Julia Williams - Pastures New

‘So what do we talk about when we run out of small talk?’ asked Ben eventually.

‘Ooh, I don’t know,’ said Amy. ‘The weather?’

‘Whatever turns you on,’ said Ben, laughing. Then thought, damn, that was a crass thing to say.

Luckily, Amy didn’t seem offended.

‘We-e-ell, I can’t say that the weather is a topic that really gets me going,’ she said, ‘but now you’ve made me curious. What does interest you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, all sorts,’ said Ben. ‘Formula One.’ Amy pulled a face. ‘Okay, we won’t talk about cars. I’m interested in health issues, which we won’t discuss because that’s work. I like politics, but if we think differently we might fall out. Books are usually a safe bet. Oh, and I’m also keen on local history –’

‘Ah, now there you have found a subject close to my heart,’ said Amy. ‘I find local history fascinating. I had to research a lot about Barnet for school trips with Year5. It was really interesting. The kids always laughed when I told them the origin of the phrase “a barnet” for a haircut.’

‘Which is?’

‘Cockney rhyming slang – Barnet Fair, hair,’ said Amy.

‘Right,’ said Ben, laughing. ‘If you’re interested, I’ve got lots of books on Nevermorewell. They reckon there was a hamlet here as far back as Anglo-Saxon times, but the town didn’t really get going till Norman times. They built on a river for obvious reasons, but in olden days it was reckoned to be a healthy sort of place to live. “You’re Never More Well than when you’re in Nevermorewell”, is the saying around here.’

‘Saffron mentioned that,’ said Amy. ‘I’ll have to come back and borrow a few books sometime.’

They smiled at one another, pleased to have found some common ground. Amy glanced at her watch.

‘Sheesh! Is that the time? I’d better get going,’ she said. ‘I need to sort Josh’s tea out.’

‘You could both eat here if you like? I can rustle up a mean stir-fry.’

‘No, thanks, it’s very kind of you,’ Amy said, sorely tempted at the prospect of company as well as someone cooking for her, ‘but he’s got school tomorrow and needs an early night. I really ought to drag him in from the garden.’

They both got up and had another moment’s awkwardness while they nearly fell over each other trying to negotiate round Ben’s tiny table.

Amy’s confusion made her slightly jumpy. Once outside, when they couldn’t find Josh, she started to panic, until Ben laughed and said, ‘I see you’ve found my prized possession.’

At the bottom of Ben’s garden in the far corner was a small garage. With a gleaming black and silver motorbike in it. Amy hadn’t thought about the bike since their first meeting. And there was Josh, sitting triumphantly on the seat, his legs dangling down at the sides. Amy took a deep breath. She should be over this paranoia about motorbikes. Really she should. But she wasn’t. What was it with men and motorbikes? It was Jamie’s obsession with his that had led to his death.

‘Look Mummy, isn’t it cool?’ Josh said. ‘Brmmm, brmm.’

It felt as though he and Ben were laughing at her. Amy screamed, ‘Get off there at once!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Ben. ‘He’s only playing. He won’t come to any harm.’

‘No it is not all right,’ said Amy. ‘Motorbikes are lethal machines used by stupid blokes whose dicks are too small. It is so not all right for my son to play on one. Come on, Josh, we’re going home.’

She grabbed Josh and tore past Ben, hoping he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes, slamming the garden gate shut.

Ben stood watching her go, his mouth wide open. ‘Now what have I done?’ he said.

CHAPTER SIX

Saffron peeked left and right, making sure there was no one to watch her, before diving into Nevermorewell’s answer to Ann Summers: a discreet ‘lingerie’ shop that sold sex toys to make your mother blush. She had the pram with her. Oh lord, how dumb was that? Did other women take their babies out to buy sexy underwear? Was it some kind of bad parenting to take your newborn into an atmosphere rife with passion; a place that boasted Licked Up Love Juice and Pump Up Your Volume Potion? What if someone had seen her? She hadn’t even looked at anything yet and already paroxysms of embarrassment were screwing her up. Two cheerful French girls were chattering away, fingering lacy garments Saffron could barely look at, let alone touch, and she envied their insouciance.

‘Can I help you?’ Saffron nearly jumped out of her skin.

The slim, twenty-something shop assistant appeared friendly enough, but to Saffron it seemed that there was a sneer in her smile: a sneer that seemed to say, What on earth is some fat middle-aged frump like you doing in a place like this? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Who indeed? Saffron already knew this was a big mistake. But, happening to have heard a slot on the Jeremy Vine show about spicing up your sex life, she’d discovered that all she really needed to get her libido going again was to buy some sexy underwear. ‘ You will feel sexy, he will feel sexy, and before you know it you’ll be falling all over each other ,’ the cheery doctor chatting to Jeremy had promised, and heaven knows there’d been precious little of that in the Cairns household of late. So Saffron had decided that sexy underwear was a must.

After a first nervous flit into the lingerie department in M&S, where she had spotted three mums from school, Saffron had lost her nerve and nearly called it a day. But the lingerie shop was on her way home, and even the sexy underwear in M&S seemed somewhat on the chaste side. Instinctively, Saffron felt chaste wasn’t what she was after.

Which was how she’d found herself feeling like a total prat in front of a sneering girl nearly young enough to be her daughter, whose waistline was invisible, although her thong was not, and who oozed sexuality from every pore. Being the age she was, she probably took it for granted. You just wait, Saffron wanted to say, one day you too will turn to blubber.

‘Well?’ The girl was not just sneering, but impatient. Jeez, didn’t they send them on customer-care courses – Remember, ninety-five per cent of your customers are going to be embarrassed, so do try to put them at their ease (the other five per cent will be so uninhibited you will be hiding under the table ).

‘Erm – well, er, canitrythatonplease?’ Saffron pointed to a busty black basque, complete with lacy bits and suspender belt. She hadn’t worn anything like it in years.

‘What size are you?’ The girl, who was all of a size eight, looked Saffron up and down in the certain knowledge that she must be at least an eighteen.

‘Er – fourteen, I think,’ said Saffron. Once upon a time she would have said ten, and after Becky and Matt she had trimmed back down to size twelve. At the moment she was nearer sixteen, but she was damned if she was going to admit that to this jumped-up ten-year-old.

‘Here you are.’ The girl handed over the basque. ‘Do you want anything else?’

‘No, that will be all,’ said Saffron, practically pulling the offending item out of the woman’s grasp. She pushed the pram to the changing rooms, and squeezed into a cubicle. She undressed, wincing a little at the sight of her naked body. Why were changing-room mirrors always so unflattering? She blobbed and sagged in places she didn’t know she had.

She placed the basque over her head, and immediately got entangled in bits of lace and ribbon. She tried to pull it off and realised to her horror it was stuck. She pulled it this way and that, just making out a vision of herself in the mirror, a big fat blob with a bright red face incarcerated in a mesh of black lace. Tugging just that bit harder, she heard a ping, and a button popped off, but it was enough to give her the leeway she needed. She pulled the basque over her head, and panting in disgust she looked at it more closely. On a second glance, she realised she could actually undo the basque at the front, so she duly popped it round her, and tried to do it up again. It was tight going round her tummy, but by the time she had got to her boobs she could barely breathe. It looked like every blobby bit of her was straining to jump out of the bloody thing. Sexy it was not.