Twenty Years a Stranger (The Stranger Series Book 1)

by Deborah Twelves

  Jane was easy to track down, especially after I uncovered her very detailed Twitter and Facebook accounts, which filled in a lot of gaps.

  Company checks led me to Grace, with no record of a divorce. For the last few years, John has been squirreling things away into his ‘pension fund’, worth approx. quarter of a million I believe, maybe more. Not sure if you know about all of his cars and motorcycles or the Vettriano paintings he has recently been investing in. A couple of his cars were stored in my garages. The rest are in a unit somewhere near Jane’s house.

  It appeared he was trying to turn money into assets in preparation for a divorce, but some of your emails showed you were still together earlier this year, celebrating your 19th wedding anniversary and you still seem to be involved with his business.

  I am still not sure how he kept us all apart for so many years, especially in the various hospitals after he had his helicopter accident.

  I am also not sure how he keeps us all off his back when he goes ‘incommunicado’, as we all seem to be chasing him to call us. The following timeline might interest you.

  16th 17th September - the weekend I found out he’d been cheating on me.

  23rd 23th September - the weekend I found out that I was the other woman.

  7th to 14th October - on holiday with me in Portugal. Jane, there was no unexpected software upgrade on his phone; he’d actually used this excuse on me when you went to Disneyland with him at Easter. There was also no traffic warden, he just cut the call short as he was calling you between the starter and main course in the restaurant and the main arrived too promptly.

  23th 29th October - unexpected weekend he called it as he was supposed to be in the States. Jane, he didn’t go Twickenham to watch the rugby, he just couldn’t be arsed to phone his son, even though he was ill.

  11th 12th November - just can’t keep away. I lied to him about my plans for the weekend, as he was still expecting to come down on Sunday for a duvet day.

  For the record, I’ve bought nearly every piece of M&S clothing he has. I don’t know where he goes to at Christmas, but he usually spends Boxing Day with me, starting with a duck race and mulled wine in our local village and often seems to spend New Year’s Day at the footie with Jane.

  Jane, I know him as John Callaghan (as per his passport, driving licence, gun licence and his blue badge). I believe he is Matthew to you and uses his first name with his wife.

  When we first met, he told me he wasn’t the marrying kind or a 24/7 type of guy. He also said very recently that I should count myself lucky that he collects cars rather than women, his words not mine. Oh and, to make it easier for him, he calls us ‘Honey’ or ‘Hun’.

  Well, it’s up to you whether you believe this email or not. I’ve told him today it’s over. Just wondering which one of us he sucks up too, the wife or one of the mothers of his children. I certainly don’t think it’s going to be me unless he wants to make sure that I don’t trash any of his stuff.

  Three times I read that email, from start to finish, and yet still I could not bring myself to accept the information it contained. I stubbornly kept telling myself I needed to ring my husband so that he could reassure me that it was all a lie.

  I did not cry. Nor did I allow myself to panic. Daniel would obviously tell me it was some crazy stalker. A clever hacker. Someone with a vendetta against him because of work.

  Anything, other than that it was true.

  My capacity for self-delusion was apparently limitless.

  I decided to read it all again one more time before ringing him. Just in case I had misunderstood something.

  The thing that terrified me most about the email was the amount of detail it contained about Daniel. This woman seemed to know a hell of a lot about the man I was married to and yet most of the stuff she was claiming just couldn’t possibly be true. She had to have got her wires crossed. For starters, she said he had children, but I knew that was impossible. He had never wanted children. There was just no way. He wouldn’t do that to me. Why was she doing this to us?

  Still I didn’t cry. In fact, I had absolutely no idea how I felt or how I should react. The enormity of it all overwhelmed me totally. It was too much to take in. Too many dates. Too many places. Too many names of people I did not know. Detail after detail of the everyday lives of women I had never heard of and the relationships they seemingly enjoyed with my husband. I, on the other hand, only merited a small mention in despatches and my apparently unremarkable and insignificant part in his life was summed up in a few paltry lines.

  I stared blankly into space as I desperately tried to process what I had just read. I couldn’t imagine myself ever being able to get off that bench. It still made no sense. And yet, there was no denying the fact that the man in the photograph was the man I was married to. It was a recently taken picture and he was wearing the chino shorts I had so often seen him in, together with an equally familiar polo shirt.

  I’ve bought nearly every piece of M&S clothing he has.

  He was sitting on a balcony somewhere in the sun, sporting a Panama hat and the aviator sunglasses he always wore. He held a copy of Yachting World magazine in his hand and there was a beer on the table. He was looking towards the camera and smiling at whoever was taking the photo. I could see a second bottle of Peroni on the table opposite him, a pair of tortoiseshell-framed, women’s sunglasses and a novel lying face down. He looked happy and relaxed. A typical, holiday photo. I suddenly remembered his irritation with me every time I tried to take a picture of him recently. His barked instructions that nothing was to be put on Facebook.

  Now that I had actually read the email, of course, even I had to acknowledge that there was no going back. I had to find the strength to confront Daniel, but the thought of doing that terrified me. There remained in my mind a tiny glimmer of hope that he was not that man and I clung to it like a drowning woman clinging to a piece of wreckage.

  I took out my phone to ring my husband. He answered uncharacteristically on the second ring and his friendly, chatty manner took me by surprise.

  Perhaps I had got it all wrong after all - I thought to myself.

  I was clutching at straws.

  ‘Hi Hun, how are you? How was the show with your mum?’

  Oh and, to make it easier for him, he calls us ‘Honey’ or ‘Hun’.

  I hesitated a moment before answering, unsure how to respond.

  ‘Erm… It was great thanks. She really enjoyed it.’

  ‘Great stuff. What are you up to now?’ he asked, a little too enthusiastically.

  I paused for a moment to give myself time to adjust to the way the conversation was going.

  - What am I up to? What are you up to? More to the point.

  This was not what I had expected at all. I answered his question mechanically.

  ‘Walking the dog. Where are you?’

  The background noise on the call told me he was driving, but I realised I had no idea where.

  ‘I’m on the way to see another bloody customer. More problems with work,’ he sighed, theatrically.

  - How many times had he used that lie? Would I ever be able to take anything he said at face value again?

  I could no longer carry on with the strange charade of normality we had somehow slipped into.

  ‘Listen…I got a really weird email about you last night,’ I began.

  He sighed again.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  I was wrong-footed, realising that, for some reason, I hadn’t expected him to know about the email. Because if he had known, then surely he would have been on the phone to me immediately, begging forgiveness or something?

  ‘What do you mean, you know?’

  ‘Well, I got a copy of it.’

  ‘Oh, right. So…what’s it all about?’

  I remained pathetically hopeful. A condemned woman, waiting for a reprieve as she climbs up onto the gallows. Last chance for him to tell me a plausible tale to explain it all away and make everything
okay again.

  A short silence followed the question and then the final crushing blow.

  ‘It’s this girl I’ve been seeing.’

  And that was that. With those six little words, all hope vanished. Game over.

  I began to shake uncontrollably with shock and I felt physically sick.

  ‘A girl you’ve been seeing?’

  I repeated his words like an idiot until my brain finally allowed the truth to enter and my mouth went into overdrive.

  ‘Oh my God, are you telling me it’s true? Please…tell me it’s not true. It can’t be true. I love you. How could you do this to me? I don’t understand it…all those women she’s talking about…and she says you’ve got kids…but you never wanted kids….’

  My voice sounded shrill in my own ears and I was becoming increasingly hysterical, as first reality, then panic, set in.

  Daniel remained silent and allowed me to prattle on, incoherently. When I paused for breath, his words cut through me like a knife.

  ‘Look, it’s all in the email. Please just read the email. I’m not exactly proud of myself, but I admit it’s all true and everything’s in there. I really have no idea how I got myself into this mess. Whatever you do, try to calm down and don’t do anything rash. Don’t say anything to anyone yet. When you’ve had a chance to come to terms with it, we can talk and decide where we go from here. I’m happy to go along with whatever you want.’

  There was no shouting. No screaming. No pleading.

  I longed for something that would make it seem like I actually mattered. Like our twenty-year marriage was a thing of some value to him. Anything would have been better than the crushing humiliation of indifference that he was forcing me to endure. It felt like my own inadequacy was staring me in the face, mocking me. I was, quite simply, nothing. A person of no value or importance in the whole, sorry business.

  I was stunned into an uncomprehending silence. His tone was so cold and detached. He did not even raise his voice as he ripped my heart in two with his callous, dismissive words. He was talking as if he had just forgotten to pay a bill or post a letter, totally devoid of all feeling or remorse concerning the storm of cataclysmic proportions that he had just brought crashing down on my head.

  I realised I had absolutely no idea what to say next, so I opted for saying nothing and simply pressed the red button to end the call, in a futile attempt to make it all go away.

  Nothing would ever be the same again. Now that the information in the email had been confirmed as the truth, the life I believed I had been living had just gone up in smoke. I stood up but felt suddenly light-headed and my legs threatened to give way underneath me. I gripped the bench to steady myself, then set off on automatic pilot in the direction of my brother’s house, tears of pain streaming down my face.

  I asked myself - What had I been expecting from the phone call? Tears of regret as he pleaded with me to forgive him? Tormented sobs as he begged me to take him back? At the very least, maybe a declaration of his love for me, despite what he had done?

  There had been none of that.

  I was his wife. The woman he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with. Yet apparently I was insignificant, nothing more to him than an annoying irritation he had to deal with, utterly alone in my desolation and humiliation.

  The black hole of despair stretched out in front of me and threatened to engulf me.

  I had no idea how I would ever be able to come back from this.

  Picking up the pieces

  Anyone can love you when the sun shines brightly, but only in the darkest storms of your life will you find those who truly care for you.

  Grace

  There were no cars on the drive at my brother’s house and I knew instantly that everyone was out. I sat down on the wall and cried like a baby; heart-wrenching, gasping sobs, not caring who saw me or what they thought of me. In fact, I wanted someone to see me. To come over and ask me what was wrong. To put their arms around me and try to comfort me. But of course, no one did. My isolation was all-consuming and I could feel the panic and hysteria rising in me again. I took out my phone to call Samantha and saw a text from Daniel, short and to the point, composed as always in fully punctuated sentences:

  Grace, I know you’re upset at the moment, but please don’t do anything you will regret. Don’t go talking to everyone about this. No one else needs to know at the moment. We need to talk to each other first and, hopefully, we can work things out so that no one comes off too badly. I don’t want you to suffer. xxx

  I stared at the message incredulously, unable to comprehend how he could be so blasé about everything. He didn’t want me to suffer! He was talking about me as if I were an injured dog that needed to be put out of its misery. His brief and succinct message seemed almost farcical in light of the enormity of the recent discovery.

  I suddenly realised I had hit the nail on the head with the word ‘discovery’. No wonder he wasn’t shocked. This was no ‘discovery’ for him. He had been living this elaborate lie for most of his adult life and was wholly familiar with all the places, events and characters in the drama. He had played a leading role in every scene, whereas I was simply an extra, frantically trying to keep up with all the twists and turns of the intricate plot.

  He had written the script, for Christ’s sake.

  I knew instinctively there was no way on this earth I could deal with the chaos of my newly shattered life alone and no way could I keep it to myself. I had always worn my heart on my sleeve and I needed the support of all my family and friends more than ever if I was going to have any chance of getting through this.

  Besides, I wanted to get in first and tell everyone what he had done before he could spin any more lies. A little voice in my head suddenly began to nag at me.

  - What if they knew all along? What if everyone was laughing at me for staying with him all these years? Who could I really trust?

  I refused to allow myself to dwell on that. Time would tell.

  I swiped my phone open and called Samantha, praying she would answer.

  ‘Hi Grace, how are you?’

  It was Sunday, and I imagined her and Charles in the kitchen preparing a roast. They loved entertaining and often had friends and family round for Sunday lunch. I knew the garbled message I delivered was totally incomprehensible, but I seemed to have lost the ability to speak in coherent sentences. The words tumbled out of my mouth.

  ‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do? You’ve got to help me. Please help me.’

  I kept repeating the phrases through broken sobs.

  ‘Grace, for God’s sake, you’re scaring me. You need to stop talking, calm down, take a few deep breaths and tell me what the hell has happened. Whatever it is, of course I’ll help you.’

  Samantha’s voice was stern and decisive. Hers was the clear voice of reason, taking control as I wanted and needed her to do, bringing me out of the tailspin.

  ‘Grace? Tell me what’s happened.’

  I took a deep breath and tried again.

  ‘It’s Daniel…he’s been cheating on me. He’s got four other women and he has had children with two of them….’

  That was all I could manage to blurt out before dissolving into tears again. She spent the next fifteen minutes on the phone with me, alternating between trying to extract key information and offering words of support and comfort, telling me it was all going to be okay. Not surprisingly, she was still struggling to understand what I was saying so, in the end, I forwarded her the email, which seemed the easiest way to explain things, and waited.

  She stayed on the phone as she read it then unleashed a torrent of expletives about Daniel. She went silent for a moment, clearly trying to find the right words for the bizarre and totally unexpected situation we suddenly found ourselves in.

  ‘Look, why don’t you come down here and stay with us for a bit? Charles will be able to help with everything. I’m going to bring him up to speed about it all now. He’ll know what
to do. You will be okay, I promise you that. You’re strong and you’ll get through this. I still can’t believe it Grace, but it seems like he has duped us all. He is a total bastard who clearly never deserved you and he is about to realise he has lost the best thing that ever happened to him. He will certainly never walk through our door again. I’ll make sure of that.’

  I hesitated a moment, before asking:

  ‘Samantha, do you think Charles knew anything? I mean…he and Daniel were friends.…’

  ‘No Grace, absolutely not. He would definitely have said something to me and he never did, I promise you. He loves you just like I do and he would never have let that arse-hole deceive you and betray you like that. You know what he and Daniel were like. It was always a bit of a love-hate relationship. He only put up with him half the time because of you.’

  I knew I could trust Samantha one hundred percent. She was that friend who would always tell you the truth when you tried something on that didn’t suit you, let you know discreetly when you had something stuck in your teeth after a meal. She would never have kept a secret like that from me. For the first time, I was grateful for the many occasions that I had her in my camp; I agreed to go down to see them as soon as I could.

  I managed to pull myself together and regain enough composure to go home, knowing I could not put it off any longer. At some point, my brother would see the twenty-something missed calls on his phone and get in touch. In the meantime, I had to face Mum, make her a coffee, sit her down and blow her world apart.

  Mum was chattering away as I took off my boots in the porch and gave Lola some food. I was lost in my own thoughts, trying to formulate the shortest, least painful version of the story for her in my head, when her words cut through.

  ‘You’re obviously not listening to me, so I might as well stop telling you about it.’

  She sounded hurt.

  ‘Look, Mum, I’m sorry.…’ I knew my voice sounded harsh and irritable.