To my horror: I thought I glimpsed Stella walking through the main thoroughfare as I stepped from the shopping centre lift: my wife at my side. I prayed, if that was Stella, she was on her way out, even on her way to our hotel to make herself comfortable.
‘This way, darling’ reported my wife. How I have come to hate that word, Darling.
'OK, Honey-pot.' I replied with subtle retaliation. ‘Don’t forget, I need to be-off, by one sharp, meeting with the bank. Remember? Got a couple of figures to work-out, quick deposits and final withdrawal stuff to thrash...very boring, you wouldn't be interested.'
‘Just tell me if you like the dress. Then you can go play with your money till the cows come home for all I care, Darling.’
Real charmer, isn't she, my wife. Is it any wonder..?
‘That reminds me, what time's your mother looking after little Tommy till tonight, she'll need a drive home won't she?’
'Don't try and be funny. Mummy's done a lot for us, you especially, while your business was growing. It was her money, don’t forget. Mummy doesn’t deserve your twisted childish attempts at humor.’
No, that's right...like Hitler didn’t deserve what he got. I'm carried along by my wife's python-like grip about my purple wrist, as she navigates with shameless ease, past fellow brain-dead-shopaholic-zombies.
‘Sorry Hun. Mummy’s great. A real trooper.’ A storm-trooper that is. ‘Show me this dress, Honey-pot. I’m sure it will look great. You’d make a bag of rubbish look good.’
On she skipped and dodged, as oblivious as Joyce Grenfell winning the St Trinian's world hockey championships. We came to a triumphant halt a foot away from her prize: A freestanding rail of disparate dresses, all marked reduced for sale, but all still at the price of a quickie weekend away for two...I promise you.
She pointed excitedly at the chosen one, a skimpy flowered number: her face interestingly flushed, a climax, I'd not seen since little Tommy was but one name amongst a hundred beginning ‘T’ on a page. If honesty had endured as a rule in the tactical engagement we so optimistically thought a marriage, I might have divulged the dress looked ten years too young for her...but, of course, I kept shut, like all well practiced game players would.
But as my wife proceeded to remove the garment from the rail: an unseen hand attempted to take it in the opposing direction. Oh how my wife and phantom owner of this insurgent hand, laughed...nervously. I myself couldn’t have been more shocked if Elvis had jumped up and called me mummy. It was my one o'clock rendezvous: Stella. With her glossy black hair freshly bobbed, just as I liked it, framing her treacle brown eyes, mischievously twinkling, darting from my wife, to me, to the dress.
'Don’t we know you? Quizzed my wife?' No worries, she doesn't suspect a thing. This is just her way of asking who are you, without flattering their ego.
But still...‘No,’ jerked from my gobsmacked mouth...Bloody fool, schoolboy error.
‘Yes, yes, I think we do. It’s Stacy isn't it?’ C-l-e-v-e-r b-o-y. Getting the name wrong; like recalling the girl as some vague unimportant memory.
‘No. Silly boy. You’re Stella aren't you, I remember, the firms Christmas party, three years ago. I was the size of a whale, little Tommy, not quite landed yet: Wasn’t I Darling?’
I said nothing to the whale with the memory of an elephant, just smiled like the limp idiot only my wife could reduce me too.
‘You had old Hodgings sweating like a young buck... yes, didn’t you let him go soon after, darling? You came home, twiddling his little name badge thingy: an emperor toying with a chess piece... I made him throw the ridiculous thing away didn't I, darling?’
'Did you?' Her futile poisoned arrows falling like rain from my reinvigorated amour, all the more bolstered by the chased fair maid, Stella actually being present.
'Hodgings couldn’t keep his mind on the job... Stella. It is you...of course.'
‘Hi, Mrs Williams... Mr Williams, good to see you again...small world.'
'Yes isn't it just. Looking for a bargain Stella? Seems we have the same foolish taste...in fashion.’
'Yes, it seems so, Mrs Williams; but please, it’s the only one, it’s yours, please, you take it?'
'No Stella, I have plenty in my walk-in-wardrobe, already. Isn’t that right, darling Willi?'
The bitch pawed at my cheek, tugging it, Stella looked away, pretending to leaf through alternative dresses. It was like witnessing Nelson’s flag ship giving the French a broadside battering. But why? She couldn’t know about me and Stella, we're so careful...I'm too good at the game, No. It was just her random petulant spite, her jealousy of a younger, prettier woman wanting what she wanted.
‘If you’re sure?’ Replied Stella.
‘Very sure, positively sure...I give it to you...I've got more than enough for now. Anyway, I'm sure Mummy has the number of a very good dry-cleaners, plenty of frocks in my walk-in wardrobe,not seen the light of day yet. Nice, bumping into you, Stella.'
‘Yes Stella.' The words slipping from my sweat ridden lips. 'Take care, I’m sure your boy friend will love the dress.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Williams, Mr Williams, have a nice day.’
My wife smiled, turned and glided away in full sail. She, the victorious flag ship and me, the holed, smouldering frigate trailing to the rear. I didn't look back, I couldn't for what I might witness in those treacle brown eyes. I replaced my position at my wife's side.
‘Nice pretty young girl, Stella, don’t you think?’
She’s trying to trap me. No way lady. I'm back at my game now, admittedly, I was caught off guard, but, Will the Willie Miester is back in the game.
‘Stella, yes, suppose in a-a-a -foreign kind of way.’ Bloody hell, I couldn’t think, what else to say.
‘Thought she’d left the firm same time as Hodgings though?’
Where the hell she going with this now?
‘What do you mean, Honey bun?’
‘Well, the night you were twiddling with Hodgings name badge, you had hers as well. In fact you seemed to be making a point of showing me you were letting them both go.'
‘I still don’t know what you mean? Is there another dress you fancy, is that it my Honey-wunny? I know, forget my meeting with the Bank, lets go for dinner and an early night, your mum’s looking after little Tommy is she not?’
‘Darling, it's just a bit funny you see, it seemed to me, that little miss Cinderella back there was still wearing a name badge just like the ones you designed. Didn’t you notice it...just peeking out below that silk scarf, a scarf, a lot like the ones you've given me in the past, and I can't seem to find anymore.'
She thinks she knows something, she's just got her big gob open, sifting the plankton.
‘Those badges all look the same, Honey Pot. I wouldn’t be surprised if the design I used wasn’t my original idea, anyway.’
‘Of course, Darling, it wouldn't surprise me either. That's it. Silly me. Oh darling she’ll be working for a bank.
'Yes Honey Pot, a bank...no..I mean, yes, a bank orrr..a...investment company or a solicitors, probably?'
Oh, look at the time darling. I must let you go... to your precious rendezvous.
'Sorry Honey Pot, what do you mean?'
'Your meeting with your bank, remember. One o'clock, sharp, isn't that how you put it?'
'Forget the bank, let's go to dinner, just the two of us, like the old days. I'll reschedule my meeting with the bank.'
'Yes, I'm sure you will, that's just the problem. And so, for that reason, and countless others in the past, until now I have chosen to ignore, it won't be my old dresses I take to the cleaners it will be you....my darling money pot!'
(c) B Donnachie 2010