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‘Little Mort never gave you any trouble though, did he?’ said Shay.
‘What?’ Les pulled as much of a face as she could. ‘I was always having to go down the school because he’d thumped other kids.’
‘Yes but he thumped kids for other kids as I remember it.’
‘Just like your Courtney.’
‘Not quite. Mort thumped bullies; Courtney thumped anyone who got in her way, including a few bullies,’ replied Shay. She shook her head as a memory bloomed of having to do the walk of shame yet again to the principal’s office. Courtney always had a cast-iron excuse why she’d laid someone flat and her arguments were so feasible, the principal told Shay her daughter should consider becoming a barrister. Mort, however, was a big lad with fists like hammers and if he ever used his size, it was to stop trouble happening for others – fighting fire with fire. He’d once given a black eye to a boy for picking on Sunny and that was only because Courtney was at home with chicken pox, otherwise he wouldn’t have got a look in.
‘As for worrying about Sunny,’ Les continued, ‘you shouldn’t. He’s away doing his own thing, living with his girlfriend. It’s only right that you’re way down on his priorities. He’ll be filling his boots full of Karoline, before the rot sets in.’
‘You sound like Bruce,’ said Shay.
‘That’s two of us talking sense, then. Did you have a nice time on your anniversary?’
Shay puffed out her cheeks by way of an answer.
‘What?’ prompted Les, when she didn’t add any actual speech to the gesture.
‘I’m not supposed to say,’ said Shay, staring at her half-eaten chicken.
‘Fuck that for a lark. You can’t leave me hanging. What?’
There was no way that Shay could keep it to herself. She needed help and for that, she needed to talk.
‘We had a stunning hotel, the weather was fabulous. We had dinner on Friday during which Bruce got totally arseholed and passed out in bed and was too hungover to do anything the next day so I went off to a bloody cheese factory by myself and ate some pie.’
Les’s face split into a smile which she covered up with her hand and apologised for. ‘Sorry, Shay, but you’re not selling it to me. Why did he get so hammered?’
Here we go. Ready to launch.
‘Bruce…’ She looked to the side as if expecting to see him materialise, ‘He… admitted to me that he’s been having… problems. Downstairs.’
‘By which you mean…’ said Les, making a circle of her thumb and finger and slipping a finger from the opposite hand into the space.
Shay nodded. ‘We haven’t had sex for months. Not even an attempt. I thought he was just tired. I didn’t realise that he couldn’t… you know…’
Les thought about this for a few long moments, then asked.
‘Are you still sharing a bed?’
‘Yes, of course. But he’s at one side and I’m at the other. We might as well have barbed wire down the middle.’
‘Right,’ was all Les said to that and took a breadstick out of its wrapper.
‘Now, it’s just got stupid because he had to tell me buthe didn’t want to and he’s obviously embarrassed and is in a really odd mood. One minute he’s all moony-eyed at me and the next he’s snapping like a crocodile. Did Morton ever have that problem?’
Lesley answered with a hoot of laughter. ‘You are joking. Mort had a permanent stiffy. And he defied all the theories because boozing made him even harder. I will give credit where it’s due, he was fantastic in bed.’
Lesley used to make them laugh with tales about her bedroom shenanigans. She might have been permanently annoyed with Morton, but they had a very robust sex life and she used to say that only in the throes of passion could she ever forget he was a twat.
‘As for Bruce,’ Les went on, ‘well, you can’t pressure him, can you? You’ll have to be patient and back right off. Is he going to see a doctor?’
‘He said he was. I wondered about getting hold of some herbal tablets. I was reading about Horny Goat Weed and Red Ginseng. Holland and Barrett sell them so they must be okay, yes?’
Les wagged the breadstick at her friend, like a conductor’s baton. ‘No, Shay, you can’t. Let him do that. Don’t emasculate him further. So was thereanybedroom activity?’
‘A peck on the cheek. And he told me that he loved me. He got a bit tearful as well, which was really odd.’ An unbidden thought entered her brain then, like a worm sneaking in from the side. ‘Oh my god, what if he’s having an affair?’
