The Black Dress: By the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach

Author:Deborah Moggach [Moggach, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2021-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

Six

I didn’t hear anything for a week. Hope drained away as the days passed and the phone stayed silent. How could I have been so stupid? Of course nothing was going to happen.

And then a plumber arrived. He was a good-looking guy called Lamonte. He said he’d worked for Calvin for years and they’d become mates.

‘He and Angie had great parties,’ he said. ‘Wall-to-wall booze and coke, skinny-dipping, know what I mean? She was a model, gorgeous, legs up to here, but then she got into that Extinction Rebellion malarky and that put the lid on it.’

Sinkingly, my suspicions were confirmed. This Potters Bar Sodom and Gomorrah was hardly my scene; I pictured a MacMansion filled with bling, a triple garage stuffed with gas-guzzlers, and a swimming pool in which Angie and Calvin frolicked with their stoned guests before retiring indoors for a bout of wife-swapping. Extinction Rebellion didn’t quite fit in with this, but never mind, it was none of my business.

‘He was heartbroken when she died,’ Lamonte said. ‘He had to sell her horse last week. Lucky it couldn’t talk.’

‘Why?’

‘Its stable overlooked the hot tub.’

Lamonte grinned at me; he was tall and rangy, the most ravishing man. He pulled a giant spanner from the pouch slung at his hip. Will I ever have sex again? I remembered thinking this at the community hub a thousand years ago, Azra sniggering on her mobile. Was she sniggering with my husband? A wave of desolation swept over me. These brief hopes, so quickly snuffed out – were they worth the pain? Should I simply settle down to an embittered old age, like Pam, with her extensive collection of cacti? Was she to be my only companion?

I gazed into the rain-lashed garden. Testily I thought, can’t it at least snow? It’s February, for God’s sake. Then I realised that it was Valentine’s Day. Greg never took me out to dinner; he said it was too depressing, seeing all those silent couples. But we gave each other cards and he used to mix Negronis and cook us boeuf en daube. I did love him. Now he was gone, our moments of happiness seemed less muddy – more distilled, clearer. More intense than they probably were at the time. But still happiness.

I watched Lamonte packing up his tools, the muscles moving beneath his skin. The heating had come on full blast and his singlet was damp with sweat. He told me he had six children. The eldest was going to babysit while he took his missus out for a slap-up dinner in the West End. ‘We met at school,’ he said. ‘And we’ve never had a night apart.’

‘How much do I owe you?’ I asked sharply.

‘No worries. That’s taken care of.’

I rang Calvin.

‘You shouldn’t have done it.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re too kind. It makes me feel uneasy. Guilty. Oh, I don’t know . . .’

‘Don’t be daft.’

I flung myself on the sofa and put my feet on the coffee table. ‘Anyway, thanks. It’s so generous of you.

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