Chances (5 page)

Mostly, for email, Oliver used his work account
bourne@ arbor-vitae.co.uk
, but actually, he preferred the phone. A man in his mid-forties doesn’t really do the whole email thing as a social communication tool. Nine months after DeeDee died, however, he set up the Hotmail account, realizing there was a useful distinction between communication and contact. This account he does check regularly – not obsessively, but regularly and very privately. Furtively, rather than privately. A secret account, really, rather than simply a private one.

He logged on. There was an email in the inbox. He opened it. It was an invitation for that weekend. He thought he’d better respond straight away.

Saturday is good
, he wrote.
Let me know where and when.

‘And you’re here with—?’

This was the third time Vita had been asked the question, as if a girl like her couldn’t possibly be at a party like this on her own. Or be on her own, full stop.

The first time, she’d faltered and blurted out, Oh, I’m here on my own – because, because I’m not with anyone. Not any more. Just me – I’m on my own, you see. Which is why I’m here – er, on my own but it’s a nice party, isn’t it. And the woman had given her a kindly nod contradicted by a slightly startled look about the eyes. So after that, Vita had taken to saying, I’m here with Michelle and Chris. Because everybody there knew Michelle and Chris.

‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ Michelle came up behind Vita and gave her a squeeze. ‘And you look good enough to eat.’

She’d been with Vita when she’d bought that frock this time last year, a shift dress in soft raspberry hemmed in velvet the colour of blueberry. ‘You look like summer pudding.’

‘Better than Eton mess,’ Vita said, thinking back to the first outfit she’d tried on – a cream top with a skirt of splodgy reds. God, the trauma of changing time and again, earlier that evening. How she cursed Tim for not being there – completely overlooking how she’d cursed him when, on occasion, he’d given her a look just before they went out which said, Honey – I’m not sure about the frock. It had hurt like crazy and such evenings had been marred because of it. But he’d loved the dress she was wearing tonight. She’d given herself a twirl in her bedroom and she’d stopped and stared straight at herself.
Amazing how he could both raise my self-confidence and dash it.
And yet she did long for him just then, to hear him say, Come on, woman! We’re late already – nice frock, by the way. Instead she called out Bye! to the emptiness of the house, locked the door and made small talk with the cab driver.

Michelle hugged her, Mel did too. Their husbands brought her drinks and food. Then they made a really sweet, attentive job of introducing her to anyone they were talking to. And Vita worked hard to join in breezily, to laugh alongside them and nod or frown at appropriate moments. She raised her glass in a nonchalant way when they drifted away naturally to socialize elsewhere while she dealt with the excruciating intervals when she found herself alone, standing like a lemon with a casual smile fixed to her face while she gazed vaguely around the room. What she wanted to do was go home and watch TV in her jimjams. And it was hard work when Michelle so sweetly passed by every now and then with a fresh drink for her and a really genuine, Are you OK? Isn’t this fun! The only reply possible was to nod and grin some more and say, Yeah! It’s great! because it wasn’t the place to say, Mushroom this is
torture.

‘
He’s
single,’ Michelle whispered, bringing Vita a cosmopolitan. She was nodding towards an oaf of a man with a laugh as bad as his shoes, who already had food and drink splattered over his taut shirt like bad graffiti.

Momentarily, Vita looked at Michelle in horror until she saw the sly smile. ‘Cow.’

‘Moo,’ said Michelle, matter-of-factly. She scouted around the room. ‘I don’t think you’re going to pull tonight.’

‘I’m not here to pull,’ Vita said levelly, ‘I’m here because you told me to come.’

Michelle looked at her gravely. ‘Well, I’m glad you came.’ She looked over Vita’s shoulder, smiled and raised her glass. ‘Come and talk to Annie. She’s lovely. She’s single. She went out with a real shit – he’d disappear without warning on drunken benders which lasted days on end. And Corinne – her ex gambled away all his money and then started on hers, but she’s picked herself up and dusted herself down. Di over there found out her husband went dogging. Radiant, all of them – don’t you think?’

As Vita let herself be led over, she thought, Why do I want to make small talk with strangers when all we have in common is the thing I hate most? I am reluctantly single. No doubt I am now known as Vita, the one whose fiancé couldn’t keep it in his trousers. I don’t want to spend my evening alternately slagging off men and then raucously talking of pulling them too.

When she was introduced, she knew in an instant that they knew who she was – as if they’d been briefed, as if her misfortune was manifested physically in the form of an unsightly blemish and they mustn’t stare. Talk about anything else. Steer clear. Don’t mention the scar. It was burdensome to realize that, for the time being, she was spoken about, albeit with affection, as Poor Vita who’s been through a Really Tough Time.

But actually, Corinne was sweet-natured and Annie was funny and Vita was heartened by their normalness; their self-confidence and good humour were compelling. Had their bad experiences made them stronger? Hers had made her feel feeble. Perhaps their poise and vivacity came from the passing of time. Give it time, dear – that’s what her mother had said. Everything passes, love, everything passes – she remembered still her late father’s mantra.

But the women were funny and spirited and bright and, as Vita listened and laughed, she wondered whether they had made a fundamental decision that at some point, introversion had to stop and a life apart was to be embraced. Did they close the door on their past one day, padlock it and seal it shut with a massive sign saying
CLOSURE
? Had they read the prescribed quota of self-help books? How many therapy sessions had they attended? (Vita hadn’t gone down that route.) Had they worn an elastic band around their wrist to ping hard when negative feelings surfaced? Did they take a physical step to the side when confronted by destructive reflection? Did they resort to evening classes to keep the loneliness at bay for just one night a week? A little voice whispered to Vita, See, this could be me.

Actually, the women didn’t bond merely because they were all single; it wasn’t weighty issues which attracted them to each other, it was discovering that they shared much softer common ground. They soon found out they all preferred vodka to gin and George Clooney to Brad Pitt. They all wanted Nadal to win Wimbledon. They’d all been to Lanzarote. They all loved loved
loved
the new Mark Ronson. They chinked glasses not because the aim was to knock the drink back, but because there was simply great geniality between them. And when they shared a puerile snigger at the expense of the bad-shoe lousy-laugh man Michelle had first singled out, it wasn’t because they’d been scouting the room for talent or that they were man-haters, it was because his shirt now had even more detritus stuck to it and he’d spilt his drink on his trousers which made him look as though he’d wet himself.

And at some point an opportunity arose for Annie to quietly say, ‘My ex used to get so hammered he’d piss in the kitchen sink and for some stupid reason, I felt too intimidated to confront him.’ And then she smiled sweetly at Vita. ‘You’ll be OK, chook,’ she said. ‘You need a distraction. I did pottery evening classes, joined a running group and bought myself a Wii.’

‘Like you needed any more wee in the house,’ Corinne laughed.

‘
Mais oui!
’ said Annie.

‘Bugger evening classes – though I have to admit I went to a macramé one,’ Corinne said to Vita. ‘What you ought to do is have a fling.’

‘That’s what Michelle says.’

‘Well, she’s right. Don’t look so appalled!’

‘I just can’t imagine it. I don’t think I’m interested. And anyway, how will he find me?’

‘He won’t,’ Corinne said. ‘You’ll come across him – and that, my dear, will be that.’

Annie looked at Vita. ‘You don’t believe her, do you?’

‘Nope,’ said Vita, ‘but I’m just going to nod – like I do when friends like Michelle say, You’ll so be OK, babe. Nodding’s good.’

‘How about the sappy half-smile I fix on my face at the start of an evening like this?’ said Annie. ‘When you’re not actually talking to anyone and you feel like a beacon but you don’t want people homing in on you and thinking, Aw, poor woman, all on her own, better go and talk to her.’

Corinne drained her glass thoughtfully. ‘It’s not easy,’ she said quietly, ‘but it’s OK. It always turns out OK.’

Though Vita thought, I don’t think I’ll bother with evening classes and flings and things, she was comforted that these women had been through much that she was going through. Their lexicon was so similar, they understood each other perfectly, despite very different circumstances. Best of all, they’d come through the other side without turning into boorish man-eating harpies or bitter man-hating harridans. And, for the first time, Vita thought that perhaps the task of getting over it was not so much an uphill struggle with no visible summit within reach, as some sort of crazy ride which, if she just held on tight, would be worth it.

Sipping Coca-Cola and taking a couple of Nurofen before bed to ward off a hangover, Vita thought to herself that, actually, none of this felt like a game. To see it as such demeaned the enormity of the journey, the rigours of the process. She thought about how she felt but she balanced it with what she’d thought about Corinne and Annie.

Actually, it wasn’t a game. It was a storm. A mighty one.

She heard her Dad’s words again. It’ll pass, sweetface.

‘Perhaps I’m currently passing through the eye of the storm. I’m like a scrap of torn paper being carried along and there’s nothing I can do about it. Corinne and Annie – they were once like me but they weathered it, they made it through. They emerged the other side, no longer scraps of plain paper – but colourful and vibrant now.’

It was OK to let a tear drop.

‘I’d like that to be me.’

She reached for pen and Post-it.

Calm after the storm

Vita had only had to travel twenty-five minutes to the George and Dragon. For Oliver, however, although the Thorpe Arms was over an hour’s drive, in the next county, he wouldn’t have wanted it closer.

‘Jonty – this party –?’

‘Told you, it’s at Mark’s. His mum’s going to be there – us downstairs, the olds upstairs.’

Oliver knew Mark’s mum. Much younger than him, so if the kids considered her old, they must think him positively ancient.

‘Would you like a lift then, Jont?’

‘Er – sure. Thanks, Dad.’

‘We’ll leave in half an hour?’

‘But it’s only three o’clock? Actually, that’s cool – I can help him set up. I’ll just give him a call.’

Oliver heard his son talking to Mark in a weird language of abbreviations and odd inflection.

‘Cool!’ said Jonty to his father which Oliver took to mean, Yes, please, I’ll have a lift in half an hour.

‘OK. Oh – and no smoking.’

‘I know, Dad. I don’t – you know I don’t – and I haven’t, not since I puked.’

‘OK – and no booze. Alcopops included.’

‘OK!’ Jonty was gently exasperated. There’d be contraband – they both knew it. But since the time that Jonty threw up his guts after half a litre of cider and five cigarettes, they both knew he wasn’t impressed by the effects of either.

Would DeeDee have let him go? Of course she would. If anything, Oliver was more disparaging of Mark’s mother than she’d ever been. A single mum, cool and sassy, with a tattoo on her arm and a nose ring and a groovy job in the music industry – all the kids loved her open-house policy and MP3 players in every room. She’s a really sweet girl, DeeDee had told him. Oliver had argued with her about suitable environments for Jonty to hang out in. And DeeDee had argued back that a rather nice home, not too far away, of a mother she knew from the occasional mums’ night out was a preferable location to some dodgy bus shelter or chippy.

As Oliver locked up and watched Jonty ambling over to the car, plastic bag containing his clothes and things slung over his shoulder like a nonchalant Dick Whittington, he thought how sometimes, co-parenting and the heated debates it incurred had been more fraught than setting the boundaries, establishing the ground rules and doing all the worrying solo.

‘Will you be all right then, Dad?’

‘Me?’

‘I don’t have to stay over. I could come back?’

‘Nonsense! It’s a party, it’s not a school night. And anyway – I have, well, not plans exactly but I’m off to meet someone about some work ideas. And then I have plenty of stuff I’ve been putting off which I’ll do. Including hoovering.’

Usually, Jonty would help without being asked. And he never minded evenings in with his dad. But recently, it had occurred to father and son that Saturday nights oughtn’t to be spent with one’s dad. So Jonty felt equally grateful to Mark’s mum and to his own father.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow then.’

‘OK. Maybe we’ll do something in the afternoon. I don’t know – bowling? Cinema?’

‘OK, Dad. Cool.’

‘Do you have your phone?’

‘Yep.’

‘And it has enough battery?’

‘Yes, Dad. Yes.’

‘Have a great time, then.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Enjoy.’

‘You too.’

It had been an unspoken request, initiated a couple of months ago, not to be dropped off outside a friend’s house. So Oliver had pulled up at the end of Mark’s street and though he didn’t wait until Jonty had disappeared from sight, he did turn the car very slowly so he could surreptitiously check his son’s whereabouts in the rear-view mirror. He watched him lope off and turn up the path to Mark’s.

Have fun, he thought quietly. Don’t smoke, kiddo – though a little booze won’t kill you. Have a laugh and party.

Oliver couldn’t listen to the radio. Every station had a presenter who sounded inane and the news was so depressing not even Radio 4 would do. He had a Springsteen CD in the glove compartment and he racked it up loud, singing along badly. He didn’t dwell on what lay ahead but he did want to get there. The road map was open on the passenger seat, his scribbled directions were on a piece of paper. Certain journeys were not for the sat nav. A motorway services neared. He glanced at the clock and decided to stop and buy a sandwich. He hadn’t had lunch. He ate it off his lap in the car. It was disgusting but it filled a hole. He washed it down with a can of Coke which tasted too sweet, the bubbles too large, sharp almost.

He arrived in plenty of time. It was a small market town whose high street was depressingly generic with the token Starbucks and McDonald’s, and discount book-shops, video games stores and cheap clothing emporiums from which incessant music poured out like the teenagers who shopped there. Woolworth’s remained derelict. The letters had been pulled away, but a dirty imprint spelled out the name like a grubby shroud. Oliver felt like turning around and driving away but the hotel itself was a little way further on out of the town. It was an unassuming building, old but with no immediate architectural value. However, it was spruce, freshly painted and the window boxes and pair of bay trees flanking the entrance were well tended. A girl in a white shirt and black blazer smiled from reception as he walked in.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

May I
, Oliver corrected her silently. ‘I’m meeting someone,’ he said. ‘I’m a little early.’

‘Very good, sir,’ she said and Oliver thought, This is her Saturday job – she’s probably only a couple of years older than Jonty. And then Oliver thought no more of Jonty or home or of being one of the Bourne Three or that the Bourne Three were down to two and that was why he was here. Nor did he ponder what all this was about. He wiped his mind clean, took a seat in the lounge, chided himself when he saw the very nice sandwich and light snacks menu served all day, ordered a sparkling mineral water, unfolded the Saturday
Times
. And waited. Every now and then, he glanced around. No one new had arrived. This had happened once before and had been the most soul-destroying thing. He decided to give it perhaps ten more minutes, time enough to finish the water and the paper.

‘Pete?’

It takes Oliver a moment to click, then he looks up, smiles, stands.

‘Hi,’ he says, offering his hand, ‘Pete. You must be Louise?’ The woman nods. ‘A drink?’

‘Cup of tea,’ she says. ‘I’ll order it – don’t worry. Do you want anything else?’

‘No, thanks.’ He watches her go over to the bar. She’s tall, quite masculine really, her hair is thick and blonde and probably looks better tied back. She doesn’t look as though she’s dressed for a Saturday, she looks as though she’s wearing office clothes. And then Oliver thinks this is catty. She probably works somewhere during the week where she has to tie her hair back and wear flat shoes and slacks and thus it feels good for her to slip into court shoes and a tight skirt and wear her hair loose for a change.

She walks back to him and smiles. Very red lipstick. Nice eyes. She flicks her hair over her shoulder. It falls back. Long nails. Similar shade to her lips. She matches her description well. God knows if Louise is her real name. It doesn’t matter to him just as no doubt it doesn’t matter to her whether he is Pete or Oliver or Lord Bastard Montague-Caruthers.

As she sips her tea, they talk politely if cautiously about their journeys and the weather and one or two current affairs items. And then there’s no tea left, and the ice has melted in Oliver’s glass and he’s drained that too.

‘Shall we?’ she says. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve checked in,’ she says. ‘Please,’ says Oliver, standing and gesturing for Louise to lead the way.

She doesn’t take the lift, she opts for the stairs but Oliver won’t be able to recall that the staircase is rather fine, wide and sweeping with a lovely newel post and a banister of polished mahogany. With Louise walking ahead of him, he is focusing now only on her, on her rear, her tight skirt causing her arse to swing seductively as she climbs. He doesn’t notice the length of the corridor, he’s staring instead at her bra visible beneath her silky shirt. Ankles. Long hair, loose. Shoulders quite broad. She slides the key card into the door, opens it, her hand lingering on it as she walks into the room. Long nails. Red. The type that might grab, scratch, trace patterns over his chest. He closes the door and stares, without reading, at the emergency instructions posted on it. He turns and walks on in. She’s closing the curtains. The bed is between them. A trouser press in the corner, a tray on the desk with kettle, cups, sachets – all are noted subliminally, all will remain untouched.

They stare at each other, no awkwardness – not like the first time when he’d said to whatever her name was in that hotel in Manchester that he liked her necklace. Anyway, Louise isn’t wearing a necklace. She’s unbuttoned her shirt, her bra is lacy and semi-transparent and he can see her large dark nipples through it. He pulls his top over his head as she lets her skirt fall away and then she walks to him, in her matching underwear either bought specially for today or else kept specially for such days. She has kept her shoes on. And just then he thinks how he wants her to keep her shoes on and so he tells her so.

She’s in front of him, those red talon nails doing what they ought to do, tracing a lascivious path up and down, from his neck to his stomach to the top of his trousers, up his torso again, up his neck, over his chin to his lips. He sucks her finger into his mouth while she deftly unbuckles his belt, unzips him and slips her hand down his trousers, fast and urgently, locating his cock now bulging awkwardly in his boxers.

She squats, pulling his trousers down as she goes. She’s licking his knee – a first for him and more ticklish than erotic. She doesn’t stay there long, using her mouth and her breath over the surface of his thighs until she’s level with his groin. She pulls down his boxers and his cock springs out as if it had been gasping for air. No preamble, he’s in her mouth, all the way and at this point he is neither Pete nor Oliver, he is simply a forty-six-year-old widower who needs to fuck and doesn’t want any emotion in the way. He just needs to get rid of this basic carnal desire which goads and tortures him, he needs to empty his balls and feel the velvet comfort of a real cunt.

‘Pull my hair.’ She’s standing now, one hand around his cock, the other between her legs. ‘Be rough with me.’

He pushes her onto the bed, fumbles with a condom. Missionary would have been fine for him but she’s up on all fours with her arse bucking at him. Eyes tight shut, he rams into her from behind while she spews out a quite shocking litany of filth. He blocks it out. He might be fulfilling her fantasy – she’s probably snuck here away from some sexless marriage and her husband is probably farting in front of the footie none the wiser – but she isn’t the stuff of any fantasy of Oliver’s. All he wants from her is the consensual go-ahead to shag. Let her holler that he is to take her like the dog-bitch slut she is – he doesn’t listen. It is about his cock, his balls and a fortnight’s cache of spunk.

She’s on her back now with her great tits just begging to be fondled and sucked. She’s looped her arms under her thighs, spreading her legs wide. It’s a great view – it’s all on show, it’s just what he needs to see. He stares and stares, gorging on the sight before plunging right in. She’s bellowing. Five thrusts. Then three. Two. One.

‘Fuck,’ he says, repeating it again and again as he comes. His body feels as though it’s peeled inside out, he feels sucked into the depths of her, he can feel those talons fixed into his buttocks. She’s still writhing and humping and she’s roaring at him to make her come again. But he doesn’t want to, he just wants to go. She’s not letting him. She’s bucking and twisting and screwing herself onto his spent cock and now, thank God, she’s making coming noises. His face is buried in the pillow, turned away from her and he wants her to let go of his ear with her teeth.

‘God, that was good,’ she’s purring, dragging her nails up and down his back, through his hair. ‘I needed that.’

But Oliver can’t reply because actually, he could weep. He could sob and howl. It’s always the same these days – as soon as his balls are empty he is subsumed with an all-encompassing hollowness, a dreadful terrifying emptiness that sex without love causes. It’s a hateful situation – to need to fuck so badly, to need human touch though he knows now the utter wretchedness its aftermath brings.

But Oliver is a good man, a lovely man. He has manners and innate kindness and a sense of decorum. So he won’t run to the bathroom, change and get the hell out of there as soon as he can. He could, but he won’t. He gives himself a moment, a long moment, then he slides out of her, lies on his back, lets her lie on his chest, lets her run her hands in that post-coital languor over his torso. But he can’t feel it. His spent body is numb now, there’s nothing left inside or outside. And he can hear her talking but he’s not really listening.

‘My husband had an accident at work. We don’t have sex. He has depression – impotence. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a lovely man. But I need sex, you know? I’m almost fifty. I love my husband – don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want to leave him and I don’t want to find myself drawn to having an affair. So that’s why I do the websites – because they’re discreet, aren’t they? People like me – like you – good people who have
needs.
It’s saved my marriage. Do you know that? It’s
saved
it.’ She pauses for breath. Oliver hopes she’ll start up again with, Well, anyway, I’d better go now. Thanks a lot and good luck!

But no.

‘So Pete – tell me. Shall we meet again? I work part-time. I could be here Wednesday.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Home? Wife?’

‘Something like that,’ he says.

‘You told me your wife isn’t around?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You just don’t want another relationship?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, nor do I. That suits me. I could do this time next week, then, if you can’t do Wednesday.’

‘I’ll check – and I’ll email you.’ He smiles at her. ‘I’ll email you if I can do this time next week.’