by Jane Fallon
‘Only idiots stick slavishly to fashion trends,’ I say with a bit too much vehemence. ‘It’s all just a ruse to make you spend more money.’
‘Oh I didn’t mean to—’ Bea says. ‘I just meant I probably wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere …’
I’m sure you did, I want to say. I’m sure you were just being friendly.
‘Where are you off to? Anywhere nice?’ Bea says with a smile.
‘Just for a pizza. Hardly a big night out.’
‘It’s fun just to hang out with your girlfriends sometimes, though, isn’t it? Leave the men to their own devices,’ Bea says and I want to slap her.
‘Shall we go?’ I say to Michelle. I just want to get out of there.
‘Sure. Nice to meet you both.’ Michelle picks up her bag and tucks her hair behind her ear. ‘Especially you, Bea, it’s good to put a face to the name after all this time.’
‘You, too. I’ve heard so much about you. Have a nice evening.’
‘Are you off out, too?’ Michelle says, ever polite. I want to physically push her out of the door.
Bea is all innocence. ‘Just meeting my boyfriend.’
‘Well have fun.’
‘Oh I will.’
Actually what I really want is to push Bea down the stairs.
‘See you tomorrow, Tamsin.’
‘Night,’ I manage to say. ‘Night, Ashley.’
‘She seems lovely,’ Michelle says as we step out onto the pavement. I pretend I don’t hear her.
Michelle looks happy. Like she’s got a secret. I feel as if she’s bursting to tell me something.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Confess.’ We’ve ordered. An American Hot for me and a Salad Niçoise for Michelle. I try to argue that there’s no point coming to a pizza place if you’re just going to have a salad, but she’s not having it. A big glass of white wine sits in front of each of us.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re up to something. Don’t even try and pretend you’re not.’
She gives me a big smile. ‘OK. I have totally not told you this. If Pad asks, that is. He thinks we shouldn’t say anything until it happens.’
I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. ‘Of course. Go on.’
‘We’re trying for a baby. Actually trying!’
Shit.
‘Wow! Mich that’s fantastic.’
‘Actually, I shouldn’t be drinking this,’ she says, putting her wine glass to one side.
‘What’s made him change his mind?’
‘I have no idea. I suppose he just realized that it’s now or never.’
‘When? I mean … when did he tell you?’ I’m trying to keep an enthusiastic tone in my voice. Oh my God. How exciting.
‘Friday evening. You know I made him cancel football? I don’t know … we had a takeaway and some fizzy wine, and then he just said he’d changed his mind.’
I lean over and hug her. ‘That’s fantastic.’
Michelle brings me up to date with the baby-making progress (in toe-curling detail, I might add. There are charts involved and sperm-enhancing super-food drinks and post-coital legs up walls, that much I know. Anything that might increase the chances). I try to listen, but all I’m thinking about is what does this mean? If Michelle gets pregnant can I really step in and destroy her relationship with the baby’s father? Shit.
‘He’s really into it now,’ she says.
‘I’m not surprised. It sounds like a shag-a-thon. You should get sponsored.’
She rolls her eyes at me. ‘You know what I mean. The whole idea of a baby.’
‘I’m glad. I really am.’
‘Probably because at the moment I pounce on him and start ripping off his clothes the minute he walks through the door.’
‘Too much information. Way, way too much.’
‘It’s not as exciting as it sounds. It’s sex-with-a-purpose as opposed to sex-for-fun. There’s a big difference.’
A fleeting image pops into my head. Patrick looking at me intently, hand between my legs. I’ve become so adept at blocking out what happened between us that it takes me by surprise.
‘Don’t tell me any more or I won’t be able to look him in the face.’
Michelle laughs. ‘He’d be the first to tell you it’s all business.’
‘Enough,’ I say, holding up a hand. ‘Really.’
‘Just think, any day now I could be pregnant.’
I should just say it now. Tell her. Put her out of her misery. I can’t do it.
Her face is shining, glowing even. I hope to God that doesn’t mean she’s conceived already. How long does it take before women start to glow? I wish I’d paid more attention in biology.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as a ticking-clock motive. Any minute now Michelle might find out she’s pregnant by her cheating psycho husband. Once she does, all bets are off. However I feel about him I don’t think I have it in me to deny a future baby its father. Even if Michelle saw sense and left him he would still be in her life forever. It would change everything.
I have to act quickly. Speak now or forever keep it to myself. Watch them bring up their kids from a distance, trying not to blurt out what I know whenever he ‘works late’.
Somehow I need to present Michelle with incontrovertible evidence that Patrick is having an affair. The latest of many, although there will be no way of proving that. In an ideal world I would be able to get this across to her without her ever finding out that the woman he’s having it with is Bea. The brilliant assistant I have raved on about to her for the past year. The woman she just met and declared to be lovely. She would want to know how their paths crossed and I don’t think I’m ready for that to come out.
I could just tell Michelle what I know – leaving out some of the more incriminating aspects, obviously, but I worry she’d shoot the messenger. That she’d go straight to Patrick and he’d managed to convince her it was all a lie again. I need evidence.
I haven’t spoken to Adam since the night of the mugging. I mean, I have – we’ve texted and he’s left me a couple of messages. Something has shifted between us – at least from my point of view – and I’m not entirely comfortable with it. You know that thing when you’re a teenager and you like a boy, and you suddenly can’t look at him? That.
I think I like Adam. Adam who happily agreed with me that we could never possibly be attracted to each other. Mr Potato Head. Great.
He’s my only option, though. I have to suck it up and call him. Try to act as if everything is normal. I need his help.
53
Bea
Saint Michelle. Right there in front of me. Just as chocolate-box pretty as she is in her pictures, annoyingly, although in that slightly neglectful way that starts to tarnish as you get older. Hair that could do with a bit of conditioner. Skin that’s seen better days. Ageing is all about grooming as far as I’m concerned. You need to keep on top of it or the cracks start to show. OK figure. Dressed like a Sunday school teacher.
This is self-preservation by the way, this meanness. I have to comfort myself with her faults. I have to look for the flaws that help me believe he will look at me and prefer what he sees.
She was friendly. Sweet. Unchallenging, I imagine. A wife for an easy life. I can imagine they look good together. Mr and Mrs Perfect.
I wonder if she’ll go home later and say, ‘I met Tamsin’s assistant Bea today?’ What he’ll say if she does. Will his face give him away? I have decided not to mention her visit. I want to have
a drama-free evening. I don’t want him going into a spin about whether it’s all got too close to home and the risks are starting to outweigh the rewards.
This is our first time at Claridge’s and I’m a bit lost as to where to wait to spot Patrick when he comes in. I’m excited. I’ve always wanted to come here. Although in my fantasies I was being wined and dined in the restaurant, not skulking about like a criminal.
In the end I settle on a chair that’s not in the reception area, but has a good view of it. Ten minutes later he strides in. He’s looking good (as am I, despite the two-day-old hair and jeans, I think. Don’t get me wrong. I have never believed I’m punching above my weight as far as Patrick is concerned). He’s wearing a tweedy jacket. But cool tweed, not Jeremy Clarkson going shooting. A kind of stripy tank top thing over a soft-collared shirt. Black trousers. Hipster, but without the face fur and stupid hat. His brown leather computer bag is slung across his chest. He looks like he belongs here. Confident. Like he owns the place.
I notice him give me a quick once over as he passes on his way from reception to the lifts.
He opens the door to room 1206 almost before I knock. Gives me a big grin.
‘Come here.’
He pulls me towards him, pushes me up against the now closed door. Both his hands are on my face, scraping my hair back. He puts his lips on my lips, pressing the length of his body up against mine.
I think about his sweet pretty wife sitting in her frumpy dress, eating pizza with Tamsin. Oblivious. Unaware.
Fuck her.
I head into work in a better mood than I’ve been in for a few days. Five minutes with Tamsin and that soon dissipates, though. By quarter to ten I’m fuming, although I’m trying my hardest to act like an impartial observer.
‘Oh,’ I say. And then I manage. ‘How nice.’
I feel as if I’m gasping for air. A fish flapping helpless on the beach.
Tamsin is smiling. ‘She’s been wanting this forever, but he’s finally agreed now’s the right time.’
‘Right.’
‘I’m glad you got to meet her. She’s lovely, isn’t she?’
‘Mmmm. So, you think Patrick’s really into having a baby? I mean, I thought he was still playing away.’
‘I actually think this might turn things round. He’s trying to make it up to her.’
‘When did having a kid ever save a marriage.’ I’m struggling to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
‘I don’t mean like that. I mean he’s so up for the idea that I reckon he’ll dump the woman – that’s if he’s still seeing her at all. He’s rushing home from work every night and straight up to the bedroom if you get what I mean. I’ve had way too much detail. Anyway, she says their sex life’s never been so good.’
I actually think I might be sick. Of course, I’m not stupid enough to think they never do it. But he’s hardly made it sound as if he finds her irresistible. As if, on the nights he doesn’t see me, he’s acting out the Kama Sutra with his wife.
And what if she does get pregnant? Where does that leave me?
‘It sounds like a last-ditch ploy to try to save a dying marriage to me.’ Desperate, I know.
‘No,’ Tamsin says. ‘I honestly think he’s changed.’
‘I don’t believe anyone changes that much.’
‘Do me a favour.’ She props her feet up on her desk. ‘I’m dying for a latte and a KitKat.’
54
Tamsin
OK, so I exaggerated a bit. Just for my own amusement. What do you want me to say?
55
Tamsin
‘The way I see it you only have a couple of options,’ Adam says as we sip pints of lager in a mock-Tudor pub on the South Bank. It’s a bit like sitting in a theme park. I half expect a fat out-of-work actor dressed as Henry VIII to appear and start singing ‘Greensleeves’. I suggested the venue. It’s on neutral ground. I’m trying to act as if everything is normal between us. Which it is, in so far as he is concerned. Business as usual.
As for me, I have been struggling for things to say. Suddenly tongue-tied with the person I found it so easy to reveal my whole life story to. The only person in the world, now, who knows everything about me. Except, of course, for the fact that I may have succumbed to an arbitrary crush on him.
‘Should I get you a whiteboard?’
He gives me a ‘very funny’ look. The one I imagine he gives his Year 7s when they start playing up. It works, too. I shut up and listen.
‘You could try and find out where they’re meeting up next – although God knows how you’re going to do that. Patrick is never going to let you have access to his phone again …’
‘Bea’s phone?’ I chip in.
‘Do you know her password?’
I shake my head.
‘And anyway, my guess is they won’t be leaving each other incriminating messages any more. Not since the last time. Anyway, my point is that even assuming you could find out that information, what are you going to do? Take Michelle along to catch them in the act? Imagine how humiliating that would be for her. OK, so you get your big shocker revelation, but I think it would be cruel.’
‘I know. You’re right,’ I have been thinking about this a lot. If I’m going to do anything I need to do it in the least painful way for Michelle.
‘So that’s out of the window. You could do something anonymous. Send her a letter or something, but that seems pretty heartless, too.’
‘Plus she wouldn’t believe it. Why would she?’
‘You could tell Bea and Patrick that you know all about them but that you won’t tell Michelle if they break it off.’
‘He’d just get someone else. He’s never going to change.’
‘Agreed. Or – and this is my preferred, grown-up, best-friend option – you just tell her. You cushion it as much as you can. Then deal with the fallout.’
I let out a sigh so loud the couple at the next table look round.
‘The first thing Patrick will do is tell her about me and him.’
‘Well, you always knew that. You just have to decide whether you’re going to come clean or not.’
‘God no! If I tell her, this’ll all have been for nothing. Why do you think I went to such lengths to delete the text message?’
‘Then you front it out.’
‘I’m scared,’ I say. ‘It’s all going to get so nasty.’
‘Well,’ Adam says, ‘there’s no way there can be a happy ending for everyone. And that’s not your fault. That’s Patrick’s fault.’
‘Fuck, I wish I’d never started this.’
‘You didn’t. He did.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘For making me feel better. Or, should I say, helping to stop me feeling so shit.’
‘To be honest it’s only because I can’t bear to see you moping around any more. It’s like having a drink with Eeyore.’
I manage a laugh. ‘Well, thanks anyway. Even if it was for purely selfish reasons.’
‘Anyway,’ he says with a smug look on his face, ‘enough about you. I have a date tomorrow night.’
‘Oh …’ A little knot forms in my stomach. ‘Someone from Other Half?’
‘No. A real live human woman. She’s the mother of one of my Year Eights. I got to know her when I had to give him detention. She came to the school to complain.’
‘Nice,’ I say and then I realize it sounds sarcastic. ‘I mean, that she cared enough to find out what was going on.’
‘I was a bit frightened of her at the beg
inning, to be honest. She’s very feisty. I can see where he gets it from.’
‘Isn’t it against the rules? Teachers and pupils’ parents?’ I’m clutching at straws here, as you can tell, but I don’t want Adam to find himself a girlfriend just when I’m starting to think I might like him myself.
He snorts. ‘Hardly. At least I don’t think so. It’s never come up before.’
‘So how did it get from “Your son’s a psycho” to “‘Fancy a drink”?’
‘Actually, she asked me. I was scared to say no in case she hit me.’
‘Isn’t it going to be a bit odd, having to face little Johnny across the classroom when he’s seen you in your pyjamas?’
‘Steady on. We’re only going for a drink. And his name’s Jordan.’
‘Isn’t that a girl’s name?’
He gives me a look.
‘So, at least you know what you’re in for. You don’t have to worry about whether or not she looks like her photo.’
Can you see what I’m doing here? I’m trying to elicit details about how good looking or not Adam’s date is. I know it’s pathetic, needy and all round unacceptable, but I’m all out of dignity. I need to know.
‘Exactly. No nasty surprises like with you.’
I laugh like I’m meant to but, actually, that hurt.
‘She’s a looker, then?’ I keep my tone light, like I’m making a joke of it.
He thinks about it for a second. This gives me hope. Although hope for what, I don’t know. Me and Adam would be ridiculous as a couple, even if he was interested in me.
‘She is. Actually, she looks a little bit like you, which is just weird.’
‘Well, that must mean you don’t fancy her then.’
‘Not necessarily. With you it was a combination of the way you look and your God-awful personality that put me off.’
I know he’s joking and I know I’m not meant to take anything he says seriously, but I feel a bit wounded, and it must show because Adam’s smile drops.