All That Mullarkey (6 page)

Cleo tried to ignore the unpleasant creeping sensation of being in the wrong. ‘I was so pissed off with Gav it was like I stepped off the real world and into a fantasy one where nothing – Gav, in particular – mattered. My head got really messy.’

Liza’s mouth set in a way that was as close to disapproval of Cleo as she got. ‘I can’t believe it – you and Gav, you’ve been so perfect. But it’s just a blip, hopefully? You’ll be good as gold again in no time – oh, don’t cry!’ She flung anxious arms around her sister. ‘It’ll be OK. Get your phone back, forget it ever happened. It was a one-off. You’ve still got your old life.’

Cleo scrabbled for a tissue. ‘Everything was great. Compared to our friends, our marriage was blissful.
Was
. But this “blip” has made me feel disorientated. It’s as if I’ve woken up to all kinds of things I used to accept without thinking, like Gav asking where I’m going and who with. Suddenly it grates.’

Incomprehension widened Liza’s eyes. ‘Hello-o? That’s just marriage, isn’t it?’

‘But now I’ve stepped outside the marriage. Even if I regret it,’ – did she? – ‘I feel … empowered. I did as I liked. I can do as I like, again.’

‘Ah.’ Liza sipped her absinthe. ‘But if Gav finds out about Justin, your options will narrow dramatically. Won’t they?’

Cleo wondered how she’d feel if that happened. ‘If he doesn’t show up I can forget him. And he can forget me.’

And then he was there. Strolling across the dance floor in a dull blue silk shirt. Grim and gorgeous.

Cleo felt shock waves ripple her spine. ‘I didn’t see you arrive!’

He flicked a nod towards the darker recesses of the club. ‘I was over there. Let’s go outside.’

Cleo didn’t have much choice but to follow, turning over the thought that he’d apparently been in the club all along, watching her as she waited. Bastard. She’d retrieve her phone and be out of it.

It was a relief to leave the stifling club and step into the open air; she paused to savour a couple of clean lungfuls before realising that Justin was already striding away. Crossly, she hurried after, until he stopped in a deep recess formed by windows angling in towards a shop door, waving her past, into the shadow.

She turned, back against the bevelled glass of the door, her heart and breathing fluttering. She licked her lips and tried to smile, saying, lightly, ‘Have you got my phone?’

He extracted it briefly from his trouser pocket, held it up then put it back, ignoring her outstretched hand. He didn’t smile, although she felt she was grinning rather idiotically at him.

‘I just want to clear a few things up first.’ In the street light half his face was plainly lit, half in shadow.

He leaned one hand on the door above her shoulder. ‘I’m curious about what exactly led up to you spending the night with me.’

She tried a theatrical groan. ‘I’ve just done this routine with Liza!’ He waited. She sighed and resigned herself to another airing of the edited highlights. Gav. Reunion. Craig. Gav storming out. Message on the wall. Trying to find Liza. Meeting Justin.

His gaze flicked between her lips and her eyes. ‘So you did have sex with me to punish your husband?’

‘No! I … well, I just … didn’t feel any particular loyalty to him right then. I was angry. Not thinking straight.’ She wished he’d step back; take the warmth of his disturbing body away.

‘What about me? Was it fair to me?’

His aftershave seemed to envelop her, making breathing difficult, preventing her brain from wholly commanding her mouth.

The heat of his hand settling suddenly on her bare leg below her dress startled her into exaggerated recoil. She ought to push him off, slap him away, but her limbs seemed to have turned to rubber. Unchallenged, the hand slid higher up her thigh, stroking gently. ‘If a bloke used a woman in the way you used me, you’d be calling him seven types of bastard, wouldn’t you?’ He began to lift the cotton fabric.

‘I didn’t use you!’ Honesty made her add, ‘I didn’t mean to, anyway.’ Her voice sounded squeaky and she was unable to concentrate on much but his scalding touch. If she objected, he’d stop. But her mouth wouldn’t issue the objection.

His hand drifted higher, reached the soft line where her knickers began. ‘You used me for sex. And to get back at your husband.’ His fingers probed thoughtfully past the lace. ‘Without worrying how I’d feel about it.’

Cleo gasped and clutched hopelessly at the smooth door behind her, her knees loose with desire. She seemed to have forgotten the mechanics of breathing, her chest moved unevenly, pumping air in haphazard chunks.

Yet he seemed perfectly controlled, his voice low and even. ‘Do you want sex tonight?’

Clinging to the last remnants of sense, she managed a shake of her spinning head.

He whispered, ‘It could be right here. Right now.’

She shook her head again. ‘Don’t, Justin!’ She despised herself. The next word that came out of her mouth was going to be
yes
.

Slowly, slowly, he released her. And asked, casually, ‘I suppose you took the morning-after pill?’

She stared at him, at his sharp nose and sensual lips. Slowly, she shook her head.

He remained calm. ‘Why not?’

She dropped her eyes. ‘I didn’t think of it.’

He laughed, a sharp crack, without humour. ‘You’re brilliant, you are.’ Taking her phone out of his pocket he lifted her left hand, stared for a moment at her wedding rings, and dropped the phone into her palm. ‘And you’ve got bad fucking manners.’ One step back and he no longer filled Cleo’s vision. She could see Liza waiting, out of earshot. Another step back. ‘I hope, at least, that everything was to your satisfaction.’ He turned and stalked away.

Freed of his presence, suddenly infuriated at his snooty, wounded pride, she bawled after him, ‘You got every bit as much sex as I did!’

A passing group of lads laughed and whooped and Cleo felt mortification curl her toes; that really improved the situation.

Justin turned back, made a pistol out of two fingers and a thumb and pointed it at her. ‘It was … fine. But let’s just keep it between us two, shall we? As you’re a married woman.’

Silently, Liza joined Cleo, watching Justin pass the other shops until he disappeared into the darkness and was gone. ‘Phwoar!’ She whistled. ‘He’s succulent. Have you got his number?’

Cleo shook with a sudden laugh, rubbing her arms as if to warm away goosebumps. ‘I don’t suppose it’s easy to get Justin’s number.’

Finally, when they were back at Liza’s flat, in the familiar, tiny second bedroom with magnolia walls and no carpet, Cleo removed her make-up and undressed, waiting her turn for the bathroom.

And when Liza appeared, looking clean and miles younger than twenty-eight, Cleo blurted, ‘What do you know about the morning-after pill?’

Liza halted abruptly. ‘Oh shit! What have you done?’

Cleo looked down at her hands. ‘I came off the pill. And forgot the cap. And didn’t think about condoms because I’m just not in the habit any more.’

‘
Cleo
!’ Liza hissed. ‘You’ve got to take it within three days of having unprotected sex. The sooner, the better.’

Cleo chewed her lip.

‘Or you can have a coil fitted, within five days. When exactly did you ...?’

‘Seven days.’

Liza closed despairing eyes. ‘For fuck’s sake, go and get some help. Ask for an emergency appointment in the morning. Honestly.’ She shook her head. ‘Cleo! Wake up! The real world’s not as safe as a cosy marriage, you know! You’ll have to go and get sorted, first thing.’

But, even earlier than first thing, at six in the morning, Gav phoned, fighting panic. ‘My sister’s just rung, Dad’s in hospital. He’s had a heart attack!’

Chapter Seven

Cleo dashed home, tormented by pictures of her father-in-law, George, helpless in a hospital bed, his normally ruddy complexion as grey as his toothbrush moustache, and jumped straight into Gav’s car for the drive to Yorkshire. She was still struggling with her seat belt as Gav flung the car into Cross Street, left into Main Road, straight out of the village past slate and stone cottages and The Three Fishes. ‘How is he?’ she gasped.

Gav’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. ‘Not good. More than just a warning, Mum said. He’d been having pains in his arm all evening, then in the early hours he began to feel as if his chest was being crushed.’ Jerkily, he fed the car onto a large roundabout.

‘Poor George.’ Cleo liked both George and her mother-in-law, Pauline. A warm, twinkling Yorkshireman, George had returned to his county the minute retirement had let him; and Pauline didn’t seem to mind where they lived, so long as they were together.

Their house, normally airy and tall, seemed to have shrunk at the advent of family with weekend cases and neighbours milling between the sitting room and the hall. Squeezing her way through the clutter, Cleo thought Pauline looked inundated even without Gav’s sister, Yvonne, having arrived a minute before them, smothering her with a hug, sniffing, ‘Allen has to work today, he’ll phone this afternoon. How’s Dad? How’re you? Oops, I must sit down.’ Yvonne was three months pregnant and spent most of her time feeling faint, her skin taking on an alarming pallor and her cloud of hair frizzing from the sweat on her forehead.

Gav kissed his mother’s white cheek, letting Yvonne totter to the hall chair unaided. ‘What’s the news? Can we see him today?’

Although looking drawn and grey, Pauline managed a smile for her children. ‘He’s “resting comfortably, but not out of the woods”. Which means they don’t know what’s going to happen, of course. I’m OK, a bit shell-shocked. I’ve got to ring after the doctor’s rounds … oh, can you answer the door, Gavin?’

Another neighbour had presented herself on the doorstep. ‘Not to bother you, love, but I wondered if there was any news. Or if I could do anything to help?’ Gav ushered her to join two other neighbours grave-faced in the sitting room. Yvonne bustled after, no doubt to regale them with accounts of her journey, her condition and how worried she was about her father. Pauline sat down suddenly at the bottom of the stairs.

Cleo crouched beside her and took her hands, chilly despite the summer’s day. ‘Haven’t you slept?’

Bags hung under Pauline’s eyes. ‘Not a wink, darling. Everything’s been so … I haven’t even said hello to you, Cleo.’ Her bottom lip trembled.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Cleo piled the bags into the corner under the phone shelf and helped Pauline to her feet. ‘Come sit in your rocking chair with a hot drink.’ In minutes she had a steaming cup of tea at Pauline’s elbow with two digestive biscuits in a saucer, then she loaded a tray for the sitting room, which Yvonne took over, as Cleo had known she would.

Stomach-growlingly aware of her own hunger, she returned to delve in the fridge for bacon.

Through the doorway she could hear the neighbours’ voices dominating the sitting-room conversation, though Yvonne wasn’t giving up the arena easily.

She half listened as she grilled bacon and kept an eye on her mother-in-law. Pauline’s head had tipped back and her eyes closed, her half-drunk tea cooling on the table. It was the first time Cleo had seen Pauline grey and beleaguered, her face slack as she dozed. If ever someone needed a bit of peace!

Cleo gave the neighbours fifteen minutes to drink their tea then marched in, disrupting the debate about whether George had looked well recently. ‘I’ve made bacon rolls for you, Gav and Yvonne. The rest of you will excuse us now, won’t you? Everyone’s upset, Pauline’s asleep and we’ve had no time to eat.’ The neighbours, after an instant’s surprised silence, rose to their feet.

As Gav saw them out, Yvonne rushed into the kitchen after Cleo. ‘I wish I could make direct requests like that! I’m afraid of upsetting people but you don’t give a bugger, do you? I should be doing the breakfast! I just sat down for –’

Cleo, finger on lips, indicated Pauline. ‘You’re too upset. Don’t worry. You guys look after George and I’ll do the boring stuff, OK?’

So, for the next few days, Cleo took on the catering. Yvonne didn’t really like not being Queen of the Kitchen but clung to her condition as an excuse to concede the throne. Pauline continued to look as if she’d been hit by a truck. Gav prowled restlessly, pouncing on any errand that would get him out of the house.

Cleo visited the hospital only once because she didn’t think that her father-in-law needed to be tired by unnecessary visitors. Waxy and weary, George had been tied to his hospital bed by monitors and drips, looking calm but curiously loose and dishevelled. An oxygen mask was within his reach and the smell of sick people hung on the air.

Cleo hated the temporariness of camping in her parents-in-law’s spare room. She had only the few clothes that Gav had thrown into a bag for her, and slept in pyjamas because she never knew who she’d meet on the way to the bathroom at night. But she had no real option other than to ring Ntrain on Monday morning and arrange to stay longer.

Nathan hummed as he consulted the bookings schedule. ‘Let’s see, let’s see …’ Cleo could imagine him wearing his telephone headset, scrolling across the on-screen roster. ‘I can cover your work till Wednesday but is there any chance of you coming back for Thursday? You’ve got Interpersonal Skills at Rockley Image and I just haven’t got another body to fill in. Rockley’s a brand new client so I don’t want to have to reschedule.’