Strictly Love, page 24
The room was fairly busy with the sort of people Emily couldn't imagine herself socialising with normally: greying stockbrokers talking loudly about their bonuses mingled with braying women talking even louder about horses. No wonder Katie hated coming down here. There was no sign of Katie, or Charlie, and Emily was beginning to feel slightly anxious, when someone tapped her on the shoulder and said, ‘There you are. You must be Emily.’
Emily turned round to see a very well dressed, smart woman in her sixties with perfectly coiffured greying hair. She spoke as if Emily was some kind of insect beneath her feet. This, presumably, was the dreaded Marilyn. Marilyn held her hand out, and Emily felt at an immediate disadvantage, given that she was holding the cake and flowers.
‘Sorry,’ she said, trying to extricate her arm from under the cake box. In doing so, she knocked the box onto the floor. ‘Oh sod,’ she said, then, ‘Sorry’ again. Marilyn looked horrified, and Emily wished the floor would swallow her up.
‘Let me take that,’ said Marilyn in despairing tones, and opened the box. Emily watched in horror as she realised half the cream on the cake was now squashed against the lid. ‘Really!’ said Marilyn, and whisked it away, presumably for repairs.
Feeling at a loose end, Emily wandered aimlessly round the room, rather wishing Katie hadn't invited her. She didn't know anyone here at all. It looked like it was all Charlie's friends. Presumably, all Katie's friends, like Emily, would feel they stuck out like sore thumbs.
Eventually she saw Katie in the corner. She was wearing a flowing flowery summer dress, with gold sandals and a light cardigan. She looked lovely, and she'd lost more weight since the dancing weekend. Emily frowned. She hoped everything was all right. Katie, never forthcoming about her private life, had shut up like a clam recently. Emily felt sure it had something to do with Rob, but whatever it was, Katie wasn't telling.
‘How's it going?’ Emily said as she reached her friend. ‘I met your dragon of a mother-in-law, and I'm really sorry but I dropped the cake –’
Emily stopped mid-sentence. Things were clearly not all right.
‘Whatever's the matter?’
‘Not here,’ muttered Katie, and dragged her friend into the ladies, where she promptly burst into tears.
‘Oh Katie,’ said Emily, ‘what is it?’
‘It's everything,’ said Katie. ‘I thought giving Charlie a surprise party would make everything okay, but he hates it. He stormed off at the beginning and I haven't spoken to him since.’
‘Oh,’ said Emily, not knowing quite what to say. ‘Maybe he just needs to calm down.’
‘I don't think so,’ said Katie, looking thoroughly miserable. ‘Everything's been going wrong for ages. I don't know whether he's having some kind of midlife crisis or something, but we‘ve barely had sex in months and we hardly talk any more. It's like I'm living with a stranger.’
‘Katie, you should have said,’ Emily told her, putting an arm round her friend. ‘Why didn't you?’
Katie pulled a face.
‘Fear of failure, I suppose. I've set so much store by my marriage, I didn't want to admit that it might be falling apart. I'm not very good about talking over my problems. Besides, I knew once I got started I wouldn't be able to stop.’
‘Everyone has rough patches,’ argued Emily. ‘It will get better.’
Katie looked bleak.
‘That's what I've been telling myself,’ she said. ‘But I can't really believe that any longer. I think I may have to face the truth. It's over. Or near as damn it.’
She wiped her eyes with a tissue.
‘There's something I haven't told you,’ she added.
‘About Rob?’ Emily hazarded a guess.
‘Oh lord, is it that obvious?’ Katie looked truly horrified.
‘Well, I have no idea what went on, but it's clear that something happened the other week,’ said Emily. ‘Go on, spill the beans.’
‘It was after we danced the rumba,’ said Katie in a whisper. ‘He kissed me.’
‘Well, you know what he's like,’ Emily replied.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Katie. ‘But the thing is – I wanted him to.’
Katie floated through the rest of the party in a daze. Her crying in the loos had left her with a terrible headache. Luckily, with Emily's help she'd done a fairly decent job of repairing her face, and she was well-used to containing her feelings, especially where Charlie's family were concerned, so no one apart from Emily knew anything was wrong. Charlie had studiously avoided her all day, spending his time slapping the backs of boring blokes he knew from the City. Marilyn and Lucy were in full Caldwell Takeover mode, so there was nothing for Katie to do except wander about aimlessly, trying to engage the periphery relations like Charlie's aged deaf Auntie Glenda in conversation. It was so dull, in the end Katie persuaded Emily to go home. ‘I have to be here,’ she argued, ‘but you don't.’
Wistfully, she wished she'd pushed Marilyn into letting the kids come, but Marilyn had been adamant that she didn't think the occasion was suitable for children. Katie had had to promise them a day in London with their dad to make up for the disappointment of not being there. Katie suspected the real reason Marilyn had barred her grandchildren was because she was worried how the Golf Club would stand up to the combined assault of George and Aidan. Katie's mum had stepped in and was looking after them. Katie wondered idly if this out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to the kids had been the way Charlie had been treated when he was young. It would certainly account for a lot.
The afternoon dragged on. Katie felt more and more morose and stupid. She couldn't drink because she was driving, and judging by the way Charlie was knocking them back it was just as well one of them was staying in control. Why had she let herself get carried away with the idea that having a party would solve all their problems? She was kicking herself for her stupidity. Marilyn seemed oblivious to the idea that Charlie might not actually be that thrilled about the honour being done him, and despite Katie's efforts to stop her was insisting there was a grand ceremonial cake-cutting and speeches.
‘Come on, dear,’ Marilyn said as she came bustling up to Katie, who was moodily leaning against the wall, wishing that she was somewhere completely different, ‘time to cut the cake.’
The cake, Katie was relieved to see, had been restored to its former glory by one of the kitchen staff, although there was a slight dent in one corner. Marilyn had gone to the trouble of putting the forty candles Katie had managed to rustle up all the way round the cake. Katie wished she hadn't brought them; she had a feeling that Charlie wouldn't be impressed.
Marilyn insisted that Katie walk with her towards Charlie holding the lighted cake, while the band played ‘Happy Birthday’ again. Katie was swallowing hard. Charlie looked furious, and she knew that he wasn't going to let her forget this humiliation in a hurry.
No one but her seemed to have noticed, however, and there was much laughter and commotion as Charlie tried and failed to blow the candles out. Damn. She'd accidentally brought along some never-ending candles that she'd bought for George's birthday. In the end Charlie simply picked them up and doused them in his beer in disgust.
‘Right, is that it?’ he said. ‘I need another beer.’
‘Certainly not,’ said his mother, and proceeded to wax lyrical about Charlie's birth and early childhood. If anyone was going to make a speech about her son, it was definitely going to be her. Apparently from day one she'd known Charlie would be a success.
Charlie looked like a worm wriggling on a stick. Katie wished she could get Marilyn to shut up. Was she really that thick-skinned that she didn't realise what torture this was for her son? Eventually Marilyn paused for breath, and Katie darted in with the flowers she'd brought and said a quick thank you to Marilyn for all her hard work. That, she hoped, would be that. But she'd reckoned without the combined might of the Caldwell clan.
‘Speech, speech!’ the roar went up, and Charlie was thrust forward into the spotlight. A place where she knew he hated to be.
‘Right, well. Hmm,’ Charlie mumbled. ‘I suppose I should say thank you. I wasn't expecting any of this. In fact, I said outright I didn't want any of this, but my mother and wife between them seem to know what's best for me, so here we all are.’
There was a nervous titter at this. People looked at each other questioningly.
‘You all think I'm joking, don't you?’ Charlie waved his beer around him wildly. ‘Well, I'm not. Forty years I've had of this. My mother planning my life down to the last T. And now she's got my wife in on the act too.’
Katie moved forward. ‘Look,’ she hissed, ‘I'm really sorry about this. I got it wrong, but this is neither the time nor place to air our dirty laundry.’
Charlie staggered backwards.
‘I think it's the perfect time,’ he said. He stood looking at everyone as if working out what he was going to say. ‘I'm forty next week,’ he continued. ‘Quite a milestone, eh? I think it's about time I stopped living the life other people want me to lead, and started to live how I want to, don't you?’
‘Charlie, what on earth are you talking about?’ Katie felt as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water all over her. She knew what was coming. She'd known it for months.
‘The thing is,’ continued Charlie, ‘my marriage is a sham. It always has been. Turns out women aren't my thing at all. It's taken me forty years to discover I swing the wrong way, but now I've found out, I'm not going to put up with it any longer.’
‘What do you mean?’ Katie was confused now. What was he on about?
‘I'm a friend of Dorothy,’ said Charlie.
‘Who's Dorothy?’ Marilyn looked so puzzled that Katie nearly burst out laughing, though she had never felt less like laughing in her life.
‘Dear, dear Mother,’ said Charlie. ‘You tried so hard to make sure I became a full-blooded male, didn't you? All those sailing weekends, and all that effort to get me in the rugby team. But it didn't work. I'm as queer as queer can be.’
‘You're what?’
‘I'm gay,’ said Charlie. ‘And, for the first time in my life, I'm proud.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
‘You bastard,’ said Katie. She was shaking like a leaf, and without thinking she slapped Charlie on the cheek. Then she turned round and stormed out of the room, brushing past people with no thought of anything other than escape. She ran to the car, climbed in it and was halfway home before she gave thought to where she was going.
In her heart of hearts, Katie had known the end was coming. Their marriage had never been brilliant, but since Molly's birth it had limped along while she ignored the warning signs, hoping that if she buried her head in the sand for long enough they'd go away. And now this. Charlie's bombshell had blown their marriage apart. There was no going back now.
Charlie was gay. The words were going round in her head, but what did they mean? How had he found out? Had he been unfaithful to her? The thought made her physically sick, and she had to pull over to the side of the road to retch. She was still shaking and felt alternately hot and cold all over. Suppose he hadn't taken precautions? Suppose he had infected her with something? What was she going to tell the children? Her mind was a whirling maelstrom of questions, and the biggest one of all was, If Charlie really were gay, why on earth had he married her in the first place?
Her whole married life had been based on a lie. She had worked so hard to paper over the cracks, and all the time her husband had been living a lie. As the shock wore away, Katie felt herself filled with a white-hot rage. How could he do this to her? How could he?
The thoughts batted back and forth, back and forth, till she was thoroughly sick of them. She drove and drove with no thought to where she was going, no thought for her future, or what was going to happen now. All she could think of was that she was stuck in a nightmare not of her making and she could see no possible way out.
Mark had gone out somewhere with the girls, so Rob was on his own watching a repeat of Strictly Come Dancing. After watching Matt and Flavia's tango, Rob felt inspired to go back to his friend Carlo, and he spent a ridiculous half an hour listening to Carlo telling him how to unleash the sexy beast within. As if there was much point, when there was no one to unleash it on.
Even though Katie wasn't going dancing any more, he hadn't been able to make himself stop. He enjoyed it too much for a start. And he exercised the faintest of hopes that she might come back, eventually. She had to. It simply wasn't the same dancing with someone else. He was still kicking himself that he had let his feelings get the better of him and kissed her. If he hadn't he'd still be seeing her, and though it would have been indulging in the bittersweet pain of knowing they couldn't be together, it would have been much, much better than not seeing her at all. His counsellor, Nina, had said this was the wrong way to look at it, and he should learn from what had happened and move on. The trouble was, Rob didn't want to move on. He just wanted Katie. The counselling was undoubtedly helping him unlock some of the misery in his head, but it couldn't give him the one thing he wanted more than anything else.
There was a ring at the door. Rob frowned. It was too early for Mark to be back. He hoped that it wasn't another doorstepper. Since a new series of Love Shack had started airing (special guest commentator: a certain Jasmine Symonds), the press interest in Mark seemed to have waned, but both he and Rob remained wary. Rob hadn't understood what it meant to have your privacy ripped apart till he was faced with a baying horde of tape recorders and cameras every time he left the house. He sincerely hoped there wasn't some new ridiculous revelation about to hit tomorrow's papers.
Rob glanced out of the hall window before opening the door. To his complete surprise it was Katie. What on earth was she doing here?
‘Earth to Gemma, Earth to Gemma,’ Mark called, as his daughter sat transfixed by her mobile, seemingly determined to ignore him. He looked at Beth and grinned before grabbing a spoon and using it to fire boiled sweets at his older daughter.
Still wary about media intrusion, Mark had decided to take the girls to Pizza Hut this evening, and bring them home late. They hadn't been to the house much since the storm broke and Mark missed them badly. So far Sam hadn't kept her threat of stopping him seeing the kids, and he'd kept papers out of the house and given them a watered-down version of events. Though, judging by the look in Gemma's eye occasionally, he wouldn't be at all surprised if the tales of his antics hadn't been the talk of the Year Eight toilets. He hoped for Gemma's sake it hadn't, but she seemed spikier than ever when she was with him. She appeared to Mark to be very unhappy, but he had no way of breaking through her hard shell and reaching her. They were all going away to Dorset, camping, at the start of the school holidays. Mark only hoped Gemma would have cheered up by then.
‘Dad, you are so sad,’ said Gemma witheringly. ‘You're all over the papers. No wonder Emily left you.’
‘Don't you ever lighten up?’ Mark retaliated. ‘And Emily leaving me had nothing to do with this.’
‘Someone in the family needs to maintain decorum,’ muttered Gemma.
‘Right,’ said Mark. ‘Okay, I probably deserved that.’
‘You are so embarrassing!’ Gemma burst out suddenly. ‘Everyone is talking about it. All of Year Eight know what a loser my dad is. I'm the laughing stock of the school.’
‘Oh, Gemma,’ said Mark. ‘I am so, so sorry. Really, I am. If I could do something to change that evening, I would.’
‘Why did you have to do it?’ asked Gemma. ‘Imagine how you'd feel to find out your dad's naked picture had been printed in the papers.’
‘Er, gross,’ said Beth. ‘Were you really naked, Dad?’
‘Well, this is one conversation I never imagined myself having,’ said Mark. ‘Okay, I haven't told you too much about this because I didn't want you to be upset. But what happened was I went out for a drink with my friends, and I think someone must have put something in my drink because I don't really remember much of the evening.’
‘You mean you got paralytic.’ Gemma's tone was self-righteously accusing. Oh to be young and so sodding sure of yourself, Mark thought.
‘No,’ said Mark, ‘I don't. If I had got drunk I would have known about it. I had a few drinks, but that was all. My lawyer thinks someone might have set me up.’
Beth looked a bit anxious and he kicked himself for having given too much information. It was so hard to know how to handle the situation. He didn't want to lie to the kids, but neither did he want to overburden them either.
‘Why do you need a lawyer, Daddy?’ she asked. ‘Will you go to prison?’
‘No, no,’ said Mark. ‘Nothing like that. It's just one of my patients –’
‘Jasmine Symonds,’ added Gemma knowledgeably. ‘I read all about it in Heat.’
’– yes, Jasmine Symonds,’ Mark continued, ‘hang on a minute, you read Heat?’
‘Yes, so?’ said Gemma. ‘Everyone reads Heat.’
‘Hmm, I'm not sure that's altogether suitable,’ said Mark. ‘Remind me to have a chat with your mum about that.’
‘It's Mum's Heat I read,’ said Gemma, in unmistakeable teenputdown tones. ‘Besides, I don't think she'll be all that bothered about having parenting lessons from you at the moment.’
Deciding that some battles weren't worth fighting, Mark let the subject drop and went on to explain what Jasmine had accused him of.
‘And the reason Emily left me is because she's Jasmine's lawyer.’
‘I miss Emily,’ said Beth.
‘I do too,’ said Mark.
‘So did you tell on Jasmine?’ asked Gemma.
‘No, of course I didn't,’ said Mark. ‘Someone did, but it wasn't me. But because she's made a big fuss about it, there has to be a court case, and that's why I've got a lawyer. But it's nothing at all to worry about.’
