The Girl in the Corner

by Amanda Prowse

  Later she would think that this had been the last laugh that came easily, a noise and gesture full of confidence because she lived with certainty of her place in this family and her place in this world.

  He took a step closer and she saw his face had taken on a greyish hue. He looked sick, and her gut leaped in concern.

  She sat up straight, sobering. ‘Howard, what’s wrong? You don’t look at all well. Can I get you anything?’

  He shook his head and took a seat on the end of the bed with his back to her, his shoulders hunched over.

  ‘Are you okay, my darling? Speak to me!’ Thoughts rushed through her head: was he ill? Did she have stomach medication? He had knocked back the booze all evening and had done so on a fairly empty stomach. Or maybe . . . maybe he was properly sick and had got some results, which he’d waited until now to tell her! She had dreaded this scenario so many times. Oh my God! Be strong for him! But surely he would have said something sooner? Maybe Hannah had called from the club; was there a crisis? Did they need to hotfoot it up to the West End and bring her home? Were George and Ruby okay? Had they rowed? The poor love. If this was the case, what could she do to ease her son’s anxiety? Bring him home for some hot milk, a lavender pillow? Her mind whirred.

  ‘Howard, what is it?’ She was getting a little scared by his silence, more so when she realised, to her horror, that he was crying. ‘Oh my God! Howard! You’re frightening me now! What is it? Has something happened? Are the kids okay? Is someone hurt? Is it my parents? Your parents?’ With a pounding heart she scrambled from the mattress and came to rest on her knees on the carpet in front of him. He had locked his hands together and now rested his elbows on his thighs. His tears fell straight down, dripping from his stubbled chin and falling in little round blobs where they darkened the soft pale carpet.

  ‘Howard, you are scaring me,’ she whispered now, feeling a little lightheaded, as her breath came in shallow gulps with all the terrible, terrible possibilities racing around her head, which she tried in vain to translate from this language of tears.

  He shook his head; she could see he was struggling to get his words out.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she cooed, rubbing his leg and trying to get him to calm down. ‘It’s okay, my love; just talk to me, darling. What’s going on? Take your time,’ she encouraged, while inside her head she was screaming, Hurry up! Hurry up! Tell me! Tell me now!

  Seconds passed that felt like minutes, until eventually he lifted his head and looked above her, unable to meet her eyes. He made no attempt to wipe away his tears.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she coaxed once more, softly. ‘It’s all going to be okay, my love.’

  Howard exhaled and sat up straight. He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. ‘Rae,’ he began, breaking off again under the weight of emotion. He breathed out and tried again. ‘Rae, there is something I need to tell you. I don’t know how to say it, but I know I must.’

  She held her breath, waiting for the knowledge of whatever had occurred and, despite the tremor in her limbs, knowing instinctively that she needed to brace herself, to give his words a steady platform on which to land.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I love you so much. I do. You know I do.’

  She stared at him and it was as if a penny dropped: if this was his opening line then it was unlikely that the news was about her parents, or even the kids, and probably not the business. Intuitively she removed her hands from his legs and placed her palms on her thighs as she knelt in front of him, feeling the heat pulse on to her skin through the thin cotton of her nightgown.

  ‘I love you.’

  So you said . . .

  ‘But something has happened.’ He broke away to allow a fresh batch of tears to fall. ‘Oh God! Oh my God!’ He spoke loudly. ‘I can’t! I can’t!’

  Rae gazed at him, numbness now being ushered in by fear.

  Howard swallowed and sat up straight. ‘The new restaurant, in Shepherd’s Bush . . .’ His voice had an odd quality, stretched thin.

  ‘Yes.’

  He swallowed again, as yet more tears fell. ‘We took on a girl, a waitress . . . I’d not met her before the launch.’

  Rae felt the chill of premonition at what might follow and thought back to the night of the opening, about six weeks ago, when she had stayed home and helped George go through his reading list before she cooked dinner and then helped him organise his bag for the move to college . . .

  ‘You go without me,’ she had insisted. ‘I think I’m of more use here – plus, you know, love, it’s not like it’s the first launch and it won’t be the last.’

  ‘Only if you are sure?’

  ‘I am. Go already!’ She had shooed her dishcloth at him.

  He had reached over and held her face in his cupped palm. ‘Can you call Dolly and let her know you won’t be coming? You know what she’s like.’

  ‘I do indeed. Good luck!’ She had kissed him on the mouth and waved him off.

  Howard’s noisy sob focused her attention. ‘I had too much to drink. Everyone did. You know what it can get like. That was it and that was all it was. A booze-filled decision, nothing more.’

  ‘What . . . ?’ She was struggling to make sense of his words; despite hearing them clearly, they arrived in her mind jumbled. ‘I don’t . . .’ She shook her head.

  ‘And then it kind of spiralled for a week or two. No more, I swear.’

  She fixed her gaze on him, waiting for him to join the dots, confirm the words that were beating a path around and around inside her skull. Her gut now bunched with the desire to vomit.

  ‘I slept with her. In the restaurant.’ His voice shook.

  ‘You . . . ?’ She needed it repeated, as the idea was so ludicrous, so unbelievable.

  ‘We had sex, when everyone had gone; in the restaurant.’

  Her heart constricted and her bowel spasmed as she thought back to the night they had opened in Battersea all those years ago. The kids were young, at home with her mum, tucked up, and she and Howard had waved everyone off and started kissing. They had sex in the restaurant. On that one occasion, drunken and exciting. It had been their secret. Their thing.

  Until now.

  ‘Who was it that you . . . ?’ She couldn’t get the words out.

  ‘Some girl, a new waitress.’ He sobbed again.

  Rae fell backwards towards the cherrywood chest of drawers. As she bashed into it she heard the silver-topped glass perfume bottle topple over.

  ‘Rae, I—’

  ‘Just . . . just give me a minute. Please just give me a minute.’ She spoke quite clearly, softly, as she digested the facts, newly delivered and wrapped in shards of glass that would cut her to the core as they slid from his mouth, into her ears and down her throat, coming to rest in her heart, where they would stay lodged.

  ‘So . . . so you . . . you met her and you had sex with her, just like that?’ She was trying, with difficulty, to make the facts stick.

  Howard nodded.

  ‘And then you saw her outside of work for a couple of weeks?’

  He nodded again.

  Rae felt as if she were sinking into the carpet, and placed her hands flat on the floor to stop herself from falling right through and ending up in Hannah’s bedroom on the floor below. Her silence encouraged him to talk. Fill the quiet with his admission. She wished he would stop talking, just for a second, to allow her to gather her thoughts and process the information, which was coming at her quicker than she could handle, as if her body and mind were out of sync.

  ‘It was a moment of madness! I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But I am, I am, Rae, truly sorry. I hated myself the very second I realised what I had done. And then I didn’t know how to get out of it and I was scared of ending it because she was demanding and I suppose on some level I was quite flattered.’

  As if his words could make any difference, as if there was anything he could possibly say that might be a balm for this. She was aware that new facts, apologies, reasons, excuse
s and regrets were coming thick and fast in so many variants, whereas all she could hear was the first sentence: we had sex, when everyone had gone; in the restaurant.

  Howard sniffed, and she tuned in to what he was saying. ‘Paul called me earlier this evening, just before we set off, to tell me that he had sacked her for something completely unrelated and she told him what had happened. He called me immediately to see if it was true.’

  Paul knows! She thought about his lingering look earlier, which she had thought was a look of love. But it wasn’t. She now knew it was a look of pity. Oh my God! Paul knows, which means Sadie will know, which means everyone will know . . . Her thoughts flew to Hannah and George, who had more than enough to cope with right now. She had done all in her power to keep a happy, stable home for all these years, only for it to be pulled from under her by one night – no, two weeks – of selfish, selfish drunken sex. She curled her fingers into her palm and dug her nails into the skin. The pain gave her something to concentrate on.

  Howard was still talking. ‘And Paul told me she wanted some money or she was going to contact you, and so he gave her money and told her to sod off, but he said, and I agreed, that it was best to tell you the truth and to ask for forgiveness, because I can’t live with it hanging over me. I feel like shit; it was a mistake, the biggest mistake I have ever made. I love you, Rae! I really do; I love you so much, I—’

  Rae held up her hand and he stopped talking. She tried to stand, but on legs made of jelly; she could only lean forward, and that’s how she came to rest, on her knees with her arms straight, on all fours, staring at the floor. Her fair hair fell over her face and she concentrated on taking a breath. She wasn’t sure whether she was going to vomit or faint; both felt like distinct possibilities. Her tears were hot and angry and they fell steadily as her mouth twisted and her body shook.

  No! No! No! No! No! Not this, no! Not you, Howard! Not us!

  Eventually, as her crying slowed, she once again sat back against the chest of drawers with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms locked around her shins, as if this position could protect her from the sharp tips of his words that had pierced her.

  ‘You . . . you did this to me because of booze?’

  ‘Yes,’ he mumbled. ‘Initially.’

  ‘You . . . you might think that that makes it better, but it doesn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘It makes it worse, much worse. It’s like we – me and the kids, our marriage – were incidental, unimportant . . .’

  ‘No! No that’s not true, you and the kids . . .’ He cried again, loudly, between words. ‘You are everything!’

  ‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.’ It was odd that she spoke these words out loud, because strangely she did believe it – why else would he be in this much of a state?

  ‘If I could turn back time,’ he began. ‘If only . . .’

  Rae looked at him and felt a small snort of laughter leave her nose and mouth. If only it were that simple. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took a breath. ‘And we both know that if Paul hadn’t sacked her, for whatever reason, then you would never have told me and I would never have known.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you. I did!’

  She noticed that he didn’t deny it.

  ‘I thought about it, Rae. I practised telling you in my head, but I didn’t know how. Not with our anniversary party planned and everyone looking forward to it. I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  At this last point she actually laughed. ‘Well, thank you for that. Which girl was it? What’s her name?’

  He shook his head, as if unwilling to give the detail.

  ‘Which girl, Howard?’ she pressed.

  Whether instinctively or not he gave a slight shrug of his shoulder, as if the girl in question were just a faceless, insignificant, bedazzled waitress who had got to sleep with the boss, the one with the flashy house, fancy car, nice watch . . . But he was wrong. She was not insignificant. She was in fact extremely significant. She was the person who had taken a sledgehammer to twenty-five years of marriage and smashed it to smithereens.

  ‘Karina.’ He paused. ‘But I don’t want you to contact her; she’s vicious, she is angry and—’

  ‘Why would I contact her?’ She looked at him, genuinely puzzled. ‘I don’t blame her.’ Karina. An image formed in her mind of the svelte young girl she had met once when dropping off spare car keys to Vinnie. Younger than her, much younger. Nearer Hannah’s age, in fact. ‘No.’ She held his eyeline. ‘I don’t blame her at all. Karina is not married to me, Howard. You are.’

  His tears fell afresh. ‘I am sorry, Rae. I am sorry. I love you. I do . . . Please.’ She wasn’t sure what he was pleading for. ‘Please, I . . .’ He stared her, as if trying to find the words.

  She bit her lip and ignored the fresh batch of tears that now trickled down her own face. ‘Two weeks.’ She took a breath. ‘You snuck out of here and lied to me for two weeks of what, sex? Companionship? Thrills?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’

  She watched him run his fingers over his face, trying to order his thoughts. Her eyes narrowed and her nose wrinkled in disdain, as if his words were so predictable, so clichéd, they stung as much as his message.

  How can you not know what to say to me? Me! Your wife!

  Finally she took a breath and when she spoke, to her surprise, her voice was level.

  ‘Were you with her a few weeks back when you said you were at that trade fair in Manchester?’ She didn’t know why she thought of this – call it instinct – but something about his behaviour that day . . . his manner had seemed a little off. That, and he had placed his laundry directly in the machine instead of balling it on the floor for her to retrieve; she had thought he was being helpful, considerate . . .

  ‘Yes.’ He looked down.

  ‘I had this feeling,’ she murmured. ‘But I put it down to my own insecurities, stupid jealousy. I know the girl you mean. I was introduced to her briefly when I dropped off the spare keys. I didn’t know her name was Karina, but I saw her across the floor in the restaurant and she looked very, very confident and she walked like . . .’ She whispered, trying to find the words. ‘She walked like she had a secret: cocky and untouchable.’ Calmly, Rae rubbed her hand across her stomach, as if to indicate that this was where the hurt lay. ‘Is she confident? Did you like to talk to her?’

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  ‘It matters to me!’ she shot, the flash of anger reminding him that he was in no position to ask.

  He gave a single nod and she was glad of his honesty.

  ‘And it was just for two weeks?’

  He looked up, looking away instantly, indicating that the sight of her distress caused a flare of shame inside him for which she felt no sympathy.

  ‘Yes, that was all. It was nothing,’ he replied, swallowing, his words sticky, issued from a mouth that was dry.

  Oh, no, Howard, it was not nothing.

  ‘Did you ever bring her here?’ She hugged the tops of her arms, which shook, preparing for the wave of revulsion that might overwhelm her.

  ‘Never here, no.’ He shook his head. ‘Her place and hotels . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  She hated the images that now formed in her mind: the two of them standing in reception to collect keys for a mid-priced room where complimentary tea, coffee and a cellophane-wrapped biscuit sat on a prepared tray . . .

  ‘Does anyone else apart from Paul know?’ She considered this possibility and her stomach dropped. It would be more than she could stand.

  ‘No.’ He briefly held her gaze. ‘No one knows.’

  ‘Correction. I know,’ she reminded him.

  Howard nodded.

  ‘Did she never ask about me?’ she whispered.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It feels strange that she could do something so divisive, so destructive to another woman, to me – her employer, technically – without there being any mention of me.’

&nb
sp; They sat in silence for a moment or two, each adjusting to the new sensation of mistrust and alienation in which they found themselves.

  ‘Does she love you?’ she asked, quietly, fearful of the response no matter what it might be.

  ‘No, not at all.’ He shook his head without any concept of how much worse this felt, knowing that to this woman who stole her husband’s time and his body it was just a game, a nasty game of sex in which the only person who seemed to be throwing any emotion into the mix was her. Rae again fought the urge to throw up.

  ‘Do you . . . do you have feelings for her?’ she squeaked, looking down, braced to hear the admission.

  ‘No! God no!’ He shook his head and she heard the slight reverb of laughter in his tone, as if to say, Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I don’t!

  She swallowed loudly. ‘I don’t know if that’s worse or better.’ She looked at him. ‘To throw away us for something that isn’t even important. It’s . . .’ It was a second or two before she located the word she sought. ‘Cheap. It makes me feel worthless. Have there been others?’ She lowered her gaze and spoke again to the floor; easier somehow than looking at him. She figured if he were capable of doing this once, he had probably done it on other occasions.

  ‘No!’ He was emphatic. ‘Never before and never again. I swear to you, I promise.’

  She shook her head a little. ‘Don’t you get it, Howard? You can’t promise me anything.’

  ‘I can, I swear.’

  ‘Just stop it! Stop it.’ Her voice was surprisingly calm now as she cut him short. ‘There is no such thing as degrees of trust. There is only the truth and a lie. Honest and dishonest. It’s not a grey area. Not for me. We have always told the kids that.’ At the mention of the kids a fresh batch of tears found their way down her cheeks. ‘You made me promises, twenty-five years ago. You took my hand from my dad’s . . .’ She thought about her quiet dad, placing her manicured hand into Howard’s, after spending all their savings on a bit of crappy cake. Her voice cracked. ‘And you stood there in that church with all the people we loved around us and you made promises to me and I made promises to you and they were good, reliable vows that worked until you did this.’ This realisation sent a jolt of distress through her bones. He had broken things, Howard, her husband, the man she had trusted to be the father of her children, the keeper of her heart – he’d taken the loving relationship they had shared for all those years and he’d destroyed it. ‘You broke your promise and so now, as I said, you can’t promise me anything because it means nothing.’