Linda Phillips - Puppies Are For Life

She swallowed her amazement and gazed back at him; he had actually managed to come up with a solution that let them both off the hook without either of them having to admit they were in the wrong.

Did he really believe his own reasoning, though? His expression revealed nothing, it seldom did, but she thought not. The problem was still obvious to them both, and they really ought to discuss it. But when it came to relationships it was typical of Paul to sweep difficult issues under the carpet.

He couldn’t help being that way: he had been brought up by a single aunt, his parents having been killed in a London air-raid towards the end of the war, and he had had only narrow experience of relationships. His views on parenthood and families were consequently based on ideals, and he couldn’t bring himself to admit that they might fall short in any way.

‘Paul, I –’ she began, but he put a finger to her lips.

‘Don’t let’s waste any more time, analysing,’ he said, turning away. ‘It’s all over. Finished. Forget it.’

‘OK.’ She caved in. She hadn’t the energy to pursue the matter right then.

‘Well, what do you think of this for the funeral?’ she asked, snatching at a hanger and swinging a pleated skirt around on it. ‘I’ve a jacket that matches, somewhere.’

‘It’s fine. Perfect. I like it.’ The relief in his voice was obvious: they were back on an even keel. He flashed her his most wicked grin, which prompted her to throw the garment aside in disgust.

‘It looks like my old school uniform,’ she said.

‘I know; I remember it from your old photographs.’ He squeezed her bottom. ‘Perhaps that’s why I like it.’

‘Cradle-snatcher pervert,’ she murmured, knowing he was nothing of the sort. She nestled against his chest. She hated not being friends as much as he did and wondered again why she had rocked the marital boat. Held tight in the circle of his arms, the temptation to forget her crazy ideas was immense; life would be so much easier if she could do that. Could she?

Paul unbuttoned his shirt and drew her closely against him so that she could feel his erection against her navel. For a moment she tensed and almost prevented him from taking things any further, but then she remembered that they could make love when and wherever they fancied without fear of interruption, or the possible embarrassment of their offspring. It had taken them a while to adjust to this new-found freedom, but when they had got used to the idea they had made love joyfully and with abandon in just about every room in the house.

‘Would you like me to come with you tomorrow?’ Paul asked, unclipping the fastening on her bra. ‘Drive us both up to London?’

‘To the funeral?’ Her head jerked up, leaving the tickly nest of chest hair and the comforting smell of his skin. For Paul to make such an offer was a penance indeed. ‘But why? You hardly even knew my uncle.’

‘Neither did you,’ he tossed back at her, then he quickly compressed his lips. But he was too late; he’d given the game away. Using Uncle Bert as an excuse for his wife’s odd behaviour didn’t wash.

Desire flew out of the window.

‘You’ll hate the funeral, you know you will,’ she said, pulling away from his arms. ‘It’s not your kind of thing. Thanks all the same, Paul, but I’ll go on my own as planned.’

Julia crawled across the mattress to her own side of the bed, her buttocks wobbling invitingly. Leaning out to retrieve her nightdress, she was careful to take her time; Harvey would get a good long – and hopefully stimulating – view. But it was no good and they both knew it, although there was nothing he would have liked more than to oblige her.

‘I’m sorry.’ He sighed, staring helplessly. Oh to feel normal again!

‘It’s OK,’ she said, and collapsed into the pillows.

‘But it’s your birthday …’

‘I said it’s OK. It can’t be helped. Forget it.’

‘But we always do something special on our birthdays.’

‘Well, we’ll have to do something else that’s special, that’s all.’

‘Oh, I’m getting o-o-old,’ he said, dragging the last word out into a long self-pitying moan. ‘Correction, I am old.’

‘You’re only as old as you feel, Harvey.’

‘Right now I feel a hundred.’

Julia knelt up beside him and began pulling the sparse folds of shiny blue satin over her shaggy, highlighted hair. She wriggled, shaking the bed as she eased the garment over her breasts. Harvey looked on morosely as he watched them bounce, rubber-like, back into place. Nothing.

‘Look,’ she said, sliding under the quilt, ‘this is only a temporary thing. It’s like – well – missing periods, you know? You get a shock in your life, a bit of bad news, and the next thing you know your body’s all up the creek. Women are used to this sort of thing. Well, I am anyway; you know what my cycle’s like.’

Harvey did know. He had had to learn to live with it.

‘It’s this being pensioned off that’s done it,’ Julia went on. ‘But we’ll get over it soon. You’ll see.’

‘Made redundant,’ he corrected through clenched teeth. ‘Don’t make it sound even worse than it already is. And it’s nothing whatever like missed bloody periods! For heaven’s sake, girl –’ he thumped the mattress with his fists – ‘don’t you hear what I’m telling you? I’m old. I’m old! They were right, weren’t they? They were right all along.’

‘Who were? What?’ Julia lay back on one elbow and considered getting up. It was probably too early for her yoga class, but anything was better than lying here listening to Harvey in one of his moods. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table, spotted a stack of cotton wool pads and a bottle of nail varnish remover among the debris, and began to take off ‘Burnished Bronze’.

‘Everybody was right,’ Harvey went on. ‘All those kind, well-meaning souls who told us we would regret it.’

‘Regret –?’ The word had caught Julia’s attention.

‘I mean,’ Harvey amended hastily, wrinkling his nose as the acetone hit him, ‘ you must be regretting it. Marrying me. You’ve still got your life ahead of you. And all those things they said about finding it difficult with such a big age gap between us are beginning to make sense. There you are, in the prime of your life. And here am I –’ he looked down at the mound of his body under the covers – ‘a clapped-out husk.’

Julia regarded her husband gravely for a second. Until recently he had not been so – so – negative. Yes, that was the word to describe him these days. She had never seen him like this in all the time she had known him. On the contrary, he had always been so positive, so alive, and vital, and – what did they call it? – motivated. The way she liked him to be. She scarcely fancied him like this. Actually she’d gone off sex a bit herself just lately, so perhaps that had something to do with it …

But these thoughts disturbed her a little so she dismissed them.

‘Oh, you’re being silly, Harvey,’ she scolded. ‘Just because you aren’t in the mood for once doesn’t mean anything at all. Talk about making mountains out of molehills!’

Harvey kept his next thoughts to himself. He couldn’t tell Julia that this morning’s fiasco was the culmination of days of going off it. There had been times when he had had to exercise his imagination even more vigorously than his body, just to see him through. Up until now it had worked well enough. But this time it hadn’t worked at all.

‘I tell you,’ she said, throwing back the quilt to deal with her toes, ‘you weren’t like this when you were working. You were full of energy all the time, not lying around moaning and feeling sorry for yourself.’