* * *
At first, I did my best not to think about Billy, but I was fighting a losing battle. Suddenly, here he was again, popping into my mind’s eye while I was loading the dishwasher. What was Billy up to? I wondered. Was he stacking his own dishwasher or leaning over the fence chatting to Kate?
It started as idle interest, or at least that’s what I told myself. I wanted to see the Google Street View of his house. I wanted to see how rich he was and laugh at him if he had bad taste. I kind of hoped that he’d have a gold-plated toilet or something, some taste crime that would put him beyond the pale. It has to be said that I had quite a lot of time on my hands back then.
Anyway, despite many hours of internet searches, I could not find Billy’s address and nor could I find Kate’s. And the more I struggled to find it, the more the idea obsessed me. Slowly but surely, my brain was going full-on-Billy all over again.
I wished I could ask Lou for help because, as a fully certified geek, Lou could find out absolutely anything. But for obvious reasons, I couldn’t do that, so I just did my best on my own.
Other than reading about Billy’s best-selling singles and some stuff on his divorce from Candice Rayner (all very amicable, according tothe Mirror, with Candice – in LA – having custody of the kids), I didn’t find much about Billy at all. The only potentially useful information I could find was in theMail, where I found a piece about the Bush house.
Kate, the article claimed, lived in East Portlemouth down in Devon, and her edge-of-clifftop house was at risk of plunging into the sea.
I looked for Billy’s parents next, but, as I couldn’t remember either of their first names, that was never going to work. It was only when I failed to find an address for them that I realised – or at least,accepted– that I really did want to see him again. i.e., it was the moment I found out that Icouldn’tfind him that I understood that I’d really intended to.
Eventually, I explained the whole thing to Shelley. I do tend to tell Shelley most things, and we were in a wine bar and therefore pretty drunk, which definitely lowers my defences. But the main reason I told her was because I wanted her to still find me entertaining, and I knew it was the kind of intrigue she’d love.
‘That’s one dangerous game you’re playing, sweetheart,’ she said, her eyes sparkling with the excitement of it all. ‘That’s the sort of nonsense that can send a marriage up in flames.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, wrinkling my nose. ‘But first you have to have something to send up in flames.’
‘Oh, you’re always so down on Rob!’ she said.
‘And you always defend him because you fancy him.’
Shelley laughed loudly at that and took another gulp of wine. ‘True,’ she said. ‘Totally true. But he’s still the nicest bloke I know.’
‘Not nicer than Gavin, I’m assuming?’ Gavin was Shelley’s official long-term partner by then. By chance he lived six houses along from us, which turned out to be endlessly convenient.
‘Oh, no, he is though!’ Shelley said. ‘Gavin’s great, but I never said he wasnice. I’ve never much liked the nice ones.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Except for Rob.’
‘Except for Rob. But I wouldn’t like him either if he was available. You know how messy my brain is about that stuff. But seriously, tell Aunty Shelley what’s going on. Because I can’t seeat allwhy you’d want to look up bloody Billy Fumble.’
I shrugged. ‘I think we just got bored of each other, to be honest,’ I said. ‘Me and Rob, that is.’
‘Oh, that happens,’ Shelley said. ‘That definitely happens.’ She then proceeded to talk about someone I’d never heard of and didn’t much care about – I think it was Ange’s friend’s sister-in-law and how bored she was withherhusband – for a full half-hour.
But I wasn’t really listening because I was thinking about Billy and wondering why I did still want to see him, and if a drive down to Devon might yield better results than Google.
A few days later the doorbell rang and I opened the front door to find Shelley on my doorstep looking excited. ‘Ta-da!’ she said, waving a Post-it in my face.
‘Ta-da what?’ I asked, then, ‘Hello Shell. This is a surprise.’
‘I stayed over at Gav’s,’ she said, ‘but I wanted to see your face when I gave you this.’
I looked at the folded Post-it between her fingertips. ‘This, being…?’
‘Lover-boy’s phone number,’ Shelley said.
‘Lover-boy?’ I repeated, then, ‘Are you coming in or are you just going to stand on my doorstep being weird?’
‘Can’t stop,’ Shelley said. ‘Gav’s taking me to Westwood. He’s buying me a new bag for my birthday.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Nice.’ As she still hadn’t handed over the slip of paper, I plucked it from her grasp. ‘And whose phone number is this?’ I asked once I’d unfolded it.
‘Well, Billy Bumboy’s, of course!’ Shelley said, rolling her eyes. ‘Honestly!’
