It was a bitterly cold night, but the walk up Dan’s stairs left me bathed in sweat. I fished a paper hankie out of my bag and wiped the underside of my breasts. The inside of my bra was damp enough to grow mushrooms.
The door was ajar when I finally made it to the top; the soft light spilling onto the landing as inviting as the opening of a romantic novel. Dan’s flat looked exactly the same as before, except that there was a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the table.
‘Help yourself, I won’t be a second.’
His voice came from the bedroom. I had no doubt Susan would have been in there like a rat up a trouser leg but, I told myself, I was more dignified, I’d wait to be invited. The part of me that was brutally honest made a noise that sounded remarkably like ‘Liar’.
The living room windows were closed and the faint traffic noise mingled with the jazz playing quietly on the elegant Bang and Olufsen. Bowls of pot pourri and scented candles filled the air with cinnamon and rose; beaded and fringed lamps subtly lit the room. There was definitely a femme to be cherched here.
‘I thought you looked a bit upset after the run.’ Dan emerged from the bedroom, tucking his shirt into his trousers. I was so glad he didn’t subscribe to the fashion that dictated a man’s shirt should hang lifelessly like a wind-starved flag over his buttocks. He brushed past me and poured me a glass of Laurent-Perrier. David preferred The Widow.
‘Thanks for noticing,’ I said. ‘I was absolutely dreadful. Sorry.’
He smiled. ‘We all have off days. Don’t worry about it.’
We sat down, carefully separate, me on the blue-striped sofa, him in the light-coloured wing chair. Impractical colour, I thought. Must mark terribly. He seemed relaxed, elegant hands on the upholstered arms, legs casually stretched out, crossed at the naked ankle, feet in cream openwork deck shoes. Nice arches.
I tried to remember what I knew about body language. What signals was he sending out? More to the point, what were my signals saying? No Entry? Humps for 200 metres? I tried to relax.
‘I ordered you a margherita. Is that right?’
‘Er…yes, Dan, thanks.’
I was ridiculously flattered he’d remembered. I couldn’t recall what he’d had, but I’d recorded every frame of how he’d eaten it. It was with this in mind that I ploughed into the calorie-fest in its big white box. Hoping my face wasn’t covered in cheese, I said:
‘So, why did you take over at Edgware?
‘I wanted to run a building and have a permanent company. I wanted a family, I suppose.’
That was the opening and I dived straight through it. ‘I thought you had one,’ I lied, hopefully convincingly.
‘I have. A daughter. But her mother wanted to go back to Italy. This is her flat.’
‘Your wife’s?’
‘My daughter’s.’
Miss Dior! I couldn’t wait to tell KT.
He quickly but smoothly turned the conversation back to his plans to continue work on the show, which was still full of incomprehensible sub-plots and lachrymose songs.
‘Susan’s number rather holds things up, doesn’t it? Now it’s back in full?’ I tried to sound disinterested. He was dismissive, not as electrically aware of her as I was.
‘Yes, I tried to explain, the audience will have lost the will to live by the time we get back to the show, but she won’t have it. She’s not very bright, you know,’ he said, wiping his fingers as if of her. I reached for my champagne, trying to look as if I didn’t care what the answer was.
‘I thought you and she were…are…quite close.’
That was not the right thing to say. The champagne warmth between us chilled to sub-zero.
‘What makes you think that?’
My body language went into fluent defensive.
‘Well…it’s just…she said…I thought…sorry. I don’t know.’
‘What has she been saying?’
The ice was still there, but for her, not me.
‘That you and she had…were…um…an item.’
I once heard a black actress say she didn’t like blue eyes, they frightened her. Looking at Dan’s now, I could see what she meant. They were still beautiful, exceptionally so, but as lethal as a carving knife. He leaned forward, his long fingers locked round each other, white at the knuckles.
‘She came here one night. First week of rehearsal. She was in tears, talking about her family and her abusive childhood. Said she didn’t think she was up to doing the show and needed my help to get through it.’
Clever little tart, I thought, the vulnerable card, not many men could resist it, even from a lump like her.
‘Ah, yes,’ I said in as non-judgemental a tone as I could command. I busied myself with an olive that had gone feral on the carpet so he wouldn’t see my jealousy and disappointment. When I looked at him again, he was studying me closely.
‘Sorry?,’ I said, thinking I’d missed something during my rummage through the shag pile.
‘She said she was frightened of you and she thought you didn’t think she was up to the job. She asked me to protect her from you.’
‘I’ve got as much chance of frightening her as I’ve got of shagging a water buffalo. So…what did you say?’ I sounded calm, blasé. If only I could act that well on stage.
‘I told her not to be silly, that as the leading lady you just wanted the best for everyone in the company and that we’d all work together for the good of the show.’ He paused and smiled again. ‘Usual bullshit.’
I liked his smile, his full, rather pouting mouth lifting to reveal his idiosyncratic teeth, not perfect but charming. The blue eyes less sharp, though still watchful.
‘So what happened?,’ I asked. Am I bothered? Look at this face, is it bothered?
‘I sat her down and gave her a drink.’
‘And a pizza?’ That was cheap, Eleanor. You’ve been hanging round KT too long. Dan looked hurt, the smile evaporated.
‘No. No pizza.’ He took a mouthful of champagne. ‘Would you have minded if I’d given her pizza too?’
That threw me. ‘What? No. No, of course not. Why should I mind?’
I was so unused to flirtatious conversation, I felt as I had as an adolescent, trying to unload my cumbersome and unwanted virginity. When I eventually found a taker, I’d fled in a flurry of tears and school uniform – still intact. I could hardly run down the stairs with my socks round my ankles now.
‘She wouldn’t leave,’ he said. ‘Said she was having a panic attack, so I made her breathe into a paper bag then let her sleep on the sofa.’
It was an involuntary reaction to look down at it like a suspicious loo-seat. I could see her Marilyn Monroe pout, her exposing of a well-fleshed shoulder as he stood in the doorway saying goodnight.
‘And did she sleep on the sofa? Or did you have to handcuff her to the coffee table?’
He was obviously amused by my reaction, but I couldn’t see whether it was because he thought I cared about her or him.
‘She didn’t stay on the sofa.’
I think I said ‘oh’ but I know I didn’t say ‘bollocks!’, though I must have thought it loud enough to have been heard by the mummies in the Egyptian room over the road.
‘So where did she go?’
As if I didn’t know. She’d have laid it out like a turbot on a fishmonger’s slab.
‘I called her a taxi. She went home.’
I was desperate to say, ‘After?,’ but I stopped myself, and even if I hadn’t, Dan’s expression would have. Why is it that men of the heterosexual persuasion don’t want to talk in any depth about anything remotely interesting? KT would have named the shops where she bought her underwear and given a dissertation on her chosen method of bikini waxing. Withholding emotion or, in this case, information, was just one more element of the male psyche I had difficulty with.
‘So you’re not having an affair with her.’
Well, I was allowed to say things like that, after all I was married, technically middle-aged and the mother of the company. My reason to ask would only be for the good of the show. After all, internecine relationships were always dangerous for the status quo.
‘I’d rather have an affair with an anaconda.’
Not a no, then.
The following pause, during which I searched for something witty to say and failed miserably, was filled by Dan’s mobile ringing.
He seemed reluctant to answer it. Naturally, I assumed it was Susan. Naturally.
‘Hi, Izzy. No, not busy, just having dinner…’
No wonder he hadn’t wanted to answer; Izzy Duck wanted to talk and no excuse like dinner, or the flat being on fire, would stop the blitzkrieg of the producer’s creativity. Ruby took an average of twenty calls a day and Jonty twice as many, mainly about getting the Saudi Royal Family involved with financing the show. KT’s reaction had been immediate.
‘Why would a bunch of Arabs want to get into bed with Izzy Duck and his spectacularly plain wife, who couldn’t write her name on the bottom of a dud cheque? I can’t see Lee’s number, which is, let’s be honest, an invitation to ride on the Lavender Bus, going down too well with people who routinely deadhead pansies. Mind you, they might give us a couple of camels for Susan, as long as she doesn’t sing.’ He paused to take a quick draw on his Superking. ‘You know what I think? I think Mr and Mrs Duck haven’t got a pot to piss in, and they’re trying to get anybody, no matter how ridiculous, to invest.’
Dan paced the flat trying to get a word in as Izzy talked loud enough for me to hear the bee buzz of his voice. After fifteen or so minutes, he laid the mobile down as if it were some sick and exhausted creature washed up on an unfriendly shore.
‘What’s the latest from Planet Duck?,’ I asked, crossing my legs with what I hoped would be a whisper of silk, or polyester at least. Dan didn’t seem concerned with my well-turned calves, or indeed the rest of me. He was shaking his head in despair.
‘He wants to audition salsa enthusiasts from around the country, then every week we’ll put the winners into your big number.’
‘And what am I supposed to do?’
‘Introduce them, then get the audience to vote on whether they should come back for the finale.’ Dan slumped onto the sofa next to me, his face suddenly grey with tiredness. ‘I’m not having an affair with anyone, you know, not even Viola Duck.’
I gathered myself and the floppy ruin of his pizza. ‘Don’t tell me he thinks you’re carrying on with her.’
‘You see more a my wife than I do, pal.’ Dan accompanied his impression of Izzy’s rasping, accusatory tone with the waving of an imaginary cigar. ‘It’s gotta stop. You know she’s gone kinda bats being away from home so long, but I haven’t, oh no. I’m healthy…’
Dan dropped his hand, and with it Izzy Duck.
‘It’s just the usual crap but now he’s getting paranoid with it. You know, Eleanor?’ He punctuated the question by putting his arm along the back of the sofa behind me. ‘When we started I thought the guy was just eccentric, but when I said that to Kelvin he said in America there’s no such thing as eccentric. Only certifiable. I’m beginning to think he’s right.’
His fingers, as if independent of him, were moving against the skin of the nape of my neck, exploring what I hoped was the softness of my hair. Images of unused bottles of conditioner filled my mind, jostling with pictures of Susan laid out on the striped damask where we were now kissing.
It had come quite naturally, a mutual movement together, noses in the right alignment and lips equally ajar. A very good first attempt – followed by a breathtaking second go, which included some triple-tonguing that made me suspect Dan had played the trumpet in the cadets.
Head tilted back, I tempted him to feast of my swan-like neck. While he was buried there, I, hopefully surreptitiously, reached into my bag. Yes, the condom was still there. Luminous or not, it was coming out of its packet tonight. And hopefully so was Dan.
There was also a diaphragm in my bag. I’d had it since coming off the pill but had been too intimidated by the instructions to use it, and David never gave me enough notice to allow me to find my glasses. I blinked the vision of my husband away, not through guilt but in case he inhibited me, and unbuttoned Dan’s shirt. A bare half-dozen hairs littered his breast bone – a slight disappointment, but my opinion of his chest was swept aside by a tidal wave of panic that it was so long since I’d done anything but lie like a grateful mattress under David, I might irritate rather than excite.
Were my lips a sensual delight or reminiscent of a sink plunger? While I was worrying about my performance, Dan manoeuvred himself onto the floor between my legs and, to my horror, was preparing to dive in, like one of those lads who launch themselves into holiday seas from sun-baked rocks. I wasn’t sure that what he was about to submerge himself in would be as refreshing as a dip in the Med.
I tried to relax and failed miserably.
Dan expertly insinuated his brass-playing mouth parts into places that had for so long only felt the pan-scouring technique of David’s fingers, I was afraid they might be as rough as the soles of my feet.
Oh God, what if he wants to suck my toes?
No. Absolutely not.
I braced myself to kick him off as he peeled down my hold-up stockings, but he didn’t linger on my feet. With a delicacy which could only have come from years of practice, he licked his way up my calves and inner thighs, so expertly he almost banished my preoccupation with the lingering stubble I’d missed with my ‘twelve for £2.50’ razor.
I was just giving myself up to the inevitable when the doorbell rang. I think Dan swore, but his voice was slightly muffled. The doorbell rang again, more insistently, and Dan emerged from under my skirt looking as if he’d been searching for a fuse in a blacked out cellar.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said and went to the intercom.
It occurred to me he could have ignored the unknown and unwelcome guest, but just as quickly the thought he might be relieved to have an excuse to stop depressed me. Before he’d said ‘Hallo?’ into the wall box I was getting the whip out for a bit of self-flagellation.
I heard a jumble of words come from the intercom, followed by Dan’s ‘Come up. Top floor.’
There’s no dignified way of putting back on clothes removed in the throes of passion. I pulled on my stockings. The left one twisted so badly it cut the circulation to my lower leg. I feared gangrene might set in before I could get home. Retrieving my knickers from a lamp shade, I pulled them on and sat down, hoping my face wasn’t blotchy and that the beads of sweat on my upper lip didn’t look too much like a moustache.
Dan, without a look at me, buttoned his shirt and ran his hand over his trousers. Whether to check his zip or his erection I couldn’t tell. In the endless seconds before the visitor appeared at the door, which Dan now held open, we didn’t speak or even look at each other. Englishness raised to a form of Kabuki.
‘Hi, pal, thanks for inviting me in.’
Izzy? Dan had terminated the most exciting seven and a half minutes of my recent life to invite in the man who people threw themselves under buses to avoid.
‘Drink?’
‘You got Diet Coke?’
Among Izzy Duck’s host of unattractive habits was his aversion to alcohol and his addiction to fizzy drinks. I’d once got him to try Irn Bru, telling him it was made in Scotland from girders. Despite his soliloquy on the glories of Edinburgh, he did no more than sip it. I took this to be racism, as it couldn’t possibly have been more disgusting than Coke.
‘Hi, Eleanor! Say, am I disturbing something?’
‘No, of course not Izzy.’
As any day wore on, Izzy would become more incoherent and irrational, but I’d never seen him this late at night. He was twitching, between his wide-mouth grimace of a smile and a scowl of concentration caused by his poor hearing. An elderly dog trying to convince prospective owners he was still a puppy. Suddenly, instead of being angered by his inability to listen and repelled by his ill-fitting denims, baseball cap and phallic cigar, I felt terribly sorry for him.
It couldn’t be easy gambling your house on a dream, living in a small unfashionable hotel and being away from friends. I tried to imagine Izzy’s friends and failed. For all his exaggerated expressions of affection, we were not friends. We were ‘you Brits’; he used the words with uncomprehending condescension masquerading as affection. Like Jock, Taffy or Paddy. When he asked, ‘Have you guys always been independent?’, I understood Uncle Sam’s foreign policy with blinding clarity.
But on that night, still damp from Dan’s efforts to reawaken my erogenous zones, I felt sorry for him. He was just a gabby old man, afraid he wasn’t really the Broadway Producer he’d put on the first night party invitations: Broadway Producer Izzy Duck invites…
I stood up, the cheated flesh beneath my pants throbbing with frustration. ‘Well…’ I said brightly, ‘I’d best be off. Long day tomorrow.’ I stepped towards the door and my strangulated leg began to ache.
Dan was hurtfully quick to see me out, avoiding eye contact. At the front door, though, out of Izzy’s sight, he whispered: ‘You don’t really want to go, do you?’
He didn’t wait for me to reply, which was lucky, as I’d temporarily lost the power of speech.
‘Go into the bedroom. I’ll get rid of him.’ He kissed me with a flick of his tongue on my lips and I obediently tiptoed into the bedroom.
The bedside lights were on, and a second bottle of champagne stuck out of a cooler, flanked by two good quality flutes. It crossed my mind I should be insulted he was so sure I’d go this far – but, as usual when standing on my dignity, I got vertigo and had to sit down.
The bed was welcoming even in this position. I sat there primly for about five minutes, then reached for the bottle and managed to open it without the cork ricocheting off the ceiling.
Napoleon said, ‘In triumph you deserve champagne and in defeat you need it.’ He didn’t mention anticipation. The first glass went down without touching the sides, the second I sipped while looking out of the window. The view was a Disney skyline of London. Ridged rooftops and glowing glimpses into rooms, above them a perfect sliver of moon set in silver clouds on a velvet blue background. A light snow-shower had made the roof slates shine.
I opened the window and, leaning on the sill, listening to the distant music and laughter from a party, revelling in the romance. Very slightly pissed. Squiffy. Perfect. Now was the time to fit the diaphragm.
Like all ideas conceived in drink, it was a stroke of genius. I pulled the box out of my bag, scattering two Tampax and a set of miniature screwdrivers across the floor. Another swig of champagne and it seemed funny. It was funny. I picked everything up, overbalancing only very slightly, then put on the glasses I was too ashamed to wear in public. I unfolded the instructions.
Squeeze spermicidal jelly onto surface of diaphragm. It sounded a bit brutal. Tried at the Hague for spermicide. Now was not the moment to get sentimental. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I put the diaphragm on my lap and unscrewed the top of the tube. The clear gel oozed out. I carefully replaced the cap.
The diaphragm itself was a three-inch disk of tan rubber with a reinforced spring-loaded rim. I gathered the idea was to fold it in half, then quarters, and then insert it into the vagina. No problem. I’d played netball for the school.
I grasped it firmly and folded.
It shot across the room and stuck to a rather nice print of ‘The Scream’.
I peeled it off and tried again. It was like juggling soot. Eventually I got it in half but wasn’t sure I had the strength left in my fingers to go for the quartering. Then I realised I still had my knickers on.
The momentary lapse in concentration allowed it to make another bid for freedom, and it catapulted under the bed.
Being almost the same colour as the carpet, it took me a few minutes to find it with the aid of the small torch on my keyring and a coat hanger. It was now covered in fluff.
I dunked it in the champagne.
After drying it on my now discarded knickers I reapplied the jelly.With more luck than skill I folded it.
Triumph. I squatted down and guided the missile to the silo.
It shot through the window like an Exocet. Hit the slate roof opposite and slid into a puddle on the flat roof below.
I had one leg out of the window when I remembered the condom. Clambering back into the bedroom, I banged my pubic bone on the window sill – and men really think women find slamming up and down on a horse arousing. However, I persevered with the condom and, despite having to chew the packet open, eventually released it from its silver shell.
It wasn’t green.
It wasn’t pink.
It was luminous.
With tentacles.
Exhausted, I flopped onto the bed, the champagne floating me like a water lily.
•
‘I think he was lonely.’
Dan sat beside me, jerking me awake. He reached across to caress my face. I hoped I wasn’t dribbling.
‘Has he gone?’
‘Yes.’ Dan ran his index finger over my breasts. The nipples reacted like a couple of pointers. ‘Viola’s got ’flu and he didn’t know what to do with himself.’
‘You should have suggested hanging under Blackfriars Bridge with a brick in each pocket.’
Dan laughed and filled my glass. I gave myself up to the drowsy delights of being seduced by a master.
•
Waking in the early morning wasn’t romantic; neither were the three condoms thoughtfully provided by Dan from the bedside drawer, now lying flaccid in the waste basket. The sharp, bright light filling the uncurtained room was unkind on the dehydrated skin above my knees. And it was abundantly clear I wasn’t a natural blonde.
Dan slept quietly with his head on my navel, purring gently in the wreckage of the well-made bed. I was not in love, but looking at him, splayed out like a medieval martyr, I felt a twinge of something that wasn’t just gratitude for a magnificent rogering. But if he looked like a medieval martyr, I looked like a stone gargoyle clinging to some dodgy brickwork. I saw my panda eyes and chapped lips in the mirror and headed for the door like a scalded cat, panicking to escape before he saw me sober and unflattered by the dark.
‘Rough night?,’ said the taxi driver peering in the rear view mirror. ‘Here… Aren’t you her off the telly? You look older.’
‘I am older.’
‘Ever thought about plastic surgery?’