It's Raining Men (2 page)

It was going to cost them a bomb but they’d all done well for themselves and had earned nice impressive job titles and financial packages to match. They deserved a bit of pamper time. Ten
glorious wonderful days of it, to be exact.

‘And please include the luxury welcome hamper,’ requested Lara. ‘It’s one hundred and fifty pounds, I do believe.’

Becky’s concentration levels were middling at the best of times but today – her very last day in this shitty Watford-based holiday agency – they were at rock bottom. She
pressed the wrong key and lost the screen. She frantically stabbed at a few more keys, which only made the situation worse and so she reached for a pen and her reporter’s notepad to take down
details which she would type up after the call had finished. Visa number, email, address, contact telephone number, holiday dates.

‘Yep, I’ll get this confirmed for you and email you the details,’ she said after Lara had supplied her with all the info. ‘Thank you for calling Superior Cottages,’
she added and cut off the call.

Becky pulled up the booking screen again. Bugger – what was the name of the bloody cottage? She hadn’t written it down but merely committed it to memory, which was a bad mistake as
all her thought space was taken up with things Greek. Ren something? She typed the three letters into the search box, and bingo. Well Cottage, Ren Dullem. That was it – she remembered the
‘well’ bit now too. Thank God for that. She processed the payment whilst thinking how blinking expensive it was. Some people really did have more money than sense. She couldn’t
find anything about any luxury hamper so she typed the request into the box labelled ‘Message for cottage owner’:
Luxury £150 hamper needed on arrival.
Job done. She
rewarded herself with a drawn-out coffee break and a Twix from the machine.

She would have been flattered to realize that Miss Rickman, who was pressed for time, trusted her efficiency enough to assume the booking was all correct and didn’t bother to give the
confirmation email more than a passing glance at the dates before saving it to a folder on her smartphone.

As Clare sat drinking coffee in a French café in St Pancras, she subtly eavesdropped on the conversation taking place beside her between a pretty young blonde woman, and
her boyfriend, a man in the mould of Russell Brand – wild hair, trendy facial hair growth, tight skinny trousers, long tapered leather shoes and black leather waistcoat – oozing
cockiness and charm in equal measures.

‘Mum’s at home all weekend,’ the girl was saying. ‘So that rules out you coming to mine.’

The boy shrugged. ‘Looks like my back seat is going to see some action again, then.’

‘Ooh, yeah. I’m liking the sound of that.’

‘I’ll drive you somewhere dark and isolated and then make you scream your head off.’

The girl giggled. ‘I liked it when you did that thing with your . . .’ She turned to the side to check she wasn’t being overheard, spotted Clare looking in her direction and
then, maddeningly, lowered her voice. Whatever ‘that thing’ he did to her was, it certainly must have hit the spot. Clare tried not to watch them as they started snogging but her eyes
kept wandering over in their direction. The boy wasn’t her type at all but there was something dangerous and sexy about him. Clare had never had sex in a car, and had never had a boyfriend
who suggested it, either. She had a sudden yearning to drag Ludwig off in his plush Audi and shag him on the moors. She grinned to herself thinking how horrified he would be if she did. They had
never had sex out of bed. They had never had rip-your-clothes-off passion
in
bed either, come to think of it. Lud was a love-maker: slow and gentle, considerate and satisfying. But
recently, she had been thinking that just once in a while, it might be nice to be grabbed and seduced on the staircase, or ravaged in the back seat of a car. It was the sort of thing she imagined
her friend Lara got up to. Lara was spirited and curvy, like a short modern-day Marilyn Monroe, and she had the most drop-dead gorgeous partner who was an up-and-coming big noise in the City. And
it was no secret that that type of man had a passionate sex-drive and a wild side.

Clare had met Lara eighteen months ago at a work conference and had immediately liked the sassy, small blonde who’d been wearing the red shade of lipstick she wished she was brave enough
to sport. They appeared to be the shortest people in the room, which was the initial ice-breaker. They then found themselves in the same discussion group, along with a tall, slim woman with
beautiful long brown hair and large brown doe eyes who looked totally uncomfortable in the crowds of people forming themselves into huddles. She introduced herself to them as May Earnshaw

‘That’s a good Yorkshire surname,’ said Lara. ‘I’m from Barnsley.’

‘I’m from just outside Leeds,’ replied May.

‘I’m from York,’ Clare had added to the mix. And a friendship was born.

Clare felt a kiss on her cheek from someone behind her.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Ludwig, squeezing her shoulder before taking the seat opposite. He stripped off his smart black Crombie to reveal a drop-dead gorgeous dark-grey suit. He
was always so beautifully dressed. The first time she had ever seen him in a suit, three years ago at her birthday party, he had taken her breath away. They had kissed then and been together as a
couple ever since.

‘Espresso, please,’ he said, waving at the approaching waiter. ‘Would you like another coffee, darling?’

‘Yes, please. Cappuccino.’

‘And a cappuccino, please,’ he added to his order, his German accent still thickly present although he had lived in England since he was ten years old.

Clare looked over at her solid, reliable Ludwig and tried to imagine him bonking her in a car. She couldn’t. She wondered what he would say were she to suggest it. Knowing Ludwig, he would
give it a go for her sake, whatever he thought about it.

‘You look happy,’ Clare said with a smile.

‘I am. I’ve just acquired a very important client,’ Ludwig replied, reaching over the table and taking her small hand in his large square one.

‘Ah.’ Clare wasn’t surprised to hear the thrill was work-related.

‘Yes, very exciting.’ He beamed, pushing his glasses in their thick black frames back up his nose. With those and the flop of hair over his eyes he looked just like Clark Kent when
Christopher Reeve played him.

‘Lovely,’ said Clare and sighed as Lud’s phone went off and he picked it up and pressed it to his ear. She transferred her attention to the menu and wished that Lud would rip
it out of her hands, seize her arm and pull her passionately towards him. Recently he hadn’t given her half as much attention as he had his bloody BlackBerry. Luckily, this time it was a
short call.

‘Would you like to eat here, my love?’ he asked, putting the phone down on the table in front of him. Once upon a time he would have turned it off and put it out of sight.

‘Here is fine.’ Clare was too tired to go looking for anywhere else and it was convenient as Lud was catching the train to Brussels in two hours. He was an investment banker, a
genius whizz-kid who had flown to the top of his career tree. He was constantly being head-hunted by firms aching to recruit him. He was addicted to work and his ear was constantly attached to his
phone, but he was a dear man and she loved him. He was kind, funny, generous . . . but lately she had been wondering whether Ludwig Wolke was
the one
. Ever since going to see a stage
production of
Wuthering Heights
two months ago she had been having racy dreams about bedding a wild man on some heather-cushioned moors. Heathcliff had stirred her all up inside and made
her yearn for something outside her comfort zone – and someone who would make her the epicentre of his world. There were three of them in this relationship – him, her and his sodding
mobile.

‘Oh, I bought you something,’ said Ludwig, suddenly remembering. He reached behind him into his coat pocket. ‘It’s to keep you company while I’m away.’

He handed over a bag. Grinning, Clare peered inside.

‘Paul’s chocolate macaroons!’ she yelped with delight. He knew they were her favourites. ‘I promise not to eat them all at once.’

Lud smiled. ‘If you want to eat them all at once, you go ahead and just do it.’

‘I’ll get fat and you’ll leave me.’

‘I would never leave you,’ said Lud, picking up the menu. ‘Not unless you wanted me to. Now, pick something to eat. I want to have enough time for dessert.’

Lovely, kind Lud, thought Clare. Then his BlackBerry went off and she was forgotten as he was plunged, yet again, into his demanding world of high finance.

May grated cheese on top of the bacon, which was on top of the barbecue sauce on top of the chicken breast. Hunter’s Chicken – Michael loved it and she so wanted to
pamper him because he was very depressed at the moment.

It was a recipe emailed over by her friend Clare. It was impossible to think of Clare without smiling: The Domestic Accountant. Clare was so clever with numbers but to look at her, one would
never have put her in that profession. She was an earth goddess: petite with a large bust, a Cleopatra black bob and strangely coloured eyes that lit up when she started talking about Dyson’s
latest innovation or her new vegetable steamer. She was so funny. May felt as if she had known her for much longer than the eighteen months they’d been friends. Same with Lara, whom she had
met on the same day at a conference at work. Lara had messy short naturally golden hair, wore bright red lipstick and was ballsy with a presence far bigger than her height of five foot two. Really
it should have been Lara who was five foot ten and May eight inches shorter. May hated being so tall and conspicuous. She would have been much more comfortable being small and easily hidden
away.

Michael was on his way to her from The Pines. She ached to throw her arms around him and let him rest his head on her shoulder. She would give him a long oily massage tonight and soothe away his
worries, she decided as she lifted the tray into the oven and then started piping out some whirls of potatoes. Also a favourite.

She wiped a tear from her eye before it rolled down her cheek. She wished she had someone to talk to about the situation, other than Michael of course. As nice as Lara and Clare were, she
hadn’t quite told them the truth about her boyfriend of six months. Yes, they knew that she was seeing a man occasionally but she had intimated that it was only a casual affair and had
underplayed her feelings for him. Her friends didn’t know that she was madly in love with him or that he stayed over much more often than she had said. Or that he was married. They surely
wouldn’t have approved. They hadn’t talked at any length or depth about their lives but from the little that May did know, Lara’s ex-husband had been carrying on with his first
wife behind her back and Clare’s sister’s first husband had been sleeping with every girl in Sheffield except the one he was married to. May didn’t approve of her behaviour
herself, although it wasn’t exactly a straightforward case of wife versus scarlet woman.

Michael arrived in record time. He strode in through the door and straight over to May, his arms open wide to enclose her. May was taller than him but had mastered ‘a bend’ when they
hugged so that as they embraced his lips were on a level with her forehead, making her feel a little more girly and enfolded. She savoured his lovely manly smell and the warmth of his body and
didn’t mind that his coat was sopping wet.

‘Hello, my love,’ he grinned. ‘God, am I happy to see you.’

‘Likewise,’ May said and smiled.

‘It feels like three weeks since I saw you, not three days.’ He traced the back of his finger down her left cheek, tenderly following the line of the scar that had faded to a dull
silver over the years but, to May, was still as glaringly deep, garish and obvious as the day twenty-two years ago when the neighbour’s dog had clamped its teeth onto her cheek.

‘I know,’ said May. She wished she could see him every single night. She wished he would come from his stationery-salesman job straight to her house without having to do a detour to
The Pines. But he could only do that when Susan had passed away – and May didn’t want to think about that, however much she wanted her lover to be hers and hers alone.

‘How is she?’ asked May, pulling off Michael’s damp coat and hanging it over the door near the radiator to dry off.

‘Same old, same old.’ He sighed. ‘Have you any wine, my love?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ May scurried over to the rack and pulled out a bottle of Shiraz, uncorking it as she crossed the kitchen to the cupboard where the glasses were stored. She
poured out only one glass, for Michael. She thought that if she had any wine this evening, the floodgates might open in her eyes. She felt exhausted – physically and emotionally. She should
have ordered a takeaway instead of attempting all this home-cooking after work.

‘It’s so bloody sad,’ said Michael, taking a long gulp and savouring the spicy hit on the back of his throat. ‘She’s just a shell of her former self. There’s
nothing left of Susan any more. And yet, physically, she keeps going. She seems to get stronger in body as she gets weaker in her head. There’s the cruel irony of it all.’

As May put her arms around him, she was weighed down with guilt that she could be feeling so sorry for herself when Michael was worn into the ground with the torture of having a wife struck down
with dementia in her thirties. Michael carried a pre-wedding photograph of them in his wallet. His hair was thicker and longer then, without any grey streaks. He liked to keep it very short now.
And he was plumper in the face, his cheeks round and pink as he smiled into the lens. Snuggled up under his arm Susan was pretty, with cropped red hair that suited her heart-shaped face, and a
turned-up pixie nose. In that photo they had everything to look forward to; there was not a hint of what was to hit them.

‘Take a seat,’ said May, and after he did so she started to knead her thumbs into his shoulders. She heard him sigh and she smiled. Tonight was all about him. She would pull out all
the stops to make sure that her house was a little taste of heaven for him after the hell of seeing his poor, deteriorating wife at The Pines.