‘Very funny. No. I chose you because you’re a mother. You understand why I want to protect my children, and that this is more important to me than any other business deal.’
I smiled. The one thing that I had considered my biggest handicap in the City seemed to have won the deal for me.
As we left, Harry asked if I could add some additional projections to our proposal before meeting Misha again the next day. It meant two more hours of work back at the hotel, but I was too excited to sleep anyway.
Fifty
I fell back against the padded headboard and shut off my laptop, giving myself two black eyes by smudging my mascara with the backs of my fists. It was 1.30 a.m. I needed to print the projection slides in the hotel’s business centre on the next floor up, but I was too tired to get dressed again for a ten-minute dash. I hauled on a massive towelling robe that trailed the ground under my bare feet. The corridors were deserted and no sounds came from any of the doors I passed.
The business centre was empty and while the printers shuddered to life, squeaking in protest before beginning their rhythmic hum, I couldn’t help laying my head down on my arms. I just needed to close my eyes for a second.
‘No!’ I protested as I felt someone tugging at me. ‘Go away!’
The children knew they shouldn’t wake me up at the weekends. But the hand kept shaking me, pulling roughly on my arm. A man’s voice filtered through and I sat up quickly, heart thudding, half-awake. I relaxed as I remembered where I was and a pair of navy and white striped boxer shorts came into focus and below them long, muscular legs.
‘Fi?’
It was Harry. I rubbed my eyes, dabbing away the sleep-induced blindness. I felt a wet patch on the side of my mouth and wiped it away quickly with the back of my hand. The skin on my cheek tingled and my fingers went up instinctively to touch it. I felt the imprint of the bath robe stripes and imagined the raised red lines across my face.
‘Busted! Sleeping on the job,’ said Harry.
Harry handed me my papers and sat down next to me. His feet were bare and he wore a white T-shirt. I was unable to stifle a crocodile-wide yawn, giving him a good view of all my fillings.
‘Sorry, I must have just drifted off…’
Embarrassed, I looked down, trying to hide behind my hair, and realised that my robe had fallen open, giving him a clear view of my black bra and stomach.
I pulled the robe together. ‘I’d better get to bed. Thanks for waking me up…’
‘I need to scan some papers for US clients. They only work to American time zones.’
He looked exhausted. His hair was messy now, standing up like a crown. I wanted to smooth it down with my fingers.
As I stood up, the bottom of my robe got caught in my feet and I fell forward, losing my balance. Harry steadied me as I fell against him. I moved away quickly.
‘This is getting to be a habit; you tripping and me catching you.’
It took me back to that day in the lift. My heart raced.
‘They should make these robes for small people too,’ I laughed and shuffled away, holding up my robe as if walking on a wet floor. He stood watching me as I left.
All that effort I’d put in to look good for the pitch and then Harry ended up seeing me smudged, wrinkled and covered in drool! Perhaps it was for the best.
Fifty-One
I was back in London. Harry and I were working on Misha’s deal and when he needed to do some extra work on one of his existing projects at the same time, I offered to help. I wanted to thank him for all his support, but I also knew that a willingness to ‘pitch in’ would count in my favour for both a permanent job offer, and the size of my bonus.
His office became our base for the week. It was huge, comfortable, and we could spread out our papers without disturbing the rest of the team. One night we worked straight past dinner, not wanting to break our momentum. Harry was sitting next to me on the sofa when my stomach gave a loud rumble.
‘It’s eleven o’clock! I’m so sorry,’ he said.
‘I feel that as the source of that impolite sound, I should be the one to apologise,’ I smiled.
He ordered us sushi from Sexy Fish and while we waited for the delivery, he said, ‘Please excuse me, I’m going to FaceTime my daughters and my wife so feel free to call your husband too. This might end up being an all-nighter.’
I darted out of the room, saying I’d be back in a few minutes. I was horrified to think that he might, like some people annoyingly did, pull me into his call to introduce me to Julia.
I had no desire to FaceTime Tom. When I’d texted him earlier to say I’d be working very late, he’d replied, ‘Have fun.’
Harry took out two chilled mini bottles of champagne from a little fridge and we ate dinner sitting on the floor at his coffee table. The overhead lights were off and, in the lamplight, we could see the lit-up skyscrapers outside his huge office window.
‘We’re eating sushi as it should be eaten, on the floor,’ I said.
He started to tell me how he’d taught English for a few months in Japan in his gap year and I said how Japan was top of my travel wish list. He cleared away the packages while I opened up my laptop and sat back on the sofa.
‘Take off your shoes, Fi, and make yourself comfortable – we probably need to be at this for another couple of hours.’
I slipped off my heels and tucked my legs under me and Harry also took his shoes off and untucked his shirt.
I kept my eyes on my laptop screen. I had been careful around Harry since Amsterdam and, luckily, it hadn’t been hard. Tom had been his normal self when I got back from the trip, he had hugged me, and been excited about my deal with Misha. He’d asked Ami for her secret chicken karahi recipe and made it for me as a surprise, and we’d talked about the amazing coincidence of Misha living in the yellow building when Tom and I also lived there.
I realised that feeling attracted to Harry in Amsterdam had just been the result of a perfect marital storm with Tom. Our fight before I left, his stress about the job hunt, then the heady feeling of being away from everything: that was all.
When Harry and I finished it was 1 a.m. I stretched my arms over my head and my legs in front of me. I saw Harry glance at my red toenails and then my bare legs but the moment came from nowhere then disappeared. I wondered if I had imagined it…
Fifty-Two
Sam texted me a few days before Julia’s two-week deadline.
Let’s go through all the sales right from the start. We must have made a mistake counting up xx
I agreed to meet her. She was right, that was the only explanation.
Tom and I had been getting on better. Perhaps he was more relaxed as my salary started to hit our account, and I had also finally stopped worrying about the money. My salary, supplemented by the bank loan, covered our newly streamlined monthly expenses and Ami and Baba’s money lay in the account to satisfy Tom’s need for cash flow. I was also on track to get my bonus to repay my parents and replace our own savings.
One morning, though, I felt his low mood the minute I woke up. I knew it had something to do with an email that had pinged onto his phone at 5 a.m., which was the middle of the office day somewhere in the world.
I went to hug him from the back before leaving for work and he shrugged me off.
‘What’s wrong, darling?’ I spoke softly. ‘Did something happen?’
‘I’m unemployed, Faiza. I might never get another job again. We can’t live on just your salary forever and our savings will soon run out. We might need to sell the house and I have no idea what we’ll do about the school fees. We might have to take the children out of their schools. But you just carry on having your jolly dinners and trips away!’
I couldn’t move with the shock of his words. I tried to think rationally. He was just lashing out at me because there was no one else. And the truth was that if I hadn’t spent the money then I could be home, supporting him through this time, instead of being out all day. We wouldn�
�t be in such a precarious position. This was all my fault.
However, another voice jostled with this reasoning, ramming it out of the way. All Tom could think about was himself. He was wallowing in self-pity at a time when we were both under stress. I’d never expected him to be this man.
‘You shit!’ I hissed, closing the kitchen door so the children wouldn’t hear us. ‘Why are you being like this? Do you think I like leaving the children all day? Do you think I like worrying about my parents all the time? Do you think it’s easy to go back into that shark pool and suck up to idiots to win my commission? No. But at least I’m doing something, not feeling sorry for myself or giving up. Why should we sell the house? Why should we take the children out of school? Other people seem to have jobs. Why is it just you that’s not working?’
My hurt at his words combined with my guilt had released some kind of piston and my anger came tumbling out. Even as I said the words to the back of his head, tears ran down my face, ruining my morning office make-up. I knew that what I was saying was unforgivable and cruel, but the more he ignored me, the louder I became.
‘Get your bloody act together!’ I snapped.
Fifty-Three
That night, Tom wasn’t home when I got back from work. Sofia wasn’t there either, so the boys were alone. Tom had dropped them home after school, they said, then left. Neither Tom nor Sofia replied to my texts.
I started to get worried. It wasn’t like Sofia to disappear. I could see she was online, but she wasn’t responding. I started calling her, again and again, and eventually I got a text back: I’m not dead. I’ll just be late.
Me: Not good enough! You know the rule: Where, who with, when, what. I need to talk to you when you get home.
I seemed to have lost touch with Sofia completely. I had no idea what was going on in her life. She refused to say more than just ‘Fine!’ when I asked her how she was.
Tom hadn’t replied to my texts either. The duvet on our bed was rumpled in the same folds I had left it in that morning and he’d taken his watch and wallet. I saw that he’d been on WhatsApp an hour earlier, so at least he wasn’t dead – but I would kill him when I saw him.
Sofia came home at 11.30 and ran up to her room. She locked her door and wouldn’t come out.
‘Are you OK, baby?’ I called.
‘I’m fine. Leave me alone!’
I stood outside her door. She didn’t sound fine.
It was well past midnight when I heard a car and rushed to the bedroom window. Tom was getting out of a taxi. He held onto the door for a second to steady himself. He laughed and said something, then waved it off. I got straight back into bed and a few minutes later he walked in as if after a normal day at the office. He was in a suit, with his tie poking out from one of his pockets. He undressed, brushed his teeth and lay down with his back towards me.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ I said.
‘I had a meeting.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me where you were? I thought something had happened to you. You didn’t answer my calls.’
‘So what if I went out one evening? You do it all the time. I had a last-minute meeting. You told me to go and get a job this morning, didn’t you? You should be able to understand that, after all your evening events with Harry.’
I jumped out of bed and shut our bedroom door. He wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down, though he knew I never wanted the children to hear us fighting.
‘I never go out without letting you know first,’ I said.
He sat up in bed.
‘Perfect, perfect Faiza and useless, good-for-nothing me. I can’t do anything right. I was trying to get a deal, OK? For us. To get back to work. It was last minute and I had no signal in the club so I couldn’t call.’
‘I’m just saying that—’
‘Fuck off!’ he said.
I flinched at the look in his eyes.
The words were like a punch I hadn’t seen coming, because they were from Tom.
He lay back down. As I turned off my lamp, I knocked over my glasses and my book crashed to the floor. I stared at the wall as it started to come into focus in the dark.
I pulled the duvet over my head and turned on my phone, then googled ‘Why would a husband start acting differently?’ The answers ranged from adultery, to financial troubles, job loss, or mental illness. Well, he was under a lot of stress. I shouldn’t have been so angry. What if he was depressed? I came across a headline: ‘Fears of a mental health crisis in banking after another City suicide.’ A man had jumped from a multistorey car park and another had thrown himself under a tube. A banker and a lawyer.
I felt really bad about lashing out at Tom. Stress could spiral out of control. And he definitely wasn’t himself.
Fifty-Four
When I saw Tom the next morning as I made coffee in the kitchen, my anger disappeared.
‘Hey,’ I said.
I stroked his bare arm. He didn’t reply.
‘Look, about last night. That wasn’t like you. I know this is a really difficult time for you, but don’t take it out on me. We need to stick together.’
He turned around to pick something up from the table.
I went up to him and laid my head on his chest. He stiffened. I took his hands in mine and lifted them to my waist.
‘I think I need to remind you how this works. You have to put your arms around me too.’
I tried to smile.
He pulled his hands away, not meeting my eyes.
‘I was thinking that maybe we could see the doctor. It might help if you got some counselling. We could get counselling together?’
‘I don’t need counselling; I need a job. Which is what I was trying to do last night. Don’t patronise me, Faiza. So, I get angry with you because you’re acting like a hysterical control freak and suddenly, I need counselling?’
I could only stare at him in silence, trying to reconcile my Tom with this person. His calm face and his eyes which always had a special look just for me, had been replaced by an angry twist of his lips. The old Tom would have listened to me and, even if he disagreed, would have said why, then kissed my forehead gently as a full stop to his explanation. This Tom hurled his words at me, with a look in his eyes that left me frozen. It was clear, undisguised contempt. He didn’t seem angry with life, only with me.
He went up to the door and paused a second before saying, ‘Just do me a favour, please: stay away from me.’
*
I must have caught the bus, sat on the train to Waterloo, picked up my usual takeaway coffee, then walked to the office, but I had no memory of any of it. Tom might as well have thrown a grenade on me at close range.
Fifty-Five
As the day wore on, feelings started to seep back in, like sensation coming back into numbed fingers. I alternated between sadness that Tom had been so cruel, and terror that we would never recover from this. Had we really been happy all these years, or had we wanted to prove everyone wrong so badly that we had convinced ourselves that our marriage was perfect.
I made my way to Harry’s office, carrying the printouts of my presentation for the next pitch in New York. This was not a time to make any mistakes, but I hadn’t been able to concentrate.
Harry was sitting by the wall of glass, with sunshine flooding in. I perched at the edge of the deep sofa and spread the papers out on to the glass table, making sure I had them in the correct order. This was Harry’s client and we were pitching for a huge account. I had been working on this for two weeks, staying up late not just at the office, but also at home once Tom and the children were in bed. I would get an extra ten thousand in my bonus if I got this account.
I started going through the slides, telling him what I would in my pitch. I managed to answer all his questions. It took less than ten minutes.
‘This is excellent,’ he said.
I sat back, relieved.
‘Just one thing, though.’
His words made me sit up again.
‘In Amsterdam, your presentation was so full of energy and passion and I think that’s what really clinched it for us. You need to ramp that up a notch for New York. You seemed a bit low key just now, not quite engaged. Are you saving all the pizzazz for the clients?’
There was a smile on his face, but I heard a hint of doubt. Harry had put a lot of faith in me and I needed to deliver.
‘I’ll pull out all the stops for New York. I just have a bit of a migraine today.’
‘Fi, why didn’t you tell me? This light must be killing you.’
He pressed a button and large blackout blinds descended, like eyelids shutting silently, obliterating the sun, the City, and the expanse of glass. The room was plunged into darkness. It felt intimate, like a hotel room in the middle of the afternoon. It took us a few minutes to adjust to the dark and I was grateful for that because I couldn’t help tears springing to my eyes at Harry’s small gesture. In the few seconds he took to pour me a glass of water and bring it to me before sitting down next to me, tears were rolling down my face.
‘Hey, come. Shall I get you some Nurofen?’
He touched my back softly, just for a brief second, but that set me off completely and I began to cry uncontrollably. He pushed a box of tissues towards me and I bent my head, trying desperately to stop. Oh God, he wouldn’t trust me to go in front of a client after this meltdown. At that thought, I started to shake.
‘Fi, what is it?’
He patted my back, as a football coach might do to a player who had been injured or missed a goal.
‘Drink some water.’
He held the glass to my lips, as if I were an invalid. I took a sip, then took the glass into my hand.
‘I’m s-so sorry. I’m never like this, ever. I never do this.’
It was true. My game face never slipped, except in front of Tom.
‘P-please don’t sack me.’
‘I’m not going to sack you. This isn’t Wall Street. We are all human, sort of!’
Would I Lie to You? Page 20