From the Inside

by Collette Heather

  “How do you know, though? How can you tell the difference between paranoia and gut instinct?”

  “Therein lies the million-dollar question. I think, this is a case of, do as I say, rather than, do as I do. Paul and I have had more than our fair share of marital strife.”

  I feel my head kind of snapping in her direction as I stare at her. “Paul? I thought you said that your husband’s name was Tom?”

  Her blue eyes widen in her head, and her cheeks flush pink. “Oh, I did, didn’t I? How silly of me.” She brings the rim of the glass to her lips and throws back the lot. “More fizz?” It is clearly a rhetorical question because she is refilling our glasses, even though I still have some of mine left.

  “So, which one is it? Paul or Tom?”

  She laughs, but her cheeks remain pink. It is obvious that she is still embarrassed. “It’s Paul. Tom is my little pet name for him. You know, Tom, as in tomcat, because he smells, he’s barely housetrained and he’s always horny.”

  I regard her silently for a moment, then burst out laughing, my tears drying up completely. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “You haven’t met him, otherwise you wouldn’t say that. But we were talking about your husband, remember? Has he given you any reason to believe that he has cheated on you, the perfume aside?”

  I give the question some serious consideration, swirling the pale liquid around in my glass. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to meet her eye, I’m not sure why. I am, after all, spilling my guts here to a stranger.

  She’s not a stranger, I remind myself. She’s my friend. God knows, I’m due a friend.

  “I don’t think so. At least, I haven’t really thought about it before, not properly, anyway. We used to be so good together, you know?”

  “Used to be?”

  “Well, you know, before Bella came along. Not that we were together all that long before we had a child.”

  “You know what they say; marry in haste, repent at leisure.”

  “Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound quite so glib. It’s just, you don’t ever really know a person until you have a child with them.” For a second there, I fancy that she looks startled. “So they say, anyway. I wouldn’t know, obviously, seeing as I don’t have a kid.” She clears her throat. “How is he distant with you, then? Do you guys still have sex?”

  I’m caught off-guard by the question, yet, at the same time, I appreciate the forthrightness of it. This is probably partly thanks to the champagne coursing through my system.

  “Yes. I mean, not as often as we used to, and it’s not as exciting as it used to be, but it’s still nice.”

  “Nice? Not sure how many men want nice.”

  “Oh God, it’s because I’m boring in bed, isn’t it? I’m crap at sex, so he’s getting it elsewhere.”

  “Whoa there, hoss, I didn’t say that.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “No, I merely meant that most guys like wild and dirty, but there have to be some out there who like nice.”

  A bad feeling claws at my guts, a half-remembered conversation flitting through my mind. Because, when Luke and I had first started dating, he had told me that he had used prostitutes in the past. Just a handful of times, he had said. And they had, apparently, been of the high-end escort variety, rather than the plain, street walker type.

  Like that somehow made a difference. Maybe it does, in terms of diseases, but certainly not in terms of morality. Not to me, anyway.

  “Luke has used prostitutes in the past.”

  Inside, I cringe. I can’t believe I’ve just told her this.

  “He has? And you were okay with it? Well, clearly you are, otherwise you wouldn’t have married him, right?”

  “I guess,” I say, trying to pick my words carefully. “He has a really high-powered job, and he says that he went through a really wild, cold phase. It was like, he could have anything that he wanted – exotic holidays, holiday homes, fast cars, fast women, drugs…” My voice trails off for a moment because I can hear how lame I sound. “But he said he wasn’t like that anymore, that he grew to understand the emptiness of his existence, and that he began to want something more, something real.” I pause, because there is no escaping the fact the words still sound so hollow, so utterly lame. And if I think that, then God knows how this sounds to her. “He said that he loved me, that he was ashamed of his past. I mean, we all have a past, don’t we? We’ve all done things that we’re ashamed of. We agreed to never speak of our pasts again, and to look forward, together.”

  “Really? I know love is blind, but that’s taking it to extremes, isn’t it?”

  “No. Our agreement suited me just fine, too, because I didn’t want to get into all that crap about the affair, I just wanted to forget about it. I wanted to move forward with my life, with Luke.” I wonder who I am justifying myself to the most – me or her.

  “So, basically, you married a guy that you literally knew nothing about. And I think you’re wrong. It’s our mistakes that make us who we are – we learn from them, grow stronger from them. It isn’t always a bad thing to mess up.”

  “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. Or so said Oscar Wilde.” Despite my glib response, the truth of her words hit me. Yet still I fight it. “I know the important stuff about him, I just don’t know the ins and outs of his love life, as he doesn’t mine. So to speak.”

  “But you know he was with prostitutes.” It is a statement, rather than a question.

  “Yes. Was being the operative word. I don’t know the details, and I don’t want to know the details.”

  “Really? There is a difference between not wanting to know details, and flat-out denial.”

  “You can be a real pain in the arse, you know that?”

  She smirks. “I may have been told that once or twice before.”

  “I’ll bet.” I think I’m beginning to regret sharing so much with this woman. And only because I know that she is right. There is no getting away from it – I have effectively married a stranger. “I don’t care about his past.”

  “Sure you don’t. Do you think he’s still using prostitutes? Is that what this is all about?”

  I throw back the remains of the glass to douse the tears. The bottle is now empty – I don’t remember when that happened. Once again, I find myself hastily wiping my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to upset you. But sometimes, you have to remove the rose-tinted glasses and look at things objectively. You have to be honest with yourself.”

  I get to my feet. I will not cry. “Why don’t we get lunch going?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  We stick to lighter topics when we eat. The champagne flows, and we giggle on together like we have known each other for years, the potent mix of over-sharing and alcohol having left me with barely any inhibitions.

  No soon as we finish eating lunch, Bella’s high-pitched wail comes over the baby monitor.

  “That was actually really kind of her, to wait until we finished eating,” Beth laughs.

  “I know, right? My daughter is considerate like that.”

  I jump up from the Island, grabbing the third bottle of champagne that I’ve only just that second retrieved from the fridge. We haven’t opened it yet, but I had fully intended to rectify that in very short order. We haven’t quite drained the second bottle as we both have full glasses, but we’re most certainly on a merry roll.

  “Come on, grab your glass, let’s take this into the living-room.”

  *

  In the living-room, I set my glass down on the driftwood coffee table and go over to Bella, lifting her out of her cot and holding her tight against me.

  “Hello baby,” I coo. “Did you miss Mummy?” She’s grizzly, but not distraught. “I’m just popping into the kitchen to make up a bottle, I won’t be long.”

  “Sure,” Beth smiles, taking a sea
t on the long leather sofa.

  With Bella perched on my hip and wrapped around me like a monkey, I make my way back into the kitchen. There are a couple of toddler formulae in bottles in the fridge that I made up earlier, and I grab one to pop into the microwave.

  Bella is contentedly guzzling down the milk by the time I re-enter the living-room, still clinging to me like a little koala bear. Beth has her back to me, over by the floor to ceiling bookcase that takes up almost half of the wall directly opposite the door.

  I am suddenly – and quite irrationally – on edge. There are ten shelves of books, yet she is hunched over, her shapely derriere in the air, clad in the swirling, orange and blue pattern. She seems to be peering at the left-hand corner of the lowest shelf.

  She seems to be peering at my blue box folder.

  I watch her in in silence, the strangest feeling curling around me – one of alarm. I am suddenly convinced that I am watching a stranger in my own home – a stranger who is spying on me.

  She straightens up. I don’t know for sure as she isn’t facing me, but I am convinced that her gaze is trained on my blue box folder. Inside this folder is where I keep all my bank statements pertaining to mine and Luke’s main, joint account. I would say, that given the way the box looks nestled in amongst the coffee-table books on that lower shelf, it is clearly something that she shouldn’t be looking at. It is clearly something personal. I think then that I should really move that folder to a drawer somewhere.

  I am standing in the doorway, just staring at her back, very much like a deer caught in the headlights, when Bella starts coughing and spluttering. Her milk has gone down the wrong way, probably because she is balanced relatively awkwardly on my hip, and she never normally takes her milk in such a position.

  Beth kind of flinches on the spot, her entire body jerking and her shoulders squaring in the split-second before she spins around on the spot.

  “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me,” she gasps, laughing, but she is clearly flustered.

  “Why? Did I catch you casing the joint, or something?”

  My tone is light, but to my own dismay, I discover that part of me means that question.

  “Yeah, that’s me, cat burglar extraordinaire. I staged the mugging, and this lunch is all an elaborate ruse so that I can work out where you keep your valuables. And speaking of which, where’s the loo? I’m bloody desperate.” She eyes Bella. “I mean, I would really like to pay a visit right about now.”

  I tell her where to find the downstairs bathroom, and she steps past me through the door. As soon as she is gone, I set Bella gently down on the long, leather sofa, where she leans against a cushion and contentedly sucks on her bottle, somehow also managing to twist her hands in turquoise blankie as she does so.

  I stride over to the bookcase, to the spot where Beth had been standing. I stare at the blue box folder. Had it moved position? I don’t think so, but then, neither do I know that for sure.

  I have no idea why I’m being so paranoid.

  *

  Beth comes back five or so minutes later. I am sitting next to Bella on the sofa, who is beginning to lose interest in her milk. Her nappy is a little heavy and could really do with a change.

  She smiles at me as she enters the room, and I fancy that the smile is slightly sheepish. I don’t know why I should think such a thing, and just as quick the impression of shyness, or perhaps of a kid being caught doing something that they shouldn’t, is gone.

  “Your place is just so amazing, I’ve never been in a home like it. Your bathroom alone is almost as big as my entire apartment.” As she speaks, she wanders back over to the bookcase, and I follow her with my eyes.

  She stands there with her back to me, gazing once more at the lower shelf. “And your artbooks are just beautiful. Do you mind if I take a look?”

  “Sure.”

  She bends down to retrieve a book near my box folder. “My God, is this one really signed by Andy Warhol?”

  “Yes. I collect them, I’ve got tons of first editions and signed books.”

  “An expensive hobby,” she says, flicking through the book.

  “I guess.”

  I stare at her back, the most curious – and deeply paranoid – feeling coursing through my veins. A feeling that she is spinning me a line, that she knew she had been caught out snooping; and now she is covering her tracks, pretending to be interested in my books.

  She pops the book back where she found it, and turns around to face me, all smiles. “Now, more importantly, where did I put my wine?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The afternoon passes in a pleasant blur of champagne, much giggling, and chatting. After I had briefly disappeared upstairs to change Bella, the three of us settle into the living-room. I put CBeebies on for Bella, and she sits happily in the middle of the Persian rug, chatting to her cuddly toys. Every so often, she shuffles over towards us on her bottom, where we sit on the sofa, drinking and picking at the tapas I have brought in from the kitchen.

  We are now stuck well into the fourth bottle, and I am feeling decidedly fuzzy around the edges, my weird feeling from earlier about Beth fixating on my box folder completely forgotten.

  “Oh, I love this song,” I gasp in delight.

  We are perched side by side on the long leather sofa, intently staring at the laptop screen, open before us on the coffee table. I know that I am slipping into the realms of drunkenness, rather than mere tipsiness, because I love listening to – and talking about – music when I’ve had a few.

  “I do, too. For a geeky ginger, he’s pretty cute.” She looks at my hair, her eyebrows shooting up on realising her faux pas, making her forehead crinkle. “No offense.”

  I giggle, I can’t help it. “None taken.”

  I scoot forward a little more to turn up the music – just a fraction, as I don’t want it to drown out Bella’s TV programme, which appears to be about cuddly, giant numbers that leap out of the arms of sofas. Christ, I think, who needs drugs when you’ve got kids’ telly?

  I’m in love with the shape of you, sings the round-faced, bespectacled redheaded man on my laptop screen.

  “I’m in love with your body,” Beth laughs, singing along with him.

  I reach for the bottle of fizz next to the laptop, go to refill her near-empty glass, and am shocked to discover that the bottle is empty. “Where’d that go?” I slur.

  “I think we may have drunken it,” she replies solemnly, then hiccups.

  I squint at the time in the bottom righthand corner of the screen; it is almost have past five, and I normally feed Bella around five, a little before I start preparing mine and Luke’s dinner. “Oops. I think I need to make Bella her tea.”

  She hasn’t stopped eating all afternoon,” Beth points out.

  That much is true. We’ve been feeding her crisps, breadsticks, carrot sticks and bits and pieces of salad for hours. Now that my drunken brain stops to think about it, I truly can’t imagine that she’s still hungry. Yet it doesn’t change the fact that, right now, I feel like a really crappy mother.

  “I can’t not feed her, that’s parental neglect,” I slur. “It is dinnertime. Dinnertime is as dinnertime does.”

  “You’re probably right. And I should go. If I don’t, we’ll only open another bottle and get ourselves into a whole heap of shit.” Her gaze snaps in Bella’s direction. “Trouble. I mean trouble.”

  “That’s right, go ahead and teach my daughter all the swearwords, and if you feel that she is still unclear as to their meaning, go ahead and explain their substitute words.”

  “Totally. Glad you agree.”

  But I’m not remotely mad at her. The truth is, I can’t remember the last time I let my hair down like this. In fact, I really don’t want her to go. “Stay,” I say emphatically. “We can open another.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a hot idea, as much as I would like to. Your husband will be home soon, and I really should be getting back to mine.”

>   She’s right, I know she’s right, but I still experience a sharp pang of loss. I’m not quite ready to face my reality, I’m having way too much fun. “I don’t want you to goo,” I jokingly whine. Bella has bottom-bumped over to my feet and I scoop her up, balancing her on my knee. “What do you think, Bella? Do you think Mummy and Beth should open another bottle?”

  “I think you’ve probably had enough.”

  I gasp and flinch at the sound of my husband’s voice, and my gaze snaps in the direction of the living-room door. There he stands, filling the doorframe, his mouth set in a grim line and his black suit making him look like a mafia boss, or something.

  A sense of doom clenches in my stomach – I have been well and truly busted.

  “Luke!” My voice is high, squeaky, and as guilty as sin. “Why are you creeping around like that? And why aren’t you still at work?”

  “I finished early, today. Looks like you two have been having a good time.”

  Instinctively, I wrap my arms protectively around Bella, hugging her tight against me. My heart is tripping and my head is swimming. I feel as guilty as hell, like I’ve been caught out kissing another man, or something.

  “I should go,” Beth mumbles next to me, scrambling to her feet.

  “Please don’t go on my account,” Luke says. “I’m quite capable of making my own dinner, if that’s what you’re worried about, Tanya. I don’t want to be the one to break up your little party.”

  “No, no, it’s fine, really, I was just going,” Beth says in a rush.

  I gaze up at her, feeling dreamlike and strange – a feeling that teeters on the edge of nightmare territory. Only a few minutes ago, I was buzzing and happy, but now my brain feels sluggish and slow, and I am positively hating how I no longer have my wits about me.

  I have a feeling that I’m going to need them.

  “Thanks so much for having me,” Beth says in an impressive impersonation of a sober person. “I think I’ve imposed on you long enough.”