Jill Mansell - Mixed doubles

It was a match made in heaven. It was perfect.

For the first four years at least.

Things had only started to go really wrong when Patrick, tired of making money for the computer company for which he was working, decided to take the plunge and set up in business on his own. The hours he put in were ridiculous. He made junior doctors look like part-timers.

He would leave the house before Dulcie was awake and return home just as she was crawling back into bed.

‘I never see you,’ she wailed one night when it all got toomuch. ‘You never see me with make-up on. It’s not fair ...’

‘I’m sorry.’ Patrick sat down on the bed and hugged her, getting moisturiser all over the lapels of his best suit. ‘I know it isn’t fair, but I’m doing it for us. From now on things will be better, I promise. I’ll do more work from home.’

He had been as good as his word and the result had been as disastrous as Dulcie had known it would be. She’d have got more conversation out of a Madame Tussaud’s waxwork. Patrick’s body might be there but his mind was so occupied with work it may as well have disappeared on a round-theworld cruise.

Like a small child desperate for attention, Dulcie found herself putting three sugars in the cups of tea she took him, just to provoke a reaction. One evening, frustrated beyond endurance and having read in Cosmopolitan that the element of surprise could pep up a marriage no end, she danced naked into Patrick’s study, threw herself on to his lap and uncorked a bottle of champagne with her teeth. Children, don’t try this at home. All it achieved was foam everywhere, a chipped upper molar and a fused disk drive. All the work Patrick had been about to save was lost and he had needed to stay up all night replacing it.

Dulcie considered suing Cosmopolitan. Her marriage had been pepped down.

‘Get a job,’ Liza had suggested when Dulcie had moaned to her about how bored she was.

‘Are you mad?’ Dulcie looked appalled. ‘The whole point of Patrick working these stupid hours is to make money. The last thing we need is me slogging my guts out as well, earning more of the stuff. That really would defeat the object.’

‘You might enjoy it.’

‘No I wouldn’t.’ Honestly, Liza had the oddest ideas sometimes.

‘Okay, what about charity work? Just a few hours a week.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ cried Dulcie, ‘aren’t I already suffering enough?’

Happily, another of Liza’s suggestions met with greater success.

‘Why don’t you come along to Brunton Manor? Give it a try?’

Brunton Manor Country Club, situated three miles outside Bath, was where Liza went to play tennis and squash. Pru, also a member, swam there two or three times a week.

Dulcie, who was to sport what Scooby Doo was to astrophysics, wrinkled her nose.

‘Don’t give me that look. You might enjoy it,’ Liza argued.

‘People say that when they try and make you eat frogs’ legs.’

‘And you don’t have to do anything sporty if you don’t want to. Brunton’s a country club, not the Foreign Legion. During the day it’s full of pampered housewives drinking gin and ogling the musclemen in the gym.’

Perking up considerably at this news, particularly cheered by the prospect of a little gentle ogling, Dulcie had agreed to go along and check it out.

Brunton Manor had proved a revelation. It was, quite simply, one of the most glamorous country clubs in England.

The old manor house itself, two hundred years old and built of honey-coloured Bath stone, was gloriously situated on the side of a hill with unrivalled views over the Langley Stoke Valley. The estate surrounding the house comprised ninety-three acres of wooded and landscaped gardens.

The sporting facilities were, of course, superb.

The club prided itself on its decidedly upmarket image, and astronomical membership fees ensured it stayed that way. People liked to boast – in passing – that they belonged to Brunton; it was on a par with casually flashing a platinum Amex. If having to pay next year’s fees was likely to keep you awake at night, Brunton wasn’t the place for you. You went somewhere less exclusive instead.

Dulcie had fallen in love with the club at first sight. Brunton Manor was her idea of heaven.

You really didn’t have to be energetic at all.There was an endless supply of gin, as promised.

There was a sun-drenched terrace overlooking the glittering turquoise outdoor pool and – as Liza had also promised – plenty to ogle.

There was a terrific restaurant, a cinema, sunbeds, saunas and a beauty salon. There were evening discos, impromptu parties and barbecues around the pool. It was the easiest place in the world in which to while away all those surplus hours. You could watch other members puffing and sweating their way through step classes or launching themselves around the squash courts.

You could jeer – quietly – at the Wimbledon wannabes playing hopeless tennis. You could admire the miraculous tanned legs of the tennis coaches. You could laze in the sun drinking Pimm’s and pretending to read a book.

Perhaps best of all – and Dulcie felt in this respect it had all the comradeship of an AA meeting, not of course that she had ever been to one – you could moan freely with the other wealthy, bored housewives about your workaholic husband and know they knew exactly what you meant.

As far as Dulcie was concerned, Brunton Manor was the answer to all her prayers. Miraculously, and certainly unintentionally, it had even turned out to be economical, since every day spent lazing by the pool in a bikini was a day not spent shopping in Bath.

The phone rang. Since Patrick was in his study working – well, it was New Year’s Day, a Bank Holiday, what else would you expect? – Dulcie picked it up.

‘It’s me,’ said Liza.

‘Oh well, I’m not speaking to you. That garlic totally wrecked my chances last night. Even Luigi in the wine bar pretended he couldn’t come near me because he’d got flu—’

‘Never mind your snogathon. I had lunch today at the Songbird and guess who was there?’

‘Cliff Richard and Angela Rippon. They were holding hands. No, wait, they were canoodling.

Don’t you love that word?’ Dulcie sighed. ‘Canoodle-oodle-oodling—’

‘Sometimes I wonder about you,’ said Liza.

‘You started it. Go on then, so who was he with if it wasn’t Angela Rippon?’

‘Phil was there. With another woman. In a rubber skirt.’

‘You mean—?’

Liza said firmly, ‘She was the one wearing the skirt. And it isn’t funny. She was awful.’

‘Oh,’ said Dulcie. ‘Were they... um ... canoodling?’

‘Big time.’

‘Oh fuck.’

Dulcie decided there must have been some kind of a mix-up, a typographical error, when God or whoever organised life had been organising Pru’s. She was supposed to have been given a loving husband. Instead she’d been landed with a roving one.

Poor Pru, it wasn’t what she deserved.

‘Did he see you?’

‘No.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘We’re going to tell her.’

When the phone had rung Dulcie had been draped across the sofa watching a trashy New Year’s Day-type film. Now, glancing across at the television, she saw the tear-stained heroine covering her face with her hands and sobbing: ‘But I love him, I love him! Please don’t do this to me ... I love him...’

Dulcie thought uncomfortably that nobody loved anyone more than Pru loved Phil.

‘It’ll kill her.’

‘She should know. It’s only fair. Dulcie, we have to tell her.’ Liza wasn’t a fan of dishonesty.

‘Okay, you do it. If you really have to:’

‘We’ll do it,’ Liza corrected her briskly. ‘Together.’