The Honey Trap (11 page)

‘Guess so.’

‘Just like me.’

Isn’t there a saying or home truth that most men marry their mothers? Potentially, I was in with a chance and began flicking my hair accordingly.

We skimmed over the usual topics. I discovered Stephan was a divorced father of two, a lawyer specialising in film who lived in Palo Alto, California. He told me he’d had a strained
relationship with his mother, although in the past few years they had begun to get close.

She, I learnt, had grown up in Vienna. Before the war broke out, she’d won a music scholarship to an American college, which basically saved her and her family’s lives. Successful,
she played professionally most of her life, until her fingers, racked with arthritis, forced her to give it up a couple of years back. In her early forties, she settled in Europe, having married a
conductor. He passed away ten years ago.

‘So what’s your story?’ asked Stephan.

Not wishing to outstay my welcome, I suggested we leave it for another day. Clever ploy, hey?

‘Damn, is that the time? I really should get going.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.’

‘No, it’s fine, but call me if you’re not too busy. It would be nice to hang out.’

We exchanged numbers.

I skipped home, heart all aflutter, and congratulated myself on playing it fairly cool this time.

Nadia dropped by to ask for a favour, hyper with excitement. Her whole life was on one big upward turn. There at the gig, unbeknownst to her, was an A & R man lurking in
the shadows. He had listened well and then called her, wanting to set up a meeting.

Down on her knees, she begged, ‘Issy, please, please, will you do my shift tonight?’

‘Sure, no problem,’ but on the condition that, when she became very famous, she would invite me to all the swell parties.

‘Course I will.’

‘Can I have it in writing?’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘It’s just, fame has a way of changing people.’

‘What are you like?’

A hairball of pent-up frustrations, though beginning to unwind on sweet thoughts of the American.

‘I may have met a man, Nadia.’

‘Really?’

‘The son of the finger woman.’

‘Is he cute?’

‘Dreamy. He’s intelligent, good-looking . . .’

And just when I was about to launch into a poetic spiel worthy of my newfound crush, Nadia interrupted the flow with, ‘Omigod, I forgot to tell you.’

‘What?’

‘You know Trisha has been acting kinda odd lately?’

‘Like yeah . . . though I thought she just had it in for me.’

‘Listen to this.’

Nadia, on her way into the office, had come to a halt outside the door on hearing raised voices from within. The voices belonging to Fiona and Trisha.

The latter shouting, ‘I can’t take this any more, it’s over.’

The former replying, in words to the effect, ‘One more chance, please, just one more chance?’

‘Fiona, I’ve tried, I . . .’

‘Please, Trisha, don’t go . . . we can talk about it.’

‘I’m sick of talking.’

The door had swung open, revealing an embarrassed Nadia.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake. How long have you been outside?’

Before Nadia could even reply, Trisha had stormed off in the foulest of tempers.

‘Fiona was snivelling into a hanky. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘Christ, do you think those two are together?’

‘It looked like it.’

We both imagined the scenario, then in unison squealed like a pair of school-girls, ‘Gross.’

Trisha and Fiona – who’d have thought? I’d always suspected Trisha was a lesbian but Fiona was an in-betweener.

‘I wonder how long it’s been going on.’

‘It could be ages.’

‘Fiona could even be the father of Trisha’s children.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Possible.’

‘Scary.’

I know some women get a kick out of emasculating their men, but to have him change sex? The lengths people go in the name of love – it never ceases to amaze. Take Mrs Dodd, for
example.

Once upon a time, though not so long ago, a woman called Betty decided to test the love of her husband. At the age of twenty-one, Betty had married her childhood sweetheart, a
lorry driver called Ron, who was faithful to her in every way. Rarely did they fight and, if they did, they made up almost immediately. He was kind, considerate, respectful, a loving husband and
good father to their three children.

Together they led a charmed life. Betty had little to worry about. However, when her youngest started primary school, Betty found herself with time on her hands. Too keep herself busy, she took
up gardening.

One day, when she was tending her herbaceous border, her neighbour, a bitter, twisted woman called Vera, popped her head over the garden fence and upon exchanging a few words, offered Betty a
packet of fast-growing seeds called Doubtus Insecuritus. In truth, she poisoned Betty’s simple mind with ill thoughts of falsehoods and deceit.

‘A lorry driver! Well, you’re a brave woman,’ sneered Vera.

‘How so?’ replied the naive Betty.

‘Away from home every other night – who knows where he may be parking his lorry.’

Vera qualified her statement with outlandish tales of dastardly philandering truck drivers and loose women.

To make matters worse Vera called by the next morning with disturbing news. A curvaceous and licentious woman had moved into the house three doors down from her. A woman with red hair and four
children born of four different fathers.

‘You’d want to watch her,’ warned Vera. ‘Reeks of trouble.’

Not three weeks had passed when Betty, on her way home from the butcher’s, noticed her husband’s lorry parked outside their house.

‘Strange he should be home so early,’ she pondered, but she was happy nonetheless and imagined how they could spend the afternoon together.

However, her joy was shortlived when she caught sight of him strolling out of their new neighbour’s house, carrying his tool box.

‘What, in the name of God, have you been up to?’ Betty demanded.

‘Just helping out our new neighbour,’ explained Ron matter-of-factly.

‘Doing what exactly?’ demanded Betty.

‘The woman had a flood on her hands, of biblical proportions. She was in a right old state.’

‘So you sorted her out, did you?’

‘Course I did, Betty.’

‘Being neighbourly, were you?’

‘Course I was, Betty.’

Poor Betty – for the seeds sown had taken hold, and were destroying all the good in her. Racked by such destructive feelings and encouraged by her confidante Vera, she arranged through the
Honey Trap to test her husband’s faithfulness. Vera suggested to her husband Phil that he ask Ron out for a few bevvies with the boys and a trip to the dogs.

To the dogs indeed.

Ron, having no interest whatsoever in greyhound racing, reluctantly agreed to go.

Vera and Betty would follow on incognito.

She was a woman scorned and I her target.

Poor Ron, I’d cornered him, claiming I was a niece of an old friend of Phil’s. It was a set-up – what more can I say? Out of politeness Ron did listen to me prattle on till
Betty, flushed with rage, came screaming through the crowd, swearing and spitting, pushing Ron this way and that, and then smacked me in the face with a closed fist.

‘I’m going to kill her,’ I blubbered.

Maria was wrapping ice cubes in a tea towel, ready to apply to my left eye, which was now all the colours of the rainbow.

I’d stood in complete shock as Betty’s hand, in slow motion, inched its way directly towards my face, her fat pudgy fingers adorned with rings. Her mouth open wide, swear words
cascading forth. Vera, at her side, arms folded defiantly, egging her on.

Ron, saintly soul that he was, had gasped, ‘No, Betty, don’t!’ and he having just told me what a wonderful woman his wife was.

Came to a total standstill, as if I’d fled my own skin and spirit scarpered. Next thing I knew, I’d been bundled into a cab and was on my way home.

‘He was meant to be Nadia’s dick,’ I wailed.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Maria cooed, doing her best to calm me down.

The shock was subsiding and the realisation rising of how very vulnerable I was. If anything should happen to me, who would look after Max? Thoughts from the back of my mind rushed forth. I
should write a will, insure myself against a worst-case scenario.

‘Maria, I don’t get it – everything is going wrong.’

‘You’ll be fine, stop worrying. It’s not as bad as it looks.’

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

It really couldn’t look any worse.

Maria dabbed my eye and I noticed something different about her.

‘Maria, are you wearing lipstick?’

‘It’s quite nice, no?’

Two freaks on a windy morning.

‘What happened, Mummy?’ Max asked, prodding the swollen skin. ‘You look horrible.’

‘It was an accident. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Who did it, Mum? Tell me, I won’t be angry.’

This is exactly what I said when he came back from nursery with a scratched face and pinch-sized bruises on his arm.

‘A woman hit me by mistake.’

‘Not nice,’ he said, and then asked in the sweetest tone of voice, ‘Do you want me to kill her?’

My little protector, hunter, always running ahead of me and into everything, his curiosity knowing no bounds. From the moment Max could walk, he was picking up sticks to wave at passing prey,
though in the main he’d chase birds and squirrels.

THE WAY I SEE IT

Through one eye, and feeling like a battered wife, having received more attention from passing strangers than in God knows how long, I made my feelings clear to Trisha.

‘We should sue the bitch.’

Trisha scratched her chin.

‘I wish it was that easy. I received a fax from Betty’s solicitor today, saying they were going to sue us.’

I was incredulous.

‘What? The woman attacked me. Is she totally crazy?’

‘Apparently, there’s some archaic trade law that we may be in contempt of.’

‘What!’

Trisha began reading the faxed statement.

‘“My client’s husband was unfairly tempted, as the woman in question was considered too attractive, the likelihood being that most heterosexual males would find it difficult to
fend off such advances.”’

‘That’s absurd. It’s total bullshit as well.’

‘I know.’

(I let Trisha’s underhand insult go.)

‘But if it goes to court, we could be threatened with closure.’

‘What about our satisfied clients?’

‘They’re all going through costly divorces, and don’t want to get involved.’

‘So I’m not going to be compensated.’

‘Issy, did you hear what I said? We could have to close.’

‘You can’t friggin’ well blame me for this.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘Makes a nice change.’

Trisha and I were caught in a moment of stalemate.

‘Issy, as you won’t be able to work till your eye heals, Fiona and I have decided you can make up the hours running the office. This place needs a thorough spring clean.’

‘And there I was, thinking I’d be granted sick leave.’

‘Hazard of the job, I’m afraid.’

‘Does it say that in the fine print?’ This woman was pushing me to the limit. ‘Know what, Trisha, maybe I should call a solicitor.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘What the fuck is your problem?’

‘And another thing, have you called Mrs Finklestein yet?’

Pronounced pincer digit movements and Gladys’s voice on speaker phone, for the benefit of
mein Führer
, Trisha.

‘Hello, you’ve reached the Finklesteins. Sorry, but we’re unable to answer your call. For the next couple of months we’re in Florida . . .’ Her voice abruptly
changed tone as she groaned, ‘What, Joel?’ the message interrupted by background grumbling, then, ‘What date?’ More grumbling then, ‘You think you should do it? You do
it . . . if you’re so . . .’ Beeeeeeeeep.

God damn it and heavens to Murgatroyd, I left the following message:

‘Hi, Gladys. It’s Issy here from the Honey Trap returning your call. Please can you call me when you get this message. Thanks.’

A cold-war silence descended between Trisha and me, lasting an hour until Nadia flounced into the office, whereupon she gave me some much-needed attention.

‘Omigod, Issy! You look awful.’

I told her the story of the eye, in full goryfied detail, elaborating upon reality by adding in some hair-pulling and then ending the horrifying episode with: