Chapter 14

‘Bed-hopping businessman Dennis Passey walked out of a 34-year marriage to set up home with his young mistress – NEXT DOOR,’  Emily recited the lurid scoop to Dominic, ‘and you thought it was all jam-making and farming round here!’  She’d swiped the last Sun in Pyke’s that morning, after being told of it by the parish oracle, Sylv.  There was a certain pride in one’s village making the nationals – for whatever dubious exploits.

‘Meanwhile, spurned wife Noreen has been mending her broken heart romping with a string of toyboys at their £500,000 home.  Noreen spoke exclusively to the Sun about their antics, which have kept the curtains twitching in leafy St Matthew’s Close in the exclusive South Staffordshire village of Upper Bratchley – also home to Melvyn Corns, AKA top drag queen Melba Most.

‘The mum-of-two says she is ‘having the last laugh’ with her young hunks while neighbour Elaine Carroll, 31, settles into domesticity with the portly husband Noreen is now divorcing.

‘Dirty Den, 58, began an affair with shapely Elaine, a married beauty consultant, last summer.  Neighbours reported sightings of the factory boss – who underwent hip replacement surgery two years ago – sneaking Elaine into the family conservatory for sly romps while unsuspecting Noreen was out shopping.

‘Noreen said: “Dennis announced he was moving next door with Elaine – and off he went, that day.  As if his affair wasn’t enough of a shock, I’d have to see him every day, with her, rubbing my nose in it.”

‘Meanwhile, Elaine’s heartbroken hubby, Russell, a 36-year-old accountant, had already learned of his wife’s infidelity and fled to the couple’s holiday cottage in the Isle of Wight to recover.  He is now divorcing Elaine on the grounds of her adultery.

‘Noreen said: “It’s Russ I feel sorry for in all this.  He’s a nice chap who doesn’t deserve to be hurt.  Meanwhile, I’m having the last laugh where Dennis is concerned.  A friend, who is also divorced, suggested a night out a month ago, my first after weeks of moping at home.  My confidence was in tatters, but I was amazed by the number of young men who flocked around us.  These chaps certainly appreciate the experience an older woman can bring to the bedroom.”

‘Noreen adds that her no-strings flings keep her soon-to-be-ex-husband awake!  “They say what goes around comes around.  Here I am having the best sex of my life, while Elaine has to make do with poor old Den, who needs a ton of Viagra to get him – ”

‘Actually, to hell with what these dirty rich people are up to,’ Emily slapped the tabloid back on the coffee table, ‘I’d rather concentrate on some steamy romps of our own!’

‘Mmm, like your thinking.’

They were off upstairs.  To her bedroom, since they were at the Smeed house again.  Bruce had taken no further holidays, and his presence precluded sleepovers at the bedsit.

‘He’s got his suspicions after last time,’ Dom grimaced, recalling those sticky questions.  I left that bloody window open for hours, and could have sworn I hoovered up all those petals.  ‘One of my dear fellow tenants must have seen me taking you in and given him a tip-off.’

‘Thought they’d be too stoned out of their brains to notice.’

Dominic and Emily had continued seeing each other for three months since that early Valentine weekend, when they’d remained futon-bound until Dom escorted her home on the darkening Sunday afternoon. 

It was May now; a Friday afternoon they both had free.  Dom had seemed eager to see her for some reason.  Some other reason.

Emily nuzzled post-coitally in his arms; he was twining a kink of her hair round his fingers, until their slackening denoted he’d fallen asleep.

She contemplated his doze-softened face; those legendary eyebrows; the contrast of his inky body hair and the cream duvet modestly across him; the ‘He’s mine!’ kick she derived seeing her own hand splayed across his chest.  Emily thought it would take a very inert heart not to flip like a dolphin at the sight of Dominic Osbourne.  He was also unimaginably romantic, erudite (no other man she’d met delighted so in the language) and attentive.

He was the man for whom she’d deferred New Zealand (though she was of late revisiting her Oceania aspirations) and she was for the most part enjoying spending her homebound gap year with him.

Alone, making love or discussing books, Dominic Osbourne was never anything less than the dream boyfriend.  His interaction – or lack of – with others was a greater worry.

One of Brian’s politer adjectives for Dom was ‘enigmatic’ – and some of his behaviour was becoming harder to pass off as shyness.

They had still never met each other’s friends.  Emily saw Robyn at least twice a week, sometimes Heidi and Rowan too; these nights Dom told her he devoted to his studies, or socialising with university classmates.  He cried off invitations to group events – ultimately Emily gave up issuing them and they drifted into a pattern of keeping their nights out with friends separate.

A tiny, disloyal part of her didn’t mind not acquainting him with Rowan Moss, especially if his reaction about Ian was anything to judge by.

He and her parents would never gel either.  They had issues with, among so much else, her lack of a landline number for him (‘You’re just old-fashioned, Dad – plenty of people just have a mobile’) and the off-limits nature of his flat. 

Their preference, in fairness, was to go out rather than visit one another, so the ‘don’t come round while the landlord’s there’ issue hadn’t excessively arisen.
I had to prise his address out of him, come to think of it. 

Guess it didn’t register at the time, I just put it down to the way subjects change during the flow of a conversation.  Shame I can’t drive yet, I could borrow Mom’s car and pay him a surprise visit, satisfy them that he has no wife tucked away there.  But then I can’t go giving my parents the idea that I’m harbouring suspicions about him.

Emily pondered their warnings about not becoming sucked in by his sob tales – although his poverty, and Paul and Liz Osbourne’s deaths, had become less incessant topics of conversation lately.

But then she saw Dom’s watch face on the bedside table, and pity flooded her.  He’d been carrying it in his pocket for weeks, since his strap snapped.
‘I can’t afford to get it mended, or buy a new watch,’ he’d told Emily.  ‘It’s not a priority, to be honest.  There’s a big clock in the uni lecture hall, so I rarely need one.’  The dismembered face looked so pathetic as to break her heart.

Behind his eyelids Dom’s mind was similarly awhirl.  He was only feigning sleep; her divine face, body, hair and eyes would distract him from rational thought.

He regretted letting her seduce him this afternoon.  He ought to have resisted her enticement to bed; succumbing only undermined the confession he was currently postponing.  He had never had such beautiful sex as with her, though.

He savoured – as though for the last time – the sweet feel of her skin and hair under this hands.  She’s so open and gentle.  She’ll have to end the relationship when – if – I afford her the honesty she deserves.  Such is her character.  Perhaps this trip is fortuitously timed after all.  Perhaps now would be an apt time for wakey-wakeys.

‘Oof, sorry about that,’ Dom blinked with affected drowsiness, ‘old age, I’m afraid.’

‘Talking of which,’ Emily walked her fingers across his chest, ‘I bought your birthday present the other day.’ 

A ping pong ball appeared to be clogging his throat.  ‘I don’t deserve that, Em.  Look, what I wanted to talk to you about was – ’

‘Emily!  Emily, love, where are you?’

‘Fuck!  What the hell is she doing back?’  Dom cursed, so horribly audibly as to blow any hopes of ever endearing himself to Thelma Smeed.  Even while doing panicky ‘shush’ waves at him, Emily was bulleting out of bed and hauling jeans on.

‘I’m up here, Mom, I’ll come down, hang on.’ 

But her mother was on the stairs.  Emily’s eyes were hot bubbles of alarm.  On Fridays Thelma worked the two-to-six shift – on reception at Kingswinford Surgery – and it was only three-thirty.  Emily jerked at her obstinate jean zip.  As the footsteps advanced, she abandoned it angrily and pulled on her T-shirt – no time to faff for her bra.

Thelma was grey and unwell, but managed a scowl as her daughter and Dominic bundled out, ruby-faced and blatantly buttoning clothing.  Emily tempered her ‘I’m twenty-two, you’ll just have to accept I don’t bring my boyfriend home to play Scrabble’ look when she saw her.

‘Mom, you look terrible.  Doc send you home early?’

Thelma nodded in the taut way of migraine martyrs.  ‘One of my heads.  Came on a couple of hours ago.  I was looking more like death warmed up than some of the patients.  Will you get the tea on for me?’

‘Yeah, course.  Early yet, though, isn’t it?’

Well it’s chicken casserole so it takes two hours.  I’d like to eat early then go to bed, ideally.  You can heat the rest up for you and Dad.’

‘And Dom?’  He hadn’t been acknowledged, let alone accounted for in the casserole divvy.  Emily might have guessed the response, though.

‘Not if he’s going to speak of me the way he just did.’  Thelma pressed her fingers to her temple, wincing.

‘Mom, sorry, we were just startled you were home so early.’

‘I can see that.’  Thelma’s sour gaze spotlit their awry zips and buttons.  ‘I don’t feel well enough to cater for guests right now in any case.’

‘Dom’s hardly a guest, though, he’s my – ’

‘Perhaps it is best if I get going.  I’m sorry, Thel…Mrs Smeed.  I’m sorry, Em, I’ll text you in a few days, all right, bye.’  The kiss he gave Emily on his way downstairs was almost a brush in passing.

‘Text me?  But – ’

‘Let him go,’ Dom heard Thelma say.  He would not look round.  Thelma’s homecoming – and his reaction to it – were Fate.  His dramatic exit could appear precipitated by it, and in keeping with his general impression of a man in turmoil.