Stockings and Cellulite (30 page)

‘Hello?’ I panted.

‘Are you simply out of breath or do I always have this effect on you?’ quipped Jamie. ‘How do you fancy a pizza tomorrow night darling?’

Darling! The endearment sent a little frisson of delight up and down my spine.

‘Pizza’s great. Anything. Just so long as I’m with you – darling.’ I shyly tested out the endearment. It felt very right. ‘But Stevie’s gone away so the twins will be with us.’

‘That’s great because I’m without a babysitter too, so the children will have each other.’

Super. Another date where our kids came too. Would we ever be alone?

But, as we sat in Pizza Express the following evening, our four boisterous offspring could have been on another planet for Jamie and I only had eyes for each other.

‘We need to see each other properly,’ Jamie murmured. ‘Without our kids in tow.’

‘Mm,’ I whispered back.

‘I know you’re off work for the summer now, but I’m back on duty tomorrow and the way the week is set to pan out I probably won’t be able to see you until next weekend. Do you think you might be singularly available next Saturday night?’

‘You can count on it,’ I promised breathlessly.

The following morning the postman delivered the mail just as Nell was stepping over the threshold for elevenses.

‘Just the one letter today Mrs Cherry,’ he said cheerfully.

Walking into the kitchen I tossed the envelope on to the kitchen table. Nell sat down, launching into besotted chatter about Rocket’s latest antics with a cuddly toy and bag of crisps. Ever the proud new mother.

‘Anyway, enough of that,’ said Nell reaching for my biscuit barrel. ‘I haven’t seen you properly since you got back from Spain. So come on, give me all the details. Did you get chatted up by anybody?’

‘Maybe,’ I smiled secretively as I set the coffees on the table.

‘Ooh, I can tell by that smirk that it goes further than being chatted up. Tell Aunty Nell all about it.’

‘It’s special,’ I said a bit defensively. ‘It’s a bit like a beautifully wrapped present that I want to savour before opening.’

‘Oh my God,’ squawked Nell. ‘You’ve gone and fallen in love. Who is he? Some hairy Spaniard? It’s just a holiday romance. Don’t go getting your heart broken by some smoothie Casanova–’

‘It’s somebody I knew before I went on holiday,’ I interrupted.

‘Really? Who? I don’t understand. Did you bump into each other?’

‘It’s a bit of a long story,’ I picked up the envelope and studied the smeared post mark. ‘Remember Jamie?’

‘The copper you seem to periodically run into?’

‘The very one and same,’ I peeled back a corner of the envelope. ‘We’ve kind of been skirting around each other for some time and – well – in a nutshell he flew out to Spain especially to let his feelings be known.’

‘Omigod, that’s so romantic,’ Nell swooned over the biscuit barrel.

‘And he declared his love for me,’ I shook out the contents of the envelope.

Nell’s eyes were like saucers. ‘This is better than Mills and Boon. Tell me word for word how he said it.’

‘Well would you bloody believe it,’ I gasped as the air whooshed out of me.

‘You’re joking,’ Nell sniffed looking decidedly short-changed. ‘That’s a total passion killer.’

‘No it’s this,’ I turned the documentation around to face her. ‘My decree nisi.’

‘Oh Lord. How do you feel?’

‘I don’t know. Okay I guess. Shouldn’t I be emotional or something? You know, try and squeeze a few therapeutic tears out?’

‘Do you feel upset?’

‘No. Perhaps I’m some sort of emotional cripple.’

I wondered how other people felt when they reached this point of divorce.

‘I think you need to be alone with your thoughts for a little while,’ Nell patted my hand and got to her feet decisively. ‘We’ll catch up on Jamie later. Meanwhile Cass, if you need me you know where I am.’

‘Thanks,’ I smiled gratefully.

After Nell had gone, I trailed a finger along the shelves of the overloaded bookcase in the lounge. There it was. Stretching up I reached for a decorative cardboard box, now a little tatty around the edges. Inside was our wedding album. Sitting cross-legged on the hard wooden floorboards I thumbed through each individual page.

The first glossy image was of a radiantly glowing Cassandra Haddock on the arm of her terribly proud father. My eyes filled with tears. Thank goodness my parents hadn’t lived to witness the sparks flying as suspicions, distrust, tears and rows punctuated the last couple of years. Each argument had ended in my apologising to Stevie for being a possessive doubting wife. I snorted with contempt at my previous gullibility.

The next picture was standing before a flower laden altar exchanging shiny rings, followed by signing the register alongside the vicar who was a dead ringer for Ken Dodd.

Ah yes, walking down the aisle. The photographer had been forced to take this shot twice thanks to Great Aunty Dora tottering out of a side pew straight into the Hasselblad’s viewfinder, hell bent on powdering my nose.

‘You’ve gone all shiny dear.’

She had vigorously puffed orange loose powder over my face rendering me the colour of a satsuma for the remaining photographs.

The protective layers between each photograph rustled as another page turned. Stevie and I with linked arms on the threshold of the open church doorway, symbolic of standing on a brand new future together.

I spent a good twenty minutes going through the group photographs. There weren’t many, but the cheerful faces of my parents repeatedly jumped out and held my gaze until my eyes flooded, hot tears splashing the images. Hastily I patted the wet marks with my sleeve. I missed mum and dad terribly. Always would.

And finally the cutting of the cake. A gloriously iced three tiered jobbie that elegantly reared up from an elaborate silver cake stand. It was a shame the fruit mixture had been such a disappointment. A cake that had been gorgeous on the outside and a let down on the inside. A bit like Stevie as it happened.

I snapped the album shut with a thud and returned the whole thing to the bookcase. The only tears I had been prompted to shed were for the memories of my beloved parents. The tears for my broken marriage had been exhausted a time long ago. Relieved that my lack of distress was perfectly justified, I carefully filed the decree nisi away.

Jamie telephoned very late that evening.

‘I just had to speak to my girl.’

I squirmed deliciously.
His
girl. I was
his
. And
girl
. Knocking forty but feeling like sweet sixteen.

‘I can’t wait for Saturday,’ Jamie whispered huskily.

‘Me too,’ I assured.

Which reminded me. Where was Stevie? It was his weekend to see the twins.

Throughout the week I attempted making contact with Stevie several times but his mobile was always switched off. Eventually I resorted to ringing his work place to see if they knew of his whereabouts.

‘Is that Charlotte?’ the telephonist barked.

‘It’s his wife.’ Well it was only a little fib.

‘Mr Cherry is currently away with his
real
wife.’

I slowly replaced the receiver. No wonder Charlotte had appeared on the doorstep with all accusatory guns blazing.

On impulse I strode over to his house looking for clues. The front lawn was unkempt and needing a mow, gasping patio plants drooped around the doorstep and a peek through the letterbox revealed a doormat littered with unopened mail. And then my eyes widened in horror. Presumably Charlotte was the author of the copious graffiti that adorned the recently decorated hallway.

Releasing the letterbox flap with a clatter, I pressed my nose up against the glass of the lounge window. Oh my. Nothing had been spared. Clearly Charlotte had exorcised her emotional pain via a can of spray paint. Obscene messages were scrawled over the once elegant mirror. The ornate fireplace had been bashed with a heavy object. The three piece suite had been upended with its guts hanging out. I stepped away from the window wondering what state the rest of the house was in. Stevie was going to have a blue bloody fit.

Back home I paced from room to room looking for my mobile phone. Where was the blasted thing? In mounting exasperation I rang my own number and tracked the ringtones to the laundry basket. What imbecile had put it in there? Foraging through muddy jodhpurs and grubby jeans, I salvaged the mobile from the pocket of my running trousers. Flipping the phone open I texted Stevie to call me urgently.

As the weekend edged nearer – still with no word from Stevie – I resorted to asking Nell if she would kindly have the twins overnight.

‘Of course,’ she agreed, ‘on the absolute proviso you share every single detail of your night with Jamie.’

‘Who said anything about spending the night with him?’ I retorted prudishly. ‘ We are simply going out for the evening and it will probably be a late one. That’s all.’

‘Oh give over Cass,’ Nell snorted. ‘You’re dating a guy who looks like a Hollywood heart-throb, has sworn undying love and made it perfectly plain that he wants you all to himself. What do you think you’re going to do later on? Play Scrabble? Watch the Ten O’Clock News together over a cup of cocoa?’

‘Well no but-’

‘Of
course
you’re going to spend the night with him. You’d be bonkers not to.’

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear. The twins wanted to see Matt regarding a little matter of securing pony rides throughout the remainder of the summer holiday in exchange for helping out.

‘We can’t keep pinching Petra’s and Jonas’s pony. It’s not fair on them,’ Livvy pointed out over the Rice Krispies.

Matt whooped with joy when he saw us all and embraced me in a rough bear hug.

‘I hear you and Mac have finally got it together,’ he winked lasciviously.

‘Well, we’re going out tonight,’ I replied carefully as I glanced nervously in the twins’ direction. The children knew Jamie and I were
good friends
. But that was all they knew.

‘Well you have a great time. Morag’s up at the house working on some legal papers. Why don’t you pop in and say hi?’

I found Morag in the kitchen gazing dreamily at the ceiling, an untouched A4 legal pad sitting on the table in front of her.

‘I kid you not Cass,’ she sighed, ‘I think Matt is The One.’

‘Don’t you think you need to be divorced first,’ I reminded her.

‘Oh but I am! Sort of anyway.’ She rummaged around in her smart leather briefcase and produced a well thumbed piece of paper.

‘Decree Nisi!’ she grinned, flapping the document about like a Union Jack flag on Jubilee Day. Goodness. This lady was a far cry from the sobbing heap a few months previously.

‘Snap! Mine came last Monday.’

‘And Matt’s received his Absolute. I think a celebration is on the agenda.’

With promises to dig out our respective diaries for a get-together, I hastened back home again to knuckle down to the serious task of extreme transformation. I only had six hours. What I really needed was six weeks, preferably encompassing a slot on Ten Years Younger with some wardrobe inspiration from Nicky Hambleton-Jones. Naturally I’d give her some invaluable advice in return. Like switching to contact lenses and binning those frightful specs.

Eventually I was flossed, glossed, groomed, perfumed and sporting a pair of reupholstered bosoms with an hour glass figure courtesy of a new girdle contraption in which I could hardly breathe. Slipping into a plunging lace sleeved shirt with endless tiny buttons leading tantalisingly downward, I teamed it with a floaty silk skirt. Oh yes. Very feminine and romantic.

Swiftly retrieving the twins from the stables, my expensive perfume clashing wildly with the twins’ own aroma of Pony Pong, I frogmarched them into the bathroom before chucking fish fingers and chips under the grill. Leaving everything to cook, I rushed back upstairs to stuff pyjamas and toothbrushes into an overnight bag.

‘Something’s burning!’ yelled Livvy.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ I yelled back.

Twenty minutes later I delivered the children to Nell – narrowly avoiding a doggy snog from Rocket – just as Jamie’s Rover purred up the drive. A swarm of butterflies instantly took flight in my stomach. At last we were going to be alone. Nell gave me a quick hug.

‘You look fab. Go and have a wonderful evening and don’t worry about the twins, they’ll be absolutely fine.’

I gave her a grateful smile, smoothed down my skirt with damp palms and then tottered over to Jamie’s waiting car. As I lowered myself into the passenger seat I was reassured to discover the inside of Jamie’s car was almost as much of a tip as mine.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ Jamie apologised sheepishly. ‘Keeping the car pristine with kids like mine is virtually impossible.’

I laughed. ‘Know the feeling.’

‘You look absolutely stunning by the way. In fact, I just want to sit here for a moment and look at you.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I muttered self-consciously.

‘I mean it. And without the distraction of noisy kids and chattering friends and busy places and crowds of people. I just want to sit and absorb your lovely face and commit it all to memory.’

Well if he could do it, surely I could too?

My eyes travelled over his streaky honey hair, the broad forehead, light blue eyes flecked with tiny dots of brown and green, the irises very black and dilated. Chocolate eyelashes curled almost girlishly up and out toward the laughter lines that lightly fanned around his temples. The nose was straight and regular, the mouth generous. We moved towards each other and our lips touched. He tasted of minty toothpaste and smelt of citrus aftershave. I breathed the scent as if it were nectar.

‘You are a very special lady Cassie. I want tonight to be both magical and memorable.’

I squirmed with pleasure. Here was an Adonis wanting to give
me
an unforgettable evening. I had an overwhelming urge to rub my hands together and cackle gleefully.

We went to a little Italian restaurant in picturesque Ainsley Brook, Jamie’s village. Listed cottages crouched in a huddle and hugged the narrow road where
Luca’s
was situated.