My Secret Lover

just wants to run
away.
    I’m not so sure about his friend,
who’s fidgeting a bit beside me.
    If I don’t make an on-the-spot
decision, I think I will lose the advantage.
    ‘Look,’ I suggest, ‘there’s something
I’ve forgotten to get in M and S. So I’m going back down now, and when I come
back up, you’ll be gone, right?’
    I speak nice and slowly for Wayne’s benefit.
    He looks at his mate.
    ‘Fair enough?’ he asks.
    ‘Fair enough,’ the mate agrees
grudgingly.
    I run.
    It’s only when I step out of the lift
in the Food Court that I realize how much I’m shaking.
    I know I should call the police, but
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Wayne. We’ve both suffered at the
hands of his brothers. He’s not really a bad lad, just easily led. I’d hate to
see him in prison because he would fall in with terrible people who’d use him.
Anyway, they’ve probably learned their lesson, and no harm done. Don’t really
fancy going back to my car on my own, though.
    I call Andy on my mobile.
    He has sung the message on his
answerphone to that ‘Figaro, Figaro’ song they used to have on the Fiat advert.
    Strangely, I feel compelled to sing
my message back.
    Must be the shock.
    I call Richard Batty, who is with me
in less time than it takes to queue for a cappuccino.
    ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ he
asks.
    ‘I just ran,’ I said.
    ‘We’ll drive straight to the police
station now,’ he says, slowly and loudly, like he’s talking to a deaf old
person, which he’s probably used to with his mother.
    We take the lift to the tenth floor.
    ‘Can You Remember Where You Left The
Car?’
    ‘Over there!’ I point to the empty
space.
    We check the other floors just in
case.
     
    The police sergeant on the desk is
particularly obtuse about understanding what happened.
    Of course, I didn’t give my
attackers the key to my car.
    I am the victim of a mugging, for
Heaven’s sake!
     
    ‘Will you be all right?’ Richard
Batty asks as we turn into my street.
    ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say bravely.
    ‘I don’t like the idea of you being
on your own,’ says Richard.
    Really, you can’t give him the
slightest encouragement.
    ‘Well, I won’t be,’ I say.
    Because oddly enough, Joanna and the
twins are sitting on my doorstep.
    She happened to call me on my mobile
when I was at the police station, but I couldn’t really talk.
     
    ‘You didn’t need to come,’ I say,
giving her a hug. ‘But I’m glad you did.’
    ‘Are you in trouble?’ Joanna asks.
    ‘It’s a long story,’ I say, ushering
them inside.
    ‘Turquoise!’ says Joanna, looking
around.
    ‘You hate it, don’t you?’
    ‘No, it’s very... very refreshing for
summer,’ she says.
    ‘You make it sound like some ghastly
cocktail.’
    Actually, now that I look at it
properly, it is exact colour of a daiquiri made with blue Curagao. A trip to
Homebase will be my top summer-holiday priority.
    ‘Is it all right if we stay for a few
days?’ Joanna asks.
    ‘There’s no need,’ I tell her. ‘It’s
really not as bad as it sounds. My car’s been stolen. End of story.’
    She gives me a
there’s-something-we-have-to-discuss-but-not-in-front-of-the-children look. We
retreat to the kitchen leaving Cy and Ry to fight with the scatter cushions.
    ‘Vlad and I have split up,’ says
Joanna. ‘And he’s threatening to take the children to America.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because he caught me smoking.’
    ‘Cannabis?’
    ‘Marlboro Lights.’
    ‘Bloody Americans!’ I say. ‘They’re
all for a preemptive nuclear strike on Baghdad, but light up a low-tar
cigarette and you’re an unfit mother.’
    ‘We’ve been having a few other
problems,’ says Joanna. ‘I turned a blind eye to the affairs—’
    ‘Vlad’s been having affairs?’
    How dare anyone treat my sister like
that!
    ‘Entre nous,’ says Joanna, ‘I didn’t mind when it
was people at work. He’s so...’ she thinks carefully about her choice of words,
‘athletic... to be honest it was a bit of a relief to hand over the
experimental stuff.’
    Joanna is so good at delegating, she
even subcontracts out the sex part of her marriage.
    ‘But when he started on the au pairs,
and then Totty, actually during the Jubilee party—’
    ‘I thought there might be something
going on,’ I say sagely.
    ‘That’s what Mum said.’
    ‘Oh, she always sees the worst side
of everything. Why did you tell her first?’
    ‘I thought we could stay there,