His Other Lover

by Lucy Dawson

  “Admit what?” She started raising her voice, needled by my comments. “That I kissed him and he didn’t in fact try to kiss me?”

  “Yes! That you’ve done it again! Not content with one of my boyfriends, you had to make it an even two? Why Pete? You could have any bloke you wanted. Why does it have to be him?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “It doesn’t have to be him! I don’t want him! And you shouldn’t want him either. I wouldn’t want to be with anyone who would cheat on me.”

  “Shut up!” I hissed.

  “No, you shut up!” she said, rattled now. “It’s the truth, your precious boyfriend tried it on with me tonight and if I’d have let him, I don’t think he would have wanted to stop at a kiss either.”

  My hand shot up, she saw it and her eyes widened slightly.

  “Go on then,” she said softly. “Do it if it’ll make you feel better.” She twisted her face toward me and tapped her cheek lightly with her finger. “Go on, hit me.”

  My hand trembled. “Do it!” she cried. “What the fuck are you waiting for? If I’m such a cow, just do it!”

  Against my will I felt tears start to rush to my eyes. “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction!” I said desperately.

  We just stood there looking at each other. Then I did start to cry.

  “Oh, Mia!” she said, her voice breaking. “Come here!” and she reached out her arms and pulled me toward her. Just for a brief second I let her hug me, but then I pushed her off and stumbled away from her. “Don’t touch me!” I said brokenly. “I just want to know what happened. Tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t want to! I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “What? More than I am already?” I said hoarsely. “Just tell me.”

  “I got to yours, Pete let me in and we had a drink. He asked me how I was feeling after the breakup, was I okay? I said I was, but that I just felt I was in danger of never getting it right with anyone. I said I hoped I would have a relationship one day like you two and he said to hang on in there, that good blokes did exist, I just had to believe it. Then I said thanks to him for being nice to me and he said it was very easy to be nice to me. Then he leaned forward and kissed me.”

  I said nothing, just looked at her.

  “I pushed him off,” she continued, “and said how could he? He said sorry over and over again, and was I going to tell you?”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I said I didn’t know,” she admitted. “He begged me not to—said that he’d just felt so bad for me, sitting there looking so sad, he didn’t know what had come over him and that he’d never do it again. I said we’d just forget about it and pretend it never happened. Then I had a glass of wine very quickly as I felt so shocked and soon after that you got back.”

  “You’d pretend it never happened,” I repeated slowly. “Why do I somehow feel like I’ve been here before?”

  “This isn’t the same as Dan! I was going to tell you. I said to you I’d call you.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me then and there?”

  “I didn’t want a scene.”

  “How thoughtful of you.”

  “Look,” she said quickly, moving toward me, reaching out her hands and clasping mine, “I know how much you love him. I can see it written all over your face, but how can he be right for you if he does this? If he does this now, he’ll do it again, Mia—it doesn’t matter that it was me.”

  “Oh you’re wrong there. It matters very much. Because you’ve done this to me before, haven’t you? Haven’t you?” I shouted in her face, pulling my hands away.

  “And how many times can I say I’m sorry for that?” she said, getting louder and slower with each word, like I was an exceptionally stupid child. “Are you going to make me feel shit about it for the rest of my life?”

  “I’m not making you do anything!” I cried. “You keep doing it all on your own!”

  “Do you know how bad I still feel about Dan? Even though—even though I was only twenty? For the last fucking time I’m sorry!”

  “You don’t need to say sorry, you just need to stop doing it!” I laughed hysterically. “It’s not hard. I get a boyfriend, you don’t kiss him! How easy is that?”

  “I’m not saying sorry for Pete, because I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t me,” she said bluntly. “It was him.”

  “But it’s your word against his and I know he wants to be with me and I know you lie to me!”

  “Look,” she said urgently. “He’s not telling you the truth. I know it’ll hurt like hell—but just walk away while you still can, it’s still early days, you’re young. You’ll meet someone else who really will love you, who can stay faithful. It’ll be fun! You and me, single girls living it up. Come on! What do you say?” She looked at me eagerly.

  I stared back in astonishment. “Is that what this is about? You’re newly single and you want someone to hang out with?”

  “Oh grow up!” Katie said in disgust. “What do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know any more,” I said truthfully. “But I do know that I don’t trust you.”

  I made toward the door. She followed me and as I marched down the hall she called out after me.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you, Mia—that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

  I opened the front door.

  “If you go back to him, I’ll…”

  I turned back to her. “You’ll what?”

  “I won’t be able to be in your life any more. I’m not going to sit around and watch you get hurt.”

  “So it’s you or him? Now who’s sounding immature?” I laughed in disbelief. “Stay away from me and stay away from Pete. You’re trouble and I don’t want you near us ever again. You get that? Ever again!”

  I slammed the door shut behind me and ran down the road to my car, tears streaming down my face, almost expecting to turn and see Katie running after me in her dressing gown.

  I didn’t see her for another year after that, and then it was only from the other side of a road. She was staring blankly ahead, even though I knew she’d seen me. As she’d marched past me on the opposite pavement, I’d noticed her hair was much shorter than I’d ever seen it. Almost elfin—pretty. It made her look delicate and slight. I’d wondered where she’d had it done and who’d persuaded her to do it. But I walked straight past her too, pretending she was a stranger. Neither of us was prepared to say anything at all.

  No one around us would have guessed that once we were best friends.

  If I could be that strong when it came to Katie, I can do it now with this Liz.

  I simply have to find her and tell her to get out of my life. I’m not afraid of her. I have passed through the stage of overload now. In the past twenty-four hours, I have trashed my own house, lied to the police, tidied up, watched a film, read five texts that have made me angrier than I think I’ve ever been, broken Pete’s phone on purpose and forced the uncomfortable image of Katie looking questioningly at me, an image that has swum around my head for hours now, out of my mind.

  If I can do all of that, am I really prepared to be so meek and afraid that I am going to allow this girl to just shove me out of my own life? If he doesn’t love me at all, why hasn’t he left already? Why hasn’t he just gone to her?

  Everything that I have agonized over sleeplessly, cried about incessantly and thrown around recklessly has finally merged together to form one fluid stream of crystal-clear consciousness. I put the saucepan away carefully in the kitchen cupboard, dry my hands on a tea towel and hang it back up determinedly.

  There is something to fight for, there has to be.

  The only course of action now lies ahead.

  I know what I have to do.

  TWELVE

  It is now time for me to go back upstairs to our room, get into bed and pretend that I have been there all night. Pete’s alarm will be going off in twenty minutes. It’s about to begin.

  When it shrilly pierces the air, I am lying s
till, next to him, pretending to be deeply asleep, but I am practically holding my breath. He gets out of bed and goes straight to the bathroom. Within seconds I hear him switch on the shower. Then the loo flushes, the shower curtain is yanked back.

  Nothing more for a moment or two until a metallic clash makes me jump. It’s the sound of the showerhead dropping on to the floor of the bath. The handle has been loose for months and the shower bursts excitedly free when you least expect it. I hear Pete swear as he gets blasted by the uncontrollable spray whipping round the small room like a hosepipe on speed. It’s nothing compared to the language I’m expecting when he goes downstairs in a minute and finds his very broken phone.

  Much like a smoker discovering someone has thrown away a full packet of their fags, he will not be able to have his first text of the day with Liz.

  I lie in wait, listening carefully.

  I hear him thud down the stairs and into the kitchen. My breath slows…any minute now he’s going to find it…

  He starts shouting. Now it will be the countdown until he comes upstairs and bursts into the room for a rant. I wait nervously. After all, I have to act both surprised and cross on his behalf.

  Sure enough, the door blasts open and rebounds violently off the wall.

  “Look what that fucking dog has done!” he explodes, holding the two halves of his phone up, one in each hand.

  “Oh no!” I pretend to look horrified and sit up in bed. “Is it broken?”

  “Well, seeing as I found most of it in a puddle of piss, the battery in her basket and I think she’s eaten the SIM, I’d say yes, wouldn’t you?” He slings the phone on the floor in frustration.

  “Urgh!” I wrinkle my nose. “Can we get it off the carpet if she weed on it?”

  “FUCKING dog!” he shouts, then gathers up the phone and marches out.

  Seconds later he marches back in. “What I can’t work out is how she got into the sitting room. I know we shut her in last night.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” I roll my eyes. “It was probably me when I got up for a drink in the night. I must have left the kitchen door open. I was a bit afraid down there on my own after the burglary; it must have slipped my mind to shut the door.”

  He hesitates, and I can see he’s really pissed off, but he can’t shout about it because it was an accident and I’m all shook up after the breakin, aren’t I?

  He takes a deep breath and manages to say stiffly, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just have to get a new one later today. I’ll have to get a new SIM too…and go into the office now and get all my numbers. I so don’t need this…I would say I’ll call you, but…”

  He angrily kisses the top of my head and slams out. Five minutes later the front door shuts violently, reverberating through the house, and I hear his car squeal off.

  My victory, though, is short-lived. I haven’t stopped him for long. Also, I would have said his reaction to the phone being bust was irrational and over the top, but knowing what I do know, I’d say he is pretty desperate to talk to her and have her be able to reach him. That is an unbearable thought.

  And now I don’t have any way of knowing where he is either.

  I deflate and sink down into the mustiness of our bed. The sheets need changing. I ought to do that, I suppose. No one else will. Oh, where is he going? Is he out there on his way to her right now?

  I’m so tired, unsurprisingly after creeping around half the night, that in spite of my mind spinning, my eyes want desperately to shut…just for a moment. I don’t want to get up yet…I want to stay in bed.

  But I have to. I have stuff to do. I have to go and find her.

  Thinking about her makes me start to tense. I feel my fists ball up and my jaw clench. I hate her. I really, really hate her. After last night I think I know exactly what kind of woman she is. The kind who thinks it doesn’t matter if there’s a girlfriend involved. I can see her now, flinging her hair over one shoulder defiantly, holding a cocktail at a bar with some other equally loose-moralled, drinks-too-much, floaty, flighty, useless actress-type.

  They are both giggling conspiratorially. “What are you going to do about the girlfriend?” says the friend. She—IT—shrugs and sucks gently on the straw to her cocktail, with a sly half-smile. “He’ll leave her for me…when I want him to,” she says decidedly, and she and the friend giggle again—that’s how much power over men they think they have.

  Once, when I didn’t leave quite enough time to get my train after work and was feeling really pissed off that I was going to have to wait an extra twenty minutes to get the next one—and it wasn’t even the fast one, but the one that stopped at every bloody lamppost, I went to blast through the gate to let me out of the tube so I could gallop up to the station, but this stupid girl with a huge backpack was fiddling with her ticket. She fed it through TWICE even though it said Seek Assistance, so I tutted behind her, and she swung round and said piercingly, “I’m not doing it on purpose, I can’t help it!”

  I didn’t even bother to say anything. I hadn’t got time. I just shoved past her, expertly fed my ticket through, then grabbed it and stalked through the gate. I heard her shout, “Oh! Because you’re sooooo important! You snotty bitch!” after me.

  I didn’t turn and yell back at her, I kept on marching…and she shouted something else too that I didn’t hear properly and didn’t much care about. But as I carried on walking, a charming little imaginary scene popped into my head where I reached calmly into my bag, pulled out a sawn-off shotgun, swung round and blew her head off before putting the gun back in my bag and continuing on my way.

  That is how Liz makes me feel. I want her gone.

  I accept that something has gone adrift with Pete and me that has made him vulnerable to someone else pursuing him, but I can’t fix that with her in our lives. So she has to go. It’s that simple. I won’t lose him—I can’t. It is as clear to me now as it was last night.

  I am going to find her and get rid of her.

  Sitting on the train about an hour later, I barely notice how different a journey this is to my usual morning hike into town. There are seats, fewer suits. Someone eating a sandwich, magazines rather than papers. As Canary Wharf comes into view, I wonder briefly if Spank Me is in one of the tall buildings, trying to persuade a large company to buy into a campaign they don’t want or need and that I’ll have to chase up. Probably. Scrabbling for my phone in the bottom of the Mulberry, I text Lottie to say I’m still ill and not coming in.

  Her message comes straight back:

  You poor thing. What you got?

  Flu—urgh! is my response—which seems suitably vague and covers a multitude of symptoms.

  Make sure you drink plenty of water and stay warm, she texts back. Give me ring if you fancy chat/get bored. Bit mental here on own. Get well soon!

  I feel horribly guilty at that and text her that I probably won’t call as I feel so rough. More lies. But then she’d guess in a second that something was up if I spoke to her.

  I start to feel a little light-headed as we slide into the station, but once I’m looking at my reflection in the glass doors, I feel a sense of purpose tingle through me. Breathing a quick, nervous breath out, I pull my head up and grimly step through the doors as they jolt open.

  Out of the station, into the surge of people on the street, I begin to make my way up toward the theater. Her theater. Well, probably Andrew Lloyd Webber or Cameron Mackintosh’s theater, more accurately. My heart starts to thud as I march purposefully past a noisy road drill that people are glaring at and giving a wide berth to. I don’t care that I bash into a couple of them, and ignore the Big Issue seller as well as the bloke who tries to sign me up to a charity.

  Gathering pace, I determinedly swing round a corner. Not long now, starting to breathe quick, short breaths. What am I going to say? Am I going to try and get her on her own? God—I’ve never hit anyone in my life. Will I know what to do? Then I picture her hard, smiling little face and my lip curls. Yes, I
’ll know what to do—and if not, I’ll make it up as I go along. All the same, I’m feeling a bit sick and a light sweat has broken out on my forehead. I can feel more sweat collecting damply at the base of my spine. Come on! You can do this. Picture Pete leaving you. Is that what you want? You want him to be with her?

  “No!” I bleat to myself out loud, and earn myself a funny look from a builder drinking a coffee and leaning on some scaffolding. Don’t care. Don’t care what anyone thinks today. Just got to find her.

  I march up a little side street that stinks of piss, stepping over a half-full beer bottle, round another corner, heart thumping against my rib cage now as I see the theater in front of me, but I keep on walking, get to the door, reach out a shaking hand to shove it open and DO this. Who cares who hears what I have to say? If I have to yell in front of other people, that’s the way it is…if you fuck other people’s boyfriends, you can’t be choosy about where and how you get your comeuppance…

  But the door just rattles against my hand. It’s locked.

  Disappointment wells up in me; my heart feels like it’s sitting fatly at the back of my throat, taking up too much room. I don’t let it floor me for long, though. I grit my teeth and peer through the glass into the foyer. She must be in there…but it’s gloomy inside, and all I can see is a cleaner pushing a Hoover around who can barely be bothered to glance up at me as I knock. Finally, and without smiling, he motions me to go round the back of the building.

  Stepping back, a little more uncertainly, I start to walk round the side of the theater. There’s nothing but a small street, barely wide enough for cars, a big wheelie bin overflowing with knotted black sacks and a grubby sign on the wall that says Stage Door.

  The door looks very heavily shut. There’s no bell, and no one answers when I knock uncertainly. I’m not sure what to do next, so I just stand back and wait on the other side of the street. No one comes in and no one comes out.

  Just as I’m starting to wonder what the hell I’m doing here, the door pushes open and a short, dark-haired, moody-looking bloke swings out.