Page 32 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
‘Kid from work. Why do you ask?’
‘I’ve been like the doorman all day. Chocs and flowers are from him.’
I feel pangs of disappointment that they’re not from Danny but I panic at how Tim would have known I was poorly. Did Danny tell them? It’s always worrying when your gossip reaches the local news outlets. Am I to become a headline outside a newsagent?
Woman twists ankle in sex gone wrong!
‘Rowan also popped around with some New Age medicine rubbish but I told her you weren’t taking visitors.’
My expression reads confused. I never said that. Or is he trying to hide me away? Rowan’s warmth and all-embracing hugs would be just the ticket right now.
Stu collects used mugs from about the room and glances over at the drawer hanging out of my dresser, looking slightly puzzled but reticent to ask how it all went down. He glares at me, his brain obviously loaded with questions that he can’t quite bring himself to say out loud. I take a sip of my tea. He wasn’t joking – this is laden, even for me, but I am polite and get it down me. He looks out the window then turns to glare at me, a sterner expression than I’m used to.
‘I need to tell you something,’ he says.
‘Yeah?’
‘Dan is many things. He’s a miserable bastard. He is stubborn and he don’t look after himself. And I don’t know what’s happened but he left house in a flat cap this morning…’
His dreaded flat cap. I’d been hiding it under the stairs.
‘But he loves you. That much I know. I don’t know what’s happening with you two but you’ve got kids and this house and a life and he wouldn’t cheat. He wouldn’t. I know my brother.’
‘I didn’t accuse him. I was just confused…’
‘I’ve lived with both of you. I’ve seen this thing from the beginning.’
‘And we’ve not seen you in eighteen months.’
How has this suddenly become my fault? How qualified is he to come and lay these grand assumptions at my feet?
‘I know he loves you. I know he held your hand in the hospital when they were gluing you together, and didn’t say a word when you were all drunk and ranting and being a fool.’
‘He dropped me.’
‘It wasn’t on purpose? You did nothing to defend your husband’s reputation in that hospital…and that’s piss-poor behaviour. That man would do anything for you.’
I feel bile rising to the surface. Do I add here that his beloved brother likes to draw sex stuff?
‘So you come in here on your moral high ground, giving me relationship advice? That’s rich.’
I’m not half wrong. I’d seen the flocks of women he’d got through, the utter contempt he’d held for commitment and the long-term.
‘Look, this ain’t about me. If you’re having some sort of mid-life hormonal crisis then don’t drag him into your drama. Don’t be a bitch and accuse him of things he wouldn’t do.’
Bile turns to anger. Mid-life crisis? I take the things closest to me on my bedside table – a bunch of yellow flowers, and sling them at his head. He puts his hands up to shield himself but not before yellow petals spray across the room. He glares at me. I hear someone hurdle up the stairs. Gill enters as the petals float through the air and on to the floor.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ she whispers, shocked. She gestures that there’s a sleeping baby in the room next door.
‘Stuart? Stuart!’ Gill pleads.
Stu doesn’t even dare to look at me but turns to leave, his footsteps heavy on the stairs. I can’t read Gill’s expression but before she leaves, she turns to glare at me in a way she’s never done before. The look makes me heavy with sadness. I also realise now is not the time to ask her for biscuits.
‘Yo hop-a-long, I’m back.’
I awake from a nap to Emma standing at the end of my bed, prodding my leg. On my bedside table is a giant iced bun, a cup of tea and what looks like codeine. She looks over and smiles. If I could, I’d launch off this bed and hug the crap out of her.
‘Get that down you before Gill comes up here with her lumpy-looking soup. Make sure you hydrate and up your fibre with the codeine or you’ll get backed up…I don’t fancy giving you an enema. I also sorted the little one’s croup.’
