The Seven Year Itch Read online

  I notice that she’s giving me that tetchy look, the one she holds back for traffic wardens and people who let their dogs crap on the pavement.

  ‘I’m only expressing an opinion,’ I say.

  ‘Which is what, exactly? That we should give our only son two second-hand kitchen utensils for his birthday?’

  ‘If we wrapped them up nicely, he’d never know the difference.’

  I might as well have just suggested that we give him a dose of anthrax.

  ‘No, Jack. Birthdays are special. Which is why we need to get him something special as a present. Something he’ll remember.’ She tells me this slowly, I notice, like I’m the child.

  As Amy launches into a sociology thesis on the importance of parenting not how we were parented ourselves, but how we wish we’d been parented, I once more find my attention slipping away from her like sand through an hourglass.

  Instead, I begin surreptitiously checking out a girl who’s perched on one of the high stools next to the TV. She’s younger than Amy by around five years (not, then, young enough to be my daughter, biologically, or otherwise).

  I watch her bright green eyes flash sexily through the gloom of the pub, as she laughs at something her friend’s just said. When she stands up to go to the bar, I can see the outline of her lacy bra (black) through her frilled, embroidered shirt (white). I notice with approval that she’s got the kind of legs and arse that it would be fun to play wheelbarrows with all night.

  It’s wrong, I know, to eye up a stranger like this. More wrong, I completely understand, to do so when I’m here with my wife. Most wrong of all, of course, when it’s our wedding anniversary to boot.

  But all men look at other women. All men look at all other women. From the moment we first spot the link between erections and sightings of the opposite sex, we perve, we wonder and we assess.

  Sure, it’s the kind of behaviour you’re better off masking. Personally, I like to give the outward impression that I’m beyond that sort of primitive sexuality, that I’m evolved, that I’m nothing like those leering men apes you find jamming the West End bars at the weekend, swigging down pints of Stella and goggling at anything with tits that can walk.

  But the truth is, I’m just the same. I’m just more subtle about it. I glance, rather than stare.

  Just like I’m doing now.

  And, I wonder idly, innocently, what would happen if I wasn’t married, if I did go up to this girl and try on the old charm?

  I mean, do I still have what it takes? Could I, with this green-eyed girl? Would she? With me? Tonight? Or would it take longer: flowers, dinners, jokes and real emotions? In a parallel universe, might we even have ended up falling in love?

  Or have all such possibilities already been terminated? I think gloomily. In life’s great sexual supermarket sweep, have I already passed my expiry date? Am I lying here on the discount shelf, next to the economy sausage rolls and shop-brand rhubarb yoghurts, unlikely to be picked up by anyone more discerning than bargain-hunting winos and OAPs?

  As I drain my pint, I force my attention back onto Amy.

  ‘He needs a special present and a special day,’ she’s telling me, ‘and that’s another thing I wanted to check with you . . . I thought it might be nice if at the weekend we asked some people –’

  ‘Listen,’ I interrupt, ‘and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but –’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But can we just not, well, not talk about kids for a while?’

  ‘We’re not talking about kids.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘We’re not. We’re talking about one kid, our kid. Who happens to be turning two this weekend.’

  I rock back in my chair and fold my arms. ‘We used to talk about other things,’ I say.

  ‘We still do.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘So why not now?’ I say.

  She looks at me suspiciously. ‘What do you want to talk about?’ she asks.

  ‘Don’t say it like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You know like what. Like that. Like I’ve got an issue.’

  ‘An issue?’

  ‘Yeah. An issue. Like I’ve got an issue I need to discuss,’ I explain. ‘Like that’s the only reason I said I wanted to talk.’

  She frowns at me, uncertain. ‘Well, isn’t it? Haven’t you?’

  ‘No. There is no issue.’

  ‘You just want to talk?’

  ‘About things.’

  ‘So long as those things aren’t kids?’

  ‘You got it. Just like we used to.’

  She looks around the room for a second or two, then laughs. Her cheeks flush, embarrassed, giving her this sexy sheen, like she’s been caught out naked.

  ‘What did we used to talk about?’ she then asks. ‘Because I don’t remember any more.’

  I grin back at her. ‘Me neither. Which means it must have been a while.’

  ‘I mean,’ she stipulates, ‘I remember doing it. Staying up late, drinking wine, but I can’t remember anything that we actually said.’

  ‘Maybe we’re going senile,’ I suggest.

  ‘Maybe we are. Or maybe we’ve just forgotten how to relax.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘what we used to talk about . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sex. We used to talk about sex. One of the things, anyway.’

  She laughs. ‘You want to talk about sex?’

  Leaning back the way I am, I can see the curve of her calf underneath the table. ‘Not as much as I want to do it.’

  ‘With me, I hope,’ she warns.

  ‘You’re nearest,’ I tease.

  ‘Well, thanks . . .’

  ‘And fittest.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘So fit, in fact,’ I tell her, ‘and so near . . .’ My heart begins to drum. ‘. . . that I thought I should give you this . . .’ I reach inside my jacket pocket and take out the simple silver necklace I picked up from Amy’s favourite jeweller’s during my lunch break this afternoon.

  I walk around the table and she lifts up her hair as I put it round her neck and fasten it.

  As I softly kiss the back of her neck, I wonder how I could ever have mistaken Yitka’s neck for hers. Amy’s is by far and away the more sensual of the two.

  ‘Thank you,’ Amy says, blushing. She cradles the necklace in the palm of her hand, before letting its silver links trickle through her fingers like water. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says.

  I kiss her. ‘Just like you.’ And I mean it. Looking at Amy now, the green-eyed girl behind me suddenly no longer exists.

  ‘I hope it wasn’t too expensive,’ Amy says, her face flashing with concern, as I return to my side of the table.

  It was, but I don’t tell her that. Besides, it’s nothing I can’t handle, not with the overtime I’ve already booked in at work. I’m just pleased she likes it.

  ‘You are naughty, Jack. I thought you said no anniversary presents. I feel awful now. I haven’t got you anything.’

  ‘I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement . . .’

  She laughs, taking my hand in hers as I sit back down. She stares into my eyes. ‘Would you like me to seduce you?’ she asks.

  I smile back at her. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  The Horizontal Tango

  Some things in life combine perfectly. The voices of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The Grand Canyon and sunrise. Coffee and TV. Strawberries and cream. Amy’s body pressed up against mine.

  Not only does it feel right, it looks right. Like a great painting, it’s a triumph of content and form, where every brushstroke is how it should be, how it has to be, for the tableau to work as a whole.

  It’s like it could only ever have been this way, with these parts of my body, working together in perfect harmony with those parts of hers.

  And, once more like a great painting, it’s a sight I never get
tired of. Each time I see it, I find myself staring in wonder, fascinated by some new facet.

  Amy is a true instrumentalist. She’s like Vanessa-Mae on the violin. Or Blondie on the microphone. Or Jethro Tull on the flute.

  Euch. On second thoughts, let’s put that Jethro Tull reference to one side.

  And just think about what Amy’s doing instead.

  ‘Aah,’ I softly moan.

  As I gaze up at the shadows thrown on to the bedroom ceiling by the candles that Amy lit earlier, I think to myself that I could stay like this forever.

  But this isn’t only about my pleasure, of course.

  It’s about giving, as well as receiving.

  And this is clearly something Amy’s thinking about as well, I see, as without speaking, she begins to slowly, smoothly reposition herself on the bed.

  Our bodies realign.

  To 69.

  And I wonder to myself, Was there ever such a perfect coupling of numbers? Just look at them both, lying there side by side. Was there ever such a perfect inversion, and delicious perversion?

  It’s a matter of taste, I suppose.

  Time flows past like a warm stream, and soon we’re on to dancing the horizontal tango, a routine that should be so familiar by now, and yet somehow still manages to surprise and remain startlingly fresh.

  There’s a brief moment of personal discomfort, when I find myself removing the paw of a Boo-Hoo Bear that Ben’s left in the bed from my butt cheeks, but apart from that, everything goes swimmingly. We’re like two otters at play.

  Right up to the point where Amy’s sitting astride me, riding me hell for leather, like there are only a couple of jumps to go before the Grand National will be hers.

  ‘There,’ she’s crying out encouragingly. ‘Right there. Oh, mmm.’

  ‘Mmm . . .’

  ‘Oh, Jack . . .’

  ‘Oh, Amy . . .’

  ‘Mmm . . . Jack, oh, yeah . . .’

  ‘Oh, Amy . . . oh, mmm . . .’

  ‘Oh, Jack . . . yeah, there . . . I think I’m going to . . . I’m going to – I am, I’m going to –’

  ‘Poo poo.’

  Poo poo?

  ‘Poo poo,’ Ben confirms from his cot next door.

  These two little words burst the balloon of our eroticism like a pin. A terrible transformation overtakes our surroundings. The exotically lit boudoir in which we’ve been making love reverts to our shabby and cramped candlelit bedroom. The fantasy is flattened. Our flight of imagination has been cruelly shot down.

  Amy’s hips cease sliding against mine. Her fingers unfurl from my hair, releasing their grip on my shoulders, so that I’m left with my hands locked on to her breasts, like I’m conducting a medical examination.

  For nearly ten seconds, all I can hear is our breath, coming shallow and fast, as we pray for the silence to last, signalling that Ben’s gone back to sleep.

  ‘Poo poo!’ Ben calls out again.

  Amy growls with frustration. ‘I’m going to have to change him.’

  ‘Into what?’ I ask hopefully. ‘A mute?’

  ‘Ha, ha.’ She starts to roll off me.

  ‘Please don’t,’ I beg. ‘We’re nearly there.’

  It’s true. We’re teetering right on the edge of Orgasm Cliff, mere seconds away from toppling over into Endorphin Bliss Canyon.

  ‘Just ignore it,’ I implore. ‘He might go back to sleep. It might not be his nappy at all. He might just be having a nightmare.’

  Amy stares at me sceptically. ‘About poo poo?’ she asks.

  ‘Well, why not? It’s possible. I mean, it’s not exactly like he’s got a huge range of night terror subjects to pick from at his age, is it? Death by excrement avalanche,’ I list off, ‘death by teddy bear attack, death by breast suffocation . . . Mmm,’ I reflect, ‘what a way to go . . .’

  ‘Poooo!’ yells Ben.

  Amy quickly kisses me. ‘I’ll be back.’

  I answer her Schwarzenegger line from Terminator with the one Russell Crowe used in Gladiator, when he needed his troops to remain resolute in battle: ‘Stay with me,’ I call out. ‘Hold the line.’

  But Amy doesn’t hear me; she’s already gone.

  I sigh, turning on to my side and taking a swig of water from the glass by the bed.

  She’s right, of course. There’s no point in us trying to carry on once Ben’s awake. Him demanding a new set of Huggies isn’t exactly the ideal amorous soundtrack. Nothing to do with kids is (which no doubt explains why Prince chose to write about Alphabet Street, rather than Alphabetti Spaghetti).

  ‘OK now?’ I hear Amy ask Ben a few minutes later.

  There’s only one good answer to this: no answer. Because that would mean that Ben’s riding a one way ticket back to the Land of Nod.

  Instead he says, ‘Milky.’

  ‘Darling, it’s the middle of the night,’ Amy tells him firmly. ‘Please, just close your eyes and go back to sleep.’

  ‘Milky.’

  There’s a deep sigh-length pause.

  ‘OK, darling,’ Amy then tells him, resigned, ‘I’ll go and get a bottle.’

  I listen to her walking through to the kitchen.

  ‘Come back,’ I call out, knowing that she won’t.

  Or rather, knowing that she will – in twenty minutes’ time, after trying and failing to get Ben back to sleep – when she’ll curl up between him and me in our bed, the same as she ends up doing every night that he wakes.

  Feeling my cock slowly capsize, I sit up.

  The moment has definitely passed.

  Ben starts to cry, mewling like a kitten to begin with, then picking up volume with each new breath, cranking himself up notch by notch like an air-raid siren, as he builds, inexorably, towards what will become a deafening, full-blown banshee wail.

  Sighing, I get out of bed.

  I wince as I stub my foot on the folded-up travel cot which is wedged up against the wall in his room. I bite my lip to stop myself from swearing at the stupid damned thing: harder than a Rubik’s Cube to put up; tougher to get down than wrestling a greasy pig to the ground.

  Ben’s crying hits fever pitch, searing into me like chalk on a blackboard, or polystyrene packing being torn. Shivers splinter down my spine.

  I hurriedly scoop him up in my arms. He quietens as I stare into his dark eyes.

  He smells of menthol. I’m guessing Vicks Vaporub, which probably means that his tentative a.m. snuffle has turned into a full-blown p.m. cold.

  I hope not. I hate it when he’s ill. It makes me feel like I’ve failed, like I shouldn’t be bringing him up in London at all, but somewhere cleaner, somewhere with fewer germs. Like the Galapagos Islands. Or that I should have done a first-aid course, or become a doctor, or a Nobel-Prize-winning pharmacologist who could prove my love and dedication to my son by conjuring up miracle drugs of my own invention to counter any complaint he may have.

  Instead, I hold him close to my chest and whisper that I love him. I listen to him sigh and it melts my heart.

  I smile, thinking that I’m a lot better at this than I used to be. I remember the first time I held him, there in the maternity ward, with Amy collapsed like a punctured inflatable doll beside us on the bed.

  I was about as flummoxed as a chimp who’d just been sat at the controls of a Space Shuttle and then told, ‘OK, we’re ready. Now fly us to Mars.’

  Looking at Ben and holding him close like this, feeling him here so solid and real, I sometimes get freaked out by the possibility that he might not have ever existed at all.

  And that is a possibility. If Amy and I hadn’t met . . . Or if we had, but we’d broken up . . . Then Ben wouldn’t be here now.

  It’s a repugnant thought. An impossible thought. But it’s one that keeps on occurring to me and leaves my chest tightened with fear. It makes me believe that actually there could not have been any other outcome. Amy and I had to get together. Fate’s hand was in the mix. Right from the start.

  I carry Ben back in
to our room and climb into bed with him.

  Amy comes in a few minutes later and gazes at us and smiles. She looks beautiful in the flickering candlelight. She stays there, saying nothing, then walks quietly round the room and snuffs out the candles one by one.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, slipping into bed beside us and handing the bottle to Ben, who grasps it and begins to drink.

  ‘For what?’ I ask, stroking her arm.

  ‘For having to break everything off like that. Maybe we got his middle name wrong. Maybe instead of plain Benjamin Matthew, we should have called him Benjamin Coitus Interruptus Rossiter.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘It’s not your fault – and anyway, you know what they say . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Half a fuck’s better than no fuck at all.’

  ‘Who says that?’

  ‘Parents mostly, I suppose.’

  She’s silent for a couple of seconds, then giggles. ‘A fu,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A fu. That’s half a fuck. So at least we can say we had a good fu.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I answer sleepily. ‘And who knows? Maybe some time later in the week we might even get to finish it off with a ck.’

  She giggles again. ‘Play your cards right and I might even give you a blowj.’

  This time, it’s me who laughs. I take Amy’s hand in mine and squeeze it tight. Happiness like I never knew before I met her fills me. I close my eyes and let the darkness swamp me.

  Then there’s just the three of us breathing, lying here side by side, drifting off into our separate dreams.

  3

  Amy

  Morning Glory

  Good morning. You’re listening to Radio CapitalChat with me, Jessie Kay, with you until eleven thirty. And that was ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by The Kinks, about Julie Christie and Terence Stamp . . . apparently. Should put you in the mood for this fine sunny morning in the capital. Now, this week, we’re running a new feature called My Rant. Because I think it’s time for you, the people, to have your say. Every day, we want you to ring in and tell us how it really is. Get real issues off your chest. Today’s topic is working parents. Just call or text me on 0871 –

  ‘Amy, where’s my keys?’ Jack yells from the bedroom.