was appointed a number of parents tested his resolve. They questioned his decisions on everything from uniform, to timetable changes, to the shape of the sports day trophy. The general belief was that he had to show he could keep the parents in check, because if not, how could he be expected to handle the children’s backchat? It was all rather exhausting and depressing to watch until it became clear that somehow Mr Walker does manage everything quite nicely. And now the parents are all fond and proud of him.