‘D’you mean that?’ he said.
‘Yeah, course I do.’ I lurched towards him, puckering up. He obliged me with a kiss, if not the full-blooded snog I craved. ‘You’re fucking lush, you are. I love you so much, oh, my God, so much.’
‘Yeah, I think perhaps the wine … we ought to go to bed, maybe. C’mon, soldier. Let’s get a pint of water to take up with us.’
He’d stood and was pulling me up by my elbow, but all around us a cacophony of protest seemed to form a circle, unintelligible but no less vehement for that.
‘Who do you think you are, telling her to go to bed?’
‘She’s a grown woman, she can make her own decisions.’
‘Tell him to piss off, Pip. He’s not the boss of you.’
I knew that they just wanted Dan to go to bed so they could skin up in peace. I’d told them numerous times that Dan would turn a blind eye just so long as they didn’t try to get him to smoke, but they seemed convinced that he was looking for any excuse to clap them in irons, so they continued in their obstinate practice.
‘Look,’ I said unsteadily. ‘I’m sick of this. As far as I’m concerned, Dan’s proved himself the right man for me over and over again, but you won’t hear a word in his favour. I’m sick of the way you treat him and I’m sick of being pitied and fussed over as if I’m some kind of … oh, forget it. I’m not staying. I’m leaving. Let’s find a hotel. Good luck with married life, eh?’
I made a dramatic exit, slightly marred by tripping over a stray ashtray, and ran out into the street, a storm of blether at my heels. I think Dan was behind me. I hoped he was.
I got to the car and realised I didn’t have any keys and turned to look for him.
But Kez had given chase first and was jogging up behind me, entreating me to wait and come back and listen and nobody had meant it that way and it was all a misunderstanding …
More phrases of this nature were pouring from her lips when she chanced to look in at the back window of the car.
She stopped short and uttered a small scream.
The lights in the upstairs windows of two cottages went on.
‘What the fuck’s that for?’ she demanded, pointing at the back seat.
At first I couldn’t think what she meant, but then the Cabernet fog cleared a little and I remembered what was in there. Oh.
‘What?’ I stalled for time.
‘That! A cane. Like they used to have in schools in Victorian times.’
‘More recently than that, actually, it wasn’t abolished
formally until nineteen –’
‘Whatever!’ she shrieked.
She seemed to remember where she was then and lowered her tone to a confidential murmur.
‘Oh, God, Pip, please tell me … look, there’s a place for you whenever you need it … let me find the number of the local shelter for you … Is it because he’s a cop? You feel you can’t get out of it? It’ll be OK, Pip, I swear. I’ll get my group behind you. We’ll all stand beside you. I’ll blog about it.’
It was only then that I realised the assumption she was making.
And she was right, even though she was also atrociously wrong.
And I had no idea how to even begin to explain. Indeed, my explanations would probably only make things sound very much worse.
‘No, Kez, no, you’ve got the wrong end of the, uh, well, the stick, so to speak.’
‘Are you telling me he doesn’t beat you? I need the truth, Pip. The truth.’
‘The truth is, it’s a, um, a kink. Fetish. You know.’