Strictly Love

Instead of which she was practically chained to her desk, and when she wasn't, she was out late schmoozing people she was coming to despise, or partying like there was no tomorrow with so-called friends with whom she had increasingly little in common.

This wasn't how she'd planned things, back when she'd started law school in Cardiff, all those years ago. Then she'd been full of naïve optimism about how she was going to take on cases like her dad's (languishing at home a semi-invalid thanks to the incompetence of the firm he'd given most of his life to). She felt ashamed that she'd ended up at Mire & Innit – a small media law firm which specialised in defending the low-level famous, in cases which, in the main, were pretty indefensible. Her boss Mel had promised her the earth at her interview seven years ago.

‘This is a small firm,’ she'd purred silkily, ‘but we are going places, and for the right person the rewards are high.’

The rewards had certainly been high financially. Emily was earning far more than in her previous job, but the mortgage on the cottage was correspondingly high too. And the promised promotion to senior associate seemed as elusive as ever, while Mel continued to pile on the work. One thing she'd failed to mention at interview was that, being a small firm, they were constantly short-staffed. Great in one way, as it had given Emily opportunities she would never have had elsewhere, but not so good in terms of having any kind of decent life outside the workplace.

Emily sighed. It had all seemed so glamorous when she'd first come to London. Now it just seemed tawdry to be raking through the muck of zedlebrity lives.

Callum, too, had seemed the height of glamour when she first met him – the gorgeous public school boy with the golden tongue had bowled her over from the start, and though she'd always known he was incredibly bad for her, now he was like a bad habit she couldn't quite shake. When Callum deigned to let her, she was allowed into his world, in small bite-sized pieces. He had perfected the knack of just keeping her interested. She hated herself for giving in to him.

Take this weekend, for instance. She had resolutely ignored his calls all day Friday, cried off a party that Ffion was going to, claiming a headache, and crashed out in front of the TV with a pizza and a bottle of wine.

But come Saturday, after a desultory morning spent catching up on household chores, and a dull afternoon alone trailing round the shops in Crawley, Emily had let herself into the flat to find three messages from Callum on the answerphone. When she switched on her mobile (which she had purposely left behind), she discovered he'd inundated her with messages.

‘Come on, babe,’ the last message had urged her, ‘what else do you have to do tonight but come out clubbing with me?’

What else indeed? In the end, she'd given in and driven up to his flat in town, where they had made up over a bottle of wine, before dancing the night away at a local grungy club that Callum and his less salubrious friends liked to frequent.

‘I promise to be good,’ Callum had said as they left the flat. He'd looked so solemn and schoolboyish when he'd said it, Emily couldn't help but laugh.

‘You better had be,’ she'd said. And then he'd kissed her, and she'd forgotten why she'd been so cross with him in the dizzying intoxication she always felt when he was near.

Callum had been as good as his word, in that he hadn't taken any drugs in her presence, which wasn't to say that he hadn't taken any at all, but it was enough for her to maintain the fiction that all was right with the world.

They had got up late on Sunday, gone for a pub lunch, and though Emily had known she should really have headed back home on Sunday evening, Callum's urgent plea of, ‘Stay, babe,’ coupled with the thought of another long, lonely evening, was enough to keep her from going back. Maybe that was why she couldn't quite let Callum out of her life. She knew he was bad for her, but he was pure escapism. Maybe she needed that right now. Perhaps it was worth it to avoid the pain of thinking about Dad, though it never felt worth it when the downside was being late for work.

Emily's nerves were jangling as she walked through the door. Mel didn't tolerate slackers on her team, as she put it.

Luckily, Mel was late too this morning, which allowed Emily enough time to get herself a latte and calm down before she started work. She sat down to a pile of paperwork and opened her emails, to find there were still hundreds she hadn't responded to from last week, including one from an ex soap star whose efforts to revive her career by applying for the next series of Love Shack looked doomed since she'd got into a racism row with another would-be contestant. Emily groaned loudly. She could feel another late one coming on. It was too bad they were so short-staffed and the secretary she had shared with her colleague had left, but at least working long hours kept her from thinking too much about everything. It was another form of escapism, she supposed, but not quite as satisfactory as shagging an unsuitable boyfriend.

‘So that tooth we root-treated last time is still giving you gyp?’ Mark asked once Jasmine was ensconced on his dental chair. Her crop top was hitched halfway over her stomach and her hipster jeans sagged below it. She had less of a muffin top and more of a meringue mountain … God, it amazed him that someone so foul-mouthed, foully dressed and generally appalling as Jasmine could be deemed worthy of being in the public eye. Once upon a time people actually did something worthwhile to be famous. Not any more.

‘Too right it is,’ whined Jasmine. ‘It's bloody painful all the time. Those antibiotics were useless.’

‘You do realise that if I can't sort it out this time, I shall have to take the tooth out,’ Mark said.

‘No way!’ Jasmine was horrified.

‘I'm sorry,’ said Mark, a little nonplussed. ‘I did warn you.’

‘You can't mess with my teeth,’ shrieked Jasmine. ‘I've got a contract which says my teeth are all me own.’

‘She's got a contract,’ growled Jasmine's mother from the sofa. Kayla followed Jasmine everywhere and, Rottweiler-like, was always on hand to defend her daughter's interests.

‘Well, if you want a second opinion …’ This was Mark's get-out clause for all his difficult patients. Sadly, Jasmine had never yet taken him up on the offer, and she wasn't about to now.

‘Oh go on then,’ she said sulkily.

Mark felt his way round Jasmine's mouth. Despite her brilliant white smile, her teeth were shot to pieces. The dazzling grin covered a multitude of sins to all except her dentist. The rate Jasmine was carrying on, it wouldn't be too long before he provided her with dentures. He prodded around for a while. Jasmine responded when he poked the molar two doors down, but the tooth she was moaning about didn't evince a single response. Which meant it was as dead as a doornail.

‘I'm really sorry,’ he said. ‘Your tooth's died. I'm going to have to pull it out.’

‘You can't!’ Jasmine shrieked.

‘What about her contract?’ Kayla demanded. ‘You must be able to do something.’

‘I'm touched by your faith in me,’ said Mark, knowing that sarcasm was completely wasted on these two, ‘but even I can't work miracles.’

Jasmine winced dramatically as he gave her the strongest injection he could. Her pain threshold was notoriously low, and this was a back tooth which would take a fair amount of work to get out. Mark toyed with asking Sasha for the right instruments, but as she leaned back against the sink, looking bored and playing with her nails in between taking text messages (even though he had asked her hundreds of times not to), he figured that in the time it would take to explain what he needed, he could have got it all himself. One day, God would take pity on him and send him a decent nurse.

‘I can't lose a tooth,’ Jasmine wailed. She was clearly not going to take this lying down. ‘What about my contract?’

‘I'm very sorry,’ he said. ‘But the tooth has got to come out. I'll make you a bridging unit, which I'll attach to the adjacent teeth. No one will ever know the difference.’

‘Are you sure?’ Jasmine eyed him suspiciously. ‘What if someone finds out?’

‘No one will find out,’ said Mark. ‘Your records are completely confidential.’

‘You sure about that?’ the Rottweiler jumped in, looking uncertain.

‘Yes,’ said Mark. ‘Now, I have to do something about this tooth. I can't leave it like this.’

Eventually, Jasmine agreed. Luckily, the tooth came out relatively easily, and Mark took some impressions for her crown.

‘What if someone sees the gap?’ Jasmine demanded as she got down from the chair.

‘It's pretty unlikely,’ said Mark, ‘it's a back tooth, no one is likely to be looking. You could always try not to get photographed for a bit.’

Which was as unlikely as him getting back with Sam, he realised. Jasmine was always splashed over one tabloid or another.

‘You'd better be right,’ Jasmine said, ‘or there will be trouble.’

‘I'll bear it in mind,’ Mark replied, before showing Jasmine and Kayla out to the desk, where Kerry was chatting animatedly to Tony, Jasmine's third-division footballer boyfriend. Jasmine shot Kerry a dirty look, clicked her fingers at Tony, and swept out imperiously, leaving Kayla to pay. Mark made a mental note to remind Kerry that it wasn't done to flirt with the clientele, before calling his next patient.

Great. It was Mrs O'Leary, or Granny O'Leary as the girls had christened her: an ancient crone and toothless wonder who steadfastly clung to the ill-fitting dentures that her original butcher of a dentist had given her eons ago.

Mark reflected that he must have done something really bad in a previous life to deserve Jasmine and Granny O'Leary on the same day. But he couldn't for the life of him think what.

Chapter Three

‘You're late,’ Katie said as Charlie came through the door. She didn't mean to sound accusing, but she was worn down by a hard day coping with the kids. The boys had been really naughty at bedtime and Molly had only just gone to sleep. The kitchen was still in chaos from tea, and she hadn't even managed to get into the lounge yet to tidy up. She could feel all her good intentions to rekindle their spark leaching out of her. Her plan to cook a candlelit dinner had gone completely to pot.

‘What's for tea?’ Charlie asked, ignoring her. She hated it when he did that.

‘Beans on toast.’ Katie felt wrong-footed.

‘You used to love cooking. You'd always have dinner ready for me,’ said Charlie.

‘Well, that was before we had Molly,’ snapped Katie.

Katie would be the first to admit she was a control freak extraordinaire who wanted everything to be so perfect she made Anthea Turner look positively sluttish. She was the sort of woman who rose at six to clean out her kitchen cupboards, or iron and fold laundry. Charlie always teased her that her favourite room in the house was the large walk-in airing cupboard on the landing, where sheets, pillow cases, towels and blankets all sat neatly side by side in carefully orchestrated rows. White single sheets next to white doubles, coloured singles next to coloured doubles. Everything in its place, and everything easy to find.

It always smelled fresh and wholesome, and Katie would never admit to anyone the illicit pleasure she felt in running her hand over the smooth surfaces of freshly ironed sheets. But it was hard work maintaining such high standards with children in the house, although, by and large, till Molly had come along she had managed. Of late, Katie could feel those standards slipping. She had been so desperate for a third baby, despite Charlie's reservations. Now there were days when even she wondered why.

Charlie had touched a nerve, damn him. In the past Katie would have had the house tidy and tea on the table when Charlie walked in. To her that was part of the deal. She was the one at home, after all, it only seemed reasonable to cook the bacon for the person who provided it.

Emily had never got on with that attitude. ‘It just seems so regressive,’ she'd frequently said to Katie over a glass of wine when Charlie was away on business.

Katie had shrugged her shoulders.

‘I don't expect you to understand,’ she'd said. ‘But if you knew my mum, you would. She put her career above everything: her marriage, her family. It tore our family apart. I'm never going to do that.’

Katie had had feminism shoved down her throat from an early age, and was sufficiently her mother's daughter to buy into the career dream until she'd met and fallen for Charlie. The minute she knew she wanted to have children with him was the day Katie said goodbye to her career. She was not going to make the same mistakes as her mum. Her children and husband would always come first. The trouble was, no one had told her how hard that would be. Or that she'd feel a small part of herself dying every day, subsumed into becoming someone's wife, someone's mother. What had happened to Katie? No one really cared any more …

‘Let me know when it's ready,’ said Charlie, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. ‘I've just got to go online and check some deals out.’

‘What now?’ Katie was dismayed. She was rather hoping that Charlie might join her in the kitchen and share a glass of wine with her as she cooked, like they used to do. She knew she should be glad about Charlie's recent promotion, as it meant more money and security, but his job was beginning to take over their life. The company seemed to be expanding at an alarming rate. Charlie's whole topic of conversation these days seemed to be about acquisitions and mergers, and he was away on business more than he was home.

‘Five minutes, tops,’ he said, already heading for the stairs.

Katie sighed. The chances were she wouldn't see him for another hour.

‘I'll just get on with the tea, then,’ she said disconsolately.

‘Okay,’ said Charlie. ‘At least it's not chips.’

‘Why?’ Katie had a feeling she knew where this was going. Charlie had been having little digs for weeks now.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Charlie sheepishly, stopping on the half-landing

‘Don't do that,’ retorted Katie. ‘Tell me what you meant.’

Charlie looked a little embarrassed. ‘I was only joking.’

‘About what?’ Katie's tone was icy. Even Charlie, who had the skin of a rhino, picked up on it.

‘It's just … Since Molly …’ Charlie was looking like he'd rather be anywhere than here. ‘You didn't used to be – it's just that – well, you're looking a bit more cuddly these days.’

‘You mean I'm fat.’ Kate felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.

‘No. No. Not fat.’ Charlie was desperately trying to recover the situation. ‘It's – well, I mean, after the boys you lost weight much more quickly. Anyway, cuddly's good. You know I don't like skinny women.’

His voice trailed off. And it was true. In the past she had managed to shed the baby weight in a few months, but this time around it seemed not to want to budge.

‘You think I'm fat.’ It was a statement. Not a question.

‘Nooo – not fat exactly, but you have to admit it, love, you're a – a tad on the lardy side. Nothing that a few weeks on a diet won't cure.’

The comment was delivered in a manner that was clearly intended to be light and humorous, but the result was anything but.

Katie stood open-mouthed as Charlie disappeared upstairs. Not for the first time she wondered if workload was the thing that really kept him late at the office …

‘How was your day?’ Rob greeted Mark as he came through the front door.

It had been a long day and Mark was glad to be home, even if it wasn't quite the home he wanted.

‘Bloody awful. You?’

‘Oh, you know. Kids running riot. Kids taking drugs. Kids being suspended. The usual.’ Rob's job as head of history at the local comp gave him nearly as much pleasure as Mark's job gave him.

‘Fancy a beer?’ Mark kept resolving that he wasn't going to drink this early in the week. And kept giving in.

‘Thought you'd never ask,’ said Rob. ‘Pint at the Hookers?’

The Hookers' real name was The Boxer's Arms, but because of the propensity of rugby players who went in there, it was commonly known as the Hookers. Although urban myth had it that it was once a knocking shop – a myth that Barry, the urbane landlord, did very little to dispel.

‘Just let me wash my patients’ spit off my face and get changed,’ said Mark, ‘and then I'm all yours.’

Ten minutes later they were propping up the bar and putting the world to rights.

‘The usual, gentlemen?’ Barry already had their pints lined up for them. ‘You're a bit late tonight, if I may say so.’

Bloody hell, Mark thought in dismay, I'm becoming such a regular the barman knows what time I usually come in. How the hell did that happen?

‘If we're not careful, we're going to end up becoming permanent fixtures,’ Mark said glumly, looking round to see the usual regulars transfixed to their usual spots. Is that how people already saw them?

‘So?’ said Rob. ‘I like it here. It's my kind of pub.’

‘You know what's going to happen to us,’ Mark said moodily, staring into his pint.

‘No, what?’ Rob was scanning the bar for possible talent. Rather a waste of effort considering most of the regulars were middle-aged men, but, ever the optimist, Rob never liked to miss out on any opportunity that came his way. Mark envied that optimism and the confidence that went along with it.

‘We're still going to be sitting here in ten years’ time,’ said Mark. He paused to listen to a song on the jukebox. ‘It's like this song – the laughs in the late-night lock-in will fade away and we'll have nothing left but sad, pathetic memories.’

‘And your point is?’ said Rob.

‘Well, look at us. We‘ve already been drinking in here for years. We stay here any longer, we'll end up fossilised.’

‘You know your trouble?’ asked Rob.

‘Nope, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me,’ replied Mark.

‘You need to get out more. It's time you faced up to the truth. You're wasting your time with Sam. She's gone for good. Time you moved on, mate.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Mark responded with a wry smile. ‘And this is really the place to do that.’

‘It has been known to happen,’ said Rob, tapping his nose and looking smug.

‘When was that then?’ teased Barry, earwigging their conversation as he wiped down the bar. ‘The dark ages?’

‘You remember those two art students who used to come in here a while back?’ Rob said.

‘What, the short tarty one and the goth?’ Barry looked impressed.

‘Yup,’ said Rob. ‘Didn't you wonder why they stopped coming in?’

‘I thought they'd just finished their course,’ said Barry.

‘Nope,’ said Rob, ‘they just couldn't cope with the rejection. Once you've had a taste of the Robster, everything else pales by comparison.’

‘That's right, Rob,’ said Mark, ‘and it's got nothing to do with the fact they found out what a bastard you are and never want to see you again.’

‘You're just jealous,’ laughed Rob.

‘I keep telling you,’ said Mark, ‘I'm happy to be single.’

‘Now that's where you are so wrong,’ said Rob. ‘It's not normal for someone to be celibate as long as you have been. You need to listen up and hone your seduction skills.’

‘And how should I do that?’ said Mark with amusement as he glanced round the pub. ‘Now you've chased the art students away, I don't exactly see them queuing up.’

‘Not here,’ said Rob. ‘You really must pay attention to your Uncle Rob and learn from a master. Dancing classes is where it's all at. There are tons of single women there. Come ballroom dancing with me and I guarantee you'll get laid.’

‘I do want to actually like a woman when I go to bed with her,’ said Mark. ‘Besides, I don't want anyone but Sam.’

‘Yes, you do,’ said Rob. ‘You just don't know it yet. Come on. Live dangerously for once.’

Mark sipped his pint and looked round the Hookers. Warning signs littered the pub. Paranoid Pete (catchphrase: ‘They're watching us, you know’) was swaying ominously over a pint. He appeared to be talking to a wall. In another corner he spotted Jim ‘n’ John, who were so well-known in the Hookers, people had forgotten which was which now. Their beer bellies (twice the size they'd been when Mark first met them) were the fruits of the time they'd both been drinking there. Oh God. This was his and Rob's fate if they weren't careful.

‘Oh go on then,’ said Mark. ‘I suppose it will make a change from a night in the pub.’

‘That's the attitude,’ said Rob, ‘and you're wrong about the song, you know.’

‘I am?’

‘Yup. I've got a much better theme tune for us.’

‘Which is?’

‘“The Boys are Back in Town”,’ said Rob, raising his pint.

Katie paused from cleaning the bath, keeping a weather ear out for Molly, who could still just about be relied on to nap in the morning, allowing Katie to get on with some household chores. She looked around at the chaos of the bathroom (one day her sons would eventually learn not to miss) and sighed.

Katie had neglected the bathroom of late, and it showed. Another by-product of living with a mother with her head in the clouds had been a childhood spent in chaos. Katie, a type-A personality if ever there was one, hated the messy disorder of the place she had called home, and had spent the best part of her adult life ensuring she didn't replicate it.

Katie had just about managed to keep ahead of the game with two children, but the arrival of Molly had made it that much harder. Sometimes she was up at six in order to get the vacuuming done, and she frequently went to bed at 1 a.m. having got stuck into mopping the kitchen floor. The sheer exhaustion of keeping up with it all was taking its toll, mainly in the bedroom, where she frequently crawled in so dog-tired that even if Charlie had shown any interest, she would have been completely unable to rise to the challenge. No wonder he'd lost interest. Perhaps all that they needed was for Katie to initiate things a bit more. Trying to cook a candlelit meal the other night hadn't worked, it was true, but that was because it had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. She should have planned it properly. She'd try to do it again, on a Saturday night, when the kids were in bed and Charlie didn't have to worry so much about work.

Feeling a bit better, Katie got up from her kneeling position and went to pick up the bleach so she could start cleaning the loo. Damn. She'd run out. She ran downstairs to the loo there, but that was empty too. When Molly got up, she'd have to go and get some more.

Molly conveniently chose that moment to wake up so Katie wrapped her up warmly, popped her in the buggy and walked down the road towards the High Street. She and Charlie hadn't quite afforded a house on the Hill, the posh part of town (much to Marilyn Caldwell's sniffy disgust). But Katie liked their house, it was homely and comfortable, and close to town, and even on cold February days like today she liked to walk.

The advantage of living in a small town like this was that you were never far from anywhere. The disadvantage was that sometimes it was like living under a microscope and everyone knew your business. Invariably, if Katie met someone she knew on the High Street she would be regaled with the sordid details of some petty scandal, or told where she and Charlie had just been on holiday. Once, an acquaintance had even come and congratulated her on a nonexistent pregnancy. It could be very stifling. There were days when she just longed to get on a train and go somewhere, anywhere. Just to get away from where she was.

It wasn't just the feeling of being trapped in domesticity that was bothering her either. Although Charlie had apologised for the comments he'd made about her weight, his words still rankled. Especially as she knew he was right. From a size ten in her pre-children days, Katie had ballooned up to sixteen at one point, and was just heading back towards a fourteen when she had fallen pregnant with Molly. Now, just over a year later, she was hovering around the sixteen mark, and her exhaustion meant the idea of ever getting any exercise in was a complete joke. Her smallish frame didn't help. If she had been tall and buxom, she could have carried the excess weight, but now she felt like a little round barrel. Her fair hair flopped languidly around her shoulders. For practical reasons it would be better to tie it up, but then she risked exposing her double chin. Charlie was right. She had let herself go.