foursome

Jillian and Graham sat on either side of a silver-plated candelabrum, its twin red candles dripping wax onto the paper tablecloth, empty coffee cups in front of them.

"Don't you want your mint then?" asked Graham. Jill shook her head.

She'd drunk a little too much red wine, and felt slightly sick after pigging-out on a huge slice of chocolate fudge cake smothered in fresh cream which Graham had persuaded her to indulge in for desert.

Graham reached over and took the mint from her saucer. He slipped it from its black and gold wrapper and stuffed it into his mouth. He rolled his eyes as he swallowed and swigged the dregs of his espresso. The dainty coffee cup was dwarfed by his thick fingers, like a piece from a child's tea set. He wiped his moustache with a pink napkin and smiled. Then he reached across the table and patted the back of Jill's hand.

Anyone who had witnessed this gesture could be forgiven for assuming they were lovers. But they were not. When Graham's and Jill's fingers touched it was not with fondness, but as if they were sharing a miniature seance through which they could court the ghosts of their fonner partners, reawaken mutual memories; memories they'd cling to desperately, terrified of the loneliness into which they might plunge if ever they let them go. For where there now were two there had once been four; Graham and Becky, Jill and Derrick.

Becky was Graham's fonner other-half. The ending of their five year romance had not been a clean break, but more a gradual pulling apart; their relationship stretched like a piece of chewing gum between a child's hands, getting thinner and thinner until it finally separated into two limp, messy strands.

Graham blamed Jean-Claude for the split. Jean-Claude had spotted Becky at a hair-cutting competition. He invited her to 'join the team' at his London salon. Becky couldn't resist his offer. Jean-Claude had glamorous

clients and his own range of styling products; Jean-Claude mousse, Jean-Claude wet look gellee, Jean-Claude super finn hold non-aerosol spray.

It was her big chance to escape the tiresome routine of penns and blow waves for office girls and grannies that were the small town hairdresser's lot.

So, off she went to become a celebrity coiffeuse.

One weekend Becky jetted to the Egyptian pyramids with Jean-Claude and another stylist called Bernice. Jean-Claude had been asked to do the hair and wigs for a troupe of dancers who were being filmed for a pop video. The video was for a single called 'She's My Cleopatra.' The dancers were all tanned and muscular; even more exciting in the flesh than they looked on the telly.

After the filming had finished, one of the dancers, a powerfully built Jamaican called Danny, offered to show Becky the night life of Cairo. Be:ky refused his offer. However she did hide from Graham the snapshots BernIce had taken of her and Danny sitting together in front of the Sphinx. Danny's Nubian slave outfit was a bit on the brief side to say the least.

Whilst Becky was away, Graham had braved fierce rain to watch Westing United beaten two nil at home by Kiddenninster Reserves in the Three Counties Senior Trophy quarter final. After the game he had a couple of pints in the clubhouse with Clive Underwood of Underwood's Tool Hire, then he went home for tea. He heated up a frozen chicken Tandoori in the microwave, and ate it whilst watching a mildly erotic movie, a movie he would have been too embarrassed to hire from the video shop if Becky had been there.

When Becky returned from Egypt, she realised all Graham had to offer her was a flabby, white midriff covered in ugly dark hairs that scratched her when they made love and an increasingly miserable disposition broken only by jealous tantrums. His idea of a good night out was a trip in his Ho~da Civic to the multi-screen cinema complex at Swindon followed by a portIon of sweet and sour pork balls from the take away.

It was really no great surprise when, the Thursday after Becky had returned from Cairo, she arrived home from work with a van full of empty cardboard boxes. She filled the boxes with what she wanted and drove the van back to Hampstead in London, where she had arranged to share a basement flat with an animation artist called Charlotte.

"It'll make things easier," she told Graham. "With me having to be there and you so busy here."

Graham lifted his hand to attract the attention of a passing waiter. He ostentatiously mimed scribbling with an invisible pen on his palm to show that he was ready to pay the bill. The waiter bowed his head to show that he had understood. Jill did not offer to pay her half of the bill, although she had earlier resolved to do so. Firstly, because it was only a cheap restaurantnot that she was complaining, but it was. Secondly, she sensed, without understanding completely why, that paying this bill was important to Graham. When they had dined as a foursome, Graham and Derrick always fought to pick up the tab, with Derrick inevitably the victor. She did not want to spoil Graham's evident pleasure at being able to perform this end of dinner ritual without competition. Poor old Graham. He wasn't particularly enthralling company, but he did seem to care about her. At least he'd been there when she'd needed somebody, somebody to talk to.

Jill had just completed her divorce from Derrick, or 'that bastard Derrick' as she generally referred to him. Derrick, according to Graham, would sell anything to anyone.

"He could charm the Arabs into importing sand castles," Graham never tired of saying. "He would have sold Napalm to the Nazis." And the thing that Derrick was best at selling was himself. More precisely, he would sell to women of any age, race or stature, the idea that they would be missing out on one of life's great experiences if they didn't go to bed with him.

Jill once read somewhere that 'the only time British men feel comfortable touching another body is during or after sport, whether it be the naked flesh of a woman in the bedroom, or the muddy, muscle of a man on a playing field.' And certainly, that's all women ever were to Derrick another sport. What she would call adultery, cheating, two-timing, to him was simply 'playing away from home.' Derrick liked to pursue his sport about once a week, in the same way that other men enjoyed a regular work out in the gym. And just as the fitness fanatic liked to devise a new routine of lifts and pulls occasionally, similarly every now and again Derrick, as the thrill of his latest conquest faded, found it necessary to 'worm his way into a fresh pair of knickers.' Derrick's second favourite sport was boxing. Not that he had ever boxed himself, he just enjoyed watching it on Sportsnight. When they were first married Jill always used to bring Derrick a glass of whisky and soda as he sat in front of the TV. She would open the drinks cabinet and take from it an empty glass, a whisky bottle and a soda siphon, and arrange them carefully on a tray. She would carry the tray across the room and set it down on the little table beside him. She would pour a measure of whisky into the glass and add a couple of squirts of soda water, wait whilst he took a sip or two and then take back the glass and add more whisky or water until, with a silent nod, he would signify he was satisfied with the result.

Then he would settle down in his armchair to watch the appalling spectacle (as Jill thought it was) of two men hitting each other as hard as they could. She could never really understand the ins and outs of it all.

When the two men were actually fighting they seemed so callous and savage, inflicting as much damage as possible to their opponents face, as they attempted to batter each other unconscious. Yet between rounds, the fighters sat helpless as babies in high chairs, gloved hands lolling in their laps whilst they had their noses cleaned, faces wiped, shoulders and egos massaged (reminding her rather of how Derrick was between his romantic conquests, the listless moods she used to ascribe to all that overtime he did).

When the fight ended, the boxers' sullen stares would melt, and win or lose, they'd cry like babies, and hug each other, bloodied and battered, panting in each others arms as if they'd just made love. Then, the defeated fighter would raise the victor's gloved fist, acknowledging his status as the ultimate man, the number one begetter of big strong babies that won't take no shit from no-one, who will stand their ground in an aggressive world, man the almighty, man the protector, God's gift to women. Even though he couldn't punch a hole in a piece of paper, that's what Derrick thought he was - God's gift to women. How Jill loathed him! Yet even that night as she celebrated the finalisation of her divorce she couldn't forget him.

Before the meal, she had seen a man at the bar, standing with his back to her, wearing a jacket similar to one that Derrick once favoured. The jacket was slightly too small on the man just as it had been on her former husband. As the man leaned over the bar his shoulder blades pushed up through the soft grey fabric in the same way that Derrick's used to. She remembered how solid his back and shoulders had felt beneath his shirt, the cotton slipping over his skin like a table cloth on polished wood.

As Graham drove Jill home she confided in him.

"Maybe I should never have divorced him, Gray," she slurred.

"No, you did the right thing," said Graham. "You've got to leave it all behind you now and move on."

"Move on Mike? Me? Who'd want me?" She hiccuped.

"Lots of people," he said. "You're a very attractive women."

"That's bullshit Graham. Look at me. I'm a mess."

"Maybe you should grow your hair longer again. I liked it like that," he said.

Jill went into a sulk.

Graham sighed.

"Your hair's nice now. I just thought it suited you better before that's all." He turned to her. "You've got to stop letting it get to you all the time. You never used to be like this."

"Like what?" asked Jill indignantly.

"Oh come on, you know what I mean," said Graham. "Why don't you try being nice to people? It's not their fault you married an arsehole"

"No one likes me," grumbled Jill and stuck her lower lip out.

"That's not true," said Graham.

"They all hate me," muttered Jill.

"No, you're just in a bit of a rut at the moment, that's all," said Graham.

"But you'll get over it. You've just got to forget him."

"Yea like you've forgotten Rebecca," slurred Liz.

"Its all Becky this and Becky that. You keep going on about how you never want her back. So why are her things still lying around the house Graham?" Jill's voice grew louder.

"Why's her old dresses still in the wardrobe? Why haven't you just built a big bonfire with them? Why don't you forget about her Graham?" Graham scowled and gritted his teeth. A muscle started to twitch in his cheek as he put his foot down and accelerated through the deserted streets.

"So tell me Gray," Jill went on, "why haven't you got someone else? You know she's not going to come back."

"That's up to her," he muttered.

"No, it's down to you," said Jill. "You could have moved up to London with her, but you didn't have the guts to drag yourself out of your cosy little shell did you Graham. You didn't have the guts to fight for her. Did you? Did you?"

"OK, I bloody heard you," shouted Graham and slammed his hands down on the steering wheel. "Just drop it will you".

"See that's different," chanted Jill drunkenly. "That's different, that's different."

"Put a bloody cork in it Jill. You're embarrassing yourself," muttered Graham. He slowed the car down again.

"Don't care."

"Just leave it will you," snapped Graham.

Jill pretended to zip her mouth up and emitted a muffled growl from the back of her throat before becoming silent. They drove for a while.

"All right?" asked Graham.

Jill nodded.

Graham slipped his hand onto her stockinged thigh, just inside the hem of her skirt, and gave it a long slow squeeze.

"Gerroff," said Jill, and roughly pushed his hand away.

Her face assumed the distasteful expression of someone who has just bitten into what appeared to be a good apple only to discover a very nasty maggot squirming in its core.

"I'm sorry," said Graham pathetically.

"Uea, sure you are," said Jill.

She folded her arms tightly around herself and shivered. Graham reached forward and moved the heater switch further into the red. He shook his head and snorted a stifled laugh through his nose.

"What's so funny?" asked Jill, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, nothing," said Graham sheepishly. He took his left hand from the steering wheel and toyed with the frayed edge of the leather gear stick cover.

"Go on, tell me what's funny," she insisted.

"No," said Graham. "It doesn't matter."

"Go on, you can tell me," said Jill. She brought her clenched hands together as if in fingerless prayer and leaned towards him. "Go on," she implored. "Go on."

"Well it's just a bit ironic," said Graham.

"Whatsh ironic?" she slurred.

"Well it's just that..." he blushed.

"Just what?" asked Jill.

"Well, since Becky moved up to London," he said, "I haven't hall another woman, not of course that you're just another woman," he added hastily. "I mean I have'n't had another woman in the car. And the thing is I always used to put my hand on her knee when I was driving and I didn't really mean to...I mean, I didn't want you to think that I was..." his voice faltered.

"That's all right Gray," said Jill as he smiled apologetically at her, "I understand."

Oh yea, she understood all right. She could see what was going through his mind. He had a drunk divorcee alone in his car and he accidentally stuck his hand up her skirt. Oh yes, she understood that OK. She wondered whether he had prepared beforehand that pathetic little story about Becky's knee with which he'd tried to explain away his clumsy advance. Or did he just concoct it on the spur of the moment. She glanced coldly at 'good old' Graham who squirmed guiltily in his seat beside her.

"I'm sorry Jill," said Graham. "But, admit it - you'd have been more offended if I hadn't tried?"

"Just take me home," said Jill as soberly as she could.

Graham was too pathetic to be truly threatening, but all the same she felt the grey slab feeling pass over her. That was what she felt when alone with a group of men - in a meeting, a doctor's waiting room, the carriage of a train. Although she had experienced the feeling often, she had never been fully able to explain it until that time she had visited the construction site next to the Regency Hotel, where she worked as a bookings manager.

As she'd stood in the middle of the muddy-puddled, brick strewn site, the shadow of huge concrete slabs on an enormous crane had passed over her. She had looked up to see the sky temporarily replaced by the slab's heavy greyness. And one of the workmen, noticing her shudder, had called out:

"Don't worry love. If they fall on you we'll dig you out and Geoff here'll give you the kiss of life." The men had all guffawed. There had been other comments, whistles, more laughter. The laughter wasn't at all pleasant. She remembered how upon her arrival at the site the labourers had laid down their tools and gathered to stare at her incredulously like a pack of hungry dogs suddenly discovering a startled rabbit has invaded their territory.

The way she felt then was the grey slab feeling.

When they arrived at her house, Jill got quickly out of Graham's Sierra and politely thanked him for the meal. He undid his seat belt and turned off the engine.

"Are you going to be all right now?" Graham asked her.

"Yes, thank you," said Jill.

"I can come in for a while if you like," he offered.

"I'll be fine" said Jill, fumbling for her door key in her handbag. With relief she felt the perspex key fob beneath her fingers. She clutched it tight in her hand.

"Are you sure now?" asked Graham..

"Quite sure," said Jill with a firm smile. "Good night Graham."

She shut the car door. To her relief she heard the Sierra's engine snarl back into life.

Graham revved noisily and squealed away from the kerb. She waved as he drove off, tooting his horn a couple of times.

Jill lay alone in the king-size bed. In her sleep she rolled over to the side of the mattress that had once been Derrick's. She dreamt she could still smell him; toothpaste and whisky, farts and aftershave. Jill clutched the pillow. She could feel his arms around her keeping her warm, her own hair falling across her face, touching her mouth, became the bristles of his moustache, his kiss, her fingers, his fingers. Her hips snaked around the pillow, and she gripped its bulging softness tight between her thighs.