Chapter 3: A Sapling Grows Into a Tree

Somebody’s bound to ask, Ferrari 599. Aren’t I kind?

We were going to a cocktail party one Saturday evening. Unusually it wasn’t a business affair, but the host’s were acquaintances that we’d both met through Celine’s job.

Celine had got into the habit of coming into my room whilst I was getting ready and asking me if I approved of her outfit. I was pretty sure she only did so because it was an opportunity for her to trespass on my own turf, so to speak. She’d never asked my opinion on the outfits she chose to wear before we’d moved into separate bedrooms.

But then again I suppose I would have commented on her attire before, automatically while we were getting dressed together. I just couldn’t recall her actually asking me when we had shared the same changing arrangements.

However in the past I had always made a point of complementing Celine on her appearance the moment I saw her, no matter what she was wearing. I was ... or had been in love with the woman since well before she deigned to marry me. To be fair Celine could have been dressed bin-liners for all I cared; there had been a time when I thought that my wife looked fantastic dressed (or undressed) in anything. To be honest with you, I still did and probably that had been the root of my suspicions and insecurity in the first place.

Now, I’m not sure what started it all off that evening. I can’t recall what the argument was about, but Celine and I had a disagreement about something or the other, in the taxi on the way to the party.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been the least bit important or I’m sure I would have remembered. Well, you’ve got to understand that no mater how much acting Celine and I did for the children’s’ sake; there was a lot of tension in our household. So when Celine and my self left the house together. There always seemed to be a lot of sniping going-on until we arrived at our destination and were ‘on show’ to the public again. Then usually everything had to be sweetness and light between us.

However by the time we got to the venue that evening Celine was being extremely sharp with me. As I said I can’t recall what the spat was about, but I must have been scoring well. Although I think that if it had been one of her company do’s, I would have stayed in the cab and gone straight back home again. But it was a social affair and I knew the hosts very well.

After being greeted by the hosts at the door, and having a drink in their company Celine literally deserted me and stomped-off to talk to some group of people amongst which was one man that Celine was aware I disliked intensely. That person being a notorious Wanker named Gavin Tarrent, who I happened to know had had designs on Celine for many years; we’d actually discussed the fact between us (Celine and I) quite a few times, long before our recent troubles blew-up.

For a little while, I wandered about saying hello to people I knew and didn’t particularly dislike. Then -- as an act of revenge I believe -- I settled myself at the bar and decided that I’d down a few bevvies. I think my idea was that Celine would come legging-it back to my side before I got to the ‘speaking my own mind’ stage of inebriation.

Yeah well, I have to admit that is a forte of mine. I’ll also admit that there had been odd occasion when I’d said more that I should have to some of those ivory-tower inhabitants. But I always thought it funny how such outbursts would usually invoke a flurry of personal invitations for myself to attend dinner-parties and the like. I suppose that some folks just like controversy, or maybe they also have little patience with the hypocrites amongst us.

Anyway, I hadn’t ensconced myself at the bar for very long (maybe a couple of double scotches followed by pale-ale chasers) when (much to my surprise) Tarra (not her real name, one she adopted when she became a model) came over to join me. Tarra and I have “serious” history and actually her presence (in the same room with me) in itself had been the source of ... Oh come-on I’m damned sure I don’t have to spell that one out. Up until that time, I’d been forced to tiptoe around the situation, but now the gateposts had moved, hadn’t they.

Tarra is (or rather was) a quite famous model; but by that time she’d retired from the catwalk after having married, and then quite lucratively divorced at least one millionaire, possibly two or even more. I never have kept track of the gossip columns. Whatever she’d set herself up as a very beautiful, very charming and it would seem much in demand celebrity, who frequently appeared as a guest on TV chat shows, panel games etc.

The point about Tarra is, we’d been at school together in our early teenage years, long before Celine came on the scene (or even Tarra as the world knows her existed). I’d run into Tarra many times at the fashion industry do’s that I’d attended with Celine. We’d never been particularly close at school, well since we’d enjoyed short and highly notorious and enjoyable fling that is. Or maybe - with true hindsight - that would better be described as an incident. However Tarra had always given me the “bosom buddy” treatment whenever we did run into each other. Tarra told me once, that it was nice to talk to someone who wasn’t in the arse-kissing business.

I got the normal half-hug and touching cheek routine from Tarra that seemed to be standard behaviour amongst all the show biz and fashion types. Then we -- or rather Tarra -- chatted away, filling me in on her latest divorce, husband or boyfriend, I can’t really recall which. Tarra must have noticed that I wasn’t paying attention and that I was subtly trying to watch what Celine was getting up-to whilst we were talking. I saw Tarra glance in Celine’s direction.

“Oh Christ, that slimy pervert Gavin Terrant, isn’t still after getting into Celine’s knickers is he?” She asked.

“Sure looks like it to me Tarra and if she carries on making-up to the bugger like that. I should imagine he could finally succeed tonight!” I answered.

The look on Tarra’s face was one of total shock.

“Oh god Rolly, (my old school nickname) not you and Celine. My god what’s happened?”

“Celine got tired of her little-man at home. I think she’s been playing the field a bit.”

“I don’t believe it, Rolly, that’s not the Celine that I know.”

“Tarra, don’t I remember, you saying something similar about that actor bloke you shacked-up with.”

Come on Rolly, he was in show business. We were hardly ever on the same bleeding continent; that was bound to fail in the end. That’s why I never married the bugger when he asked me too!”

“And Celine has spent a whole lot of her time hopping all around the world without me over the years, Tarra.”

“I still can’t believe it, Rolly.”

“Look for yourself, they’re out on the dance floor now.” I said as I watched Celine and the Creep move out onto the floor. I went on to give a Tarra a quick rundown on everything that had happened over the proceeding few months. She listened intently; something that I had never thought Tarra was capable doing before. Listening to other people’s troubles, that is; Tarra always seemed to have enough of her own.

“I’ll be back!” Tarra suddenly said -- as I finished my possibly quite inebriated tale of woe -- she downed her owned drink and then disappeared in the general direction of the ladies powder room.

Celine and Tarrent were dancing a little too close together for my liking. Remember that I’d insisted that Celine was to be discrete about her affairs. Canoodling in the middle of a dance floor surrounded by people that know me/us well isn’t what I call being discreet. I certainly was beginning to lose my cool.

After maybe ten or even fifteen minutes, Tarra suddenly reappeared in front of me.

“If Celine’s been putting it about, Rolly boy; she’s been damned discrete about it. No one I can find has ever heard any gossip.”

“Well that ain’t very discreet, is it Tarra? Look at them?”

“Oh shit! I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see her with my own eyes.” Tarra exclaimed when she saw Celine and Tarrent entwined with each other on the dance floor.

Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, when I say entwined. Too close for modesty was a little more like an accurate description. But it was my wife we were talking about and I was in the same room.

“What are you going to do Rolly?” Tarra asked.

“I’m not sure at the moment, Tarra. Walk out and go home I think. Its either that, or walk up to the bugger and punch the sod on the nose.”

“Neither of which I would recommend. Rolly. If you walk out ... well by the look of things he possibly could bed Celine this evening; the word is she’s been knocking the booze back a bit on the heavy side tonight. Not like Celine at all! And if you thump the bugger, that little wimp will have you done for assault and then probably get Celine’s sympathy vote; so he could possibly end-up bedding her anyway.”

“If he hasn’t already!” I suggested.

“That I very much doubt, Rolly. Take it from me; Celine isn’t the type; unless she’s provoked enough that is. Hey, you haven’t...?”

“No I bloody haven’t, Tarra!” I retorted angrily.

“Alright keep your bloody hair on. Well it that case, we’ll have to fight fire with fire. I’ve been watching Celine and I think I might have an inkling of what she’s up to. The trouble is I think she’s drunk more than she should have done this evening. To give her the courage to do it I suspect. Come-on lets get dancing and with any luck we could finish-up in the gossip columns tomorrow.”

“I don’t think I fancy that, Tarra.”

“It’s better than either a divorce or the magistrates court any day, Rolly.” Tarra said with a grin as she dragged me onto the dance floor and then attached herself to me, very firmly. I don’t think I’d been that close to any women except for Celine since Tarra and my previous ... close encounter. But I’m leaving the details of that, it’ll probably come out later I’m sure.

We’d been dancing for no more than a couple of minutes when Tarra pulled me even closer and whispered in my ear. “It’s working Rolly, the cow was doing what I thought she was.”

“And what’s that?”

“Trying to wind-you-up; you silly bugger, to make you jealous. You said yourself you two haven’t shared a bed in months. She’s trying to remind you what you’ve been missing.”

Tarra almost sang the latter sentence, albeit very quietly into my ear.

“Wind me up, possibly. But I think she’s attempting to make me lose my rag and go for the divorce. She knows that the first one to go to the lawyers will look like the villain in the children’s eyes.”

“Damn it, Rolly; you’re assuming she wants a divorce. Has she ever mentioned divorce?”

“No, but she had those PI’s following me around.”

“Maybe she wanted to make sure that you weren’t stepping-out on her.”

“Tarra, you know me better than that, and so does she.”

“Celine was probably sure of the man she married. But does she know or understand the man who kicked her out of his bed?”

“What are you getting at now?” I asked.

“Has Celine by any chance read your wondrous literary works?”

“I haven’t got the faintest idea. She knows about them, but I don’t think she’s actually read any of the copies that I’ve got at home. I’ve never seen her with any of them anyway.”

“Nothing to stop her buying her own copy though, is there?” Tarra suggested.

“Hang on a minute, how do you know about my books, Tarra?”

“I just happened to come across one and whilst I was reading I put two and two together and came up with the idea that you had to have written it. Anyone who knew you as well as I did at school, would remember the notorious incident where you were almost caught in the sports equipment storeroom with a naked Lucy Brown. A silly incident for you to use really, what with you yourself actually being a househusband, and all. There’s a couple of other incidents that I remember from school in there as well.

“But Rolly, the Lucy Brown incident stands out in my memory like a sure thumb.”

“It was my first book Tarra; I didn’t know where it was going to go until later. I didn’t even have a title for the thing when I wrote about my school...”

“Our, school days you mean, Rolly.” Tarra butted in. “But Lucy Brown? Honestly, Rolly; surely you could have you come up with a better name for me than that?”

“I was trying to get a far away as I could from the real, Lucy Brown.”

“Call me Lucy Brown again, and I’ll bite your prick-off the next time. There, your smiling at last, that’s the Rolly I want to see and I think it could be working as well.” Tarra said, loosing me again.

I wished the girl would stay on one subject at a time. My confusion must have shown in my face.

“Look at Celine in the mirror over the bar, Rolly, she’s just about ready to explode. She was playing-up to Tarrent to make you jealous and now we’ve turned the tables on her. When you laughed just then, she almost lost it. Keep grinning at me, but make sure you don’t look directly at Celine. She was watching you earlier making sure that her little act with Gavin were having the desired effect on you.