The Secrets of Married Women (7 page)

‘And besides, I wanted to see if you’d call. Women can never resist man with nice car.’

‘Oh that’s such an old cliché.’ I give him a look that says,
And so are you
. ‘I’d never judge a man by his car.’ I glance at my mother who’s still gawking at him like he’s Michelangelo’s David.

‘Don’t mind us,’ my dad says, and pointedly clears his throat. ‘Carry on chatting up my daughter, lad. I’m too old to give you a thick ear for it. And I’m sure my son-in-law won’t mind.’

‘He won’t,’ my mam enthusiastically chimes in, grinning her face off.

‘Thank you,’ the Russian, says, clearly not getting my dad’s sarcy business.

‘But supposing I had called thinking you were the owner of a Mercedes, you’d have had a lot of explaining to do wouldn’t you?’
When you turned up in your old jalopy.

His gaze travels over me again. ‘This may be. But by the time I would be finished, I would have won you with my charm.’

‘You think? How nice.’ I’m critically aware that I’m flirting. Like I used to be quite good at, back in the days when Gorbachev was a baby. My dad digs out the Daily Express and conspicuously tries to mind his business.

‘And what is more strange is—and you are really going to fall over when I tell you this…’ He gestures for me to come closer, which I do, aware of his body and the undeniable chemistry between us, and how easily I could be pulled to it, if I were free and single. ‘I see you there, at car. But it is not first time. No. First time I see you in Afterglow, before Christmas—’

‘—likely story,’ my dad clears his throat.

‘You were in dress of emerald green. Different eye-glasses though. You were with friends. Women friends.’

Leigh and Wendy and I went there for our Christmas meal and celebration! He remembered the dress! My 1940’s belted coatdress that I got from the vintage shop in York, which I wore once then felt like Bette Davis in a time warp. And my old glasses! This is beyond unbelievable. My first thought is—is he stalking me? But then again, it’s not like he could be accused of following me here, could he? ‘Well I never thought the North East was so small!’

‘Is not. Is just that you are kind of girl a man see once and he remember anywhere.’

‘Oh, vomit,’—my father says under his breath.

Okay, admittedly, from anybody else that would have sounded a big corn. But I just think, he saw me twice in Newcastle, he remembered my dress for heaven’s sakes, and now I’m seeing him here. How completely, unbelievably—

‘Fate,’ he says. ‘Don’t you think?’ Then his gaze slides past me to a woman’s bottom in a bikini.

He’s practiced at this. He’s a good-looking, cocky, rather past-it lifeguard who stares at women’s bottoms in bikinis, and happens to have a good memory for faces. And dresses.

And I’m married.

‘Seriously though,’ he pulls me aside now so he’s out of earshot. ‘That was real reason why I did not come over to talk to you beside car. I had seen wedding ring in bar. So this way, with note, I think if she call perhaps she not so happily married. Perhaps I have chance.’

‘Perhaps,’ I hear my mother say.

I am lost for words.

‘So what do we do?’ he whispers, and he grins that mayhem-causing grin again.

‘
What do we do with the drunken sailor? What do we do with the dr–’
my dad sings until I bark at him.

Then I look at Andrey again. ‘We don’t do anything. You’re forgetting something. I didn’t call.’

His smile falters, like a man who is not used to having to take a cold shower. ‘Of course. You are married.’ His mouth moves in to my ear again making a warm breeze that sends a tickle around my neck and for some totally mad reason I think he’s going to kiss me. ‘Happily married, right?’ He pulls away, his pupils impressing on mine, starting little flames in me. ‘He’s a lucky guy. Nice meeting you heh?’ he says, and then he turns and he walks away.

‘Oh he’s going? Shame.’ My dad doesn’t take his eyes off his paper. ‘Let’s call him back. I was starting to like him.’

Newcastle beat Millwall 2-0. It was a good match, as football matches go. Last of the season. Free tickets are one of the perks of my job. I grab Rob’s arm and dodge Arnold Swinburn and his wife coming out of the private box from where the Manager’s family and the other bigwigs view the game. ‘With an arse on her like that no wonder he’s after you,’ Rob says. We file out with the crowd that’ll soon be stampeding down Northumberland Street like a herd of manic, dyspeptic zebra chanting Howay the Lads!—the local anthem. Then they’ll barge into the Bigg Market pubs where they’ll drink beer until closing time before staggering onto the last Metro home with all the wasted twelve-year-olds in their underwear.

Rob’s going away tomorrow to suss out a contract job for some show-homes in Penrith so we won’t be late home. Besides, we feel a bit guilty about leaving the puppy. ‘Don’t want him getting depressed,’ as Rob said.

‘No,’ I replied, ‘or then he might do something really terrible like phone the Samaritans and hang himself with his rope toy when they can’t make sense of his bark.’

‘You’re a hard-hearted woman,’ my husband playfully scolded me. But this is our Saturday date thing: my rule. Nothing gets in the way of that, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. Speaking of animals, we go to that Italian ice-cream place that’s run by a couple of horn-dog Italian brothers, in the gorgeous building that used to be Lloyd’s Bank. The younger one sits by the espresso machine and says ‘Ciao bella!’ to my breasts. Rob deliberately plants himself in front of the Italian, arms crossed manfully over manful chest, (‘penis-measuring’, as Leigh calls it), waiting to be greeted too. But the Italian completely ignores him. I order coffee. Rob swaggers to the freezer to look at ice-cream flavours, sending me sidelong glances as the Italian carefully flirts with me. I can’t look at my husband or I’ll laugh.

We take my coffee and Rob’s espresso gelato and claim an outdoor table overlooking the majestic Theatre Royal that’s just turning out its crowd of matinee goers. The sun is high and bright, but it’s crisp out, not nearly as warm as it was. ‘Come here,’ Rob picks a hair off my eyelash. ‘Another one of the flies is he?’

I slump across the table. ‘Could be.’

‘You get them don’t you? The real lookers.’

‘Ooh! Mee-ow!’ I mimic clawing and watch his lips fasten around the spoon.

He narrows those sapphire pools for eyes. ‘Wha’? Me jealous of an ice-cream man with a funny accent? That’ll be the day.’

‘Yeah but they say Italians are good lovers.’

‘What with? Their average height’s only four feet three. You’d probably need an ultrasound to find it.’ He shoves another spoonful in his mouth while I chuckle. ‘He’s generous mind. I have to hand it to him. It’s a big dish this for only a quid. It’s probably going off. Or it’s got Hepatitis A.’

‘What? The ice-cream?’

He smiles.

Can I have some?’

‘Neh, get your own.’ He pretends to move the spoon away, then holds it out to me, spoon-feeds me, catches runny bits down my chin. Next, we play our daft little game where we rate passers-by on their clothes, their hairdos, how fanciable they are. We get through about three victims when Rob says the immortal words: ‘I need the can.’ Rob’s bowel maketh great legend. ‘Told you that ice-cream was off,’ he says as he hurries inside.

I grow old in his absence. Ten minutes. Twenty. Where the hell is he? The Italian keeps catching my eye and smiling in cheeky acknowledgement of how grim marriage can be, (but it wouldn’t be with him, of course!). Finally, Rob comes back looking relieved. ‘Bloody hell!’ I hiss. ‘Could you not do the short version?’

He sits down. ‘I told you the bastard’s trying to poison me. I could have manured half of Yorkshire.’

‘Ergh!’ I clap my hands over my face.

‘Hard lines for that poor lass though.’

‘Lass?’

‘Yeah, good-lookin bird who followed me in. She was giving me the eye. She’ll not be now though. God bless her.’ Rob peers inside at the Italian. ‘Look at him still staring over here. He needs to get his eyes on somebody else’s wife, the midgety git. I should have taken my ice-cream glass in with me, filled it, and stuck it on his counter with a spoon in.’

‘Thanks Rob. You’re romance all the way. You know that?’

As we leave, the Italian shouts, ‘Ciao bella!’

‘Why does the twit think you’re called Bella?’ Rob squeezes me, gives me his sly smile.

The sun seems to bring people out in droves: little ruffians outside the video arcades, girls and mams on the bargain hunt, downtrodden husbands trying to stop their wives spending money, and the lovely legless football fans lurching into pubs. The odd one unconscious, being hauled hammock-style by his mates up the street. Because Rob hates shopping (unless it’s for him), we spend a fraught five minutes in Gap while I try to quickly find a pair of jeans. ‘What do you think of these?’ I model a pair.

‘They’re great.’ Rob leans against the wall, painfully bored.

‘Or these?’

‘Yeah. Nice too. Are we done yet?’

The bonny young assistant who is folding jeans gives Rob the look-over and smiles, entertained. ‘Well which ones are better though?’ I ask him.

He sighs, stifles a yawn. ‘Both of them. I mean, neither.’ He musses the back of his head. ‘Either. Which ever you like. It’s you who has to wear them. Not me.’

The girl grins broadly. A typical bloke, but she loves him for it.

Then we’re in Fenwick’s men’s shoes department. Ever since Rob read an article about how rich people only wear Italian shoes, Rob will buy nothing else. ‘Listen,’ he’ll say, ‘there’s no way you could ever appreciate the orgasmic joy of wearing shoes that make you feel you’re walking on clouds, until you too earn a living clobbering around building sites in hard, heavy boots, in all weather, day after day, growing callouses the size of monkeys’ brains.’ I’ve tried saying, ‘but maybe you can get comfy shoes—probably about ten pairs of 'em—without having to spend so much.’ But he tells me it’s his money; he’s earned it. I need to try minding my own business. Apparently I have this tendency to stick my big nose into things that don’t concern me. Apparently I should just worry about what’s on my own feet, not his, then apparently we’d all be a lot happier. Apparently.

So here we are in Fenwick’s. I grow old as Rob gets the mumsy sales lady to explain the finer points of Italian shoes. ‘You have such a good way of putting it,’ he woos her with his quiet charm. ‘Can you tell me again, how they slice up those specially bred organic cows?’

Walking down Grey Street, Rob stops to gaze at its subtly-descending curve, and the ancient sepia-coloured buildings on either side that seem to stand on military parade. ‘Come hither,’ I pull him to Waterstone’s’s elaborate window because I need a new pink novel to read. We stand beside a couple of serious, bookish types who are chatting about the latest Salman Rushdie bestseller that’s displayed. Rob nudges me. ‘So tell me when you next meet your parole officer?’ he says, loudly. The bookish types stop talking and glare at me. ‘You sod!’ I yank him down the steep bank, pulling him extra hard because I know it hurts his knees. We disappear under the footbridge and come out at the Quayside, chatting about everything from the pants I want to go back and buy (which he now says he hated because they gave me ‘plumber’s bum crack!’) to our puppy having eaten the chord from our Venetian blinds.

I’m just thinking how we haven’t had a fun day like this in ages when we cross the Blinking Eye bridge. A handsome young father barrels toward us with his kid in a pushchair, wheels rumbling across metal, the little lad squealing with the thrill. I happen to look up at Rob. And I see it. The quiet, covetous gaze.

When we were first married, we didn’t really talk much about having children. In my twenties the thought of being a mother felt like the end of life as I knew it. And for a sensitive man, Rob has a very unsentimental attitude to family. Maybe it’s from growing up without a father. When his mother was four months pregnant his dad went out to get a haircut and never came back. (Rob was raised as the man of the family, which I believe makes him such a good husband.) Rob would usually grimace on sight of a baby. ‘Look at it. It’s got a face like a worm-eaten sprout. Eat, sleep and shit, that’s all they do. They’ve got nothing to contribute to the world have they? You can’t have a sensible conversation with ‘em. They don’t get any of your jokes. How can they not give a damn about who won the football match?’