Good Husband Material

Her eyes widened slightly, then she suddenly removed herself from me in a flutter of flowing green fabric (no wonder I hadn’t seen her in the tree) planting her knee unintentionally – I hope – in a delicate part of my anatomy in the process.

‘Leticia is a nice name,’ Dad said interestedly, giving it an Italian pronunciation. ‘And I am Giovanni Rocco, your new neighbour – call me Joe, everyone does. For six months only we rent this house while our own is renovated – the cracks appear, these old houses in London, they are not well built. And this must be your mamma?’

‘I am Mrs Norwood,’ the fluffy little blonde lady said icily, eyeing Dad with the dubiously surprised expression of one meeting a tall, blond, green-eyed Italian for the first time. (My Mediterranean darkness I owe entirely to my Irish mother.)

‘So pleased to meet you – and your charming daughter. This is my eldest son, Fergal. I have four sons and one daughter. Perhaps you have heard the youngest ones playing in the garden? They love this big garden.’

‘Yes, I have heard them. Normally this is such a quiet, select neighbourhood.’

The girl turned pink and began nervously to pleat the folds of her bloodied skirt. ‘I – I like to hear children playing,’ she ventured shyly. ‘I’m glad to meet you, Mr Rocco.’

‘Joe.’

‘Joe,’ she amended. ‘And I’m so sorry my parrot bit your son, only he escaped, you see, and I was trying to catch him.’

I hauled myself up from where I’d been sitting on the grass, stunned in more ways than one, and the blood dripped down my once-white T-shirt.

‘Oh dear,’ she said guiltily. ‘But it’s only a little bite. Ears bleed a lot, don’t they?’

‘Mine certainly seems to,’ I agreed, smiling down at her, and she blushed again and looked away. ‘Perhaps you should come round later and see how I am?’ I added cunningly.

‘Yes, come for dinner,’ said Dad expansively. ‘I stay home tonight, so I will cook – and what is one or two more? You too, Mrs Norwood, and Mr Norwood, of course.’

‘I am a widow. And I am afraid I am otherwise engaged. And Leticia—’

Seeing she was about to scupper any designs I might have on the angel I interrupted rudely, ‘There’s some disease you can catch from parrots, isn’t there? Psittacosis? Tish really ought to come and check on me.’

‘I … is there?’ stammered Tish, looking frightened. ‘Oh dear, then perhaps I had! And you will put some antiseptic on it right away, won’t you?’

‘You can check on that, too – in about an hour?’

She nodded, still looking frightened, until I winked at her, when she blushed again and glanced away, stifling a giggle.

‘Leticia!’ began Mrs Norwood in a hectoring voice. ‘You—’

Whatever she was about to say was silenced by Dad helpfully shoving the wrapped, protesting bundle of parrot into her arms and tucking the jumper as carefully around it as though it were a baby.

She looked even more aghast than she’d done when she saw her daughter entwined with me on the grass, and they both retreated down the drive, accompanied by muffled squawks.

‘Such a pretty girl,’ Dad said appreciatively. ‘So tall and slender, and the hair like sun-warmed apricots. But very young, Fergal – maybe only sixteen or seventeen. The mamma is right to be careful.’

She was only seventeen, and I was her first love, but I was twenty-two and should have known that, for her, it wouldn’t last for ever.

I suppose I was lucky it lasted a year.

Chapter 1: A Dream of a Man

November 1998

Last night I dreamed I was back in Fergal’s arms.

Nothing new there, then.

I often dream about the current heroes of the romantic novels I write, who all bear a definite (physical) resemblance to Fergal. The sort of dreams that make you wake up and feel guilty when you look at your husband.

They certainly add some oomph to my love scenes, though unfortunately only the ones in my novels. I’ve come to the conclusion it would take a lot more than that to add any oomph to James.

This time the dream was of a different genre, more like a rerun of my last encounter with my first untrue love. Maybe my subconscious thought I didn’t suffer enough at the time and decided to run it past me again.

Anyway, there we were entwined like Laocoön in Fergal’s beloved second-hand Frog-eyed Sprite sports car (thoroughly cleaned inside and out with anti-bacterial cleanser by myself when he bought it, of course – after all, who knew where it had been?). Birds were singing, the sun was shining and there was a heady smell of engine oil, old leather and disinfectant … and the equally heady feel of his arms around me as he said confidently in my ear, ‘Goneril are going to make it big this time!’

Goneril was (and still is) the name of the rock band he’d formed together with his brother Carlo and a motley assortment of other art students. Why they had to choose a name that sounds like a venereal disease, I don’t know.

In the year I’d been going out with Fergal the band had gone from being a casual thing they did for fun and to earn some money, to the point of taking over more and more of their lives and time. And now they’d just been asked at the last minute to go on tour as support to a well-known group, the original support band having pulled out.

It meant leaving for the USA almost immediately: make-or-break time.

I looked up into his amazing green eyes and said adoringly, ‘Oh, Fergal, of course you’ll make it! But – I’ll miss you while you’re abroad.’

He pulled away slightly at this, his straight black brows drawn together in a frown. ‘Why should you miss me?’

‘Of course I’ll miss you. You’ll be away for months!’

‘But – you’re coming with me, Tish! I want you with me.’

Gobsmacked wasn’t in it. ‘M-me?’ I stammered. ‘Go on tour with you? But I can’t do that, Fergal – my university course starts in September. Besides, Mother would have a fit if I trailed around after you like a groupie. And, by the way, you never asked me!’

Fergal’s always volatile temper got the better of him at this point and he gave me a little shake. ‘You are my girl, not a groupie, and I want you with me. And why go to college? What does it matter?’

‘What does it matter when you’ve got me?’ was what he really meant, and it made me see red.

‘Of course it matters! I’m looking forward to the course.’

Well, I had been until then.

Fergal had just finished his MA in Fine Art at the RCA, and the plan was that he should make a name for himself with his painting while I got my degree, so that one day we could live in the country together. He would paint and I would write poetry …

Daydreams – but anything seemed possible when I was with Fergal. And of course I hadn’t then realised that although I was a poet, I was not a good poet.

The fine distinction between turning out reams of seamless drivel like a miniature stream-of-consciousness novel and writing real poetry is sometimes hard for a teenager to grasp. My literary skills, I later discovered, lay elsewhere.

But at the time I was all set to study Modern English Literature in pursuit of this, and I thought he should understand, since he seemed just as dedicated to painting until Goneril started to take off.

‘Well – have a year out, then,’ he suggested impatiently. ‘Isn’t it about time you left home and experienced some real life?’

That would look good on my gap-year CV: ‘What did you do in your gap year, Miss Norwood?’ ‘Oh, I just screwed my rock-singer boyfriend over an entire continent. Nothing interesting.’ ‘And was that with the VSO, Miss Norwood?’ etc.

As to experiencing real life, I’d packed more of that into that year with Fergal than I had in all the previous seventeen.