The Buttons Are Coming by Hilary Spiers
Published 12 January 2012 as part of the Writing East Midlands and Lincolnshire Echo Short Story Competition
‘The Buttons are coming,’ she said.
The temperature in the room fell a degree or two.
‘The Buttons?’ he repeated. The temperature dropped another notch.
‘Uhuh,’ she said. ‘On Friday. Staying over. Just one night.’ She fiddled with her bracelet, realised what she was doing and let her hands drop.
He shook his paper and returned to the Sports section. She waved a hand in the general direction of the hall, where she had just been on the phone and found herself unaccountably trying to make excuses. ‘Caught me unawares. They’re going up to Edinburgh. The Tattoo. I couldn’t say no.’
‘So you said yes.’
‘Self-evidently.’ She contained her annoyance. It had been a long day: the car had been misbehaving, they were out of lapsang souchong at the deli, the cat had got into a fight with next door’s pug (again) and now this. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘I want a stiff whisky if I’ve got to put up with the Buttons.’
She waited for a second or two, and then when the silence had stretched too far for comfort or redress, stamped out into the kitchen. If he wanted a drink, he could get it himself. Did he seriously think she wanted the Buttons to stay? After what happened last time? Almost as soon as their guests had arrived, he’d dragged Bill off to the pub. They had returned completely plastered and an hour and a half late for dinner. She had seethed all through the crusted boeuf bourguignon, while Lucille kept up a torrent of vacuity to fill the silences. Bill proved not only a prodigious drinker, putting away at least a bottle of vintage claret, but he had demolished the cheeseboard virtually single-handed. She had watched him cut the nose off the Camembert with murder in her heart.
In the sitting-room, Roger’s eyes flicked across the columns, unable to take in a word. He could hear Clare banging about in the kitchen, pictured her set expression. Oh, here we go. He released his tightened jaw. Bloody Buttons! Bill’s florid face came into his mind, the wet lips, that lascivious look he gave the women in the pub: a casual touch on the back here, the brush of a hand on a bum there. ‘Pardon me, ma’am.’ The twinkle in his eye. He tipped Roger a wink and Roger tried to smile back, but didn’t quite manage it. He felt responsible for this big, affable buffoon; responsible and resentful. He guessed there was a lot more to Bill than met the eye. But business is business: the customer is always king. Clare was another matter. Her martyred smile lasted all through dinner; she had barely looked at him.
Clare made a single mug of tea and returned to the sitting room. ‘Anyway, they’re your bloody friends,’ she said, as she sat down, eyes on the blank TV screen, reaching for the remote control.
‘Excuse me, they are most decidedly not my friends,’ he snapped, dipping the paper down momentarily. He spotted the mug. ‘Oh, and thanks for the tea.’
She sipped it with relish; took her time. ‘Oh, really? And who invited them in the first place?’
‘Business,’ he said. ‘It was business, as you know perfectly well. Typical Americans. Think you mean it when you say, do drop by if you’re passing. The man’s a pig and his wife’s a complete idiot.’
She flared at this. ‘She’s not an idiot. She went to UCLA.’
‘What, to study flower-arranging? So? You went to Durham. What does that prove?’
He regretted it the instant the words left his mouth. Clare wasn’t an idiot, far from it, but now he’d irrevocably linked her to that airhead, Lucille, gushing and exclaiming all through their stay – ‘Say, isn’t that interesting? You hear that, Bill?’ – as though Roger were revealing the secrets of the universe, instead of describing the local architecture.
Clare slammed her mug down on the table and left the room. The turbulence settled. Roger waited until he heard the bedroom door bang shut, then crept across the carpet and retrieved her tea. He settled back to his reading, trying, but failing, to put the Buttons, Bill in particular, out of his mind. Red hairs on the back of big, capable hands, those dancing eyes, the shout of his laugh. Upstairs, the floor creaked as Clare crossed back from the bathroom and threw herself on the bed. How long would this sulk last? He supposed he ought to go up, apologise. Get it over with.
Clare lay on the duvet, arms under her head, staring at the ceiling. She was trying to stop thinking about Bill. Roger’s spiteful remark still rankled, but it was Bill who filled her thoughts. Try as she might, she couldn’t bring Lucille into focus, had only an impression of blonde hair, a small waist, expensive jewellery. She was a shadow, lost behind the bulk of her husband. Obnoxious, loud, vital Bill. Everything she hated in a man. The vanity, the knowingness, of him. She remembered the overlong handshake, the squeeze of her shoulder. Remembered too the surprising smoothness of his skin …
‘Sorry.’ Roger stood in the doorway, his expression belying his words. He looked anything but apologetic; he looked like a small boy sent by his mother to make amends. All she had to do to defuse this potential row was to accept his contrition at face value. But suddenly tired of the constant accommodations, almost revelling in the novelty of outright battle, instead she laughed scornfully. ‘Sorry!’
He could have stopped it. Should have. But he couldn’t shake Bill’s smirk, that faintly contemptuous smile, out of his mind. And now his wife’s face wore a similar look of disdain. He noticed for the first time the beginnings of a double chin as she glared up at him, head wedged against her pillow. The hell with her.
‘You knew I wouldn’t want them here. You could have said we were busy. Away. Anything. You know damn well I can’t stand the man. Or his simpering wife.’
Clare swung her legs over the edge of the bed and leapt up, blood pulsing through her head at the sudden elevation. It gave her a fleeting sense of unreality. But it didn’t stop her.
‘You know your problem? You always think you’re better than everyone else. You want to take a good look at yourself, before you come out with your snide remarks -’
‘Snide!’
‘Can’t help yourself, can you? The way they talk, the way they eat with a fork -’
‘We’re talking the Buttons here, are we? Specifically the Buttons? Because, God knows, if anyone invites snideness, it’s them!’
The air was spiked with anger. Clare looked at Roger. His thinning hair, his tangled eyebrows, the slight swell of his belly under his sweater. Roger looked at Clare. Her flushed cheeks with the tiny broken veins, the crepey neck. The abyss yawned before them.
And in they jumped.
Whatever had been bubbling away deep in their psyches was clearly itching to erupt because this was visceral, more vicious, more reckless than any row had ever been in the long history of their marriage. Gone the careful sidestepping of hazardous topics, her mother, his sister; gone the judicious commentary on his career, the disappointments no longer put down to others’ blindness or supposed malice; gone the wary negotiation of that most perilous of territories: sex. By the time Clare had flung her accusations at Roger’s libido – too low – and his technique – too tentative – her dander was so decidedly up she barely knew what she was saying. But Roger heard it. Heard her damning verdict on his manhood and his performance in all its raw honesty. And how it stung!
They were either side of the bed now. This was the moment when he might still have saved things. Thrown himself across that five foot expanse, pulled her down, stifled her cries of outrage and – as they had done so many times before – made things better with a bout of energetic lovemaking. Or what, until now, he had thought of as energetic.
She might have done the same.
Such a simple move. Five feet. Thirty one years of experience to call on.
They were both panting with fury. It might almost have been mistaken for lust. But just as Roger was making those final calculations – ever the accountant, he – weighing up the affront to his pride against the likely cost of maintaining hostilities, Clare made her fateful utterance.
‘You’re just jealous. He’s rich, successful and what’s more’ – oh, Clare, stop. Stop! – ‘he’s twice the man you are.’
The blood drained from Roger’s face. He was momentarily winded, as if she had punched him. Rage surged, expanded. He thought: I could kill her. Right now. I could grab that scrawny neck in both hands and squeeze and squeeze until her buggy little eyes go pop…
On the other side of the now uncrossable divide of the queen-sized bed, reality hit Clare like a wet sponge. She blenched. Had she really just said that? She watched Roger’s face change from shock to fury and for a split – almost hysterical – second feared for her safety. But then, even more chilling, she saw, as if on film, the dawning realisation as the implications of her words emerged from the tangle of Roger’s thoughts. Twice the man … how did she, how could she, know that?
Clare looked away.
She only went downstairs to check the back door. Two in the morning by the bedside clock and she woke into that half-consciousness where worries surface. The memory of turning the key eluded her; she simply couldn’t recall having locked up. Lying in the dark, she tried to convince herself she had. The thought of padding downstairs in the middle of the night held little appeal, especially after her ill-advised third glass of red. But a faint headache was hovering over her left eye. That decided her. Check the door, take a paracetamol and drink some water. She slid out from under the duvet as Roger rolled over, snoring softly.
She was hurrying back to bed, feet cold from the kitchen tiles, when, at the foot of the stairs, a thread of light from the study at the end of the hall caught her eye. She didn’t think anything of it, just flitted down the hallway and pushed the door open, intending to turn the lamp off.
Bill Button was sitting at Roger’s computer, a large whisky by his side. She couldn’t see past him; the light from the screen haloed his head. He swung lazily round in Roger’s revolving chair and said with no suggestion of surprise, ‘Why, lookee here. If it isn’t our delightful hostess!’ His dressing gown gaped at the neck. She was suddenly conscious of the light behind her, realised that she was wearing only her thin nightdress. Bill made no attempt to spare her embarrassment. He raised his glass in salute and gave her an appreciative grin. ‘Very nice.’ He might have been referring to the whisky. Then he swung back to the screen.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice sounded very headmistressy, very English. ‘Only Roger doesn’t like –’
‘I bet he don’t,’ said Bill, without turning. ‘But I bet you do.’ And he leant aside so Clare could see the computer.
She wasn’t a complete innocent. She’d seen a few top shelf magazines – who hadn’t? Passed around at school amid sniggers and blushes. Once when cleaning out Tom’s room after he’d gone to university, she’d predictably found a stash under the bed. Tidied them away. Never mentioned them to him or his dad. The next time she’d ventured in there, they’d gone. But she’d never actually looked at anything of that sort with another adult present. A man. And certainly not a man like Bill Button. He clicked the mouse rhythmically as image after image came up. Clare was transfixed. Astounded. And all the while, Bill Button watched her face.
Finally, she spoke. ‘Very interesting,’ she managed, intending to sound blasé, sophisticated, as though she found this all rather tame, but the wobble in her voice gave her away. Her face and neck flamed and she was glad of the shadows. She stepped further into the room, ostensibly to escape the back lighting from the hall. Before she knew it, an arm encircled her waist and just as she went to protest, Bill Button put his huge hand behind her head and pulled her down, mouth meeting mouth. She struggled feebly, more with her conscience than her body, but not for long. It was hopeless, helpless, terrible. It was wonderful. When it was over, Bill reached for his glass and knocked back the last mouthful. ‘Very nice,’ he said again and whether he meant her or the whisky, Clare never knew. The next morning, she pleaded a migraine and stayed in bed, sheet tightly wrapped around her lest the smell of her body should betray her. Grudgingly, Roger prepared their guests a perfunctory breakfast and saw them on their way, while Clare, creeping to the shower, sponged away her guilt. As she was towelling herself dry, Roger startled her in the bathroom with a cup of tea. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he said. ‘They’ve gone. Bill says thanks for everything.’
Roger stared at his wife. Hostility flowed between them like an unbridgeable river. He blinked. Tried to recalibrate their relationship. Decided it was absurd, he was imagining things, over-reacting. When? Where? Anyway, she hated Bill Button. They both did. Then he thought, OK, let them come. If there’s anything going on, I’ll soon see. Then I’ll know. He felt better.
Clare raised her eyes from the bed. Better brazen it out. Let things simmer for an hour or so and then ease back into normality. She looked Roger straight in the eye, coldly, as if this whole farrago was his fault. Let the Buttons come. She could cope. And if Bill thought for one minute –
The phone rang. It was Roger’s side of the bed. Clare flicked a glance at it, then back to Roger, who lifted the receiver. ‘Hello?’ He listened for some time, never once looking over at Clare, interjecting the odd word: ‘Oh?’ ‘Really?’ ‘Well …’ then, in a rush, ‘Not at all. Any time. Yes, yes, I will. ‘Bye.’ He replaced the receiver.
Shrugging nonchalantly, he said, ‘Bill Button.’
‘Oh?’
‘Change of plan. Not coming after all.’
‘Oh well …’
Like two exhausted fighters at the end of a gruelling bout, they exchanged half-smiles of apology: sorry about that. Clare made for the door. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Why not.’
They made their slow way downstairs, she to the kitchen, he to the sitting room, each feeling the dead weight of regret trailing behind them. And something else besides. Something more insidious, more deadly.
Disappointment.
