SPELLING IT OUT

Last night it was Hand Tied Floral Arrangements for Beginners.  Although, when I’m ever going to get time to hand-tie a flower arrangement is anybody’s guess.  Tomorrow it’s Coming to terms with Computers which, frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever do.  On Friday I go to Tap Dancing with Libby and endure all the old jokes from my husband about falling in the sink.
         That leaves Tuesday and Thursday for Simon.  One night he plays squash and the other night he goes to the pub with Libby’s husband, Mark, and undoes all the good from the squash.  On those nights I stay in and look after the children, who are old enough now not to need looking after.  So, in reality, I watch Airport and Trust Me, I’m A Doctor while they sit in their rooms and look at things they probably shouldn’t on the Internet.  I do all these courses, activities, hobbies, whatever you want to call them, to give myself a purpose in life.  Otherwise it would be one long round of Sainsbury’s, school packed-lunches and schoolboys’ sweaty socks.  I think I enjoy them, but sometimes I do wonder.
          ‘You look fed up, Stella,’ Libby says as we shuffle-ball-change across the once-beautiful and now scratched polished wood of the school hall floor. ‘You need to get out more.’
          We are in trouble with the teacher because we’ve forgotten our walking canes for our dance routine – again – and in reality they’re only made of the bamboo sticks that supported my runner beans last year, cunningly snapped in half by Simon.  We’ve forgotten our straw hats too and she seems to feel affronted because we don’t take our future in tap seriously enough.
          ‘I don’t need to get out more,’ I hiss back during the hop-step thing I can never get the hang of.  ‘I hardly see Simon now as it is.  He’d go ballistic if I went out on another night.’
          ‘We should have gone to car maintenance classes,’ Libby says, who is never destined to be a natural tapper.  ‘We might have met some new blokes.’
          ‘I don’t want a new bloke.’  Of that I’m sure.  ‘I’d just rather like it if my existing one took a blind bit of notice of me.  And, besides, you don’t meet men at car maintenance classes.  Even in this golden age of equality car maintenance classes are filled with desperate women looking for men to fix their cars for them.’
          ‘That sounds marvellous,’ the tap dance teacher shouts above our erratic shuffling and scraping and our conversation.  ‘You’re all tapping wonderfully.’  I feel we sound rather more like a herd of charging rhinos and I wonder, not for the first time, if she is deaf through years of tapping.  Or mad.  Or both.
          Libby and I flop to the floor, convinced that all this pain endured along to the accompaniment of a Les Dawson-style pianist playing
On The Good Ship Lollipop more times than is good for one lifetime, is deeply beneficial to our thighs and bottoms.  We test our theory to scientific proportions by eating as much chocolate as we can without putting on weight.
          Libby massages her toes before squashing them back into the comfort of her trainers.  Tap shoes are even more hellish than stilettos and remind me that, even at my tender age, I have a bunion coming.
          ‘I paid forty-five pounds for a cut and blow dry last week at that swanky new salon,’ I remind Libby, who is fully aware of the fact.  ‘Simon didn’t bat an eyelid.’
          ‘Maybe you should have told him the price.’
          ‘I wouldn’t want him to have a heart attack.  I just want him to notice.’
          ‘I think I’d have to run naked round the lounge with a rose up my bottom before Mark would think of taking his eyes off Question of Sport.’
          ‘Do you think they still love us?’  I ask and realise that I sound not only wistful, but also more than a little naffed off.
          ‘Do we still love them?’ Libby replies with a wink.  And, for me at least, that’s an altogether easier question to answer.
          ‘I think we just need to sit down and talk.’
          ‘I think that’s the last thing you need.  It only makes matters worse.’
          ‘I have to do something.’
‘Is Simon playing squash on Tuesday?’  Libby asks as we walk to the car.
          ‘Is Tinky-Winky purple?’
          ‘I’ll come round,’ she says and her eyes go all twinkly and mysterious.  ‘I think I’ve got just the thing.’

I go mad and buy us a bottle of supermarket own-brand Chardonnay, which I even remember to chill, and a box of Celebrations which goes to show how reckless I’m feeling because we have, as far as I’m aware, nothing to celebrate.
          Simon pecks me on the cheek and leaves for the leisure centre, weighed down by his sports bag which smells of stale trainers and by life in general.  Our kisses are very perfunctory these days and this was the man who could once make my heart do more somersaults than an acrobat in Russian circus with the mere brush of his lips.  Where did it go?  Down the drain along with the regular application of Domestos, Harpic and Toilet Duck that has become the lynch-pin of my life?
          Libby arrives and can barely conceal her excitement.  ‘Look at this,’ she squeals, pulling a lurid pink book from her handbag as I pour decent measures of wine into our nice glasses.
          ‘Spells for Love, Life and Romance,’ the cover tells me.  ‘Oh Libby, please!’
          ‘It’ll be fun,’ she insists.  ‘It’s just what we need.  I’ve brought all the bits.’  And she slogs her wine down as she delves deep into her Tesco’s carrier bag and pulls out six red economy dinner candles. 
          ‘What are they for?’ I ask warily. 
          ‘You’ll see,’ she says and that worrying wink is back again.

We are sitting on the lounge floor with the book of spells.  The Chardonnay has gone and we’ve started on a bottle of something that we bought on a cheap day out to France that Simon said was only fit for cooking.  It tastes fine to me.  So long as you have a Celebration with each mouthful.
          Libby has set out the candles on saucers in her interpretation of a circle and is trying to focus sufficiently to light them.
          ‘I didn’t know you had an interest in witchcraft,’ I say uncertainly.
          ‘I don’t,’ she tutts.  ‘I won it on the tombola at the school fete.’  She pulls more paraphernalia out of her carrier bag.
          ‘Please tell me that isn’t a dead beetle.’
          ‘Of course it’s a dead beetle.  What sort of spell would it be without one?  All we have to do is put it in this glass of water with some of your hair..’
          ‘…my hair?’
          ‘…and some honey.  Cast the spell over it.  And then get Simon to drink it.’  Libby smiles wildly.
          ‘I can’t give Simon a drink that’s had a dead beetle in it!  He might die.’
          ‘It’s good protein,’ Libby insists, clearly not interested in my complaints.  She flicks at the book of spells.  ‘Now we put on white shirts,’ she instructs handing me one.  ‘Sprinkle ourselves in glitter…’  I get a mouthful of the stuff before I can protest.  ‘And…’  she snips a chunk of my hair with some nails scissors and throws it in the glass, ‘… now all we do is chant the spell.’
          ‘Which is?’
          Libby put on her best spell-casting voice.  ‘Far from me your heart has gone, come back my love, I am the one!’
          ‘How can I say that without laughing?’
          ‘Try.’
          I do try and it takes me seventeen attempts to say it and in between takes we roll on the carpet with laughter while Libby throws glitter over me and my eldest son, who is teetering on the edge of teenage terrors and therefore speaks only Grunt, comes in and grunts in disgust at us.  I never knew magic could be such fun.  I hoover the carpet before Simon comes home.

‘What?  Simon looks suspiciously at me and I realise I’m staring.
          ‘It’s a new brand of orange juice,’ I say.  ‘I wondered what it tasted like.’
          Simon swallows the drink.  ‘It’s fine,’ he shrugs.  ‘Looks like it’s got bits of glitter in it though.’
          ‘Oh.’
          ‘Stella…’  Simon sounds weary.  ‘Do you think we’ve been neglecting each other a bit lately?’
          ‘A bit,’ I agree, staring in amazement at the empty glass and trying to stop my jaw from dropping to the floor.
          ‘I want to get back to being like we used to be.  We do all these sports and stuff separately, I want us to be a couple again.  And do coupley things.’
          ‘I’d like that,’ I say, hoping that the dead beetle doesn’t do my gorgeous husband any lasting harm.
          Simon smiles.  ‘Where are the kids?’
          ‘They’re both out for the day with friends.’
          ‘The whole day?’
          I nod. 
          His smile broadens.  ‘Shall we have an early night?’
          ‘It’s eleven o’clock in the morning…’
          ‘I know,’ he says and grab each others hands and race up the stairs like teenagers.  Teenagers with vocabularies.
          And it’s truly unbelievable.  My love comes back to me and the Russian acrobats and I could weep with delight.  And after we talk and laugh and hold each other, I leave Simon to sleep and slide out of bed, feeling younger than I have in years.  I creep downstairs to phone Libby who is never going to believe this in a million years.

‘Libs!’  I say.
          ‘Where have you been,’ she whispers anxiously.  ‘I’ve been phoning for half the day!’
          ‘The answerphone was on.’
          ‘I know.  I could hardly leave a message.’
          My mouth is suddenly dry.  ‘Why?’
          ‘Whatever you do, you mustn’t let Simon near that spell.’
          ‘Libby you’re scaring me…’
          ‘I don’t know what happened,’ she says.  ‘It must have been the booze or… I don’t know…  Oh crikey, Stella.  I turned over two pages by mistake!’
          My heart has slowed to a dull thud.  There are warnings about this sort of thing all the time.  Why did I not heed them?  How could I have been so stupid!  We should never meddle with things that we don’t understand.  ‘He’s already drunk it, Libs,’ I confess.
          There is a shrieking noise at the other end of the phone and I feel the dread ice my veins.  ‘Libby,’ I urge, but my friend is too convulsed to speak.  ‘Libby!  What have we given him?’
          Finally, while I wait in fear, she composes herself.  ‘It was a spell to stop women getting the menopause!’ she squeals.
          I start to laugh and I can feel tears squeezing out of my eyes and rolling over my cheeks.
          ‘I am so sorry, Stella,’ Libby says.  ‘What can I say?’
          ‘Nothing.’  I smile pointlessly at the telephone.  ‘It was a lot of fun.’
          ‘It was, wasn’t it?’ she says and we giggle childishly again.  ‘What did you ring me for?’
          ‘Nothing,’ I say.  ‘It doesn’t matter.  I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
I tiptoe back up the stairs and Simon is stirring in his sleep.  His dark hair is falling over his eyes and he looks young and carefree.  A smile plays at his lips.  I look at him and feel the thrill of the Russian acrobats revving up for a repeat performance.

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