“You won’t believe it,” she said. “You won’t believe who I saw last night, who”—Alice paused in disbelief—“took my number!”
“It better be good or I’m putting this phone down,” Emily groaned, never her best first thing in the morning, particularly at 8:15 A.M. when she hasn’t got to bed until two. “It’s the middle of the bloody night.”
“It’s not. It’s 8:15. I thought it would be okay to call now.”
“Of course it’s not bloody okay. You know I try to lie in on the weekends.”
“Oh God. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just tell me and then I can go back to sleep.”
“Joe Chambers.”
“Joe Chambers. Gorgeous Joe Chambers?”
“Yes!”
“Noooo!”
“Yes!”
“And is he still gorgeous?”
“Yes!”
“Noooo!”
“Yes!” Alice giggled in delight.
“And he asked for your number? Are you serious?”
“Yes!”
“Noooo!”
“Oh, fuck off!” And they both started laughing.
“Did he really ask for your number?” Emily thought back to the years of Alice waiting for Joe at the bus stop after school.
“He really did. And, Em, he’s so lovely. Really. And I can’t believe he asked for my number.”
“Did he remember you then?”
“I don’t think so, but he said he did, and he remembered my brother. Actually I hope he doesn’t remember me. God, I was a horror at school.”
“Everyone was a horror at school. Remember how they called me Afro Girl?”
“I wasn’t much better. I was Big Bird.”
Emily started laughing.
“Fuck off, Em. It’s not funny.”
“Sorry. But we were all ugly.”
“Except Joe Chambers.”
“Except Gorgeous Joe Chambers. Jesus. I can’t believe he asked you out.”
“He didn’t ask me out. He just asked for my number. Do you think he’s going to ask me out?”
“How old are you? Twelve?”
“What? I’m just asking.”
“Of course he’s going to ask you out. Why else would he ask for your number?”
“Duh! To cater a dinner party.”
“Oh.” Emily had forgotten about that.
“Bugger. He probably just wants me to do a dinner party for him. Oh, damn,” Alice moaned. “I wish I hadn’t blushed so much. He probably thinks I’m a complete idiot.”
“Probably,” Emily concurred.
“Oh no. Do you really think so?”
“How the hell do I know? Now you’ll just have to experience what the rest of the single sisterhood goes through every time we give out our number. We sit glued to our phones for days on end, hating mankind, and thinking that if only we were thinner, or fatter, or blonder, or darker, or louder, or more quiet, he’d phone.”
“Sounds horrific. Is it really that bad?” Alice of course has been so busy with work, she’s managed to rather successfully avoid the trials and tribulations of the dating scene, although, as she has said on numerous occasions, Emily has more than made up for it for the both of them.
“It’s worse. But thankfully you’ll now be able to discover that for yourself.”
Two weeks later, two weeks during which time Alice had begun to seriously hate her telephone, and hate Emily even more for being on the end of the line when it did ring, Joe finally called.
Unfortunately he was ringing her for the exact reason she feared—he wanted her to cater a dinner party for him.
What she didn’t know was that he was using this as an excuse to see her again, and after the dinner party he asked her out on a proper date.
And Alice, at least as far as Emily is concerned, has never been the same since.
Where did shy, mousy, curvy Alice go? What happened to the girl who loved animals, and children, and dreamed of a cottage in the country with roses climbing over the porch?
Emily blames Joe for Alice’s transformation. The Alice of old would never have been caught dead in heels higher than an inch, let alone—Emily looks down at Alice’s feet—these pointed, four-inch, doubtless horrifyingly expensive shoes. The Alice of old would never have dreamed of dyeing her hair (apart from a disastrous experiment with Jolene bleach and green Crazy Colour when they were sixteen), let alone visiting Jo Hansford every six weeks and—presumably—spending hundreds of pounds on her honey highlights. The Alice of old would have been happy snuggling up on a sofa in her Garfield slippers, tucking into a pizza (albeit one she had made herself with fresh buffalo mozzarella and shredded basil leaves plucked from the terra cotta pot on her patio), watching crap TV for the evening, would have hated the idea of dressing up and going to a snazzy, sophisticated soirée such as this.
The Alice of old used to laugh at the women for whom she used to cater, the same women who are milling around this art gallery, but now Alice has become one of them.
Emily remembers that a few months after Alice started dating Joe, she and Alice had met at Prêt à Manger for a quick lunch.
“I’m on a diet,” Alice had said, picking out a small salad and a Diet Coke as Emily was carrying a huge club sandwich, chocolate fudge slice, and banana smoothie to the cash register.
“Diet? But you don’t need to diet.” Emily had looked at her in horror. This was Alice. Alice who cooked for a living. Alice who adored food.
“I know”—Alice had said—“but Joe keeps looking at pictures of models in magazines and commenting how amazing their figures are, so I thought I might try and lose a few pounds.”
Oh, he’s good, Emily thought. Subtle. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “You have a great figure, and he loves you for you.” At least, she thought, he should.
“I just want to lose a few pounds,” Alice shrugged. “Not much.”
And then a couple of months later a new, skinnier Alice turned up to lunch with straight hair.
“Where have your curls gone?” Emily had ventured.
“I just wanted to see what I’d look like with straight hair.”
“And Joe didn’t just happen to suggest that he loves women with straight hair?”
“Well . . .” Alice had shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“I suppose he’ll be telling you to go blond next. Men like Joe always prefer blondes, they see them as some kind of status symbol.”
“Actually . . .”
“Oh no! Alice! For Christ’s sake, that’s ridiculous. You’re not seriously thinking of going blond? For Joe?”
“Not for Joe, no. I’m going to the hairdresser on Thursday and I thought I might have a few highlights. It was my idea,” she huffed, seeing the expression on Emily’s face.
“And what does the beloved think?”
“The beloved thinks it would really suit me.”
“I just bet he does.”
“Joe!” Emily forces a large, fake smile as she reaches up to kiss him hello.
“Emily!” Joe beams from ear to ear, giving the distinct impression that he could not be more delighted to see her. “How lovely that you’re here, as cute as ever, I see.”
Emily raises her eyebrows and shakes her head. “That charm just never stops a-flowin’, I see.”
“I say it as I see it,” he grins. He likes Emily. Doesn’t fancy her—far too strong and opinionated for him (not to mention far too close to Alice), but he actually respects her, and that’s something he honestly can’t say for a lot of people.
“Emily’s cool,” he used to say to Alice. “She gets it.”
“So what are you doing here?” he says. “Either my lovely wife—hello, my darling”—he turns to Alice and kisses her—“my lovely wife invited you, or you’re here to gather some dirt about the hoi polloi.”
“How many times do I have to explain that I write serious features, and that just because I’m a journalist doesn’t
mean I’m interested in who Tamara Beckwith happens to be snogging right now?”
“So who is she snogging right now?”
“I don’t know,” Emily smiles. “But I passed her on the way in so perhaps you could ask her.”
“Aha! Caught you. I thought you said you weren’t interested in celebrity gossip, and yet you just happened to notice Tamara Beckwith on your way in. You are here dirt-mongering. I knew it!”
“Just because I have a personal interest in the goings-on of my favorite OK! and Hello! heroines doesn’t mean I have a professional interest.”
“A hack is a hack is a hack.”
“Not when the hack in question is a freelance feature writer who tends to write stuff mostly for the broadsheets, I’m afraid.”
“Children, children,” Alice chides, stepping between them as if to prevent a fight. “Will you just behave yourselves.” But she is pleased to see the gentle teasing, relieved that Emily is not being—as she can be with Joe—confrontational and aggressive.
“It’s not me, it’s her,” Joe whines before breaking into laughter as Emily elbows him sharply in the side.
For once, Alice has fun. It is lovely to see Emily, even in these unfamiliar surroundings, and she is relaxed and happy that she is with her two favorite people in the world. Joe is affectionate, attentive, and only has eyes for her, and she finds herself basking in the attention.
Tonight she is able to truly relax, amazed that every time she looks at Joe he is not gazing at a thrusting cleavage across the room or at a pair of endless legs a few feet away. He is gazing at her.
This is why I married him, she thinks, leaning into him as he puts an arm around her waist and squeezes her tight while laughing at something Emily has said. Now I remember.
5
“So come on, fill me in on all the gossip.” Alice leans forward on her chair, nursing her cappuccino as Emily tries to unravel Humphrey’s leash from the chairs and coffee tables.
“Hang on,” Emily says. “Humphrey!” She drags the little terrier reluctantly back to the table, knowing that, this being a warm sunny spring Tuesday in Primrose Hill, it is only a matter of minutes before yet another dog strides past their outside table at Cacao, and Humphrey—a newly acquired rescue dog from the local animal shelter with a distinct lack of training—makes a mad dash to say hello.
“For God’s sake, Humphrey!” Emily picks him up and puts him on her lap. “Anyone would think you’d never seen another dog before.”
“How’s the training going?”
Emily and Humphrey have enrolled in Doggie Dos and Don’ts, a local obedience class that meets on Hampstead Heath for an hour every Sunday morning, armed with a clicker and a pocketful of treats.
“Great. As long as we’re in the living room in the flat, he’s the best-trained dog I’ve ever had.”
“You’ve never had a dog before.”
“Exactly. Although he does sit when I tell him to when we’re at home, and we’ve nearly mastered down as well. Watch.” Emily puts Humphrey back on the pavement and says sternly, “Sit. Humphrey, sit.” Humphrey looks at her, then turns around and starts sniffing the table leg. “Oh, fuck it,” Emily sighs. “Humphrey, you’re hopeless. If it wasn’t for Harry, I wouldn’t bother going to the class at all.”
“Ah yes. Harry. So how is the sexy dog trainer?”
“Sexy. And distracting. Which is probably why Humphrey’s so crappy at following orders. I spend most of the class focusing on Harry’s lips.”
“Just his lips?”
“Well, no, but”—she lowers her voice and gives Humphrey a sidelong glance—“I wouldn’t want to corrupt Humphrey too much.”
“So has anything happened yet?” Alice had heard all about the first lesson, how Harry had repeatedly singled Emily and Humphrey out for demonstrations to the rest of the class, how Emily had flirted outrageously and been rewarded with several glances that lasted just a few seconds too long and a long conversation at the end of the class that had rapidly left the subject of dogs and moved swiftly into the personal.
And then, the following week, Harry had asked if anyone was interested in going for a coffee after the class, and given that most of the class had already left by the time he asked, and that the only people still around were Emily and an elderly man called Lionel, it was pretty clear that he was interested in getting to know Emily better.
(“I always knew I should have got a dog years ago,” Emily had said, after their third date. “Just think, if Humphrey and I had met ten years ago I’d probably be married by now with a swarm of screaming children around my feet.”)
“Has anything happened? What on earth can you mean?” Emily asks.
“What on earth do you think I mean? Have you slept with him?”
“Of course I haven’t slept with him!” Emily shrieks in mock horror, immediately lowering her voice as the Primrose Hill wannabes break off from their conversations on their mobile phones to look at her with interest. “He’s lovely. I’m not going to screw it up by jumping into bed with him this early.”
“So what have you done?”
“Lots of snogging and a bit of feeling up.”
“Feeling up top or feeling up bottom?” Alice grins, knowing that the only person in the world she could possibly ask a question like this, be as childishly silly with as this, is Emily.
“Feeling up top, of course,” Emily says. “There won’t be any feeling up bottom until I’ve had my legs waxed.”
“You still haven’t had them waxed? That’s disgusting!” (Alice, who goes to the waxing salon every six weeks without fail, has never understood how Emily can go for months without touching her legs. “Why bother,” Emily has always said, “unless I’m having sex? Of course you have to do it because you have a husband who expects smooth thighs, but the only person I sleep with on a regular basis is Humphrey, and frankly, as far as Humphrey’s concerned, the more hair the better, the more he relates to me.”)
“But I think I may have to make an appointment this week.”
“So D-Day is approaching?”
“I think the time is nearly here for me to relinquish my born-again virginity.”
Alice bursts into laughter.
“It’s all right for you,” Emily says crossly. “You think it’s funny because you can have sex whenever you want. All you have to do is roll over and prod Joe in the stomach.”
“Yes, because there’s nothing guaranteed to warm up my husband more than a good sharp prod in the stomach.”
“From what I’ve heard, Joe has a permanent erection anyway.” Emily was making a joke, but it falls flat, floats uncomfortably for a while in the silence as the smile is wiped off Alice’s face and the color in her cheeks quickly fades.
“What do you mean?” Alice says icily, as Emily wishes she could take the words back, wishes she’d never said anything, not that she knew where it came from anyway. But she knows there are certain subjects about which she has to be sensitive, and Joe’s priapism is clearly one of them.
“I was joking,” Emily says softly. “I just meant you always used to say that Joe’s always up for it, that was all I meant.”
They both know that’s not true, not now, not anymore. Once upon a time, when they were first married, Alice did say exactly that. How can a man want this much sex? she’d ask Emily in amazement, after the nights when Joe had rolled over in bed and made love to her twice, three, often four times.
“I don’t know, but if I were you I wouldn’t question it.” Emily had groaned in jealousy. “Just be bloody happy you found him.”
Now, five years on, months go by when Joe barely touches Alice. Alice has tried everything. She has spent fortunes on sexy, lacy underwear from La Perla, then tried the other extreme and—she shudders with embarrassment when she remembers how desperate she was—attempted cheap nylon crotchless panties and even a maid outfit from Ann Summers.
She has tried talking dirty to Joe, stroking his thigh softly as she whispers in
his ear what she would like to do to him, blushing furiously as she speaks, then having to deal with the humiliation when he doesn’t move, continues to pretend to sleep.
She even phoned Ty and told him she was planning a hen night for a friend, and they thought it would be a laugh to get some porn films, did he know where she could get them, or would he get them for her? She had ended up watching them on her own, masturbating miserably and wishing she’d invested in a vibrator that time she’d been to Ann Summers for the underwear.
Joe claims it’s the pressure of work, sheer exhaustion that’s killed his sex drive, and the alternative is too terrible for Alice to consider. She knows that at some point it will come to an end, that one night he will come home with flowers, or jewelry, and he will kiss her and put his arms around her and say a major deal has come to an end, and that night they will go to bed and have sex all night, and Alice will pray that she has her husband back for good.
Alice looks at Emily, sees how innocent her remark was, and forgives her. Emily would rather die than do anything to upset Alice, and Alice knows that.
“It’s okay,” she says finally, after an awkward silence, the color slowly returning to her cheeks. “Don’t worry about it. As it happens, the last few weeks he has pretty much had a permanent erection. It’s lovely. For once I’m thrilled to have these bags under my eyes.”
Emily laughs with relief as Humphrey starts to bark at a Rhodesian ridgeback walking past. “Poor Humphrey. He needs to have a run around. Shall we take him for a walk?”
At the mention of the word “walk,” Humphrey starts to leap up and down in a frenzy, and the two girls laugh as they unravel him yet again and set off.
Alice strides ahead, loving that she’s not dressed up, that when she’s with Emily she doesn’t have to put on an act, she can wear her oldest, most casual, comfortable clothes, and really be herself. Her jeans may be Earl, but today she’s wearing her gym sneakers, a Gap sweatshirt, and a baseball cap pulled down tight over hair scraped back into a ponytail. She can really walk in these clothes, can sit with her legs apart, resting her elbows on her knees, can run and play games with Humphrey, scooping him up for a cuddle without worrying that he might be getting mud on—heaven forbid—a Chanel jacket or a shearling coat.