Playing Around by Gilda O'Neill

properly, and that his tie and the handkerchief in his top pocket were knotted and folded, just so.
    ‘When Dave tells you your jobs for next week, remember they’re delivering the new carpet Monday morning, Bob.’
    He tapped his temple. ‘Got it in the diary, girl.’
    ‘You will make sure you’re here, won’t you? You know I don’t like strange blokes wandering all over the prefab when I’m by myself.’
    Bobby squeezed her round her little waist. ‘I won’t let you down, babe.’ He kissed her tenderly on top of her head. ‘You know that.’
    She twisted round, with his arms still encircling her. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of this old carpet. Them dogs of Dave’s have ruined it.’
    ‘You love them dogs.’
    ‘I know.’ Maureen unpeeled his hands from her waist and walked over to the corner of the living-room, where Duke and Duchess were snoring in a contented tangle of paws and tails on Bobby’s old sheepskin coat. ‘But it was still a bit much being landed with two full-grown Alsatians, just because Lady Muck didn’t want her place messed up.’
    ‘Here, I meant to tell you, Maur.’ Bobby patted his chest, making sure he had everything he needed in his inside pockets for a night out at work with David Fuller. ‘You ought to see the mat she’s made Dave have in their spare room.’
    ‘What in his
study
, you mean?’
    They both laughed at Sonia’s pretensions.
    ‘It’s sodding horrible.’
    ‘Language, Bob.’
    ‘Sorry, babe. But you should see it. Right vile, it is.’
    ‘I don’t know why he puts up with her. He could have had his pick of anyone he fancied.’
    ‘Not you though, eh, Maur?’
    ‘No, not me.’ She raised herself up on her toes and kissed her huge bear of a husband full and lingeringly on the lips.
    ‘Here, watch it, girl, you’re getting me all hot and bothered. I’ll be wanting to play the hop if you carry on like that.’
    ‘Just something to remind you to come home.’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘After spending all night surrounded by pretty girls dressed in frocks that show their knickers.’
    Maureen flashed her eyebrows at him, then pulled away and busied herself plumping up the row of scatter cushions that she placed at even spaces along the back of the tan vinyl sofa. ‘I can’t understand how he tolerates her, Bob. Everyone knows he’s loaded, but the money she spends. She acts like there’s no tomorrow. I don’t know how she gets away with it. Especially on that load of old rubbish no other person’d give house room to. And the way she acts. Like she’s royalty or something.’
    ‘I’ve always reckoned he only got hiked up with her because he liked having someone who wears posh clothes and talks proper and that. It’s all this old nonsense he’s got in his head about looking kosher.’
    ‘We all know that, Bob, but there’s plenty of girls around who could do what she does. And be a sight more convincing, if you ask me.’ Maureen had now set her sights on giving the ashtrays a wipe round with the hem of her apron.
    Bobby watched his wife admiringly.
    ‘But what I don’t understand is why he’s still putting up with her.’ Maureen cocked her head to one side to appraise her handiwork. ‘After two years, he must have figured out what she’s like by now. Everyone else has.’
    ‘I was thinking that the other day.’
    ‘Oh yeah?’ Maureen spoke over her shoulder as she set about rubbing fingerprints off a heavy brass table lighter fashioned in the shape of an antique duelling pistol. ‘Were you?’
    ‘Yeah. See. I think she’s playing away.’
    Maureen just stopped herself from dropping the lighter on to the glass-topped coffee table. ‘He’ll kill her stone dead if he finds out.’
    ‘He sort of knows.’
    ‘You’re kidding?’
    ‘No. It’s like he’s playing some sort of a game with her. Beats me. If I ever found out that you—’
    Maureen flung her arms as far round her enormous husband as she could reach, and rested her head on