15

  Humphrey had no real complaints about any aspect of his life thus far. It hadn’t exactly been brilliant but it had also hardly been terrible.

  Besides, all of the worst parts of it, generally speaking, had come about mainly as a result of his own actions.

  His professional life had often flirted with disaster but most of that was down to him. And any show business middle man with the name ‘Barney Adams’ amongst his charges was never going to find his chosen career to be easy, that was for damn sure.

  His marriage, well, where on earth would you even start with that one?

  True, Anthea had been unreasonable, difficult and borderline evil, on occasions. But he’d known of her potential long before he’d shared a slice of wedding cake with her. Not that he’d even done that, because Sandra had ended up wearing the entire thing during the reception.

  He would’ve been happy to lick it off her – very happy indeed – but, with his bride already in the sort of mood to give her sister three hearty tiers, he’d decided against it.

  What about his childhood?

  After all, that was where his relationship with his father had plunged – head first – in to the abyss.

  That one was slightly more difficult to apportion the blame for, although Humphrey would’ve been happy to have accepted total responsibility for the fact it’d all gone pear-shaped. There was no denying, he’d been antagonistic and intensely irritating on occasion.

  Plus, it would prevent Michael from being able to take any or all of the credit for anything.

  On paper, the two of them had at least one thing in common: Humphrey’s mother had sodded off and abandoned the pair of them. She’d felt thoroughly neglected and more than a mite pissed off with her life in general, which was, quite clearly, the reason why she’d cleared off. She had grown tired of a life of profligate solo spending and had found herself a man of fewer material means but with plenty of time on his hands. He would’ve had every afternoon free for a start.

  Once he’d dropped off his last gold top.

  Wherever she was now, Humphrey hoped she was happy.

  It did seem a bit unlikely, though.

  Women, on the whole, never seemed to be happy.

  Why was that?

  They were, without doubt, a mysterious and tantalising bunch. Humphrey had learned one thing from his mother’s departure: it wasn’t what a woman said to you that mattered. It wasn’t anything she shouted at you, or blamed you for or accused you of.

  Women were so much more subtle than that.

  He’d tried to get close to Anthea on many occasions. Not in a physical sense, perhaps, because that tended to be far too intimidating.

  No, emotionally.

  He’d resolved to do – just about – anything in his power to try to prove to Anthea that she could actually be happy, although preferably holding short of the one thing that might just have done it for sure: dropping dead right there in front of her.

  Well, she’d said it to him in anger more than enough times.

  If only it hadn’t been so very final, he might have thought about it: just to see if it would indeed have been able to lift her morale.

  In some way.

  It was severely doubtful it ever would though. She seemed to be her own worst enemy. And with an opponent as formidable as that, she really was facing an uphill struggle.

  He’d tried hard to tune in to her wavelength. However, whenever he’d managed to find her frequency, far from giving him an on-air dedication and a sticker for his car, she would inevitably shut down the entire station. By the time she was broadcasting again, she’d be at the other end of the dial somewhere, operating within a completely different genre.

  She didn’t give out too many station idents either.

  You really had to want to find her.

  The problem was, it was the search for her that made her all the more elusive.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The grounds for their divorce had been hideously unoriginal.

  ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’.

  A large umbrella, that one, giving shelter to a multitude of sins.

  On both sides.

  But naturally, only his had ever been previously referred to.

  On a depressingly regular basis.

  Anthea could always find new ways of ridiculing him with regard to his lovemaking talents.

  Or lack of same.

  It was true, he may have given the impression of being a somewhat reluctant romantic participant on occasion. But then, being browbeaten was no aphrodisiac. All he’d ever wanted her to do was shut her trap occasionally, accept the flood of compliments which he was just longing to send her way and relax.

  There.

  Really, how hard should it have been?

  She’d been a very impatient lover, he’d always found.

  Funnily enough, that ought to have made them completely compatible, since he himself was not usually one to ‘hang around’, so to speak.

  She did intimidate him, there was no denying that.

  There weren’t many men she wouldn’t have intimidated really, but that was not necessarily her fault.

  She could hardly be blamed for her genetics.

  That withering look of hers alone had, no doubt, been passed – reluctantly – down the female generations in her family tree like a relay baton.

  There was perhaps more to it than that though.

  For example, that knack she had of lying there, like someone under general anaesthetic, while he was doing his best to make her earth move.

  Seriously, was there any man alive who would not have been put off his stride by that?

  She was self-conscious about being naked in front of him too, which was also something of an obstacle. She’d always insisted upon the lights being turned off and had often advocated the use of a blindfold as well.

  For him that was, not her.

  Again, that had not really been playing to Humphrey’s strengths. Men tended to respond rather well to visual stimuli but they were, pretty much, hopeless at using their imaginations.

  Certainly in situations like that.

  It was highly dangerous too. In fact, he’d actually broken a toe once, while stumbling around, pathetically, in the darkness trying to find her. All things considered, he’d have liked the light left on, just once in a while.

  If nothing else, it would’ve proven to Anthea that he’d actually been in the room there with her in the first place.

  The fact that the average length of time it took for him to enjoy a roll in the hay was significantly shorter than the time it would’ve taken a ninety a day smoker to roll his own cigarette had been down to a combination of factors. Although it always looked like it was his fault, of course it did.

  That was one of the cruelties of nature.

  She’d obviously been reading different women’s magazines to him, over the years, because her expectations of him and his expectations of her seemed to be utterly opposed. While his every waking moment had not exactly been spent engaged in either the planning or the execution of intensive lovemaking activities, that was not to say that he’d made no effort whatsoever in trying to show Anthea just how much he loved her.

  It was a sign of his complete devotion to her, for example, that he’d been prepared to shave that hair off her back: that black stuff that she couldn’t quite reach herself and which she’d, presumably, been hiding – from all and sundry – since passing the age of consent, way back when.

  If that wasn’t love then what the hell was?

  Mind you, he hadn’t been expecting to perform that sort of task on his wedding night.

  Still, he’d coped.

  Which was more than she had.

  Goodness, the row there’d been.

  It turned out that she would’ve happily slept with her new husband, with all of the associated bumping and grinding, but she’d refused – point blank – to engage in any sort of quid pro quo ear-hair trimming.

  Where on earth was the romance?

  Anthea’s own approach to lovemaking laboured, rather hopelessly, under the major influence of one absurd illusion: the idea of simultaneous satisfaction.

  Ridiculous.

  Utterly ridiculous.

  Mutual satisfaction, fine, he could work with that. Two people, doing two different jobs, both with different work-rates and pay-scales, but both completing their tasks at their own pace and within a nice, relaxed and flexible time frame.

  That could’ve worked.

  But not those same two people working simultaneously, rushing to finish things to a deadline, cutting corners left, right and centre and – generally – just getting in each other’s way.

  She was always going to be on to a loser with such a comedic and unlikely plan of attack.

  And that’s how it had seemed to him, sometimes, too.

  An attack.

  Under those circumstances, he’d regarded it as a victory in the stamina department if he could – somehow – keep going long enough to raise his own pulse rate.

  According to his information, gleaned from many editions of ‘Cosmopolitan’ over the years that – relatively fleeting – ‘guest appearance’ by the bloke concerned ought not to have made all that much difference to the woman’s enjoyment at all. Most of that should all have been done and dusted before he’d ever got his small rubber prop from out of its wrapper.

  Indeed, as some sort of ‘grand finale’, his own act might actually have been rather impressive.

  It wouldn’t necessarily have left his audience wanting more either, because the rest of the production would – pretty much – have taken care of all those sorts of needs. The bloke was supposed to be much more important in the show, never mind just being the comedy routine there for cheap laughs.

  He was supposed to be the director, the producer and the choreographer all rolled into one.

  That was where he was meant to be competing for the Oscars, in those important background categories. Anthea was supposed to have been ‘Best Actress’. And not for playing a corpse most convincingly either. By the time the curtain came down on the whole act, she should have been so exhausted that she shouldn’t have been able to speak, never mind criticise him.

  And precisely how many times had they, collectively, swept the board throughout the entire course of their marriage?

  Never.

  Depressing, or what?

  Her approach had never worked.

  Yet, she’d never even let him try his take on things, because she refused to even consider that might be what she was supposed to be aiming for. Although he could barely see what he was supposed to be aiming for, owing to the fear and the darkness.

  And the granny knickers.

  And she used to tell him that she was frustrated?

  Humphrey was apprehensive around horizontal activities at the best of times but her attitude had scarcely made things any easier for him.

  He gained comfort from one thing.

  For all his apprehension, if Anthea could only have seen herself the way he saw her – using infra red spy equipment if necessary – she would’ve known how much he had loved her.

  Indeed, how much he still loved her.