Year of Being Single (28 page)

Chapter Twenty-three: Frankie

After they’d eaten – and it
had
been a champion cream tea – Hugh gathered and piled up all their dishes and put them at the corner of the table, laid their cutlery parallel and straight, mopped up spillages and lined up the condiments.

‘There,’ he said.

‘You’re very tidy.’

‘Hugh Trafford likes a tidy table.’

Ugh, why had he started talking about himself in the third person? That was a bit weird. And he said he didn’t drink – ever – which was even weirder. Adding that to the fact he hated children and didn’t get her jokes – she’d tried to make a crack about a character on
Coronation Street
and he’d just looked bemused – a cloud of disappointment and despondency began to gather above her head, like in a cartoon. She feared it would unleash a comic bucket of heavy grey raindrops at any moment, all over her head. What had gone wrong?

She was getting to know him better, that’s what. Exactly what she’d been worried about. And she didn’t know if she could be with someone who called everyone ‘pal’. For the first time since they’d split, she missed Rob. He got
all
her jokes – they were the same as his.

Nevertheless, she let Hugh kiss her again. In the car park when they said goodbye. She may as well make the most of it; she knew she wouldn’t be doing it again.

‘Another date soon?’ he said, as they finally pulled apart.

‘I’ll call you,’ she said.

*

She got home to a cold, empty house and it wasn’t pleasant. She wished her children were here – shrieking, laughing, messing about. Fighting over the remote control. She wondered what Rob had done with them today. Another fabulous trip to London, maybe?

She missed them. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on like this, especially as her major distraction had just come to an end. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of white wine. Her phone was on the table and she picked it up. She might just send Rob a little text, see how the children were doing…

Frankie finally stopped texting Rob at half midnight. What the hell had happened? They had had such a laugh. Their humour sparking off each other. It had been almost
flirting
. Like the old days. Although, of course, in the old days, when they’d met, there had been no mobile phones. Their courtship did not involve texting. It involved drinking, dancing, kebab shops and landline telephone calls. But tonight’s texting reminded her of their old-days’ banter, when it was just them. When they were a new, fresh shiny item, not an old, used, slightly grubby
thing
that was dragging an inordinate amount of baggage down the street with it.

Her first text had just been asking about the children and making a joke about Josh’s refusal to get his hair cut. He’d replied with something funny about nits, and it had just gone on from there. They’d slipped back into in-jokes, puns, plays on words and film and music references. Teasing each other. Having a laugh. They must have sent about fifty texts each. She scanned over the day’s messages. Actually, it was more like a hundred each. Minus the one she’d sent to Imogen by mistake. Oops.

She had a grin on her face and her cheeks were all flushed. How could they be laughing and bantering so easily? He’d been a lazy slob; she’d hurt him badly. How had they got from that to this easy familiar flirting?

Careful, she thought. At this rate she’d be tempted to get back with him and she wasn’t sure that could ever happen. She enjoyed her nice clean home every other weekend. Her space. Her freedom. The house was less chaotic generally, too, in Rob’s absence, with one less person sabotaging her domestic efforts. Her bed was always smooth and un-rucked when she got in. She had less stuff to pick up, less mess to clear up in the kitchen. The bin was no longer a toppling mess of things not pushed down properly. It had worked, hadn’t it? She shouldn’t let the small matter of missing Rob a bit tonight ruin everything she had achieved.

She sighed.

She couldn’t go back to the crush of husband and mess and chaos every single day, could she?

Chapter Twenty-four: Grace

Greg.

Grace sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the floor.

Greg.

Her head was full of him.

It had all gone wrong. They’d said goodbye at Chelmsford train station again. It was becoming a very unsatisfactory habit. Saying goodbye and going their separate ways. Why? They’d been so relaxed in each other’s company on the way up to Ascot. Things had been great the whole day, especially after that conversation they’d had. How had things gone so wrong on the way home?

It all seemed to change the moment they’d got on the train. They’d been fine on the Tube across London, the same as they’d been all day – happy, chatty, affectionate and easy in each other’s company. They’d sat holding hands and giggling at silly things. But as the Chelmsford train pulled out of Liverpool Street, after a brief spell of reading out her horoscope to her from his phone (Luck and Love were coming. Brilliant), Greg went silent. Attempts from her to continue the wonderful time they’d had were met by him staring out of the window, until she’d stared too…at fields and houses where people with normal relationships were living normal lives. Watching telly, making cups of tea. Going to bed with each other. She knew exactly what was on her mind; she had absolutely no idea what was on his. She’d kept looking at him, wondering what he was thinking. She wished she’d spent some of Gran’s money on a nice luxury taxi all the way home from Ascot. It would have been easy then. She would have just asked the driver to take them back to her house…

‘What’s wrong?’ she’d asked him, several times.

‘Nothing,’ he’d said. ‘I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.’

And at the taxi rank he’d said, ‘Goodbye.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Grace, panicked.

‘I’m going home.’

‘Oh.’ She wanted to scream.
Come on, Greg – ask me to come home with you! Beg to come back to mine! Say you find me irresistible. Say you’re falling in love with me, that you can’t live without me. Say something!

‘So, see you again soon, Grace.’

She could barely respond. All her bravery, from earlier in the day, left her. ‘I hope so,’ she whispered, miserably. And then, as she felt the crush of disappointment descend on her and pictured a depressed night tossing and turning in her bed, for all the wrong reasons, Greg kissed her. It was sudden. His lips weren’t on her, then, suddenly, they were. They were pressed on
her
. Warm, insistent. The kiss took her breath away. It was amazing. Oh, God, she loved it. This kiss was everything. And when his tongue tangled against hers and probed tantalisingly, she clung on to him for dear life. He was gorgeous. And she realised he was clinging on to
her
. He liked her! He had to. A man didn’t kiss a woman like this if he didn’t.

But, once it was over, he still didn’t say he wanted to take her home.

He released her and said nothing. He just looked a weird mixture of confused, regretful and resigned. A black cab pitched up and he walked over and got into it. She saw him take his phone out of his pocket and look at it as the taxi pulled away.

And now Grace was sitting on her bed bloody frustrated and bloody angry with herself. She’d fallen for an unattainable man. Fallen for a male escort! It was stupid, ridiculous, self-inflicted and unnecessary. It was devastating. But why had he kissed her like that? That kiss was not fake! She knew it wasn’t. He had bloody well meant that kiss, and so had she.

She was so confused by his behaviour. They
could
have a relationship. He hadn’t slept with anyone yet. He’d only been on a few dates. He’d only been an escort for five minutes. He could give it up. Surely there was another way for him to raise the money he wanted? Surely there was a middle ground between male escort and McDonald’s?

Perhaps she hadn’t been clear enough. Perhaps she hadn’t made herself
fully clear.
She’d been pathetic. She had to take more control. Be far more proactive. Force his hand. She knew where he lived; he’d told her. She’d go there in the morning and
demand
he give up the escorting.

And then they would be together.

Chapter Twenty-five: Imogen

Imogen crashed through the door at 2a.m. Giggling, with Richard. He’d insisted on coming back to hers. She’d been disappointed. He probably had a lovely, sexy hotel room in London with a huge double bed and fifty-five fluffy pillows to romp on. But Richard had said, very convincingly and with a twinkle in his eye she couldn’t possibly say no to, that he wanted to see where she lived, that he wanted to see the whole of her, that he wanted to see her in her natural habitat.

‘Like a chimpanzee?’ she’d enquired.

‘Exactly like a chimpanzee. No,’ he’d said, in that delicious voice of his, as they’d sat in the back of the car, pressed tightly together. (She had to resist the urge to clamber up on his lap.) ‘I just want to get to know you better. I want to see your house, your style. I want it confirmed.’

‘You want what confirmed?’

He leaned towards her and whispered in her ear.

‘That you’re the woman I’m going to fall in love with.’

Her stomach had flipped like a small child on a trampoline and her heart leapt higher than an Olympic high-diver.

‘Okay, Nigel,’ she’d called to the front, unnecessarily – he was probably already heading that way. ‘The only way is Essex. Turn the car around!’

And here they were. Richard the American was in her boxy, suburban hall. She wished, not for the first time, she was in her trendy little flat in Putney. The tiny hall there had uneven bottle green walls and an antique church pew. This hall was smooth and blank and soulless. She hoped he’d managed to clock her stylish prints in their black frames, before she’d quickly switched off the light.

‘Well,’ he said. Her shoes were off again. She felt diddy, standing next to him towering above her. She loved the way that felt.

‘Well, what now?’ she inquired, looking up at him. His face was half in shadow, illuminated only by the dim light from her porch.

‘Do you want to get naked?’ he asked, his voice low and incredibly husky.

‘Yes. Please.’

And he stepped forward, gently grabbed the bottom of her dress with both hands, warm hands grazing her thighs, and slowly, slowly started peeling it up her body. He did it slowly enough that she knew she could stop him at any time. Slowly enough that she thought she couldn’t bear it.

Oh, but she could. As he really, really slowly, centimetre by centimetre, pulled up her dress, it was delicious, languid. She was being peeled like a sexy prawn. It also meant there was lots of grinning, and a bit of giggling, and some oohing and a bit of
ooh-er
-ing, and a couple of ooh missuses – she loved that he knew that very British brand of sexy talk – until she was there, standing before him in her underwear, and grateful for her fab forethought of highly expensive matching rose-pink silk, with black ribbon. She’d always done good underwear.

‘Don’t leave me this way, American boy,’ she said. ‘Now you.’ And she took off his jacket. Unbuttoned his shirt. Very slowly. Undid his high-quality formalwear trousers. They weren’t from Moss Bros, that was for sure. Imogen wanted him. She had to have him. And the time was now. She held out her hand and led him to her well-made bed. She may not have the fifty-five pillows of a hotel bed, but she had a very springy mattress.

Chapter Twenty-six: Frankie

Across the street, in her bed, her window wide open as it was a hot night, Frankie heard Imogen crash in at God knows what time of the morning. She heard a car pulling away, then the sound of keys thwacking with a metallic jangle against Imogen’s front door. There was giggling and a low rumble. A man’s voice? Really?

Frankie had been awake on and off all night. Her brain was whirring after the date with Hugh and all the texting with Rob, and the slightest noise had disturbed her: the bark of an urban fox, a car going down the street, her friend bringing a man home for a shag… Imogen was back to her old tricks! She must be. Funny, realised Frankie, Imogen had never brought a man back to Chelmsford before. Her stomping grounds were historically hotels, apartments, London town houses and after-hours offices. That definitely sounded like a man’s voice, though. There was
definitely
something going on.

Frankie turned over in bed and put a pillow over her head.

What the hell was Imogen up to?

It was ten the following morning. Frankie was in her dressing gown and on her way to put something in the outside bin. As she crossed her drive with the bulging black sack, Grace was just coming down her front path. She looked startled when she saw Frankie.

‘How was the magical mystery tour?’ Frankie called across. ‘Did you have a good day?’

‘Yes, brilliant, thanks.’

It didn’t look that brilliant, thought Frankie. She noticed her friend had smudged dark circles under her eyes and a smile that looked contrived, despite her lovely outfit. She looked nice for a Sunday morning.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘Tesco’s.’

‘Oh right. You look nice for it. I hope you’re not going to be flirting with the man on the cheese counter.’

‘Of course not,’ said Grace. ‘See you later.’

‘Yes, see you later,’ said Frankie, feeling dismissed.

Grace got into the car and drove off. Frankie went back to her house and shut the door. There was a smudge on one of the long, narrow panes of glass either side of the door.
Kids
. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and rubbed it off. Then spotted another one, on the other side. She was half-heartedly considering going to get the Mr Muscle and a duster when she heard the sound of a car again and peered through the glass. Grace was driving back up the road and there was a man striding down Imogen’s drive. She opened her door again almost as a reflex.

‘Morning!’ called out the man, breezily. It sounded like an American accent. Frankie and Grace, who had parked back outside her house and stepped out onto the pavement just as the man passed her - his hood up - raised eyebrows at each other. The man looked odd. A very smart suit with a grey hooded fleece over the top was a very bizarre fashion statement. Didn’t Imogen have a fleece like that? And he had a white carrier bag with something bulging in it. Frankie could see a circle of grey. Imogen’s door suddenly opened.