The Aftermath

by Gail Schimmel

  Part of me was stunned – I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. I hadn’t thought about where this thing with Daniel and me was going. And I certainly hadn’t expected it to happen then, in the lead-up to Christmas, when every mistress knows the man goes back to the safety of his family. But it also felt inevitable. Obviously Daniel and I were meant to be together and it was just a terrible mistake that he’d married Claire before he met me. But this, I felt, was our destiny.

  ‘I’ll tell Claire tonight,’ he said. ‘So I’ll probably have to move in to your place immediately. I don’t think she’ll let me sleep there once she knows.’ He sounded matter-of-fact. Like he’d seen the inevitability of this path too.

  ‘My place?’ I’d never really pictured having Daniel as a fixture. The idea was strange.

  ‘Well, I assume that’s what you want,’ said Daniel. ‘For us to be together? I’m leaving my wife and child for you, so I kind of thought I should come to you.’

  ‘Of course you’ll come to me,’ I said. ‘I love you. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives.’ I pushed aside any doubts. I was now in the real world of grown-up relationships; there was no space for wondering if I wanted to move in with someone after such a short time. That sort of thinking was for other people, not for me and the love of my life.

  ‘I guess I must love you too,’ said Daniel, and abruptly put down the phone. I tried not to feel uneasy.

  He arrived at about two in the morning, exhausted, and he’d clearly been crying. He had one sports bag with him, and over the next few days, his PA appeared sporadically with suitcases and boxes. I presume that she’d arranged this with Claire – who was staying with her parents for the week between Christmas and New Year, and refusing to speak to Daniel – but I didn’t know how or when, or what she thought of the situation. I made some space for his stuff in my cupboards, but that soon proved impractical, and he moved it into the spare room. There was a strange time when he just left his suitcases lying open on the spare room bed, and I wondered if he wasn’t sure whether he was staying. But eventually one evening, he announced that he couldn’t find anything, and he didn’t understand why his bags hadn’t been unpacked, and with inexplicable sighing, he unpacked them. The boxes have remained where the PA and I left them, in the passage and shoved into corners of rooms.

  I presume he’ll unpack when he’s ready. I don’t want to push.

  I didn’t ask what passed between him and Claire the night he left. I didn’t really want to know. And I haven’t seen Claire again. Or done pottery. I didn’t really think that part through either; I didn’t realise what else I would be losing.

  Helen

  Usually I visit Mike on Wednesday afternoons and then at some point over the weekend, often on both days, because what else am I going to do? But I couldn’t go yesterday because I was waiting for Julia, so I’ve taken an afternoon off today. The doctors are a bit thrown. I never take time off.

  ‘First humming,’ says Ewan Marigold, ‘now afternoons off. Next thing you’ll be eloping with the delivery guy from the pathology lab.’

  I laugh. ‘I think he bats for your team, actually,’ I tease Dr Marigold, and then I blush because we’ve never talked about him being gay, although it’s obviously not a secret because his boyfriend – a luminous Ugandan who is proof that albinism can be beautiful – often comes to meet him at the rooms. In my confusion, I blurt out the next bit: ‘Anyway, I’m married.’

  Dr Marigold looks at me. ‘I thought you were widowed,’ he says. He sounds confused, and his forehead wrinkles up like it does when he’s reading the file of a challenging patient.

  And it is true that I’ve somehow let the doctors believe this about me, that I’m widowed. I’ve never said it – I would never say it – but I also haven’t corrected them when I’ve known they’re making that assumption. My story is too painful to bring into the workplace, and visiting Mike is my private, special time. But Ewan Marigold has loosened my tongue.

  It seems ages that Dr Marigold and I stare at each other. Then I shrug my shoulders.

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me.’

  I can see he’s about to ask more, so I reach out and touch his arm. I’m not a toucher, and I don’t know if my gesture takes him or me more by surprise.

  ‘It’s complicated, Ewan,’ I say, using his name for the first time. ‘I don’t talk about it.’

  He glances down at my hand on his arm, and then at my face. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I understand. But I’m here if you need me.’ He looks so concerned, and I can only imagine what strange scenario he’s constructing in his head. But I don’t have the energy to explain, to expose myself. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  I’m planning to tell Mike the good news that Julia has found someone, that she’s pregnant. I lay awake last night rehearsing how I’ll tell him that our time is finally coming, that I’ll be able to end the pain for both of us. In my fantasy, I leant over and held Mike’s hand as I whispered it to him, and when I got to the part where I said we could die, Mike squeezed my hand. I know it’s been twenty-six years since it last happened, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again if something sufficiently exciting happens.

  But when I get to Mike’s room, and I sit down and take his hand and start talking, I don’t seem able to follow my own plan.

  ‘I’m so worried about her,’ I tell him. ‘This man is married, and by the sounds of things to a very likeable, competent woman. I just can’t help thinking that he’s going to leave Julia and go back to his wife. And now there’s a baby.’

  I look at Mike’s impassive face, and his chest rising and falling – miraculously on its own, the miracle that holds my hope – and I feel admonished.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t think Julia is loveable,’ I say, as if Mike has spoken. ‘Of course she’s loveable. But this man has been married. Julia doesn’t know about marriage.’

  I squeeze Mike’s hand. We know about marriage, Mike and I. We know about true love and, God help us, we know about for better or worse. I don’t think Mike ever would have had an affair, but if he had, I think our marriage would have won at the end of the day. And when Julia described this Daniel to me, he sounded an awful lot like Mike.

  ‘Anyway, we’re going to meet him on Sunday. I’ll bring them here and you can see what you think.’ I lean back on the hard chair. ‘I just don’t want her to get hurt, but I can’t see how else this can end.’ I look at him.

  ‘I’m not being a pessimist, so don’t you go thinking that,’ I argue with my silent husband. ‘Believe me, I hope more than anybody that this works out well.’

  Now is the time to tell him why, to explain what this really means to us. But somehow I don’t. I sit there holding his hand for another hour, thinking about Julia and wondering what the future holds. At the back of my mind, I’m weighing up whether I’ll be able to die soon. But mostly, I’m wondering what Julia will do if Daniel leaves her.

  Being with Mike always brings me peace, and today is no different. After sitting with him, I feel calmer, more focused. ‘We’ll talk about the other stuff after we meet Daniel,’ I say. ‘We’ll know more about where we are then.’ I lean down and give Mike a kiss goodbye, slightly on the side of his mouth, which I consider my own special place.

  When I leave Mike’s room, there’s a man sitting on one of the chairs in the passage. He’s crying. When Mike was first here, I often stopped and spoke to people I thought were in the same boat as me. We’d become friendly for a while, and then they would start to get better and move on, and I wouldn’t, and the acquaintance would end. So I just stopped trying. These days I don’t know any of the other long-term visitors; I hurry in and out of the building, speaking only to the nurses who care for Mike.

  But there’s something about this guy. He looks so alone, and so broken, and I know how that feels. And I’ve been feeling different since Julia’s news – more hopeful and more worried and . . . well, I suppose there’s no other word for it. I feel m
ore alive now that I can see my own death. And now here is this man, crying. I sit down next to him and pull a tissue out of my bag and hand it to him. He takes it silently, and wipes his eyes before blowing his nose with an incongruous trumpet.

  ‘It’s hard,’ I say.

  He nods. He looks in his fifties, like me, which means it could be anyone in here – a wife, a parent, a child. It’s so long since I’ve had one of these conversations that I’ve forgotten the form.

  ‘So,’ I say, ‘it’s your . . . ?’ I wait for him to fill in the blank, which he does, but only after an awkward amount of time has passed.

  ‘It’s my wife,’ he says, and starts to cry again.

  ‘I’m sorry. I do know how hard it is. My husband’s been in a coma for twenty-six years.’

  That gets his attention and he looks at me. ‘Twenty-six years?’

  I nod.

  ‘Miri’s only been like this for a year and a bit. I thought that was long, but twenty-six years . . . I guess you’re going to tell me it gets easier.’

  I choose my words carefully. ‘I think a lot of people do find that. But to be honest, for me it hasn’t gotten easier. It’s just unrelentingly painful. But most people appear to get better.’

  He wipes his eyes, and seems to feel inspired by my words. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever feel better. I’m so sick of people telling me I will.’

  ‘Trust me,’ I say with a laugh. ‘I know exactly how that feels.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He smiles and looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t.

  I stand up, and it’s awkward, I’m not sure exactly how to leave. I give him a little pat on the shoulder. ‘See you,’ I say.

  ‘See you.’

  I walk down the passage, wondering if he’ll really never feel better, but then I sigh. Of course he will. They all do. It’s just me who can’t ever move on.

  FRIDAY

  Julia

  I wake up early feeling nauseous. I’m not sure if it’s the pregnancy or because Daniel seems to have wrapped his entire body around mine, but I’m hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. I try to push him away but he tightens his grip and I feel his penis stirring against my leg. I push him more forcefully and he rolls away from me, still, it would seem, fast asleep. I get out of bed and run to the toilet, but when I get there, I don’t feel so sick any more. I drink some water and look at myself in the mirror. I look tired and unattractive, which is insane given how much I’ve been sleeping. I turn to the side and look at my stomach. There’s no sign of a baby yet – maybe just a slight swelling where I used to be flatter. Claire’s flat stomach probably showed the baby from the word go, but my figure is bumpier. I sigh in frustration, and start trying to tame my wild bed hair.

  Daniel has somehow woken up and sneaked in without me noticing, and suddenly he’s behind me in the mirror, and his arms are wrapping themselves around me so I can’t get the bobby pins into my bun.

  ‘You sexy thing,’ he whispers, nipping at my earlobe. I try to step away but he’s holding tight. ‘Ah’ – he pulls me even closer, which I hadn’t thought possible – ‘playing hard to get.’

  Every instinct is telling me to push him away. I just don’t want to be touched. But there’s a voice in my head saying that I won Daniel by being physically available to him in a way Claire wasn’t. And Daniel has been cold to me since we talked about my pregnancy. This is the first sign of warmth. You made your bed . . . says the voice, and so I turn to face Daniel, and allow my body to respond to his.

  Afterwards I’m glad I gave in. Sex with Daniel is always good, but it’s especially worthwhile when I hear his plans.

  ‘I’m meeting Claire for coffee today,’ he says as he gets dressed, stepping around one of his boxes. I can tell from his carefully offhand tone that he’s thought about how to tell me this.

  ‘Oh?’ I say, aware that I shouldn’t overreact.

  ‘I need to tell her you’re pregnant.’

  ‘I haven’t even been to a doctor,’ I say.

  ‘Well, you really should soon.’ Daniel sounds exasperated. ‘For God’s sake, Julia, it’s not rocket science.’ He takes a deep breath, obviously calming himself in the face of my inefficiency. ‘Anyhow, it’s really important that Claire doesn’t find out from someone else, so I’m going to tell her.’

  ‘Why’s it so important?’ I ask, keeping my voice level. ‘Why’s Claire suddenly the most important person in this story?’

  Daniel turns to look at me. ‘Because,’ he says slowly, as if I’m stupid, ‘she is Mackenzie’s mother. She is actually still my wife. You’re making us have this baby. And it’s going to break her heart.’

  I don’t know what to say. I have a moment of wanting to just climb back into our bed and wake up to find none of this has happened. To wake up in a time before I met Claire, and to never, ever go to pottery.

  But then I wouldn’t have Daniel, and Daniel is what I always wanted.

  ‘Okay, I understand,’ I say, although I don’t really. I smile. ‘And this weekend we get to tell my dad.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Daniel. ‘I get to meet your mum and tell your dad.’

  ‘And meet my dad.’

  Daniel looks at me again, and this time his eyes are a bit kinder. ‘Yes, I get to meet your dad.’

  I sit down on the side of the bed. ‘It’s all going to be okay, isn’t it, Daniel?’

  Daniel sits down next to me. ‘Eventually,’ he says.

  ‘Eventually.’

  Claire

  Friday morning starts at a sprint, with us losing basically everything Mackenzie needs for the day – her lunchbox, her ballet stuff, her homework book. We both race around the house looking for these things and calling them, a mad habit Mackenzie has learnt from me. At one point we collide on the stairs, both yelling, ‘Stuff, stuff, where are you?’ and we collapse in a heap, laughing. I pull Mackenzie onto my lap and squeeze her.

  ‘No, Mummy,’ she giggles. ‘We’re late. We gotta find the stuff. Stuff !’

  I hold the precious weight of my girl-child. ‘We’re never so late that we can’t stop for love,’ I say.

  Mackenzie lets her body rest against mine. ‘I like you, Mummy,’ she says.

  ‘I like you too, baby-girl.’

  After that, we’re calmer, so we find the stuff easily and leave for school.

  ‘Don’t forget you’re staying with Daddy this weekend,’ I tell her in the car. ‘I’ll pick you up and we’ll pack your bags and then Daddy will come fetch you.’

  ‘Will it be Daddy or Julia fetching me?’ asks Mackenzie, who was horrified when Julia fetched her from school.

  I speak before I can think. ‘If he sends Julia, you’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘Then I hope he sends her,’ says Mackenzie. She says it quietly, and she’s looking out the window of the car at the passing scenery.

  ‘Don’t you like staying with Daddy? Don’t you miss him?’

  Mackenzie sighs and rests her head back against the car seat. ‘Mummy, I miss everything,’ she says. ‘I can’t wait till Daddy comes home. His holiday is taking so long. He must just come home now.’

  I don’t know what to do, and my throat closes up. I can’t get out the words I know I should be saying. What Mackenzie has just said reflects almost exactly how I feel. Can’t this be over? Can’t Daniel just come home?

  Can’t we pretend that none of it ever happened?

  And then I think, maybe that’s why he wants to see me today. Maybe he wants to beg me to take him back. Oh, I’ll make him beg alright. I’ll make him pay for this for the foreseeable future. But for Mackenzie’s sake, I’ll take him back. I know we can fix this. What Daniel and I had, you don’t get that every day.

  He must have realised that by now.

  ‘Oh, Mackenzie,’ I say. ‘We’ll see what happens.’

  ‘Okay.’ She goes back to looking out the window. I don’t think she’s going to say anything more, but after a few moments she says, ‘You’ll fix it, Mummy. You alway
s do. Daddy always says you can fix anything.’

  That’s true, I think. Granted, Daniel’s never broken anything this badly. But I can fix anything. Anyone who knows me will know that about me. I can fix this.

  When I drop Mackenzie at school, I’m feeling happier than I have in months. I smile at everyone, and I find time to make small talk. It slows me down, but I don’t care.

  I’m a fixer. And I have hope.

  Daniel

  I arrive early at the coffee shop where Claire and I agreed to meet. I feel like I’m waiting for something awful – the dentist or a prostate exam. I’ve never felt this way waiting for Claire before. Not even after I started sleeping with Julia and I felt guilty all the time.

  The thing I feel now is more than guilty. I don’t even have words for this thing I feel now, but it’s not a feeling I ever expected. My whole life has turned into something I never planned or expected. I want to go back, but then I’d have to give up Julia, and I can’t give up Julia, with her wild hair and easy manner and uninhibited sex. So I have to plough forward with this new life.

  I order a cup of coffee, but when it comes I just stare at it. I can’t even find the energy to get the coffee to my mouth. I consider putting my head down on the table and closing my eyes, but I suspect the restaurant manager might call the men in white coats. Then I start to wonder whether there really are men in white coats. I can’t see that it could be true, but then who do you call when people go crazy?

  I’m thinking about this, and not worrying, and I even manage to take a sip of coffee. And then Claire walks in.

  Julia

  To take my mind off the fact that Daniel is seeing Claire today, I make an appointment with the doctor. First, I try for the gynaecologist I sporadically use, but when I phone and say I need a check-up, the next appointment I can get with him is in three months’ time, and the receptionist sounds so irritated that I don’t get the chance to explain my situation. So I decide to go to the GP instead.