How to Find Your (First) Husband Read online

  Without taking his eyes from the television, he whispered in a low voice, fish breath on my face, one hand creeping over my thigh, ‘You know what I like, baby.’

  I closed my eyes and sighed. Really? Tonight? Now?

  ‘Mmm,’ I mumbled, wrapping an arm around him, buying myself some time.

  Squeezing him tightly, I hoped the robot on screen might distract him.

  He shifted next to me. ‘Come on, baby, it’s been ages,’ he said in his East Coast twang, his voice rising at the end.

  I snatched my arm back. ‘I just…’ I didn’t know what I just. I just can’t was what I was thinking. I just was not in the mood. I just couldn’t face it. I just…Stewie had been away for a while though, twelve days in fact (he had announced it when he had appeared on my doorstep that evening). I licked my lips, tried to gear myself up, prepare mentally. I could do this. It was fun, playful. He loved it.

  His hand crept higher up my thigh and he turned, snuffling at my neck like an excited piglet. I let him, lying on the sofa, trying to relax, trying to shake off the day. He tugged at my vest top, exposing one breast that he threw himself on with glee. I needed to do this, I needed to remind myself why Stewie was good for me. Recently I had been so mean to him and he hadn’t really done anything wrong. It was my fault and no one deserved that.

  So with a breath and both eyes closed I began, ‘Goose, you big stuuuuuud.’ I could feel Stewie’s hand tense in anticipation, mouth frozen over my nipple, and pause briefly before continuing. ‘Take me to bed or lo…’ Stewie’s hand was pawing at the elastic to my knickers now. I petered out and pushed it away.

  He looked up at me. He had a dash of soy sauce in the corner of his mouth.

  I exhaled slowly, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. ‘I can’t, my heart’s not in it,’ I announced.

  ‘But you always love that line,’ Stewie said, wrinkling his nose and looking lost. ‘You always do Meg Ryan’s accent just perfect.’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Can’t we just have sex tonight rather than all this…?’ I threw my arms wide. ‘All this role-playing. I’m just not in the mood. I’ve spent today being a prawn, Stewie, A PRAWN. I have had enough play-acting.’

  I pulled my top back up from around my waist.

  Stewie drew away, folding his arms. His narrow shoulders and over-large head made him look like an angry letter ‘i’. ‘Fine, have it your way. Anyway, I am now not in the mood.’

  You’re not in the mood?

  ‘Good, well we’ll call it quits then,’ I said, getting up off the sofa, readjusting my shorts and walking through to the kitchen trying to maintain some semblance of dignity.

  I leaned against the counter noting Stewie’s sulking face as he riffled through my magazines on the table next door, his bottom lip jutting out like I’d taken his train set away. Turning around and twisting the tap on, I pretended to do the washing up, circling the cloth over one plate furiously. Stewie had sat back on the sofa watching the wrestling, his mousy hair just visible. Another evening together stretched ahead. Don’t focus on the negatives, Iz. Why do you always have to be such a Thought Bitch? Think of Stewie’s good qualities. The fact he is nice to you, asks about your career, shows an interest. Butting against all this was my uncertainty. How had it come to this? Was this really it?

  Before I moved to America, things had been going reasonably well back in the UK – I’d trained up on live channels selling vacuum cleaners and jewellery at 3 a.m. and had worked on the ITV West news and sports desks for a few months. But I wanted a big break and I’d been single and in need of an adventure. I’d descended on LA with wild hopes, hoping to find fame, fortune and a good-looking homeboy to sweep me off my feet. But all I’d really found was a tiny box of an apartment in a down-trodden part of town, a part-time relationship with Stewie and a ‘temporary’ job as a promotional girl whilst my show reel got ignored on the desks of various producers.

  I could hear Stewie sighing next door, super subtly, and tried to remember what it was about him that I had first been attracted to. We’d met at a party in West Hollywood when I’d been showing off my best party trick (rapping the entire theme tune of Prince of Bel Air, then downing a sambuca shot using no hands). He had looked all dashing and suave standing by a marble column, the reflections from the outdoor pool making him shimmer in the light. He had brought me over a drink, told me he had flown in that night and was flying out again the next morning. I had been bowled over by the Sexy Pilot routine (he had been wearing a jacket with stripes on – very Top Gun) and I’d also had more than the one sambuca. Somehow I found myself crushed up against him in a spare room as he kissed my neck and told me I was beautiful.

  Since then we had seen each other on and off for eight months. He flew internal flights for Cheapee, the budget airline in America, so no transatlantic freebies on the cards. He liked video games, wrestling and watching repeats of Airport. When he kissed me, he liked to hold my face between both hands and look at me. I found it quite unnerving. He never raised his voice or got angry with me, he didn’t say mean things or hurt me. He was sweet: he would bring me freshly squeezed orange juice because he knew I loved it, and he would rub my feet if I said they hurt. Recently it was me who had been the one acting unpleasantly. I hated myself sometimes, when I caught myself in a moment of annoyance, felt guilt prickling: a small voice telling me he didn’t deserve it, hadn’t done anything to warrant my stroppy mood.

  I swallowed. It was just me. Eight hours dressed as a prawn tends to depress a girl. I had to try not to blame others. Stewie was here, wasn’t he? He meant well and he’d been so pleased to see me after twelve days.

  Plastering a smile on my face, I appeared in the kitchen doorway. Clearing my throat, I looked at the sofa. ‘Take me to bed or lose me for ever.’

  The head twitched to the side.

  I repeated the line and turned to walk up the stairs.

  Stewie jumped enthusiastically off the sofa, calling in my wake, ‘Show me the way home, honey.’

  I closed my eyes and stepped into my bedroom.

  Dear diary,

  Andrew is my best friend out of all my friends at school and he said that we will always be friends for ever long. He said I could always go to his house for tea after school if I wanted to. I like playing with him on the Nintendo. We play Duck Hunt and he lets me shoot the laser gun from behind the sofa like we are in a cowboy film.

  It is fun at Andrew’s house as his mum makes us brownies and we have big glasses of cold milk. Andrew’s dad isn’t there at all because he lives in another house with a new wife. It is fun playing. Sometimes I get sad that I don’t have another brother and sister but Andrew says it doesn’t matter if you have friends.

  I x

  Chapter 3

  Stewie left for an early flight and I woke late, stretching both legs out wide and wiggling my toes. Through the white muslin curtains of my bedroom I could make out more white: a cloudy day, some light straining to get in but mostly a nothing-weather day, overcast, not sunny, not rainy, not doing anything. I twisted round, plumped up a pillow and snuggled into it again. Sunday. Sleepy Day. No work required: just me and the apartment. Maybe I would bake something. Maybe I’d finally buy all the ingredients for a Black Forest Gateau: today could be that day.

  I opened an eye. There was no point trying to snooze now as I’d made myself hungry. I needed to get up and forage. Rubbing my face, I opened up a few of the kitchen cupboards, perhaps hoping that some house elf had magically filled them with titbits and treats. There was very little in the flat of note so I improvised and ate an over-ripe banana slathered on a Confetti Cluster Pop Tart that had gone off a while ago. Perched on the bar stool, I looked blankly at the calendar on the wall: a picture of a rabbit trying to kill itself with a cheese grater. The Bunny Suicides never failed to crack my mum up and I
smiled as I thought of her back in England, banana sticking as I swallowed.

  Glad to be on the last bite, I looked across at my laptop, abandoned by the sofa. Firing it up, I sat back, snuggled in the cushions, and waited for the page to load. Clicking on the email icon, I felt a little thrill at seeing four new emails, then depressed to note two of them were trying to sell me something and one wanted to help me attract women with my giant new penis, which was nice but not really necessary. Clicking on the one from Mum, I felt a rush of warmth as the email opened, her flushed face flashing across my mind as I read.

  Hello darling,

  I’m painting in the garden, it’s completely glorious, the brooding hills beyond, the light on the sand, the water frantically lashing at the rocks. My painting is bloody awful but the scenery is just marvellous at the moment. Violent weather. I have bought a brilliant little thing for judging distance from a painting website in America but I think I’m holding it wrong. ANYWAY, how are you getting on with work? Have you had to do any more of those dreadful jobs? I am CERTAIN that someone will soon recognise your potential, darling, and you’ll get a presenting job or five. We thought you were marvellous in that commercial for contact lenses. I definitely believed you were short-sighted.

  So, darling, the main reason I’m writing is to say your father has managed to get himself on the television too! He’ll be on the BBC News tomorrow night (Sunday) being interviewed about something terribly dull to do with vintage cars, but I wanted to let you know as I think he’s really rather proud of himself. As am I. Tune in 9 p.m. our time, it will be towards the end, around those ‘fun’ features that are meant to cheer you up before the weather forecast comes on and we all want to kill ourselves.

  Right, I must be off, this bloody awful picture won’t paint itself, you know.

  A thousand kisses from both of us, well mostly me as your father would NEVER be so OTT, so maybe a quick hug, only shoulders touching, from him.

  Mum x x x x x x

  I giggled and felt a lurch in my stomach for my parents and their warm farmhouse in Cornwall. Dad sitting down with the paper, the blue teapot with the chip in the spout and a buttered crumpet, quietly grumbling because Mum would have spent £800 on something techy that she couldn’t work. Mum flying around the kitchen, striped apron on, probably covered in flour even if she wasn’t using any, producing some gorgeous lopsided sponge cake with real strawberries inside and a tiny jug of single cream to be poured all over it. In the distance through the kitchen window a few stray surfers will be picking their way back over the sands of Polzeath beach.

  So my gentle dad would be on the television doting over the latest vintage car he would have been working on. I hadn’t seen this latest one; he always had something dismantled in the garage and would lovingly clean parts over newspaper on the outside bench after Mum banished him there. His half-moon glasses would be perched on the end of his nose, his tongue poked out in concentration, Brahms playing through the open living-room window. I suddenly felt very alone in the kitchen and reached for my mobile.

  ‘You are cordially invited to English high tea at mine,’

  I tapped.

  Mel, obsessed with my ‘kooky’ British accent and strange British rituals, replied almost immediately: ‘I mean, you guys have finger sandwiches with only cucumber in. I am there. Will you wear the tiara again and pretend to be Kate Middleton?’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ I texted back.

  ‘Dex has to come too. We are currently having the sex!’

  ‘Er…he is very welcome but please stop having the sex when here.’

  ‘I can’t promise that. He is so good at it!’

  ‘Eurgh, you disgust me.’

  Firing up the oven in my galley kitchen, so narrow you can get two people wedged into the middle of it if they cross paths at the same time, I started to rummage through the cupboard for baking equipment. Dusting off the plastic scales and reaching for the sieve, I already felt lighter. Flour, eggs, butter, milk. I decided to make lemon cupcakes in large muffin cases so the sponge would spill over the top of them. The recipe learned years ago during a break-up where I lived on lemon cake and Crackerbread. I tapped out the ingredients. Twisting round to turn on my iPod, I did a single, unashamed ‘whoop’ as Olly Murs pumped out. Stirring everything in together, my arm starting to ache with the effort, my head emptied and I felt calm.

  ‘You wore it!’ Mel exclaimed with glee a few hours later when I opened the door dressed in a pink tea dress and a tiara.

  ‘BOW TO ME, MINION, BEFORE YOU ENTER,’ I said, pointing to the dirt-streaked pavement outside the flat.

  ‘Of course, so sorry, your majesty,’ said Mel, plunging to one knee. ‘Dex,’ she hissed, tugging on his sleeve and dragging him down with her.

  ‘Oh geez, ladies, if you are going to start like that I need to go and buy beer.’

  ‘That is no way to talk to a PRINCESS,’ I boomed. ‘But actually I do have beer. For after.’

  Dex struggled to his feet, rubbing the top of his stubbled head with a tanned hand.

  I craned my neck to reach and give him a kiss. ‘Hey, Dex.’

  ‘Hey, your majesty.’

  Mel was still staring at the ground, her eyes lowered in respect.

  ‘You may rise, Miss Conboy.’ I reached out a hand for her.

  ‘I like your shoes, Kate,’ she said, ‘Now can I wear your tiara?’

  Plonking it on her head, the glossy red hair dazzling in the daylight, I ushered them both inside and up to the flat which smelled satisfyingly of cake and fresh air, the breeze lifting the bottoms of the curtains as we sat at the small table in the living room.

  Pouring Dex a cup of tea and laughing as Mel made ‘oohing’ noises over the cupcakes, I collapsed onto the armchair, threads worn loose on its arms which I picked at as we talked.

  Above the tiny fake fireplace, my mantelpiece was littered with postcards, wedding invitations from friends in England who I hadn’t seen for years who were marrying men I hadn’t met, a small Rubik’s Cube key ring, a dusty tea tin filled with pens and an empty blue ashtray. Dex was absent-mindedly casting his eye along it and then pulled out a postcard, worn at the edges, from behind an invite.

  ‘Cute,’ he commented, holding it up to me.

  ‘It’s one from my grandma in Cornwall,’ I explained. Dex handed it to me and I traced a finger over the cottages in the postcard. The picture was of a tiny village in south west Cornwall and it made me ache for home. This attempt at an English high tea had not come at the best time. I always thought I would be living that chocolate-box dream and had regular fantasies about my life. It always involved some upstanding English gent and I thought wistfully back to my first husband, Andrew, the boy that had said ‘I do’ in the playground all those years ago. He’d left at the end of the term and we’d never had a formal divorce. Beth had hers and I had been witness to it. They signed a sheet of paper that confirmed it in case God had been watching, but I had never done the same and somehow Andrew had always stayed in my mind as the one that got away. The man I might have built my life with. The English husband I dreamed of when I thought about the future.

  ‘I can’t believe you are from there,’ Mel said. She was always asking me to tell her more about England and the queen and whether it was really true that morris dancing was an actual thing that people did and whether I had ever killed a fox on a hunt, met ‘Wills’ or danced around a maypole draped in the St George’s Cross whilst singing the national anthem. I closed my eyes as Dex and Mel giggled over the wedding invitation from ‘Penelope Blythington-Smythe’ and did their version of English accents that made them sound mostly like they were suffering from a dreadful throat illness.

  ‘Will you be so kind as to kiss me, my love?’

  ‘Kiss you!’ screeched Mel, sounding like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. ‘’Ee, I don’t think that is rather proper now.’


  Smiling, I floated away from them to the usual scene in my head. Where I thought I’d be living now, aged twenty-nine, and who I would be living with. A small Victorian cottage, red bricks, tiled roof, porch in the front, roses trained around the side. Lovely white sash windows open, the glass reflecting a perfect English summer’s day: twenty-one degrees, a couple of clouds in the sky, a light breeze, the BBQ waiting on the paved stone terrace to be fired up. A meandering path leading you past an apple tree, strawberry plants clustered around the roots so you could pick one or two and taste a sweet burst of flavour as you bit into the delicate flesh. The smell of lavender hitting you as you step up and push open the door into the house. This would be replaced with the smell of baking bread, the sound of something on vinyl tripping gently through the house as you move through into a hall, all wooden floorboards, a large gilt mirror above, freshly cut flowers in a pottery vase on the side.

  You move through to the large farmhouse kitchen, enormous slate tiles on the floor, a scrubbed pine table, a dresser piled high with glasses, mugs and leaflets about a local farmers’ market. A stable door leading to a small garden bursting with colour, the fields beyond, creeping ivy covering the fences, the lawn complete with cushioned swing set where you could sit and watch the sun sink below a line of trees on the horizon as your husband – cue Andrew – brings you a perfectly made G&T, with cubes of ice, a sprig of rosemary and a slice of lemon in a heavy-bottomed crystal tumbler.

  Andrew’s back from doing something heroic (doctor? vet?) and he appears again over the top of the stable door to smile at you on the swing set, the sunset giving your skin a golden glow so you look absurdly young and healthy. He is tall, broad-shouldered and has thick light-brown hair that will never recede because it is not in his genes. He has an open face that smiles at you indulgently. Maybe he offers you a chocolate on a little plate? He scoots next to you on the swing set and suddenly there is a big tartan rug there and you two cuddle together watching the day end in your perfect home. You hear the sound of a quiet, sleepy village and watch as a few birds overhead fly by.