The Man I Married

by Elena Wilkes

  ‘A flower?’

  ‘A rose on the doorstep at his old flat. I thought it was Simon Gould, you know, that prisoner—’

  Emma’s look hesitated.

  ‘So there’s messages and then she turns up and then he tells me he has to go away overnight…’

  She held up a palm. ‘Just stop a minute. Rewind. Why would you think that Simon Gould was leaving you roses?’

  ‘Because he was ringing me up, harassing me—’

  ‘But I thought—’ She didn’t finish the sentence. I knew what she thought. I knew what everyone thought.

  ‘So you don’t believe me, then?’ I thought I might cry.

  ‘Of course I believe you!’ She chucked the packet of spaghetti onto the side and came over, putting her arms round me. ‘God, Luce, what do you take me for?… Look, come on, talk to me about this. Lead me through it, step by step, okay?’

  I nodded dumbly.

  ‘Okay. Let’s look at this. Firstly, there’s a message from a woman on his phone. Did it sound… you know, sexual…?’

  I swallowed. ‘I don’t know. It was a text.’

  ‘And it couldn’t be from a bloke?’

  I sighed, exasperated. ‘What kind of bloke leaves messages like that?’

  ‘Threatening blokes? The I-know-where-you-live type of blokes?… Erm… like the ones he deals with all day?’ She looked at me. ‘So presumably he’s deleted it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do the others say?’

  ‘There’s just one.’ I sniffed.

  ‘One? But lover wouldn’t just leave one message, would she?’

  I didn’t know how to respond.

  ‘And if he’s deleted all the others, why wouldn’t he have deleted that one?’

  I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything anymore.

  ‘And you’re thinking this is the same person he used to go out with?’

  I nodded.

  ‘How long ago?’

  I shrugged. ‘Eighteen, twenty years maybe. Dunno.’

  I could see the look on her face.

  ‘So she comes to the door and goes away again…’ She frowned. ‘That makes no sense. If she’s involved in some kind of illicit liaison with Paul, why isn’t she off illicitly liaising with him while she’s got the chance?’

  ‘I think she wants to talk to me.’

  ‘Christ.’ Grabbing the kettle, she poured the boiling water into a saucepan and I watched her as she extracted a handful of pasta from the packet and dropped it into the pan. ‘I was like that with Connor.’ She reached for a spoon, stirring the meaty ragu sauce bubbling on the hob. ‘I wanted to force the situation. I wanted to tell his wife what was going on. I understand that madness.’ She shook her head, slowly.

  ‘He’s kept a photograph of her. From when she was a lot younger. Why would he keep something like that?’

  She chucked the spoon to one side. My eyes followed her as she went to the fridge and yanked it open. ‘Jesus, I need a glass of something… I don’t suppose you’re allowed one?’

  ‘And the thing with my foot—’ I so wanted her to believe me. ‘It wasn’t really an accident.’

  Her back stiffened and she looked at me.

  ‘Well, it was but… We were in the middle of a fight and I grabbed him and he pushed—’

  I saw her eyes flicker.

  ‘You don’t sound appalled or shocked by anything I’ve told you.’ My eyes tracked her as she reached in to retrieve a bottle.

  ‘Well firstly, hand on heart, I’ve had some fights with blokes where I’ve been the one doing a bit of pushing and shoving. Once you start grabbing people though—’

  The way she was saying it made me start to doubt myself.

  ‘I know exactly what it’s like Luce. I know because I’m as guilty as the next person.’ She put her hand on her chest. ‘Things happen and you make them fit a particular story. It’s so easy to make things add up when they really don’t. So. A photograph, you say? Well, it’s a photograph, Luce. If you went through all the boxes in my loft I suspect you’d find a photograph of some old boyfriend somewhere – Possibly even more than one.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘And is it remotely possible this woman is a client?’

  I sighed distractedly. ‘Well he did tell me, early on, there was a patient suffering from psychosis who was blowing up his phone, but—’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s more of a likely explanation then?’ Emma held up a hand. ‘Look. Luce. I’ve watched Paul, I’ve seen the way he looks at you.’ She found a wineglass. ‘I’ve listened to the way he talks. It’s all about you. That doesn’t sound like a man who’s having an affair. Plus, did you notice he brought milk when he came in? Men who are off shagging don’t think about picking up milk.’ She gave me a wry sideways look and her eyes became gentle. I thought I might cry again. ‘You really, really love him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yep.’ I sniffed. ‘I thought I did. But I just can’t live like this.’

  ‘You definitely can’t, but when you really, really love someone it makes you unbelievably vulnerable. Then you start over-thinking things and getting stuff out of perspective.’ She saw the hurt on my face. ‘I know exactly how it is. I had all that crap with Connor, remember? You end up so you can’t think straight.’

  I went to blow my nose. ‘That’s what Paul says.’

  ‘So you’ve told him how you feel?’ She topped up her glass. ‘So he’s clearly not taking the piss out of you for being a silly old tart. He is trying to understand. Give him credit for that, at least.’

  I shifted against the post trying to ease the pain in my foot. ‘Caitlin cheated on him, but I didn’t know any of this until our wedding day.’

  ‘Great timing, Paul.’ Emma did a little ‘cheers’ motion. ‘Him being an insensitive coward at times does not mean he’s off shagging – and anyway you don’t think he’d go back with her after that, do you?’

  ‘But he tells me lies.’ I spat the words in tearful frustration. ‘You really don’t understand Em, he doesn’t tell me the whole truth.’

  She paused to take a slug of wine and swallowed slowly. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘What?’ I stared at her.

  ‘I know. He told me.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  ‘We had a little bit of a heart to heart when he came round. He admitted he’d handled some things really badly from the very beginning because he was scared of losing you.’

  He’d said that?

  ‘You must admit you two got married so bloody fast there wasn’t the time to do all that finding out that couples normally do, was there? I bet there are things that you’ve not told him, too.’

  I shifted again uncomfortably and not just because of the pain in my foot. Thoughts of Dan surfaced and I batted them away.

  Paul had confided in Emma?

  ‘I bet there are, Lucy. Everyone has things in their past that they’d rather their partner didn’t know too much about. Even you… I mean, did you tell him everything about Dan?’

  What had he told her?

  ‘Emma,’ I flinched. ‘That’s not the way—’

  ‘I’m honestly on your side here, Luce.’ She put her glass down to open a cupboard. ‘But so’s Paul. He worships you. We aren’t the enemy. There is no enemy. He’s a bloke; that’s all. They’re all knobs, trust me, but I think he’s a trustworthy knob.’ She grinned and fished out a colander. ‘Now let’s leave this. Let’s chat about rubbish like we normally do. So – how hungry are you?’

  And so the conversation ended. She turned and picked up the saucepan from the hob, straining the spaghetti and starting to talk about a chap she quite fancied in her French class and how Harry was beginning to get on her nerves. The mention of Dan’s name had effectively shut me up. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, or whose side she was on, I could only stand, listening and nodding in all the right places.

  We ate the delicious pasta, and afterwards she dried my hair and straightened it
while my facemask dried, and then we watched television, her drinking three quarters of a new bottle of white and me on the tonic water. I decided to let it go. I needed her right now, arguing with her was pointless. Paul rang several times, but the signal kept cutting out each time I answered. I smiled and shrugged and she smiled back indulgently, her smile disappearing into a massive yawn. ‘Yarrggghh! … Well, I might have to leave you two to smooch down the phone without me. I’m totally done in and a bit pissed actually… Plus, there’s work in the morning… Shall I give you a hand with the stairs?’

  ‘Oh hell, I’ve just remembered!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve just realised the spare duvet is still packed in a box in the loft.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she yawned again and stretched. ‘Do you have a loft ladder or do I have to start waking up the neighbourhood trying to find your steps?’

  ‘No there’s a ladder, it’s just the hassle of getting up there.’

  ‘You tell me which box it’s in and I’ll sort it. No worries.’

  She managed to haul down the ladder and clamber her way up. It creaked and groaned alarmingly as she hoisted herself into the space. I watched her lumbering shadow above me, listening to her muttering and grumbling about ‘if I was so bloody organised, then why couldn’t she see it?’ I got a sudden memory of this was how we used to be, alongside a massive rush of sadness that we just weren’t in that place anymore.

  ‘Whereabouts am I looking?’ she tutted.

  ‘It’s a big and white bundle in a see-through bag. Look! Hold your hand out… Now left a bit… Left a bit more…’

  It was then that I saw it. Paul’s briefcase, the one he told me he’d thrown away, sitting there just inside the opening. Curiosity tingled.

  ‘Oh that big white bundle! Why didn’t you say in the first place!… Ow! Hang on a minute. Let me get this thing out of the way.’ She shifted the briefcase.

  ‘Actually, just chuck that down, I don’t know what it’s doing up there anyway.’

  The black rectangle appeared at the gap and slid down the edge of the ladder.

  It was light – much lighter than I’d expected.

  There was a clump and a heave as the duvet appeared in the hatch. I stood back as it tumbled to the floor.

  ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘Yep. The spare pillows and the sheets and stuff are in the cupboard in your room.’ I quickly slid the case inside my bedroom door and shut it.

  The ladder juddered as Emma made her way down.

  ‘Brilliant places, lofts.’ She clapped her hands together to dust them off. ‘You can chuck stuff up there and forget all about it, can’t you?’

  She shunted the rungs back up again and clicked the trap door shut. ‘…Oi! Leave that!’ Emma saw what I was doing and grabbed the duvet from my hands.

  ‘You don’t need to get involved. I can manage perfectly. Now off to bed with you.’

  ‘Nighty-night then. See you in the morning. Sleep well.’ I kissed her lightly on the cheek and watched her toddle off to bed.

  Her bedroom door clicked shut and I stayed standing on the quiet landing for a moment, listening to the house settle. How I wished it could go back to how it was between me and Em: the two of us messing about, doing girly stuff. We’d had glimpses tonight, but that old ‘us’ seemed very far away.

  I glanced through the open bedroom door, seeing the case sitting there, innocuous and ordinary: a scruffy old thing that should have gone out with the trash. But it hadn’t. It had been taken out of its plastic sack and had been put up in the loft. ‘School stuff’ he’d said. Well school stuff might mean University stuff which might mean Caitlin.

  The leather felt warm under my hand. This was Pandora’s Box. Once this thing was opened, I didn’t know what I would discover, but I knew whatever it was, could never be hidden again.

  * * *

  Of course it was locked.

  I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the combination tumblers for a moment and then attempted a few guesses – his birthday, mine, our wedding date – as though, stupidly, I believed those things held any significance for him. I ran my fingers around the edges of the case, testing its give, and then I noticed the hinges had tiny screws. My stomach thrilled.

  If I did this, there was no going back: he would know I’d been snooping again.

  How much did I want to do this?

  It was a pointless question.

  Finding a pair of nail scissors, I carefully managed to twist each one in turn, but the metal hinge dug tight into the leather so that even a fingernail wouldn’t release it. Using the tip of the scissors, I managed to prise up one edge of the plate, feeling the sticky give, and ease a corner free. See-sawing a little, I was able to lever the metal up. Jesus. I was really doing this.

  I prayed there would be papers inside – old bills, tax returns, certificates. But it was nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. It was full of photographs.

  My whole body shook. A rush of something: adrenaline, shock, fear, coursed through me. The pictures blurred. I couldn’t see them properly.

  And then I could.

  There were loads of them, all crammed in a jumbled mess. I picked up two at random, gripping them so hard that the ball of my thumb pressed a crease into the shiny paper.

  My eyes wouldn’t focus.

  Babies. Caitlin.

  Something inside me plummeted. She laughed up at me, holding two little ones in her arms.

  It was Caitlin with children. Not pregnant. Not gone. Not one baby, but two. Babies that weren’t mine. The woman who wasn’t me. A whole case full of lies. A whole case full of truth.

  In one, Caitlin was young, rosy-cheeked and shining in all her heavily pregnant sharp focus. Full of happiness. Full of baby happiness. I flipped over the next and the next, and there it was: pink blanketed and newly born, all hospital-swaddled, with Caitlin about to plant a kiss on her dark squiggle of hair. Something terrible lurched inside me. Then a picture of a baby in a plastic bath: that same dark hair, all chipmunk podgy faced and a blob of soap on her nose. She was smiling and looking up at the camera: Paul’s eyes. My gut and my heart collided. In the next she was sitting on a mat on the floor holding a yellow toy dinosaur. There was a hand holding her arm making sure she didn’t fall. Paul’s hand.

  The pain in my heart was physical. I was looking right into a moment of their life: a window into their past. There it all was: one after another, after another… The ache rose gradually into something sour that burned my throat and I struggled to breathe.

  His knees, his hands, his baby. She must’ve been there, taking the photo. Another newborn on a mat and the little girl, older now, playing on a bedroom floor in front of a white chest of drawers. Was he there? Was she? I imagined her holding the camera, saying something funny, making him laugh, the two of them sharing these perfect moments.

  I looked away into the blank empty wall of my own bedroom, the lamplight making a canopy of shadows across the ceiling. I put my hand on my stomach: the cramps tightened and released in a slow drumbeat of real pain. The house was in silence. I thought of that little back bedroom, blank and empty too, my arms empty, my insides empty, in my empty half-life. I thought of lying in that bed in the clinic, all those years ago, watching the shape of Dan’s shoulders as he walked out of the door. I thought of the guilt and the grief. I thought of my mother and my sister. This wasn’t about jealousy: this was far, far more than jealousy. This was all the things I’d given up to have this life and now look at me. This was deceit, this was absolute betrayal.

  The bruising hard ache behind my breastbone burned. I wanted to cry but crying wasn’t deep enough, I was too furious for that. I imagined him going up there into the loft, sitting in semi darkness, poring over her and their children, thinking about the shared intimacies, yearning for them. Was that what happened? Did he go searching to find her, or did she find him?

  I stared down again into her face, Caitlin’s fa
ce, laughing up into the lens, her hair whipped by the breeze and tied up with a red scarf so pretty against the dark brown. ‘Caitlin.’ There… I whispered her name out loud: ‘Caitlin.’ The pure joy of her, the tumbling curls caught in a fluttering patterned scarf… My hand stilled along with my gut.

  I’d seen that before. I knew that scarf. It was here. Flinging the wardrobe door open, I pawed through his things on the shelf… Camden Market. The one he lent me the day we went to Camden Market. My stomach sickened as I searched and searched. It wasn’t here.

  A wave of bitterness swamped me. He’d kept it all these years. A token. A remembrance of the woman he was in love with. So what was I then? The also-ran, the fill-in until he could persuade her to come back? My brain whirled… So what was the plan? To shove me out, to dump me: to begin real life again with her and leave me with nothing? Well that wasn’t happening. He’d have to find me first.

  Cramming all the photographs back into the case, I pushed them away, curling up on my side and dragging the duvet up to my chin. The bitterness hardened around my heart, becoming a solid, gnawing weight. My phone rang, rang off, rang again and then stopped. I reached for it and typed in a message to Paul.

  Tired. Foot hurting. Gone to bed.

  I pressed the ‘Send’ button and then buried my face in the softness of the pillow as I bit down hard, the pain in my chest finally loosening and breaking and the bedroom disappearing in a muffled howl of weeping.

  * * *

  I’m not sure I slept much. When I did my dreams were ragged and fitful. At one stage I was standing on a cliff edge. There was the keening moan of the wind around me, but, gazing down, I realised it was the sound of children, crying. Their eyes were huge and pleading, and their mouths opened and closed like baby birds, begging as I crouched, floundering desperately, reaching out. The edge began to crumble; I felt the tickle of their clothes as everything gave way around me and we plunged, hurtling into the black. I woke gasping.