An Ordinary Looking Man

By Steve Buley

The wine tasting from hell - desperate drunkenness and bursting bladders - family secrets exploding into the open - exposed breasts and gawping men - and a beautiful cocaine snorting model lying semi-naked in his bed

All this in Chapter 1... where will Simon's middle-aged, ordinary world go next...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Buley
• Release date: Jan 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465706089

Steve Buley

Mid-life crisis, motorcycle riding, guitar/mandolin/saxophone playing, vegetarian male... ...also writes a bit.

Book preview

An Ordinary Looking Man

By Steve Buley

Copyright 2010 Steve Buley

Smashwords Edition

The right of Steve Buley to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For Mum and Dad, Sarah, Jim, Liam and Faye.

Chapter 1

To begin at the beginning.

I am forty one and very nearly just-a-little-bit-off-being divorced.

Karen, who is very nearly just-a-little-bit-off-being my ex-wife, still lives in the four-bedroom well appointed modern dwelling that was for the last eight years known as the family home.

I live in a one bedroom cottage bought from the estate of the Right Honourable Lord Aubrey Mutchdone who is currently serving seven Rightly Dishonourable years at Her Majesty’s pleasure for shooting a hunt protester with a twelve bore shot gun.

I moved out of the family home six months ago, three weeks after Karen informed me, in one of the few dialogues we shared after nineteen years of mostly soulless and dutiful marriage, that she had been having an affair for eight months with the twenty two year old son of the caretaker at our local school.

The young man was called Harry. He was tall and slim built with thick black hair greased and slicked back. His muscles were far too clearly defined beneath the tight, fitted, black tee-shirts he invariably wore.

Through design or chance, he had become a one man remote stimulator of any and all female erogenous zones within his visible radius.

'He’s just so gorgeous,' were Karen’s somewhat sickeningly dreamy words during one of our arguments on the subject.

It was mostly my fault of course. Karen had put me right on that one when I'd questioned it. She'd used fierce logic allied to a potent mixture of invective and finger pointing.

She'd asked me to sort the garden out. In fact, she'd repeatedly asked me to sort the garden out.

It was so bloody typical of me that I had not carried out her simple request. It was yet another one of my many failings. And in case you were wondering, she nit-pickingly elaborated extensively on the rest over the next few days.

So, given that I had provided her with no choice in the matter, she’d had to advertise in the parish magazine for a gardener. And from that she'd found Harry.

And everything else that followed could, of course, be inextricably linked to my failings in the first 3 points.

In the end, Harry had actually ended up sowing his seeds far more regularly than the advert, or any subsequent discussions on herbaceous borders and lawn feed, had realistically required.

He had ploughed my wife’s furrow with repeated and apparent relish…

Harry didn’t live in the four-bedroom well appointed modern dwelling that was for the last eight years known as the family home. That would never do.

I suspect that Karen realised, with panicked alacrity, that Elspeth, our somewhat attractive seventeen year old daughter, was in fact much closer to Harry’s age and may have provided Harry with ample temptation to turn his amorous seed sowing attentions from mother to daughter.

That would never do either.

Certainly not for Karen who had so recently spent a small fortune of my hard-earned money on a succession of botox injections, facial treatments and expensive creams to prevent her skin looking perfectly natural for its age.

But, of course, over and above the carnal allure of Elspeth, there were also the neighbours to think about.

And the friends and acquaintances we had made in the village.

Separation and divorce were ok -

- these things happen -

- at least this way you can both stay friends -

- it’ll probably be for the best -

- blah-de-blah-de-bloody-blah-de-blah -

– but shagging a young man eighteen years younger than you was most certainly NOT socially acceptable.

Not in our village anyway.

Karen bitterly informed me that if you were a man you could just about get away with that kind of thing. As long as you were shagging a young woman eighteen years younger, and that the mathematics of subtracting eighteen from your own age didn’t leave you as a fully fledged child molester.

But not a woman.

A woman couldn’t get away with it. And for some unfathomable reason, I think she blamed me for that.

So Harry didn’t live with Karen and had instead become a sex tourist at the village resort that had been known for the last eight years as the family home.

‘Is this going to carry on?’ I had asked a day or two after she’d dropped her bombshell.

‘What do you mean?’ Karen had replied, adopting her oft-used tactic of answering a question with a meaningless and unhelpful question of her own.

‘Are you going to keep shagging your toy-boy lover?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘You’re my bloody wife…’

‘What does that mean these days anyway?’

‘It means we got married and swapped vows and all that.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

I paused at that point. ‘Are you ever going to actually answer a question?’

‘Why should I?’

‘Do you want a divorce?’

‘Do you?’

‘Fucking hell!’

‘Do you have to swear so much?’

‘Did you have to shag the gardener?’

‘Did you do anything to stop me?’

The discussion, as much as it could be called one, it was more a dialogue of meandering and meaningless questions, continued on and off for three long days before I packed a suitcase, walked out down the front path of the house that was for the last eight years known as the family home, rented a pokey flat in town as a temporary stopgap and moved into my new just-separated-life on a wet and windy weekend in November.

Two months later, I had bought Mutchdone’s cottage as a more permanent stopgap, and a week later I had bought a whole new set of make-them-yourself furnishings for what is now known as the forty-one-and-very-nearly-just-a-little-bit-off-being-divorced-man’s home

Four months later the furniture is nearly stable and no stay-fast connectors have fallen out for at least a fortnight.

Home sweet home.

But there is no escape from familial duty, despite all of this.

Tonight, as a Saturday night treat, and for the sake of my dearest daughter, I have to spend time with Karen, our neighbours and friends from the village, and a whole load of others at a bloody wine tasting evening.

And all of this to support and raise money for a mime tour of Slovenia organised by Elspeth’s drama group.

Elspeth had informed me it was vital for her whole future to go on the trip. My wallet had clenched instinctively - it could see what was coming.

Elspeth told me that mime was fundamentally cool. It was a reactionary concept, wholly anti-American in its rejection of the verbalisation of capitalism. It was a pure and elemental representation of thought and movement that symbolized both ante- and post-linguistic expressionism in its most fundamental form.

I didn’t understand a word of it – but I’d smiled and tried to look suitably impressed at her grip of both theatre and politics.

She’d then lost her way somewhat by confusing Slovenia with Sardinia and buying an Italian phrase book in preparation for the trip.

I’d explained that with mime you don’t need language, so by extension you don’t need a phrase book. She’d looked at me with a withering stare, practiced and learnt from the extensive book of withering stares perfected by my dear soon-to-be-ex-wife, Karen.

I then explained that Slovenia was one of the ex-Soviet bloc countries. She'd sighed and then begun another wither-fest of expressions. She told me I was wrong and that it was an island off Italy. She should know, she’d read extensively on Communism and Socialism - she understood the essential tenets of Marxism, for God’s sake. And here I was arguing that she didn’t know where Slovenia was.

She’d stood with hands on her hips and dared me to argue. I suggested she learnt the Italian for ‘where the hell am I and why is no one else speaking Italian’. She’d walked away and slammed the door. So much said. And all of it without words. Perhaps there was something to this mime stuff.

I arrived at the wine tasting a few minutes before the tasting started.

I arrived to a look of iced daggers from Karen who was sitting across the room at our table making polite conversation with the vicar – he'd spotted her sitting without me and was doing his good Christian duty to offer succour to the lonely.

Next to her were Nigel and Susan, long term acquaintances, smiling at each other like lovelorn teenagers – a sight to behold, which at their age was frankly nauseating.

So if that was the case, why were they our long-term acquaintances? And why were they sharing a table with us?

Simple - our children’s ages matched and none of us pissed the others off sufficiently psychotically to prevent the school playground smile and weary parental nod becoming a ‘let’s get the families together after the school fete for a drink’, and the ‘shall we get together for a family barbeque on Saturday afternoon’. And then the more covert ‘dinner party Saturday night – just for adults – do tell us you can make it’.

We'd just about avoided the ‘how about a summer holiday together for a week in a large cottage in Devon? It’ll be great fun and such good value…’ - but there had been times when the conversation had been veering frighteningly in that direction.

I took all this in before the daggers thrown from Karen’s eyes finally impaled themselves in my private parts.

But then, and with some surprise, I felt new, unexpected, blades embedding themselves in the side of my head. I turned to my left to see Elspeth approaching. In her angry striding way, she was the spitting image (in more ways than one) of her dearest mother (and my dearest soon-to-be-ex-wife).

‘Glad you could finally turn up dad,’ she said acidly. ‘I thought you might have got here on time tonight. I hope your not going to be late to all these events. This is important … although you obviously don’t think so…’

‘Have I missed anything?’ I asked patiently.

‘Not yet,’ she replied angrily.

‘Have I held anything up? Are people waiting for me to arrive?’

‘Only your family…’ Heroically I didn’t rise to that one.

I summarised the situation for Elspeth's benefit. ‘So I haven’t missed anything and haven’t held anyone or anything up.’

At that moment more people arrived through the hall door. Hearty welcomes greeted them. I smiled at the couples arriving – I didn’t see any daggers being thrown at them. ‘So the only impact of me being late is that your mother is being entertained by the vicar, Susan and Nigel. And you’re not happy for some reason…’

‘This is important…’

‘And I’m here.’

‘You should have been here earlier.’

For some reason I was heartily pissed off at my daughter at that moment. It probably wasn’t her fault. Maybe it was the fact that Elspeth knew nothing of her mother’s sordid affair with a young man only a few years older then her. Maybe it was the fact that I seemed to have assumed the role of the guilty one in the marriage by moving out of the family home.

Maybe it was the sheer bloody hypocrisy of my life. What the hell was I doing there tonight anyway? Simple – I was there to support my daughter who wanted to go on a mime tour of Slovenia. Fine. But Elspeth seemed to have somewhat blatantly forgotten that I was the one actually paying the seven hundred and fifty pounds contribution expected from all members of the mime troupe going on the trip.

So why was I being given grief for being a few minutes late?

I was also here to make it look like Karen and I still got on fine despite the fact that we were separated and she was continuing to shag a twenty two year old man-child in the bed I had bought and paid for.

My daughter obviously believed that I must have had an affair because I was the one who had moved out. And my soon-to-be-ex-wife, of course, maintained an inviolate air of holy innocence that reinforced this rather splendidly and magnificently.

And the truth was hidden because Elspeth shouldn’t be burdened with her parent’s problems – Karen was very strong on this – though it seemed somewhat hypocritically obvious to me that she would be a vocal proponent of this…

‘Where can I get a drink?’ I asked my daughter finally.

‘They’re serving beer and wine over there,’ she said pointing vaguely behind her. ‘Aren’t you going to get mum a drink? She’s been waiting for ages for you to arrive…’

‘And I’m sure she can wait a little longer,' I replied curtly. 'It looks like she’s deeply involved in an enjoyable conversation with the vicar – I’d hate to break that up.’

‘God, dad, you can be so bloody difficult sometimes. It’s not surprising mum couldn’t cope with you,’ she said and stormed off towards the stage.

I shook my head and seethed silently.

There is a group of men who are at all the village events. They have two main functions – they provide barbeque facilities for outside events and they provide bar facilities when there is no barbeque on offer.

When they run the barbeque, it is with that well-humoured and supremely affected aplomb that only a group of mid-forties men, wearing humorously, saucy kitchen aprons, can bring to the act of burning sausages and burgers.

Barbeques in our village are like a Henry Ford franchise – you can have anything in your bread roll as long as it is black.

Tonight the beque element was missing and they were purely running the bar. As I leant against the bar top, I nodded to them and smiled. We all knew each other socially and I'd occasionally been requested to work with them as an invited grand chef at the top barbeque joint this side of the local crematorium.

Through the rally of hearty greetings and jokes I had to immediately question whether they'd been running the bar or just drinking it. There was a red faced and slightly tired exuberance to their actions even now, so early in the evening.

‘How’s it hanging then?’ Nick asked. Nick was the Sales Director of an industrial cleaning equipment manufacturer. He worked abroad mostly, commuting from country to country during the week. He could explain in enormously fine detail the ins and outs of European travel schedules. Really someone to avoid if a conversation turns remotely towards a trip into Europe…

‘It’s going well Nick,’ I replied.

‘You still out at Mutchdone’s place?’ he asked.

‘I’m looking after the place for him whilst he’s busy at her Majesty’s pleasure,’ I said.

‘And his Lordship’s good lady wife?’ he asked.

Mutchdone had notoriously married a high profile fashion model with a raging cocaine and other assorted drug's habit just months before the unfortunate shotgun incident.

‘I get her to turn down her bed occasionally,’ I replied, shrugging my shoulders nonchalantly.

‘I wouldn’t have minded a bit of that,’ said Phillip and winked. Phillip worked as a Chartered Accountant. He ran his own Chartered Accountancy business. He wrote articles for Chartered Accountancy magazines like Chartered Accountant Monthly, Chartered Accountancy World, and The Chartered Accountant. He would tell anyone he could that he’d got Chartered Accountancy in his blood – I hoped with fierce desperation that I never need a transfusion.

‘We’ll tell Annie if you keep on like that,’ said Nick.

Phillip affected a look of mock horror - in a way that only someone who wrote for The Chartered Accountant could.

‘Don’t worry Phillip’, I said calmly. ‘If you want to turn someone’s bed down, you can turn mine down whenever you want.’

The kitchen troupe dissolved into well-lubricated laughter.

‘Go on then,’ I said as the laughter diminished, ‘force me to have a can of bitter.’

‘Would sir like it opened?’ said Nick.

‘Only if opened doesn’t mean sampled,’ More raucous laughter – it was perfectly clear that they were drinking the bar.

I passed over two pounds for my can of beer – the price had been set by the mime committee –they must have used two stuck up fingers to mime it - I felt like returning the gesture at the exorbitant cost for low quality supermarket beer.

‘It’s all for a good cause,’ said Phillip.

Bollocks, I nearly replied, but instead just smiled even more heartily than ever before.

If there were ever a charity collection for heartiliness, then the Blue Peter Heartiliness-meter would have been flashing the greenest of green flashing green lights.

I took a long swallow of lukewarm, weak beer, before moving reluctantly to join the table – Nigel and Susan both smiled cloyingly at my arrival, Karen coiled herself ready to strike.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she hissed as I sat down. ‘This is important for Elspeth.’

‘As she’s already told me,’ I replied and took another drink of beer.

‘So?’ continued Karen.

‘So what?’ I replied.

‘So where have you been?’

I spoke softly to her. I was thoroughly pissed off at her. ‘I’ve been screwing one of the chambermaids up at Mutchdone’s place – she’s only twenty two but from what I hear, age is irrelevant when there’s a good shag to be had.’

‘Bastard,’ she whispered and turned away.

‘And how is dear Harry?’ I asked just loudly enough for Nigel and Susan to overhear.

‘Oh, who’s Harry?’ asked Susan. ‘Do I know him?’

You probably babysat him, I thought. I wondered why all the best lines could never be said out loud. Karen flicked me a murderous stare.

‘Harry’s an old friend,’ she lied spectacularly. I swallowed and coughed at the same time, sending a spray of expensive, low grade bitter down the side of Karen’s dress. She swore, stood up, gave me a look of rusty knife castration, and pointedly excused herself to go to the toilet.

‘Are you alright?’ asked Nigel.

‘Did it go down the wrong way?’ added Susan.

They were holding hands as they spoke and were both staring at me with earnest concern. They were both nodding as they stared.

‘It must have,’ I replied and hastily drank some more beer.

Both Susan and Nigel continued to nod at me – and it goes on for what seems like an age. I was forced to wonder whether (a) I had gone suddenly deaf or, (b) they were secretly telepathic and hadn’t realised my fundamental telepathic limitations, or (c) they had started using a bizarre semaphore of the head to communicate.

Finally Susan spoke and as she did so she put her hand gently on my knee.

‘How are you Simon?’ she asked. ‘How are you really?’

I wondered whether there was a difference between how I was really and how I might be in some strange unreal way. She patted my leg and they both started nodding again. Their nodding distracted me and I feared they might bring on an epileptic fit.

I looked around for potential epileptics – they must be warned I thought.

‘I’m fine,’ I replied and then felt immediately guilty at the sparseness of my reply. ‘Really I’m fine,’ I added as if this reaffirmed the situation, fleshed it out and gave it the seriousness they were obviously seeking.

‘That’s good,’ said Nigel thoughtfully. ‘Whatever has happened between you and Karen, we are still your friends. Whether it’s you and Karen. Or you by yourself. Or Karen by herself. Or you and someone else. Or Karen and someone else. Or you and someone else and Karen and someone else. We are still there for you. For both of you.’

For all four of us I calculated in my head. I also speculated idly whether by extension they would be friends with someone else and someone else, without Karen and I even needing to be there. I decided not to pursue that line of thought. I smiled back at them – it seemed only polite - and that made their nodding increase dramatically in both frequency and vigorousness. They were nodding in perfect time with each other and this frightened me – I concluded that synchronized head nodding is suspiciously akin to the Chinese Water torture.

One nod is fine, it signifies agreement – two people nodding once shows shared agreement and that’s fine too - two people nodding two or three times is enthusiastic shared agreement – I can live with that, no real sweat yet. But two people going at it like insane nodding dogs in the back of an out of control car is enough to break even the strongest of people.

I felt I had to say something. ‘I really appreciate that,’ I said.

I nearly added yet another really to doubly reinforce the message, but I feared they might have thought I was taking the piss. Or worse they’d nod even more and their necks would spontaneously snap in what would become known as the 2009 Tragic Village Hall Head Nodding Catastrophe and I’d be left sat next to two instant quadriplegics.

‘How are you settling in?’ Nigel asked. ‘In your new place…’

‘Great,’ I replied. ‘I’m fully settled.’

‘That’s good,’ said Susan.

‘We’re so pleased,’ said Nigel.

I drank more beer as they spoke. The can was getting empty and I encouraged the situation by tilting it further. Beer spilled down my chin as I downed the remains of the can.

‘Looks like I need another drink,’ I said, ‘can I get you anything?’

‘We’re going to wait for the wine to come out,’ replied Nigel.

‘I don’t want to get tipsy,’ said Susan.

‘I’m really looking forward to the tasting,’ said Nigel and looked at Susan as he said it. She smiles sweetly at him and I was seriously concerned that I might spontaneously vomit.

Instead I took action. As I couldn’t really give a toss about the wine tasting and/or getting tipsy, I left them to their nodding, smiling and hand holding and went back towards the bar.

Nick was now leaning heavily against the bar and Phillip was half slumped against a wall.

‘Is it hot in here?’ asked Nick, waving his hand in front of his face to generate a small draft of warm alcoholic air.

‘It’s a bit warm,’ I replied and reluctantly pass over my two pounds for another beer.

‘I might be coming down with something,’ said Nick. ‘I feel a bit sick and a little faint.’

‘It could be that you’re pissed,’ offered Phillip.

‘I’m not pissed,’ replied Nick, ‘it’s still early.’

‘Is drunkenness a function of time?’ I asked. ‘I always thought it was something to do with drinking too much alcohol.’

Nick stared at me with blurry eyes. ‘But it’s only just after half past eight.’

‘And how much of the bar have you drunk so far?’

‘We’ve done well,’ said Phillip proudly.

‘It was hard work,’ added Nick.

‘But someone had to