The Ex-Wife

by Jess Ryder

  ‘His name’s Sam,’ said Jen. ‘Dull as ditchwater, but totally reliable.’

  Nick laughed. ‘Sounds perfect.’

  I couldn’t believe how easily he was being persuaded. I didn’t mind what Nick did at work, but if this guy was going to become part of our domestic lives, I needed a say. Who was he? Had he been DBS-checked? What if he was a paedophile? I glanced across at Emily, fast asleep, her eyes flickering with dreams, and memories of the day I found out I was pregnant flashed into my head.

  I was working in a café in Spitalfields, east London. The job was tedious and exhausting, but it was either that or night shifts in a call centre. I’d only managed a 2:1 in English from a very average university, and hadn’t been able to find a proper job. Mum was disappointed in me; I heard it in her voice every time we spoke. I was the first one in the family to go into the sixth form, let alone to uni, and she’d had high expectations. She wanted me to be a teacher, but I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to school.

  I had the degree, I had the student debt, but I’d completely lost my way career-wise. My talents only revealed themselves in the designs I painted in the coffee froth. I was a dab hand at rosettas and could do wonders with chocolate dust. But since the affair with Nick had started, I’d been struggling to keep my mind on the job. One time I put his initials inside an arrow-pierced heart before handing the cup to a bemused customer. Oh yes, I had it bad …

  It was a grey Thursday morning in October and business was oddly slow. Another, even cooler café had opened around the corner and our manager, Dee-Dee, was trying to engage me in a discussion about how to tempt our regulars back.

  ‘I’ve been experimenting a bit,’ she was saying. ‘Try this, tell me what you think.’ She pushed a macchiato towards me. ‘Guess the magic ingredient.’ I lifted the mug to my lips and took a sip. The coffee tasted disgusting; I almost had to spit it out.

  ‘It’s not that bad!’ said Dee-Dee.

  My nose wrinkled. ‘No, sorry, it’s not the coffee, it’s me. I’ve got this weird taste in my mouth. Metallic, you know? Like I’ve bitten on some tin foil.’

  She gave me an arch look. ‘Not pregnant, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, adding a self-conscious laugh.

  But I was worried. I retreated to the store cupboard and scrolled back through the calendar on my phone. Stupidly, I hadn’t noted the date of my last period. My heart was pounding as I tried to remember, but my life had been such a hectic whirl those past three months, the days and nights blurred into one.

  I knew pregnancy was a possibility. The affair with Nick had come out of the blue, and I wasn’t properly set up with contraception. We’d been using condoms, but they were such passion killers, we’d taken a risk a couple of times. I’d been meaning to go back on the pill but had been putting it off. It had felt like tempting fate – as if the moment I accepted I was in a relationship, Nick would finish with me. I sank down among the packets of coffee beans and paper napkins as reality started to bite.

  I went to the pharmacy during my break and did the test in the loos. When the results bar showed positive, I didn’t feel happy, or excited. I felt terrified. What a fool I’d been. My friends’ warnings reverberated through my head. I had visions of Nick handing over a wad of cash for an abortion, just as he’d done when he knocked me off my bike.

  I asked him to meet me at lunchtime, as a matter of urgency. We found a bench in a little park near his office and I told him the news. His mouth dropped in amazement and then he burst into tears.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ I said, all my fears rising to the surface.

  ‘Nothing! I can’t believe it, I’m so happy.’ His eyes were shining.

  ‘You’re not angry?’

  ‘Angry? No. I’m thrilled. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Natasha. It’s a miracle. I’m going to be a father.’

  My body shuddered with relief. I hadn’t expected this reaction for one second. When I’d asked him why he and Jen didn’t have children, he’d said they’d chosen not to be parents, preferring to concentrate on their careers. But now he was saying he wanted to be a father, and more than that, he wanted to be the father of my child. I had assumed it would be a problem; that we’d talk for hours, trying to decide the best thing to do. But it hadn’t even occurred to Nick that I might not be pleased about being pregnant. Not that I was offended – I took it as a sign that he believed in us as a couple, and truly loved me. Steamy nights in secret hotels was the stuff of brief fantasies, but having a baby together was serious and real.

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked, looking down at my twitching hands.

  He laughed. ‘We’ll get married and live happily ever after.’

  ‘But you’re already married.’

  ‘I’ll get a divorce.’

  ‘What if she won’t agree? We’ll have to wait years.’

  ‘No, we won’t. I’ll find a way. When Jen hears this news, she’ll understand. This is my chance to have the life I’ve always dreamed of.’ Tears welled in his eyes again. ‘I love you so much, Tasha – you’ve just made me the happiest man in the world.’

  He had it all sorted. Within weeks, Jen had agreed to move out of the marital home and I’d moved in. I gave up the barista’s life, stopped worrying about my lack of career ambition and spent my days being pampered and spending a fortune on baby websites. It was like living in a dream – I kept thinking I would wake up and it would all be over, or something would go wrong with the pregnancy, or Jen would change her mind and refuse to co-operate. But to her credit, she didn’t stand in Nick’s way. I guessed she’d realised long ago that their marriage was a sham. She agreed to divorce him for adultery, and he made her an extremely generous financial offer in return. It was all so civilised, the way grown-ups should behave but so rarely did. The divorce went through quickly, without a fuss, and we had a very quiet wedding in the September, three weeks before Emily was born.

  I might have guessed it was too good to be true. A few days after I gave birth, Jen turned up at the house with a beautiful designer baby dress, matching hat and bootees. We were both overwhelmed by her generosity of spirit, but I will never forget the look on her face as she watched tiny Emily sucking at my breast.

  6

  Now

  Anna

  * * *

  ‘Anna! … Anna!’ I feel a tap on my shoulder and flinch. Turning round, I see Margaret from work, looking relaxed in cream trousers and matching crocheted top. ‘Why didn’t you answer?’ There’s a hint of accusation in her voice. ‘I’ve been shouting my head off.’

  My cheeks flare, hot and pink. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  It’s a lie – I was back at the crash scene. Just a few minutes earlier, I was walking through the shopping centre when I heard sirens, their insistent wailing growing louder, closing in on me, hunting me down. My breakfast rose to my throat and I ran into the nearest shop to escape. It turned out to be Marks & Spencer.

  Margaret directs her short bushy eyebrows at my face. ‘Are you okay, duck?’

  A rail of blue summer dresses shimmers between us like the Mediterranean. ‘Oh yes,’ I reply, desperately improvising. ‘I was thinking about a holiday.’

  ‘Ooh, yes, holidays!’ She lets out a chuckle. ‘Can’t wait. I’ve been trying to buy a swimsuit, but they all look terrible on me. Where are you off to, then? Somewhere hot?’

  ‘Not this year. I’m not allowed time off until I’ve worked for four months.’ I don’t add that I’ve no money after spending the last of my savings on the rental deposit.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. That’s a shame. You’ll have to take an autumn break instead. At least it’ll be cheaper, and you can still get decent weather if you go south.’ Margaret goes on to tell me about a place in Tenerife, but pinpricks of pain are gathering in the middle of my forehead, making it hard to concentrate. ‘We always have such a lovely time. Ever been to the C
anary Islands?’ She pauses. ‘Anna? … Anna? I said, ever been—’

  ‘Um … no … But I’d like to.’ Another lie. No, two. I went to Lanzarote once and hated it. Torrential rain flooded our apartment and the black sand was just wrong – it looked like dirt; I wouldn’t even put my foot on it.

  I reprimand myself silently. Why couldn’t I have just shared that story, instead of pretending I’d never been? I don’t have to lie about everything. It’s not right to treat Margaret so badly. She’s a very nice woman and has been so welcoming – showing me how the IT systems work, introducing me to colleagues, making sure I don’t eat lunch on my own at my desk. I should show her more respect.

  Margaret is still talking about Tenerife. I try to nod and make listening noises, but my head feels like it’s been wedged in a vice. I’m getting a migraine, triggered by the sirens. It happens every time, even when the sounds are distant. An ambulance siren is the worst because it means somebody out there is injured or even dead. In my mind, it’s always a horrific traffic accident – never an old person dying peacefully in their sleep, or a woman in excited labour. All I can think of is twisted corpses strewn across the tarmac, bodies on stretchers, groans of pain and cries for help. The empathy I feel for these fantasy strangers is out of all proportion, I know that. It’s my own survival I pity. The guilt I experience every day for being alive. Lindsay, my counsellor, has warned me it could take years to recover, and I’m certain I’ll never take the wheel again.

  ‘Well, I can’t stand around chatting all day,’ Margaret says, as if I’ve been the one holding her up. ‘I want to get to the market before it closes. Have you discovered the market yet? It’s the best thing about Morton. You can get anything you want. The cheese stall is out of this world, and once you’ve tasted the eggs, you’ll never go back to Tesco.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip. I’ll pop by later.’ But I won’t. I need to get back to the flat before I keel over. My vision has narrowed to a thin strip with dark fuzzy shadows on either side, like when they show mobile footage on the news.

  ‘Have a nice weekend,’ says the blurry cream shape in front of me. ‘See you on Monday.’

  I watch her go, then walk carefully towards the fitting rooms. Hopefully there’ll be a chair outside, where the bored husbands and boyfriends sit rehearsing their lines: Looks great … No, honest, it really suits you … No, it doesn’t make you look fat … Yeah, really, I love it, buy it. Can we go and have lunch now? I sit down on a purple cube and take a bottle out of my bag.

  The tap water is tepid but tastes nicer than it does down south. It’s the softness of the water here that attracts the breweries. Monks started the beer-making, hundreds of years ago. According to a leaflet I picked up at the library, you can still see the remains of their abbey by the river. Maybe tomorrow – assuming the migraine has gone – I’ll take a walk there. Except that the ruins are at the very edge of the Rec, where the industrial estate starts. I can’t risk another encounter like last weekend. It took me most of the week to get over it. What if I bump into them again? What if I hear that voice? His words have been playing every night as I toss and turn in bed, like the lyrics of an annoying pop song. The same phrase again and again.

  Pigs swarming all over the fucking place, man.

  Pigs swarming all over the fucking place, man.

  I keep trying to turn the threat into a joke, thinking of actual pigs instead of police – chubby pink porkers with silly snouts and curly-wurly tails, the sort you might find in a book about Old MacDonald and his farm. Pigs swarming all over the fucking place, man, e-i-e-i-o! But then I remember sitting on the sofa, her little padded bottom warm on my lap, pointing at the animals and trying to make her moo or snort or go baa in the right places. Within seconds, my breathing has gone to pot and I’m having a panic attack.

  There’s no escaping it, really. I don’t know why I bother to try. Whenever I’m in even the slightest stressful situation, my brain goes on high alert and starts attaching pieces of the past to the present. I’m like a war veteran hearing fireworks and thinking I’m under attack. Classic post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve been through that incident on the industrial estate a hundred times and I know, with almost total confidence, that it wasn’t him. And yet …

  I’ve decided that the real him, who is almost certainly not a homeless drug addict and probably living a normal life somewhere far away from here, is banned from my thoughts. They are all banned. I will not say their names. Not out loud, not even in the darkness of my head.

  ‘Come on, Anna,’ I mutter, screwing the lid back on the bottle and tucking it back in my bag. The brief rest has helped, but I need to get back on my feet and find the nearest bus stop. Or take a taxi, perhaps. No, too expensive. I should walk, if I’m up to it. The fresh air will do me good.

  I rise and make my way slowly through the forest of clothes rails, passing through the automatic doors and blinking as my eyes meet the sharp afternoon sunshine. The layout of the town is not yet fixed in my brain and I hesitate, unsure whether to go left or right. Then I see the ambulance, parked up on the pavement outside one of those cheap gyms. Its blue light is still flashing, and the back doors have been thrown open wide. My heart flutters in my chest and I quickly turn away, my route out of the shopping centre decided for me.

  I cross the bridge – the busier one, where there’s always a traffic queue – and walk past the parade of small, miserable shops where I’m starting to become a familiar face. I catch sight of my reflection in the hairdresser’s window. I’ve changed so much. My face is thinner, my hair looks dull without the blonde highlights, and I wear far less make-up than I used to. I’m a stripped-back, transit-damaged version of the woman I once was. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see a stranger staring back.

  But that’s what I wanted. A transformation. Only in my case, the swan has become an ugly duckling again. People make changes all the time. They move to new areas, start new careers, dye their hair, stop dyeing their hair, lose weight or put it on, go online dating, meet new partners, marry or remarry, and generally make new lives for themselves. Some of them must find happiness. Why shouldn’t I do the same?

  You know the answer to that one, says the unforgiving voice in my head.

  7

  Then

  Natasha

  * * *

  I was very relieved when we arrived at the church in one piece. Unfortunately, Emily woke up in a grumpy mood and would only let ‘Dada’ take her out of the car seat and carry her inside. I thought she was hungry, but she refused the tangerine segments I’d prepared in advance and threw her beaker of water on the floor.

  ‘Sorry, but you’ll have to take her,’ Nick mumbled, ‘I’m needed by the font.’ He passed Emily over, kicking and whingeing, while members of the family looked on, unimpressed by my maternal skills.

  ‘Dada! Dada!’ she screamed, as Nick followed Jen down the aisle to join the queue of parents and godparents. There were several christenings taking place at the same time, so the church was packed and noisy, the atmosphere slightly chaotic.

  Hayley and her husband hugged Jen warmly, I noticed, kissing her on both cheeks. Both women were wearing very similar dresses – highly patterned silk, sleeveless with round necks, fitted bodices and stiff, knee-length skirts. I glanced down at my own clothes. I’d gone for the hippy, retro look – a long, flowing floral dress that had looked great in the mirror that morning but which now looked tired and cheap.

  Jen snuggled next to Nick in the line and they seemed to be chatting easily while they waited for proceedings to begin. I slid onto the end of a pew towards the back and tried to settle Emily on my lap. But as her bottom touched my dress, I felt a lumpy dampness, and an unpleasant whiff travelled up to my nostrils. Now I realised why she was so disgruntled.

  With no baby facilities, it took ages to change her nappy in the tiny toilet cubicle at the rear of the church. By the time I got back, Ethan Henry Charles had already been sprinkled with holy water a
nd Nick and Jen had made their false promises to bring him up in the Christian faith. I was pleased to have missed the performance, although of course this was only the beginning of the celebrations – an amuse-bouche, not even a starter.

  After the ceremony, we got back in the car and everyone trooped off to Hayley and Ryan’s house, where a massive party had been prepared. It was June and the air felt warm, with hardly a cloud in the sky. If I heard ‘Haven’t we been lucky with the weather?’ once, I heard it a thousand times. As soon as I put Emily down, she ran towards the bifold doors that led on to the garden. Nick was busy saying hello to aunts, uncles and cousins, and Jen was lingering at his side, greeting everyone and showing no sign of detaching herself. It made me feel sick, but I could hardly barge in between them, it would look too obvious. Besides, I had to look after Emily.

  Outside, there were balloons and bunting everywhere. A couple of gazebos had been erected on the terrace, and white plastic tables and chairs were scattered across the lawn like sheep. Emily toddled around in her new yellow party dress, pushing her way between people’s legs as they stood around in small chattering groups. My heels sank into the soft turf as I tried to keep up with her. I kept looking over my shoulder for Nick, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  A gigantic gas barbecue had been fired up and Hayley’s husband Ryan was slapping sausages and burgers on the griddle. Emily was fascinated by the smoke and the smell and tried to get closer.

  ‘Careful!’ I said, lifting her up. ‘Hot! Hot!’

  ‘Hot!’ she repeated, pointing at the barbecue and shaking her head solemnly. The smoke was getting into her eyes, so I moved us away. She started to protest, kicking her legs against the skirt of my dress. ‘Let’s go and find Dada,’ I said, putting her down. ‘Come on! Ready, steady, go!’ I pretended to race her, and we giggled our way back to the house.