As It Is On Telly (13 page)

With all this tumbling through her head Bunty stumbled out of bed, hearing the door slam and her phone ring on the dressing table at the exact same moment. The screen showed 0064 … A New Zealand number again. It made sense – roughly ten hours later; it would be late evening in New Zealand, and Cally would know she’d be up by now.

‘Okay, okay, I can promise you that we’ve just been asleep,’ she said in as perky a tone as she could muster. ‘Definitely no more bondage or vibrators since we spoke.’

There was a long pause, during which Bunty worried for a second that Cally might have her on loudspeaker so that Paige, Pete, possibly even the baby would be looking at each other in shocked bewilderment. Then a deep voice said, ‘You know, I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that.’

‘Oh God. Ben.’ Finally. ‘I thought you were someone else.’ She knew as she said it that it was ambiguous, that he might think there had actually been some bondage going on with another person, another man . But sod it, she thought. Let him. She’d every right to get it on – or off – with someone else since he’d disappeared out of her life. No opportunity, but every right.

Ben clearly took it the wrong way, almost as she’d intended. ‘Right. Well, I deserve that, I guess.’

‘You do a bit.’

Ben laughed. ‘I know. I owe you a massive apology. That day we were meant to meet I found out that my ex was introducing my kids to, you know, the new bloke. It sort of screwed with my head a bit.’

‘Oh, Ben.’ So that was it. It was perfectly reasonable. He’d been upset and gone to ground. And wasn’t she going through the very same thing, right at that very moment? ‘That’s awful. I totally understand. So you’re back in New Zealand now?’

‘No,’ said Ben, sounding puzzled. ‘Oh, the phone number. That’s my old phone. I bought a new one to use here but I’m afraid I got a bit mad when my ex rang to tell me the lovely news, and I …’ He laughed softly, as if he could hardly believe it himself. ‘Well, to be honest I threw the phone on the ground and jumped up and down on it. I really, really lost it.’

‘Aw,’ said Bunty, trying to sound sympathetic but also going slightly mushy inside at how cute he sounded saying, ‘Rurly, rurly lost ut.’ He wasn’t in New Zealand. He was still around. And he was calling her! Suddenly the morning looked so much brighter.

Easy does it, though, Bunty, she thought. ‘So have you got your head back together then?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well, I’m glad. And I do understand, you know, Ben. You could have just told me.’

Ben groaned. ‘I know. I just wasn’t thinking straight. But I am now, and I was just wondering if your ex has your daughter today. I mean, are you free now? I shouldn’t even ask.’

‘No! I mean, yes. Yes, he does have Charlotte right now, so I suppose … I suppose I’m free.’ She moved the phone closer to her mouth so he wouldn’t hear the pulse throbbing in her throat.

‘It’s a beautiful day. Maybe you could find that picnic blanket again.’

Bunty restrained the squeal that was about to erupt from her. ‘Fine,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll bring coffee and some sandwiches – cold lamb all right?’

‘You’re asking a Kiwi if lamb’s all right?’ Ben laughed. ‘I practically am one.’

Well, I’ll eat you then, thought Bunty, but she just said, ‘See you in twenty minutes, and then I have to be home by twelve.’

‘Or you turn into a pumpkin?’

‘Midday, not midnight. And never you mind what I turn into.’

There was a long pause, during which Bunty knew that Ben was imagining the bondage, the vibrators, and goodness knew what else. ‘Okay. Twenty minutes,’ said Ben breathily.

Bunty grinned, squeezed herself, and grinned again as she sprinted down the stairs to the dinner party remains. Very cool, Bunty. Breezy, she told herself. It was back! Her flirt gland had re-engaged. And the recipient was fully engaged too, she guessed. Grabbing the plaid blanket and the picnic, she whisked out to the car.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

If Bunty had rolled together every romantic film, every ‘will-they-won’t-they’ kiss ever seen on a soap, every single perfect moment of breathy-bosomed costume drama she had ever seen in her life, the sum, to her mind, would still not have matched the pinnacle of exquisite romance that was her reunion kiss with Ben. It was almost exactly as she’d pictured it on the internal movie viewer of her brain as she’d driven at break-neck speed to the hotel at which she’d met Mallory:

1: She rounded the grand facade of the hotel and headed out towards the copse of trees. Ben was standing under one, looking the wrong way. Fantastic. She could check out what he was wearing (long board-shorts, navy polo shirt, flip flops) and admire the ratio of his enormous shoulders to his hand-span waist, take in the still-damp, curly dark hair resting on his collar, and compose herself, all without him knowing.

2. Smiling, she smoothed down her plain white tee-shirt – thrown on in haste with the same jeans she’d worn all night, and the same underwear did he but know it; not that he would have any cause to know it (the trick, she realised, was to leave them
wanting
) – and called out his name.

3. He turned, smiling, watching her face for signs of annoyance then smiling more broadly as he saw there was none. Then he picked her up, straight off her feet, with his nose in the soft space behind her ear, breathing her in, murmuring, ‘Thank you! Thank you for not being mad.’

4. As Bunty laughed and kicked a little to be put down, he set her back expertly on her slender, ‘not-really-suitable-for-picnics’ heels, then gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

5. She kissed him back.

6. He kissed her back.

7. She kissed him back more.

8. He kissed her back again, and then suddenly they were enmeshed in a full-on, breathless grope under the tree, and then against the tree, and then almost behind the tree until a passing gardener screamed ‘Hey, get a room!’ and they separated, giggling, covering their mouths and their cheeks with mock shame and agreeing, wordlessly, like age-old lovers, to retreat to the blanket and act with some propriety.

It was perfect. Beyond perfect. It was television perfect. (Though Bunty did notice, somewhat to her annoyance, that it later lost something in translation. Kat merely raised her eyebrows, nodded knowingly, and said, ‘It’s been a looooong time for
that
soldier.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Bunty crossly. ‘You know,’ replied Kat, making lewd rocking motions in her chair. ‘He’s not
done
it
in a while.’

‘Well, neither have you, and you don’t kiss anyone like that, I bet.’ Bunty stopped for a minute. ‘You haven’t, have you? With Dan?’ At which Kat had laughed.

‘I told you! I wouldn’t do that to Simon.’ And somehow the conversation had turned to her long distance relationship, and the agony and ecstasy of Bunty’s illicit romance had been side-tracked.)

‘Got a bit carried away there,’ said Ben. He bit his lip in his embarrassment and inadvertently made Bunty’s thighs tingle.

‘It’s really nice to see you.’ Bunty busied herself with the picnic blanket and handed Ben a lamb sarnie before he could make another move. Keep him wanting.

Keeping him talking was the other technique she tried to concentrate on. That was on the advice of Kat, who now considered herself something of an expert having held down a relationship with someone on the other side of the world for over a year. In ‘Men According to Kat’, the one thing men liked to do almost as much as sex was to talk about themselves. ‘That can’t be right,’ said Bunty, although she did have a vague recollection that Adam had seemed most animated when the discussion was about him. ‘Graham doesn’t want to talk about anything, hardly ever.’

‘But that’s not a man,’ argued Kat. ‘That’s Graham.’

Ben bucked the short trend in her life at least a little. While he was very happy to talk about his kids – Jarred who was nearly five and Shanti who was two – and about the yacht, he was very careful to ask questions of Bunty, like ‘So what do you do with your time now Charlotte’s so grown up?’ and ‘How far did you get in your fencing?’ Mostly Bunty tried to change the subject back to him, because it was more important to make Ben feel relaxed than to think about such matters and lie. Wasn’t it?

Once more they snogged like teenagers at a drive-in, and Ben rang next morning to see if he would be allowed to send flowers. ‘I know it’s not very spontaneous and romantic, but I have to ask you for your address if I’m to send them.’

‘Meet me with them!’ suggested Bunty, so they met for a quick lunch in a pub garden in a nearby village, and Ben arrived with a bunch of gerbera.

Graham looked askance at the vase as he threw down his bag that night. He was late. Again. ‘Where did you get those from?’

‘I treated myself,’ said Bunty, so aglow with delight that she beamed, even at her husband.

Graham sighed. ‘Are they in the budget?’

He did actually work out a household budget at the beginning of each year, and if Bunty had to decide she would probably have to put the flowers under the heading of ‘miscellaneous treats and outings’ for which she was allowed 100 pounds a month. But this time she had ammo. ‘Don’t think so, but then I figured, What’s going to cost more – cut sperm tubes, or cut flowers? I didn’t think a tenner would blow the budget too much.’

‘You’re still mad about that?’

‘I’m still mad, Graham,’ she said, picking up his bag pointedly, ‘about everything.’

And suddenly she meant it. She wasn’t just mad about the vasectomy. She wasn’t even mad that he was seeing someone else behind her back. It was bigger than that now, she realised as she kicked his bag into the utility room. Now she was angry that she’d married him in the first place, that she’d given up her chance of an interesting life to be with someone who budgeted for bunches of flowers, and who wouldn’t in a million years dream of shoving her up against a tree and kissing the life out of her with a passion that made her feel constantly thirsty. Passion. That was what she was mad about. The lack of passion. She turned the tap on to fill the vase with such ferocity that water sprayed all over them both on either side of the sink.

Quite unexpectedly, Graham grabbed her hand across the breakfast bar. ‘Don’t be … Don’t. It’s all going to be over soon, and then you’ll see that it’s all for the best.’

‘What is?’ she yelled, then catching Charlotte’s eye from where she was lying across her homework at the dining room table, she reeled herself in. ‘What is?’ she hissed.

‘My plan.’ Graham blinked at her, as if she should have known all along what his strange male, budgeting brain was working out. ‘The plan.’

‘Like the plan that we wouldn’t have any more children? The plan to take up … extra-curricular activities? Well, just as soon as you decide what my part in this plan is, Graham, you let me know.’

‘Mum, can you help me with this maths?’ bleated Charlotte.

Bunty wiped her hands on the tea towel and threw it over her shoulder to land on top of Graham’s bag. ‘Your dad will help you,’ she said, staring him down, daring him to say otherwise. ‘I’m going out.’

‘Now? Who with?’ Graham peered round at the oven, which was ominously empty.

‘With … me.’

Grabbing her coat and bag, she rushed out to the car. It was 6.30 p.m. Too early to meet Kat, too short notice to call Ben (plus she’d noticed he was no longer using his New Zealand mobile and now had another local phone, for which she couldn’t get the number.) But actually, it suddenly occurred to her that she’d just said who she wanted to go out with. Herself. Her beautifully painted ecru walls had closed in on her, and she needed some quiet.

On a whim, Bunty headed out of the city and shot up an A-road to the next market town. The cinema was housed in a converted church – just two screens, often showing independents rather than blockbusters, and sometimes, if she was lucky, something old and black and white. On this particular night she struck gold: a big screen version of
Some
Like
It
Hot
. It was so far from her world that she felt suddenly revived, and the sheer pleasure of buying a ticket for one, and sweets for one so she could dunk her Maltesers in her glass of chardonnay, and getting a seat for one wherever she liked, was a surprise to her. She sank into the seat with an audible sigh. This was better. Here was relief. Peace, in the racket of a machine-gun massacre in downtown twenties Chicago.

Before she could slide down into her seat completely and drop a chocolate into her plastic wine glass, there was a tap on her shoulder, and someone whispered her name.

Oh God, was her first thought. Graham’s followed me. Or Jason? She turned around with some trepidation to find Dan’s smiling face a few inches from her own. ‘I thought that was you. All right?’

‘I’m fine. One of my favourite films,’ she whispered back.

Dan pointed back along the row. ‘My mum’s too. We’re just over there if you want to join us.’

‘You brought your mum to see her favourite film? Dan, you have got to be gay.’

‘No. Just nice,’ said Dan with a smile. ‘We do exist, you know.’

Bunty nodded, and then indicated that she wanted to stay put. Giving her a thumbs up, Dan shuffled back to his mum’s side, where Bunty could hear the two of them chuckling together like a pair of geese, Dan’s booming honk to his mum’s gentle titter.

It was only nine o’clock when the film finished. Bunty waved to Dan and his mum, then got into her car and drove halfway around the M25. Then she filled up with petrol and drove back along the other half. Driving. That was one of the things she could have said on her resumé. Fencing and driving, particularly at this time of night when she could get her foot down, let her imagination wander and cover ground for no other reason than it was there to do. She walked into the house at midnight, about as calm as she had felt in weeks. Charlotte was asleep on the sofa, with Graham next to her in the armchair, and the television repeating the latest box office news.

Graham opened one eye. ‘I can’t pick her up any more,’ he said sadly, and Bunty suddenly understood why Charlotte was still there. He’d let her fall asleep as they used to on Bunty’s rare nights off and out of the house, when he would carry her upstairs at bedtime. Now she was so grown up that she probably had more chance of carrying Graham upstairs, possibly even the two of them together, Dad under one arm, and Mum under the other. It was the first time he’d realised their little girl was really not so little any longer. Despite that, there was such an uncommon air of peace in the room that Bunty couldn’t bear to disturb anyone. She gathered the duvets from upstairs, snuggled down next to Charlotte, and went to sleep to the sound of Graham’s snoring.

Charlotte, of course, found it all a huge adventure when she woke up in the morning. ‘Did Grandma and Grandad come?’ she said with a yawn. That was usually when they – or at least, Charlotte – were turfed out of bed. And they all laughed, even Charlotte, at the truth of the matter whereby Graham couldn’t carry her despite his new-found biceps, before she suddenly said, horrified, ‘You don’t mean I’m, like,
fat
, do you?’ and they all laughed again, because she was actually skeletal.

Later that day, Ben asked to meet her for coffee, and she related the tale to him, as he’d lovingly told her tales of his kids, only it got rather broken up with her having to leave Graham out of the picture, and making it sound for a moment as though the babysitter had spent the night in the armchair. Rather like telling Kat about the kiss with Ben, the point of it became somewhat lost and she noticed his eyes glazing over just a fraction. Bunty kicked herself – keep him talking about himself. Mental mantra. Keep him talking.

‘Well, this is four days on the trot I’ve seen you now,’ she teased. ‘Haven’t you got a job to go to? Oh, of course. You’re on your yacht.’

Ben shrugged and nodded modestly at the same time. Cally had told Bunty about the Kiwi art of self-deprecation – Ben had definitely managed it.

‘So how … is this a rude question? How did you actually make your money? You haven’t mentioned your job or anything.’

Ben studied his coffee cup. ‘It’s … well, it’s family money, I suppose. I don’t talk about it.’

And he didn’t, so that was that. Bunty, feeling a little chastised, watched a couple walk into the cafe with two small children. The woman was stunning, and Bunty wondered how she’d kept her figure with two kids so small and so close together in age. Ben squinted in her direction too, but she could see that he was looking at the children. How he must miss them. Then without any preamble he said, ‘Shall we go for a run?’

He was staring at the woman’s tanned legs. Bunty looked at them and then down at her own, which would only have come up to the other woman’s knees.

‘Sorry?’

‘A run. I mean, we keep meeting and eating, don’t we?’ Ben laughed. ‘You must be fit from all that fencing and stuff. How about we meet up for a run tomorrow?’

Bunty paused. Was she going to lie still further? She decided not to. ‘I hate running,’ she said at length. ‘Sorry, but with legs as short as these it’s pretty much a given that I was intended to drive everywhere.’

‘Well, there’s always …’ Ben leaned over and stroked one of the offending thighs. ‘There’s always other exercise.’