Everything was different then. With more blokes on the island it was more balanced, more normal. He misses Margie and Laura’s dad too. Good old Nat, with his sweet, simple way of looking at things. And Jimmy, of course, who had a more complicated way of viewing the world and sometimes said something that really made you think. Ron is the last man standing. (Callum doesn’t count–he’s up there now on stage looking like a right twat plucking away at the strings of some sort of giant guitar. Ron doesn’t trust men who play instruments, except for the drums.) The island hasn’t exactly fallen apart without the men. As Ron walks aimlessly down the main street, watching the guests happily munching on gourmet pita-fucking-pockets or something or other, getting their tarot cards read, shelling out more money to have their photograph taken with the Munro Baby (Enigma smiling at the camera as if she’s royalty) it occurs to him that this is a pretty slick event and it was his wife who organised the whole damned thing. A few weeks ago, Ron had been involved with a product launch coordinated by an ‘Event Planner’, a blonde in a suit who kept snapping open and shut her mobile phone, running pointy-tipped fingers through her hair and looking harried and important. That ‘event’ had been on a much smaller scale with a lot fewer people, but it had seemed to cause a lot more problems. Yet Margie, who certainly does not have a university degree in event planning, who did a year’s worth of secretarial college when she was sixteen, had organised this whole thing, managed all the staff, organised stuff like sound equipment, without making a fuss at all. He would hear her chatting away on the phone to people, talking about their babies and their hay fever and their holidays, sounding like she wasn’t doing a thing but passing the time of day, when in fact she was running a business.
And Ron feels a sudden painful surge of pride. That ‘Event Planner’ could learn a thing or two from his wife.
Ron stops to watch the fire-eating performance. It’s the guy who does the gardening on the island. Bit of a blockhead. No doubt the women like him. He’s well built. Probably works out every day. Ron puts a hand to his stomach. A bit flabby. He sucks it in and squares his shoulders. Maybe he needs to go to the gym himself. He thinks about the sex this morning. It was great. It was bloody great. But who was that woman? She sure as hell didn’t act like his wife. Not even the Margie of years ago, when they were at it all the time. Ron was always the one who set the pace when it came to sex, but this morning…Thinking about it, Ron feels aroused and simultaneously panicked. What does it mean? What the f**k has she been doing? Her body didn’t feel the same either. It felt firmer, stronger. She’d lost more weight than he’d realised. She looked good. She looked bloody good.
He didn’t really like it.
And tonight, when she was getting ready to go to this Weight Watchers party, she’d been excited, nervous, breathless–as if she were going on a date! She had her hair all pulled back to show off her new skinny cheekbones and she was wearing her diamond earrings and the perfume he’d got her duty-free on his last trip to Singapore. He’d asked again if he could go along and keep her company but she’d insisted that partners weren’t invited and laughed sort of kindly at him, and then, as she was leaving, he thought he’d heard her phone beeping again with another text message.
If some other man had been touching his wife’s body he would…he would…
‘Dad! You look like you’re having a panic attack!’
It’s Veronika, sparky and glittery and dancing around him like a boxer.
‘Veronika!’ Suddenly he is feverish for information. He grabs her arm. ‘Do you send text messages to your mother? Did you text her this morning?’
Veronika rolls her eyes. ‘No, Dad, I guess I didn’t, seeing as I don’t have a mobile phone, seeing as I don’t believe in mobile phones, seeing as I know for a fact that they cause deadly brain tumours. I’ve read all the research. It’s just like smoking and the tobacco companies. There’s a massive cover-up going on. I’ve told you all this before. You don’t listen. Anyway, Dad, I’ve got something to tell you. I want you to meet my friend Audrey. My girlfriend, Audrey.’
Ron drops Veronika’s arm and stares at her but right through her. Margie told him a lie. But Margie is incapable of lying. She’d tried to organise a surprise party for him once and he’d been onto it within seconds. And on her fortieth birthday, when she’d learned the truth about Alice and Jack, she had been distraught. ‘How am I going to live a lie?’ she’d asked him, after she told him the true story, which she was allowed to do apparently because they’d been married for twenty years, so it was OK according to the Law of Connie, after he’d signed a confidentiality agreement, of course.
If Margie had lied it could only mean one thing. She’s having an affair. His wife is having an affair at a Weight Watchers party right now. But wait a sec, there probably is no party! That’s what people do when they’re having affairs. They make stuff up! She’s probably in a hotel! In a Jacuzzi! Drinking champagne with some hairy-chested dickhead, probably in real estate! And champagne goes straight to her head! And she’d be impressed if he told her it was Moët, when it was probably Great f**king Western! And she could be doing anything. She could be…she could be…Ron shudders with violent revulsion.
‘Dad?’
Veronika swims back into view. ‘I know it’s a shock,’ she says kindly.
She knows about the affair! She feels sorry for her humiliated father!
Ron clutches again at her arm. ‘So you know everything? She’s told you all about it? OK. Fine. I can deal with that. Just tell me where she is.’
Veronika’s face scrunches up with irritated confusion. ‘Tell you where who is?’
‘Your mother, of course!’
‘I don’t know where Mum is, Dad. She told me she had to go to some function with her Weight Watchers friend. Oh God, this is just so typical. I’m trying to tell you something important. I’m trying to introduce you to my girlfriend, Audrey.’
The girl sticks out her hand and Ron shakes it. ‘Nice to meet you, Audrey,’ he says automatically. ‘I’m sorry, I have to call my wife right now. There’s a family crisis.’
He pulls out his mobile phone and begins to dial. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again distractedly to Veronika, who has her hands on her hips, her mouth slightly open and that familiar expression of disgusted disappointment.