Furtive Glances

Furtive Glances

Its funny, but they always say the wife's the last to know. In hindsight she thought she’d always known. It all seemed so clear looking back on things. They’d spring apart as she had entered the room. Too many times she’d seen the furtive glances cast between them when they thought she wasn't looking.

She’d suspected very early on in the marriage, just little inklings, nothing concrete, but she’d told herself there was always that one minor detail that would keep them apart, they had to be just good friends... weren't they?

And yet the signs were there, one dead giveaway was the way they worked together in the kitchen. ‘You sit down darling, you've had a hard day. We’ll get the meal ready,’ he'd say. They worked in companionable harmony, one humming the first verse of a song, one humming the second and then joining together to hum the chorus.

They’d swerve at exactly the moment that the other was about to pass. Only two people who had moved together in a syncopated rhythm could move that harmoniously in the small galley kitchen.

People who hadn't been lovers, would clash, head on between the unit and the sink, one dripping bolognaise sauce over the other’s shoes as they smiled in polite irritation. One wanting to scream, ‘Get the hell out from under my feet’. The other thinking, ‘Huh, they invite you for a meal and what happens? You end up cooking the bloody thing yourself.’

But what is actually said is…

’You first.’ He he.

‘No, you first.’ Ha ha.

‘No, I insist.’

‘Age before beauty.’

Then the dance of the pissed ducks begins. They face their partner and it works especially well when one partner has a boiling hot serving dish in their hands, and an inadequate tea-towel between it and skin. They each take a side step towards the sink, smile that polite irritated smile, think a few nasty thoughts and then take a side step to the unit.

The dance proceeds thus until one of them loses it and shouts, ‘Stop right there. Don't move another inch or I'll...’

They weren’t like that at all, one would intuit the other’s moving before they needed to move, a step back a hand at the waist, a passing, a smile, a look. And then back to one of them chopping celery while the other beat eggs.

The signs were there all along, but there was always just that one penis too many that should have kept them apart.

They cooked together, took the kids to the footie match together, they even went skiing in Switzerland once a year and had a whole week together. It was only tolerated because, in return, she got a week at her exclusive, and horribly expensive, health farm. Neither one was prepared to rock the matrimonial boat too hard on that issue.

She thought that life was rather like a non-stick saucepan, that isn't, non-stick. There you are, simmering happily away, and then, wham, you find yourself molded to the Teflon coated bottom of the pan of life, floundering like a mollusc on mogodon.

It wasn't as though he looked as if he batted for the other side. I mean, how could you tell if your fella was a bit curly round the edges. He dressed to the right, had only one ear pierced and, as far as she knew, he'd never possessed a pink handkerchief. He didn't show any abnormal desire to own a large studded leather dog collar, and was very particular about getting his aim correct when they made love.

In fact, their sex life seemed normal enough, twice a week for an average of ten minutes. It went from a cold start to, ‘Oh my god,’ while she thought about Jon Bon Jovi, in a leather G-string, and he said, ‘Oh, hurt me, mamma,’ a lot.

‘It just happened,’ he said. Just happened? Just happened?

Projectile vomiting just happens.

Intense, and unbearably agonizing childbirth, just happens, well eventually. And come to think of it, what sodding good was he then?

Stepping in dog crap as you're just about to get on the bus to town just happens.

Having a heart attack and dying into your steak and kidney pie, in the middle of Coronation Street just happens.

Having it off with your, same sex, best friend does not just happen, for Christ sake.

She popped another chocolate into her mouth and wiped a smudge of Fry’s chocolate cream from the corner of her Decree Absolute.

They’d be signing into their honeymoon hotel now as Mr and Mr Hunter. He’d have put his suitcase on the bed to unpack and he’d be clicking it open round about…Now. He’d be staring down at ten pairs of leather lederhosen, ten pairs of gold lame shorts, three leather caps, twenty muscle back vests, three pairs of size eleven tranny shoes and a pink feather boa round about…now.

The telephone rang and she smiled as she lifted the receiver.