The Missing Husband

by Natasha Boydell

  ‘Talk to me, Kate, tell me what’s happened? What can I do?’ he’d asked her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she just kept saying over and over again. ‘I just don’t know.’

  The next morning, he told her that he thought they should get a nanny. He was expecting her to resist vehemently again, so he was surprised when she agreed without much protest. Within a few weeks they had hired Rachel – one of those capable sorts who you’d never have to worry about fancying, but you instantly have complete faith in – and she restored order and harmony to their home again. This time Kate gave her baby up to the arms of another person almost too gratefully. She started going to the gym, looking for houses to buy – ‘a new start for us,’ she told him – and even began talking about going back to work.

  For a while things started looking up again but it didn’t last. Her career ideas never made it off the ground and the short burst of enthusiasm for life that she’d had was soon snuffed out and replaced with a frustrating resignation that this was her lot.

  Their marriage continued to deteriorate. It was like they had nothing in common anymore other than their children and they couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. Their previously infrequent lovemaking became non-existent. He felt like he had lost the Kate he had known for all those years and he didn’t know how to get her back. At the same time he didn’t seem to have the energy to do anything about it either. He was constantly exhausted and so was she. Their babies were growing and blossoming into beautiful little girls but their marriage had stagnated. And now, all these years later, not much had changed. They existed together, co-parented together, and actually got on well enough, but the spark had gone.

  On the outside they seemed like the perfect family but behind closed doors it was a different story. And Kate didn’t even seem to care. As long as everyone else thought they were doing great, it didn’t matter to her what was really going on. She was obsessed with making everything look perfect, agonising over fixtures and fittings for the house, outfits for the girls, making sure they got good marks at school. But when it came to Pete, it was like she had no more energy left for him. He felt like he’d been stuck in a rut for so long that this half-life had become normal and he barely even questioned it day to day. But recently he had found himself dreaming of something better and feeling that he deserved better than this. If he was being honest, it had started at around the same time he met Claire.

  Looking back, he could pinpoint the exact moment when he realised that this ‘thing’ with her was different, that it was more than just a harmless attraction and a chit-chat. His company held Free Drinks Friday once a month, to coincide with payday. It was basically an excuse for the staff to get pissed as farts on free booze and while he’d wholeheartedly embraced it when he was younger, he hadn’t been to it for years. But one day Claire casually mentioned that she would be going and asked if she’d see him there. His initial reaction was to scoff at the idea but then he found himself reconsidering. He hadn’t been out for ages; why not have a few drinks before going home? And if she was going, there was no harm in having a chat with her.

  As the day went on, he could feel anticipation building up inside him at the prospect of the evening ahead. But just as he was considering logging off early for once and hitting the bar, he got side-tracked by a minor work crisis and by the time he got downstairs, it was gone 8pm. As he walked out of the lift and into the foyer, excited at the prospect of seeing Claire and having a drink with her, he saw her heading purposefully towards the exit. His heart sank.

  ‘Leaving so soon?’ he called out to her, hoping he sounded casual.

  She turned around and regarded him with a cool, calm expression. ‘Yes, I’ve got somewhere else to be.’ Was it him or did she seem pissed off? Either way, he realised that he didn’t want her to go, he was desperate to convince her to stay for a drink. But he found himself tongue-tied and had no idea what to say to her, so he just stood there like an idiot. He could barely conceal his disappointment when she swivelled on her heel and sauntered out, no doubt heading off to meet some twenty-something bloke with no wife and kids at home to worry about.

  In the bar, he drowned his sorrows with a lager and made polite conversation with colleagues before excusing himself and heading home. As he sat on the train, he told himself that he was being ridiculous. Of course nothing could happen between them, he was married and she probably wasn’t interested anyway.

  But at home, as he opened a bottle of red wine and half watched a chick flick that Kate had already started, he found himself thinking about her, the way she’d looked at him, in fact, the way she’d looked full stop – sexy and unobtainable. For the rest of the weekend his mind kept flickering back to her over and over again. By the time Monday rolled around, he couldn’t get to the office fast enough. And sure enough, there she was, almost as if she’d been waiting for him the whole time.

  ‘Good weekend?’ he asked her.

  ‘Could have been better,’ she replied and, although he couldn’t be sure what she was referring to, he knew exactly what he hoped it was. And he promised himself that the next time he had an opportunity like that, he wasn’t going to fuck it up.

  So the following month, when she mentioned that she was going to Free Drinks Friday again, there was no doubt in his mind that he’d be there.

  They had sex that night. It was the first time he’d had sex in a very long time and it was quick and over too soon. Afterwards, he felt awful. He left as quickly as possible and got the train home. The heady combination of booze, lust and adrenaline had worn off and he felt tired and empty, like an addict after the hit has passed. By the time he got home Kate was already asleep and he sat in the kitchen with a whisky until 2am, thinking dark, guilty thoughts and eventually drinking himself into oblivion. The next day he woke up with a heavy head and an even heavier heart. Kate turned to face him and gave him an unsympathetic look. ‘Late night?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, I ended up going to that free drinks event they do each month. I had to show a bit of face, rally the troops. There’s some redundancies in the pipeline and everyone’s feeling a little rattled,’ he told her, surprised at himself at how easily the lie rolled off his tongue.

  ‘Well, you’re on swimming duty and there’s nothing like two overexcited girls, manky changing rooms and a sweltering pool to kill off that hangover,’ she said, looking at him almost victoriously, he thought, as she got out of bed and slipped her dressing gown on. He groaned and shoved a pillow over his head.

  He wondered what Claire was doing that morning. Not going down to the local swimming pool that looked like it hadn’t seen a lick of paint since the 70s, that was for sure. Probably staying in bed until 10am before eventually rousing herself to get ready so she could meet friends for brunch at some trendy café. He briefly felt a pang of resentment at the thought of her commitment-free Saturday and the fact that he couldn’t be enjoying it with her. Then he got out of bed, stretched and padded over to the bathroom, turning on the shower and reaching for his toothbrush. ‘Just another day in paradise,’ he said aloud to himself as he opened the shower door and walked into the hot stream of water, cleansing his sins and transforming him back into the role of doting family man.

  On Monday he felt nervous as hell about seeing her again. He’d spent the weekend convincing himself that it was a one-off and that it would never happen again. He didn’t want to be disrespectful to her, so he’d planned to go in early as usual, before the crowds arrived, and explain that she was lovely but that his situation was complicated and it wouldn’t be right to pursue this any further. It was him, not her, etc. But the minute that he walked into the building and saw her looking directly at him, one eyebrow raised suggestively, all his resolve vanished into thin air.

  ‘Hey you,’ she said, looking up at him as he reached the reception desk.

  Thank God there was no one else around at this early hour. He could practically see the sexual tension between them. Get a grip, he told
himself. ‘Hey yourself,’ he said back, feeling like a nervous teenager with a crush.

  ‘So, it was quite an interesting night on Friday, eh?’ she said, avoiding the small talk and cutting straight to the chase. It was typical Claire.

  ‘Um yes, yes you could say that.’ He felt embarrassed all of a sudden. He hadn’t had the morning-after-the-night-before chat since he was nineteen years old.

  ‘So what happens next? I think we both know that the ball’s in your court here, Pete. Whatever you decide is totally cool with me. I’d just like to know either way.’

  Her directness threw him for a moment and he didn’t know how to respond. He frantically searched his brain, trying to locate the well-rehearsed speech that he’d been planning all weekend, but he couldn’t seem to find it. Instead, he heard himself saying, ‘Are you free on Wednesday evening?’

  She grinned at him. ‘I am.’

  5

  Kate

  Kate woke up with a jolt. She’d been lying awake for so long that she hadn’t even realised she’d dropped off. She must have only been out of it for half an hour or so. She turned to look at Lily, lying next to her, her leg encased in a cast and propped up by pillows. She was dead to the world, sleeping soundly in a way that only children can.

  The previous day had been one horrendousness after the next. One minute she was trying to come to terms with her marriage crisis and the next she was rushing into A&E and being ushered into a cubicle where poor Lily was sitting, her little face pale with shock, tears running down her cheeks. Kate enveloped her into a hug and showered her with kisses, desperate to carry the pain for both of them.

  ‘What on earth happened?’ she asked Lily’s teacher, Mrs Jones, who was sitting with her, keeping her company until Kate arrived.

  ‘She just slipped and fell,’ the poor woman explained, visibly shaken. ‘We thought she’d twisted her ankle at first but then it started swelling up like a balloon and she couldn’t walk on it at all. She’s already had her X-rays and we’re waiting for the results.’

  ‘Thanks, I can take it from here,’ Kate told her. The teacher stood up, patted Kate’s arm and then reached over and gave Lily a hug. ‘I hope you feel better soon, Lily. Everyone will be thinking of you and looking forward to seeing you back at school.’

  After she left, Kate sat next to her daughter, putting her arm around her and pressing her body close to her. She kept thinking that she needed to call Pete, to tell him what had happened, before remembering that she couldn’t. She felt alone in the world. Even if they’d had a row or were cross with each other, she had always known that she could call him if she needed to. Now she was totally on her own and she was terrified. How had it come to this?

  A nurse appeared, breaking her out of her thoughts, and told them that the consultant was ready to see them. She helped Lily into a wheelchair and pushed her slowly down the corridor and into a room, where the doctor was waiting. He smiled at them warmly. ‘Well, Lily, you’ve been in the wars, haven’t you?’ He turned to Kate. ‘So Lily has broken her tibia, one of the long bones in her lower leg. The good news is that the bones are still aligned so she doesn’t need surgery. However, she’ll need to wear a cast for six weeks and she won’t be able to put any weight on her leg. She’ll need to use crutches.’

  He saw the shock on Kate’s face and added reassuringly: ‘It’s a fairly common injury in children, and she’ll be running around again before you know it. They tend to cope pretty well with crutches – better than most adults at any rate.’ He chuckled and turned to Lily: ‘You’ll get to wear a lovely cast and all of your friends are going to want to see it. You can even choose what colour you’d like it to be.’

  ‘Pink,’ Lily decided immediately, already warming to the idea of being the centre of attention. The doctor smiled at her. ‘Pink it is then.’

  They’d managed to get her home in one piece, where Erin was waiting with Maggie to greet them. Lily was shattered and her earlier bravado evaporated as quickly as it had arrived, so Kate had helped her up the stairs and into her nightclothes.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ the little girl had asked, looking at Kate with wide, tearful eyes. ‘I want to see Daddy.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart,’ Kate told her daughter, ‘but Daddy’s gone on a business trip.’

  ‘Can we FaceTime him?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, darling, Daddy is working and he won’t have his phone on.’ God, she felt absolutely awful. How was she going to keep this up? How long would she have to keep it up for? Suddenly she felt a desperate need to compensate for Pete’s absence.

  ‘I tell you what, why don’t you sleep in Mummy and Daddy’s bed tonight?’ she suggested. Lily’s eyes lit up. The girls were never allowed to sleep in their parents’ bed. Kate had helped her into bed and the little girl had been asleep before her head even hit the pillow.

  Unfortunately, Kate couldn’t say the same for herself and so here she was at 3am, lying next to her sleeping daughter and feeling wretched. Thoughts, fears and anxieties infiltrated her mind from every angle. How was she going to cope without Pete? How was she going to carry on as normal? What on earth was going to happen long term? Why had this happened? Could she have stopped it?

  As if yesterday hadn’t been awful enough, the accident had totally thrown her. Lily was going to need her parents now more than ever and she didn’t know if she had the strength to get through this and act like everything was fine. She just couldn’t process all the different emotions that she was feeling – overwhelming anger at Pete, worry about what lay ahead, and guilt that she was to blame. She was a failure of a wife. At the back of her mind she’d known for a long time that she needed to make more of an effort in their marriage but she simply hadn’t been able to find the energy to do anything about it. Soon, she’d thought. I’ll fix it soon. But soon never came. Still, until now she hadn’t realised things had got this bad.

  She was glad when the sun finally started to peek through the cracks in the curtains and Lily stirred. The last two nights had been the longest of her life and although she was exhausted, at least the day took the edge off the demons and dark thoughts that had come out to plague her in the depth of the night.

  She turned to her side so that her face was inches away from Lily’s. ‘Morning, beautiful,’ she said. ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ Lily asked, rubbing sleepy eyes with curled up fists.

  Kate’s heart broke all over again. ‘Daddy’s away, remember? But Mummy’s here and we can have a lovely day at home together. How about I make your special pancakes?’

  ‘With chocolate spread?’ Lily’s eyes instantly lit up in anticipation.

  Kate smiled, relieved at how distractible children were. ‘With chocolate spread.’

  Getting an impatient, wriggly child with a broken leg up, washed and dressed was, she soon discovered, something of a challenge but she welcomed the distraction. Lily was a trooper, brimming with excitement at the novelty of being off school. ‘When can I show my friends my cast?’ she kept asking. Kate felt a stab of pride at her little girl for putting on a brave face and wished Pete was here to see it too. Maggie, disgruntled at not being the centre of attention, played up more than usual and Kate was relieved when Rachel arrived to walk her to school. After settling Lily on to the sofa with some milk, a duvet and a Disney film, Kate reached for her laptop and sat down beside her daughter. She immediately logged on to Facebook, searching for Pete’s profile on impulse even though she knew it wouldn’t be there. As she checked her email, she suddenly had a thought. Bringing up a new message, she typed Pete’s personal email address in and started writing.

  Pete,

  I don’t know if you’re checking your emails. I don’t even know where you are. I don’t know what’s happened to us. I’m really angry with you, Pete, I can’t pretend I’m not. You took the coward’s way out, you should have talked to me, given us an opportunity to fix this first before you decided to run. You’ve always talked ab
out being a man of principles, of being different from your dad, but then you go and do this. I don’t know what to think. Was it so bad that you couldn’t tell me how you felt? All these years we’ve been together and you couldn’t come to me with this? When did it all go so horribly wrong between us?

  Lily’s broken her leg. She fell at school. She’s been asking after you and I don’t know what to say to her. She wants to know when you’ll be back. What do I do?

  She didn’t know what else to write, so she pressed send and listened to the whoosh as her message disappeared off into the digital ether. She had so many questions yet in that moment, she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Erin called round later that morning with gifts for Lily and a bottle of gin for Kate. ‘I think you’re going to need this over the next few weeks,’ she told her sister as she hugged her tightly and went to put the kettle on. With their tea they sat down together at the kitchen table.

  ‘Any news?’ Erin asked her.

  ‘Nothing,’ Kate replied. ‘Although I emailed him this morning just in case he’s checking them.’

  ‘Have you had a chance to make a plan of action?’

  ‘Not really. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I can’t believe Lily’s managed to break her bloody leg. I can’t work out if it’s literally the worst timing ever or if it’s a welcome distraction from the rest of the nightmare that is my life at the moment.’

  Erin couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You’ve got to love kids, haven’t you?’ She looked at Kate thoughtfully for a few seconds before adding: ‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should contact one of his mates from work and see if they know anything. Do you have any of their numbers?’