by Carrie Adams
“She doesn’t have to,” said Ben.
Oh God, no. Not here. Not now.
“You’re all going to muck in, are you?” asked Marguerite in a sneer.
Sasha looked from me to Ben. “It’s been a tough day. Let’s go home. Before we all start saying things we’ll regret.”
Why we didn’t listen to her, I’ll never know.
“We’d really like to see the boys again,” said the woman who’d tried to assuage my guilt.
“I’m sorry, we haven’t met,” I said, turning to her.
“I’m Lauren Williams. I’m married to Neil’s brother, Daniel.” She nodded to her husband standing next to her.
“I dropped our daughter once,” said Daniel, looking down at Tommy. “She was fine—it took me weeks to recover.”
I was concentrating furiously, trying to make a good impression. Rose came in; no one stopped her when she silently took the boys away. Not even Marguerite. “I’m sorry we finally get to meet in these circumstances,” I said. “It must be very hard for you.”
“It’s my mum and dad who are finding it hardest. I know they’d love to see the twins from time to time too, if that’s all right.”
“Danny, our train—”
“Can I give you our number? Helen brought them up to visit a few times. Well, we’d really like to, um…” He looked at Marguerite nervously.
“Dan—”
“We’ve got a spare room. And the girls adore them. I built them this great den under the willow and, well…”
Lauren gently took her husband’s arm. “Come on, my love.” I was staring at them. By the willow. In Norwich. “Helen loved you both,” I blurted out. “She told me all about you.”
They looked relieved.
“I think your wife wants to leave,” said Marguerite. “You know where I am now.”
“Marguerite,” I said, my alcoholic fury rising again. “You are not getting the twins.”
“And nor are you. You can’t do this alone, I should know, goddamnit!”
“She’s not going to do it alone,” said Ben, stepping away from Sasha again.
We were all so pissed.
“What are you talking about?” asked Marguerite.
“Now is not the time, Ben,” I said, trying to sound matronly. In charge.
“Marguerite should know, this affects her.”
“Ben!”
“Please, Ben, listen to Tessa,” said Sasha. My heart cracked at the sound of her voice. Nick was right. I could feel the precipice beneath my toes. They always know. We were going to fall and take everyone with us.
Ben looked at me. “Tessa has decided—”
“To give the twins to Claudia and Al,” I said, turning to them with a false smile.
“What!”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Really?”
“Oh.”
Al.
Claudia.
Sasha.
Daniel, Neil’s brother. The one I knew I’d like. And did. The one who lived in Norwich with a weeping willow in his garden.
Ben didn’t say anything, he left the room.
Marguerite scanned what was left of our little group. “You’ll be hearing from me,” she said. “Make no mistake about that.” Then she walked out of the room too.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Tessa?” said Al. “After everything we’ve been through! You didn’t think it worth mentioning before?”
“We knew this was going to happen, we talked about it on the plane. I had braced myself for it,” said Claudia. “But not from you, Tessa.”
“Yeah, give the babies to the poor infertile couple. Perfect fucking solution, Tessa.”
“I mean, we want to be involved in their lives, we do, but after everything we’ve been through, it’s over for us. We’ve made a choice, the hardest choice there is to make, but we’ve made it.”
I so desperately wanted to retract my words. Tell them I’d only done it to shut Ben up. But I couldn’t. Sasha was still there. Still watching my every move.
“The very least you could have done was tell us, rather than drop it on us like that.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
Claudia started collecting her things. I was so sad. Only a few minutes ago she’d been doing the hooly-hooly and now she’d go home and question all her decisions because I’d been too much of a coward to face up to what I’d done. Claudia looked at me. “I thought you of all people understood.”
“I do,” I pleaded. “I’m sorry. As soon as I saw you I realized it was a bad idea, but in your absence, well, people kept mentioning it and I just thought…” I fell into the sofa. “I’m a fucking idiot.”
Claudia looked down at me. “I have Al. Loving anything else right now feels too dangerous, impossible. Do you understand?”
“I’m sorry, it was a bad idea,” I said again.
“Fucking bad idea,” said Al. “Come on, Claud, let’s get out of here.”
But Claudia held back. “It’s not that I wouldn’t, but I’m spent. I can’t live like that any more.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I couldn’t be a relaxed mother and I wouldn’t do Helen justice. I’m sorry.”
“We’ve talked about this, my love,” said Al, putting his arm around his wife. “We’re off on a different adventure.”
She nodded but still looked so pained. I felt terrible. She wouldn’t wait for the journey home, she already doubted herself. Yet I knew better than most that they’d made a good decision. Now I had to face up to my own.
“I didn’t mean it,” I said.
“Easy to say now,” said Al.
“No, really. I didn’t mean it. The truth is I didn’t want you to take them. I’ve grown rather attached to them myself, but Marguerite was on at me, she thinks she should have the twins and obviously thinks I’d be hopeless. Oh God, I’m sorry, I really am.”
Claudia looked from me to Al, but he was not moved.
“So why did you say it?” asked Al, furiously.
I glanced at Sasha, then back to Al. “I panicked. I just panicked.” I put my head in my hands. It was throbbing angrily.
Claudia crouched down in front of me. “What is it, Tessa? What’s going on?”
I peered at her through my fingers. I didn’t dare look over to Sasha. I stared hard at my friend Claudia, taking in her features. Her dark bob, her wide eyes, her small, round head. Help me, I pleaded silently. Help me, I don’t know what I’m doing. Suddenly she moved up on to the sofa next to me and took my hand in hers.
“I think that you’ve been carrying a lot, on your own; we should have been here earlier,” she said.
I wanted to kiss her feet.
“Come on, Al. Think of the pressure she’s been under,” she said. “Marguerite was being a bit out of order. Everyone knows she’s a battleaxe.”
He wouldn’t even look at me. “I’d like to go now,” he said.
“Al, I’m sorry—”
“Not now, Tessa.” He was clearly still struggling to contain his anger. He ran his hand over his head. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow. When everyone has sobered up.”
Claudia squeezed my hand and I watched them go.
“We better go too,” said Daniel.
“We’ll never make the train now,” said his wife.
“It’s OK, we’ll find a hotel near King’s Cross.”
“I’m terribly sorry about all that,” I said.
“Emotions are running high, it’s understandable,” said Helen’s sister-in-law. “We’re all anxious about the twins,” she said.
“You don’t have to go to a hotel. There is plenty of room at Helen and Neil’s house.”
“We’ve got the girls,” said Lauren.
“And my parents.”
“Thanks, but don’t worry.”
“Please, Helen would want you to stay. I know she would.”
There was a pause. Why would they want to stay with me after that little debacle? I was about to giv
e them an out when I was surprised by the warm smile that crossed Neil’s brother’s face.
“Well, if you’re sure?” he said.
“Absolutely. You’re staying with us.”
“We’ll go and tell the others.” I watched them leave too. Finally, I turned around. Sasha stood facing me.
“I think I’d like to go home now,” said Sasha.
If this was going to be done, it had to be done now. How many times had I asked this question? Hundreds. I would never be able to ask it again.
“Do you mind if I borrow your husband?” I forced lightheartedness into my voice. Sasha drained her drink, then placed the empty glass on the bar. She turned to me.
“Will you give him back?” she asked quietly.
“Don’t I always?”
The look Sasha gave me was impenetrable, she gave nothing away. Eventually she nodded, more to herself than to me. Then she, too, left the room.
Much later, after several cups of tea and beans on toast in the kitchen of the house in Notting Hill Gate getting to know Helen’s in-laws, I sat on the teak bench in the garden and stared up at the indigo sky. Ben came out and wrapped a jacket around my shoulders.
“They’re very nice people,” said Ben. “He looks so like Neil, but he’s so different, it’s weird.”
I didn’t reply.
“And what gorgeous kids,” he said.
I agreed with him, but again, I didn’t reply.
Ben took my hand. “Sorry I nearly dumped us in it earlier.”
I held his hand for a moment, then retrieved my own. “That’s OK. I think Al and Claudia will forgive me eventually.”
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
“No. We’d all drunk far, far too much. Funerals kind of do that.”
“It was that bitch Marguerite, she just pissed me off.”
“There is so much front with her,” I said. “No one really has that much front. I think in a weird way, she thinks that if she can get the twins, she’ll be able to make it up to Helen. That’s what I’d like to think, anyway.”
Ben sat down next to me. I leaned against him, tired and fighting off a hangover.
“I love you, you know, Tessa,” he said.
“I know.”
We held hands and sat in silence for a little while. My dreams had been filled with moments like this. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do.
“Ben?”
“Uh-huh?”
“You and me.”
“Yes, my love.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“What?” He turned suddenly, facing me. “Come on, Tess, today was bad, I grant you, but think about the circumstances. You were right, we’ve got to wait until all this is over.”
“No, Ben. Today would have been as good as any, if it was the right thing to do.”
He grabbed my hands. “You adore Sasha, she was in your face; of course you’re going to get freaked out. Don’t do this, Tess. We’ve finally got it together.” I slid my hands out from under his and placed them on top.
“Exactly. Finally. This is our teenage nonsense. I’ve been waiting twenty years to be told what I already knew. I wanted you. You wanted me. We had our chance and we fucked it up, Ben, way back then. But that isn’t Sasha’s fault.”
“But I’m not in love with her, I’m in love with you,” he pleaded.
I worked very hard at keeping my voice steady. “Today. A week ago you weren’t.”
“I was, I just didn’t know it.”
“I don’t think it works like that. I think you’re going through a bad patch with your wife. It happens. It’s cyclical. The trick is to work it out. She said she’d been traveling too much. You resent it so I bet you’re not very nice to her when she comes home, which means she travels more. You’ve just drifted apart. You need to go on holiday, get back in the groove.” I tried to tell him about the corridor thing, but I didn’t do it as well as Francesca.
“Please don’t tell me how to patch things up with my wife. I want to be with you.” He sounded petulant.
“Because I’m fun.”
He stroked his hand over my cheek. “No. You’re perfect.”
“Of course I bloody am.” I was like Caspar. Ben was my hero, so for him I was always on best behavior. “I’m single. I get dressed up. I’m out on the razz. I don’t have to be at my desk at six a.m. I’m not covered in baby puke. I have lie-ins. When I’m in a filthy mood, I stay in. When I have my period, I go to bed. You never see me when I’ve picked all my spots.”
“You don’t have spots.”
I tried to inject some humor into the conversation. Relieve the tension. “That’s it then, you clearly don’t know me at all.”
“OK, so sometimes you have spots, I don’t care. I love you.” It got harder then, because he sounded like Ben, my Ben, and he sounded like he believed every word. All I had to do was choose to believe them too, just as I’d been doing for years and hey presto, I’d have everything I’d ever wanted. I turned away from him instead.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t believe you.” Ben pulled me back. “What did Sasha say to you?”
“Nothing. You’ve been together for seven years. I don’t know, maybe there’s something in this seven-year-itch thing.”
“It’s eight years,” said Ben.
“Even more reason to try and salvage it. Eight really good years, Ben—I know, because I’ve been there with you. Sasha is stronger than me, she’s more reliable, she’s smarter; more than all of that, she actually makes you be a better person than you are on your own.”
“Thanks!”
“Well, isn’t that what it’s all about? We’re just kids in a passageway. You think kids in a passageway have what it takes to survive the odds?”
“Yes.”
“What happens when you realize I’m not perfect?”
“That won’t happen.”
“Of course it will. God, Ben, let’s not piss about here. Marriage is tough for anyone. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be sitting here now.”
“You’re just getting cold feet, as usual. You never see anything through—”
“I thought you said I was perfect.”
“You are, please don’t do this.”
“You’re just being belligerent now. You don’t want to listen to me because you know what I’m saying is right.”
Ben was shaking his head. “I don’t believe this is happening.”
“My dad says you should always go with your gut reaction. When I told you, you said ‘Oh.’ Then you went home and thought about all the little things that annoyed you about Sasha, which I’m sure are plentiful, and many of which she deserves, and I bet there are just as many things that you do that piss her off. Then you thought about all the things that don’t piss you off about me, and you thought, I must love her too. Nice, easy solution. You said it: I make you feel great. I worship the ground you walk on, naturally I make you feel great.”
“Sasha doesn’t make me feel great.”
“Because she asks more of you. You’re the man you are because of her. You feel great about yourself. Sasha did that.”
I could feel Ben’s resistance to the idea that we’d got it wrong start to slip away. But he was still fighting.
“Our marriage won’t survive,” he said.
“Maybe not, but you should take Nick’s advice and give it a bit of attention before you make that decision. I was speaking to a divorce lawyer the other day; he said that divorce rates are much higher among second marriages. Why? Because the couples find themselves back in the same place, with the same problems. Many even go back to their first partners. It would be really sad if you and Sasha didn’t make it, but either way, it can have nothing to do with me. I won’t be waiting for you, Ben. This isn’t a trick, some strange test I’ve set you, I’m done. It’s over. I’m sorry.”
Ben looked at me. He hadn’t changed since we were kids. It was true, I did worship the ground he
walked on, but, like him with me, I never got to see the shoddy bits. When he sulked. Went out and got so pissed with his mates that he couldn’t get himself home. Since I was getting pissed with him, I thought it was funny. I wouldn’t think it was so funny if I was the one waiting at home. Leaving the lights on all the time. Never emptying the rubbish. All the stupid little things that annoy one person about another, they’d all pile up, eventually And that was before something really challenging happened, like infertility, illness, truancy, infidelity, death…the list was endless.
“You promised no cold feet. You started all of this,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “But Ben, we’ve both been pedaling the myth, leaning on each other, using the other like polyfiller. The only person who doesn’t think Sasha is fun, is you. You’ve got to appreciate what you’ve got. We both must.” If I didn’t learn to love what I had, how could I move on? Nick had been right on so many levels. I wanted to have a family, and while that might never change, what had changed was that I no longer wanted it at any cost. And this; this was far, far too high a price to pay. I stood up. “It’s time to go home, Ben.”
“I’m going to sit here for a bit.”
“OK. But Ben, when you go home, please be nice to Sasha. Whatever is going on between you two is one thing, but this bit, us, isn’t her fault. Let her be the amazing woman she is.”
He nodded.
“It’s not my place to tell you what to do, but I strongly advise you to never tell her any of this. Ever.”
He sighed deeply. “What about us?”
I shrugged. I hoped that we could go on being friends but in a different way from before. Better. Because we’d no longer be one another’s safety net. The walk would be much more terrifying without him, but at least I’d be doing it on my own. The rewards would be mine to keep.
“Can I kiss you goodnight?” asked Ben.
It took a long time for me to reply. Finally I came up with the only answer there was. “Kiss your wife instead,” I said, squeezed his shoulder and walked back into the house.