In the cab started to think about how much Mark would have loved the thigh boots.
‘Stoppit,’ said Tom, seeing my face. ‘He would want you to have a life.’
Next I started to panic about the children. Talitha, who has known Daniel since Sit Up Britain days, took out her phone and texted:
<Daniel. Please reassure Bridget that the children are fine and asleep and you will text the moment they’re not.>
No reply. We all stared nervously at the phone.
‘Daniel doesn’t text,’ I said, suddenly remembering. Then added, giggling, ‘He’s too old.’
Talitha put her mobile on speakerphone and called him.
‘Daniel, you bloody old bastard?’
‘Talitha! My dear girl! The very thought of you finds me suddenly, unaccountably, over-aroused. What are you up to at this moment and what colour are your panties?’
Grrr. He was supposed to be BABYSITTING.
‘I’m with Bridget,’ she said, drily. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Yup, all perfectly splendid. Children fast asleep. Am patrolling the doors, windows and corridors like a sentry. I shall be impeccable.’
‘Good.’
She clicked off the phone. ‘You see? It will all be fine. Now stop worrying.’
THE STRONGHOLD
The Stronghold was in a brick warehouse with an unmarked metal door and a buzzer with a code. Tom punched in the code, and we teetered in our insane heels up a concrete staircase which smelt as if somebody had weed in it.
But once we got in, as Tom gave our names for the guest list, I felt a reckless surge of excitement. The walls were brick, there were bales of straw round the edges which made me slightly wish I’d remained as Dolly Parton, and battered sofas. There was a band playing and a bar in the corner, manned by youths who were adding to the atmosphere by looking around nervously, as if a sheriff was going to tie up his horse, burst in in a cowboy hat and break it all up. It was hard to make the people out in the artistic lighting, but it was instantly clear that they weren’t all teenagers, and that there were some . . .
‘. . . very hot men in the room,’ murmured Talitha.
‘Come on, girl,’ said Tom. ‘Get back on that horse.’
‘I’m too old!’ I said.
‘So? It’s practically pitch black.’
‘What am I going to talk about?’ I gabbled. ‘I’m not au fait with popular music.’
‘Bridget,’ said Talitha, ‘we are gathered here to rediscover your inner sensual woman. This has nothing whatsoever to do with talking.’
It felt like going back to being a teenager with the same leaping sense of doubt and possibility. It reminded me of the parties I used to go to when I was sixteen, when as soon as the parents had dropped us off, the lights would go out and everyone would get on the floor and start snogging anyone with whom they had made the most perfunctory eye contact.
‘Look at him,’ said Tom. ‘He’s looking at you! He’s looking at you!’
‘Tom, shut urrp,’ I said out of the side of my mouth, folding my arms across my chest and trying to tug the tunic down to reach the thigh boots.
‘Pull yourself together, Bridget. DO SOMETHING.’
I forced myself to look across, with an attempt at smoulderingness. The cute guy was, however, now making out with a stunning iBabe in short-shorts and an off-the-shoulder sweater.
‘OhMyGod, that’s disgusting – she’s an embryo,’ said Jude.
‘Call me old-fashioned, but I did read in Glamour that one’s shorts should always be longer than one’s vagina,’ murmured Talitha.
We all became crestfallen, our confidence collapsing like a house of cards. ‘Oh God. Do we just look like an ensemble of elderly transvestites?’ said Tom.
‘It’s happened, just as I always feared,’ I said. ‘We’ve ended up as tragic old fools convincing ourselves the vicar is in love with us because he’s mentioned his organ.’
‘Darlings!’ said Talitha. ‘I forbid you to continue in this vein.’
Talitha, Tom and Jude went off to dance, while I sulked on a hay bale, thinking, ‘I want to go home and snuggle my babies, and hear their quiet breathing and know who I am and what I stand for’, shamelessly using the children to gloss over me being old and past it.
Then a pair of legs in jeans sat down beside me on the hay bale. I caught a scent of a MAN, darling, as Talitha would put it, as he leaned in to my hair. ‘Do you want to dance?’
It was as simple as that. I didn’t need to formulate a plan, work out what to say, or indeed do anything but look up into his attractive brown eyes and nod. He took my hand, and hoisted me up with a strong arm. He kept hold of my waist as we walked towards the floor, which was fortunate, given the thigh boots. Thankfully, it was a slow dance or I would have broken an ankle. He had a crinkly smile, and looked in the darkness like the sort of man who appears in adverts for SUVs. He was wearing a leather jacket. He put his hand on my waist and pulled me in to him.
As I laid my arm on his shoulder I suddenly realized what Tom and Talitha were on about. Sex is just sex.
Flashes and pulses of long-forgotten lust started running through me, like Frankenstein’s monster when he was plugged into the electricity, only more romantic and sensual, and I found myself instinctively slipping my fingers to feel the hair on the stranger’s collar, the skin on the back of his neck. He pulled me even closer to him, making it unmistakable that he was into sex at least with someone. As we turned slowly to the music, I saw Tom and Talitha staring at me with a mixture of awe and astonishment. I felt like a fourteen-year-old who’d pulled her first boy. I made a face to stop them doing anything stupid as I felt him, slowly, irresistibly, in manner of Mills & Boon hero, moving his lips to find mine.
And then we were kissing. Suddenly everything started going crazy. It was like driving a very fast car in a pair of stilettos. Nothing had stopped functioning despite years in the garage. One minute I was blocked at every turn and in a flash there were zero restraints and what was I doing? What about the children and what about Mark and who was this impertinent man anyway?
‘Let’s go somewhere quieter,’ he murmured. It was all a plot. Why else would he have asked me to dance? He was planning to murder me and then eat me!
‘I’ve got to go! Now!’
‘What?’
I looked up at him, terrified. It was midnight. I was Cinderella and I had to get back to the cots and the nannies, and the sleeplessness and sense of being totally asexual and staring down the barrel of single life till the end of my days . . . but wasn’t that better than being murdered?
‘Awfully sorry! Must be going. Jolly good! Thanks!’
‘Go?’ he said. ‘Oh God. That face.’
Even as I was stumbling down the wee-smelling stairs I was becoming puffed up by his last phrase. ‘That face’! I was Kate Moss! I was Cheryl Cole! Once in the minicab, however, explaining the whole incident, a glance at my wild expression and drink-bloated features, mascara smeared under the eyes, somewhat ruined the concept.
‘He means tormented by the face of a geriatric mother who’s decided he’s planning to murder her because he’s kissed her!’ shrieked Tom.
‘And then eat her,’ added Talitha, as everyone fell about laughing.
‘What were you thinking?’ said Jude, giggling hysterically. ‘He was hot!’
‘It’s all right,’ said Talitha, recovering her composure and trying to settle elegantly back into the minicab seat, which smelt of curry. ‘I got his number.’
12.10 a.m. Just got back and crept into house. Everything was quiet and dark. Where was Daniel?
12.20 a.m. Tiptoed downstairs and turned on the light. The basement looked like a bomb had hit it. The Xbox was still going, there were Sylvanian bunnies arranged in a line from one end to the other, Barbies, toy dinosaurs and machine guns, cushions, pizza cartons, Krispy Kreme doughnut bags and chocolate wrappers all over the floor, and a tub of melted chocolate fudge Häagen-Dazs upside down on the sofa. They would probably throw up in the night but at least they’d had a good time. But where was Daniel?