The Other Woman's Shoes (22 page)

Although she couldn’t explain why her suede skirt and black gypsy-style top would make her notice those guys
sat at that other table over there. Notice how handsome a group they were, and one of them in particular.

Martha blushed and was grateful no one could read minds. Goodness, what was she thinking? She was spending far too much time with Eliza. She reached for the one bottle that still had some wine in it and poured it all into her glass. She put the bottle down next to the other numerous empties that her table had accumulated.

‘Shall we order some more?’ she suggested.

‘Good idea, keep us going until the food comes,’ someone else agreed, and then suddenly there were two more white and two more red, apparently out of nowhere. Odd, but the house wine tasted fine once you got used to it.

The food finally arrived and by all accounts it was very good. Although Martha never found out. She tried to shovel it into her mouth, but all the little bits kept falling off her fork. It was rather undignified. In the end she gave up, it was so much easier just to keep topping up her wineglass. Again and again. The music from the dance floor downstairs was pounding through her body, she was finding it increasingly difficult to sit still.

‘Let’s go downstairs for a boogie’. Martha looked around to see who had made that suggestion and was surprised to realize it was her. It must be the Salsa music. Suddenly she felt that dancing to Salsa music was going to be OK. No one would be any good at it, and what was it Eliza had said? Just keep shaking your hips. She could do that.

No one was dancing. There were a large number of dodgy-looking Latino types standing around the edges
of the floor. Normally Martha would have clutched her handbag and stood at a distance from the floor until it was packed full. Then she might have been prepared discreetly to bob around her bag. But tonight, stoked with South Californian courage, she wanted to strut her funky stuff and she wanted to do it
now
.

‘Come on,’ she ordered.

The guys in her party turned down the invitation but one or two of the braver, and equally drunk, women joined her. It was all the encouragement the dodgy Latinos needed. Like leopards they pounced, like leeches they stuck. Suddenly about eight, inanely grinning men surrounded Martha. She was torn between total embarrassment (their shirts were louder than the music and there was an above-average score on facial hair) and being fairly impressed (they could dance; but was it really necessary to get so close?). Martha remembered her mother instructing her to accept a dance if ever it was offered, as it took a lot of courage for men to ask women to dance, and – after all – men were only human.

Which showed what her mother knew.

However, Martha was far too used to following rules than to suddenly decide to rebel, so she politely danced one dance with each man who asked her. It amazed her that her stony, sullen silence was seen as positive encouragement, and dance followed dance followed dance.

Martha was spun from short man to short man until she was sure her head and the room were orbiting her body.

There he was again.

The handsome one.

Eliza would call him hot.

Damn hot.

Even if he was wearing a ’lace around his neck.

‘Would you like to dance with me, rescue me from these awful shirts?’ Martha stood in front of the hot, damn hot, man and his two friends and wondered how the hell she’d spun there and how would she deal with the humiliation if he turned her down. Why had she just done that? Probably because her sister had said the most adventurous thing she’d ever done was adapt a Delia Smith recipe. Well, watch this space Eliza dear. She hoped to God that the mother of the hot, damn hot, man had taught him the same rule her mother had taught her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d asked a man to dance like that, a complete stranger. Before she met Michael, certainly. But thinking about it, before Michael, she’d always been first up on the dance floor and she’d never minded asking people to dance. It was only dancing, after all.

‘All right.’ He passed his glass to his mate and followed her back on to the floor. ‘So are you prepared to dance with the devil, although I suppose it’s hardly pale moonlight?’

‘What?’

‘You know, Jack Nicolson, the Joker in
Batman
. He asks his victims if…’ The hot, damn hot, man trailed off. He could see Martha wasn’t getting it.

‘Right,’ said Martha. She wasn’t sure what else to say.

It was always a risk. What if he danced like an uncle? Martha took a braver, longer look at him and tried to focus. He
was
gorgeous. She decided it wouldn’t matter if
he danced like her great-uncle. He wasn’t tall but as Martha was barely five foot four she didn’t like men over six foot. She didn’t want to look like Lucy Ewing. He was probably brushing five eleven, lean, with wide shoulders, short-cropped hair, good clothes, and, err, that was about all she could make out. The features were fuzzy, more to do with her alcoholic intake than his genes.

He could dance; in fact he was seriously good. And funny. He kept doing silly little wiggle things, which made him look at once ridiculous and, well, sexy. Sending yourself up demands a certain amount of self-confidence, and a certain amount of self-confidence is sexy. She watched him and felt a strange churn, a definite pang of longing, somewhere between her thighs and stomach. She wasn’t entirely naive, despite what Eliza thought; she recognized the churn as a delicious swell of lust.

The Salsa music suddenly seemed seductive, not stupid, and the idea of having a daft dance of no import suddenly receded – and Martha knew she fancied the life out of him. It was so long since she’d felt this way that it seemed illicit. But right. Illicit and right. Fascinating. The track changed and Martha realized there was a risk that he would now smile politely then merge back into the crowd for ever, to join his friends.

He didn’t.

He stayed and they danced five or six or more dances. Martha noted the admiring glances from the other women at the club, who were staring at her with ill-concealed jealousy, and Martha felt top.

‘Fancy a drink?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘What would you like?’

‘White wine.’ Without hesitation. She didn’t even consider trying to be more hip than she was by requesting a trendy beer or spirits.

‘What’s your name?’ she yelled above the crowd and music.

‘Muad’Dib, a name can be a weapon.’ Martha looked blank. What an unusual name. ‘Muad’Dib, he’s in the film
Dune
.’

‘I don’t think I’ve seen it,’ said Martha, feeling like the dull housewife she was.

‘Sting was in it,’ he added and raised his voice at the end of the sentence the way people do when they expect you to know what they’re talking about.

Martha shook her head to convey that she was none the wiser. It wasn’t unusual for Martha not to recognize references to popular culture, unless they related to
Bob the Builder
or the
Tweenies
. ‘What’s your real name?’

‘Jack, Jack Hope.’ Martha nodded and tried desperately to commit it to memory. She knew she was hopelessly drunk but she didn’t want to offend him by forgetting his name, at least not in the next twenty minutes. ‘And you are?’

This was when Martha wished her parents had called her Scarlet.

‘Martha.’

‘That’s unusual,’ he said, without missing a beat.

‘Awful, isn’t it?’ giggled Martha. ‘I hate it.’

‘Well, Babe. What’s your second name?’

‘Evergreen.’ Martha gave her maiden name without even thinking about the fact that, technically, she was still West.

‘Well, I shall call you Little Miss E.’

Little Missy, thought Martha. She liked it.

Little Miss E. and Jack talked all night. They told each other their life stories. They veered wildly through the trivial: favourite colours, music they liked to listen to, shops they bought clothes from, the fact that when he was a little boy Jack carved
Rambo
into his arm with a compass. And, just because she knew Eliza would ask, Martha got him to tell her his birth sign.

‘Which did you prefer:
Starsky and Hutch
or
The Dukes of Hazzard
?’ she asked.

‘
Dukes of Hazzard
.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, lots more tits and ass.’

‘Right.’

Martha told him that she listened to Billie Holiday even though Eliza had given her strict instructions to drop the Chemical Brothers and Freestylers into conversation if asked. Martha told him that she’d fancied Paul Young when it was clearly more acceptable to admit to a crush on any one of Spandau Ballet. She said that currently her favourite colour was green, because it represented independence and healing, but normally she’d choose silver or blue. Martha told him she was a mother of two, waiting for a divorce. She thought that about summed her up. She waited for him to say he was going to the loo. It had been a nice flirtation, but now that she’d blurted out the truth it had to be over. Over before it had begun. She waited for him to disappear.

He didn’t. He just said, ‘So –
Blue Peter
or
Magpie
?’

‘
Blue Peter
.’

‘Me too.
Morecambe and Wise
or
The Two Ronnies
?’

‘Oh, that’s tough,’ sighed Martha. ‘They were both good, though slightly different eras. It’s a close call, but I think it’ll have to be
Morecambe and Wise
.’

‘I feel exactly the same,’ grinned Jack Hope. He played with an imaginary (presumably skewed) pair of glasses. Martha grinned back. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been asked her opinion or when anyone had listened to the answers. She felt fantastic, uncorked. She felt as though she was talking to one of her good girl friends or Eliza, not to a man at all. It seemed OK to tell him all of this and it was easy to slip from the trivial to the amazingly intimate. He told her about his family, his disappointing mother, his admirable father. He talked about his first love and his last. She wondered if he was as intimate and honest with everyone – she hoped not. She hoped that somehow she’d unlocked something. She asked him if she had. She hadn’t. He was this honest and open indiscriminately. ‘Why not?’ Honesty was a big thing for Jack.

The conversation began to swim in front of Martha’s mind. She wasn’t too sure what she was saying but apparently it was fascinating. Or at least interesting. Jack seemed interested. And everything he said was amusing, intelligent, sharp, fun. She wasn’t sure how they started kissing. It was more than possible that she asked him to kiss her.

As simple as that.

As bold as that.

He was a fabulous kisser.

His lips were firm and tender. Slick, clear, they fitted.

She wasn’t sure when he picked her up. Literally. But
at one point he lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around him like Julia Roberts in some film or other. He made her feel so delicate, so girl-like. They fitted. They were in a club, kissing and fitting. He made her feel like a film star.

‘Aren’t you drinking?’ asked Martha, more than aware that she was drinking enough for them both.

‘No.’

‘Are you driving?’

‘Yes, but that’s not why I’m not drinking. I never drink.’

He’s an alcoholic, thought Martha, and she immediately started to calculate if she had the emotional resources to deal with it, because if this man was an alcoholic and he needed someone with the emotional resources to deal with it, she would like it to be her.

‘Are you an alcoholic?’ Martha asked, too drunk to beat about the bush or consider how impertinent she was being.

‘Everyone asks that.’ Martha was stung; she didn’t want to be like everyone. Still, at least he didn’t seem offended. ‘No, I’m not. I just don’t like the taste.’

Since when had the word ‘taste’ been so sexy?

Everything Martha had ever known advised against the next move. Her upbringing, her current circumstances, the local news, the rules. She shouldn’t accept a lift home. She certainly shouldn’t suggest that there was a place they could park up. She definitely shouldn’t give him a blow job. But what could she do? She couldn’t let her days drift by – a tribute to missed opportunities.

Maybe it was the alcohol that was buoying her up. Or
maybe it was the realization that she’d always played by the rules and look where that had landed her. Whatever.

His dick smelt clean. He smelt clean. And it was beautiful. Large, magnificent, straight, strong, symmetrical. Martha had always thought penises were rather silly. Odd shapes and ugly colours – but his was a joy. He was a joy.

She sat up, cum and saliva on her cheek, and she felt clean. Not smutty, which surely should have been the order of the day, considering she was more than necking, parked up half a mile from home, age thirty-two.

She trusted him.

He dropped her off. The house was silent and Martha felt strangely relieved that Eliza was in bed. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to go to bed and dream.

She forced her eyes open and was surprised to find the sun slamming through the curtains. It was December, shouldn’t it be grey? She moved her head; it didn’t hurt, shouldn’t she have a hangover? Shouldn’t her first thought be absolute horror, swiftly served up with a large dollop of shame and regret?

No sign.

Martha stretched her legs and arms. My God, she’d gone to bed naked. She reached for her pyjamas and just managed to pull the top over her head and slither into the bottoms before Eliza, Mathew and Maisie burst into her bedroom.

‘Rise and shine. I’ve brought you a cup of tea, I certainly hope you’re feeling terrible.’ Eliza handed Maisie to Martha and put the tea on the bedside table. Mathew
jumped on the bed, nearly knocking the tea over, and then he snuggled under the covers with his mother and sister. Although Eliza was already dressed she couldn’t resist the intimacy and also climbed into the bed, on what Martha still thought of as Michael’s side.

‘So, did you have a good night?’

‘Very, thanks.’