by AnonYMous
I said nothing for a minute and when he kept his head lowered, I asked him, ‘Do you really want our marriage?’
He lifted his gaze and, finally, looked me in the eyes. ‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘I miss you. I miss us. I was just very lonely.’
For the first time I glimpsed a spark of honesty behind the mask and I almost forgave him, despite everything. I knew that I’d allowed my work to take control of my life, my fear of the breadline keeping me in the office and away from our marriage. I knew I was also at fault; I knew that infidelity was not a solo act, and I also knew that it did not always have to break a union.
And then I remembered the Very Rich Divorcee.
Whatever he was doing with her had to be for a purpose. Will never did anything for no reason—he pretended to be impulsive, but every move was calculated to make life better, or easier, or more lucrative, for him.
I had to know what he was playing at. While I couldn’t do that without letting him back into my life, into the spy-trap I had set for him, I needed to keep my own guard raised.
‘We can try again,’ I lied too. ‘But everything needs to change.’
He nodded, humbly. ‘I’ll do anything to keep us together,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s just go home.’
On the drive, I let Will chat away as if we really were finding our way back into our marriage. I could scent his relief, could almost hear him congratulating himself for getting away with it.
Suddenly I wanted to jolt him out of this smug confidence, to shock him into the confused world in which I had become trapped. I had the perfect weapon.
As he eased onto the M25, I said casually, ‘By the way, do you know someone called Amanda Kirby?’
To give him credit, only a tightening around his eyes and an edge in his voice gave anything away. Consummate actor, I thought.
‘Name rings a bell,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Claire texted,’ I said. ‘Jeremy’s having an affair. With Amanda Kirby.’
‘Jesus!’ I added as the car swerved from side to side, narrowly missing an Audi whose driver hit his brakes, horn blaring. ‘What the fuck?’
Will was gripping the steering wheel so tightly the veins in the back of his hands were buckling. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Thought there was a rabbit on the road.’
After fifteen minutes of absolute silence, I ventured, ‘You seem upset. Are you okay?’
‘Just surprised. I always thought of Jeremy as the uxorious sort.’
I resisted the temptation to say, ‘Unlike you.’
I kept very quiet for the next forty or so miles. I didn’t particularly want the ignominy of dying in a road crash on the dullest of all England’s motorways. I wondered how the evening would go. I didn’t for a minute expect that Will would offer to change his ways; as I had seen in the week before he had flown to Paris, he had a psychopath’s inability to feel remorse. The only slight modification, I thought, would be that for the next week or so he would play at home rather than away.
Even so, I was surprised that he went straight to the study when we got home, muttering that he had a lot of work to catch up on.
‘I’ve got work to do, too,’ I called after him as I went downstairs and took the laptop he had just brought back in his carry-on case. I pulled out my mobile as I started to load the spy software onto his third computer. Keeping a close eye on the screen, I quickly dialled the SIM in the powerboard which was now placed under Will’s desk.
The voice came through clearly, although he was speaking in a near-whisper. I had missed the first part of the call, but not by much. ‘. . . about you and Amanda,’ I heard. ‘She texted Lili.’
There was a pause while Jeremy answered, then Will spoke again, coldly and with breathtaking hypocrisy. ‘Don’t shit in your own backyard, mate. We just need her to sort our paperwork out, we can’t risk complications.’
A silence while Jeremy said something and Will laughed nastily. ‘Yeah, and that. I’ve already got her to “lend” me £1200 to “pay something off my credit card”. What? Oh, yes, I told Lili it’s all over with Larissa. I’m going to have to play at being the faithful husband until I’ve got all my ducks in a row.’
I hung up as Will did and gazed out over the lavender bushes that edged the patio and, even in the cinereal depths of winter, brought the scent of my long-dead grandmother whispering in on the wind.
What exactly were they playing at? Dumpy, wealthy Amanda was obviously a means to an end, but how would the end unfurl?
Will and Jeremy, I thought, were two of a kind—cruel men who tap the generosity of others, feeding off it like blood to increase their own strength, until their victims were left lifeless husks.
Will had drawn off my blood often enough, ‘borrowing’ money to pay off mortgages and bills the same way he persuaded Amanda to ‘lend’ him money for his credit cards. He would have assured her, as he had me, that he would repay her. He would have told her, ‘You know you’ll get it back,’ so that, if she dared hesitate or question him, it would appear as if it was she who was undeserving of trust.
If manipulation was an art, then Will was a master, hiding his deceit beneath layers of verdigris.
I remembered his fury once, after I had confronted him over one of the many ‘loans’ he had never repaid. ‘Are you calling me a thief?’ he had shouted at me. It was around the time that The Kite Runner was at the top of the bestseller lists and I had repeated to him the line that I loved most from that book, that theft was the only real sin, with all other sins variations of it: ‘When you kill a man, you steal a life . . . When you lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.’ I could have added: if you are unfaithful, you steal a person’s trust. But I hadn’t known then that Will’s own particular version of theft would include infidelity.
I had been trying to tell him that it wasn’t just the unpaid loans that made me feel robbed. His fantasy world, the experiences of mine that he appropriated for his own stories, the lies and semi-truths that punctuated our marriage, were also a form of theft, depriving me of any sense of security or trust.
He’d hesitated when I told him this and, for a minute, I thought the truth of it had sunk in. But then he had returned to rage, shouting me into silence, so I never mentioned the book again.
Now I thought I’d try again to make him understand how he had robbed me of faith, but when I wandered to the bookcase, The Kite Runner had gone. Note to self, I thought—stop lending your books out. I shrugged. Tonight probably wasn’t the right time to lecture him about truth anyway.
The spy software had installed while I was searching for the book so I closed his laptop down and opened my own. Clicking on my emails I saw that, even as he had been speaking to Jeremy, Will had been busy emailing Larissa.
‘I know it’s not fair,’ he had written. ‘But it’s not for long and it will be worth it once we’ve got the house to ourselves. In the meantime I’ll put the money for your rent into your account this week. £1200 will cover two months, won’t it?’
I wondered what Amanda would think if she knew where her £1200 had really gone. More importantly, though, what did he mean by them having the house to themselves? I was losing the thread of what was happening.
I shivered suddenly. I hadn’t put on the heating when we came in and my draughty little cottage was icy cold. Where the hell are the hot flushes when you need them? As I got up to switch the boiler on, Will walked in. His eyes immediately went to my laptop and mine followed, just in time to see the screensaver flash up, sheltering my spying behind the photograph I took last year of Dubrovnik from the sea.
He was wearing his mask and I didn’t try to look behind it—it cloaked him as effectively as my hijab did me. ‘Let’s go for a drink in the village,’ he said, as if we still dropped down to the Golden Hynde the way we used to. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been there, but I agreed, in the spirit of this new game I found myself playing.
I crashed my
computer, so he couldn’t try to unlock it, and, as I got my coat out of the closet, I quickly texted Claire. ‘We shld talk,’ I said. Then I deleted our message trail.
He tried to take my hand as we walked into the village, but I avoided his touch by wrapping my arms around myself. ‘I’m freezing,’ I explained to his irritated sigh.
He bought us large Bombay gin and tonics, and we sat on the battered leather sofas on either side of the inglenook fireplace, eyeing each other warily.
Eventually, after what looked like an internal tussle, Will spoke. ‘Why don’t we go to Gümüşlük next week? It’s the only way you’re going to trust me again and we can get the house ready for holiday tenants. We still need to get sheets and towels, crockery and god knows what else. You’re better at things like that than me.’
I was torn. In Turkey I couldn’t keep such a close spy-eye on him—but on the other hand I might see Will and Larissa together at firsthand, rather than through my home-styled looking glass.
I nodded slowly, although I knew that his plea for me to stock up with sheets and towels and crockery meant that once more it would be my bank balance that was denuded rather than his. Another cup of blood to replenish his supplies. Then I remembered. ‘I thought we were having Luke next week.’
He hardly paused. ‘I called Bronwyn earlier and suggested we take him to Gümüşlük. I said he could bring that new best friend, Harry. I knew you wouldn’t mind.’
He knew nothing of the sort, although he did know that I couldn’t bear to disappoint Luke and would comply for my stepson’s sake, if not for his. But I also recognised his naked ploy: far from wanting to spend a week alone with me mending our marriage, he had ensured that I was kept busy with the boys so he would be free to see Larissa. I was there to provide child-care and finance, nothing more.
Early the next morning Will announced that he was going to drive into the village to get the newspapers. The village shop was only a quarter of a mile away, a gentle stroll at most, but I knew he would need to get far from our neighbours so he could speak to his lover in peace, and without fear of being recognised by passersby.
I dialled Claire’s number as, on my computer screen, I watched his car turn left at the church and drive on through the morning mist until it stopped up on the North Downs.
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Claire as she picked up the phone. ‘Jeremy claims that Amanda Kirby is having an affair with Will.’
‘All I know is that she’s rich, they seem to be taking her money and I have a nasty feeling that you and I are going to be the losers in all of this,’ I replied.
Claire said nothing. I realised that I knew very little about her relationship. She and Jeremy seemed happy enough; but then so, on the surface, did we. Unhappy couples are skilled at deceit; they smile through vicious rows, paper over deepening cracks. The stigma of divorce may be long dead, but no one wants to be the first among friends to admit their happy-ever-after is heading for an entirely different ending.
As I waited for Claire to answer I saw Will’s car turn around and start driving slowly, reluctantly back home. ‘I can’t stay on the phone too long,’ I said. ‘Will’s gone out for the papers, but he’s just turned back home,’ I added, forgetting that she knew nothing about my new skills. (Should I add them to my LinkedIn profile, I wondered. Lili Jamieson has added new skills—snooping, lying, spying.)
‘I think Jeremy needs the money for a gambling habit,’ Claire said. ‘He’s lost most of our money and I’ve told him I’m going to leave if he doesn’t stop.’ Then she added, ‘How do you know that he’s turned back?’
I thought for a moment, then decided to trust her. ‘How much do you want to know about what Jeremy is up to?’
‘I need to know,’ she answered and I recognised the desperation in her voice. So, just as Justine had to me, I outlined to Claire what she needed to do. And just as Justine had, I warned her that reading all her husband’s emails to someone he might be in love with was as poisonous as swallowing mercury.
‘Lili, I need to know,’ she repeated and I understood exactly the journey she was embarking on, and where it would take her.
Gümüşlük
I climbed onto the roof of the house, turned my back on the solar panels and began my yoga in the amber dawn. The citrus groves that lined the hills filled the morning with the sharp scent of tangerines and the day’s first muezzin rippled across the flat roofs laid out like a prayer mat between our house and the Aegean. Usually this was my hour of peace; it was shared, I knew, with hundreds of Turks in the villages around me, on their knees to Mecca before their breakfast of bread, yogurt and thick black, sweet coffee.
But there was no peace for me today. As the last notes of the muezzin faded, so did my enthusiasm for the downward dog. Instead I sat on my mat and began plotting, while I watched the sun force the fading moon from the sky.
On the plane to Bodrum, Will had announced grandly that he’d booked a glass-bottomed boat trip for the boys and me at lunchtime today, while he would tackle the dull practicalities of our troublesome electrical supply. It took the rest of the flight for me to work out how to outfox him on this plan; then a quick (and secret) phone call rescheduled the trip as an early morning one and another to Kate organised for the boys to spend the rest of the morning in her heated pool. So I was soon back on track.
Kate was waiting as the boat tied up in front of the harbour cafes, her gold hair burnished in the Turkish sun and her breasts straining so willingly out of her top that both boys instantly fell in lust with her. Luke didn’t even bother to ask me where I was going. Kate was the MILF of all MILFs, and I knew the boys would spend most of their time in her pool, trying to hide their little erections from her.
Then it was a brisk walk around the harbour to the narrow side street where Slutski lived. Our hire car was already lurking outside and, as I stood in the shadows of the shoe shop opposite, I saw her hurrying down the road from the pasticceria, which I could see from where I stood. I rang the pasticceria to double-check, and the woman who answered told me that Larissa had gone home for a couple of hours because she had a plumber coming in.
I imagined her ecstatic reunion with Will, but resisted the temptation to intrude. Instead I walked up to Pasticceria Mamochka and sat at a pavement table with a clear view of her door. Two hours and four coffees had passed before I saw them emerge and start down the street towards me. I retreated inside and waited until they were standing just outside the shop next door, his arms around her, she kissing him, before I walked out and leaned against the door jamb like any casual passerby, observing them.
Will saw me first, and pushed her sharply away from him, as though she were a grenade whose pin I’d just pulled. I heard him start to stutter excuses but I was more interested in Larissa, whose face seemed to collapse inward when she saw me. I smiled at her.
‘Hello, Slutski,’ I said pleasantly.
Her voice, when she answered, was small and tearful. This wasn’t what I expected. ‘I’m not a slut,’ she said.
‘Yes, you are,’ I replied. ‘Women who sleep with other women’s husbands are sluts. Ergo, you’re a slut.’ She looked as if she would faint.
‘You told me you’d left her,’ she whispered at Will and ran inside. The tears that I had concealed at Heathrow were now pouring down her face.
I felt almost sorry for her but I quickly locked that unwelcome emotion into a cupboard and turned to Will, who was already stalking back to the car.
‘You’ve ruined everything,’ he cried as I quickly caught up and jumped into the car with him.
‘Really? You continue your dirty little affair and I’ve ruined everything?’
Then the lies started tumbling out—a recycling of those awful untruths he’d provided her with only days earlier. ‘She kept ringing me, emailing me, begging me to come back,’ he said. ‘She was threatening suicide and, after my friend Jim . . .’
‘My friend Jim?’ I corrected him, eyes wide, innocent. ‘
Are you saying he’s committed suicide?’
‘Yes . . . no . . . look, that’s not the point,’ he said, caught in his own web of lies and half-truths. ‘I was just talking her down, all right?’
‘Talking her down? You were kissing her passionately in front of me a couple of minutes ago.’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ he said.
‘Will, you were. I saw you.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ he said.
My head began to spin, as if I was falling into some kind of vortex.
‘You told her you’d left me,’ I pressed on.
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, flatly.
He began driving.
‘Have you fucked Slutski in our house here?’
He looked at me coldly. ‘When did it become our house? It’s my name on the deeds.’
My breath stopped, trapped in my throat by fear of what he was telling me. ‘We both own it,’ I finally gasped. ‘I’m on the deeds. You showed me the paperwork.’
His expression didn’t change. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘But you did. You presented the papers to me tied with a red ribbon.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Will, you did.’ I hated the desperation in my voice as I remembered, suddenly, that the ownership papers he’d flashed in front of me, on the day after my payment for the house had gone through, were all written in Turkish.
As understanding dawned I could hear myself begging. ‘Will, I have spent thousands on that house. All the furniture I’ve bought . . . the antiques . . . the garden . . .’
His eyes were as cold as coal. ‘Prove it,’ he said.
And it hit me—I couldn’t. I’d paid cash for everything, as you did in these villages, and any receipts we did have Will kept locked away with the deeds in a carved wooden chest for which only he had a key. I had no proof of all I’d contributed. If Will wanted to take everything from me, he could. I had nothing to fight him with.
I slumped in my seat. ‘Has Slutski put you up to this?’