‘I agree and I wish I could wave a magic wand, but I can’t. Or, trust me, I would have waved it a few times in recent weeks.’
‘I know. I also know that we are running out of time, not because we are over the hill but because the longer this stalemate goes on the harder it will be to come back from. I’ve already told you I am out of solutions.’ He raised his arms and let them fall by his sides. ‘I will do anything to prove to you how sorry I am – so sorry – but we can’t let my wrongdoing be the filter through which we live every aspect of our lives. We can’t. People make mistakes, Rae. I did: I made a mistake; I fucked up. Big time. I know it. But you can’t crucify me for it each and every day for the rest of our lives. That would be a big mistake too. The biggest. We have too much good stuff going on to end up like that. And I want us to be happy, I do – happy together. But if we can’t be happy together . . .’
She watched him close his mouth, rethinking whatever he had been about to say. Rae walked to the window and looked to the street below. It had rained and the London pavements were shiny like glossy stones on the seashore.
She spotted the young woman who had Fifi on the leash, walking slowly, letting her pooch sniff her way along the street. The woman looked up towards Rae and then away suddenly, head down, hands jammed into the pockets of her padded gilet. Rae smiled at her anyway, knowing what it felt like to be that shy, to wish that the rest of the world would just leave you alone. The woman looked pretty, nice, and Rae imagined inviting her into the kitchen for a cup of tea and getting to know her. She looked like the kind of woman who might be her friend. A friend who had no part in her family, who might be able to offer neutral advice on her marriage, a friend without an agenda, a good listener . . .
‘Have a good think while you are away, Rae. Really think about what you want and how we can work things out.’
She looked back into the room, having almost forgotten that Howard was still standing there.
‘I will try. I promise. But there’s a lot to think about.’ She shrugged.
‘I know and I know this has been the hardest time. And my pain is also a physical thing.’ He touched his fingers to his chest. ‘I have hated it, all of it, every bloody day of us not talking and you being back to the quiet girl you used to be.’
The girl in the corner . . .
‘I have hated it.’ He swallowed his emotion. ‘And I can only imagine what it has been like for you. But I feel like this trip might be a new start, a chance for you to clear your head, away from here. I really hope so.’
Rae stepped forward and closed the suitcase. ‘I really hope so too.’
She had said goodbye to the kids, left food in the freezer, spoken to her parents and ordered their groceries for the coming two weeks. As Howard loaded her suitcase into the back of the car, she buckled up in the front seat, thinking of how happy she had been when she first heard they were taking a trip – never in a million years able to imagine that in just a few weeks this might be how they’d end up. There was an air of awkwardness as Howard climbed into the driver’s seat beside her. Rae realised that for the first time since her childhood she felt alone, and she had quite forgotten the fear that bookended this. There was the painful twist of anxiety in her gut as she considered and rejected several things she thought she might say, topics that ranged from the minutiae to the more fundamental, swallowing them before they found their way to her tongue. Nothing felt appropriate, not any more. And all carried a sour accusatory note that she felt helped no one. It felt like every topic in her mind circled back to Howard’s infidelity.
Keep an eye on the kids for me – the kids you let down; the babies you vowed to keep safe in our happy, stable family . . .
There’s food in the freezer. Or will you be eating out and if so with whom?
Hope work’s not too busy. Work: where you met and had sex with Karina . . .
She looked across at her husband and felt an unfamiliar pang of mistrust, questioning for the first time ever what he might get up to while she was away. It was another reminder of the new rules that now governed her emotions. When the silence reached a crescendo, Howard sighed heavily and made a noise that was part snort, part laugh, as if he figured it was better to fill the weighted pauses with something, anything. At one point he reached over and briefly took her reluctant hand. She no longer liked the way it felt, her hand inside his; once as natural to her as breathing, it now reminded her of clothing that had been badly washed and over-dried – it didn’t quite fit. There were a number of clumsy seconds while they both waited for him to release her. She wondered how he might do it in the least obvious fashion. He chose to cough and wrench his fingers away to cover his mouth. Rae instantly folded her hands inside the cardigan that sat on her lap, hiding them, in case he should be tempted to try again.
Dolly stood by the car at the drop-off point at Heathrow as Vinnie unloaded her luggage. Howard had been right: Rae spied suitcases, a vanity box and various carrier bags stuffed to the gunwales. She caught her husband’s eye and he smiled at her. It was a sad reminder of the telepathy that remained between them, one of the last lingering threads of their closeness, where each knew the exact thoughts of the other with no more than a slight lift to their lips or the raise of an eyebrow. This closeness, borne of years of shared experience and through being good friends, had now washed away like a dam in a flood and it had happened just as quickly.
Howard parked behind his brother-in-law and the two jumped out of the car with something akin to relief.
‘Howard!’ Dolly ran towards him and squashed him against her in a fierce hug. ‘I feel so bad that I’m going on your holiday!’
‘Don’t.’ He coughed. ‘I have appointments with the bank and tax deadlines that I can’t miss and it’s just the way it is.’
Rae noted the ease with which the lies slipped from his tongue and it made her shiver.
‘Right, formal thanks out of the way . . .’ Dolly turned to Rae. ‘I am so bloody excited!’
Rae smiled at her. ‘Me too,’ she offered in a manner that belied her words.
‘Is that the lot?’ Dolly tried to peer into the boot of Vinnie’s BMW.
‘No. Hang on a minute . . .’ Vinnie reached into the deep recesses of the car. ‘You’ve got the kitchen sink in here too.’
The four of them laughed. Dolly’s voice boomed. ‘You can laugh, Vincent, but it’s you not me who’s going to be needing the kitchen sink for the next two weeks! You will be stuck at home heating up beans from the tin while I sun myself on a bloody beach!’
‘And I will miss you too, my sweet.’ Vinnie held her gently and kissed her cheek. ‘Be good. Keep in touch; stay safe.’
‘I’ll miss you too,’ Dolly whispered with rare tenderness. ‘Look after my house, my cat, my plants and my kid!’ she shouted.
‘In that order?’ Vinnie shook his head.
Dolly considered this. ‘No, you are right. Cat. Plants. House. Kid.’
As she began to walk away, Vinnie grabbed her around the waist and like a smitten teen on a park bench wheeled her towards him, kissing her again. Rae felt a spike of misplaced envy at how far she and Howard had slipped off track.
She felt awkward, knowing she would be expected to repeat the fond farewell with her own husband and wishing they could say goodbye unobserved. She stepped into his arms and stood stiffly with her head on his chest. He held her tightly. She felt the nervous quake along his limbs.
‘Come back to me, Rae. Please come back to me.’ He spoke into her hair.
‘Come back to you? Don’t be so ridiculous! She’s only going for two bloody weeks!’ Dolly boomed, listening in where her attentions were not wanted and robbing them of the moment. And doing what she did best: easing the tension and turning the moment into a joke.
The women walked towards the glass double doors of the departures area, turning to wave to their husbands as they pulled away. Rae looked at Howard intently. I will try . . .
‘Okay!’ Dolly shoute
d, studying the board. ‘Check-in desk twenty-three. This way! Follow me!’ She raised her arm, as if she was directing a large group and not just Rae with her measly one suitcase and her cotton cardigan over her arm in case it got chilly on the plane.
The luggage was distributed between the two of them and as they approached the desk with passports held aloft, Dolly turned to her friend and smiled.
‘Good morning. Iwanttohavesexwithyourbrother,’ Dolly mumbled.
The stony-faced attendant looked up from his computer and glanced from one to the other. ‘Good morning, ladies, and where are we travelling to today?’
‘We are off to Antigua.’ Dolly did her best to control her titters. ‘All alone without grown-up supervision!’
‘That sounds dangerous,’ he offered drily.
Rae felt her face colour and bit down on her bottom lip to stop her laughter spilling from her mouth. It was a welcome moment of joyful mischief; a reminder of her youth, when she thought that to marry a Latimer was quite possibly the greatest thing imaginable – better even than signing up to the cookery course, which had been her plan until her parents put paid to it.
Cooking? That’s a dead-end, thankless job if ever there was one! Slaving away in a hot basement kitchen. No, you get your typing certificate, girl, then there’ll be no hot kitchen for you – you’ll get to work in an office, maybe one with a view! She had watched the way her parents smiled at each other with their eyes lit up, as if this was what they would have loved.
She and Dolly had their passports checked and answered the security questions accordingly.
‘Here we go.’ The man smiled as he handed them their relevant boarding passes. ‘You will see I have taken the liberty of upgrading you to our business-class service today.’
‘You are shitting me?’ Dolly stared at him.
‘No, I figured it was the least I could do, as I don’t have a brother and my sister is taken,’ he offered with a clipped voice and a brief shake of the head.
‘Oh my God! No way!’ Dolly screamed and banged the countertop. ‘I bloody love you! I do! I actually love you!’
‘The feeling is mutual. Have a nice flight. Next please!’ he called to the queue behind them, and tapped the counter without breaking his stride.
Rae stared at the man. Sometimes there were no words.
On the plane, she watched the flight attendant give her colleague an exaggerated smile as Dolly squealed with delight at the width of the seat, the amount of leg room, the free bottle of water and the natty vanity kit with a mini-toothbrush, a dinky tube of toothpaste and a freshen-up towel in a sachet. Business class was not new to her friend, but Dolly was still delighted by the luxury.
‘This is the life, Rae!’ She eased into the seat and kicked off her shoes. ‘This is going to be like a party before we even arrive! We can have a glass of wine and chat and watch a movie! Like a girls’ night out but in the sky!’
Rae nodded. ‘That’ll be nice.’ She took her seat and tried to ignore the stares from other more sedate travellers who were judging her friend for the volume of her voice and her energy. She looked at Dolly, who was making herself comfortable, loving her lack of awareness and her authenticity.
Approximately twenty minutes after the plane had taken off, Dolly reclined her seat and fell into a deep, deep sleep with the soft blanket over her shoulders and her eye mask securely fastened. Her snores were intermittent, and she pretty much stayed this way until the plane began its descent into VC Bird International airport, Antigua.
‘Oh rats! Did I nod off?’ Dolly asked, coming to and trying to fix her flattened hairdo, rubbing at the deep pillow crease on her cheek.
‘Just for a while.’
Rae hadn’t minded. It had been a rare chance for her to sit and do nothing. Much-needed peace, as her mind coasted on chaos. At home there was always a bathroom to be cleaned, beds to be made, supper to prepare, laundry, recycling, grocery shopping – and this in between being on call to the various restaurants, where the staff knew she was the person who’d fetch, carry and fix in an emergency. And with Debbie-Jo now living in Northampton, she was also the one responsible for ferrying her parents to and from the appointments that seemed to be getting more frequent and varied. It struck her that now, in her mid-forties, she made an annual trip to the dentist and maybe two or three visits a year to the GP, whereas her mum and dad had a diary that was chock-full of appointments. Almost weekly they were buttoning up their coats and heading out to see chiropodists, audiologists, chiropractors, ophthalmologists and a whole host of other professionals with a wide range of specialisations, each visited with the express hope of fixing, patching up or preventing whatever ailed them most that day.
It made her think about Hannah’s dough teddy, a salt-baked lumpy thing that had been fashioned for the Christmas tree when she was in nursery school. Hannah, however, rather than hang the glittery painted trinket and let it do its job of prettifying a branch, insisted on naming it ‘Sparkle Ted’ and carrying it around in her pudgy hand. She played with it, danced it on the tabletop, set it on the side of her bath. Each day a chunk worked loose, eventually falling off. Each night Howard would set to with sticky tape, glue and even small elastic bands, trying to prolong the life of this lump of misshapen dough to which their three-year-old daughter had become so attached. It was futile, of course; Sparkle Ted was not designed to last forever and eventually he was so mangled, reduced and fractured that they had no choice but to throw him in the bin with the cold chips and redundant peas of supper. Hannah had gone nuts, of course. That had not been a good day. Rae felt a rush of warmth at the memory of her husband’s attention to the challenging chore others would have scoffed at. Not that she was comparing her ageing parents to Sparkle Ted – and when the time came she certainly wouldn’t be putting them out for collection with the cold chips and peas – but it did make her think about the nature of life and how we, like all living things, were designed to decay. Almost instinctively she ran her hand over the soft pouch of flesh that bulged over the waistband of her jeans, aware that her decay had begun and that time was indeed running out . . .
Unbidden, the image of Howard popped into her head, placing his hand on the flat stomach of Karina the waitress.
FIVE
Stepping from the plane and giggling at the intense heat, the two popped their sunglasses on and welcomed the first feel of warmth on their skin. They gathered their bags from the carousel and made their way through the airport. It was a striking building, large, gleaming and echoey with snatches of the clear tropical sky peeking through the windows. White pillar-shaped structures held up the cathedral-like apex ceiling. Seating areas were dotted around the cool marble floor and there were occasional grand displays of ferns and tropical plants. The people Rae saw fell into two camps: agitated and trying to find their way out of the building in this new and intimidating environment, looking for their connection, lift, taxi or holiday rep; or laughing, relaxed, now on their way home, making the return journey with the island magic and a little Caribbean laissez-faire still clinging to their sun-kissed skin.
She liked to take in the sights and smells of any new place, and travel was always exciting, but this trip felt different. Lovely as it was to spend time with Dolly and to be in this glorious place, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was, like her necklace and party, something of a consolation prize designed to ease her husband’s conscience. She was also very conscious of the fact that she was putting on a show, trying not to let Dolly see her hurt, which was always only a heartbeat away. But a promise was a promise and she would try to use the time away to clear her head, to try to find the path that would give them a clear way forward.
As they stepped outside, Rae was again struck by the heat, which crept under her cotton clothes, covered her skin and filled her lungs. It would take some getting used to. They were ferried to their resort by a luxury minibus with all mod-cons, the type of air-conditioned, well-sprung, comfy bus that no one would mind bein
g sat in for two days, ten hours and twenty-five minutes. Her mouth twitched into a smile in response to a conversation that had taken place when she was someone else, in another time, when her view on the world had been very different.
She stared out at the winding lanes, where the shimmering heat of the sun distorted the surface of the tarmac, feeling the swell of anticipation as they navigated the roads edged with lush green vegetation, palm trees and giant ferns, banana trees and steep banks, which hid the planted fields beyond. It was really beautiful.
She glanced to her left at Dolly, who was making small talk with an elderly couple from Cheshire. The man was dressed in full safari kit: khaki trousers and jacket. They were rather shouty and had been to the island many, many times. Dolly looked over and pulled a face, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue. Rae knew her friend would not want to be with shouty people – too much competition; and especially these two, who knew everything there was to know about Antigua. Rae and Dolly would much prefer to discover things for themselves.
With their baggage wheeled ahead, the two friends trod the marble steps and walked into the foyer of the Blue Lodge, Parakeet Bay, a boutique hotel with twenty rooms, all housed under a double-height wooden ceiling. A vast fan whirred overhead. The furniture was rich, dark rattan, topped with white overstuffed upholstery with cushions in teal and turquoise. It was stunning.
Rae gazed through the square reception room towards the pool, where a line of palm trees partly obscured the view of the curved beach and the crystal-clear waters beyond. She thought of how she and Howard would react if they were still living in that parallel universe where everything was outwardly rosy and she was unaware. Arriving at this paradise, she would squeal her delight and he would stand tall: the big man, the provider.
The Girl in the Corner Page 9