Under the Bonnet

by Cathy Woodman

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

When your family fails its MOT, it's time to look Under the Bonnet... Juliet wonders whether she can ever reignite the missing spark in her marriage to Andy in Under the Bonnet, Cathy Woodman's refreshing debut. Not to be missed by fans of Jo Thomas and Phillipa Ashley. 'Great fun' - Bookseller With a struggling second-hand car dealership in South London, Juliet and Andy Wyevale don't have it easy. And it's not just the business that needs a jump-start - their marriage could do with an overhaul too. Andy's always too busy with work to help with the kids, and what's more, he's losing his hair and developing a paunch. Although Juliet loves her husband dearly, she knows the passion leaked out of their marriage a while ago. So when Andy hires a new mechanic, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Antonio Banderas and who has 'a thing' for older women, the sparks begin to fly. Will Juliet throw it all away for a man who looks great in an oily vest and tight jeans? Or will she realise that her family needs her now more than ever? What readers are saying about Under the Bonnet : ' Fantastically written - full of humour and wit, I couldn't put the book down' 'Once you start this book you will immediately take the characters to heart ' 'I loved it! I really connected with the characters and would recommend it'

Release date: April 26, 2012

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 416

Sample

This is a delicate operation in more ways than one. Lorraine is tugging strands of my hair through the holes in the plastic cap on my head while I try to distract myself from the exquisite pain by eating the filling of a creme egg with a teaspoon.

If I glance up I can see Lorraine’s reflection in the mirror. (I don’t like to look at my own.) Lorraine is my best friend and next-door neighbour. She’s thirty-seven, two years younger than me. She’s tall and she has the kind of figure Kate Moss would envy. Her blonde hair waves softly down to her shoulders, and she has green or blue eyes, depending on which pair of contact lenses she is wearing. Today they are blue. Am I jealous? Can fish swim?

‘Haven’t you finished yet?’ I mutter through a mouthful of sickly-sweet fondant.

‘Oh Juliet, I’ve hardly started.’

It is hot in Lorraine’s kitchen, but chilly outside. The kitchen is what Changing Rooms would term ‘contemporary eclectic’. Rustic oak units are teamed with pale blue paint and contrasting flushes of pink tiles. It’s as hideous as it sounds, and I’ve been trying to persuade Lorraine to go 1970s’ funk on the basis that it couldn’t be any worse.

There is a photo of the current season’s Crystal Palace football team on the cork board beside the kitchen door. Next to it is a crudely drawn picture: Mummy and Daddy with big heads and skinny limbs and no bodies. It is signed with a scribble, but there is no doubting the artist. Tyler is Lorraine’s three-year-old daughter, and her drawing is more realistic, more recognisable than anything my own daughter Emily can do, yet Tyler and Emily are the same age, almost twins, having been born within half an hour of each other on the same day. Not that I’m a particularly competitive mother. Emily does have other gifts, although I have to confess as I suck on my spoon that I can’t think of any offhand.

There is a second photograph pinned to the board. It is identical to the one that hangs resplendent in a gilt frame in the sitting room, but much smaller, and it’s of Lorraine and Joe on their wedding day. When I first met Joe I assumed that because he worked in computers he had to be a bit of a nerd, but he isn’t like that at all. Joe has sandy hair, brown eyes and a grin more wicked than Robbie Williams’s.

In the photo Lorraine and Joe stand side by side against a backdrop of blurred fountains and autumn leaves at some country hotel. Joe, dressed in a dark morning suit and blue bow tie, has his arm around Lorraine. Lorraine, boasting a fantastic tan and even more fantastic cleavage, clutches a bouquet of white roses. The happy couple are both smiling. I haven’t seen them smile like that for a while – at least, not in each other’s company.

I take another scraping of fondant. I shouldn’t really – I’m nine stone one before breakfast and without my dressing-gown, and I’m not as tall as Lorraine, only five foot two. Creme eggs have never sat well on my thighs.

Lorraine takes another tug. I wince.

‘You have done this before, haven’t you?’ I ask nervously.

Lorraine pauses. ‘Stop fussing, Juliet. Have another egg.’

‘I’m still eating this one, thanks.’ I place the spoon on the towel in my lap, and begin to peel the wrapper from the chocolate that is left. It is the first time I’ve let Lorraine near my hair since last summer, when she cut it too short around my ears which stick out a fraction too much to be considered one of my more attractive features. When she offered to colour it for me, I accepted because she had recently attended a day course on colouring for aspiring hair and beauty therapists, and we had just shared the dregs of a bottle of white rum from her understairs cupboard.

Lorraine takes two more tugs, pulling my eyebrows halfway up my forehead. ‘That’s the last one. Now I can do the best bit – the colours.’

‘Colours?’ I say, panicking. ‘I thought you said one colour.’

‘No, two. Copper and Honey Gold to complement your natural shade.’

My hair is brown. Some call it mousy brown, but I have never seen a mouse this colour.

‘Does this hide grey?’ I ask as Lorraine shifts to the worktop beside the sink. She slips a plastic apron over her white coat, and begins pouring and mixing potions in dishes with coloured spatulas, like some kind of witch. I hope she’s better with the instructions on the boxes than she is with Jamie Oliver. She has some certificates, and she has all the gear, including a couch in the spare room out the back. She and Joe have extended. We – that’s me and my husband Andy – haven’t.

Lorraine and I live in adjacent houses in an Edwardian terrace in Ross Road, South Norwood. Before we moved here nine years ago, the name Norwood conjured up pictures of a pretty stone church with a mossy porch, and acres of beechwood, friendly local people who stop to exchange benign gossip, and a single shop selling everything from greengage jam to lottery tickets. Then Andy showed me where it was, on page 124 of the London A–Z.

Was I disappointed? Not really. This area has a buzz about it, people moving in and out. I remember thinking, this is the kind of place where anything could happen.

We’re within shouting distance of the football ground, and we were so busy dashing about that we lived next door to Lorraine and Joe for five years without doing more than give a little wave when we put the bins out. That was when Andy had bought the business – a secondhand-car dealership on the Whitehorse Road that was going for a song. We soon found out why. The owner appeared very successful, selling to the luxury end of the market in what might in retrospect be considered a rundown area. However, it turned out he had a sideline laundering drugs money. He’s banged up in Belmarsh now.

I recall walking across the forecourt for the first time. Andy was pushing Jamie’s buggy. We stopped at the entrance to the showroom where I caught sight of my reflection in a broken pane of glass. My hair, run through with natural auburn highlights, was tied back, and I was wearing a cream T-shirt with a long navy skirt picked out with tiny cream flowers. I had cheekbones. I had a waist. I had a confident smile.

‘Well, my gorgeous wife?’ said Andy, slipping an arm around my shoulder. ‘What do you think?’

I turned to face him and hesitated, detecting from his expression that he had already made up his mind. I knew how much this venture mattered to him. To us. The fulfilment of a dream.

‘I want you to look past what you see here and imagine what we could do with it,’ Andy went on.

‘Knock it down?’ I suggested. Andy fell silent. I elbowed him gently in the ribs. ‘I’m pulling your leg. I can see it has potential.’

‘Should we go for it, Jules?’

I nodded, and Andy’s eyes lit up with boyish excitement.

‘Welcome to Wyevale Autos,’ he grinned. ‘Welcome to our future.’

It was rough. No one came here to buy a car, that was for sure. The yard was full of rubbish, and the windows smashed, but we worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to turn it around. I was receptionist, book-keeper and valet then, and fulltime mum, keeping an eye on Jamie as he toddled around the showroom.

It isn’t easy running your own business, as I keep telling Lorraine. She would like one of those little shops down on the Portland Road – La Bagel Queen, or the London Piercing Clinic, or the Afro-Caribbean Food Store where you can get mangoes and spiced muffins all year round. She’d like one for herself so she can rent out stand-up tanning cubicles, and employ a nail technician.

Lorraine picks up one of the boxes and peers at it, cross-eyed.

‘Here we are. Yes, it’ll cover grey. Hey, you didn’t tell me you had grey hairs.’

‘I haven’t,’ I lie. I have two. I plucked them out this morning – one from my left eyebrow and one from above my right ear. They’re tough and springy, and incredibly well embedded in my scalp.

‘Why did you ask then?’

‘For the future,’ I say, picking off the last of the creme egg wrapper. My pulse quickens slightly. What will the future bring? Two days ago, the future was calm and monochrome, like the surface of South Norwood Lake on a quiet day.

My eyes return to Tyler’s picture of Mummy and Daddy, and I am torn between telling Lorraine about Joe, and not telling her. I tell her everything, you see – apart from about the grey hairs – yet I don’t know how she will react to this. I mean, should you tell your best friend that her husband has the hots for you? Should you risk breaking up a happy home, and a beautiful friendship? If I keep it to myself it will be like keeping Joe’s dirty little secret. It will make me feel guilty, as if I have taken pity on him. He said he would die if I wouldn’t let him make love to me, but you don’t die if you don’t have sex, do you?

Look at me and Andy. We’d be six foot under if that was the case. Anyway, Lorraine and I have always promised each other that if we found out that our men were playing away, not watching footie or drinking down at the Portmanor, then we would tell each other.

What can I tell her? As usual, I open my mouth before the words have unscrambled in my brain but, before I can make a mess of things, I am interrupted by the sight of my son, Jamie, almost falling through the kitchen door-way, closely followed by Tyler and Emily.

‘Mummy! Mummy!’Jamie shouts. ‘Look outside. The rabbit’s playing football.’

I sigh. I had almost forgotten the children, they’ve been so quiet playing upstairs. It’s the week after Easter, so Jamie’s not at school. My son is six, and he is the spit of his father, even down to the way he speaks with a strong South London accent. Andy is his father, in case you’re wondering. I’ve been immaculately monogamous since I met him. I had thought that that was my natural, instinctive state, but the events of the past couple of days have made me wonder. Jamie is quite tall for his age, and an excitable temperament lurks behind his serious blue eyes. He’s wearing combat trousers, a lime green T-shirt, and socks with footballs on them.

‘Mummy!’ Emily follows. She has dark hair like Jamie. She wears dungarees over a pink shirt, and a shiny bangle around one chubby wrist. She lives life like a rollercoaster. One minute she can be laughing fit to burst, yet in the time it takes a cloud to block the sun, she can be writhing on the pavement in the middle of the High Street, sobbing and screaming that she hates me.

I feel a restraining tug on my hair.

‘Look!’ Tyler wriggles between Emily and Jamie – she worships him. Tyler is small and delicate. She has big brown eyes, pretty blonde ringlets, and dimpled cheeks. She also has asthma which is why the rabbit lives outside and why Lorraine has laminate flooring through-out the house.

The three children eye me suspiciously.

‘You look like an alien.’ Jamie grins, revealing the gap where one of his top teeth has fallen out.

‘Why are you wearing that funny hat?’ says Emily.

‘Because Lorraine’s doing my hair.’ I stand up quickly so I can see out of the window, and the spoon in my lap clatters to the floor.

‘What are you eating?’ Jamie asks.

‘Nothing. Where’s this rabbit?’

‘He not a rabbit. He Ronnie,’ Tyler announces, pronouncing the Rs as Ws. Lorraine picks Tyler up and sits her on the worktop so she can see.

‘I can’t see,’ wails Emily.

I feel the sticky remains of the creme egg between my fingers. I can’t pick her up. I begin to giggle. Lorraine picks her up for me.

‘Look at the rabbit!’ says Jamie.

‘No, don’t,’ I say.

The rabbit, grey and white, is on the lawn alongside the daffodils, and it’s doing something I can’t find the words to describe to a football. I bite my lip.

‘What’s he doing, Mummy?’ says Jamie, frowning as he peers over the worktop.

Lorraine laughs out loud. ‘He’s shagging the football,’ she says.

‘What’s shagging?’ asks Jamie.

‘It’s a football term – ask your father,’ I say quickly.

‘That’s right. He’s playing football,’ says Lorraine. ‘He’s scoring goals, in a manner of speaking. Now, off you go and play.’

‘There’s nothing to play with. I’m bored,’ says Jamie.

‘Hasn’t Tyler got a new dolls-house?’ I say.

‘That’s girls’ stuff.’

‘You brought your Lego.’ I know he did because I had to carry it thirty-two steps down to the pavement and thirty-three steps back up to Lorraine’s house this morning. ‘You can show the girls your Jedi Starfighter.’

Lorraine and I listen for the children to climb the stairs out of earshot. Lorraine grins at me.

‘It’s spring,’ she explains. ‘Joe said Ronnie was frustrated, so I should put a ball out for him, give him something to relate to.’

‘You could at least have put a pair of ears on it. Can’t you speak to the vet and have him neutered or something?’

‘Who – Joe?’ Lorraine chuckles. ‘I should have thought of that before.’

I don’t want to talk about Joe right now. Lorraine doesn’t know what she is saying, but to me, it’s too close to the truth.

‘I must buy some more of those Thomas the Tank Engine vitamins for Jamie,’ I say, licking chocolate from my fingers.

‘I thought he was looking pale again,’ says Lorraine, directing me back to my seat. ‘Did you take him to the doctor?’

I shake my head. Jamie has been looking tired recently, yet I’ve put it down to school, and Beavers and swimming. I should have called the doctor to make an appointment for him, but I’ve had so much on my mind lately, and each time I’m about to pick up the phone, something else comes along to distract me. Emily starts crying because she can’t find her doll, or she’s got herself stuck on the kitchen worktop trying to pinch a breadstick when I’ve already told her she can’t have one because she’ll spoil her lunch.

Not only do I feel guilty about not taking Jamie to the doctor, but I also feel guilty that I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell Lorraine about Joe. Two days have passed since he propositioned me, two days since the party I had for my thirty-ninth birthday.

It wasn’t exactly a party, just Lorraine and Joe and Tyler who was in bed in Emily’s room upstairs so they didn’t have to find a babysitter. They found their last one asleep in their bed when they came home. She was alone, but dressed only in her underwear. They gave her a second chance, but the next morning Lorraine found a girl’s top in the tumble-dryer, and three empty wine bottles in the bin. She was nineteen, very pretty, and Joe said he offered to have her round to babysit him. I thought he was joking, but now I’m not so sure.

Lorraine begins to dab colour from her dishes onto my hair. I can tell from her frown that she is concentrating and this wouldn’t be a good time to talk. I don’t want to end up Honey Gold all over.

We were having a takeaway – Chinese with melt-in-the-mouth prawn crackers and crispy fried seaweed – and wine, of course. Lorraine followed me into the kitchen.

‘Did you find it? Your wedding ring?’

‘Shhh,’ I warned.

‘Have you told Andy yet?’

I shook my head.

‘You said you were going to. Hasn’t he noticed it’s missing?’

‘He doesn’t notice anything much any more,’ I said glumly as I fetched plates down from the shelf. ‘The wife’s body, or the bodywork of some old BMW? To Andy, there’s no contest.’

‘He’ll notice you when I’ve coloured your hair next week,’ said Lorraine.

‘For all the right reasons, I hope.’

‘I could wax your eyebrows too, if you like.’

‘No, thanks. The wineglasses are in the dishwasher.’ We returned to the sitting room where Andy and Joe, surrounded by four-packs of lager, were unwrapping foil dishes on the coffee table and sniffing at the contents, trying to distinguish king prawn from pork chop suey. I parked the plates on the floor and crashed onto the sofa, watching Lorraine sort out the wine and the glasses.

There were birthday cards on the mantelpiece – a drawing of a cat that looks like it might have been run over from Emily, and a family card from Andy with a picture of a woman with wrinkles. There was a card from my sister that read, Almost 40, and one of a sailing scene from my parents. I want to burn them all, along with my presents, apart from the chocolates I had from the children.

Andy bought me a watch which only reminds me of how time is passing. Lorraine gave me homemade vouchers for some of her beauty treatments which make me feel even more of a dog than I already am. I had more vouchers from my parents because they don’t know me well enough any more to be sure of my likes and dislikes, and a copy of Delia from my mother-in-law which is the one we gave her for Christmas – the splash of coffee which I dropped on the flyleaf while I was wrapping it up is still there.

‘You’re the king prawn chop suey, aren’t you, Jules?’ said Andy, handing me a plate of steaming noodles.

‘Am I?’

‘They’ve given us three bags of prawn crackers. I asked for four,’ Joe complained. ‘Where’s the crispy duck? Can’t anyone get anything right nowadays?’

‘Have some wine,’ said Lorraine, handing Joe a glass. I noticed how he pushed it away sharply so that the wine slopped over the rim.

‘You know I prefer lager,’ he said quietly, and with that an atmosphere of discord descended upon my birthday party. Lorraine sat on the sofa beside me, looking gorgeous in a shimmering green top and black trousers. And there I was in a black sleeveless number and my slippers because I forgot to change into my shoes. Andy remained on the floor with Joe.

Andy’s lucky. He’s gone before me, passed the milestone of forty without the need for Prozac or counselling, almost without noticing a couple of years ago.

He’s changed physically since the photo that sits slightly askew in its frame on the low bookcase behind the television was taken, but he’s coped with it. David, Andy’s brother – not the professional photographer Andy would have had if he’d married the woman his mother wanted him to – took the photo. Andy, with his hair gelled back, and muscular shoulders threatening to burst from his suit, stands beside a slim woman dressed in a red jacket, and holding a teddy bear. From the way she is smiling, you’d guess that Andy is pinching her bottom. In fact, I know he is because that woman is me on my wedding day which seems a very long time ago.

Most of Andy’s hair has gone from his head now, and seems to have migrated to his chest and back. His features have rounded and softened with age, too many calories and not enough exercise. He plays football as a veteran, and veterans don’t chase all round the pitch. They prefer to stand in one place, and pass the ball to each other.

Tonight he was wearing chinos and a soft blue shirt, in contrast to Joe, who was wearing a red and blue Crystal Palace shirt, and jeans with a hole in the knee.

‘So what’s it like to be thirty-nine, Juliet?’ Joe said suddenly. ‘Happy Birthday, by the way.’

‘Er, thanks,’ I said, taken aback that he wasn’t asking me for my opinion on last Saturday’s game.

‘You know, you don’t look thirty-nine,’ he persisted. ‘She doesn’t, does she, Andy?’

‘Juliet has good skin,’ observed Lorraine.

I noticed Andy didn’t comment. He had a lot on his mind. He always has a lot on his mind. In fact, I was surprised he’d found time to mark my birthday. If he’s not on the forecourt with his cars, he’s in the office, or chasing off after cheap deals. I shouldn’t grumble, but sometimes I feel terribly neglected. Maybe Andy would prefer me to be a car, a nice little runaround he could park up when it wasn’t needed. Sometimes I feel like a car – not some stream-lined sporty number, but a cut and shut. Sometimes I feel as if I’m not really married.

I cast an envious look towards Lorraine. I’m sure she and Joe have a better relationship than we do. I know they make love more often – she told me.

There was a strange noise from upstairs. Silence. Then uproar. Joe reached for a can of lager. Andy sat immobile while a red globule of sweet and sour trickled down his chin. Lorraine and I rushed upstairs. One of the children was screaming. I groped for the switch in the girls’ room, and turned on the light.

‘Mummy!’ Emily cried. ‘Tyler’s been sick.’

Tyler was on the top bunk, hanging over the edge.

‘Mummy, she’s been sick on my head.’

There was chaos, during which I found myself questioning the wisdom of buying bunkbeds for prospective sleepovers.

‘I’m sorry,’ groaned Lorraine.

‘Must have been those sherbert-filled saucers,’ I said. I’d gone into the newsagent’s to buy a newspaper, and come out with four packets of sweets. I don’t eat them myself (liar) so I gave them to the children.

‘It’s pink sick,’ shrieked Emily. She wanted a hug, but she had strings of vomit in her hair, and hugging wasn’t an appetising prospect. Lorraine called down for more wine, as we stripped the beds and bathed the girls, and Jamie, who joined in.

‘Our dinner will be cold,’ I observed as I returned from Jamie’s room where I had tucked him up in bed.

‘We can put it in the microwave,’ said Lorraine.

‘I’m not hungry any more,’ I said, pouring more wine into the glasses that we’d left on the landing while Lorraine gave Tyler a goodnight kiss.

‘See you in a minute,’ I called, and I carried the dirty sheets and pyjamas downstairs. Passing the sitting-room door, I noticed Andy and Joe were engaged in conversation – football or Kylie, I guessed – and mine and Lorraine’s dinners were still on the coffee table where we’d left them, congealing masses of monosodium glutamate and glue. In the kitchen, I began to stuff the sheets into the washing machine. I was aware of the click of a door behind me, and the sound of breathing. As I rummaged about for a tablet to go in the net, I felt the pressure of a hand on my waist, and a dry desert heat on the back of my neck. Andy? My heart quickened until I realised I could smell aftershave, and it was the wrong one. It was Joe.

Instinctively, I did the housewifely thing, and threw net and tablet into the drum and slammed the door. As I straightened, I turned to face him. Joe was pushing me back. My fingers searched for the button for the correct programme. 40C. Deep fill. The machine gave a shudder. I heard a valve snap open.

‘Joe, what are you doing?’ I hissed over the sound of running water.

‘I want you,’ he muttered. He stared at me, his pupils dark and dilated, the muscle in his cheek tautening and relaxing. I stared back in disbelief. ‘Please …’ Joe went on. ‘I’ll die if you won’t let me make love to you.’

‘I d-didn’t realise,’ I stammered. What about Lorraine? What about Andy? What about me? Joe might be goodlooking, but I didn’t fancy him, certainly not enough to save his life. The drum turned. Wet sheets slapped about behind us.

‘You don’t realise what a bloody attractive woman you are, Juliet. You drive me mad when you pretend you don’t notice me.’

‘But I’m not pretending.’

‘Please, Juliet. We’ve been friends for a long time.’

‘I don’t sleep with my friends,’ I protested. I thought I could hear footsteps. ‘Someone’s coming,’ I said, pushing Joe away.

‘It could be you … and me,’ he said plaintively, but I was hardly listening. My eyes were fixed on the opening door, and my heart was jumping about all over the place, but it wasn’t Lorraine about to yell and scream at me for jumping on her husband. It was Andy.

‘Juliet’s been having a spot of bother with the machine,’ Joe said. ‘You should buy her a new one.’

‘I’m not made of money,’ Andy said. ‘It’s going now, isn’t it?’

I nodded furiously, my face burning even though I wasn’t the guilty one. What did Andy see when he walked in that door? Apparently just Joe helping me start the washing machine in a friendly sort of way, because he strolled over to the fridge, opened the door and pulled out more lager. As I made to follow him back out of the kitchen, I heard Joe’s low whisper.

‘Don’t let me die, Juliet.’

Later Andy and I stood on our doorstep, me with my arms folded, Andy with one arm loosely around my shoulders, and we watched Joe and Lorraine make their way home. Joe jumped and Lorraine stumbled in her high-heeled boots over the mini white picket fence the people before us had put between our precipitous gardens. It doesn’t do anything except mark the line between two territories. It is symbolic perhaps of the line that has to exist between two married couples if they are to remain friends. Funny how it has always been Joe who wants to take the picket fence down …

A car drove by, accelerating up the hill between rows of parked vehicles, their roofs shiny in the moonlight. The brightest was the white van that belongs to a plumber based in Anerley. I think he’s having an affair with a girl in one of the flats further down the road. The trees opposite seemed to ripple and bend, but it wasn’t just the wine … I leaned into Andy, feeling the warmth . . .