Apparently it’s time for a Fifty Shades book club

Come to my book club,” said my neighbour Brenda when she stopped to pull an annoying weed from my front step last Wednesday morning.

“I was going to sort the weeds out this afternoon…” I began but she waved my excuses away before setting about dead-heading one of my roses. Brenda has no horticultural boundaries.

“Book club is Sunday night. It’s me and a few other people who live on our road. I’m sure you’ve met some of them. We don’t read anything too serious. Well, unless it’s Elaine at 67’s turn to choose the book. But this time I’m hosting so we’re doing my favourite author.”

I tried to guess who that author might be before Brenda filled me in. What sort of book would she like? A cosy Cornish cupcake novel? True crime?

“I’ve picked the new Fifty Shades,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially. “The last one in the series. It was only released last week. I was queuing outside Waterstones when it opened.”

“Was the queue very long?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” said Brenda. “You’d be surprised at the sort of people I saw waiting. Have you read any E L James?”

“I read the first one,” I said.

It was on my last summer holiday with Gideon. We were in Crete. While Gids sat in the shade with his laptop (emailing the woman who would become wife number two, I now knew), I had ploughed through all the books I’d brought with me, so started on the books previous visitors to the villa had left behind. There were five copies of Fifty Shades, some looking more well-read than others. I picked the one that didn’t look too “thumbed”.

It was surprisingly gripping. At the end of the day, I left it on the bed, hoping that while I was in the shower, Gids might pick the book up and be inspired. When I came out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a smile and a hand towel, Gids was applying new corn plasters. We went straight to sleep.

“Great,” said Brenda. “If you’ve read the first book then you know what to expect. Will you join us?”

“Why not?” I said.

“Everyone brings something to eat to go with the book’s theme. Last month Elaine had us reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Couldn’t get on with the book, but the apocalyptic pot-luck supper was interesting. We all had to bring a tin without a label on…”

“So I should bring a BDSM-related snack?” I clarified.

“You’ve got the idea,” said Brenda. “And we dress up.”

“Well, I’ll have to go up into the attic and dig out my bondage kit,” I joked.

“Bondage kit?” Glenn the postman seemed to materialise from next door’s hedge.

“Fifty Shades book club,” Brenda explained. “Fancy a night out?”

Glenn looked at me, wide-eyed with panic. Brenda saved him: “Actually, I shouldn’t have asked, seeing as we’re still supposed to be doing ‘rule of six’ and we’re already up to that. Next month?”

“Yeah, make sure you remind me,” said Glenn.

I acquired my own copy of Freed, which retells the last book of the original trilogy from Christian Grey’s POV, via Amazon. It was a behemoth of a book, a door-stopper. I didn’t see how I could possibly be expected to read the whole thing before Sunday. Not least because I had to come up with suitable BDSM snacks. Would a cocktail stick through a sausage be sufficiently expressive of Christian’s inner pain?

Then I had to find an outfit. Fortunately, before the first lockdown, I had attended a friend’s fancy dress 50th, dressed as Alice Cooper. The trousers and the wig combined with a sports bra would be have to do. I certainly felt constricted by the trousers, which did not stretch to comfortably accommodate my Quarantine Fifteen.

When Brenda opened the door, she did a double-take at my get-up.

“You said you dressed up for book club,” I squeaked.

“I only meant that we make an effort,” Brenda explained, as she clutched at the single string of pearls with which she had accessorised her elegant linen dress.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said, darting back across the road to change into something more suitable. I plumped for the black and white spotted Zara dress that had been “the dress” of summer 2019. When I got back to Brenda’s, I discovered that two other book club attendees had chosen the same frock. At least my BDSM snacks went down well.

There was, thankfully, not much discussion of the book, despite Elaine from number 67’s best attempts to bring everyone’s attention to EL James’s use of repetition, which Elaine generously thought might be deliberate. The other guests were more interested in musing upon the ways in which real life was stranger than fiction. Even on our quiet leafy street.

“A dominatrix used to live at number 42. She was very popular. Even had a receptionist, to let her clients in. You wouldn’t have known to look at her if you met her in the corner shop, except that she was always buying biblical quantities of green bananas. She made a fortune. Squirrelled it all away and retired to Kent. She didn’t even have to do any of the awful stuff. She had high court judges and cabinet ministers paying to come round and do her housework.”

“Her front step was always sparkling,” said one of the other long-timers with something approaching awe.

As everyone cooed and marvelled over what a great ruse it was to have people paying for the pain-privilege of scrubbing your bath. I found myself wondering how one got into that line of work. Apparently, the woman from number 42 had a permanent advertisement in the window of the corner shop.

“What did it say?” I had to know.

“It was in code,” Brenda said wisely. Unfortunately, Brenda couldn’t remember what the codewords were. “But it just goes to show you never know what goes on behind the doors of an ordinary-looking terraced house.”

Later that night, I pondered Brenda’s words as I got ready for bed and listened to the couple next door singing extracts from Les Mis. I hoped the dominatrix at number 42 had had sound-proofing.