Strictly Love

‘So I did,’ said Rob. ‘And did I mention your gorgeous eyes?’

‘Hmm, I seem to remember you mentioning my thighs,’ said Katie. What was this guy like? He couldn't seriously be thinking she'd have forgotten his earlier comments.

For a minute, Rob looked slightly nonplussed, but he recovered himself well.

‘That was before I had stared into your gorgeous eyes,’ he said, kissing her hand gallantly as the dance came to an end.

‘Yes, that'll be it,’ Katie said, with only the barest hint of sarcasm.

People were milling about chatting together, or heading for the pub next door. It was really time she got going. Katie wasn't used to staying out late midweek, and with Charlie away it was harder than normal to get herself out of bed in the morning and organise the kids. She needed an early night.

‘You're coming next door for a drink.’ It was a statement, not a question. Rob was steering Katie towards the door in a rather well-practised fashion. Despite herself, she couldn't help admiring his ridiculous self-confidence.

‘I don't think so,’ said Katie. ‘I really have to get on.’

‘Oh yes you are,’ said Rob, ‘you just don't know it yet. Expect the unexpected. That's my motto.’

‘Well, how's this for unexpected?’ said Katie. ‘A woman saying no to you.’

‘I wasn't chatting you up,’ said Rob.

‘You so were,’ said Katie. ‘And I'm not the slightest bit interested.’

‘Don't flatter yourself, darling,’ Rob replied. ‘You're not my type.’

‘And what's your type then?’ Katie was furious. Which was ridiculous. Why should she care what he thought of her?

‘Thin,’ was the hurtful rejoinder.

Katie stood with her mouth open. The cheek of him.

‘Well, you're hardly likely to win Mr Universe, are you?’

They glared at each other for a second.

‘Are you coming next door for a drink?’ Mark and Emily came up. Emily looked flushed and pretty. Her slimness accentuated Katie's curves. Katie wasn't normally the jealous type, but suddenly, next to Emily, she felt like a walrus.

‘No, I don't think I am,’ said Katie. ‘It's time I was off.’

‘Me too,’ said Emily. ‘I've got an early start in the morning.’

‘Will we see you ladies here again next week?’ Rob asked.

It was all Katie and Emily could do to keep straight faces. He was so ridiculously pompous. Despite her irritation, Katie realised it was hard to stay cross with someone who was clearly so deluded about his charms.

‘Maybe,’ said Katie. ‘We'll have to see.’

‘So you're not dancing again?’ It was clear from the look on his face that this was not the answer Rob was expecting. He looked like a disappointed spaniel.

‘Depends who's asking,’ said Katie in an outrageously flirty, mischievous manner, before she and Emily made a bolt for it, laughing like demons.

‘I think that went well,’ said Rob, watching them go.

‘And you've worked that out how?’ said Mark. ‘They‘ve both just left. And they were laughing at us.’

‘Sure sign they fancy us. Besides, you know my motto,’ said Rob, touching his nose with a conspiratorial grin. ‘Expect the unexpected. Don't you worry, they'll be back. Like I said, they're gagging for it. I can tell.’

* * *

‘How dare he!’ Katie was still apparently brooding on Rob's words about her weight the next day when Emily rang her to see if she'd calmed down yet. ‘I mean, obviously I don't care what that idiot Rob thinks, but – first Charlie told me I'd put on weight and now that prat says I've got fat thighs. I must be enormous.’

Emily made soothing noises down the phone while glancing anxiously at her watch. She had a mountain of stuff to shift before the end of the day, and having rung her soap star and discovered what she'd actually said about the black girl she was meant to be sharing a room with on Love Shack was somewhat worse than even the papers had inferred, Emily had a feeling she might be up all night sorting out the mess. She really didn't have time for a long chat. But Katie always listened to her troubles, so it seemed mean not to do the same. The problem was, Katie had spent so long at home, she'd forgotten what it was like to be in a busy workplace and not have time to make personal calls. Emily looked across the corridor at her boss's office. In a moment, she felt sure that Mel would be on her like a ton of bricks for chatting during office time.

‘Liar,’ said Katie. ‘Thanks for humouring your best friend. I do know I have to lose some weight. But it's not as if he's God's gift, is it?’

‘Hardly,’ said Emily.

‘Mind you, his friend was nice,’ said Katie. ‘You looked very cosy together.’

‘We were not, as you put it, cosy,’ said Emily. ‘Besides, I've got Callum. Why would I look elsewhere?’

‘Why indeed?’ said Katie with just the barest hint of irony.

‘Oh shut up,’ said Emily. ‘Look, I've got to go, Mel is exiting her office and heading my way. So the burning questions is: are we going again next week?’

‘I'll let you know,’ said Katie, and put the phone down.

Katie stared out of the window at her neatly ordered garden. Why had she let Rob get under her skin? Was it because he'd said the same thing as Charlie had about her weight? Or was there something more to it? She shook her head. Thinking about it was a waste of energy. She had a house to clean, a baby to feed, children to pick up from school and dinner to cook. Besides, Charlie was going to be home on Friday, which gave her the perfect opportunity to have a romantic evening in with him. Time she got on and started planning it properly.

Rob wound up his Year Ten lesson on Hitler. Sometimes it felt like the only subject he taught was the Second World War. A whole generation of children were growing up to whom history simply meant the Tudors and Hitler. Oh, and the slave trade. It made him despair.

‘Got a hot date tonight, sir?’ Matt Sadler, one of Rob's more irritating students, piped up in the kerfuffle that followed the end of the lesson.

‘None of your business,’ said Rob, picking up his books.

‘Ooh, are you sure?’ Matt was one of those who just wouldn't leave it alone. He nudged one of his mates and whispered something they both clearly found funny. ‘Only my mate's sister fancies you.’

‘Well she's clearly a woman of taste,’ said Rob, resisting the urge to throw a piece of chalk at him. When Rob had been at school, that's what his Maths teacher, Mr Coombs, would have done. But in these more touchy-feely times, should Rob even contemplate doing something that might cause a moment's misery to one of his charges, he'd end up explaining himself before some snotty tribunal. So instead he swept out of the classroom, ignoring the wolf-whistles and giggles that followed his departure.

Rob shivered. However irritating the likes of Matt Sadler might be, he would never dream of actually throwing the chalk. In the old days, the days when he was a student teacher and he and Suzie had been together, he would have been much more reckless. But that was then and this was now.

Suzie. He hadn't thought about her in years. Maybe Mark was right. That Levellers song in the pub the other night – “Fifteen Years”, wasn't it? – should be their theme tune. He was going to end up a sad, lonely old drunk, sobbing into his pint.

Rob entered the staffroom feeling a bit odd. He wasn't normally this introspective, what had got into him this morning? What he needed was half an hour's sit down and a cup of coffee. He was actually gasping for a fag, but the whole school was now a smoke-free zone. Soon he'd be joining his Year Eights behind the bike sheds.

Rob made himself a coffee and sat down in an uncomfortable ancient chair shoved in the corner of the staffroom. Thanks to Matt he was too late to join in with the conversations already in progress. Not that he felt much like chatting with the twittering women who ran Modern Languages and spent most of their breaks moaning about how unfair it was that the PE department were always trying to muscle in on their lesson time. And he'd had one too many conversations about the latest views on the Big Bang theory with Andy Peacock, head of Physics, just recently.

In the good old days, when he'd first started teaching, you wouldn't have been able to see from one end of the room to the other through the fug of smoke. Now, of course, the diehards like him were among the two per cent of the population made to feel like pariahs.

He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes for a moment. Katie's face floated in front of him. How odd was that? Why was he thinking about her? Her and her fat thighs. He tried to dismiss her from his thoughts, but Katie's face stubbornly refused to go away. Then it came to him.

Katie reminded him of Suzie. Granted, Katie was much plumper, but there was something about her that was so like Suzie it made him wince. Perhaps it was her fair hair – or her petite form. Maybe it was that bright, joyous laugh. Suzie had laughed like that. She had been full of fun and life and joie de vivre. Until that day. Then all the light and love had gone out of her. Gone out of them. Rob tried not to think about all that any more. But damn it, Katie had brought it back.

This would never do. Rob picked up a Guardian someone had left lying around. It wasn't like him to be so anal. And it didn't get him anywhere. Besides, he'd left all that stuff behind a long time ago. He turned to the crossword and had a go at that instead. Much better than dwelling on the past.

Mark was whistling as he entered the surgery that morning.

‘You're cheerful today,’ Diana greeted him.

Ah, good. That made the morning even better. If Diana was here it was much more likely that things would go smoothly for a change.

‘Yes, I am rather,’ said Mark. It was an odd feeling, to be this cheerful. He had spent so many months embroiled in gloom, it was a refreshing change. And one he could only put down to one thing.

Emily.

Mark had thought of nothing else all night long. He hadn't enjoyed being in the company of any women since Sam had left him. And now, suddenly, here was one who had made him sit up and take notice.

It wasn't that he fancied her exactly. Although she did have, as Rob would have put it, All That. But more than that, they had had a laugh. And they had seemed to find common ground really quickly. The time he had spent with her had been all too brief. He hoped that she'd be going along next week.

He had a quick look at his day list, where he could see three root treatments, endless amounts of drilling and filling, a bridge to repair and Granny O'Leary to boot. It would have normally sent him into the doldrums. But not today. He was in too much of a good mood. And thankfully, there was no sign of Jasmine.

‘Have we heard any more about Jasmine's complaint?’ Mark asked Diana at lunchtime.

‘Not a dicky bird,’ said Diana.

‘Perhaps I should ring her?’ Mark asked, not really relishing the task.

‘Oh, you know what Jasmine's like,’ said Diana, 'she'll be on to the next thing soon and it will all be forgotten. Particularly when she's in pain again.’

‘Good,’ said Mark. Diana was right. It would doubtless blow over.

As usual, he barely had time to pause for breath, and by the end of the day three cups of cold coffee were lined up on the side. It was only as he got into his car to go home that he allowed himself to think about Emily again. She was the most attractive woman he'd met since he'd been single and he didn't even know her surname. Or where she lived. Or her phone number.

There was no help for it: he was going to have to go dancing again.

Emily was coming to the end of a long day and feeling absolutely exhausted. She had enjoyed the previous evening much more than she would have thought possible. And it hadn't actually mattered that much that she was crap at dancing. Mark had been equally crap. And she had enjoyed dancing crappily with him. It had been fun. Plus he had been, well, so gentlemanly and attentive. She wasn't used to that after Callum.

She paused from filing away some case notes. Callum versus Mark. Callum was gorgeous, of course. And made her feel gorgeous. He was sexy. He made her feel sexy. He was dangerous, which gave him that edge.

Mark, on the other hand, didn't seem the dangerous type. He seemed sweet and kind and thoughtful. Could she do sweet and kind and thoughtful, after mad, bad and dangerous to know?

Emily laughed out loud. Listen to her. She'd spent, ooh, half an hour in the presence of a very attractive man, and already she was lining him up against Callum. She was being ridiculous. As if he was even interested.

The phone on her desk rang.

‘Someone to see you down here,’ drawled the bored-sounding receptionist.

Emily frowned. She wasn't expecting anyone.

Oh God, no. As she approached the front desk she vaguely remembered Callum had had a big pitch on today. Please don't let him be here and be drunk.

‘Hey babe,’ he said. ‘Am I the dog's bollocks or what?’

‘What, I think,’ said Emily, squirming under the gaze of the supercilious receptionist.

‘I just won the shittest, hottest pitch in town. You are looking at the new account handler of Smile, Please! I am the man. ‘Callum raised his hands above his head and practically beat his chest.

‘Callum,’ hissed Emily. ‘I'm at work.’

‘I just wanted to see you, babe,’ he said, lighting up a cigarette.

‘This is a non-smoking office,’ said John Turnbull, one of Emily's more likeable colleagues, who'd just walked in.

‘Sweets for my sweet,’ said Callum, ignoring him and proffering a rather squashed box of chocolates.

‘Thanks very much,’ said Emily. ‘But can you just leave now. I've got stuff to do.’

‘Oh, babe, don't be like that,’ Callum pleaded with her. For once it had no effect. She was furious. How dare he show her up here? How dare he?

‘Callum, I'll be any way I like,’ she said, her manner cold and stiff. ‘Now just go, please.’

‘Do you want any help escorting this waste of space off the premises?’ said John.

‘No, it's all right,’ said Emily. ‘Callum's just leaving, aren't you?’

Something of the coldness of her tone seemed to have pierced through Callum's skull because he shambled off with his cans of Stella. Jeez, he stank like a brewery.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Emily, shamefaced.

‘No problem,’ said John, ‘but you're hot to trot, and he's a wanker. What on earth is a babe like you doing with a twat like that?’

What indeed, thought Emily, as she made her way back upstairs. What indeed … ?

Chapter Six

‘You're going away again?’ Katie sat and faced her husband across the table, laid with her white damask cloth, their Royal Doulton blue and white wedding china, their poshest Sheffield steel cutlery, a vase full of freesias and daffodils and two scented candles.

‘Needs must,’ said Charlie, tucking into the steak Diane that Katie had lovingly prepared. ‘This is jolly good, by the way. I have to go. The takeover is turning out to be trickier than we thought. In fact,’ he paused, as if uncertain as to what to say next, ‘you may not like this, but there's a distinct possibility that I might have to be permanently in Amsterdam for a while.’

‘No!’ Katie put down the glass of Chablis she was sipping and stared at her husband in dismay.

‘I'm afraid so,’ said Charlie. ‘So we'd better start looking for schools and things.’

‘Woah!’ Katie stood up and looked at him. ‘Charlie, one thing at a time. When you say you have to be there for a while, how long is a while?’

‘Six months – a year tops,’ said Charlie.

‘Don't you think,’ Katie tried to choose her words carefully, knowing how capable Charlie was of twisting them, ‘you might be jumping the gun a bit? We can't just pull the kids out of school. It will be so disruptive for them. When are you going?’

Besides, a little voice was hammering insistently in her brain, we tried living abroad as a family before, and it was a disaster. And you promised …

Charlie had relocated once before, in his previous job, and Katie had had to leave the job where she had met and made friends with Emily. She probably would have done so eventually anyway as she had found it increasingly difficult to manage a career and two young children, but having the decision forced on her hadn't helped. Katie had gone on to spend a miserable year in Frankfurt with a five-year-old and a toddler. She didn't speak the language, had no social network and found the other English wives dreary beyond belief. When he'd seen how unhappy it had made her, Charlie had switched jobs and sworn he'd never put her through that again.

‘Oh, I didn't think of that,’ admitted Charlie.

‘No, you never do.’ Shock and disappointment – that her romantic evening was being tainted by the prospect of changes that could only make her home life worse – made Katie's response more acidic than she'd intended.

‘What's that supposed to mean?’ Charlie looked belligerent.

‘That you only think of what you need and want, and forget about the rest of us.’

‘Don't be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Why do you think I work the hours I do, if not for the family?’

Great. He'd done it again. He could always get her there. Charlie had always worked incredibly hard for them. Now Katie felt guilty. But she was still angry. How dare he just waltz in and assume they would all up sticks without a by-your-leave?

‘I know,’ said Katie, ‘but I don't want to live abroad again. It was bad enough last time, and now we‘ve got three kids. It's okay for Molly, she won't know the difference. But the boys have all their friends here. You can't expect them to uproot themselves.’

Charlie seemed to take a step back.

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘I don't know,’ said Katie. ‘Why not try commuting? you've been away more than you've been home recently anyway. And if it's not for long, I'm sure I can manage here.’

‘I'll think about it,’ shrugged Charlie. ‘It's not definite yet anyway.’

‘Oh good,’ said Katie. ‘That's settled then.’ But later, as she followed Charlie into the lounge and cuddled up with him to watch TV, she couldn't help dwelling on it. Neither choice was a great one. And Charlie didn't really seem as bothered as he ought to be about spending the week away from her …

‘Dad, can we have Domino's tonight?’

Beth put on her special pleading look, but Mark was having none of it.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Not tonight. Your mum will kill me if I give you a takeaway again.’

‘Aw, that's so unfair,’ said Beth, with a pretend pout. With her long fair curls and dimples, even at ten she was still able to make a bid for cutest kid on the block.

‘Yup,’ said Mark. ‘But then so is life. Get used to it.’

Sam was always on at him to feed the kids healthily. Mark wasn't a brilliant cook, but he could rustle up spaghetti bolognaise or roast chicken (the kids' favourite) when he had to. And of late, he'd noticed that Rob's bad influence of late-night beers and takeaways were having a rather disastrous effect on his waistline. In order to make amends, Mark had bought a low-GI diet book and was busy trying to find out what constituted low-GI food. White bread, which he loved, alas did not. While rye bread, which he hated, did. One day someone would invent something that was good for him which he'd actually like …

The middle-age spread had come as a shock. Throughout his twenties, Mark had taken it for granted that he would retain his lean, rangy shape without too much difficulty. But when Sam had left him he hadn't bargained for the downward spiral of depression that would follow; a downward spiral which inevitably sent him and Rob to the curry house late at night. Mark was at least grateful that he hadn't started smoking again, though the temptation had been great at times.

Recently he had made more of an effort to get to the gym or to go for the occasional run. He'd never get another woman interested in him if he looked too porky. Not that that seemed to stop Rob, but if Mark was sure of one thing, it was that he didn't want to end up like Rob. And somehow, he intuitively felt, Emily wasn't the sort of person who would want him to be either.

‘How about I make us a stir fry?’ Mark had discovered from his GI reading that this was apparently Good For Him, and Rob, who was a bit of a foodie, had moved in with a wok, so it couldn't be too hard.

‘Can we have sweet and sour?’ Gemma had mooched in from the room she shared with Beth.

‘I think there's some in the cupboard,’ said Mark. He had done a big shop the previous day, knowing that the kids were coming for the weekend. He loved having them and hated being apart from them. Something people often didn't understand. Oh well, they'd say, at least your time is your own now. Or, you've got your freedom back, nudge, nudge, wink, wink – the implication being, You dirty old dog you, why not go and play the field?

But playing the field wasn't as easy as all that. For a start, until meeting Emily, Mark hadn't had the slightest inclination to do so; but also, what people – even women – failed to understand was that Mark came as a package. It wasn't only him, it was his kids too. Love me, love my children. Not all the women you met were likely to want to do that. Mark wondered whether Emily would. He'd gone along with Rob's strictures not to mention the children, but it had felt a bit odd.

‘Here it is.’ Gemma passed over the jar. She hoisted herself onto the worktop. ‘Da-ad,’ she began in a wheedling tone Mark knew all too well.

‘Whatever it is, I'm going to say no,’ said Mark firmly as he cut up some peppers.

‘But Da-ad. You don't know what it is yet!’

‘Okay, what is it?’ Mark turned the heat on and put the wok over the gas.

‘Shelly's-invited-me-to-the-park-and-sleepover-tomorrow-night.’ The words came out in a nervous gabble. Clearly rehearsed, and desperate to get his assent.

‘Who's Shelly again?’

‘You know. Shelly. The one who does dancing with me.’

Oh. That Shelly. The one with the tattoo. And the ring through her nose. And the one who Mark suspected had persuaded Gemma to smoke on at least one occasion.

‘I don't think so, Gemma, do you?’ Mark chucked the vege tables into the wok.

‘Oh Da-a-ad,’ said Gemma. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I don't want you hanging round the park after school,’ said Mark with half an eye on the recipe. He had found a sachet of black bean sauce in the cupboard and tore it open with his teeth.

‘But why can't I go to Shelly's?’

‘Because I say so.’ Mark hated himself the minute the words came out. He'd always sworn he wouldn't use that one on his kids. How parenthood makes hypocrites of us all, he thought. At least he hadn't done the one thing guaranteed to make sure she would stick to Shelly like a limpet, namely let Gemma know just how much he disapproved of her friend. ‘Besides, it's a school night.’

‘So?’ Gemma wasn't going to give up that easily.

‘So don't you have homework or something?’

Mark had chucked the sauce into the pan and turned the flame up a little – the stir fry didn't seem to be frying quite as quickly as it should.

‘Homework sucks,’ said Gemma sulkily.

Mark turned away to face her.

‘So does going to work, but I still have to do it,’ he said. Suddenly he was aware of the smell of burning. He turned round to see the pan had caught fire. ‘Holy shit!’ Mark turned the heat off and grabbed a lid to smother the flames, while simultaneously soothing Beth who had started to scream.

‘But Da-ad –’

‘Not now, Gemma.’ Mark surveyed the charred content of the pan. Apparently stir fry was much harder than he'd imagined.

‘You are so unfair!’ Gemma stomped off to her room. It was only the third time she'd performed that trick that evening. ‘Yup,’ said Mark.