As Good As It Gets? (15 page)

What does Fraser look like now?

The sudden thought makes me feel quite dizzy. I try to push it out of my brain, annoyed for even letting it in. He’s definitely sneaking back into my consciousness more often these days – the posh git with his upper-class accent and public-school hair. I inhale deeply, have another slug of spiteful plonk and focus instead on our shed.

It’s a particularly unlovely one, it has to be said. It hasn’t been painted since we moved here and is rotting at the bottom, its timbers slowly crumbling into the ground. Its sole small, square window is cracked from when Ollie and Saul were attempting to play rounders (SMASH! ‘We didn’t
do
anything!’). Could it really be a haven of raunch, a secret den of saucy goings-on?

Perhaps it could. Knocking back the rest of the tepid wine, I place the glass on the garden table. Then I push open the creaky wooden door – we’ve never had a key for it – and sneak in.

There’s a light but I daren’t switch it on. Our bedroom overlooks the garden, and there’s a small chance that Will might happen to glance out, spot the glow from the bare bulb and assume an intruder was about to make off with his big yellow tub of hormone rooting powder. It’s sitting on the shelf, illuminated in a shaft of streetlight that’s struggling through the grubby window, and sounds like pretty exciting stuff. Rude, actually:
hormonal rootings.
What’s happening to me? One minute I’m virtually planning a romantic minibreak with a rabbit. Then I’m sensing a stirring in my loins while glimpsing some kind of stimulating powder for plants. Perhaps I need some kind of therapy.

So what else is in here? I need a torch in order to make full inventory of all the other goodies. After all, it’s Will’s private lair: God knows what he gets up to in here. I sneak back to the house, enjoying myself now – feeling reckless and naughty and less the tragic middle-aged-bunny-fancier – and find Ollie’s new torch under a heap of detritus on the worktop. I click it on in the kitchen. Yep, it works.

Back in the shed, I continue my explorations. There are stacks of plastic plant pots, oil cans and a polythene bag of rather sinister-sounding Blood Fish & Bone Fertiliser. Hmmm. Don’t fancy
that
near my private parts. There’s not much space in here either. Clearing out some of the bulkier stuff – lawnmower, Ollie’s wrecked old bike and a cluster of rusty old rakes and hoes – would attract suspicion from my beloved, and make the whole enterprise less spontaneous than I’d like.

Cans of creosote and Nitromors Stripper, lined up neatly on the top shelf, are illuminated by the torch as I step on something soft and bouncy. They’re Will’s waders, from when he was gainfully,
happily
employed, and used to slosh about in the marshes, checking the nesting habitats of Canada Geese. I pick one up and sniff it. It’s reassuringly rubbery, like the erasers we had at school.

A smile plays on my lips. Could waders be sexy? They’re not my thing: as I confessed to Sabrina, I don’t actually have one. But maybe Will would go for it, or at the very least find it amusing, and applaud my efforts? I could surprise him, summoning him out from the house via a call to his mobile and let him find me in here, naked – apart from the big rubber boots. Even if he thought I’d lost my mind, it’d be a laugh, wouldn’t it? We should have more laughs, I decide.
That
would stop me thinking about Fraser-bloody-Johnson. The two of us could just about squeeze in here, and there’s a bench – a bit splintery, granted, but I could pad it with cushions smuggled out of the house. Excited now, and fuelled by cheap Chilean booze, I place Ollie’s torch on the shelf in order to free up both hands.

I tug off my blue canvas shoes, hitch up my skirt and pull on the waders. They’re far too big for me. They don’t even look funny, let alone sexy. So what next? I find Ollie’s pair, worn on his field trips with Will, squished under the bench. They look more my size so, just out of curiosity, I pull them on. They’re tight –
too
tight. Ollie must have worn them when he was about seven or eight. I stare down at my legs, beginning to think that waders possibly aren’t quite right for a passionate encounter. Maybe some marriage counselling sessions would be more beneficial?

I start to try and pull them off. They seem to be stuck, as if some kind of vacuum has formed around my feet. I pull and pull, finally wrestling one off and taking a minute to catch my breath before attacking the other. It’s even harder to shift. Christ, I’m going to have to creep back into the house like this, in my T-shirt and skirt and one wader. Looking around the shed, I spot the big yellow tub and twist off its lid. Powder is what I need, of the hormone rooting variety if necessary.

Just before my fateful Inter-railing trip, my friend Angie and I had gone to a fetish club in Soho. While she’d dared to wear a red rubber crop top and a hip-hugging mini, I’d gone in a normal black dress from Miss Selfridge and loitered about by the bar, sipping my beer and feeling intimidated until it became apparent that these shiny, rubbery people were in fact extremely friendly. In the loo, a girl had explained that sprinkling talc into rubber garments made them easy to slip on and off.

It’s a nugget of information I’d completely forgotten, until now. Reaching for the yellow pot, I twist off its lid and sprinkle a little into the boot. I’m trying to banish the unsettling thought that the hormone powder might cause my leg hair to sprout profusely and make Will think I’m having some kind of middle-aged testosterone surge. One normal leg, and the other, the thickly-haired limb of a mammoth – that would take some explaining. But needs must. I give the boot a sharp tug, and it
flies
off, sending me staggering backwards into the bench which slams against the flimsy wooden wall, juddering the entire shed as something very hard and heavy crashes down on top of me.

‘Owww!’ I scream, clamping both hands to my head. I crouch down in the dark – the torch must have rolled off the shelf, and switched off – feeling dizzy and sick. Concussed, probably. ‘My fucking head,’ I bleat, gingerly patting my scalp.

There’s a wet patch. I am bleeding. I remain still, staring at my hands until my eyes become accustomed to the gloom. Now I can make out dark, sticky smears on my fingers. What if I need stitches? Never mind Will – what would Ollie and Rosie think if their mother had to be carted off to hospital and sewn up? Parents are meant to set a good example. We’re not supposed to get piddled on wine and injure ourselves in sheds. I’m a terrible mother and, if Will takes the kids away from me, it’ll be my own fault.

I need to survey the damage properly. I pat about on the floor, trying to find Ollie’s torch, and discover instead a big tin of something sticky, emitting a pungent smell. So that’s what happened. The tin fell down on my head and its lid pinged off, and now creosote is pooling around my bare feet.

‘Gerald!’

Shit, that’s Tricia from next door, sounding horribly close.

‘Gerald, come out here
right now
.’

‘Tricia, it’s nothing, I told you …’

I can hear her stomping about in her garden, muttering to herself, something about intruders and police. A horrible image forms in my mind – of Will, standing calmly with his arms around a bleak-faced Rosie and Ollie as he explains, ‘I’m sorry, but Mum has some …
issues
right now …’

‘Gerald?’ Tricia yells, seemingly inches from our shed. ‘I told you I heard something out here. For God’s sake, hurry up and
help
me.’

Chapter Fourteen

Oh, Christ. Gerald. Brigadier General of the Neighbourhood Watch who spearheaded a campaign to chalk a circle around every dog poo deposit in our neighbourhood and write, WHO DID THIS? beside each one (‘Scooby Doo!’ Ollie scrawled beside a particularly extravagant pile). Anyway, Gerald is not to be messed with.

A slice of bright white light beams from their open back door. ‘No, I
don’t
know where your grey cardigan is,’ Tricia snaps. ‘Just put on your dressing gown and hurry up.’

My heart is thumping as I remain, motionless, crouched in the shed. I’m paddling in creosote, I realise, in my thin cotton socks. My shoes are covered in the stuff too. ‘Just a fox,’ Gerald mutters, his voice growing nearer. ‘What’s all the fuss?’

‘A fox that screamed in a woman’s voice?’ she retorts.

‘Well, they do, actually. They cry, you know that, and it can sound just like a human. Now will you just forget this and come up to bed?’

‘A fox that swore?’ she exclaims. ‘A fox that screamed,
My fucking head
?’ There follows some mumbled discussion. ‘… the Bristows’ garden,’ Tricia goes on. ‘If he actually tried to tame it, there wouldn’t be all that undergrowth for people to hide in …’

Undergrowth? Damn cheek. They are herbaceous borders, bursting with hollyhocks and all the other flowers I don’t know the names of but make a point of admiring, to show Will that I appreciate his efforts. ‘What kind of people?’ Gerald retorts.

‘I don’t know. Drug addicts. Burglars. You don’t seem remotely concerned …’

Another pause, then Gerald mutters, ‘You said it was a woman, though?’

‘Yes. At least, I think so. God, I don’t know. Could’ve been someone in pain. A woman, a child – anyone. Maybe someone being attacked …’

‘Right, well, we’d better have a look around …’ Obviously, Gerald in his stripy pyjamas and tartan slippers would terrify the wits out of any lurking crack addict. There’s more ill-humoured murmuring, then, having apparently satisfied themselves that no one is likely to crash through the fence and attack them, our neighbours make their way back indoors.

Shivering now, I tug down my skirt, then peer out of the shed towards Tricia and Gerald’s house. Their kitchen light goes out. I step out, shutting the shed door and darting across our garden before quietly letting myself into our house.

In the hallway I peel off my ruined socks and stuff them deep into the kitchen bin. Then I hoist up one foot at a time and give it a good scrub at the sink with the dishwasher sponge, taking care to bin it when I’m done, to avoid poisoning anyone. I might be a little tipsy, and a complete fool for even considering waders as erotic attire, but at least I’m being methodical and taking care to cover my tracks – literally, as our kitchen floor needs a thorough wipe to erase my creosotey footprints. Thank God my family is asleep.

In the sanctuary of the bathroom I inspect my head. An impressive quantity of blood has seeped from the cut, which I dab at ineffectually with a dampened cotton wool pad. As it’s stinging quite badly, I daub on what we used to call ‘magic cream’, because the last thing I need is a septic scalp. Then, still feeling a little nauseous, I tread lightly to our darkened bedroom.

Mercifully, Will doesn’t seem to register me undressing or climbing into bed beside him. It’s not unusual, me coming up to bed later, although I’ve long suspected that synchronising our bedtimes might benefit our marriage. Now, though, I’m ridiculously grateful for being able to lie down in the dark without any attention whatsoever being bestowed upon me. I close my eyes, wondering when the wound will stop smarting.

Will’s hand edges over, making me flinch. ‘You okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’
Apart from being shat on by a rabbit and attacked by a two-litre can of creosote, I’m absolutely tickety-boo.

‘What time is it?’ he murmurs.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Late. After midnight. Night, darling.’ Please, please go back to sleep …

A beat’s silence. I think he’s dropped back off, so I’m safe for now. Skin repairs itself more quickly at night, so I’ve heard, so by morning the hole in my head will be all healed again. At least, that’s what I’d like to believe. The negative side of my brain is telling me it’ll continue to bleed all night and I’ll wake up with the pillowcase stuck to my scalp. It might even have to be surgically removed. I turn away from Will and pray for sleep to come.

A hand slides over my back. Then he spoons around me, and if
that’s
not enough, he starts kissing the back of my neck. This is highly irregular, him cuddling in like this – and on a normal night I’d be delighted and all over him in a nanosecond. But tonight isn’t a normal night. It’s one of humiliation and pain.

‘Hey,’ he whispers.

‘I’m a bit tired,’ I whisper back, gritting my teeth as his hand edges round and round … what’s going on here? All that sex talk in the garden with Liza and Sabrina … did some of it drift in to the house, like pollen? Or did he hear me saying we’re like housemates, and vowed to put things right? Oh-my-God, now the hand is
doing
things which, again, I’d find thrilling under normal circumstances but now cannot entertain at all.

This is so weird. The last couple of times, I’ve been the one to instigate things. I’ve tried to gently ask if there’s any reason why we hardly ever do it these days, and he’s just brushed me off, saying it’s ‘just life’, whatever that means. But now, it’s as if another man, who looks very like Will, has broken in and snuck into our bed. Or maybe he’s been taken over by an amorous alien. I wriggle uncomfortably and let out a little murmur, which I hope he’ll interpret as ‘I am
completely
exhausted’ rather than, ‘Let’s do it.’

‘Charlotte?’ he whispers.

‘Mmmrr,’ I mumble unintelligibly.

‘Look … I’m sorry.’

‘’S’okay.’ I have no idea what he’s sorry for but I don’t want to hear it now. I want to sleep for six hours and wake up with a mended head.

The hand comes to rest on the soft curve of my stomach. ‘Just wanted to say …’ I realise I’m holding my breath. ‘… you’ve been really good about the job thing.’

‘’S’all right,’ I whisper.

‘I, um … I know it hasn’t been easy lately …’ Why has he decided to talk about this now, when I’ve tried so many times during normal daylight hours and he’s never been anything other than brusque or defensive?

‘I don’t mind at all,’ I say firmly. ‘It’s good, you being here, er … doing stuff.’

‘You really think so?’

‘Mmm.’ He kisses the back of my neck so tenderly, I almost want to cry.
Now please go straight to sleep like you do virtually every other night …
But he doesn’t. He keeps kissing me, and I know I’m being a bit offish, lying here rigid and not responding in any way. So I turn and plant a speedy kiss on his cheek.