wearing a bra. She laughed and disentangled herself, and they swapped numbers before going their separate ways. Spike watched her swish off down the street (she wasn’t wearing a jacket – Astrid seemed impervious to the cold) and realised that something incredible had just happened to him.
Spike had just met a woman who knew how to live.
‘Here you go, baby.’ Astrid has reappeared at her bedroom doorway with two mugs of tea.
‘Thanks, honey.’ She’s no longer naked, disappointingly, but at least she’s only wearing a short, silky slip thing. It’s nothing like the floor-length pink dressing gown that Lou bundles herself up in, constructed from two-inch-thick fabric with all the sexual allure of a gigantic marshmallow. No, the thing Astrid is wearing definitely isn’t a dressing gown. It’s, um … Spike sips his tea and tries to think of the word. ‘What’s that called?’ he asks.
She glances down and frowns quizzically. ‘What’s what called?’
‘That … that thing you’re wearing.’
‘What, my chemise?’
Ah, chemise. He might have known it’d have a sexy French name, like something you could happily drown in. ‘Yeah,’ he says, pushing dishevelled dark hair out of his eyes. ‘I knew it was something like that.’
‘You’re funny,’ she says, ‘but listen, much as I’d like to discuss my chemise at great length, I need to get moving so you’ll have to get out of here I’m afraid.’
‘What?’ Spike groans. ‘Already?’
Disappointment wells in his stomach. He’d envisaged another couple of hours here at least; it’s only half-six, and he’s already constructed the Charlie alibi. He’d even planned to call Lou a little later to say the rehearsal was going so well, they’d be carrying on late and she needn’t wait up for him.
‘I’m booked to do a voiceover at half-seven,’ Astrid adds briskly, ‘and I still need to get showered and sorted.’
‘What, in the evening? Who works at that time?’ Spike tries to erase the hint of possessiveness in his voice.
‘Loads of people do,’ she laughs, ‘especially at radio stations. It’s for some programme trailers and I need to do it with the guy who does the evening show.’
Despite his irritation, Astrid’s job as a voiceover artist actually increases her attractiveness. Spike can imagine happily buying incontinence pads if it were her voice purring away in the ad.
She marches over, grabs the duvet and pulls it away with a laugh, exposing Spike’s naked form. ‘Hey!’ he cries in protest.
‘Oh, don’t be shy, baby.’ Then, just as things are looking hopeful again, she fixes him with a steady gaze. ‘So, does Lou have any idea about us, d’you reckon?’
‘Um, no, I don’t think so …’
She tuts loudly. ‘Ah, so you keep telling me it’s all over between you two, that you’re just flatmates really, blah-di-blah, yet you still act as if you’re terrified about her finding out.’
‘I’d just rather pick the right time,’ he says, feeling hurt.
‘Oh, I’m not saying you should tell her,’ Astrid adds brusquely. ‘That’s up to you. It’s your life, Spike, but I hope you’re not kidding me, yourself or Lou by pretending your relationship’s dead in the water when your girlfriend obviously doesn’t think it is.’
‘Actually,’ Spike mumbles, ‘I probably will say something soon. Maybe it’s for the best …’
‘She might be pleased,’ Astrid says with a shrug. ‘Maybe she’s been trying to pluck up the courage to tell you.’
‘To tell me what?’ he asks, aghast.
‘That she wants to break up. Face it, Spike – the only reason why you’re round here four times a week is because you’re both in such a rut, which is hardly surprising, is it, after how many years together?’
‘Um, about thirteen,’ Spike says dully.
‘Hey.’ Astrid’s face softens. ‘I’m just being realistic, honey. I mean, you were both so young – well, she was young when you first got together …’
Spike nods, marvelling at how Astrid manages to drop in casual references to his age. She, like Lou, is younger than him; in fact at twenty-nine, she’s even younger than Lou. Is it his fault, though, if he attracts younger girls? What’s he supposed to do – go out hunting for forty-eight-year-old women?
Spike clambers out of Astrid’s bed, gathers up the clothes he threw off in haste and reluctantly puts them on.
‘You make me sound like a real shit,’ he huffs.
‘I didn’t mean that, babe. You’re not shitty to me. You’re quite lovely, in fact. Apart from that time when you didn’t tell me Lou was going to show up at that gig …’
‘What, the Christmas one? I had no idea! She said she was going to her work party.’
‘Yeah,’ Astrid says sternly, ‘and she snuck off early so she could see you play, devoted girlfriend that she is.’
Spike’s face droops. ‘Yeah. Well, I’m sorry. That must’ve been uncomfortable for you.’
Astrid smiles, takes hold of his shoulders and kisses him firmly on the mouth. ‘I’ve had better nights, but never mind. Now move it, you. I need to get ready.’
‘Okay, okay…’ He follows her downstairs to the front door which she opens with a flourish, mouthing bye-bye, apparently not caring that anyone could walk by and see her clad only in a chemise.
‘Bye,’ he says, stepping out onto her path. He knows he’s sulking, and he turns to give her a big smile, but Astrid has already shut her front door.
Spike doesn’t feel guilty, he decides as he leaves her street of tidy redbrick terraces. It’s not thirteen years he and Lou have been together, he realises now, but sixteen. God, that makes him feel old. Spike is two years off fifty, a fact he rarely dwells on, but which now causes a flutter of panic in his chest.
He met Lou at the end of her foundation year at art school: a beautiful, fresh-faced doll of a girl who’d gone on to study jewellery, scooping prizes galore, while he’d scraped a living with the odd short-lived job – van driver, kitchen porter, postman – whilst trying to revive his music career. At twenty-one, Spike had had a hit with a plaintive, acoustic love song based on the Black Beauty TV theme tune, imaginatively entitled ‘My Beauty’ which had, for one summer, been the slow-dance song of choice. He’d moved from Glasgow to London, hoping to follow it up with another release to showcase his talents, but his second single had flopped, as had his third, and then his record label had dropped him and the horse telly thing had become a bit of a joke. There’d been a brief frisson of hope three years later, when his manager had called him, suggesting continuing the horse theme with ‘an ironic, tongue-in-cheek version of Follyfoot or maybe even White Horses, you remember that one …’
‘I don’t want to be seventies-horse-telly-man,’ Spike had snapped. Broke and desolate, he’d drifted back to Glasgow and into the arms of a cute art student called Lou. Is he passionate about her, after all this time? Not really, he reflects, striding past Sound Shack, his favourite music shop in York and giving Rick, the owner, a nod through the window before marching purposely home. Oh, she’s pretty all right. She’s barely aged at all, with that cheeky little face and smattering of freckles that he finds so sweet and endearing. Yet spending sixteen years with the same woman, no matter how lovely, is hardly sexy and dynamic, is it?
Spike doesn’t know any couple, apart from his own mum and dad (who are old and therefore don’t count) who’ve been together that long. Surely it’s not natural to meet one person and stick with them forever, all through your