Julia Gets a Life (6 page)

            This?
Glamorous?

            ‘Not really. It’s...’

            ‘I was just saying to Rhiannon how lovely it’ll be once mine are both at school - I can’t wait. Isn’t that dreadful? I don’t mean it, of course, but sometimes...’

            Oh, shut
up,
you twittering woman. Where’s…Oh, Christ! I get it! She doesn’t know!

            Caryl Phelps does not know that Rhiannon has shagged Richard. Caryl Phelps does not know that I have chucked him out. Caryl Phelps does not know that Rhiannon is my biggest enemy in all the world bar slugs and that as soon as she comes within ten feet of me I am liable to scream or cry or shake or have a hot flush – in fact any or all available adrenalin induced reactions and that, mainly, I might just punch her face in.

            ‘I know. But I
do
know what you mean. It’s hard work with babies, isn’t it? Non stop nappies and feeds and crying and trying to force rusks down them and...har, har, har. Do you
want to enter Oscar?’

            ‘Oh, I don’t know. He’s just gone off.’

            ‘It’s free.
And
you get the print, and if you decide to....’

            ‘Free? Oh, in that case...Rhi!’

            So
there
she is. She is scrabbling amongst character pyjamas with her back to us. She knows I am here. She knows Caryl is talking to me. She is trying to
avoid
me.

            Knowing this has an electrifying effect. I can feel all my adrenalin re-routing to my muscles. I can feel every empowering word I’ve read in every book I’ve got out of the library (central and local) resonating in my head. I can feel my waistline, stomach, thighs, boobs and face re-adjusting themselves into more desirable configurations. I can feel every one of the twenty odd inches of altitude that separate my lofty causeway and her Sleeps and Smalls purchasing zone. I am woman. I am strong. I have right on my side and steel in my breast. I have, in short, the upper hand.

            She turns around, slowly. Her face looks like a sucked sweet; boiled and red. She says, ‘Oh. Erm...look...I...er...Caryl, I..er...think I......’

            Caryl, who is busy slapping Oscar’s cheeks in an effort to perk him up for the picture, says, ‘Rhi, I thought I’d enter Oscar for this baby photo competition. It won’t take long. You know Julia, don’t you? Yes, of course you do! So what should I do, Julia? Do I just sit him on this fun fur podium here? Of course, he can’t actually sit too well yet, can you, snuggles? But if I sort of crouch at the back, I can prop him up and ...ooh! Look, Oscar, it’s Izzles! Or is it Doodles?.. Ahh. You like him, don’t you? He just
so
loves the Tweenies. Oh come and look at his face, Rhi!’

            But Caryl is fading into a soft focus wedding montage as she speaks. This is High Noon at the retail outlet corral.

            I say; ‘Of course I know Rhiannon. She’s been to bed with my husband.’ Which drops like a breeze block into the white noise, and instantly disperses it.

            Caryl; ‘What?’

            Rhiannon; ‘Julia, I...’

            Me; ‘Don’t you “Julia, I...” me.’

            Caryl; ‘Pardon?’

            Me (warming up); ‘Didn’t you know? Didn’t she tell you, Caryl? Well, no, I guess it wouldn’t be something I’d shout about either...’

            Rhiannon; ‘It’s nothing to do with her. It’s nothing to do with anyone except us and Richard. It’s...’

            Me (go for it, girl); ‘And Emma and Max, maybe? Or was breaking up families just an unfortunate sideline? Have you got a
Seedlings
handbook about it I could buy?’

            Rhiannon (redder still); ‘I don’t think this is the appropriate time to be...’

            Me (textbook stuff); ‘Oh, you don’t, do you? Well I don’t think it was very
appropriate
for you to have sex with my husband, either. So tough!’

            Caryl; ‘What?’

            Rhiannon; ‘Caryl, I’m going..’

            Caryl (lashing Oscar back to his buggy); ‘Rhiannon, wait!’

            At this point Rani strolls back over the ramp, pausing only to ruffle Oscar’s pink head as she passes Caryl - who is speeding to catch up with Rhiannon and all the scandal.

            ‘Hey! Ugly, or what? Not a chance, that one,’ says Rani. ‘Sorry I’ve been so long. How’s business?’

            ‘None as yet, ‘ I say. ‘Look, I’ve just got to dash to the ladies. I won’t be long. Set things up if we have any entrants, can you?’ I have my hands balled into fists because I can’t stop them shaking.

            I leave Rani before she can sense the vibration on the stripped-pine effect flooring, and run past Chews, News and Blues and into Loos, where I lock myself in the furthest cubicle.

            It says (somewhere, some book or other) that deep breathing coupled with mouthing a suitably calming mantra is very good in times of stress and agitation. Except that I can’t think of anything. My mind seems to have gone off on some sort of fugue. So I simply stare at the cubicle door while my heart beat comes down to something less like a rolling boil.

            ‘Scott’s Sanitation Services (UK) , Scott’s Sanitation Services (UK), Scott’s Sanitation Services (UK)...’

            Which is all really peculiar.

            Once I had calmed down sufficiently to function commercially, I went back to our stand on the causeway and told Rani all about it. Rani is almost pathologically single, being seriously gorgeous, seriously feisty and at odds with her parents at all times over the polaroids of spotty second cousins etc. that well meaning relatives keep sending her from Poona. Rani calls a spade a spade. Which won’t help her marital prospects any.

            I told her I was confused about why I felt so much fury at Rhiannon when I’m feeling so non-plussed at the idea of having Richard back and am, indeed, considering the prospect of having a boyfriend (or boyfriends?) with such relish.

            Rani thinks the one has nothing much to do with the other. She thinks Rhiannon is a bitch and a tart and that she probably got off lightly.

            ‘But ahh,’ she said, pointing a manicured talon. ‘How would you feel if you knew Richard was still seeing her?’

            I would be mortified, of course.

            Is that it, then? That I can cast Richard aside only on the understanding that he remains celibate at number 7 Malachite Street?

            I think perhaps it is.

            Or is it just that I cannot bear the thought of Rhiannon De Laney having him?

            Maybe.

            Or do I just hate her, period, because she slept with my husband - regardless of what the outcome of that act turned out to be i.e. not as bad as I thought, bordering on being rather good in places, as it happens?

            Perhaps.

            Or am I just kidding myself? Do I really,
deep down
, still love Richard and want him back and am I just operating on a knee jerk reaction level to the loss of pride engendered by becoming a victim, which is manifesting itself in a desire to have a sexual relationship with someone else? In short, an affair on the rebound?

            Could be. I try to remember what it felt like all those years ago on the day when we both said ‘I do.’ I wish I could capture it; pull it out and inspect it; try it on again and see if it still fits. I remember a tall young man standing beside me. A long roman nose, just a hint of some stubble. A grey suit - too big for him - a slightly skewed button hole, a faint sheen of sweat at the edge of his brow. I even remember his touch in the vestry, his whispered ‘we did it!’, his incredulous tone. I think I remember, too, how much I loved him. But that was then, wasn’t it? And all this is now.

            How
do
you untangle all the stuff in the middle and find your way back to the basic emotion? And, more to the point, should you even try? Aren’t the feelings you have when you’re older indivisible from the sum of the bits in between?

            God, I don’t know. I am so,
so
confused.

            What I probably need right now is a bottle of wine and a take away curry.

            By the time
Dial-A-Dhal
has my naan slapped against the side of the tandoor, I have begun to feel my equilibrium returning. I have forty two entrants, sixteen new family sittings booked, a pair of half-price
Pingu
slipper socks (plus discount) from the
Planet Kid
‘Don’t Bin It!’
bin, and there is an
EastEnders
hour long special on the telly.

           
And
I have faced Rhiannon at last. The only way is up. 

Chapter
6

            Thnk I’ve finally absorbed some robust Celtic grit. Not quite to the extent of humming Men of Harlech in the bath or anything, but I can see some point to doing the lottery again. ‘Up’ is my new mission statement. Together with hackneyed but bracing couplets such as ‘onwards and upwards’ and ‘fight the good fight’ and ‘seize the day’ even. All well and good and to be thankful for.

            Trouble is, I seem to find that even the simplest of social exchanges involve me in being branded the sad, hapless victim, which doesn’t sit well with my thrusting new mind-set.

            I was standing in the anti-chamber of Sainsbury’s today - that part where you wipe the soft Welsh rain off your trolley, visit the ladies, or succumb to a tasting of whatever is currently being pushed (or more recently, and intriguingly, to telephone Sainsburys Bank [buy!buy!buy!] before launching into the weekly shop)when I found myself face to face with the terrifying Moira Bugle, who, as we all know locally, is
the
style guru of the professional woman in resting phase. I suspect Moira Bugle has been ‘resting’ since before tank tops came out first time around, but that’s possibly why she’s so darn good at it. She is to the noughties what the hostess trolley and pyjama suit were to the seventies and her
raison d’etre
is the charity lunch. In short, she personifies the Lady of North Cardiff to whom we should all - in her opinion - aspire. But now that my status has so radically shifted, Moira Bugle doesn’t frighten me any more. So I’m liberated at least, if still misunderstood.

            ‘Julia, how
are
you, my lovely? It must be a couple of months since we saw you two in the Dog and Trouserleg.’ She forms her glossy mouth into puckered enquiry. It’s been three, in fact.

             ‘That’s because I’ve left Richard,’ I told her.

             Inhalation. ‘Left him?’

            ‘Well, thrown him out, really.’

            ‘Thrown him
out?
’

            ‘Well, he left, and I...’

            ‘
Left
you, my lovely? How could he?’ Hand on bosom. ‘But why?’

            ‘Because I told him to. Well, sort of. He..I...he slept with someone, and... well, we’ve split up, and...’