by Jane Fallon
He looks the same. He sounds the same. He puts a mug on the bedside table. Lowers a hand to feel my forehead.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘OK.’ I’m really not.
‘You’ve been asleep for hours. I thought I ought to wake you.’
‘Have I?’ I flap a hand around for my mobile. It’s nearly three o’clock. We got back from the Mayhew before twelve. Outside it looks as if it’s thinking about getting dark already, the sky slate-grey and heavy. I hate this time of year. Hate the sad, oppressive light. Christmas is over and spring’s not coming for months. It’s a time to be endured not enjoyed. ‘I’ll get up.’ I just want Nick to go and leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to him. Don’t want to look at him.
‘Do you want anything to eat?’
‘No. I’m fine.’ My stomach growls in protest. ‘Later.’
‘In that case I’m going to go for a quick run,’ he says and leans down to kiss me. I freeze. ‘Sure you’ll be OK?’
‘Yup.’
Once I hear the front door bang I leap out of bed. I’ve never wanted to be the kind of person who checks their partner’s phone but it seems like as good a time to start as any. I look in all the obvious places first – on the coffee table, the sofa, plugged into the charger. I can’t see it anywhere. I start turning over cushions, moving piles of papers aimlessly. Has he taken it with him? Why would he do that? Is he phoning her? Hiding round the corner and muttering sweet nothings about how his wife doesn’t understand him, and then faking breathlessness when he gets home? Or maybe just talking to her makes him breathless, who knows?
I jump when I hear the front door click. Nick walks in, sweating lightly, phone in hand, headphones hanging from one ear.
‘Great, you’re up.’
‘Why did you take your phone?’ It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.
He looks down at it, confused. ‘Spotify,’ he says, a tiny frown line appearing on his forehead.
Right. Of course. He always takes his phone when he runs. He has a specific running playlist on there.
‘I know. I meant …’ What did I mean? God knows. I need to get a grip. I need to get some perspective. I need to know what I’m up against.
I’ve been thinking about your friend. Maybe you should tell her? Not that it’s any of my business but I think if it were me I might be grateful for being told. I hope you don’t think I’m poking my nose in. Do tell me to mind my own business.
I’m in the bath. I don’t trust myself around Nick at the moment. I managed to get through dinner being fairly monosyllabic and allowing him to put it down to me being unwell. The dog bed suddenly seemed tragic, dominating the kitchen in the corner he had cleared for it. A symbol of a happier, more innocent time. Only a matter of hours earlier. I knew we should be planning for Igor, laughing at the absurdity of the idea that this giant mammal would soon be living in our house, imagining the beautiful life we would give him to make up for his traumatic start. But I couldn’t bring myself to play along.
I’ve been staring at my message for half an hour now. If Patricia can persuade Lydia that coming clean is the noble thing to do then I can flush it all into the open. Have it out with Nick. Demand the truth.
I top the hot water up again. Will it to be tomorrow so Nick will be out at work all day. Although doing God knows what. I’m not sure I can bear it. We even joked about being left alone together, before Edie and Joe moved out.
‘What if I realize you’re actually really boring?’ I’d said, trying to keep a straight face. ‘And that once we don’t have to organize who’s picking Joe up from track practice or taking Edie to dance we don’t have anything to talk about at all?’
‘We can discuss the weather,’ he’d said. ‘Or take up a joint hobby like brass rubbing or flower arranging. I imagine they’re good conversation starters.’
‘What did we talk about before the kids?’ I’d said, in a moment of seriousness. He’d laughed then.
‘I have no idea. How much we fancied each other, I suppose.’
‘Well, good luck keeping that one going now.’
Everything had – has – always been an in-joke with me and Nick. It has always been ‘you and me against the world’, our own little exclusive club that let in two – and only two – more members eighteen and a half years ago.
I check Twitter again. Lydia has responded. I almost drop my phone in the water in my rush to read it.
I would never think you were poking your nose in! I value your advice. But I don’t think I can. Apart from anything else she would definitely shoot the messenger!!
Would I? Would she?
Probably! If I knew for certain it was true then yes, I’d tell her in a heartbeat.
Does it seem likely to you? I mean, you know him well, I assume?
Why have I asked her this? Fuck. But I want to know the answer. I jab at my phone impatiently, in and out of direct messages in the hope that will make a response appear more quickly.
Yes I do. And, honestly, no, it doesn’t surprise me. Not at all.
For fuck’s sake. What does that mean?
Has he done it before? I write, knowing the answer. I close my eyes, will myself to press send. Wait.
He has!
Because that’s the thing. That’s the reason this rumour, this gossip, whatever it is, bites so deep.
Nick has form.
Everything I’ve said about our relationship is true. We’re best buddies. Soul mates. But about six years ago it was almost all over. Maybe it was the first flush of my success – not that I have ever thought Nick was jealous of that in any way, but I’ve often wondered if he felt he might lose me. That my new life might sweep me off my feet. Or perhaps it was a midlife crisis or even just plain old lust, although I don’t like to think of that too often. In retrospect I think it’s as much of a mystery to him as it was to me. But whatever the reason, it happened, and nothing can change that.
He was working at a conference centre in Islington, looking after the day-to-day needs of the clients. What I remember most – apart from the shock, the feeling that my world had collapsed – was the absolute ordinariness of that time. That’s what was – what still is, if I ever allow myself to think about it – so shocking. There were no furtive phone calls, no sudden attention to grooming or the way he dressed, no tell-tale aroma of a strange woman’s perfume. Nick was Nick. We laughed, we had fun, we revelled in the kids. And then one night, after they’d gone to bed, he’d paused the episode of Spiral we were watching and said those fateful words: ‘I have to tell you something.’
It was over by the time he told me, but it had gone on for a couple of weeks. An attendee at a two-day summit on joint health. They had got talking, ended up having a drink … I can’t bring myself to think about the details even all these years later. He had come to his senses and ended it. He was horrified with himself, with what he had done to his family. My first instinct was to throw him out but he had begged to stay, to try and work it out. And we did. Slowly. Sometimes it would all be too much and I would bombard him with questions, details I needed to torture myself with. He went above and beyond to prove himself. He wore his guilt on the surface, his fear that he had ruined everything, his desire to make it up to me, to rebuild my shattered, already fragile, confidence. It took a long time. Months. And for most of that it was touch and go. If we hadn’t had the kids I think I would have given up, thrown him out, but eventually, weirdly, it brought us closer, solidified that what we wanted was each other. I can honestly say I have never doubted him since. Not once. It’s become a distant memory. Something that happened to someone else.
The only person I’d confided in was Lydia. I couldn’t bear for people to know. I didn’t think we had a chance of getting through it if we became that couple who almost broke up because he cheated. But I couldn’t process it all on my own either. She let me vent, told me she would back me up whatever I decided, helped me see how hard Nick was trying. I don’t know wh
at I would have done without her.
I’m a little thrown that she’s so quick to share my secret with Patricia, but then Patricia is not supposed to know who she’s talking about. I remind myself that Lydia is looking for help here, not gossiping.
As for me, I need something. Some kind of steer. It took me a long time to curb the urge to interrogate Nick every time he got home from work late, not to bristle every time he mentioned a female colleague, but I knew that if we were going to survive I had to learn to truly trust him again. I had to be able to move on and look to the future. I can’t risk everything we’ve worked so hard for by blundering in now and accusing him without evidence.
Is there any way you can find out more? What about the person who told you?
I pretty much told them I didn’t want to know! But, yes, I suppose I could ask them to tell me the details. God, Patricia, do I really want to hear them?
Good idea, I write, ignoring Lydia’s anxiety. Patricia needs to sound decisive. There’s no doubt this is the correct thing to do. Otherwise it’s just going to eat away at you.
She replies almost immediately. You’re right. OK. I’ll do it.
Now all I can do is wait.
CHAPTER 8
I find myself watching Nick as he gets ready for work the next morning. Is he taking extra care over how he looks? Does he seem more eager than usual to get going? The answer to both is no. Nick on a Monday morning is always a slow-moving, slightly sulky train.
‘I’m at that thing tonight, remember?’
I snap to attention. ‘What thing?’
He catches my eye via the mirror. ‘The presentation about the new site in Suffolk.’
It does ring a bell. Not that that matters. A lie is a lie: it doesn’t matter when you tell it. ‘Right. What time shall I expect you?’
He shrugs. ‘Ten? We’ll probably have a quick drink after.’
‘OK. Have fun.’ I hate myself for being like this. But I hate him more for giving me cause. He takes my comment at face value, thankfully.
‘I won’t.’ He bends down to kiss me and his mouth grazes mine. I’m struck with a sudden urge to hold on to him. To beg him not to go. I settle for looping my arms round his neck. He hugs me back. ‘I’m glad you’re feeling better.’
Work is impossible. In the end I give in to all the voices in my head and check through Nick’s coat pockets and the little desk in the living room where he keeps his bits and pieces. Finding nothing, I turn on his laptop. I know his password because I just do. Same as he knows mine. We’ve asked each other to look for things on our computers before. We’re an open book. That’s why I know I won’t find anything on here either – his work email stays strictly on his computer at work – but I won’t rest till I’ve looked. There’s nothing more from Lydia and I don’t know what else to do.
I’m saved from myself by the phone ringing. I don’t recognize the number but I snatch it up, eager for the distraction. It’s a woman’s voice.
‘Mrs Shepherd …?’
For a moment I think she’s going to say: ‘I’m having an affair with your husband. I thought you should know.’ It would be a relief. I could get answers at least. But what she actually says is, ‘It’s Jules from the Mayhew. We have a last-minute cancellation, so I was wondering if it was convenient to do your home assessment this morning?’
‘Oh …’ I should probably say no. Now is not the time to be taking on a responsibility like this. But what if Lydia’s got it wrong and in the meantime someone snaps Igor up? And how would I ever explain that to Nick? ‘My husband’s at work. It’s just me, if that’s OK?’
‘Absolutely,’ she says. ‘I just need to see the space and talk you through a few things.’
We arrange for her to come over in an hour, which gives me time to shower and tidy up a bit. I try to imagine what might be considered hazardous to an outsize hound – a delicate pottery ornament, a thin-legged spiky floor lamp, shoes he could swallow in one gulp – and shove them all in cupboards out of sight.
Jules is a smiley young woman in her twenties. I show her the kitchen and the garden first, talk her through my day. She keeps reminding me of Igor’s size, showing me a video on her phone of him on one of their daily walks, playing with a beagle. It looks like a dog being chased by a bouncy pony. Every time I look at him my heart melts and by the time Jules leaves I know I’ll do anything to keep him. No matter what happens with Nick. He needs someone to love him and I need something to love. Now more than ever, it would seem.
Jules tells me she’ll let me know, but I feel as if it’s a done deal. Ordinarily I’d call Nick straightaway, tell him the good news, but I feel as if he doesn’t deserve to know. I try Lyds (having first checked whether she has any news for Patricia – there’s nothing, but while I’m on there I like a couple of random tweets and retweet a touching story about a couple who have married nearly seventy years after they first met. Patricia is a bit of a romantic, I think), but her phone is off, which probably means she’s in a meeting. So I call Anne Marie and manage to catch her on a free period.
‘You’ll never guess,’ I say when she answers.
‘Well, obviously not,’ she says. Anne Marie does a great line in dry retorts. ‘And I only have eight minutes till my next class, so tell me.’
‘OK. We’re getting a dog. A rescue.’
She laughs. ‘You called me at work to tell me you’re getting a dog?’
‘I may have done, yes.’
‘Well, congratulations. Is this because the kids have moved out?’
‘Probably.’
Anne Marie and Harry’s eldest, Gino, is leaving in the autumn to study at MIT – on a prestigious scholarship that will transport him halfway across the world – but they’ll still have two at home. When the kids were young we’d joked about Gino and Edie growing up and falling in love. Or even Gino and Joe, come to that. But both my kids wrote him off as a nerd early on so it was never going to happen. They tolerate each other but they aren’t friends. I adore Gino. He really is a nerd through and through but he embraces it. He’s sweet and funny and he loves nothing more than astrophysics. And to tell you about it if you’ll let him. Not that I ever do – and he never ever takes offence. I remember when he saw the first Wilbur book – he must have been about ten or eleven – and he very sweetly asked me probing questions about where he lived and how he got to the shops, because if he was in a zoo he couldn’t just hop out whenever he wanted and, anyway, wouldn’t the other customers call the police and report a wild animal on the loose? And what did he do with all his purchases? (‘I don’t think he would be able to cook, Georgia, even if he had access to a kitchen. Also, he’d be a herbivore, so I’m not sure why he’d be buying bread.’ ‘Because it rhymes with bed,’ I told him and he’d replied that kangaroos sleep on the ground actually, so it was unlikely Wilbur would waste his money on a mattress.)
‘I’m not even going to have a goldfish once mine have all gone,’ Anne Marie is saying. ‘I want no responsibilities. Nothing. Just me and Harry doddering down to the pub any time we feel like it.’
Something clenches in my stomach at the thought that that was what I’d wanted too. Well, not the pub so much, but Nick and I had always looked forward to it just being the two of us again. All the things we could do. The ways in which we could please ourselves. I suppose that is what he’s doing. I’d just always imagined we’d please ourselves together.
‘Do you think anything’s up with Nick?’ I say before I can help myself. ‘Does he seem OK to you?’
‘Well, I haven’t seen him for a week or so but … what … is he ill, do you think? Shit.’
‘No. Not … It doesn’t matter. He just doesn’t seem himself, I suppose. I’m probably imagining things.’
‘He hasn’t said anything?’ I can picture her frowning, her dark eyebrows pulled together under her heavy electric blue fringe. Anne Marie has a very expressive face. It sometimes seems as if she has no control over it. She would be the world’s
worst poker player. She still looks exactly like she did when I first met her ten years ago – long, thick hair, all knees and elbows in her floaty dresses and Doc Martens. I was drawn to her because all the other mums wore Boden uniforms. Not that there was anything wrong with that except that I could barely tell them apart in their Breton tops, linen trousers and subtle blonde highlights. I’ve always been wary of those gangs of cookie-cutter women. I remember them as teenagers. So petite. So perfect. So mean. I’m sure most of them are nice enough, but they weren’t. Not when they were thirteen. They were part of an exclusive club that barred me at the door. Now they reeked of helicopter parenting, Pilates classes and privilege. Self-styled yummy mummies. Anne Marie screamed rock and roll and subversion. We bonded over the fact that neither of us would care if we never tasted balsamic vinegar ever again. I once heard one of the mums refer to us slightly sneeringly as ‘those artsy ones’. I took it as the compliment it wasn’t meant to be. This was pre Wilbur. Afterwards I was suddenly a desirable commodity. A trophy to have on your sofa when your friends called round. But it was too late by then: I’d seen their true colours.
I had a part-time job, a few hours a week, running life-drawing classes at the local adult education centre. During the days, while the twins were at school, I sketched. Anne Marie was already teaching music, but privately. Guitar and singing lessons. Her neighbours must have loved her. We lived on the same street, it turned out – more Chalk Farm than Primrose Hill – and we used to walk home together most days, four kids trailing along behind and her little one, Nina, due in a couple of months.
‘No,’ I say now. ‘Forget I said anything.’
I hear a bell ring in the background. ‘Shit, I have to go,’ Anne Marie says. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’