Page 15 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
‘Meg? Are you OK?’
Tears fill my eyes, sweet clotted gunk spills out the corners of my lips. The tears roll freely down my cheeks. Tim looks me straight in the eye and for some reason, embraces me tightly. I may use him as a napkin.
‘Do we need to fill in an incident form?’ It’s Len with the first aid kit again. I turn to the office with my hands in the air, in a mess of tears and snot.
‘No, sorry everyone. I’ll just learn to chew…’
Len hands me an old man handkerchief that I wish I could just shroud my face in. The shame. The utter shame. I turn and find Tim readjusting my desk and cleaning up. He hands over my phone that had fallen to the floor.
‘Thank you.’ His face is different, less eager now but a serious look in his eye. ‘Are you OK?’ he whispers. I want to hug him again and just nestle myself into him, sobbing uncontrollably. But he’s young and I hardly know him; I probably have bras older than Tim. I plaster a smile over the last five minutes of my life.
‘Thank you…seriously.’ I give him a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ve found out what I need, I’ll just call it a day. Tell Diana I went home. Maybe miss out the fact I nearly died.’
This doesn’t raise a laugh. But he keeps a hand to my arm for longer than he probably should.
As I leave the office building, I can’t tell if I want to throw myself in front of a bus or find my husband and push him in front of said bus. A one-off dildo, he can fob off with lame excuses but there was a shopping list that needs a better explanation – not that there’s any way he’s going to explain his way out of this. I think about what he said this morning, the way he made me think the dildo was for me, for my pleasure, there for the sake of a dried-up sex life, and I start to feel murderous. Bastard. You absolute fucker of a bastard.
He’ll have picked up his brother from the station now and be at home. Do I storm in and embarrass him in front of kin? I could do it tonight in Francesco’s. He’s making a speech. I could heckle him and throw the dildo at the cake.
I can’t seem to stop crying, or walking in a fierce marching style. But if he ordered all this other stuff, where is it? Where is the stockpile? Does he have a love cave where it’s all stashed away? Is it at her house, her flat? And strangely, like a montage of old photos, my mind flickers to all the times I’ve had sex with Danny. Perfectly serviceable sex where we enjoyed ourselves and orgasmed and laughed and held each other and I thought it was fine. We’d been adventurous, from that first time on the stairs in his East London flat, to a beach in Cornwall, to my sister’s wedding where we did it outside on a patio. And just times where it’d been comfortable sex with our socks on and he’d look at me, always, and cup my chin and say something silly so I’d giggle.
Sure, sex had become something of a rarity recently. The last time we did it before this morning, properly? Maybe a couple of months ago? Or maybe it was pre-Polly. She was now seven months old. That time may have also been a pity shag as I was a week overdue and I just wanted him to ejaculate in me as I thought it might dilate my cervix. The only way he could approach me was from behind. It wasn’t romantic or in the least bit erotic. Even less so when he made a quip about a mate, Hobbsy, who once got cautioned for trying to mount a cow as a bet. Had it really been that long since we were last fully intimate? But I thought he was mature and loved me enough to get it. I thought it was an unspoken pact between us that there was love and friendship, that the sex was a glittering embellishment on an otherwise stable marriage. A marriage built on honesty: the way he would look at me, the way everything was so black and white. I thought he would never hurt me, ever. Not like this.
Lost in my thoughts, I have no idea where I am on the High Street but I suddenly look up and I’m in front ofChic Boutique. There’s a mannequin in the window, the sort without a head or lower legs but she wears a red basque and suspenders in some very dodgy Christmas style promotion. I always used to laugh walking past this place; I thought it tacky. Who in their right mind had anything in their wardrobe that was feather-trimmed unless they were a drag queen or an ostrich? Maybe it was the fact I didn’t have the body shape like that mannequin anymore. I mean, I had a head and legs but my tits were beyond redemption. Covered in stretch marks and hanging like flappy spaniel ears. Everything else was rounded and untoned, my stomach was creased like old leather. When your body and bits have just devolved with all the numerous pregnancies and births that it’s endured, you are less inclined to stand at the end of a bed, prop your wobbly thighs up on the mattress and ask him to come and get it.
I had also worked in the industry so I knew how it worked when it came to bodies and perceptions of beauty. I was responsible for holding that ridiculous ideal up to women; I went to photo shoots and saw miserable girls who survived on Cup-a-Soup and air to retain their toothpick figures. I ordered more Photoshopping on images, I told women which slap would make them look younger and more attractive. I knew about the veneer so when it came to my own body, I knew it wasn’t perfect but I also had enough savvy to not care or let it affect my confidence. I’d hoped Danny was attracted to far more than my body. Maybe I should have cared. All I have in my mind now is an image of Briony Tipperton wearing something fluffy, pink and crotchless, stood over my husband with her hands loaded up with 2-4-1 lubricant. I think I’m going to throw up. Here. On the cobbles.
‘Meg? Y’alright lovely? Where’s Polly?’
I’ve been stood outside the shop now for far too long. Where am I? Who’s talking to me? Balls. Gillian. Morton. Mother-in-law. How?
‘We were just headed to yours. Danny texted to say Stu’s in so we thought we’d go round for a cuppa. I’ve bought a cake from the farm shop.’
She holds up a waxy shopper. Danny’s mother. Of all the ruddy people.
‘You don’t look well lovely. You OK? You haven’t caught Polly’s bug have you?’
Your son might be cheating on me. Say it. Tell his mother.
‘I just had to pop in the office for something. Polly’s with Danny.’
Tell her. This is your chance to get the ultimate upper hand. Gillian takes off a glove and puts the back of her hand to my cheek.
‘Bless your heart, you’re freezing, your eyes are all teary. Best get you in the warm. Bob’s just finishing up paying some bills in the Post Office. I tell you, he is so excited to see Stu again, after all this time.’
You could tell her. You could shit all over this big day, her perception of her son, her family. But I can’t. She’s the sweetest creature in the world, Gill Morton. She has a silver bob and Eve’s bright blue eyes and loves a floral scarf over a mohair jumper. She solves world problems with cake and tea and has a cat called Blossom. She adores those boys, despite their quiet surliness and reluctance to partake in hugs or divulge details of their lives to her, she adorns her house with photos of them. And her grandchildren. She’s taught my girls to make felt. Actual felt. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I feel a tear roll down my cheek.
‘Just a tough night really; sleep-deprived I think.’
She comes in for a hug and as her arms embrace me, I let out a sigh and a few more tears. Since my move up here, she has become a surrogate maternal figure. My mother came with fire: a by-product of raising five girls that she’d wanted to succeed and light up their corners of the world. With this came opinion and judgement when it was sometimes not needed. Gill was different though: she hugged me a lot, she loved the fact that the girls and I gave her female companions to fight her corner.
I can’t tell her. Not here, not now.
I suddenly feel another pair of arms around us.
‘Now that’s my birthday made…’
It’s Bob Morton.
