Read Online Distractions by Natasha Walker - Free Book Online Page A

he wanted,’ he said, ‘then the phone rang and after the call I went to see what he was up to and I couldn’t find him. I shouted his name, but he was gone. I know he’s shy, but that’s just weird.’
    ‘Is that what you call going off the rails?’ asked Sally. ‘You probably just frightened him.’
    ‘That was just a little bit of background information, Sal, you know, to set the scene.’ David paused a moment for effect, before continuing, ‘As I was leaving the next day I stopped to chat with Simon, across verandahs, as one does. Are you following, Sal?’ he asked, and received a playful slap on the hand for his trouble. ‘And he told me about the difficulties he’d been having with Jason.’
    David stopped his narrative to butter a piece of bread. They all watched in silence as he leant across and stole an unwanted piece of sausage from Emma’s plate and rolled the bread around it. Hewas about to take a bite when he stopped and said, ‘Apparently he’s been fucking that girl – you know, Em, the daughter of that hippy you met at uni.’
    ‘Simon told you that?’ Emma was certain now that the colour was gone from her face, all of it.
    ‘Who?’ asked Mark, but he was ignored.
    ‘Not in those words,’ said David, wary of Emma’s wit.
    ‘What you mean to say is, in no words at all,’ she said, realising her interest in this point of fact was unaccountable but sure David wouldn’t pick this up.
    ‘I had a crush on my neighbour when I was a kid,’ said Mark. ‘She used to pay me to mow her lawn. She’d stand and watch. I’d take off my t-shirt. Now that I know more about women, especially older women – she would have been in her thirties, maybe forty – I reckon she was hot for me. Back then I thought it was just one way. I’d spy on her from my bedroom window, just trying to catch a glimpse of her naked. Now I know better. She was probably fantasising about me. You’d better watch this one,’ he said to David, nodding towards Emma. ‘Does the kid mow your lawn?’
    ‘Nobody is going to mow my lawn. I mow my own lawn, thank you very much,’ said Emma.

    ‘Emma!’ screamed Sally and laughed.
    ‘David has hired a smelly old man to do the garden. I bet you did it on purpose, too. But, now that I think of it, it would be cheaper to pay Jason to mow our lawn. Don’t you think?’
    ‘We’re moving,’ said David, pouting.
    Emma laughed and Sally joined her. Mark smiled too. David had no idea of the undercurrents of desire present. David thrived on inane, flirty conversation. Nearly every long business lunch ended with such irreverent banter – that is, if a woman was present. He thought nothing of it. Of course that wasn’t always true of his companion – that is, the woman present.
    With Mark at the table, Emma was uneasy about the flippant tone of the conversation but then she was also very happy David’s narrative had been stalled. She wanted to know what had happened to Jason, she just didn’t want the story to be told in front of Mark.
    She noted Sally’s interest in David with pleasure. For two reasons, one wicked, and one – well, the other was wicked too, actually. The first was her desire to share her husband with Sally, the other was the hope that having been exposed to David’s more gentle, caring, intimate aspects,Sally might pick up on the differences between the two men. Emma assumed Sally would see that David was the better man. She’d be very happy if Sally filed for divorce. So many men could make Sally happy, but she’d prefer that the man wasn’t a vain jerk. How selfish of me, thought Emma.
    ‘We have to be the luckiest two men in the world. Just look at our beautiful wives.’
    ‘I’ll raise my glass to that. To beauty!’
    ‘To good fortune!’
    ‘To drinking in the sunshine and losing your minds!’ said Emma.
    ‘I’m not drunk, Emma,’ said Mark. ‘But looking at you two together overloads my senses, eh, David?’
    ‘Anyone for a swim?’