It’s Now or Never

  ‘What’s all this about, Annie?’ he says, his expression troubled. ‘We’re okay, aren’t we?’

  ‘I just feel . . .’ What can I say? Stifled? Suffocated? As if life is passing me by without me being involved in it? Would Greg even begin to understand how squashed, squeezed and suppressed I feel?

  ‘Is there anyone else?’ he asks bleakly.

  I laugh out loud at that. ‘God, no! How can you think that?’

  My husband looks relieved. I take his hand in mine and stuff them together into his pocket as it’s bigger than the ones in my jacket. I’ve never had to question Greg’s fidelity. I’ve always known where he is at all times. He’s always at the canal. With Ray. Any woman who wanted to entice Greg away from me would have to dress up as a fish.

  ‘I just want to do things,’ I confide.

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Anything.’ I break away from him, twirling around, letting the wind tangle my hair. ‘I don’t know.’

  He spreads his hands, beseeching. ‘Then how can I know?’

  ‘Hey – remember that this is a naturist beach now?’ I shout to Greg as I spin away from him – although today there are no hardy souls baring their wherewithal to the bracing sea air.

  My husband wrinkles his nose again. ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘It’s natural,’ I correct. ‘Come on – how much to get your kit off and sprint to that sand-dune thingy?’

  ‘I wouldn’t do it for all the tea in China.’

  ‘A hundred quid,’ I tease. ‘If you strip off and run along the beach I’ll give you a hundred quid.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No way.’

  ‘Give me a hundred quid and I’ll do it.’

  Now he looks cross.

  ‘No,’ Greg says sternly. ‘This isn’t funny, Annie. What’s the matter with you? Is this about your hormones?’

  I put my hands on my hips. ‘Leave my hormones out of it. You men! That’s always your answer to everything.’

  ‘Let’s go and get a cup of tea.’

  ‘I want to feel something, Greg!’ I’m shouting now. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to feel the wind on your skin?’

  ‘It’s freezing.’

  I pull off my anorak. He’s right.

  But I can’t stop now. I’ve been gripped by a frenzy, an urgency. If I don’t take all my clothes off, I think that I’ll die of frustration or boredom or something else that I don’t quite understand.

  ‘Annie,’ Greg says flatly as if he’s speaking to a small child. ‘Put your anorak back on now.’

  ‘Shan’t,’ I say. Then to my own surprise, I peel my sweater over my head too.

  My husband gasps.

  And I fight the urge to cover myself up again. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a beach in my bra before and I’m torn between feeling liberated and terror.

  ‘Annie. Stop this right now.’

  I kick off my boots and socks and let the wet sand tickle between my toes. ‘I’m going to paddle.’

  ‘That’s stupid. You’ll catch your death of cold. It’ll be about minus five in there.’

  ‘Come with me,’ I beg.

  ‘You’re mad.’

  Running to the sea, arms spread wide, I leave a trail of anorak, sweater, boots and socks behind me.

  As I reach the waves, I stop and yank off my trousers.

  ‘Annie!’ Greg shouts. ‘Now I’m really cross!’

  I splash about in the sea in my bra and knickers, almost hyperventilating as each wave breaks over me. A man with a sheepdog stops to watch.

  Shivering, I launch into a version of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ as I try to jump the waves and mistime all of them. I yell the words pointedly at Greg over the sound of the surf. ‘GIRLS. JUST. WANT. TO. HAVE. FUN.’

  The sheepdog barks.

  Greg puts his hands in his pockets and stomps off.

  Then a big wave comes and knocks me flat on my face.

  Chapter 22

  I get back into the car. Greg starts it up. I’m soaking wet. The sexy lingerie stays in the overnight case. We lie back-to-back in Mrs Emerson’s lumpy bed. And the seagulls of Cromer never get to see my breasts.

  We drive home in silence.

  Chapter 23

  Greg had been fishing since he was a boy. His parents used to take him on holiday to Cromer as a kid and he was never happier than when he was at the end of the pier, hauling crabs out of the sea on a line with a basic hook and filling a bucket. When it was brimming he’d stagger back to the caravan site where they always stayed and he’d spend another hour joyfully releasing the wriggling crustaceans, one by one, into the saltwater boating lake. It was a pastime that was as pointless as it was pleasurable.

  ‘If I was Prime Minister,’ Ray was saying, ‘I’d use criminals as road cones on the motorways – when they were doing repairs and the like. If you survived a year without getting killed, you went free. Sentence served.’ He glanced at Greg to check that he was listening. ‘That’d create some space in the prisons.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Greg said, and reeled in his line. He hadn’t had a bite for a while. Perhaps it was time to try another type of bait.

  From crabbing once a year, he’d then progressed to a warped piece of bamboo stick with a bent nail on the end for a hook and had fished for slippery grey-brown gudgeon in the local river. Rice Krispies had opened a whole new world to him when they’d run a special offer of a fishing rod and reel on the back of their packets. He’d lived on the cereal for weeks, eating an extra bowl every night before bed just so that he could cut out and save enough tokens to bag himself one. By the time he’d got his shiny new rod in his hands he never wanted to look at a Rice Krispie ever again. But it was a sacrifice that was worth it as it set him on a lifetime of unceasing pleasure as an angler.

  His very first cast with it had caught him a small tench, and Greg had been so excited that he’d struck too fast, flicking the fish off the line and high into the air where it disappeared over a hawthorn hedge behind him, never to be seen again. He’d calmed down a lot since then.

  After that, he’d fished with his dad for years, many hours spent in companionable silence. When his dad had passed away, Ray had slipped seamlessly into his father’s place. They too had spent many companionable hours, but never in silence.

  ‘Matey,’ Ray said, breaking into his thoughts. ‘What’s on the menu for lunch today?’

  Greg got out his plastic box. ‘Cheese sandwiches.’

  ‘Me too. A gourmet delight that cannot be surpassed,’ Ray concluded. ‘Though Marla does make me eat that bloody fancy granary stuff. Why do women not know that cheese sandwiches should only ever be consumed when they’re made with white bread?’

  Greg grunted. He quite liked granary bread.

  ‘They are different creatures from us, Gregor, my dear friend. Never let us forget that.’

  ‘No.’

  Greg opened his lunch box and took out his sandwiches, and he and his friend worked their way through their snack, gazing out over the canal.

  His only disappointment had been that his son Bobby had never shared his passion for fishing. He’d brought him along once or twice when he was about eight, but his son had been bored to tears. Greg had tried again when his son reached eleven, but the joys of angling never did catch Bobby in their thrall. He was into football – a sport that Greg didn’t understand at all. Perhaps he should have taken more time to learn to like it, as he felt that he didn’t know Bobby as his own father had known him – and that saddened him.

  ‘You’re a bit glum today,’ his friend observed. ‘Even for you. All well in the Ashton household?’

  Greg never normally confided his problems in Ray. Primarily because he never normally had any problems. Nothing outside of the work environment, anyway. He’d had twenty years of relatively trouble-free marriage with neither his wife nor his kids giving him any grief. Now it seemed that times were changing and it weighed heavy on his heart. Who else could he t
alk to this about? He wasn’t a talking man, but he couldn’t keep all this to himself, hold it all in his head which felt as if it was fit to burst.

  ‘When we went to Norfolk,’ Greg ventured slowly, ‘Annie took all her clothes off and ran into the sea.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Ray spluttered some of his cheese sandwich into the canal and a brave duck scuttled up to make the most it. ‘She did what?’

  ‘She took all her clothes off and ran into the sea.’

  ‘What did she do that for?’

  ‘She said she wanted to do something different.’

  Ray spluttered again. ‘That’s different, all right! The woman’s lost the plot.’

  ‘That’s what I said. And now we’re not speaking.’

  Annie – good, reliable, uncomplaining Annie – was frightening him with her strange behaviour, and Greg didn’t know what to do. She seemed so unsettled, so discontented, and he didn’t know what had brought it on. Nothing in their lives had changed. There’d been no upheaval or upset to unbalance the status quo. Their life pottered along as it always had. So what had brought it on?

  ‘Do you think that I should talk to her about it?’

  ‘No,’ Ray said, aghast. ‘No, no, no. You don’t want to be doing that. You’ll open the floodgates. Next thing, you’ll be down at Relate and unpicking all your dark secrets in front of some posh counsellor in pearls.’

  Greg didn’t have any dark secrets, but he didn’t want to be doing anything in front of a posh counsellor in pearls.

  ‘Has she started reading Woman and Home recently?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That is the publication of the devil, matey. If you check round your house you’ll probably find one secreted somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Greg wracked his brains but he didn’t recall seeing Annie reading Woman & Home. Or any other magazine.

  ‘Trust me.’ Ray was adamant. ‘It’s the Cosmopolitan for the over-thirties. Puts ideas into their pretty little heads.’

  ‘What if it’s not Woman and Home?’ Greg wanted to know. ‘What if it’s something else?’

  ‘Just ignore it,’ Ray advised. ‘It’ll be her hormones, like I said before. Pound to a penny she’s having an early change.’ He mouthed the word change. ‘They all go funny then. Trust me – I’m speaking as one who knows. Marla’s hormones are all over the place. She’s a different person every hour.’

  That certainly sounded like Annie.

  ‘Ignore it and it will all go away,’ his friend said sagely. ‘The more time you can spend out of the house fishing, the better.’

  It was sound advice, Greg thought. Best to just keep quiet and keep his head down. When had talking ever got anyone anywhere?

  Chapter 24

  Lauren woke up with a monumental hangover. She peeped into her living room and, sure enough, Zak was sprawled out on her sofa. That bit wasn’t a bad dream then. He looked suspiciously naked beneath the blanket that was barely covering him.

  His kindly face was soft in sleep – the perpetual smile that he wore still there. His hair was messy and, for one mad moment, she wanted to go and run her fingers through it.

  Instead, she pulled her dressing-gown around her with a groan. As if her life wasn’t complicated enough.

  Trying not to wake her impromptu guest, Lauren slipped into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. In the shower, she let the hot water stream over her in a vain attempt at reviving her body. Then, when she did begin to feel better, she didn’t want to get out of the shower as she couldn’t bear to face Zak. He’d been so kind to her last night. How many other men would be so chivalrous when faced with a snivel ling, puking drunk?

  When she did venture out of the bathroom, the sofa had been vacated and there were clinking sounds coming from the kitchen. Zak was up and making breakfast.

  ‘You’ve nothing in the fridge,’ he said. ‘So I’ve put a brew on. There’s a bit of stale bread.’ He banged it on the work surface and it reverberated as bread shouldn’t.

  ‘I meant to go shopping yesterday,’ Lauren lied. She probably would have just eaten the stale bread and not noticed it.

  ‘I’ll just have a cuppa and get out of your hair,’ Zak said. ‘It’s best if I don’t hang around. If I was Lover Boy then I’d be popping by first thing to apologise. I’m sure he wouldn’t be too happy to find me here.’

  ‘I don’t know if Jude will swing by,’ she told him honestly. ‘I never know.’

  ‘How can you live like that?’ Then he held up a hand. ‘None of my business.’

  ‘Thanks for being so great last night.’

  ‘I couldn’t leave you alone,’ Zak said. ‘I’d never have forgiven myself if something had happened to you.’

  Then suddenly, Lauren felt overwhelmed with loneliness. Annie had gone away for the weekend; if she went to see Chelsea she’d only end up feeling more inadequate, yet there was no way that she wanted to spend another Saturday and Sunday on her own.

  ‘I suppose you’ve got plans?’ she said.

  Zak shrugged. ‘Nothing pressing.’

  ‘I could stump up for breakfast by way of thanks. There’s a great greasy spoon down the road.’

  ‘You must be feeling better.’

  ‘Want to?’

  ‘Can I use your shower first?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She went into the bedroom and pulled on her clothes and scraped her hair back into a pony-tail.

  From the shower, she could hear Zak whistling ‘Torn Between Two Lovers’. At least, that’s what she thought it was. It was terrible, tuneless, and it made her smile when she had wondered at one point last night whether she’d ever smile again. Then Lauren had a momentary image of Zak’s taut, toned body in her bathroom, covered in soapsuds and rivulets of water.

  An involuntary gulp travelled down her throat. Bacon and eggs. That was definitely all that was on the menu.

  Chapter 25

  I’m in the office first thing on Monday morning. Greg and I still aren’t speaking. Blake Chadwick’s Lotus Exige roars into the car park and moments later he breezes through the swing doors.

  ‘Morning, Sexy.’

  ‘Hello, BC.’

  Clearly, he’s on a mission this morning as he’s through the next set of doors before I can say anything else. He looks like a man who wouldn’t mind getting his kit off on a nuddy beach.

  I pick up the phone and dial Lauren’s number.

  ‘Hi, sis,’ she says when she answers. ‘Ringing to fill me in on all the sordid details of your dirty weekend?’

  ‘The sexy lingerie was a waste of money,’ I tell her with a pained sigh. ‘I didn’t even get it out of the bag. I’m taking it back at lunchtime.’

  ‘Oh, Annie.’

  ‘Don’t “Oh, Annie” me,’ I tell her. ‘I was fun. I was spontaneous. I ran into the sea in my bra and knickers.’

  ‘In Cromer?’ she asks incredulously.

  ‘In Holkham, to be accurate.’

  ‘Wow,’ Lauren says with a raucous laugh. ‘Good on you!’

  ‘Well, Greg didn’t think it was very funny. He stormed off in a huff. He’s still not really talking to me. He thinks it’s either my hormones or another man.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ she chips in.

  ‘That’s pretty much what I said. Please tell me that you had a better time than me.’

  ‘Not really,’ Lauren confesses. ‘Jude brought his wife to the office do. I was mortified.’

  I bet his wife wasn’t too impressed either, but I say nothing. After all this time, can Mrs Jude really be completely unaware of what’s going on between her husband and one of his employees?

  ‘Zak took me home and I ending up spending the rest of the weekend with him.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘In a purely platonic way,’ my sister adds hastily.

  ‘He’s the web-designer guy?’

  ‘The very same,’ she says. ‘He’s lovely. So kind.’

 
‘Does he have a wife and two children?’

  ‘Don’t even go there,’ Lauren warns. ‘This was going to be our year to get what we wanted, Annie. Change our lives for the better. For me, that involves being with Jude.’

  Pulling the travel guide to Peru from beneath my desk, I gaze lovingly at its cover and the image of Machu Picchu peeping out of the wisps of swirling cloud. And for me it involves having an adventure. One that’s a little more life-affirming than taking off your togs on a blustery Norfolk beach.

  Chapter 26

  I hang up just as my colleague Minny totters through the doors. ‘We’re having a planning meeting tonight for our trip to Peru at All Bar One,’ she tells me. ‘Sure you can’t come?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I say. My heart flutters. ‘It’s just not me.’

  ‘It’ll be a blast. Everyone’s going,’ she wheedles. ‘Sarah’s going to shut the offices for two weeks. There’ll be nothing for you to do here anyway.’

  Someone has to hold the fort, I think.

  ‘We’ll be there from seven o’clock,’ she tells me. ‘Hope to see you later. It won’t be the same without you.’

  And then she’s gone.

  That’s me unsettled for the day.

  I have some figures to input into the computer but I can’t concentrate. I take messages on the phone, then before I put the calls through, I forget who I was talking to and about what. My mind is a churned-up mess. It drifts from the azure waters of Lake Titicaca, up to the towering peaks of the Andes, beneath the marshmallow clouds of the endless Peruvian sky.

  I don’t know how I get through the rest of the day. I have to fight the urge to get my travel guide out every five minutes and I swing between desperately wanting to go with the rest of my colleagues and being too terrified to admit that I do.

  When it’s time to go home, I feel exhausted – though I’ve done nothing more demanding than wrestle with my own conscience.

  I swing my car into the drive and then sit there with the engine turned off. This is the first time that I’ve ever felt like this, but I can hardly bring myself to go into my own home.