Love...Maybe Read online

  Claire sat up in bed hastily, snatching the lover’s missive to safety before it could be crushed and magic-markered to death.

  ‘No, darling. It’s for me,’ she said, prizing the card from its red envelope. ‘From Daddy. Isn’t that nice?’

  Dillon was impressed by the grey teddy bear clutching a bunch of roses. So was she. At least the teddy had the wherewithal to buy roses. But she mustn’t complain.

  She read the limerick in silence, its author watching intently for a reaction from the other side of the bedroom. He still wanted to do her in a field of flowers, to while away the hours. She apparently still inspired him to be her sexy beast and to rhyme sexy beast with sodding Bexleyheath, as if it were even possible to think a sexy thought in Bexleyheath, let alone be a beast. Buffoon. She arranged her face into a convincing smile and set the card on the bedside cabinet. Picked up the first coffee he had made her since her birthday in August. Sipped it and nodded encouragingly.

  ‘Thanks, Dave. That’s lovely.’

  Her partner grinned at her. Pulled his work shirt over his perfectly toned abs. Winked.

  ‘Knew you’d like it, babe.’ Winked again.

  The smell of his aftershave was strong today. He was wearing his best pure silk boxers, which she had bought him as a Valentine’s gift two years ago. She could see the outline of his sizeable manhood beneath the silk, pointing mournfully down at his left thigh. Considered wistfully that it was a long time since she had seen it not ensconced in underpants. Certainly not in a tumescent state. Apart from that time three weeks before Christmas, when she had finally caught him masturbating in the downstairs toilet. Dave said he ‘wasn’t a very sexual person’. But he seemed to be a very sexual person in the downstairs toilet. Perhaps he had a penchant for the particular bouquet of the limescale remover. The libido was a complex thing.

  Trouble was, the Daves of this world were hard come to come by for the Claires, and this particular Claire knew it. She drank her coffee slowly and mused on the imbalance of their match. Where she was mousy, unadventurous and fond of routine, he was gloriously handsome, gregarious and enjoyed some reflected limelight as a self-employed Physiotherapist for Lesser Stars of the Sporting World. In the seven years that they had been together, Claire wondered how she had managed to cling onto this golden-haired eye candy, feeling certain that the pull of her nicely turned wrists and her extensive pharmacological knowledge should have waned as soon as the candles were snuffed out at the dinner party that had occasioned their meeting. Dave’s only shortcomings, on paper, were his simple-minded obsessions with rugby, Formula 1 and crisps. Hers, however, were many and varied, she was sure.

  ‘Meet you in Santorini’s at 8pm,’ Dave said, traversing the bedroom and giving her a peck on the ear. He ruffled Dillon’s blonde thatch, swinging him upside down over a broad shoulder until the boy squealed in despairing delight. Smacked his tiny, pyjama-clad bottom. Blew raspberries on his hip. Together, they went downstairs, leaving Mum to have her ‘lie-in’ until a decadent 7.30am.

  Claire stretched out in her Dalmatian-spotted fleece onesie, farted and reminded herself how lucky she was to have this set-up. A beautiful son. A doting father. A reliable partner. All living under an adequate roof that Dave had bought. And today was a day to celebrate that.

  Dave’s voice resounded from the hall. ‘You be good for the babysitter, champ. Right?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy. Love you.’

  ‘Nice card, Claire!’ Dave shouted up the stairs. ‘Ta. See you!’ He had evidently found the card she had left for him by the kettle.

  At that stage, Claire assessed that the click of the front door heralded 50 per cent of all the Valentine’s Day romance she could reasonably expect as having been delivered in full. But Santorini’s was on the cards, and tonight, of all nights, no matter how tired she was feeling after a long shift in the pharmacy, and no matter how beleaguered Dave’s libido had recently been, what with the legal action over the third-division footballer’s dodgy discs, she would surely enjoy that perfect manly physique for all she was worth. Dave’s body and the things he very occasionally did with it made up almost entirely for his tedious conversation and limited taste in footwear and potato-based snacks.

  *

  It was true to say that Claire was not thoroughly concentrating on matters when her assistant, Belinda, began to talk at her, brandishing her mobile phone at the side of Claire’s head.

  ‘So, I registers on Tinder, right?’ Belinda said. ‘Is you listening, or what?’

  Claire emerged from her reverie and locked the controlled drugs cabinet. In her hand, she clutched the customer’s methadone.

  ‘I’m listening. I’m listening,’ she reassured the assistant. ‘Let me just serve this man.’

  Belinda gasped and waved the phone in front of Claire’s face like a WTF-girlfriend-wake-up-call on a particularly incendiary episode of Jerry Springer. ‘No, Claire, right. You has so got to listen to this.’ She nodded towards the ageing junkie who sat on the plastic chair, urinating through his jogging bottoms with a look of pure satisfaction on his weather-beaten face. ‘He can bloody wait, innit?’

  Suppressing a yawn, half visualising herself in Santorini’s, negotiating an elasticated stretch of mozzarella while Dave kissed her hand in the flickering candlelight, she finally focussed on Belinda.

  ‘Spit it out, Bel.’

  Belinda scratched at her tight, greasy bun of hair and sniffed conspiratorially. ‘I don’t want you to get an anapletipical shock or nuffin, right?’ She grabbed Claire’s arm. Bade her sit in the back amongst the shelves of antibiotics. Searched her boss’s face under the harsh, fluorescent light.

  ‘Tell me!’ Claire could feel a rash itching its way up her throat. Fingered her pharmacist’s name badge.

  ‘Soz, right.’ Belinda showed her the picture on the phone. ‘I was on Tinder, yeah? That’s this dating website, where you meet mans you wanna bone. Right? And I’m swiping to the left on these mingers. And there’s your man, innit? Wiv his belly out. Looking for spanking and all sorts from young blonde girls. Says he ain’t married, which I know ain’t true.’

  Holding her breath, Claire snatched the phone from the girl’s bitten-nailed hand and looked down at a topless Dave. Abs clenched. Grinning that charming piranha grin.

  ‘We aren’t married,’ she whispered.

  Was it him? It was as though a picture-perfect world had suddenly appeared to her in negative. Everything seemed familiar enough but wasn’t quite right. Including this photo. Dave was not entirely recognisable. Perhaps this was someone who just looked like her Dave.

  But no. Claire forced herself to read his description. He had listed himself as working in the sports/health industry. And there, to dispel any shadow cast by doubt, was his discreet tattoo beneath his left pectoral. The red rose of England Rugby. Made slightly wonky over time by the rippling rectus abdominis that he had developed since subjecting himself to the tattooist’s needle as a scrawny lad.

  Suddenly, all those impromptu physio conferences and late evening appointments and unaccounted-for withdrawals from their joint bank account, which he had kept quiet about and which she had explained away in her own head as Dave working hard for their little family … suddenly, they had taken on another, far more sinister form. They were sweaty, clandestine liaisons with cheap women, who thought they were starting something real with an impressive-looking man who rubbed shoulders with Lesser Stars of the Sporting World. A respectable man, who drove a nice Vauxhall and liked only three flavours of crisps.

  Hadn’t there even been a buzzing mobile phone one night, when Dave’s own phone sat, silent and motionless, on the arm of the sofa? Not her phone! And if not hers, then, whose? Now, it was self-evident. More than shock. More than hurt. More than anger, Claire couldn’t believe she had been such a fool. She had wilfully ignored the signals. Her lips prickled cold. Fear clutched her in an unrelenting grip. Dave didn’t love her, despite his rhyming protestations. And his libidinal excitemen
t clearly extended beyond the confines of the downstairs toilet.

  She would be alone with Dillon. A single parent. How would she ever cope?

  Incrementally, over the years, she reflected, Dave had divested her of any real responsibility in their relationship, leaving her with the domestic chores, childrearing and her job. Only within this brightly lit room – a small-town pharmacy with its 1960’s polished composite flooring, decked out with an array of sanitary items, lunch options and combs, alongside its workaday medication – did Claire have any real dominion. And now, she was about to lose a lover-cum-guardian whom she had never actively sought but who nevertheless had placed himself at the centre of her small universe, complete with his overworked abdominal muscles and strong hands.

  It was the worst Valentine’s Day ever.

  ‘I’ve messed up,’ Claire said. ‘It’s all my fault. I’ve pushed him away.’

  Belinda patted Claire’s arm and shook her head vigorously. ‘Mate, that bastard is stepping out on you wiv all kind of skanks on Tinder. You got to kick him to the kerb.’ She toyed with the red, swollen piercing in her nose. ‘Personally, I’d chop his dick off with a rusty spoon.’

  Her assistant’s advice was interrupted as the junkie rose from his plastic makeshift commode and approached the counter. He brought with him a smell of ripe stilton. Slammed a filthy hand down between the till and the glued-down pen-on-a-chain. Met Claire’s bloodshot eyes with a surprisingly direct and alert gaze.

  ‘Hey! You said you were going to find something for my ulcer,’ he said, stepping back and pulling up the leg of his jogging bottoms to reveal a swollen calf. On closer examination, it looked as though somebody had stuck a raw beefburger onto his limb and then topped it off with a bright yellow cheese slice – a colourful display, in sharp contrast to the unanticipated, dazzling white of brand new trainers.

  ‘You really need to go to your GP with that,’ Claire said, turning away.

  Trying her damnedest to suck back the tears that had started to trickle hot down her cheeks, she reached for her BNF handbook – a chunky tome containing all pharmaceutical products on the market at the time of going to print, plus their side effects. She wanted the urine-soaked junkie to sit back down but he merely stood his ground, thumbing a raggedy beard. Smelling like stilton. She had to recommend something. Now was not the time for self-pity. She was a professional. She would shelve her heartbreak until later.

  As Claire started to rifle through the BNF’s pages, in her peripheral vision, she spotted a regular customer, making his way along the vitamins aisle. Someone she couldn’t face being nice to. Not today, at any rate. Frantically seeking an impromptu hiding place, she ducked beneath the counter and peered up at Belinda. Shook her head. Mouthed the words, ‘Don’t let on I’m here!’

  ‘Where you going? What about my ulcer?’ the junkie shouted.

  ‘Leave me alone! Go away!’ Claire hissed.

  The man approached. With a rustle, he put a green prescription chit down onto the pharmacy counter. Cough, cough. The usual, ‘Er, good morning.’ There was always an ‘Er’. Stephen Warton was a hesitant man.

  From below, Claire imagined she could hear him take his pen out of his breast pocket. He clicked the pen into life. Scratching noise as he signed his name with a flourish.

  ‘Alright, Mr Warton,’ Belinda said. ‘You bunking maths again?’

  ‘Hello, Belinda. Ha ha. Still in gainful employment, I see. Jolly good.’

  ‘You says that every week.’

  ‘Ha ha. Is Ms Sykes here this morning? I wanted to get her opinion on … er.’

  Claire’s back was killing her, crouched as she was among the heavy dispensing tubs of dermatitis cream.

  ‘Yeah,’ the junkie said, pointing. ‘She’s down there, hiding from you, by the looks!’

  Claire looked up to find Stephen Warton peering over the counter. He was smiling down at her, his psoriasis stretching across his face like a haphazardly applied cladding of florid, flaking skin.

  ‘Found you! Ha ha,’ he said. He reached inside his anorak and pulled out a small box of supermarket Belgian chocolates. Handed them over, with a rush of crimson colour that quickly suffused his cheeks, making him look like a well-meaning, slightly crusty demon. ‘You ladies are so good to me, and since it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d bring you these.’

  Faced with the gargantuan task of juggling a freshly broken heart and dispensing whatever lotion, potion or pill Stephen needed this week, Claire stood reluctantly. Spoke in a harried, clipped fashion that she did not intend for such a well-meaning man.

  ‘You really shouldn’t have, Stephen. That’s very kind.’ She took the chocolates and thrust them into Belinda’s hands.

  ‘Can I have a chocolate?’ the junkie asked.

  ‘You heard her,’ Belinda said, thrusting the methadone package into his hands. ‘Piss off, cheese legs.’

  He finally shuffled away.

  Without warning, however, Stephen Warton reached out and almost touched Claire’s cheek. ‘You’ve been crying?’ he asked.

  Claire stiffened. Took a step backwards. ‘I’m fine. I have an allergy. Now, did you want to ask me something?’

  He pointed to his head. For a man who must have been in his late forties, he had little grey, but the lank, dark brown hair needed a damned good cut. Stephen Warton, dressed as he was in his anorak, slacks and old-man shoes, was generally lacking in style or perhaps any self-awareness at all. It was as though he had never looked in a mirror. Or met a woman.

  ‘I think one of the children has passed head lice onto me. Do you think you could?’ He gesticulated at his head. Clearly wanted her to have a look.

  But Claire had no intention of getting that close. ‘Sellotape,’ Claire said.

  ‘I thought you’d say that. The other mothers told me the drill.’ He smiled. Pulled a small, white envelope out of his pocket and from that, carefully withdrew a piece of paper on which were stuck three head lice and six nits.

  ‘Aw, Mr Warton, you is alive, man,’ Belinda observed, feigning dry-heaving.

  Claire merely raised an eyebrow. ‘You can buy a bottle of treatment,’ she told the teacher. ‘You just put it on and leave it overnight. It’s easy.’

  He looked down at his shoes. ‘Dillon doesn’t seem to be affected. You’ve done well to keep him clear.’

  This was a risible situation. Here she was, making head-lice-themed small talk with Dillon’s supply teacher, when her partner had publicly ridiculed her by being as sexual a person as it was possible to be with every blonde woman within a twenty-mile radius of their home.

  ‘Look, Mr. Warton,’ she said, barely able to stem the rising tide of grief. ‘Dillon might need some support over the next few weeks. There are going to be some changes. Just keep an eye out for him, will you?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Stephen said. ‘Is everything all right at home?’

  Despite her best intentions, Claire found her face leaking uncontrollably while she unburdened herself to a man who was known to her in an almost intimate way, but only for his various fungal infections, sometime asthma, occasional haemorrhoids and problematic psoriasis.

  The expression on the teacher’s face was one of disbelief, bordering on outrage. ‘He did this to you? A woman who cures the sick and is infinitely patient with the incontinent?’

  Claire nodded.

  ‘And you found out today, of all days?’

  Claire nodded.

  He tutted for a full fifteen seconds. Frowned, as if considering a response. Then …

  ‘Ms Sykes,’ he began, inserting his credit card into the machine and entering his pin, as Belinda handed over his prescription. ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold and you, of all people, know how to administer it.’

  *

  For three hours until lunchtime, between dispensing and offering advice on lumbago and blepharitis, Claire brooded over Stephen Warton’s words. She did indeed know how to concoct many things; revenge not being the only d
ish in her repertoire. But what to administer in this case?

  ‘You look like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ Belinda said.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Claire patted her assistant’s arm. Checking her watch, she saw it was already gone 1pm. ‘Go! Get your pasty.’

  As Belinda slammed the door shut behind her, Claire took a look around. There were two CCTV cameras in the shop, moving from side to side and observing her conduct, roughly every thirty seconds. Luckily, the owner of the small franchise was too greedy to install a dedicated camera for the pharmacy counter.

  Counting the seconds carefully, as the CCTV swung jerkily to the left onto the perfume cabinet, Claire yanked open her handbag and began to harvest potentially useful ingredients. Thinking of the good times – when their love was in its infancy, and Dave had actually touched her more than once a month – she grabbed a blister pack from a box of well-man tablets that contained testosterone supplements. Good for the libido. Viagra next, of course, containing sildenafil which would increase the flow to Dave’s unwilling love length. Thirty seconds up.

  Considering vengeance now, as Mrs McGowan came in for a prescription for sodium picosulfate, to biblically cleanse her colon in preparation for her forthcoming endoscopy (she was a martyr to her bowels), Claire snaffled some of the extreme laxative.

  Next, an elderly man approached the counter, scratching at his nether regions.

  ‘I got scabies off a bus seat,’ he said without preamble. ‘They’re filthy, them buses. Have you got cream I can put on my foreskin?’

  Momentarily dumbfounded, Claire stared at the man. ‘Scabies on your foreskin? Are you sure you caught it off a bus?’

  The old man nodded. Looked shiftily at a carousel containing loofahs and nailbrushes. Boozer’s nose. Musty smell. Who knew where the scabies had come from? Who cared? Claire shrugged, clocked the CCTV tracking away from the pharmacy counter and ushered a bottle of Derbac M into her handbag at the same time as passing a bottle of the potent insecticide to the afflicted customer. Why not?