Page 20 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
Gill’s head suddenly twitches. The Morton brothers giggle like they’re at the back of a classroom.
‘All the golfers would utter,
It was shaped like a putter.
How did Gill fit that in her…’
‘DANIEL!’ Gill hits her eldest son with a napkin. The old boy golfers around the table roar with laughter. Stu and Danny exchange high fives. That’s it, that’s his speech. I sit down.
‘I didn’t catch that, love… What did Danny say?’ Mabel looks up at me, anxious that she’s missed the best part of the evening. I’m not sure if repeating the limerick would see her dentures spat into her glass of red.
‘He said Bob does a wonderful job…and that he loves his golf…’
Mabel nods. ‘Oh, that he does. Loves a few cheeky holes.’
All this innuendo and nothing to do with it.
‘But a wonderful job with those boys. Your Danny. If I were fifty years younger…’
I think it would be illegal given you’re related by blood but she gestures over to him. The Brothers Morton are cackling with laughter as their mother tries to calm them down. And I look over at Danny as his face is creased with happiness, his blue eyes bright and shining with the radiance that only a dirty limerick and some cheap wine can bring. I’ve always thought he was attractive but I don’t think he’d be picked on a dating show. He’s far too surly for that, his receding hairline is speckled with silver, and his frame has slightly packed on the pounds now middle age is settling in. But he has a well-defined jaw, and when happy and relaxed, it reveals a softness to his face, a kind, sincere Danny that few got to see.My Danny. And for a moment, I feel that fire again: the fire to claim back what was mine.
The night flies by as the courses arrive. I watch Mabel pick out all the bits of her minestrone, and I nearly fall over myself in the toilet when I see that I did a shocking job trying to cover-up the dark circles under my eyes. I drink. I drink some more. Prosecco arrives over dessert. It helps wash down the golf-putter shape cake that Gill had made and means I can continue to blur the day’s events a bit more. By the end of the evening, the bottle and I are best mates and I cradle one in my arms like one of my infant daughters.
‘Dan’s told me to come and escort you while he settles up. C’mon Mrs M…’
Stu. Hello, Stu. I look up. What was that, we’re done? We must be as the taxis have come to collect us and the restaurant is emptying. I’ve hugged everyone a few times but I’m not sure I can move now so Stu’s appearance at the end of my table is most welcome. Perhaps he can carry me home. I have on my decent knickers so it wouldn’t be too unladylike.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m taking you home…’
‘You’re such a tart, Stu…’ I pinch his cheeks. ‘I know you’ve had your way with some of us Callaghan girls but I am not that sort of girl…’
He responds with a fake smile. Stu was likeable enough but my relationship with him was always a little laboured given I knew the many ways in which he’d seduced my sisters: not only had he half-shagged Beth but also slept with my youngest sister, Lucy, at my wedding, in the back of a Ford Fiesta in full view of half of the hotel’s bedroom windows.
‘Geez, you are wankered. How much have you had Mrs?’
‘I am not your Mrs. I belong to your brother…’
He seems unbothered by the fact, relieved even to have not been lumbered with the burden. Back in the days when we were London dwellers, we all lived together for a while in the Cumbrian Embassy, a strange flat made up of three mezzanine levels and the world’s most cavernous bathroom which housed a drum kit and Stu’s equipment from his short-lived stint as a wedding DJ in one corner. He was a horrific housemate; he had an aversion to washing up, never covered the cheese, smoked in the bath, and many a time I’d caught him having sex with someone inappropriate: a work colleague, a best friend’s fiancée, an ex. Sometimes it was on the communal sofa, other times it was loud whilst I was recovering from impacted wisdom tooth removal, but always his meetings with women were lustful, casual. He was the sort to tell a girl he’d ring and then delete her number immediately so I always felt that morally, we didn’t have much in common.
‘Where is my amazing husband?’ I ask.
‘He’s paying the bill then getting the old folk in cabs…’
‘You tell aunt Mabel to keep her mitts off, I know what she’s like…’
Stu isn’t amused. He puts my arms into my coat and places my handbag around my neck like he’s hanging it on a hook. He then pats my cheeks with both hands.
‘C’mon El Blotto, let’s take a slow walk home… one foot in front of the other…’
We could be a while. In an attempt to seduce my husband, I went for some vintage stilettos tonight, only vintage given it’s been at least eight years since I’ve worn them. I looked like Bambi walking in them to the restaurant. Lord knows how I’ll be now I’ve got some alcohol in my veins. Outside, the cold air is like a hard slap. Stu and I huddle into each other.
‘So, Stuart…why aren’t you bladdered tonight?’ True enough, Stu is usually the life and soul of such parties. I’ve heard legendary tales of his teenage drunkenness, including the time he boarded the wrong train home and ended up in Liverpool two hours and eighty miles later.
‘I’ve had a few jars… just not out to get wasted tonight, that’s all…’
‘Am I really that wasted?’
