The New Mrs D (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

I’m drunk not. Hello phone. Or is this Facebook? Can you send a taxi to number one, oh I don’t know, I’m somewhere in Greece?

A
s the sun rose on the penultimate day of my holiday, I slept the deep, untroubled sleep of someone still drunk from the night before. It was the sound of voices and crunching on the gravel path outside that finally brought me round, and I checked my mobile. It said 1.30pm and alerted me to fourteen voicemails . . . and seventeen texts. I guessed all were from David, but wasn’t in the mood for checking right now. Need. Coffee. And. Pee.

Passing the window en route to the toilet, I peered through the shutters to see Chris and Ginger taking off through the gate towards her car. Again, there was no sign of Edvard. I watched as she shook his hand and walked away. Surely if they were in the throes of an affair, there would be more than the shaking of hands? I sighed. My numb heart couldn’t feel anger at their deceit right now, I was just thinking I could definitely live the life Chris had: six months in Greece, six months in a country cottage in Worcester and zero emotional baggage. If it was a choice between that and spending all my time in four-weeks-of-sun-a year-if-we’re-lucky England, working in a job I hate, with a cheating, lying husband, it was no contest. Maybe Ginger had it all worked out. Get them before they get you.

The girls were both grown up and no longer so reliant on my being around. One thing I knew for sure was that they would love all the free holidays if I stayed. Rubbing my head and remembering my night’s excesses – and the triumph of giving David a sizeable kick to the kerb – brought about a heady mixture of elation and nausea.

Definitely need coffee.

Still, I wondered what on earth Chris was doing with Ginger. He seemed like such a nice person; not at all like David, and this new side of him just didn’t fit with the Chris I thought I knew. Should I just come out and ask him? I put the kettle on and opened the door to let the sunshine pour in. It was another clear, blistery-hot day. Could I ever get tired of this?

I threw on a Saress and my sunglasses and took my coffee outside to the patio where I sat in its leafy shade thinking of the time, almost twelve months earlier, when I’d been called to a meeting with my boss’s PA, Cilla, after asking for a pay rise. The bastard hadn’t even faced me himself.

‘Bernice, the company is very grateful to you for your hard work and enthusiasm,’ she’d said. ‘You are a phenomenal asset to the company. Well done.’ The ‘phenomenal asset’ part being the £18,000 I’d saved the company in just under twelve months, by introducing some radical new administrative changes. ‘But, whilst we appreciate all your hard work,’ Cilla went on, ‘we can’t agree a pay rise. I know this will be a disappointing blow for you, but all the extra work you’ve taken on isn’t within the pay grade for your post. We are grateful of course, but, well, we didn’t ask you to do it.’

She was right; they hadn’t asked me to do it. I had just seen the solution to some major problems that my boss had missed and gone about doing something about them of my own accord. In some business circles this might be called ‘using your initiative’. It might be encouraged, nurtured − even rewarded. But I was being held firmly in my place; the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and one thing I knew for sure was that Cilla loved helping to keep me there. I imagined she had savoured the opportunity to give me the news that no pay rise would be forthcoming. It was clear she hated me. She even called me on her way into work some days, just to ask me to water her plants. On her way in! It was her way of letting me know, that no matter how hard I worked to shine, she had me at her disposal and I was going nowhere. I found out, entirely by accident, that Cilla’s plants didn’t thrive well on the boss’s gin. But that’s another story . . .

I picked up my mobile phone and flicked through the text messages. As I’d suspected, all were indeed from David. Somehow, he seemed more forgiving today and had gone back to begging me to talk to him. Pushing thoughts of him from my mind, I opened my email and typed in my boss’s address.

By the time I’d finished my first cup of coffee of the day I had resigned. To do what? Who cares? It was time to find out what Bernice Dando could do for herself. I was giving myself permission to get a life. It had just been an all-too-short fortnight’s holiday, but my head was now bursting at the seams with endless possibilities.

‘Mum! Dad! I’ve got a weekend job!’

It was the first job I’d ever had and I’d raced in to find him fiddling with a picture frame, looking as though he was struggling to get the back off it with his one, useful hand.

‘Burughh trurdummm at.’ My dad was looking angrily at me, dribble leaking out of the right side of his mouth as he tried to make me understand him. He hit the picture frame hard with his forefinger. ‘Burgggh urtttttt.’

It didn’t do to show you couldn’t understand what Dad was trying to say when he spoke, it always annoyed him. Sometimes pure frustration would make him throw cups across the room – not at anyone in particular – just through the sheer anger he felt at having his speech stolen from him by the stroke. I took the frame from him and saw that it was the photo of my sonogram that I’d given him the previous week.

I looked around desperately for my mother, but she was nowhere to be found.

‘Oh, Dad,’ I continued, trying to sound upbeat. Not at all like I couldn’t understand him. ‘Did you hear what I said? I got a job!’

He sighed heavily, still looking at the picture frame and nodded.

‘At Bernie’s, the fast food restaurant in Mansell Street.’

I perfectly understood Dad’s next communication though. He started to cry. As I rushed forwards to hug him, my mouth brushed the tears. They tasted of disappointment.

‘Oh, Dad,’ I sobbed. ‘I know it’s not the best job in the world but Michael and I need some extra money coming in right now with the baby coming and all.’

He pulled away from me and pointed to the picture frame again. ‘BABY!’ he shouted, his face almost purple with fury.

‘Yes, it’s for the baby, Dad,’ I replied, crying myself now and looking down at the five month old bump in my tummy where she lived. ‘I can still work for a little while longer.’

He tried to speak again, but when nothing would come, he made an angry grab for the picture frame. I instinctively pulled it away, fearing he would smash it in temper.

‘What are you trying to do anyway,’ I asked him. ‘Get the back off? Don’t you want to have a picture of your grandchild? Are you ashamed of me because I’m pregnant? Dad, I gave this to you, please don’t throw it back at me.’

He huffed and turned away from me, reminding me of the moment I’d told them just before he had his stroke. Remembering the way he had been unable to hide his disappointment. Even such a debilitating illness hadn’t mellowed him.

Just one week later, he had another stroke and died.

It took three attempts to sign into Facebook, but finally the signal came through, offering me a brief window to rid myself of some of my more restrictive baggage. There was a long conversation to be had with Beth and Sal later, I knew; but for today, my only job was to unfriend and block Caroline and their father. The pretence was over; I was not their friend, extended family member or otherwise, and our relationship wasn’t even ‘complicated’. I avoided accompanying my ‘unfriend’ with the message I’d like to have sent:

Dear Caroline, you shagged my husband for thirteen years, I wonder if you’d mind awfully just fucking off?

Bernice likes this.

As I stared out at the distant blue horizon, I picked up a swatter and batted away the four hundred bitey, irritating insects that were buzzing around my head; an action that bore a striking resemblance to the rest of my morning’s activities. All I had to do now was today’s planned activity, which was all of my own choosing. Today was my ‘envelope day’ and although I didn’t have it – David did – I recalled the contents clearly:

‘David, for what seems like a lifetime I have hated the sight of my own body. What I wouldn’t give to be free of all that nonsense, the way naturists are. Let’s get naked, in broad daylight, on the beach.’

Not the romantic prose he might have expected from me, but the sentiment was clear.
Dear David, it’s show the world your arse day.
This day I’d planned to throw caution – along with my bra and pants – to the wind, (again, as it now transpired) by enduring an hour on a nudist beach. Even now I couldn’t believe I’d been the one to dream that one up. Calling to mind the free, exhilarating loveliness of my topless horse ride, it didn’t feel quite so daunting as before. Not quite.

Argos called me ‘beautiful Binnie.’ Michaela had told me, more or less, to look in the mirror and find the love of my life. Then there was dear, brave Greta who, just one year after a mastectomy, had led five middle-aged and topless women on a gorgeous, sunset horse ride through the sea yelling ‘titty-ho’ at the sky. She didn’t have to ask me if she looked like the perfect woman. She was perfect in every way and I knew her bravery would inspire me for the rest of my days. My body was a shining, healthy gift that had given life to two beautiful young women; it was time to have my day in the sun.

Taking a couple of aspirin for my head, I packed a good, strong, nipple-saving sunscreen, my iPod and a towel before heading off to the nudist beach. I wasn’t afraid anymore . . . until a series of angry beeps from other motorists in my path made me swerve onto the kerb again.
Curse this right hand side driving thing.

The car park at the beach was full of cars and bikes and there was loud music coming from the beachside taverna. There was one thing to look forward to − some gorgeous, young Greek barmen – all of them naked.

I wanted to behave like a man would in this situation, faced with a naked woman waiting to serve him alcohol.
‘You betcha I’ll have a cocktail!’

The music was loud and sounded a bit like hip hop – not exactly to my taste, so I dug out my headphones. As Britney Spears fittingly told me I was
Stronger than Yesterday
and I realised I’d brought Sal’s iPod instead of my own, I stepped out onto the beach, treading carefully through a sea of naked sunbathers. Without looking at any of them, I threw down my towel, whipped off my Saress and lay down, nipples to the sky. I had no idea who was beside me . . . and for once in my entire life, I didn’t care.

There was a tap on my foot and for a moment I thought it was the goats again. I opened one eye and the first thing I saw before me was a pair of smooth, shaved bollocks.

Wait! What?
Opening both eyes, I looked up into the smiling face of a bronzed, long-haired blonde guy who towered over me. He was the tallest man I’d ever seen naked.

‘Oh, hi there,’ I said, reaching for my purse. ‘I’ll have a mojito, please.’

Staring nonplussed at me he opened his mouth to speak.

‘Hit me baby one more time!’

As his lips moved out of synch, like a bad Japanese martial arts movie, I struggled to make sense of what was going on. And then I understood.

‘Sorry?’ I said, removing my headphones to get Britney out of my head.

‘I said, you have a beeyouuutiful voice!’ His voice boomed out all over the beach and I realised he was speaking into a cordless microphone.

I sat up and my heart stopped. Everyone in the vicinity was watching us. I started to pull my towel around me.

‘What? How did you . . . ?’ I started.
Oh, wait a minute.
‘I was singing aloud, wasn’t I?’

He nodded and said, away from the microphone, ‘A leetle bit, yes. You like the Britney Spears?’

Inconspicuous my arse! Which wasn’t either, as it happened.

‘No, of course not!’ I protested. Yes, I did. But I was nearly forty-two and not admitting it to anyone.

‘We can seeng a duet, no?’ he continued.

‘Er. No!’

Please go away. Please go away.

He wasn’t going away. To my horror he began pulling me to my feet to cheers from the crowd around us.

‘Ooh,’ I said, trying to protest but losing to his incredible, Herculean strength. ‘What the fuuu . . . ?’

‘Come on, come on,’ he urged, tugging me up towards the stage. This wasn’t quite the inconspicuous nudist experience I’d hoped for today.

‘Come on everreeybodee. Let’s give the lady a big hand.’

Oh great. Something to cover up my arse.

As we made our way through clapping, cheering and whistling nudists to the stage, I spied the sign in front of the beach taverna.

Nudeoke today with Adonis Manikas

Nudeoke? They had to be joking, right?

Adonis handed me a microphone and whispered, ‘What would you like to sing?’

‘Err, far away?’

‘I don’t know theees far harway,’ he mused, scratching his chin.

‘I mean far away from here,’ I whimpered, feeling all eyes on me. ‘I really don’t want to do this,’ I whispered to him. My heart was in my mouth and pounding.

‘Have you done the nude singing before?’ he asked quietly, looking for all the world like he was going to think me weird if I said ‘no’. Still, I shook my head.

‘No?’ he said.

‘I’ve never even done nude before,’ I admitted.

Adonis signalled to the barman, who rushed over with a tray of shots. He downed two to uproarious applause and signalled for me to do the same.

‘A leetle help, perhaps?’ he said.

‘I don’t like shots,’ I protested.

‘Oh, you want the cocktails?’ He signalled to the barman again.

‘No, no,’ I said at last. ‘The shots will do.’ They would be short, sharp and quick. I peered down at the tray of drinks, catching sight of his monster of the sea at the same time, gulped and threw the first one back. I hadn’t tried to sing in front of an audience since I was nine years old. And that had ended in a way that remained in my memory to this day. But today, singing seemed like the teeniest, tiniest part of my worries. I was on a beach, naked . . . and all eyes were on me.