Chapter Twenty-one
“IS THERE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE to tell me?” Ted said.
Chantal’s heart stopped beating momentarily. Had Ted found out what had happened? For once, they were both at home together and they were getting ready for bed. The time of day that she’d come to dread the most.
“Your rings,” he continued. She followed his gaze to her fingers. “You’re not wearing your rings.”
“Oh,” she said, trying to cover her consternation. “I had a slight rash under them. Maybe some detergent got in there.”
“Detergent?” Her husband laughed. “Honey, when did you ever come in contact with detergent?”
“Soap,” she corrected quickly. “It could have been soap.”
He took her hand. “They look okay to me.”
“Thank you, Doctor Hamilton.” She tried a light laugh, but it sounded uneasy. “They’re fine now. I just wanted to leave my rings off for a couple more days to make absolutely sure.” There was no other option; she was going to have to take some money out of their bank account pretty damn quickly to buy some convincing replacements.
“I thought there might be something you wanted to tell me.” There was a twinkle in his eye, but she could tell that his words were serious. Of course there was something she wanted to tell him! She wanted to tell him that she couldn’t go on picking up strangers to find sexual satisfaction. Christ, she wasn’t even forty—she still had needs. Didn’t Ted? There was no way she wanted to face the next twenty or more years in a union that had become completely sexless. It wasn’t just the sex she missed—although, goddammit, you surely missed it when it wasn’t there—it was also the loss of emotional closeness that she mourned. She didn’t think that a relationship could survive that.
“Do you ever think that maybe our lives are too shallow?”
She looked up at him. “Shallow?”
“You know …” He gestured at their expensive surroundings. “Don’t you ever wonder what all this is for? What the point of it is?”
“It looks great,” Chantal said. “We like nice things.”
“And that’s why I go to the office every day and work my ass off?”
“That’s what everyone does.”
“But they do it for a purpose. They do it to provide for their families, their loved ones.”
“We don’t have a family.”
“What if we did? Would that be such a bad thing?”
“I’d rather open a vein.”
“So this is all for us?”
“Is there a crime in that?”
“It’s not a crime, but is it a way to live?”
“You like all this stuff as much as I do.”
“Do I?”
Frankly, she had no idea what her husband did or didn’t like anymore. Chantal sighed to herself. She was tired and feeling down. Perhaps Ted was depressed. Maybe he needed to go to the doctor and get some happy pills. Maybe that would perk up his libido too. This wasn’t the time to get into a discussion about it—she had too much else to think about right now. They’d avoided an all-out confrontation about their situation so far; it could wait a while longer.
Ted stripped off his shirt and went into the bathroom. He still found an hour each day to go to the gym at his office despite working his “ass off,” so his body was fit and toned. The sad thing was that she still loved and desired him—she only wished that it was reciprocated. Every women’s magazine these days was filled with tips on how to improve your love life, but none of them ran articles about how to kick-start one that had fallen down and died completely.
It was so easy to let your physical relationship slide. First the kissing became less frequent, then—apart from a perfunctory peck on the cheek—it pretty much stopped. Then the cuddling disappeared and the regularity of lovemaking slipped further down the calendar as daily life interfered. The less you kissed and cuddled, the easier it was to avoid intimacy altogether. When they were first together, she and Ted used to make love nearly every night. Then it was once a week, which then eased off to once a month. Now she couldn’t remember when they had last lain together entwined. Six months? Longer? When had Ted last slipped his arms round her waist to give her a hug? Even a friendly one would do. Some of the sexiest words in the English language were, “I want to make love to you,” and they’d been absent from her husband’s vocabulary for years.
Ted came out of the bathroom and slipped between the sheets. He used to sleep naked, Chantal thought, but now he wore shorts and a T-shirt in bed. Even contact between their bare skin seemed to offend him.
Chantal took her turn in front of the mirror, cleaning away her makeup, washing the grime from her skin. She tried not to think of what she’d been doing last night or how stupid she’d been. When she’d finished, she joined her husband in bed.
Ted was lying on his side, already breathing deeply. Chantal curled in behind him. Perhaps they could rescue their relationship—she sincerely hoped so. She loved him and she didn’t want to let this go. She stroked her fingers along his back. They should talk about the things that were bothering him. It was wrong of her to dismiss his feelings, even if she did feel that his concerns were somewhat misplaced. She knew that. It was just that whenever she tried to get him to talk about his feelings, he just shut down, pushed her away. The Brits were the ones who were supposed to have the “stiff upper lip,” the penchant for suffering in silence. Maybe Ted had picked up too many bad habits from working here for so long. If only it were that simple. But there was no doubt that he’d buttoned down his feelings over the past few years. If she was honest, maybe she didn’t want to hear what was wrong. What if he was finding the pressure of work too much and wanted to give up his job and become a painter or a novelist? Could she handle that? Would it rock the boat too much if she kept probing, pushing, prodding at Ted until he spilled the beans? She had a feeling that this wouldn’t be an easy problem to solve and sometimes it seemed like too much hard work to start peeling back the layers of the onion. Chantal propped herself up and looked across at her husband. They couldn’t carry on like this. Whatever the problem, they had to address it.
“Ted,” she said softly. “I need you to hold me.”
“I have an early start tomorrow, Chantal,” he replied. Despite her good intentions, she felt herself bristle. “And it would be too taxing to hug your wife?”
“Go to sleep,” he said, and pulled the covers over his shoulders. But she knew that now she would stay awake staring at the ceiling.
Chapter Twenty-two
I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER seen the sunrise in London before and I’m not sure that I’ll be in a rush to do it again. Somehow I’ve managed to get myself to the office for six o’clock on Saturday morning and we’re now all lurking around on the pavement waiting for the minibus to arrive. The banter is far too perky for my liking, so I hang on the edge of the group trying to avoid speaking until my voice has woken up. There’s a stainless-steel bench outside the office and, quite honestly, I could just lie down on it and go back to sleep.
“Hi, Gorgeous.” Crush comes up to me. “Glad you could make it.”
I think this is a comment on the fact that I can’t normally manage to get in for nine o’clock on a weekday. I grunt because I can’t think of anything to say in my defense. He hands me a cup of Starbucks coffee.
“Thanks,” I say, amazed that my vocal cords are actually working at this hour. Breakfast hadn’t really occurred to me. It’s so early and my brain is so unused to this time of day that I haven’t even remembered to bring chocolate. Am I going to be stuck in a van for the next five hours without food of any kind? How will I survive?
“I bought some of their sunrise muffins and some double choc-chip ones too,” he tells me.
I could really love this man.
“Did you like your roses?”
“Yes,” I say with a sigh. “But it doesn’t mean that I’m going to take him back.” I don’t tell him that I’ve been instructed on
pain of death not to—and that, technically, Marcus hasn’t asked. I have to remember that one bouquet of flowers does not a marriage proposal make.
He sips his coffee studiously, a frown on his brow. “You think they were from Marcus?”
“Who else would send me flowers?” I’m not Jennifer Lopez, for heaven’s sake. My string of admirers are thin on the ground. “Who else but my cheating ex-boyfriend would have reason to?”
Crush shrugs, but the frown stays. Then the minibus turns up and the sales team cheers. I feel my heart sink to my boots.
FIVE HOURS LATER AND WE’RE in the depths of Wales somewhere—a place with an unpronounceable name and a river that looks far too ferocious to be found in Britain. This is a river that should be in a remote and exotic place. The water looks black and there are humongous rocks sticking out of it, and it seems to be rushing by at an alarming rate.
I spent the entire journey sitting next to Martin Sittingbourne, our oldest and most tedious sales rep. He has told me all about his aging mother who lives with him, and her habit of putting her false teeth in the goldfish bowl, his wife’s hot flushes and her struggles with hormone replacement therapy, his children who are both at university and are both wastrels, his neighbor who he can’t stand because of the size of his leylandii hedge. I know that his dog—Mr. Monty—currently has worms and a bit of a problem with his prostate gland. I’m just glad that Martin Sittingbourne’s prostate must be fully functioning, otherwise I would have heard all about that too. I don’t think that I spoke at all, other than to say “mmm” in the appropriate places. Even the succor of my double choc-chip muffin failed to turn it into a pleasant experience. Crush occasionally looked over and grinned at me. He knows exactly what Martin Sittingbourne is like and I could see that it was amusing him greatly that I was his current victim. It would have been so much nicer sitting with Crush—but that isn’t really a compliment, given the quality of the competition.
I couldn’t wait to get out of the van, but now that we’ve all disembarked and I’ve seen the crummy hut and the ridiculously inadequate size of the dinghy-thingy that we’re supposed to be going down this raging river in, I want to get back inside and head straight back to London. I hadn’t realized that I was allergic to the outdoors, but I can feel myself hyperventilating just looking at it.
“All right, Gorgeous?” Crush wants to know.
“Fine,” I say brightly. “This looks great.”
“It’s brilliant fun,” he informs me. “I’ve whitewater rafted in Nepal and Peru and down the Colorado River. You’ll love it.”
I could really hate this man.
One of the organizers is handing out bright orange overalls. He gives me the once-over and then hands me my overall which I take into the cold, damp changing room. Peeling off my jeans, I readjust my underwear. I’ve taken the precaution this time of leaving the lacy lilac frillies at home and have opted instead for sensible white pants. I try to ease the orange overalls over my legs … my goodness, they’re tight. On the one hand I’m pleased that the overall-handing-out operative thought me a suitable size to squeeze into these; on the other, I’m in danger of cutting off the blood supply to my vital organs. With much huffing and puffing, I lever all of my fat bits into the suit, trying not to lose flesh as I struggle to zip it up. I’m not sure that I want to check this out in the cracked mirror as I feel like a cross between a garbage man and a Jaffa orange. By the time I’ve strapped on my life jacket, I can hardly move.
Waddling outside, I join the group who are already loading themselves into the raft. They look a lot more keen than I do. Their overalls look a lot more roomy too. I’m given a helmet and a paddle—both of which I receive with a degree of enmity. Why do we have to do team-building exercises like this? Why can’t we just do bonding down at the local bar? Or why can’t we go to a health spa for the weekend to get to know each other better while we have pedicures? Although I so would not want to see Martin Sitting-bourne’s feet. I try to blot out the image and the rushing noise of the river. Why does this water look so much wetter than any other I’ve seen? Who would willingly want to do this? I look over at Crush and he’s smiling back at me. I bet this whole bloody thing is all Aiden Holby’s bloody idea.
“Come on, Gorgeous,” Crush says. “You’re next to me.”
That makes me feel better, but I don’t know why. I perch precariously on the side of the inflatable. This does not feel safe.
“Jam your foot into that strap,” he says, pointing to something which doesn’t seem anywhere near up to the job on the bottom of the raft. “It will stop you from falling out.”
I can feel my eyes widen with fear. I didn’t imagine that I might actually fall out of the damn boat. This adds a whole new realm of terror to the experience that I hadn’t previously considered. I wedge my foot into the strap, so far that I’m going to have to have it amputated to remove it.
Then, without a by-your-leave, we’re pushed away from the safety of the bank into the raging torrent. The raft bobs innocuously on the swell—I hate it already. I should have taken some Kwells or Kalms or any other seasickness tablets beginning with K.
“Stay behind me,” Crush shouts. “I’ll try to shelter you from the worst of the water. Just dig in with your paddle when it gets rough.”
Does he mean this isn’t rough? And, sure enough, with a whisk as vicious as any fairground ride, we’re taken by the current into the middle of the river and the dinghy starts to buck frighteningly
“First of the rapids coming up,” Crush shouts.
I don’t think I needed to know this. The breeze picks up and I can feel the wind on my face quicken as the flow of the river accelerates. I start to scream. Before anything has actually happened, I scream louder than I’ve ever screamed before. Then we’re tossed about on the waves which are churning around the rocks. I’m getting very, very wet. Crush’s plan to protect me from the worst of the water has failed, it seems.
“Dig in with your paddle,” he shouts.
Before I can do anything, I’m hit in the face by a wall of water which knocks me flat on my back in the middle of the dinghy. I’m like a turtle which has, well … turned turtle. My legs and arms flail in the air. We’re bounced through the rest of the rapids and then the boat starts to slow. The team is hooting and hollering. Are they mad? Crush is laughing. He reaches down into the bottom of the boat and hoists me up by the straps of my life jacket and hangs on to me until I can regain my equilibrium enough to perch back in my place.
“Was that not fantastic?” he says jubilantly.
It was not.
“Great.” All my insides have been mushed about. But before I’ve time to even think about recovering my senses, the breeze is quickening on my face again. Now the screaming starts in earnest, even before the rapids appear on the horizon.
“Hang on. This will be tougher,” Crush tells me.
Oh joy.
The first wall of water hits me straight in the mouth. Which, of course, is wide open due to the screaming. While I’m coughing and spluttering and trying not to drown internally, the next wall of water hits, my foot comes loose from the safety strap and I’m knocked straight out of the dinghy. I feel myself being engulfed by the river. I can swim, but I can’t even work out which way up I am at the moment. I’m spinning around in the water and I now know what my duvet cover feels like when I put it on prewash. Feeling myself bob to the surface, I open my eyes, blinking rapidly at Crush’s face which is right in front of mine, and suddenly feel two strong hands clamp on to me and start to drag me out of the water. My overall is snagged on a rock and is resisting my rescue. Crush pulls harder and, as I’m hauled back into the dinghy, there’s a terrible tearing noise.
“Thought you were a goner there, Gorgeous,” Crush says.
My helmet has slipped down and is over my eyes. My life jacket is halfway over my head, and my lovely orange overalls are rent asunder. They have completely given way under the strain of containing all my fat. I’m
lying over the edge of the dinghy, coughing my head off my lungs full of water, my heart full of disappointment, my knickers full of fish, my bottom bared to the world.
Crush’s face is close to mine and he’s grinning broadly.
“That is the closest you are ever going to get to my bottom,” I say tightly, before I cry.
Chapter Twenty-three
I ACHE ALL OVER. EVEN my hair aches. When the minibus comes to a halt outside the office, I go to move and groan with feeling.
“Come on, Gorgeous.” Crush gives me a hand out of my seat as if I’m some old granny.
I’ve slept all the way back from Wales—emotionally overcome by my near-death experience. No one else fell in the water, so the sales team is all feeling very smug and they keep patting each other on the back and doing high-fives and all manner of comradely things. I hate them all. Especially the ones who got a good look at my bottom. They’re the ones I despise the most. On Monday I’m going to phone the agency and get them to move me to another job as soon as possible.