Any Way You Want Me (25 page)

‘Great,’ I said, getting some plates out. I threw him another glance. Yes, it definitely was Alex. A thought struck me. It was Alex on his best behaviour, that was all. Something I hadn’t seen since our second date, or thereabouts. God. I almost felt scared at this unexpected turn of events.

‘Let’s eat in here for a change, rather than in front of the TV,’ he said, pulling the cutlery drawer open and fishing out a couple of forks. ‘Then we can talk.’

Talk?
Talk?
Now I was scared. He was totally freaking me out. All this niceness just made me feel uneasy. Not to mention suspicious.

Once I’d cleared the table of pink and silver glitter, the latest washing pile and an interesting assortment of crumbs, we sat down to eat. Curry and red wine and candlelight. Good Lord. No expense spared. I could hardly
wait
to hear what he was going to say.

After a mouthful of curry, a slurp of wine and a couple of appreciative noises, he put down his fork and cleared his throat. ‘Sadie,’ he began.

OK. Here he goes, I thought.

From the look on his face, I couldn’t decide whether it was going to be the nobbing-Natasha scenario or an announcement that he’d been sacked, or perhaps even the jubilant news that he’d moved into first place in the office fantasy football league. ‘Yes?’ I replied guardedly.

‘I want to say sorry,’ he said. His eyes were fixed on me, his gaze so solemn that I had to fight the urge to giggle.

‘
Sorry
?’ I repeated. I hadn’t been expecting that one. ‘Sorry for what?’

‘Sorry for having a go at you about that Jack bloke. And for coming in so late last Friday. And I’m really sorry if I upset Lizzie on Saturday. I’ve been a bit of a prat lately.’

I frowned. ‘Remind me how you upset Lizzie again,’ I said, not having the faintest idea what he was on about.

He looked a little shame-faced. It wasn’t a natural expression for Alex to wear; he suddenly seemed five years younger, awkward and shifty. ‘Well, when I kept going on about how I was going to get Felix a toy gun for his birthday,’ he said, dropping his gaze for the first time. ‘I think I pissed her off, big-time. She looked dead upset.’

‘She was upset anyway. I don’t think it was you,’ I told him. Lizzie. I wondered if she’d confronted Steve yet about Jessica.

‘Oh. Oh, good.’ He took a large gulp of wine in what looked like relief. ‘Well, the other stuff, then. I don’t know what’s happened lately between us, if something’s gone wrong or what, but we’ve both been drinking loads and not getting on very well, and . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I just wanted to do something nice, that’s all. Make an effort for a change. Tell you that I really love you after all these years and all these children—’

‘There’s only two of them!’ I objected.

‘And all these days and nights we’ve spent together.’ He was on a roll now. It was sounding rather scripted, to be honest. ‘I think it’s easy to forget to tell someone you love them when your lives are so . . . so . . .’ He was struggling for words; perhaps this was an inpromptu bit.

‘Boring?’ I suggested.

He looked startled. ‘I was going to say meshed together, actually,’ he said. ‘Anyway, what I’m trying to tell you is, I’m sorry I’ve been a bit crap lately. I know I haven’t been pulling my weight. And I know that you know that. And you deserve better. And I’m going to make things better.’

He finished abruptly and leaned back in his chair, as if waiting for a round of applause or, at the very least, an ‘I love you
too
!’ kind of declaration.

I was working my way through a particularly chewy mouthful of naan bread so he had to watch me masticating and gurning in an extremely bovine and unattractive way instead. ‘Thanks,’ I said when I’d eventually swallowed the last bit. ‘Um . . . That’s really lovely. And I know what you mean. We’ve let things drift a bit, haven’t we?’

‘We have,’ he said earnestly. My God. Alex was never earnest. Even when our children had been born he’d been cracking jokes and making dodgy comments about pointy-headed alien babies only seconds later. ‘We only seem to have sex when we’re drunk,’ he went on.

I looked down at my plate guiltily.

‘We’re both knackered and working hard, and everyone says having kids is the biggest test a relationship can face,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to lose “us”. You know, I want us to come through the other side, still loving each other and making plans for our future and . . .’ He shrugged and scuffed a fork around his plate, suddenly seeming embarrassed. ‘You know what I mean.’

Oh, Alex. Why hadn’t he said all this a month ago? I felt consumed by guilt. The chicken in my mouth felt dry and rubbery. The smell of my wine suddenly made me feel sick. I stretched an arm across the table and held his hand. I found that my eyes had filled with tears.

‘Sadie,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t cry. Why are you crying?’

I shook my head, shiny-eyed, terrified that I was going to start a torrent of blubbing and be unable to stop. There were so many emotions inside that I didn’t dare let out.

He pushed his chair back, got up and came round to my side of the table. He put his arms around me and I rested my head against his shirt, his comforting smell making me feel even more wretched.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t know,’ I lied. My voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘You’re right. We’ve been taking each other for granted.’ He was so close, I could feel his breath on my cheek. Alex, the person who knew me best in the world. The person with whom I shared two children and a home. The person whose pants and socks I washed every day, whose tea I cooked every evening, who slept next to me in our bed every night. I pulled away and steeled myself to look him in the eye. ‘You know, I thought this was going to be something about Natasha.’

He blinked and stared, as if I’d spoken in a foreign language. ‘Natasha?’ he repeated. ‘What, Natasha that I work with?’

I nodded. From the way he’d said her name, I realized my suspicions were probably wrong. ‘Yeah,’ I said, then forced a shrug in the hope of seeming casual about it all. ‘I thought you two were . . . you know.’

‘What? Me and Natasha, having it away?’ He laughed, his mouth so wide that I could see rice on his back teeth. Then his jaw closed with a snap and he looked back at me with a strange expression on his face. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘Kind of,’ I told him. I was trying to step back delicately from the confession now, ease my way back into the conversation we’d had minutes earlier. ‘It’s just you’ve been working late a lot and you went to her birthday do the other night without telling me, and—’

‘Her birthday do? What are you talking about?’

Ahh. How could I explain this, when it had been Mark who had told me about the birthday do?

‘I thought you said you went out to Covent Garden for her birthday last Friday?’ I said. I watched his face carefully. Hang on a minute, I was thinking. If he
didn’t
go to Covent Garden last Friday . . .

‘Covent
Garden
? No. Where did you get that from? We were in the local, just like we always are.’

Then why had Mark told me that?

I bent my head over my curry. You fool, Sadie. You utter fool.

‘I must have got muddled up with someone else,’ I said. ‘It was probably Becca, now I think about it.’

‘Right.’ I could feel him watching me. Why had Mark lied to me? ‘Well, I
didn’t
go to Covent Garden, and Natasha wasn’t even out on Friday. She went out with Paul, I think.’

‘Paul?’

‘Yeah, Paul. Paul Brookes? Her husband. He works in the Sports section with Matthew.’ I looked up to see him grinning. ‘You nana. Did you really think me and Mrs Brookes were gettin’ it on?’

I had lost track of the conversation. My mind felt as if it had been blown apart with shock. Mark had lied to me. Why had he lied to me?

‘Well, you know,’ I said, trying to sound jokey. ‘You’re a good-looking guy. You’re a bit of a catch . . .’

‘I am, I am,’ the catch said proudly. ‘It’s all true.’

‘But anyway,’ I said, making a heroic effort to banish Mark from my head. The liar! The manipulative liar! He had wanted me to think that . . . ‘Forget Natasha. Going back to what you were saying before, we’ll both have to make more of an effort from now on. And it’s not just down to you. I will, too.’

He kissed the top of my head and gave me a last squeeze. Crisis over – time to get back to the rogan josh before it cooled down too much.

‘I tell you what set me off thinking,’ he said, sitting back down. ‘It was seeing you come in last night after seeing your mate. You were all sparkly eyed and happy. It made me wish that
I
could make you so happy, all the time. So—’

‘You
do
make me happy,’ I put in quickly. It was just that I’d been shagged senseless in a bubble bath by Mark and had about twenty orgasms, that was all.

I didn’t tell him that bit, obviously. Pushed Mark out of my mind again before the anger started rising up inside me.

‘So,’ he went on, ignoring me, ‘I’ve booked us a table at Humbugs on Saturday night. I’ve already asked your mum, who said she would babysit, no problem. And then there’s Cat and Tom’s leaving do the Friday after that. And then it’s your birthday weekend and I’ve booked us in at a hotel in Brighton, on the seafront.’ His voice was gruff with pride. ‘We’ll just have to keep arranging lots of things to look forward to, Sade. I know money’s a bit tight, but . . .’

I leaned across the table and kissed him, trying not to get curry all over my front. ‘You are a lovely, lovely man,’ I told him. ‘And I love you very, very much. And I’m very lucky to have caught the catch. Thank you.’

‘’S all right,’ he said magnanimously. He forked a mouthful of lamb into his mouth and then raised his glass. ‘Cheers to us,’ he said.

‘Cheers to us,’ I said, raising mine. That was twice in two evenings now that I had toasted my relationships with two different men. I felt about as hypocritical as it was possible to feel.

Dear Dan,

The 27th sounds great. Looking forward to strutting my stuff to ‘New York, New York’ in between cheese and pineapple on sticks. Oh, and looking forward to seeing you as well. Shall I meet you there?

Love Sadie x

The new, improved, making-an-effort Alex was turning out to be pretty bloody good actually. On Saturday afternoon, he looked after the kids so I could go and get my hair cut for the first time since Nathan had been born. On Saturday night, he took me to Humbugs, the nicest vegetarian restaurant in the world, and made me laugh all night, then took me home and made sweet, sweet love to me. On Sunday morning, he got up with the kids so I could have a lie-in.

By Monday evening, I was feeling like the most ungrateful woman on the planet as I put on my faux running gear to meet Mark. I was also feeling confused about the lying issue. I had decided, in the end, after many hours feeling angry and then bruised and then plain old curious about the reasons for the lie, that
Julia
must have misled Mark about the staff whereabouts last Friday. Maybe she’d been in Covent Garden with someone who sounded a bit like Natasha. Sasha, say. Or Natalie. And Mark had told me that and I’d just heard Natasha because . . .

Well, something like that anyway. It could have happened. It sounded plausible to me.

Alex gave my bottom a friendly squeeze as I passed him on my way out. ‘You know, all this running is really paying off,’ he said. ‘Your legs definitely look leaner.’

‘Do you think so?’ I asked, feeling a rush of guilt. Running didn’t get a look in any more. If anything was making my legs lean, it was the contortions Mark bent me into. The frantic sex, the nervous energy and bucketloads of adrenaline.

‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I always say I was right about—?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You might have mentioned it. Listen, I’m going to meet up with Anna again afterwards so I’ll probably be a bit late, OK?’

He kissed me and I wanted to push him away. No, don’t believe me, I’m an evil lying slut, Alex, I felt like shouting. Walk away from me while you can. You deserve better.

‘Have a good one,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ I said miserably. ‘I will.’

I started running down our road towards Mark’s office as usual, but then a car pulled up alongside me a few hundred yards from our house.

‘Jump in,’ he said.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Where are we going tonight?’

‘Just a pub,’ he told me, kissing my mouth tenderly. ‘The Duke of Devonshire. Do you know it?’

‘No,’ I said happily, doing up my seat belt. I loved going to new places. Especially with the prospect of sex with Mark at the end of it.

He was driving a familiar route. ‘Hey,’ I said after a while. ‘We’re in Balham.’

‘Yeah, and . . . ?’ He sounded amused. ‘Is that a problem?’

Lizzie. With my luck, I’d probably bump into her, right here on her home turf. ‘Well, one of my sisters lives here,’ I said. He parked the car in a side street, and I looked around uneasily as if she was about to jump up at my window any second, a frown under that fair fringe as she took in who I was with.
A man? Who isn’t Alex? What IS she doing?

He was unclipping his seat belt, sliding the keys from the ignition. Then he looked across at me. ‘What, you want to go somewhere else?’

‘No-o-o,’ I said. I thought quickly. ‘No. She won’t be out on a Monday night. She’s got a little boy. No, this’ll be fine.’

The Duke of Devonshire was the kind of pub I liked: not too flashy or cool or chintzy. Not full of drug dealers and over-friendly alkies either. Just a normal pub with a good jukebox and big pine tables and benches. Perfect.

‘What do you want to drink?’ I asked, pulling my purse out.

‘Better make it a half, as I’m driving,’ he said. ‘Half of bitter. I thought we could have a quick drink here then go and find somewhere unusual to have amazing sex. What do you reckon?’

I blushed. ‘Mark, have we ever done it somewhere that
isn’t
unusual?’ I joked. He was having his knicker-melting-lust effect on me, as always. One look at that amazing mouth was enough to start me off.