‘I’ve never done this before,’ he offers as an explanation, justification and apology all at once.
‘You don’t—’ I plan to say, ‘You don’t say,’ but I catch a glimpse of Ivor sitting on the edge of the bed. His head is in his hands. It could be the alcohol, but I think he is genuinely upset. I change tack. ‘You don’t have to apologize. There’s a first time for everyone.’
‘It’s just that recently my wife and I haven’t been getting along too well.’
‘Married long?’ I ask as I light a cigarette.
‘Four years.’
Ah, the seven-year itch. Everything is fast-track in London. I inhale deeply.
‘We’re moving house and trying for a baby. Things are tense.’
‘Oh.’ I’m engrossed in the mini bar. The hasty offload I can forgive, but if it’s marriage guidance he’s after I’d prefer it if he got a counsellor. I pour myself a brandy and try to change the subject. ‘Know any more jokes?’ It appears that the sexist and irreverent jokes have dried up. He’s insisting on showing me that he’s a decent bloke. He’s wasting his time; it’s an oxymoron and it’s late. He fishes in his wallet and pulls out a picture of his wife.
‘This is Julie.’ I hate this name and face business. I light another cigarette and realize that I haven’t smoked my first one yet. Irritated I stub it out.
‘Very nice,’ I comment, after taking a cursory glance at the picture. Julie looks like a pleasant enough woman, curvaceous, jolly, uncomplicated. She looks like a wife.
‘I do love her,’ pleads Ivor.
I take pity. Which is unusual. Am I due? It could be that. When I’m hormonal I’m moved by Heartbeat
‘Look, it’s OK.’ I sit next to him on the bed and stroke his head as if he is a Labrador. I am practised at letting them off the hook. Admittedly it’s usually post coital rather than pre. Normally I use the gentle let-down as an efficient way to get them to vacate my bedroom. ‘Nothing happened,’ I insist. I consider sharing my Pammie theory but I’m not feeling that charitable. I wonder if he’d have resisted me if I was an ex of his. I doubt it. It’s the uncharted waters that are scaring him. ‘It was the combination – availability and alcohol. My availability and your alcohol. It gets them every time.’ I try to grin. ‘Now go home to your wife.’
He readily accepts my suggestion and scrambles to his feet. He pushes his arm into the sleeve of his jacket, which, I note, he hadn’t let go of. His readiness to leave me momentarily stings, so just before the bedroom door slams closed I yell, ‘And don’t get mixed up in capers you can’t handle.’
It’s useful advice.
6
I couldn’t have wished for a better outcome. Declan enjoyed his fifteen minutes of fame so much that he ached for more. He has a talent for the kiss-and-tell. Which arguably isn’t a nice characteristic, but it is commonplace. And commercially admirable. Within a week of the first show he has appeared in most tabloids, giving sordid details of various aspects of his and Abbie’s relationship, immediate and distant past. Some of it is undoubtedly true. He has been interviewed on local radio and TV stations, he has an agent and rumour has it that he is reading a couple of screenplays. There’s no truth to this rumour. I know. My PR team initiated it.
Lawrence has asked his boss for an overseas posting but this has not shaken off the rat pack. It simply means he has become the Pied Piper for the European paparazzi as they maniacally search for him.
Abbie has gone underground. However, her actual presence isn’t such a loss, as a number of her friends, family and associates are available to make comment. The woman who sold her the wedding dress offered extraordinary insight, as did the vicar who should have married them, three or four of Abbie’s other ex-boyfriends and perhaps, most questionably, her hairdresser.
‘Fi, can you believe her hairdresser betrayed her?’ I ask, aghast.
Jenny, Brian and Karen have gone one step further. They’ve happily handed over letters they’ve written each other, posed for photographs with their families and finally invited OK to cover their wedding, although we are still unsure whose wedding it will be.
We have created a real live soap opera. By week two we have secured ratings of 1.8 million. By week three there’ve been two articles in the serious press discussing the nature and motivation of betrayal. The ratings tip 2 million.
‘What’s making you grin so much?’ I ask Jaki, looking up from the letters commenting on the show. ‘Have you been promoted and they’ve failed to tell me?’
Jaki laughs. ‘No, but they should.’ I admire her; she never misses a trick. ‘No, it’s something else. I was at a dinner party on Saturday night.’
‘Oh yeah, what did you eat?’
She perches on my desk and Fi stops working on her laptop. There is nothing we like better than a good conversation about food. Conversations about food have an advantage over actually eating. You can take an avid interest without jeopardizing your waistline. Conversations about food are better than conversations about sex, which are often mildly pervy or frustrating. I’m not sure how to rank conversations about food and actually having sex. It’s close.
Jaki details her menu comprehensively, taking an inordinate amount of time to describe the chocolate soufflé. We hungrily hang on her descriptions of double cream and blackberry sauce. When she’s told us that the mints were Benedict, I drag her back to her original point.
‘So what’s nearly as exciting as a promotion?’
‘Well, after dinner we usually play games. So that the boys can get competitive legitimately.’
‘And the girls whip their arses openly,’ adds Fi enthusiastically.
‘Exactly. Sometimes we play Outburst or Trivial Pursuit but more often than not we prefer the more revealing Truth or Dare. This week someone, not me, suggested playing Sex with an Ex.’
‘Nooooo,’ Fi and I chorus. We both immediately understand the importance of being absorbed into real-life popular culture. And so damn quickly!
‘It was brilliant. Everyone had to name the ex in their past. You were right, Cas: there is always one who can send a thrill through the groin or heart. Then they had to say whether they would risk an uncomplicated, no-strings-attached, one-for-old-times’-sake bonk.’
‘But wasn’t it all couples at that dinner party?’ I protest. We are a small team; the stuff we don’t know about each other’s private lives isn’t worth knowing. Believe me.
‘Yup. Ellie and James, Daisy and Simon, Nige and Ali and Toby and me. That was the attraction. A public outing.’
‘So what happened?’ asks Fi, excitedly playing with a staple gun. I take it from her before she causes serious bodily harm.
‘Well, to start with everyone lied through their teeth. Those who I reckoned would do it became extremely demure. Those who wouldn’t tried to pretend they had an experimental streak – which they blatantly don’t have. But as the alcohol flowed the truth began to emerge.’
‘And?’ Fi and I chorus. We both know the result we want.
‘Huge rows. Ali walked out, Ellie burst into tears, Daisy and Simon’s party was ruined.’