Jill Mansell - Mixed doubles

‘That bastard,’ Liza hissed as the waitress showed them to their table. The moment they were seated, the blonde slipped off one spiky black stiletto and began teasing Phil with her toes.

Mark looked ill at ease. He hated scenes. (It was another reason Liza had gone off him; his anything-for-a-quiet-life attitude had driven her to distraction.)

‘Who is he?’ He prayed it wasn’t the latest man in Liza’s life. She was in such a weird mood today. He prayed even harder she wasn’t about to start a cat fight.

‘His name’s Phil. He’s the pig my friend Pru’s married to.’ Her dark eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I think I want to kill him.’

‘So that isn’t his wife?’

‘That old bike, are you kidding? My God, the nerve of the man!’

Liza’s knuckles were white around her pudding fork. Mark envisaged the headlines: RESTAURANT CRITIC PUNCTURES DINER TO DEATH.

Or: WOMAN FORKED TO DEATH.

Feeling sick, he said, ‘I don’t think you should cause a scene.’

Liza gave him a pitying look. ‘No, I’m sure you don’t.’

But for once Mark was right. Maybe it was just as well Phil hadn’t recognised her, although his attention was so clearly taken up with his companion she doubted whether her disguise was even necessary. From the look of him, he’d hardly notice if the SAS stormed the restaurant and smoke-bombed the place.

Liza had never had much time for Phil Kasteliz. She wouldn’t have liked him even if he wasn’t an estate agent. Despite working long hours – allegedly – he always seemed tohave plenty of time left over for gambling, drinking and having a laugh with The Lads.

Pru, who adored him, stoutly maintained that she didn’t mind her husband’s late-night excursions to Bath’s clubs and casinos. Phil worked hard, she explained patiently whenever anyone dared to criticise him. He needed to relax. He wasn’t the stay-at-home, watch-a-bit-of-TV and put-up-a-few-shelves type. Anyway, Pru invariably ended up saying, where was the harm? At least Phil wasn’t a womaniser, she had no worries on that score. He was far more interested in roulette.

Shame it wasn’t the Russian kind, thought Liza, who had never believed a word of it anyway.

When you were as generally lacking in moral values as Phil Kasteliz, what would be the point in making the effort to remain faithful? It was like expecting a crack addict to throw up his hands in horror and say: Oh no, I’d never touch grass.

So it didn’t exactly come as a surprise to find Pru’s husband dabbling in adultery, but the urge to kill him was still there.

What annoyed Liza more than anything was the kind of woman Phil was with. It was shaming to Pru. Letting her down.

If he had to cheat on her, he could at least have had the decency to do it with someone who wasn’t a complete dog.

‘Umm ... would you like coffee?’

The young waitress was back, escaping further hassle from the rugby types and looking closer than ever to a nervous breakdown. It occurred to Mark that any stabbing spree instigated by Liza would give the waitress just the opportunity she needed to join in.

Imagine the headlines then:

BLOODBATH AT THE SONGBIRD.

No, even snappier: BLOODBATH IN BATH.

He began to nod. Liza shook her head.

‘Just the bill, thanks.’

As the waitress hurriedly began clearing their table, her hand slipped. The chargrilled pastry Liza had left on her plate slid on to the tablecloth.

‘Oh God I’m sorry—’

Liza wasn’t normally rude but Phil Kasteliz hadn’t improved her mood. She picked up the pastry, examined it speculatively for a moment and said, ‘So am I.’

On their way out they passed within feet of Phil and his lunch companion. The woman, pretending to read Phil’s palm, was saying, ‘... I predict an afternoon in bed with a sexy blonde.’

Phil’s answering smirk was too much for Liza to bear. Just loudly enough for him to hear – and when she was sure he couldn’t see her face – she murmured to Mark, ‘Yes, but where on earth’s he going to find one?’

There was no denying it; when you were in the mood, writing a really bitchy review was fun.

And easy, too. The six-hundred word piece practically wrote itself.

‘Was the chef at the Songbird having an off-day,’ Liza tapped into her word processor, ‘or a day off?’

Too cruel? N000.

.. I couldn’t help noticing the management’s advice to book early in order to avoid disappointment. Well, if you really want to avoid disappointment, my advice to you would be don’t book at all.’

Unfair? Unkind? Maybe, but it was the truth.

.. unable to face the prospect of coffee, we left. Happily, the day wasn’t totally wasted. On our way home we stopped at Reg’s mobile café on the A46. Reg’s egg and chips,’ Liza concluded with a flourish, ‘were heaven on a plate. Not a speck of burnt garlic in sight.’

True? Well, not quite. Reg’s had been shut. But if he had been open, she was sure she would have enjoyed his egg and chips.

Chapter 3

Liza might have envied Dulcie her marriage but as far as Dulcie was concerned, marriage sucked.

Anyway, she had made her New Year’s resolution now. And she was jolly well going to keep it.

Yes, it was a shame, especially when everyone was forever telling you how lucky you were to be married to someone as dishy and wonderful as Patrick Ross in the first place, but they didn’t know what it was really like. Because what was the point of having a dishy and wonderful husband when you hardly ever got the chance to experience his dishyness because all he ever did was bloody work work work?

It was particularly annoying, Dulcie mused, when you had been so sure you’d hit the marital jackpot. After years of falling for the wrongest men imaginable – and boy, had she had a talent for sniffing them out – meeting Patrick had come as such a shock to the system she’d barely known how to handle him. It had taken her months to learn to trust him, to realise she didn’t need to know how to handle Patrick, because he wasn’t playing an elaborate trick on her, he actually was as nice as he seemed.

Weird. It took some getting used to, especially when you were as addicted to bastards as she had been. HHB, Liza had called it, as in: ‘Oh, Dulcie’s HHB. Hopelessly Hooked on Bastards.’

She hadn’t meant to be, but somehow that was always the way Dulcie’s relationships had managed to turn out. Something to do with the adrenalin rush that went hand in hand with chronic insecurity, or some such crap. Reading about it once in a magazine, Dulcie had recognised herself at once. Any man who was nice to you clearly didn’t deserve you and had to be a complete wimp. If, on the other hand, he lied, cheated and treated you like dirt, you obviously didn’t deserve someone as fantastic as he was and were promptly desperate to hang on to him at all costs.

Except Patrick Ross hadn’t been awful to her, nor was he a wimp. He had obviously never studied the rule book. Confusion all round. Patrick was witty, he was smart, he had girls drooling over him everywhere he went. Even Dulcie’s parents had approved of him, which was a startling new experience for all concerned.

Patrick had carried on being charming, phoning when he said he’d phone and turning up when he said he’d turn up. He brought Dulcie presents, made her laugh and never embarrassed her at parties. Other girls, pea green with envy, continued to swoon. Dulcie’s mother even looked once or twice as if she might swoon too.

It took time, but in the end Dulcie couldn’t fight it any more. She resigned her membership of the HHB club and allowed herself to fall in love with Patrick Ross. She was twenty-five, he was thirty-three. She was lazy, he was ambitious. She liked chicken breast, he liked leg. She enjoyed a drink, Patrick ‘Better keep a clear head, big meeting tomorrow’ preferred to drive.