What Holly's Husband Did Page 2

  ‘Fuckity-fuckity-fuck,’ I swore, as Alex came up behind me.

  ‘How long are you going to be in here, Holly?’

  I turned to him with wild eyes. ‘I’m cooking dinner!’

  ‘Can you come back to the lounge? It’s rather bad form, darling, not socialising.’

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ I snapped. I began randomly opening cupboard doors. There had to be some Long Life somewhere. ‘Surely you can cope with topping up a few champagne glasses and offering around a bowl of nibbles?’ I banged a cupboard door shut and wrenched open another, nearly taking it off its hinges.

  ‘Your brother has arrived.’

  ‘And?’ My eyes flicked over jars of herbs, condiments, and tins of baked beans.

  ‘I think it’s best if you deal with him. Tensions need to be diluted. You know how he and I have never… well, hit it off.’

  I reversed out of another cupboard and glanced at my husband. ‘Well try and get along. Just for today? After that you can resume being vile to each other.’ I turned my attention to ransacking drawers. There was an outside chance I’d popped a carton of Long Life in with the tea towels during a hormonal moment. ‘Just remember, you’re not alone. All over the country, families have been thrust together – relatives who abhor each other, cousins who can’t stand the sight of one another, even brothers-in-law who don’t see eye to eye. It’s what folk do at this time of year – buy lavish gifts for people they detest.’

  ‘Simon is something else.’

  ‘He’s gay, Alex,’ I pointed out, throwing tea towels everywhere, ‘not an alien from outer space. Are you homophobic?’

  ‘Of course not!’ my husband blustered. ‘He’s just … so rude.’

  ‘You mean bitchy,’ I said, sweeping tea towels back into one drawer and emptying the next of tin foil and greaseproof paper. ‘He actually has a fabulous sense of humour if you take it with a pinch of salt.’

  This wasn’t entirely true. Simon was every cliché you could think of. Ultra-camp, he had a habit of tossing his head if annoyed, flicking his hair if flirting and mincing about like a Strictly contestant, right hand permanently extended as if an invisible handbag was dangling from one wrist. He didn’t know the meaning of the word “tact” and delivered his barbed comments in a voice that made Alan Carr sound like Brian Blessed. Simon also loved winding people up, and when they finally lost their cool he would deliver his catchphrase:

  ‘Stop being so sensitive. I’m only kidding.’

  Although everybody knew he wasn’t.

  ‘Anyway, why were you swearing just now?’ asked my husband, stepping to one side as I slammed the last drawer. My temper was starting to fray.

  ‘There isn’t enough milk for the custard.’

  ‘So?’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll have the pudding without.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ I asked, plonking my hands on my hips. ‘Or just plain stupid?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Alex, looking affronted.

  I narrowed my eyes and began speaking in an enunciated tone – the sort used on idiots. ‘The. Pudding. Will. Be. Too. Dry. Without. Custard.’

  ‘Don’t. Speak. To. Me. Like. That.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ I roared, clutching my temples dramatically. ‘All my efforts are going to be ruined.’ My bottom lip jutted out, and began wobbling violently. ‘This is just typical,’ I whimpered, eyes filling up. ‘I’ve been a good wife, a good daughter, a good daughter-in-law, a good mother, a good bloody everything to bloody everyone, slogged my guts out, brought all and sundry together for one… ONE!… chuffing day of the year in the faint hope of playing happy families, and what for? Hmm? All my cooking will be for nothing. All the hours – no, days – spent wrapping presents, not to mention months sourcing the damn things, and for what?’ I clawed at my throbbing head. A migraine threatened. ‘Everything’s spoilt!’ I sobbed. ‘All because there’s no TOSSING MILK FOR THE CUSTARD!’

  My voice bounced off the kitchen walls. From the next room, the murmur of conversation ground to an embarrassed halt.

  Alex raked a hand through his hair. ‘Are you due on?’

  ‘Yes,’ I cried.

  Alex grabbed his car keys from the kitchen table. ‘I’ve not had a drink. I’ll go and get some milk.’

  ‘It’s Christmas Day,’ I wept, grabbing a tea towel and trumpeting into it. ‘Nothing will be open.’

  ‘Mr Patel’s shop will be.’

  ‘But his shop is in the next village!’

  ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ Alex promised. ‘Dry your tears, turn the hob down on those veg, then go into the lounge and make conversation with our two families that have absolutely nothing in common apart from us.’

  And with that he’d driven off in a spray of gravel – leaving his mobile on the worktop, and me to compose myself. When his phone had dinged with a message, reading it had been unavoidable.

  Heyyy there, Mister Sexy!

  My eyes widened. Alex had programmed in the sender’s name. Queenie. Who was this woman? Evidently someone he knew. Why else add a person to your list of contacts? I’d barely gathered my thoughts when it dinged again.

  Did you like what I did to you last night?

  I gasped and leant against the worktop, palms flat and splayed out to stop me from reeling.

  Dingggggg.

  Would you like me to do it again?

  Dingggggg.

  I’m your genie in a bottle and you gotta rub me the right way.

  Dingggggg.

  Baby, baby, baby, ooooh!

  Dingggggg.

  I’m licking my lips and blowing kisses your way, dooby do, dooby do (and I absolutely LURVE your dooby do)

  Dingggggg

  Just keep rubbing me the right way

  Dingggggg

  Rub rub rub rub rub rub rub rub aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

  With a shaking hand, I picked up the phone. I didn’t know Alex’s passcode. Why would I? I’d never had cause to go through his mobile – until now. I pressed the home button. The messages instantly disappeared to reveal the numerical keypad for passcode entry. I entered Sophie’s date of birth. The screen prompted me to try again. I tapped in my birthday. No. Alex’s. Nope. Gordon Bennett, what was the combination? I was still stabbing away at the screen when Alex walked back in with the milk. He froze. In a nano-second his eyes flicked from me to the phone and then back to me again. And then his face drained of colour.

  3

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said, but his knuckles were as white as the carton of milk he was gripping.

  ‘Like hell it isn’t,’ I spat. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘She isn’t anyone.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ I gave a mirthless hoot of laughter. ‘Because it says “Queenie” here.’ I stabbed the screen to underline my point.

  ‘Look, Queenie is—’

  ‘–a genie in a bottle,’ I interrupted, snatching the six-pint carton from my treacherous husband and brandishing it like a lethal weapon. I wondered if it was possible to kill him with it. I could imagine the newspaper headline now. MAN BLUDGEONED BY MILK CARTON AFTER MARRIAGE CURDLED. I shook my head. God, I was going nuts. ‘According to this text, she likes rubbing your dooby-do. What do you have to say about that, eh?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing, because it means absolutely nothing.’

  ‘WELL IT MEANS SOMETHING TO ME!’ I bawled.

  ‘Holly, can we have this discussion later? We have our fam—’

  ‘Ay say!’ squawked a plummy voice from the next room, ‘is everything awl right?’

  Alex’s mother. I really couldn’t cope with Audrey right now. As far as my mother-in-law was concerned, her son was Mr Golden Balls. He could do no wrong. If he’d robbed a bank at gunpoint, she’d have insisted his ulterior motive would be to give money to the poor. If I told her my husband was porking genies, she’d likely tell me I wasn’t providing enough bedtime satisfaction, so it must be my fault. I had no doubt that Audrey would then whip out her iPhone a
nd order me an Aladdin outfit off Amazon, complete with magic lamp.

  ‘Everything’s fine, Mum!’ Alex called. ‘Just a small custard catastrophe.’

  I shoved the carton of milk into Alex’s chest. ‘This conversation isn’t over,’ I snarled. ‘And YOU can make the chuffing custard.’

  ‘Darling, don’t be silly, I don’t know how to make cus—’

  ‘Then Google it! You wanted me to deal with my brother, so that’s what I’ll be doing. That, and getting drunk.’

  ‘Holly, this is all a storm in a tea cup. You do realise you’re being quite irrational?’

  Dingggggg.

  Wishing you the horniest Christmas ever, baby xxx

  ‘Look at this!’ I sneered, waggling the phone I was still holding at my husband. ‘Am I still being irrational?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Alex insisted.

  ‘Well if you’re going to continue claiming I’m being unreasonable, then I might as well behave in an unreasonable way.’ Without missing a beat, I stalked over to the slow cooker where the Christmas pudding was quietly simmering, and dropped Alex’s phone into the pot. ‘Oh dear,’ I said sarcastically, ‘it looks like Queenie is in hot water.’

  Alex rolled his eyes and gave a theatrical sigh. ‘It’s of no significance to me, Holly. In fact, I’m glad you did that.’

  Too late I now realised that I couldn’t demand Alex show me any previous sexts from Queenie.

  ‘I’ll level with you,’ said my husband. ‘Queenie is a patient. Well, an ex-patient. She took a shine to me, so much so I had to tell her I couldn’t treat her anymore. She didn’t take it well.’

  ‘How did she get your mobile number?’ I demanded.

  ‘It’s on my business cards,’ Alex reminded me. ‘It’s the out-of-hours number. You’ve just put my emergency phone in the slow cooker.’

  I paused. Was he telling the truth? It could be possible... ‘So why did you programme her number into the phone?’

  ‘Because,’ Alex said calmly, ‘I then know it’s her calling me rather than an emergency, and therefore will avoid answering her call. Isn’t it obvious? Listen, Holly, the woman is a fantasist. A nutcase. A stalker. What more do you want me to say?’

  ‘Why have you never mentioned this before?’ I demanded.

  ‘What, and upset you? I wanted to avoid the very thing that has now happened.’

  ‘I … I … where were you last night?’

  ‘Here!’

  ‘You were late home.’

  ‘Yes, after seeing an emergency! An abscess doesn’t stop just because it’s Christmas Eve.’

  Alex placed the carton of milk on the worktop, and then wrapped his arms around me. I stiffened within his embrace, but he kissed me on the forehead, and when he next spoke it was in a sing-song voice, like that of a parent soothing a distressed child. ‘Listen to me, you silly goose. Do you really think I have the time or energy to have an affair?’

  I looked at my husband. This was a man with a sex drive smaller than a goldfish. Despite the sexting, it didn’t stack up. Suddenly I felt confused.

  ‘I don’t know what to believe,’ I conceded. ‘Are you honestly telling me there is no other woman on the scene?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  So I accepted what he said. For a while.

  4

  ‘Sorry I missed out on our catch-up last week,’ said Caro, handing me a cup of tea, ‘but Joe had a dental emergency.’

  ‘Yes, Jeanie told me.’ I was determined not to make any comment about her defection to an NHS dentist, or furiously defend Alex’s price plans.

  ‘Anyway, the three of us are together now,’ Caro beamed, ‘which means you can properly update me.’ Her hazel eyes looked at me expectantly.

  I looked at her blankly. ‘Update you about what?’

  ‘Don’t be coy, Holly. Jeanie told me that you and Alex are having bedroom troubles.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jeanie, giving me an apologetic look. ‘But it doesn’t really count as gossiping, does it? We’ve known each other for so long that talking about each other is allowed.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ I glared at Jeanie, ‘who else have you been broadcasting to?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Holly,’ said Caro, her voice dismissive, ‘It’s me. The three of us have been through everything together.’

  ‘Too true,’ said Jeanie, biting into an enormous slice of Caro’s homemade carrot cake.

  ‘From falling in love, to getting dumped,’ said Caro, ‘to falling in love again, then getting married, and finally pregnant. We’ve cried together about fears of being fat and our husbands not fancying us, then ringing each other up in the early hours when we were pacing the floor with colicky babies. We’ve been there for each other through everything.’

  ‘We even shared our teen years,’ Jeanie reminded, ‘and heaps of detentions,’ she looked at me reproachfully, ‘usually because of sneaking into the boys’ changing rooms after PE trying to glimpse what was in their shorts.’

  ‘I thought that had been your idea!’ said Caro.

  ‘No, it was definitely Holly’s.’

  ‘Was it?’ Caro’s head swivelled to me, dark pencilled eyebrows raised.

  ‘I don’t flipping know! What’s this got to do with anything? You’re making me sound like some sort of pervert.’

  ‘Of course you weren’t a pervert,’ Jeanie assured, reaching forward and patting my hand with her sticky fingers, ‘you just had an enquiring mind.’

  ‘Particularly where men’s private parts were concerned,’ Caro smiled.

  ‘You are making me out to be a pervert,’ I protested.

  ‘Never!’ said Jeanie, licking buttercream off her fingers, ‘but you have to admit you were the first out of the three of us to notice the opposite sex.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Caro. ‘All we’re saying is, given your keen early teenage interest in boys–’

  ‘Like bribing the class heart throb to kiss you behind the bike shed in exchange for a bag of chocolate buttons–’

  ‘What? I never–’

  ‘It just seems crazy that a woman like you,’ Caro interrupted, ‘who always insisted that blondes have more fun, was the first to pop her cherry and have slept with five men by the time Jeanie and I had finally got off the virginal starting block, should now settle for a once-a-month tumble.’

  ‘I do hope – when Jeanie-Big-Gob was so busy gossiping to you about my private life – that she also relayed what I told her; that my husband is absolutely knackered. And me too,’ I quickly added. ‘Sometimes it’s very difficult orchestrating a sex life when one of you has a headache after squinting through a pair of loupes overseeing a tricky dental implant, and the other has a migraine from a slanging match with her teenager.’

  ‘We have teenagers too,’ said Jeanie, ‘and we don’t let the little darlings impact on bedroom time with our hubbies, eh, Caro?’

  ‘Most definitely not,’ Caro nodded.

  ‘You two obviously have nothing better to do if you’re so concerned about my sex life.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Jeanie nodded, ‘my days are full of a housewife’s chores, just like Caro’s. We do endless washing, piles of ironing, and constantly clear up after a house full of slobs. Is it any wonder we’re reduced to entertaining ourselves dissecting everybody’s sex lives? But if you really want to know, Holly, Caro and I have privately thought you’ve not seemed like yourself for ages. Since last Christmas, actually.’ She helped herself to another slice of Caro’s cake.

  I’d looked at it longingly when I’d first walked into Caro’s kitchen, but if I ate any now it would probably stick in my throat.

  ‘Yes, well, there’s nothing to dissect,’ I said firmly, taking a sip of tea. ‘Sometimes, it’s about quality, not quantity,’ I asserted.

  Even though I was batting my besties’ observations firmly back at them, there was a part of me that felt quite hurt by their line of questioning. O
ne disadvantage of a long friendship was that, more often than not, we were oblivious to each other’s feelings when discussing personally thorny subjects.

  Caro tucked a strand of dark hair behind one ear. ‘I suppose you have a point about the quality and not quantity thing,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I’ll confess to not always being gratified by David’s performance under the duvet.’

  My ears pricked up. This was more like it. Someone else with a dissatisfied sex life. Hurrah!

  ‘I mean,’ Caro continued, ‘we might do it two or three times a week—’

  Two or three times a week?

  ‘–but it’s so bloody boring.’

  Jeanie nodded. ‘And over too quickly.’

  Caro giggled. ‘How do you know that? Have you been having secret trysts with my David?’

  Jeanie laughed, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘Now there’s a thought! I wonder how we’d all rate each other’s husbands if we could wave a magic wand and morph into the likeness of each other. You might like Ray’s style, Caro. He takes bloody ages to come. Drives me nuts. If David’s a quick bonker, I think I’d prefer that. It would let me get back to my book. Sometimes I don’t know what’s more enticing – Fifty Shades of Grey or Fifty Thrusts with Ray.’

  ‘So tell me then, Holly,’ said Caro. ‘In what way is your once-a-month coupling so sparkling and worth the wait? You might convert me!’

  I flushed. ‘Well, unlike you two ladies of leisure, I do work you know.’

  ‘Yeah, so?’ said Jeanie, ‘You’re not exactly exhausted by it, are you? I mean, being a dental nurse for a couple of days a week is hardly going to give you soaring stress levels on a par with Theresa May.’

  ‘It still takes it out of me,’ I said defensively. ‘You have no idea what some patients are like. I have to be a professional assistant to Alex and chief hand-holder to the patient, telling them they’re doing splendidly, when in fact they’re making a massive issue about a simple check-up. It’s very wearing.’