What Goes Around... (3 page)

He looks at me with disgust and it isn’t fading.

It never has.

He looks down at me and I actually think he’s going to spit, but he lets go of my arm and I push past him.

I walk out of the kitchen, and the last thing I want to do is go back to the table, but thankfully Jess is coming out. ‘Fancy that tour now?’

I nod, but I’m all shaken.

‘Sorry for what Luke said.’

‘It doesn’t matter,
’ I reply as we head up the stairs – she doesn’t know the half of it – still, it’s not her fault that her husband’s a dickhead. I stand on the landing and I look around and try to put his words out of my mind. ‘It’s stunning, Jess.’

‘It’s too big,’ s
he sighs. ‘But it’s a good investment apparently, with house prices down… yawn, yawn.’ Jess is so funny; she just doesn’t care about all the usual stuff like the rest of them downstairs.

As I said, Luke and Jess are Charlotte
’s godparents – separately though. I think they actually met for the first time at the christening. I’m sure they slept together that night, though she never actually told me. We held it at a gorgeous hotel and something went on, because it was all a bit awkward for a while after that. It was just a one-night thing though, too much booze and all that, I think, because nothing came of it. So, I was really surprised when they got married. We didn’t even know that they were going out; we came back from a holiday in the Maldives to the news!

Charlotte was thrilled, but upset that they didn’t have a bridesmaid – she’s never been one and she’s desperate to be.

Anyway, they both dote on Charlotte and spoil her. They take her out and go and see her compete on her pony sometimes and are friends on Facebook with her and things. Jess and Luke don’t want to have children, both say Charlotte is as close to having a child as they want to get. They like going out and their holidays and weekends away too much, Jess has told me.

As we wander around she shows me the spare rooms
, that are already furnished, and Jess makes a joke about it staying a cot free zone.

‘Hold on a sec…’ she makes me wait at the main bedroom door and goes in for a moment. ‘All clear.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You know,’ s
he grins. ‘In case I left anything out. I told the rest of them that we hadn’t finished decorating in here yet. Imagine Shirley’s face if she came in and there was my vibrator on the bed.’ She starts to laugh. ‘Are you blushing, Lucy?’

‘Stop it!’ I say, but I am blushing though. ‘Doesn’t Luke...’ my throat is really dry. ‘Doesn’t he mind you..?’

‘Mind?’ She gives me a queer look. ‘Why would he mind? He bought it for me.’

I try to make the right noises about the en
suite, and the carpet, and the lovely bay window but Jess couldn’t care less about all that, so we lie on the bed for five minutes and have a gossip before we head back down.

‘I got offered a promotion.’

‘Oh my God…’ I turn my head. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘It’s a bit of a sore point at the moment.’ She shakes her
head. ‘It’s in Wales.’ She sees my flare of panic, because I don’t want Jess to move there, but she just gives me a smile. ‘It’ll sort.’

Because it’s Jess
, I tell her a bit about one of my sore points and, because it’s Jess, I tell her a bit more than I told Alexis today.

‘He’s not keen on Charlotte getting another pony.’

‘Yeah, well he’s probably sick of you having to get up at the crack of dawn every morning and all the events you go to,’ Jess says. ‘Maybe tell Charlotte that, if you get another one, then the stables are going to muck him out, or whatever it is you call it. He’s probably fed up about how much time you spend with Charlotte…’ She looks up as Luke opens the door and finds us hiding and then she turns back to me. ‘They’re just going to have to learn how to
share
you.’ She smiles up to Luke. ‘We’ve been rumbled.’

‘Come on guys.’ Luke says as
Jess swings off the bed. ‘Back to it, Lucy.’

He’s far nicer when Jess is around and o
f course I’m much nicer to him.

Feeling better for the short reprieve we head back down and
, to my surprise, the night actually gets better. We don’t leave when the first couple do, or the next.

O
r the next.

Shirley and Greg linger a while, but in the end the grown ups are gone and it’s just the four of us and we drift out into the garden. It’s cool but Jess turns on the outside heaters as Luke heads back inside to get the brandy.

Actually, it’s not cool, it’s cold, especially if you’re wearing a sarong, even a very expensive one. Though I was sure I was going to be in trouble for my little erectile dysfunction comment earlier, I’m forgiven it would seem, because, while we wait for the heaters to warm up, he pulls me onto his knee. Jess is nattering on about Portugal and how they’re thinking of going for a week in summer.

‘We should all go,’ Jess says. S
he’s pretty pissed now and all full of grand plans, but I’m only half listening, I’m not really interested in summer right now.

I’m thinking about later tonight!

His hand is stroking my arm, just lightly. I know when I sat down my dress tugged a bit and I really should pull it up because I’m showing a bit of my bra.

But I don’t.

I just sit there feeling his hand on my arm and the suggestion that’s there and I want to go home, I want to go home, oh, right about now, except Jess is making him laugh.

‘We should really think about it…’ Jess says. ‘You and Luke can play golf and Lucy and I can just laze by the pool by day…

Luke hands me my drink and I catch his eye. I so don’t want to go on holiday with him.

No
r him with me.

I taste the warm brandy as Jess prattles on, but it doesn’t warm me and I shiver a bit. I don’t know if limitless alcohol would b
e such a good idea with us four. Yes, Jess and I are best friends, he and Luke are best friends…

Now.

But they didn’t speak for two years though, apparently thanks to me. His hand is still stroking my arm and I take another sip of my brandy and I try to think of a polite reason to end this discussion now. ‘I don’t know if it would be much fun for Charlotte,’ I say, and his hand stops stroking my arm.

‘Let’s get you home…’ I’m relieved when he drops a kiss on my cheek and we say our goodnights. I offer to drive, because I've only had two, or three because I remember
the brandy.

Make that four given the size of drinks Luke pours.

‘I'm fine,’ he says as I go to get the keys from him and we sort of have a little joke scuffle. The next thing I know, I'm against the car and he's giving me the kiss that he wanted to at the front door, or it’s a bit more than that, because his hands are on my bum he's pulling me in. I can feel that he’s a bit turned on and I'm turned on too.

‘Get a room, you two,
’ Luke shouts from the door and we stop. There’s night laughter as we climb in the car and then we toot and wave and drive off, but as we turn out of their street, as I will his hand to my thigh, he turns to me. ‘Don't you ever embarrass me like that…’ he really lets me have it in the car on the way home. No, he hasn’t forgotten what I said at dinner. ‘Don’t you ever insinuate that I can’t…’

‘It was a joke,
’ I say. ‘And they all know that it was a bloody joke.’

It doesn’t appease him; he’s still pissed off.

Well I’m pissed off now too and I tell him I am.

‘So what was all that back there?’ I demand and then
I realise it was all for show.

Out go my plans and in comes a fight.

I tell him that I’m sick of them bringing up Gloria, I’m sick of hearing her name.

‘Yeah, well at least she kn
ew how to behave at work things.’

I feel like crying, I am so pissed
off, because yet again Gloria has messed up my night.

We say nothing till we hit the village.

‘It’s up for sale again.’ He slows down as we pass the cottage in High Street that he’s always got his eye on and I know he’s just doing it to rattle me, but I don’t say anything and then we pull into our street and there’s my house.

My beautiful house.

It’s detached with a big carriage drive and huge mature shrubs. Okay, I sound like an estate agent, but I love my house, even though we’re mortgaged to the hilt and with loans that I don't even want to think about. He thinks we should downsize, after all we've only got Charlotte, but there’s no way we’re moving - the only way I’ll leave here is in a wooden box.

Any fleeting, futile hope of a shag is out, because he’s checking his phone th
e second we’re in the door. He pours himself a decent drink and takes it upstairs and I’m just left there, just standing there, and I’m angry and I’m upset and I don’t really know what went wrong tonight.

I don’t know what’s wrong.

I remember his kiss, the suggestive way he was stroking my arm, all the promise of tonight and I’m still sort of… I don’t know, turned on….

I think of Jess and she’s got a
real live thirty eight year old one, and a battery operated one too, and three quarters of an ice cream cake in her freezer. I don’t get it, because if I had ice cream in the freezer, I’d never sleep. Only tonight, it isn’t ice cream that I want!

I’m back to my friend
Google and I type in words. After a few goes I’ve found what I’m looking for – and it promises discreet postage. I’m off to my handbag, to the zipped up bit, and then to another zipped up bit, which holds the credit card he doesn’t know about. I click the purchase button and I am told that in 2-3 business days it will be here.

It just doesn’t help tonight.

I head to the conservatory and I set up for breakfast.

I’m actually tired now and I really do just want to ta
ke my make up off and go to bed, but my routines are too important to let a little thing like exhaustion stop me. I go back into the kitchen and pull croissants and bread out of the freezer and arrange them in a basket and cover them with a cloth. Then I make some bircher muesli and put it in the fridge to soak and then I fill the kettle with water, so it just has to be flicked on in the morning. I find my routines soothing and they work their magic tonight. I take one last look at my gleaming kitchen before I turn out the light and head up to bed but I see my reflection in the conservatory windows and the anger starts to fizz again - Luke’s wrong.

They
are
jealous.

And they have every reason to be.

For the most part.

I’m so angry about tonight. I just don’t get how
, by the time I get up to bed, he’ll be asleep.

I feel like waking him up and shaking him.

I feel like telling him that this house is the love of my life and not him.

I
f I sound shallow and superficial, I don’t care.

I know I’m not.

I know why I’m here.

And I know why I’m staying.

‘Come on!’ I walk in
to Charlotte’s room to tell her to get in the shower, and see her chatting away on her mobile. ‘You can speak to them at school…’

‘But it’s Alice,’ she says
, and I must have turned purple because she quickly concludes the call. ‘She rang me,’ Charlotte lies. As flaky as Alice is, surely even she wouldn’t be stupid enough to call a mobile phone from Australia.

I’m
telling Charlotte the same as he comes in.

Or rather, I’m shouting.

‘Go easy on her, Lucy.’ Of course he takes her side. ‘She’s only talking to her sister.’

Half
sister.

But I don’t say it.

Things have been a little tense since Saturday night and I do not want to open that can of worms again, but it’s another thing they don’t tell you when you marry that sexy older guy - he comes with baggage. In this case, apart from Saint Gloria, there are three grown up children. Thankfully, two of them live in Australia, but Eleanor, the eldest, lives nearby. Her husband, Noel is doing Charlotte’s braces, the invisible ones that cost a fortune, but we’re getting them cheap - that’s about the only perk to him having children– honestly. It would have been so much easier without them, because three more dysfunctional people you could not hope to meet.

‘I’d like a bit of back up here,
’ I tell him. I can feel my face is all red and Charlotte is crying. ‘She’s been calling Alice again on her mobile phone.’

‘Use the house phone next time,’ h
e tells Charlotte.

Is that it?

Is that all he has to say about it? God, Charlotte’s got him wrapped around her little finger, she really does.

Which reminds me.

I’m just about to tackle him about the new pony when the house phone rings, and suddenly my morning turns to wonderful. ‘Of course,’ I say to Simone. ‘Bring her over. No, that’s fine,’ I smile. ‘Felicity can have breakfast here.’