‘Have you completely lost your mind? You’re going to confront them that’s if anyone turns up and what do you think they’ll do . . . buckle under the shame of it all and pay up instantly? In the first place I seriously doubt that anyone will turn up, in the second place even if they do they’ll probably just laugh at the pair of you, and in the third place if you don’t give up on Lenny and his half-arsed lunatic schemes and get yourself on the next plane home you might as well forget about coming home at all’ I said and silently congratulated myself on showing extreme restraint under the circumstances.
‘But Soph . . .’ Martin began.
‘I mean it Martin, either you’re on the next plane or you needn’t bother at all.’
‘I’ll just stay till Sunday night’ Martin said.
‘You were only going to stay for twenty four hours and then it was until Friday and now it’s until Sunday, and then what? On Sunday are you going to say you’ll stay until next Friday?’
‘No’ Martin said emphatically.
‘Choose, either come home now or not at all.’
‘But if I come home now we’ll never get paid, I can’t give up now.’
I didn’t say anything. I’d already said my piece and the rest was up to Martin.
‘Soph say something, I can’t give up can I? Lenny’s sure someone will turn up sooner or later.’
I still didn’t say anything.
‘Sophie please be reasonable’ Martin pleaded.
Me be reasonable, me? It was on the tip of my tongue to launch into another tirade and my resolve not to say anything else almost broke, but I managed somehow to hold firm and didn’t say a word.
‘I’ve got to stay until Sunday I can’t leave Lenny here on his own, I’ll see you Sunday night’ Martin said.
I pressed the finish call button without replying and that was that. Martin could come home on Sunday but he wouldn’t be coming here. If he was so bothered about bloody Lenny he could stay with him.
I flipped back to the dream life where Martin was devastated that he’d lost the love of his life and I was the brave single mum. He’d sink deeper and deeper into a pit of despair and I’d rise like a phoenix from the ashes. He’d know it could all have been so different if only he’d come home when I asked him to and he’d regret his decision for the rest of his life.
I banged about tidying up, hurt and angry to the point where I was re-enacting different parts of the conversation out loud to myself and voicing all the reactions and sheer incredulity of how stupid I thought Martin was that I hadn’t said to him when he was on the phone.
‘Sophie please be reasonable’ I parroted in a sing song voice. ‘I’ll give him reasonable’ I ground out angrily. Whatever happened Martin was going to regret ever saying that particular little gem to me. If I ever spoke to him again which I most certainly wasn’t planning on doing any time in the next fifty years or so, I’d taunt him with ‘please be reasonable’ until the day he died.
I didn’t sleep much instead I lay in the darkness going over and over our conversation again and again as if it might turn out differently if I repeated it often enough and thought about it hard enough, but of course it didn’t.
I got through Friday with stoic resolution, a quiet burning anger being the impetus that carried me on more than anything else. Although I very nearly lost it with Dianne when all she could talk about all day was how sharing a flat with Richard was so bloody wonderful and the best thing she ever did. Luckily Julie was there and as soon as we were on our own she pointed out that Di and Rich had only been living together for a couple of weeks so the ‘wonderful’ hadn’t worn off yet.
Martin didn’t phone that night not even to talk to Ben and Kate and a little bit of me wondered if he was on a flight home and that’s why he hadn’t phoned. I hoped he’d had a change of heart and was going to surprise us all but when by Saturday morning he still hadn’t turned up I knew he was just sulking, or maybe hiding.
Saturday was the usual mad scramble and busy beyond belief. In the old days Martin would take over the parenting duties for the day, but since he’d been away I’d had to get Ben and Kate dressed and fed before dropping them off at my mums and still get to work by eight, followed by a typical manic Saturday at work for eight hours and then pick the kids up again on the way home. Martin did manage a phone call that evening but I didn’t talk to him, I let Kate answer the phone and after he’d spoken to both the children I just hung up.
On Sunday I’d calmed down a little and my anger had turned to more of a seething deep seated resentment, so really I was feeling just as angry but it wasn’t quite so visible or so near the surface. I was determined to show Martin how well I could manage without him and much to the children’s disappointment I spent most of the day washing, cleaning and mowing. I was expecting him back on Monday and even though I’d said he couldn’t stay here I knew he’d try or at least want to see Ben and Kate, and the last thing I wanted was for him to think I needed his help to survive.
The dream life Martin would get back from Spain at about ten in the morning and instead of the frazzled Sophie up to her eyes in domesticated chores he’d find the serene everything’s under control Sophie. I’d be casually drinking a cup of coffee and flicking leisurely through a magazine at the kitchen table while the house and garden looked immaculate, homely but nonetheless immaculate. He’d be shamefaced and repentant. He’d marvel at how perfect the house looked and how I’d accomplished it and yet still managed to look so beautiful and even a little sexy. I’d look up from the magazine and casually enquire ‘why are you here Martin?’ and he’d grovel his apology and say I’d been right all along and he never should have gone to Spain or listened to Lenny. I’d laugh and say ‘too little and too late’ and with a tear in his eye Martin would beg me to take him back.
Unknown to me the real life Martin didn’t get back until very late Monday night and went straight to Lenny’s. I’d spent all of Monday after I’d taken Ben and Kate to school pacing and fidgeting expecting him to turn up at any moment. I left a cup with a spoonful of coffee in by the kettle that could be made in a trice, and arranged an open magazine on the kitchen table that I didn’t look at all day but it was ready waiting for me to sit down and flick through nonchalantly as soon as I heard his key in the door. But as it turned out all of my subtle staging was a wasted effort and Martin never got to see any of it.
18
Still not knowing that Martin had already returned and was hiding out at Lenny’s I survived the morning routine in ignorance and went to work as usual on Tuesday. Not so usual was the thought, misguided as it turned out, that Martin had decided not to come home. I’d said come home now or not at all and based on his absence I surmised that he’d opted for the not at all and taking me literally had decided to stay in Spain.
I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. It was one thing Martin wanting to come home and me saying he couldn’t, but it was quite another him choosing not to come home. I mean how could I be angry with him and give him the silent treatment him if he wasn’t here? I couldn’t be all cold and superior if he’d chosen to stay away, that just put me on the wrong foot and made me the one being shunned.
‘So how long do you think he’s going to stay in Spain?’ Julie said over our early morning coffee.
‘Who knows, could be a day or a week or forever’ I said.
‘I’m sure it won’t be forever.’
‘I was sure he’d come home on Friday, and then I was sure he’d come home yesterday, but he didn’t.’
‘Oh Soph’ Julie said putting her arm round me. ‘Maybe someone from this cowboy outfit will turn up on site eventually and Martin will get paid and then he’ll come home and you’ll both laugh at how angry you both were.’
‘If only that were true’ I said near to tears.
‘What will you do?’
‘Nothing I can do, just wait.’
‘Ah yes the waiting game, that age old pastime familiar to women everywhere
in every corner of the globe since time began’ Julie said sagely. ‘From the age of about two women spend their lives waiting for a man to work out what’s going on, then wait a bit longer for him to make his mind up when he thinks he’s figured out what’s going on. You wait for them to ask you out, you wait for them to phone you, you wait for them to propose, you wait for them to appreciate you, you wait for them to take the rubbish out or to finish getting ready, and then after all that you wait a bit more for everything else. Whatever other skills or personality traits a woman may have she better learn the art of patience as far as men are concerned, because if she doesn’t she’s screwed.’
I looked at Julie after her ‘waiting’ crusade battle cry. ‘Well its true isn’t it?’ she challenged.
‘Yes’ I agreed and then we started laughing.
‘Are you two going to start work any time soon?’ Greg said as he poked his head round the door. ‘You can’t keep customers waiting you know.’
‘Okay’ we both said as we fell about laughing all over again.
Throughout the rest of the day either Julie or I would make some crack about waiting and then we’d both laugh while a stone-faced Greg not having a clue what the joke was would shake his head in despair at our juvenile behaviour.
After work I picked the children up from school and Kate was still giving me the lowdown on the latest doings of her classmates and teacher as we walked through the front door and into the kitchen. Martin was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for us.
‘Daddy’ Ben and Kate cried out and rushed over to give him a hug.
‘You’re back then’ I said coldly and rather unnecessarily.
‘Yes’ Martin said just as coldly and then promptly immersed himself in talking to the children.
The next few hours were a weird pantomime of either Martin animatedly talking to the children or me animatedly talking to the children, while we both studiously avoided talking to each other.
Martin supervised Ben and Kate’s bath and bedtime while I washed up and waited in the kitchen for the inevitable stand-off that had been pending since I got home. Eventually I heard Martin say a final goodnight and then come back downstairs.
‘So did anyone from Homes Abroad turn up?’ I asked.
‘No’ he said still standing in the kitchen doorway.
‘Oh dear’ I said feigning concern. ‘And what does Lenny the super strategist have to say about that, what’s his next mastermind move going to be?’
‘Sophie I know you’re not happy but I didn’t have any choice’ Martin said finally coming into the kitchen and sitting down opposite me at the table.
‘Didn’t have any choice, did you just say you didn’t have a choice?’ I said incredulously. ‘Of course you had a choice Martin.’
‘Alright I did have a choice but I couldn’t let him down could I?’
‘But you could let me down, is that it?’
‘No . . . it wasn’t like that’ Martin said beginning to get angry.
‘It was like that, it was just like that. Lenny said he needed you with him in Spain on some stupid stakeout caper, and I needed you at home to be a husband and father, and you chose Lenny. Well I hope you’ll be very happy together’ I said nastily.
‘Sophie please’ Martin said.
‘Please? Please what? Oh you’re going to say please be reasonable. Okay how’s this for reasonable, you can see the children on weekends. Every weekend if you like provided Lenny doesn’t need you for something more important of course. Is that reasonable enough for you?’
‘This is ridiculous’ Martin said looking and sounding decidedly irate.
‘Is it? Is it really so ridiculous to expect my husband to choose his wife over his infantile best mate?’
‘I had to stay. I was trying to get paid remember. It wasn’t about choosing Lenny over you it was about getting paid.’
‘And did you get paid? Erm let me think . . . no you didn’t. Did you seriously piss your wife off? Well yes you did. And are you going to be a divorced weekend father to your children? Yes you are’ I said with sarcastic venom.
‘So you’re sticking to throwing me out are you?’ Martin challenged.
‘You chose to go to Spain even though I didn’t want you to, you chose to stay in Spain and you chose to go back again. And then you chose bloody Lenny over your grown up responsibilities here, in my book that all adds up to you abandoning me and the kids not me throwing you out. It was your choice the whole thing; it’s no good bleating now because I don’t want you back.’
‘Fine then, have it your way. You’ll know where to find me when you decide you do want me back, that’s if I still want to come back’ Martin said huffily.
‘Trust me that’s never going to happen’ I ground out through clenched teeth.
19
I Sophie Cromby do solemnly swear that I will never live with that useless arse of a scumbag Martin Cromby ever again. I’ll screw him for every penny of maintenance that I can squeeze out of him for the next twenty years or so, and even if he ends up homeless and destitute I’ll never offer him even so much as a stale piece of bread never mind a place to sleep.
Martin went back to Lenny’s and I didn’t see him again until Saturday when he turned up on the doorstep at half seven in the morning saying he’d look after Ben and Kate while I was at work.
‘It might have been nice if you’d told me in advance’ I said. ‘I’ll phone my mum and tell her you’ve got the kids for the day.’
Later when I got home from work as soon as he heard me coming through the front door Martin came out of the living room where he’d been watching television with the children. ‘I’ve given Ben and Kate their dinner’ he said and left straight away, and that was the entire extent of our conversation since Tuesday night when I’d found him in the kitchen.
Still slightly stunned by his abrupt departure I slumped down on the settee without even bothering to get myself a cup of anything first.
How dare he make this all my fault. He was the one who’d created this situation; I mean was I supposed to just go along with him disappearing off to Spain with bloody Lenny without a murmur? And didn’t I say all along that the whole Spain thing sounded dodgy? And wasn’t I the one holding the fort while he played at being James Bond? So how was it my fault, what right did he have to get the arse with me?
‘Are you alright Mummy?’ Kate said coming to sit with me on the settee.
‘Yes I’m fine’ I lied. ‘Mummy’s just got a bit of a headache.’
‘Nancy say’s we give her a headache’ Ben said referring to one of the helpers at nursery.
‘Does she, well I expect you do’ I said.
‘When she says that we have quiet time and we all have to sit still while she reads us a story’ Ben said. ‘And then we have our juice’.
‘Mm next time I see her I must ask her how she manages that. I can’t even keep you quiet never mind a whole roomful of Ben’s.’
‘There isn’t a roomful, there’s only one of me’ Ben said looking at me as if I was mad.
‘I know’ I said smiling. ‘And thank goodness for that I don’t think the world’s ready for more than one Ben at a time.’
‘I could be twins like Germaine and Jasmine but then I’d be a girl’ Ben said curling his lip in distaste. He’d only recently discovered twins when Germaine and Jasmine had started nursery a couple of weeks ago and was fascinated by how alike they looked and how they did everything together.
‘So what have you two been up to today?’ I said.
‘We watched ‘Up’ twice’ Ben said excitedly.
‘That’s good’ I said laughing to myself at the thought of Martin having to sit through it twice, the added bonus being that now I probably wouldn’t have to watch it at all at least not this weekend.
‘Daddy heard my reading book’ Kate said.
‘He coloured me a picture’ Ben said holding it up for me to see.
‘Sounds like you’ve all been busy’ I said
torn between being pleased that Ben and Kate were happy and annoyed that Martin wasn’t falling apart, at least it didn’t sound like he was falling apart but maybe he was putting a brave face on it for the children’s sake.
‘Was Daddy alright?’ I asked innocently.
‘Yes’ Kate said thoughtfully. ‘He told us he was going to stay at his friend Lenny’s house for a while and sleep there and have his breakfast there.’
‘And his dinner’ Ben said.
‘Yes he is’ I said.
‘But he’ll come and see us when he can’ Kate said.
‘Yes’ I said. I was expecting a full scale inquisition at this point with a fair bit of wailing and sobbing but Ben and Kate turned back to the television totally unfazed and didn’t say another word on the subject.
I got through that evening and all the next day without thinking too much about Martin or our situation. The children of course took up most of my time so I didn’t really get the opportunity to think for long, and by the time they went to bed I was too tired to think much about anything; in fact I slept as if I’d been knocked out and didn’t even get up early on Sunday for my morning me-time.
But Monday was a different story. I took the children to school and nursery and came home to an empty house with no distractions. By eleven o’clock I’d done two loads of washing and hung them out, hoovered everywhere and given the oven a bit of a deep cleaning birthday, and now I was contemplating doing a food shop without the children to slow me down.
I sat at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee with the intention of writing a list but so far hadn’t got any further than milk and tinned beans. Whichever way you looked at it this most definitely wasn’t the dream life. True I was soldiering on in the face of adversity but I didn’t feel like the brave heroine I’d pictured nor did I feel in any way amazing at all. And Martin seemed to be anything but repentant or distraught like he was supposed to. I sighed deeply and a few tears escaped before I could stop them.
I toyed with the idea of letting Martin move back in, of carrying on as if the last few weeks had never happened. But as soon as I thought of it I got angry again, with Martin, with myself, and with the whole damn mess. No I thought stubbornly there is no way Martin is moving back after the way he’s treated me.
The Dream Life I Never Had Page 11