Worst Idea Ever

by Jane Fallon

  While he’s in the shower in the morning, tired and grumpy from the early start, I scrawl a quick note – ‘Igor had a bathroom emergency! Taken him out. See you tomorrow. Have a good trip x’ – grab the dog and rush him out of the front door. I take him down towards Regent’s Park instead of up and over Primrose Hill, just in case Nick decides to find us and say a proper goodbye, and I walk with him until we’re both exhausted and I know my husband will have left the house if he’s not going to risk missing his plane. When I get back he’s scribbled something on the bottom. ‘Hate not saying goodbye!! Call you later! Love you!’ I tear it up. Then I worry what if his plane crashes and it’s the last thing he ever said to me, so I fish the pieces out of the bin and put them on the side.

  I spend a fretful day alternating between trying to work and googling random things to do with Diamond Leisure in the hope of a breakthrough. I think about calling Sue or Jasmine and asking who else has gone to the Inverness site today, but I’m guessing she’s there in an unofficial capacity so they wouldn’t know. The chances of the woman he’s sleeping with also being someone who legitimately could be accompanying him on a routine visit seem low. Too convenient. Unless, that is, it’s an affair of opportunity not passion. More Ms Right Under My Nose than Ms Right. Or maybe I should call and ask who’s called in sick or booked two days’ holiday but, even if they had the faintest idea, why would they tell me? And I’m keen to try and preserve some iota of dignity in all this if I can. I don’t want to add ‘sad suspicious wife’ to the list of things they can gossip about behind my back.

  Just as I’m about to force myself out to the gym at about five to four, the doorbell rings. I recognize Anne Marie’s willowy form through the rippled glass panels of the front door. Shit. I don’t want to talk to her. I should never have said anything. Never have involved myself in her business. Igor starts barking helpfully, so she’ll know I must be at home. No creeping back down to the kitchen and hiding for me.

  I hold on to his collar and open the door. I live in fear of him bolting and not yet knowing where he lives to find his way home.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, a question in my voice. It’s not unusual for her to pop round without notice, but after our brief conversation on Saturday night this doesn’t feel like a casual visit.

  ‘Have you got a sec?’ She looks anxious. The glow waning.

  I think about saying, No, I’m in the middle of a work emergency. But she’d probably just laugh. My work is never urgent. The world will not end if I don’t come up with a rhyme for shampoo before tomorrow. The global publishing industry will not collapse.

  ‘Sure.’

  She follows me in and down to the kitchen and I flip the kettle on without even asking if she wants anything. Anne Marie is a coffee addict. I don’t think I have ever witnessed her refuse a cup. She’s the kind of person who indulges in two lethal-looking after-dinner espressos and then sleeps like a baby.

  ‘So … um … what you said on Saturday night—’

  I interrupt. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have. It’s nothing to do with me.’

  She sits down at the table. ‘It’s not … It’s over. But … you won’t say anything to Harry, will you?’

  ‘No,’ I say too quickly and then immediately regret it. I don’t want to end up making a promise I can’t keep. I should have waited till I heard what she has to say.

  She exhales loudly. ‘He’s another teacher. Obviously. Jez. Teaches English. He’s divorced. We’ve been friends for a little while – he only started in September – but lately it’s got a bit more …’

  She leaves it hanging there.

  I put the coffee down in front of her. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I’m not sure I want to know, to be honest. Sorry if that sounds harsh; it’s not meant to be.’

  ‘I need to get it off my chest. I know you won’t tell anyone. Anyone. Not Harry. Not ever.’

  I shake my head. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You remember I went to that conference thing at the beginning of the Christmas holidays?’ She doesn’t wait for me to respond. I actually do remember. Some kind of teenage developmental thing. Up in Yorkshire, I think. We’d invited Harry and the kids over for the evening because he’s a useless cook. And when Anne Marie’s not around he tends to mope about like an abandoned puppy.

  She exhales loudly. ‘There was no conference. We just went to a hotel. I knew as soon as we got up to his room that it was a terrible mistake. Fantasizing about it is one thing but actually doing it …’

  ‘Shit, Anne Marie …’

  ‘I went through with it. That’s what I can’t forgive myself for. I should have just got out of there. Anyway, Jez knew my heart wasn’t in it. It was pretty much a disaster. But it still happened …’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I didn’t see him till the start of term. I told him I had to concentrate on my family over Christmas – that he shouldn’t phone or text or anything – and he agreed. What you saw … that was the first chance we’d had to really talk about it …’

  She stares at her hands, twists her wedding ring round and round. I have no idea if she knows she’s doing it. I wait. The atmosphere feels weighted. Heavy. Igor finally breaks the silence by doing the loudest fart known to animalkind. He sighs happily. It’s impossible not to laugh. I flap my hands around, open the patio doors even though it’s minus one out.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘He’s not quite got etiquette down yet.’

  ‘I’m going to stop it before anything else happens. Tell him it was a mistake, that I love Harry and my family,’ Anne Marie says, snapping out of her reverie. ‘I just want you to know that.’

  I lean over and put my hand on her arm. ‘Like I said, it’s none of my business, but I’m glad. How do you think he’ll take it?’

  ‘I think he’ll be OK. He’s a nice bloke … He’s probably expecting it, to be honest.’

  ‘So that’s it?’

  She nods. ‘It was a moment of madness. Not even a moment. A fraction of a moment – whatever that is.’

  ‘A nano moment,’ I say helpfully and she smiles.

  ‘Please don’t hate me,’ she says.

  ‘As if.’

  She shivers and I lean over and shut the door.

  ‘If I thought … If there was any way it was ever going to happen again I’d tell Harry. I absolutely would. But it won’t. Not with Jez. Not with anyone. If anything, it’s made me appreciate what I have more. But I know if he found out he would never forgive me, however hard he tried. Not completely. It would ruin everything. It would break his heart.’

  It would, I have no doubt about that. ‘You’re right. There’s no reason for him to know.’ Do I actually believe this? I think I do.

  ‘Thank you.’

  We sit there saying nothing for a moment. I feel as if a huge weight has shifted off me. Of course what’s happened would devastate Harry if he ever found out; I haven’t forgotten that. But he won’t and, for the first time ever, I understand that that’s a kindness more than a deception.

  Anne Marie sighs. ‘Tell me what’s happening with Nick. I don’t believe he’s seeing someone. He’s the last person …’

  I can’t tell her about his history. I don’t want her to think our relationship was already broken, because it wasn’t. Just fractured. Healed. ‘I would have said the same about you a couple of days ago …’

  ‘Don’t …’

  ‘Sorry.’ I take a sip of my coffee. ‘That was cheap. Someone told me that he’s having a thing with a woman at work.’

  The shock on her face tells me she really had no idea. ‘No way. Who told you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just a friend of mine who knows someone he works with. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Have you asked him?’

  I shake my head emphatically. ‘No, because then he’d want to know how I’d heard and I’d have to drop her in it. What if he fires the person who told her?’

  ‘Shit. I just can’t see it.’


  ‘He’s gone up to the Inverness site tonight. He’s staying over …’

  She looks at me. ‘You don’t think …?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes. Do you think he might have confided in Harry?’ On balance I think this is unlikely. Nick would know Harry’d feel duty bound to tell Anne Marie. His mate Dom is far more likely to be his confidant and Dom and I have never had the greatest relationship. We get on fine on the surface, we just don’t gel. If he comes round and Nick leaves the room we never seem to have the faintest idea what to say to each other beyond ‘How’s work?’

  ‘No. I think he’d know …’ She stops, sighs. ‘I think he’d know Harry would be horrified. That he hates that kind of thing.’

  ‘Anne Marie … while you were … you and Jez … did you feel as if you’d fallen out of love with Harry? Was that it?’

  She grabs my hand across the table. ‘No! God, no. It was nothing to do with Harry. It was like I got taken over by the bodysnatchers. Honestly, George, if it’s true about Nick it’s nothing to do with how he feels about you. It’s a midlife crisis or something. Some kind of subconscious rebellion against ageing. I know it’s awful but maybe he just needs to get it out of his system.’

  I drain the last of my drink. ‘It’s a deal-breaker. I didn’t sign up to be the pitied wife at home while my husband fucks about.’ As I say it I realize it’s true. Two strikes and you’re out. No more chances.

  ‘Just find out what’s true before you damn him,’ she says. ‘Don’t write him off yet.’

  Which is why I’m soon to be sitting in a King’s Cross pub, feeling like an exhibit. Feeling as if everyone is looking at me, judging me. The spare part at Nick’s department’s weekly drinks. Nick usually just buys his team a round, stays for one, and is home by half seven. It’s not something to which partners are invited, but they’re not not invited either. It’s more that they would never think to come unless they happened to be passing. There’s nothing duller than work drinks for anyone not intimately acquainted with the offensive personal hygiene of Ian from Marketing or the passive-aggressive power plays of Vera in Sales. No one ever talks about anything other than their colleagues, their work grievances, their perceived slights. Why does X always ask me and not Y to do her photocopying? Why does Z never listen to my ideas but if Martine pipes up he’s all ears, probably because she bats her eyelashes at him and acts all giggly so he thinks she’s up for it, lecherous bastard. No one ever has a conversation, it’s all gossip and innuendo. But gossip is exactly what I need right now. One drink too many and someone might let something slip.

  Nick went straight to the office from the airport when he got back from Inverness. He’d phoned me a couple of times the night before: when he arrived and before he went out for ‘dinner with the resort manager’. We’ve always laughed about the way Diamond Leisure refer to their sites as ‘resorts’ with all that word promises. Palm trees and sandy beaches. Mojitos and spa treatments. Diamond Leisure parks are more ball pits full of snotty toddlers and two pints for the price of one on Mondays. At about ten past ten I’d called his mobile and it rang out. So I sent him a text saying Just tried to call you to say goodnight. I’m still up for a while xx. Then I sat up waiting. When he hadn’t phoned by five to eleven I tried again. Still no reply. In the morning I woke up to a text: Reception up here is rubbish. Only just got your text. Won’t call now because it’s way too late! X. Sent at twenty to one. No explanation of what he was doing up in the early hours. Had she just sloped back to her own room? Or was he sneaking around texting me from the bathroom while she slept?

  I asked him how it had gone when he got home and he said ‘good’. That was it. Good. I had to resist the urge to sniff him like a forensics dog. He must have brought trace evidence home. I quizzed him as subtly as I could. ‘Who’s the resort manager again?’ All I wanted to know was whether it was a man or a woman, although the practicalities of him having an affair with someone who both lived and worked at the other end of the country rendered it pretty unlikely.

  ‘Mal Reeves,’ he said and then proceeded to tell me an anecdote about Mal that I had no interest in hearing. I hurried him along, laughing before the punchline in an effort to speed the story up.

  ‘You were up late,’ I said, trying to be casual. He looked at me, confused. ‘Your text …’

  ‘Oh. Yes, sorry about that. I’d had a few too many beers and I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t realize how late it was. Did it wake you?’

  ‘No. Where did you go? The bar?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s all closed for the off season, isn’t it? We went to his house. Fucking awful food so I had to get pissed.’ He laughed.

  We. That word hung in the air between us. ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘Just a few others from the company. No one interesting. I’m going to have a shower,’ he added. Subject closed.

  I know that he and his colleagues always head to the modern open spaces of the Lighterman in Granary Square. In the summer they gather outside, by the canal, but I assume that’s off limits in winter except for the most diehard of smokers. And I know that they all leave work a bit early to get seats before the six o’clock rush. When Nick first started working there he used to beg me to come down and meet him.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to them all. It’s torture.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t then I wouldn’t have a clue,’ I remember saying, laughing. ‘You’re on your own.’

  Over the years – he’s been there five – he’s stopped asking but I’ve always known that if I’d ever offered he’d have been thrilled. It just never seemed that big a deal but maybe if I’d made more of an effort to get to know his colleagues we wouldn’t be in this situation now.

  ‘Stop it,’ I say out loud to no one. I often do this. Say words out loud. It comes from working at home, I think. Sometimes you just want to hear a voice even if it’s your own. Now, of course, I have Igor as an excuse. ‘Talking to myself? Of course not. I was saying something to the dog.’

  I chastise myself inside my head this time. None of this is my fault. This is Nick’s bad behaviour, not mine.

  I’m going to surprise Nick at his work drinks, I text Lydia as I get ready. We haven’t spoken much this week. I’m worried she’s avoiding me because she’s nervous about what she might give away. I’m pretty sure this text’ll make her panic on my behalf, but I want to see how she reacts.

  What’s brought that on!!!

  I don’t know. I thought it’d be nice to make an effort. He’s working really hard at the moment, so I’m not seeing much of him. Thought it’d be nice!

  I wonder if she gets rolling news from her friend Emma. Updates as they happen. If she already knows he spent the night in Inverness and who with. Knowing Lyds she will have asked for no more information until there’s solid proof.

  Is he expecting you?? You don’t want to give him a heart attack! She adds a smiley face to take the edge off.

  No. I only just decided. I’ll text him on the way. I won’t, but she doesn’t need to know that. I know I will have worried her, but I want to provoke a reaction. I text her a row of kisses, promising to call her tomorrow and then I head straight for Patricia’s Twitter page. While I wait I have her like a few more arty enterprises. And then, there it is, the little number one in the bottom right-hand corner that tells me I have a private message.

  Oh God, Patricia, I hope you’re there!!! Georgia is on her way to surprise Nick at his work drinks!!! I don’t know what to do.

  Of course Patricia is there. Good old reliable Patricia. I’m here. Oh my goodness. Do you think SHE will be there?

  She works in his department!! She’s bound to be!!

  Fuck. My heart pounds. This isn’t someone who he’s met at one of the regional sites. It’s a person he sees every day. And I’m going to be in a room with her in less than an hour. I’m not just going to hear a random bit of gossip about her. I’m actually going to meet her.

  Another message pops up. Should
I let him know somehow?? Just casually mention she’s on her way??

  Really? No. No, you should not. I’m just about to have Patricia give her a stern rebuttal for that one when there’s more.

  No! Forget I said that! That would be awful. Like I was colluding in his deception! I just don’t want George to get hurt!

  The only thing you can do is tell her, Patricia says. Or just wait and see what happens and then be there to support her.

  Thank God I’ve got you to talk to. What would I do without you!!

  I don’t reply. I can’t think what to say.

  CHAPTER 14

  The doorbell rings and I know it’ll be Anne Marie, come over to babysit. She’s the only person who knows where I’m going; in fact, she offered to come with me but there was no one else I could ask to keep an eye on Igor. He’s been watching me get ready – making much more of an effort than I usually would – with his big, sad, accusing eyes. Abandoned again so soon.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ she says when I open the door.

  ‘Not too much?’ I’m wearing skinny jeans with lace-up ankle boots that mean I’m now grazing six foot two, and a soft slate-grey fitted cardigan. I watched an Instagram tutorial on smokey shadow and, I think, I’ve copied it pretty successfully. So long as I can remember not to rub my eyes. Or cry. My hair is down in shiny waves, parted in the middle. I think I look as good as I can, which is all any of us can hope for. It’s not for Nick, it’s for me. To give me confidence. Actually, let’s be honest here, it’s for her. I want her to look at me and feel intimidated.