Simply Heaven (27 page)

I raise a hand in farewell. ‘Listen, you guys. It’s been real.’

Six pairs of eyes study me.

Eventually, Derek speaks. ‘It’s been nice meeting you, Mrs Wattestone.’

The place stays unsettlingly quiet as we make our way out into the car park, Fifi grumbling along in our wake like a disgruntled vacuum cleaner. Then as we pass a window on our way to the car, I catch the sound of a great gust of laughter. It sounds as though the people inside have been holding their breaths until we have gone.

Neither of us says anything until we’re both settled in our seats, and the car doors are firmly shut.

Then Rufus says: ‘Jesus bloody Christ on a bike.’

And I say: ‘What do you bloody
mean
, Jesus bloody Christ on a bike? It should be bloody me that’s bloody saying that.’

Call me quick on the uptake, but I have a feeling that our first marital row is about to kick off. I knew the harmony would be too good to last.

‘Why did you have to go to the pub, of all places?’ he asks.

‘Where did you want me to go? Did you want me to walk to bloody
London
before I got out of the rain?’

‘No,’ he says, in that infuriatingly patronising tone that men reserve for speaking to women in, ‘but you didn’t have to …’

‘Didn’t have to
what
?’

‘Well …’

‘Don’t you bloody ‘well’ me, mate. I’m not the one who didn’t bloody notice I was missing for
five bloody hours
. I could have frozen to
death
out there.’

‘I don’t think so,’ says Rufus. ‘Why didn’t you just go to the house, for God’s sake? And what the bloody hell was that message all about? You’ve got some mouth on you, do you know that?’

‘You know what? I was pissed off.’

‘
You
were pissed off? How do you think
I
felt, coming home to a stream of abuse?’

‘Well, how do you think I felt? You left me sitting on Moreton station for
two bloody hours
!’

Our voices are rising as the exchange progresses. ‘Well, how was
I
meant to know you were there? Osmosis? I mean. It’s all very well changing your plans, but you can’t just expect … why the hell didn’t you call?’

‘I did!’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah! Your mother, she didn’t—’

He cuts across me, stops me in my tracks. Just for a second it’s like being slapped in the face. ‘No you didn’t! There’s not a single message on my phone before your bloody stream of dirtymouth.’

‘You weren’t bloody
answering
, idiot.’

‘Well, I wasn’t expecting you to suddenly come home twenty-four hours early, was I?’

‘I didn’t have a lot of choice. Welcome I got from Hilary would have turned you grey overnight.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, first he was rude to me, and then he suddenly started coming on to me. I wouldn’t have felt safe sleeping in the same house.’

‘
Hilary?
’

‘Yeah. Hilary.’

‘But Hilary’s as bent as a nine-bob note!’

‘Well, for a gay man he certainly did a good impression of someone with his hand on my tit.’

‘You are
kidding
me. You don’t seriously—’

‘Who are you going to believe? Me, or him?’

‘It’s just that … come on, Mel. It’s not exactly something you’d have on your likely list, is it? Are you
sure
you weren’t … misinterpreting …’

‘No! Fuck! Thanks for the show of support.’

‘Well, we’ll have to see about that. I don’t know what to make of it. But honestly, even if it
did
happen …’

‘It did.’

‘OK. Whatever. But why on earth didn’t you call someone and let them know you were coming back?’

I fold my arms and let out a noise that’s somewhere in the region of a ‘huurngh!’ ‘I did!’ I continue. ‘Your bloody mother said she’d pass the bloody message on!’

‘Don’t swear about my mother.’

‘I’ve got every right to swear about your mother. She’s the one who dumped me on some bloody station in the middle of bloody nowhere.’

‘What on earth,’ he asks, ‘do you think you’re going to achieve by lying about it?’

‘I’m not bloody lying!’

‘Well, it may not be lying where
you
come from …’

‘What’s
that
supposed to mean?’

He just pulls a face.

‘Love it,’ I say. ‘Love the ’tude.’

He turns the key in the ignition, slams the car into first. ‘Let’s just go home,’ he says, ‘I’m not in the mood …’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I say sarcastically, ‘
you’re
not in the mood.’

We take off, showering gravel behind us.

We swish through the gates and, heading down the drive, he speaks again. ‘And another thing,’ he says.

‘Oh, right. Here we go.’

He ignores me. ‘What I don’t understand. If you could make it to the village, why on earth couldn’t you come down to the house?’

‘Rufus,
listen
. I called your mother and told her I was coming back. And then no-one came and picked me up, so I had to find a taxi. But when I got down to the house, it was all locked up. No-one came to the door, and all the lights were off.’

I catch a glimpse of his face in moonlight. It’s slack with astonishment, disbelief. ‘Oh, come
on
.’

‘
Listen!
’

‘Melody, you’re talking
bollocks
.’

It’s my turn to be flooded with disbelief. ‘Why would I do
that
?’

‘I don’t know,’ he snaps. ‘I don’t have the foggiest fucking idea.’

I’m devastated. ‘So I’m a liar, is that it?’

‘You’re – n’well …’

‘You
bastard
!’

‘Well, I don’t know, Melody. What am I supposed to think?’

‘You’re supposed to believe me! Why don’t you believe me?’

‘Because it doesn’t make any sense!’

‘Of
course
it bloody doesn’t! I
know
it bloody doesn’t!’

‘Do you have to bloody swear so much?’

‘Yes I bloody well do!’

We subside into resentful silence. The house comes into view: lights on all over; on the ground floor and the second. The back yard is lit up like a football pitch by the security lights fixed to the upper walls.

‘Mummy says they’ve been in all evening,’ he says.

‘Well,
Mummy
–’ I emphasise the word with all the contempt in my body – ‘is lying.’

Again he shakes his head. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.

‘I could have broken my leg out there,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t you give a damn?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Look, arsehole! I had to walk all the way up here in the dark!’

‘Don’t
use
that word.’

‘Arsehole.’ I repeat. Then, overcome by my inner child, I say, ‘Arsehole, arsehole, arsehole,’ for good measure.

‘Jesus,’ he says, ‘do you have to be such a pain?’

So I pinch him. Not very hard, and on the upper arm, but enough to make him gasp and slam on the brakes.

‘What the
fuck
did you do that for?’

He rubs his arm and looks at me with a heart-wrenching combination of surprise and reproach. ‘Ow.’

Having been on the edge off giving him the gobful to end all gobfuls, I find myself, instead, covered in mortification. I never thought anyone would push me to that point again. I swore I was done with that sort of behaviour after Andy. I thought I’d learned my lesson. What’m I doing here? Leading by example?

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

He rubs the assaulted arm again, though this time in more of a point-making fashion than anything else. I didn’t pinch him
that
hard. ‘So you bloody well should be. What do you want to do next? Black my eye?’

‘I’m sorry. I am really sorry, darling. But you weren’t listening to me, and—’

‘So you bash people for not listening to you?’

‘Not as a rule, as it goes.’

‘By the way,’ he says accusingly, reaching across me. ‘I found your passport and your driving licence. They were in the glove pocket.’

‘What were they doing there?’

His voice has gone quiet. I don’t like it. ‘I don’t know, Melody. Maybe
Hilary
put them there.’

‘WHAT?’

He reins himself in. ‘Sorry. That was uncalled for. But you must have put them there and forgotten about it or something.’

‘Of
course
I didn’t.’

‘Well, you seem to have forgotten to call and let anyone know your travel plans.’

‘Oh, Jesus. This is
impossible
.’

‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘It is.’

‘Look, I—’

‘No, look!’ He’s snarling at me, now. ‘It’s not all
about
you, Melody! Not everything in the world is
about you!
’

‘Oh, forget it!’ I snarl back.

‘Right!’

‘Yeah! Right!’

He slams the car back into gear, and drives on. The silence is overwhelming, the gulf between us so huge it gives me vertigo. I want to cry, want to howl at the moon. This isn’t the way it’s meant to be. We’re meant to be adults. We’re meant to talk things out, not shriek and snap like feral dogs.

After a hundred metres, I say: ‘Rufus, can we start this again?’

He heaves a sigh. ‘Yes. Of course. I’m just – really confused.’

‘So am I.’

‘They’ve been in all evening. Mummy says she didn’t hear a thing.’

‘Well she’s—’ I just stop myself from renewing my accusation. ‘Maybe she needs to get her ears tested.’

‘Maybe,’ he says. Then, as an olive branch: ‘It must have been horrid for you.’

‘Yeah, it was. It’s really – creepy here by yourself.’

‘Yuh. Yuh, I should think it is. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have left you if I’d known.’

‘I know you wouldn’t,’ I tell him.

He puts a hand on my knee. I pat his arm.

‘But please don’t pinch me again.’

‘I won’t. I promise.’

‘OK.’

I give it a two-beat pause, then: ‘I’ll smack your arse for you if you like.’

He laughs, and the atmosphere in the car lightens.

‘They do call it the English vice.’

‘Don’t push it, Mrs.’

‘Push it? That’s a new one on me.’

‘I was really worried about you, you know. I didn’t know what had happened.’

‘You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve been looking after myself for a bit now.’

‘Yes, but … seriously, it would have been a bit bloody embarrassing …’

‘I can see that. Yeah, I can see that it might be a bit embarrassing, telling people you’d lost your
wife
…’

‘Nothing like,’ he says, ‘as embarrassing as finding her in the pub.’

‘What’s the problem with the pub, anyway?’

‘They gossip.’

‘Oh dear.
Gossip
. That’ll be the end of the world, then.’

‘From some points of view.’

‘Oh, Jesus, Rufus. So people fill their time in with a bit of talk. Seriously. What does it matter?’

‘I don’t know. People can get their lives ruined by gossip.’

‘I know that. But I just went to a pub and had a couple of beers.’

‘Mmm. People like us … we don’t … women don’t … you know.’

‘People
like us
?’

‘Yes. That’s what you are now. If you want to fit in.’

‘Hmm. Rufus, do I detect a smidge of snobbery?’

‘Not at—’

‘I dunno. If you guys won’t admit you’ve got a caste system, how on earth am I going to avoid the tripwires?’

Typical Englishman. He clams up.

‘Seriously, Rufus. I’m going to need help.’

‘Yes, and then you’ll accuse me of being a snob if I give you any advice.’

Touché
.

The stableyard comes up on our left. I have to think fast. If I pursue my current line, we’ll have nothing sorted out by the time we get back and we’ll be going into the thick of it still at odds with each other. And maybe … I don’t know. Now I’m even starting to doubt myself. No. I can’t have made that sort of mistake. But if that’s so, the only obvious reason would be that someone is trying to create discord between Rufus and me. And if these women are as possessive and rigid as Nessa says, the last thing I need is for seeds of doubt to be sown in his mind.

It’s going to be a case of winkling him out. And you know how it is with winkles. Grab on and pull, and they’ll hang on to their bit of rockface like they’re welded. The only way to get a winkle off a rock is to slide your blade in there, slowly, slowly, so they don’t notice you’re doing it. And once you’re firmly in there, embedded beneath the suckers, all it takes is a twist and a wrist-flick to get them free.

I’ll put it another way: softly softly catchee monkey.

Or another: if you’ve got a great white circling you, you’d be well advised not to splash about too much.

It’s better, I think, if I make my peace now and live to fight another day. ‘Well, babe,’ I say, ‘I don’t understand what happened, but I’m sorry I swore at you and I’m sorry I shouted at you.’

Rufus sighs. ‘And I’m sorry you had such a gruesome experience. I have no idea what can have happened. I really don’t. But it’s OK now. I’ve found you.’

‘Perhaps,’ I offer, ‘there was something wrong with the bell?’

I know that this is rubbish: the sonorous ding-ding-ding of the early evening is engraved on my memory. But you’ve got to offer olive branches.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ he says. ‘Everything else is falling apart, after all. I’ll look at it tomorrow.’

I have to get a grip on this listening at doors thing. But it’s not easy. I’m paranoid by nature as it is, and the setup at Bourton Allhallows is calculated to feed my weakness. It’s all very well
thinking
that people are talking about you behind your back; when you
know
they are, the urge to snoop is well-nigh irresistible.

Mary’s got her reasonable voice on again. That let’s-have-a-houseparty tone that sets my teeth on edge.

‘Well,
darling
,’ she is saying, ‘it’s possible that Melody is making it up, of course.’

I’m relieved to hear that Rufus isn’t having any of it. ‘Melody doesn’t make things up,’ he says. ‘I’m certain of that. She’s the most truthful person I know.’