VALERIE’S SECRET
The baby pink velvet sofa was much too large for their parlour, as if a marshmallow had stealthily self-replicated until it dominated their lives while they were busy doing other things. Pristine, still, of course. The plastic protection that it was delivered in kept it perfectly preserved. Untouched. Fresh from the truck. As the rest of the room grew tired, (the yellow roses in the wallpaper had lost their bloom, the fibres in the forest green carpet were rather flattened), the sofa flaunted its vitality.
Valerie brushed her plum perm away from her forehead with the heel of her hand and spritzed the plastic with antibacterial cleaner, wiping the residue with an orange cloth, admiring her silver charm bracelet as it caught the light while she worked. There was barely any room for more charms now, so weighed down was the bangle with trinkets and mementos from her life; a stiletto, her opal birthstone, a four-leaf clover, a poodle, champagne bottle, the moon and stars. She smirked at the sofa’s endurance. Her husband, Alfred, had initially moaned about the impracticality of her purchase, “You might as well just buy one second-hand,” he’d said, “because it will be wrecked after a week, a little spill of sherry here, a crumb from a Jaffa Cake there. Disaster.”
They agreed a compromise; the plastic wrapping would remain in situ except on the rare occasions when visitors called. “You’ll crack,” he said, peering over his copper half-moon spectacles from the sanctity of his butter-soft, burgundy leather armchair. “Who wants to squeak around on plastic as if they were on a hospital bed, eh?” Valerie ignored him and lay a leopard print fur across the plastic when she gingerly perched upon it, as if by holding her breath she could prevent her posterior making any impression. “I’m perfectly comfortable, thank you dear,” she twittered, eyes fixed on the Antiques Roadshow as she hid her secret smile. Poor Alfred had no idea.
Every afternoon, she changed into a negligee before ever so carefully uncovering the sofa. She draped the plastic over his armchair and lay down on the soft velvet, luxuriating in the sensation against her skin. She brushed the grain one way and then another, snuggling into its very heart, stroking the fabric with her bare legs, wriggling her nose in the cushion. She lay there, breathing in its aroma, exhaling any anxieties that fluttered in her mind. Unwittingly she had created a cocoon of meditation, her own private therapy, made all the more delicious by the covert practice. Fifteen minutes of bliss, before the oven timer she had set would trigger her return to normality.
Until, one feverishly hot July, Valerie was careless. A migraine threatened and numbed by painkillers, she began her ritual without setting the alarm. The combination of heady afternoon heat and medication lulled her into a deep sleep. She woke disorientated by the lost light. Turning her face towards the room, she stretched her legs, and struck a warm obstacle. Alfred sat at the end of the sofa dunking a Chocolate Digestive in his Husband of the Year mug.
“Keeping any other little secrets, are we?” he asked, as he rubbed her feet. Valerie couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched her toes. She reached towards him but froze, gasping, as his biscuit broke in two, landing face down on the armrest before sliding over the edge, leaving a smear of chocolate in its wake.
“Well, there is one thing,” she said.