Infidelity for Beginners (5 page)

“The cow!” Elenor tutted.

“Oh you know what I mean. I’ve been wandering around these
shops half the lunch hour and I haven’t found a single thing she’d like,” I
complained. “How many more hours am I going to have to spend traipsing around
the shops just because she won’t let me throw money at the problem?”

“Why don’t you get her some nice underwear?” Elenor winked.

“What, some pants?”

“No, not some pants, some nice underwear. Some sexy
underwear. Could be fun for both of you.”

“I don’t think so,” I dismissed.

“Why not?”

“Sally’s not really the sexy underwear type.”

“Why, what’s she got, udders or something?”

“What, no. I just mean, I don’t think she’d like sexy
underwear…”

“… as much as a pen,” Elenor finished for me.

“No. Well yes. No. I don’t know.”

“I think sexy underwear would be a brilliant present,”
Elenor said, and I liked the way she kept saying sexy underwear. It was sexy.
“I’d be thrilled to bits if somebody bought me a nice pair of see-through lacy
panties and a matching see-through bra,” she told me, raising an eyebrow
provocatively. “Absolutely thrilled to bits.”

“Would you?” I laughed nervously, but Elenor didn’t respond.
“Well, you never know, maybe Santa will bring you some in your Christmas
stocking.”

“If he does, he’ll leave my house with more than a mince pie
and a glass of sherry,” she promised before wishing me luck with my search.

I watched Elenor walk off into the crowd and gave her a wave
when she looked back.

At that moment all the zombies returned, although Elenor
just walked right through them. It was incredible how none of them noticed her.
Not one of them. How could they not notice her? How could anyone not notice her
–

– in her see-through lacy panties and matching
see-through bra?

Another Christmas Day over. Boy,
Christmas Day really is the Sunday to end all Sundays isn’t it? Personally,
I’ve always preferred Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve for me is the best day of
the year, the Friday to end all Fridays. I’ve always enjoyed Christmas Eve yet
rarely enjoyed Christmas Day. I don’t know why this should be. Perhaps it’s because
Christmas Eve is all about preparation, hope and anticipation. Even the travel
is something I enjoy. The roads are calm, the air’s tinged with expectation and
the journey’s like the start of a mini adventure.

Then you arrive, climb out of the car and suddenly you
remember you’re staying with your parents for the next few days.

Maybe the reason Christmas Eve is so magical is because it’s
the calm before the storm. It lulls you into a false sense of security and
makes you believe that this year it might be different. But it never is. God,
Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Mohammed and anyone else I’ve forgotten to mention,
please, I pray to you with every ounce of my soul don’t let me turn out to be
like my mother.

In other news, Andrew excelled himself this year by getting
me a painting by numbers kit. I can’t help but wonder why.

I know he’s not the best at buying presents but still…

Every year he tried to bludgeon me into telling him what I
want for Christmas, but what I want is a surprise. Something thoughtful.
Something little. Something nice. That’s what I want. I don’t know what it is
myself, but that’s the whole point. All I know is that it’s not an engraved
pen, it’s not a foot stool, it’s not a self-operated back massager and it’s not
a painting by numbers kit.

Is this me being difficult? I hope not. I’d hate to think of
myself as a difficult person. All I really want is a little surprise (not that
the painting by numbers kit didn’t catch me by surprise).

We do both sets of parents in quick succession every year,
Andrew’s first on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, then my parents
afterwards for Christmas Day evening and Boxing Day. In years gone by we used
to wrap each other’s presents up again so that we could ‘unwrap’ them in front
of both sets of parents, but we decided not to bother with that this year. I’m
glad. I found it hard enough pretending to be thrilled to bits with a painting
by numbers kit once as it was.

I’m not sure I could manage twice.

My rear view mirror flashed a couple
of times and I looked up to see a BMW almost on my tail lights. I was in the
outside lane of the M3 and moving along at a respectable 79mph. The two inside
lanes were moderately busy with cars and lorries so I was overtaking the slower
60mph and 70mph traffic myself, but BMW man had obviously come to the
conclusion that this wasn’t fast enough for an expensive car like his so he was
giving me a taster of his front lights and badgering me to get out of the way.

I normally have no qualms about getting out of the way of
other motorists if I’m blocking the fast or middle lanes of the motorway, but
this doesn’t happen very often because I only ever use the middle or outside
lanes for overtaking. When I’m cruising along daydreaming about my dinner I
stick to the furthest inside lane and only pull out to overtake caravans,
buses, lorries, coaches and Fiats, then I steer straight back in again when the
road up ahead is once against clear. This is what you’re meant to do. This is
how you’re meant to drive on a motorway. I know this because I passed a test in
order to get my driving licence.

BMW man had obviously found his in a fucking Christmas
cracker.

“What?” I asked the rear view mirror as it flashed me once
again.

“Hmm?” Sally asked, stirring in the passenger seat beside
me. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked out of the window. “Where are
we? What’s up?”

“Oh nothing, it’s just this…
what, you fucking fuck?
” I yelled, as a wall of light filled the
back windscreen.

“Andrew!” Sally exclaimed, shocked at the outburst. I don’t
normally swear, especially not in front of Sally, but I do sometimes resort to
it in moments of extreme stress.

Here is a list of things that
will make me swear:

Smacking my head

Hitting my hand with a
hammer

Stubbing my toe on the
corner of the bed in the middle of the night

Catching a falling
cactus

Seeing some sort of
monster running towards me

Self-assembly
instructions

Sally’s parents

Christmas shopping

Norman

Other drivers

If I had the road to myself, or if everyone just stuck to
the rules and we all drove like we were supposed to, then I could scrub that
last one off my list, but there were so many wankers on the road that I burned
to turn my car into an instrument of death every time I got behind the wheel.

“You son of a fucking…” I growled, putting my foot down to
get the arsehole off my bumper.

“Andrew, What’s wrong?” Sally asked, looking over her
shoulder as my speedometer needle checked out the view from the 80mphs.

“It’s this fucking arsehole on my arse,” I told her. “He
keeps flashing me and…”

Pharp!

“You bastard…!!!”

“Andrew!”

“Well he just hooted me.”

The cunt!

“What does he want?” Sally asked.

“He wants to get past,” I told her.

“Well let him,” she said, unbelievably.

Pharp! Pharp! Pharp!

“MOTHERFUCKER!” I screamed, almost snapping the steering
wheel off in my hands.

“Andrew, just let him past!”

“But I’m not doing anything wrong,” I explained.

“What the hell’s that got to do with anything?” Sally asked,
but I was too busy steering into a long sweeping curve and watching for gaps in
the traffic to answer her.

“Andrew, just pull in so that he can get past,” she
insisted.

“But I’m doing eighty miles an hour already,” I said, then
saw I wasn’t, I was actually doing 92mph. 92mph and he was still only ten feet
off my bumper. What was the matter with this maniac?

“Andrew!” Sally snapped, but I’d be fucked if I was pulling
in for him just because this arsehole wanted to hare along on his own private
road at 100mph.

I’d been doing 79mph as it was. The national speed limit’s
70mph but this fucking dickhead had flashed and beeped to overtake me when I
was overtaking traffic myself. You know it’s one thing to speed when you have a
clear stretch of road ahead of you, but it’s quite another when you have to
intimidate other speeders in order to do it.

No, bollocks to him! I wasn’t getting out of his way. I was
in the right and I had the law on my side. At least, I would have once I’d shed
22mph.

Accordingly, I eased my foot off the accelerator and slowed
to a comparatively snail-like 73mph.

The stupid thing was that I would’ve probably pulled over
and let him past if he had just sat in my rear view mirror and bided his time,
but it was the fact that he’d tried to bully me off the road that got my goat
up. Why should I have to slow down and get out of the way for him just because
he had a faster car than me? Why should I? Who did he think he was? And why the
fuck
did he think that counted for
anything with me?

BMW man began wearing out his horn and strobing the back of
my car but he could go fuck himself as far as I was concerned. I was Gandalf of
the M3 and he was not passing.

“For Chrissakes Andrew, just pull the bloody car over and
let him past!” Sally yelled, but I refused to budge from the outside lane and
explained that it would be wrong of me to knowingly allow someone else to break
the law, “like that arsehole behind me. I mean, if I was on a train and he got
on and told me to beat it because he wanted to touch up all the female
passengers, should I turn a blind-eye and let him do what he wanted or stay and
try to protect them?” I asked, congratulating myself for coming up with such a
fitting analogy.

“What are you talking about, Andrew? The only female
passenger around here in any peril is me because you’re playing bloody motorway
cat and mouse,” she pointed out, then yelled in my ear, “Now bloody well pull
in before you get us both killed!”

Sally was gripping the handles of the seat and bracing
herself for a pile-up although we were only going at 73mph and I was in total
control.

“Sally, it’s all right, don’t worry, we’re not going to
crash,” I reassured her. We were now entering a long straight, the road was dry
and the weather was clear, though this cut little ice with Sally who was adamant
I was about to kill everyone within a five-mile radius.

“Fine, stop the car. Stop it. I want to get out and walk,”
she suddenly demanded.

“Don’t be so silly.”

“It’s not me being silly, it’s you who’s being silly,
playing with my life as if this is some sort of game. Now stop the car, I’m
getting out.”

“I can’t stop, it’s a motorway.”

“Stop the car!”

“He’s the one playing games, not me,” I insisted, but it was
no use. I was in the one in the wrong. Again. As far as Sally was concerned, I
was always the one in the wrong.

“Stop – the – car!”

“Fine, have it your way, I’ll pull in but he’s the one who’s
going to crash and blow up five miles down the road,” I told her.

“Would you rather he did it in the back of us?” Sally asked,
but I was no longer listening, I was dipping my indicator lever and slowing
down to pull in between a Volkswagen Polo and an old Ford Focus.

It felt oddly humiliating having to pull over and let this
arsehole win, like everyone else on the motorway was looking at each other and
smirking, and I wanted Sally to lean out of the passenger side and explain to
the rest of the traffic that I was only letting him past because she’d told me
to, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

I eased into the middle lane and thought that would be it,
but BMW man roared alongside me and sat there waiting for me to turn and look
at him. Curiosity finally got the better of me and when I turned I saw a
scrunched up face and five clenched fingers yelling and shaking in my
direction.

I wound down the window and held a hand to my ear so BMW man
did the same and called me a “wanker”, a “cunt”, a “fucking tosser”, a “wanker”
again and “David Blunkett” in an impressively short space of time.

“You want to learn to drive mate, you shouldn’t be on the
fucking road!” I yelled back.

“Wi.. ou. . n… ckin… ..up …. … . .g. … ou… nt!” he replied.

“Yeah, well have some of that,” I shouted, and gave him the
finger.

“… ll… kin… . sh .. ur.. d. up.. . .. ntin.. .. nt!” he
retorted, and performed a complicated ‘one-finger, wanker-sign, one-finger,
fist’ routine while holding his car perfectly level with mine.

“You’re gay!” I told him.

“Oh for God’s sake Andrew,” Sally complained.

Beethoven in the BMW put his hand to his ear, so I repeated
it several times and did a John Inman hand flap and pointed in his direction,
so he came back with a few gestures of his own.

“What’s he doing now?” Sally asked.

“I don’t know,” I told her, charades not being my strong
suit. “Maybe he’s hungry.”

“Just ignore him, Andrew,” Sally told me, though I felt
strangely drawn to watch a bit more, and only wound the window back up when he
tried to throw an empty coffee cup at me.

Naturally, the polystyrene vessel didn’t get within two feet
of my car but it still panicked me into winding up the window. When I looked
back, matey was laughing and giving me the V-sign, so I quickly wound my window
back down and called him a “fucking moron”!

“Quick, have we got anything to throw?” I asked Sally, but
Sally refused to join in and once again asked to be dropped off on the hard
shoulder.

“Fine,” I conceded, then wound my window back up despite BMW
man’s continuing gestures to concentrate on the road ahead.