Good Husband Material (13 page)

‘It’s a shame Fergal Rocco isn’t going to be there,’ she said sadly. ‘He’s nearly as sexy as Robert Plant.’

‘Robert Plant?’

‘I forget you’re younger than me. He was in Led Zeppelin.’

‘Oh, yes – I thought the name rang a bell.’

‘Funnily enough, I never fancied him when he was younger – all sideboards and legs like a spider – but now, if he came to the door and pleaded with me to have an affair with him I’d have to give it my serious consideration. About two secondsworth,’ Peggy said.

‘I used to know him.’

‘What, Robert Plant?’

‘No, you idiot! Fergal Rocco.’

‘You knew him? In the biblical sense?’

‘Really, Peggy! I used to go out with him years and years ago, and I’m glad he isn’t going to be at the dinner, because he treated me rather badly. I don’t really want to meet him again.’

‘Well, well! No wonder you write good steamy bits in your novels. And you might not want to meet him, but you could have introduced him to
me
.’

‘James only found out I’d gone out with him recently, and he’s been extremely odd about it. Jealous. I think it might have sort of given him a disgust of me, because we’re supposed to be trying for a baby and he’s hardly come near me since we moved here.’

‘He’s probably just afraid of the comparison – not measuring up. Anyway, you don’t want a baby. Nasty, noisy smelly things.’

‘Are they? Don’t they sleep a lot?’

‘Only other people’s.’

‘Oh. I thought they spent a lot of time asleep, so I could still write and—’

‘Forget it. If you’re lucky and they do go to sleep, then you spend the time stuffing vomit-stained clothes into the washer, sterilising bottles, putting toys away, and trying to keep things hygienic. If by any miracle you get more than four hours’ sleep in one stretch it’s sheer bliss.’

‘It sounds awful. Is it really that bad?’

‘Worse. But you’re young – I dare say you could cope. Just have the one, and resign yourself to doing nothing constructive until it goes to nursery.’

‘I’m not that young – turned thirty. I think you’ve put me off.’

‘Sorry. It does have its upsides. I loved mine dearly once they stopped lying there like suet puddings. But I wouldn’t have had them if my ex hadn’t been so set on it, and
I
hadn’t been so set on him.’

‘James is set on the idea too – or he was until he found out about my murky past.’

‘Sons, that’s what it is. He’s over forty, isn’t he? Next generation. Probably harbouring outdated ideas about producing little replicas of himself.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Men are so predictable – that’s why it’s so easy to write male characters. Press knob A, and you get reaction B, as it were.’

‘Is Gerry predictable, too?’

‘To a certain extent, but he’s arty, which gives him a certain depth. And big – big, bearded and silent – got all his own hair and teeth. That’s about all the criteria I can expect these days. But he’s quite nice.’

‘I think he sounds very attractive.’

‘He’ll do. Anyway, I’ll see you at the hotel, then. I’ll catch the night train home, so we’ll have time to catch up on things in the hotel bar after dinner.’

‘Couldn’t you stay overnight too?’

‘I don’t trust Gerry with the cats for more than a day – they terrorise him.’

When I went out to post my ticket application, Mrs Peach’s curtains twitched, but I am getting used to it. Apart from her egg round I rarely see her, because when I’m outdoors she stays in to watch me.

She offered to sell me rabbits ‘for the pot’, but I declined. A revolting idea, even if they came ready to cook, which I doubt. Ugh!

Fergal: April 1999

    
‘TOKYO BOX OFFICE RUSH

    
Nine people hurt as tickets for the last Japanese

    
performance by Brit band Goneril go on sale …’

Sun

Don’t ask me how Hywel found out that I intended flying back to Britain halfway through the farewell tour just for one night, but he did. I’ve never actually caught him lying prone with his ear to the ground, but I have my suspicions.

I didn’t tell him why, not wanting my personal affairs instantly composted into publicity material.

He pointed out that if I stayed a second night I could very well receive my
Trendsetter
award in person.

‘I could – but then I’d have to leave at some unearthly hour of the morning or I wouldn’t get back to Japan in time for the next gig.’

‘I can book you a room at the hotel where the award is being made,’ he said persuasively, ‘and you can get your head down for a couple of hours before the flight back.’

‘Thanks a lot. But I’d rather go back the day before and let the worst of the jetlag wear off.’

‘But just think of the publicity,’ wheedled Hy. ‘The award is being presented at the annual dinner of the Society for Women Writing Romance – a photograph or two of you surrounded by the Queens of Romance. Good publicity for them, too – and who knows? You might inspire a bit of purple prose!’

He chuckled and his six chins trembled on a Richter scale of four.

‘This Romance Society – are they all in that?’

‘Most of them, I think. There’s going to be about three hundred people there, and a lot of them will be novelists. Why, you don’t know any, do you?’

‘I might. Could you get a list of all those who are going to be there, if I promise to receive the award in person?’

‘Easy – they’ll be so pleased you’re going to be there they’d probably give you a romantic novelist too, if you asked.’

‘I think you overestimate my charms, but I’ll bear it in mind. Just a list will do for the moment.’

She probably won’t be there – and if she is I shouldn’t go … But hell, surely we can meet like civilised people after all this time?

‘If you told me the name you were interested in?’ suggested Hywel innocently.

I gave him a look.

‘The Man Most Readers Would Like To …’ he sniggered, unabashed.

‘Don’t get carried away. Most of the readers of
Trendsetter
magazine are about fourteen years old, and if they actually came face to face with me would go bright red and stutter. Sometimes I feel like their father.’

‘That’s certainly not how they see you. Anyway, arrangements for the tour all right?’

‘Yes. I’ve got a message for you about Japan from Carlo, though. He says if you try a stunt like you did last time we went there, sending a fake Geisha girl and a cameraman up to our suite, he’ll personally knock your block off. And I’ll help him,’ I added.

‘Carlo’s engagement isn’t doing his image much good. At least Mike and Col have been married for so long everyone’s forgotten about it. Anyway, they aren’t front men. Still, look on the bright side – at least
you
aren’t getting married.’

‘No, I’ve no plans to get married. But I’m glad this is the last tour. It’s time I settled down.’

‘You say that every year.’

‘Carlo’s saying it now, too, and the other two would like to have a bit of normal family life. I’m not saying we want to break up, just that we’d all like to do occasional gigs rather than tours, and have time for other interests.’

‘You don’t mean it!’

‘This is billed as a farewell tour, remember?’

‘Yes, but that—’

‘So it can be one,’ I cut in ruthlessly.

He shook his head slowly. ‘Now, Fergal, I can’t believe you really mean that! Why, what would you do if you weren’t touring?’

‘Paint? Write more songs? Get a life?’

He looked up, suddenly alarmed. ‘It’s not that little American girl, is it? The one who’s been following you around?’

‘No, not in the way you mean.’

I haven’t met a woman yet I’ve wanted to live with permanently – except one, but Hywel is the last man for confidences like that.

He was relaxing now, smiling expansively: he doesn’t think I mean it. But I do mean it – that’s the business that’s making me fly back briefly from Japan. I’m not going round and round on tour until I’m some sort of parody of myself. I may be the Bad Boy of Rock still to Hy, but I don’t want to degenerate into the Naughty Old Man of Rock, oldest swinger in town.

Today I took the bus to the garden centre and bought a climbing rose and a length of folding white trellis, then fell in love with a rustic bird table and had to phone James and ask him to collect it on the way back from work. That didn’t please him much, although it’s only a couple of miles out of his way.

‘And it’s such a waste of money!’

‘It seems to be all right for you to spend pounds on alcohol and expensive magazines and books about ham radio, James,’ I pointed out. ‘So why shouldn’t I buy the odd extravagance?’ (If you can call a bird table an extravagance!)

He was still sulking when he came home with the bird table, which I have now set up on the little beaten area at the back of the house where the patio will be one day. I can sit in the breakfast nook (oak – everyone has those heavily varnished pine sets) and watch, identification book in hand, though all I seem to see so far are large, brown, boring birds who bounce around the table as if they have rubber legs.

The morning after this little difference of opinion James went off to work without kissing me goodbye again, but out of absent-mindedness rather than the sulks, I think.

The late-night working sessions seem to be increasing steadily again. I wonder if I should mention to Lionel how tired this makes him? Only I feel James will be cross if I do. And Uncle is not exactly friendly: he has a domed bald head and little beady, disapproving eyes, like a squid.

I did quite a lot of
Love on the Waves
, then came down for a cup of coffee, and it was while sitting drinking this that, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something large, brown and very fast run up to the base of the bird table, pick up dropped food, and dash away again.

Excitedly I tried to remember all the kinds of medium-sized brown animals there are in the British Isles. Otters, of course – but don’t they live in rivers and eat fish? And stoats.

I tiptoed out and sprinkled a generous portion of food round the table, then went back in and jammed my nose against the window hopefully.

It returned with extreme speed, so that I barely had time to register the glossy brown body, rounded ears and long, naked tail before it had bounded away again.

A horrid doubt – a premonition of evil – immediately shook me. Surely it couldn’t be a
rat
?

No – it must be something else that
looked
a little like a rat but was quite harmless …

But some sort of in-built race-memory was shrieking warning bells, and after watching the creature paying repeat visits I was quite, quite sure that it was indeed a rat.

Nothing would have induced me to go out of the back door.
Bubonic plague and the Black Death
, I thought,
nosegays and pustules
.

‘James!’ I demanded, panicking, down the phone. ‘What do rats look like?’

His voice became hushed, as if I had imparted the news of a death in the family.

‘Rats? Don’t tell me we’ve got rats in the house?’

‘No, but there’s one living outside, under the shed, I think.’

‘Oh, outside!’ His voice became louder, more irritable. ‘Is that all? That derelict barn next door must be full of them! Let Bess out – she’ll frighten it away. Now, if that’s all, I’d better get back to work. I’m extremely busy today, and you really shouldn’t ring me unless it’s something urgent.’

‘But it is urgent!’ I wailed, but with a casual ‘See you later’ he rang off.

Pig.

I slammed the receiver down and remained by it, gnawing my fingernails until I realised I was sitting on the commode and, rising hastily, went off to lure the Canine Defender out into the garden.

She was cosily asleep in front of the gas fire like an expensive Norwegian rug and refused to open her eyes even when I lied and said, ‘Walkies!’

Then I rang the Pest Control Officer at the Town Hall, but he wasn’t interested either, once he knew that the rat wasn’t actually sharing the house with me.

There was only one thing for it – I put my coat on and went to consult Mrs Deakin, our local
Enquire Within Upon Everything
.

‘Rats?’ she said comfortably, adjusting her shoulder straps with a sharp snapping noise. ‘Nesting under that old shed of yours?’

I visualised a whole family of voracious rats emerging from the shed to attack me with large, yellowed teeth, and my voice went high-pitched: ‘There must be some way of getting rid of them – it!’

‘Terrible lot of trouble we had with rats a year or two back when they was putting the new sewers in. Ran about the village street in droves, they did. Squeaking.’

I clung to the edge of the wooden counter, gazing desperately at her.

‘You need Bob and his Jack Russells,’ she conceded. ‘That’ll fetch them out of there!’

‘Bob and his Jack Russells?’ It sounded like a band or punk group or something.

‘Little terriers, Jack Russells are, but something terrible on rats. I’ll tell him to bring them along tomorrow morning, shall I?’

‘Oh, yes, please!’ I agreed gratefully. Rats definitely have priority over writing.

‘I’ll do that. He’ll enjoy it, Bob will. He’s not more than ten shillings in the pound, mind, but a good biddable lad, as you’ll see.’

‘Not more than …?’

‘Seven months child,’ she explained. ‘And born on the train to London. Ma Slogget wanted to call him Euston, but her husband, Jack, he put his foot down and said if Robert was good enough for his father, it would be good enough for this ’un. But we call him Bob.’

‘Oh …’ I caught myself up with an almost audible grinding of mental gears. ‘Oh, well, thank you, Mrs Deakin! Will I have to give him anything? I mean, what—’

‘Give him?’ she echoed, surprised at my not automatically knowing the right thing. ‘Why, give him some old magazines! Loves magazines, he does. Any sort: comics, ladies’ weeklies, old catalogues. It’s the coloured pictures.’

I’d never have thought of that!

‘Now, what can I get you?’ she enquired.