Guilt

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  “Oh, hello love,” I hear, as she welcomes in a guest. “You know you don’t need to buzz, just come in.”

  With that, I know it’s Het, because Mum wouldn’t say that to anyone else and Het has never really viewed this as her home, even though my parents fostered her.

  “What’s Liza doing here?”

  Hetty arrives in the kitchen carrying Elizabeth who is zonked to the world, like most six-week-old babies living in a constant milk coma.

  “She’s left him… again,” my mother says, trying to seem breezy about it all.

  While my mother checks on my kids in the playroom, Het whispers, “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” I counter.

  When Mum returns to the room, our mouths snap shut and my mother looks suspiciously between us.

  “What can we do for you, Hetty?” she asks.

  Hetty hoists Elizabeth against her body. Clearly, she doesn’t intend on staying long. Maybe she’s been looking for me? I don’t know.

  “Well, I drove past Liza’s and she wasn’t there so I came straight here.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, now with suspicions of my own. I only just said goodbye to her an hour or so ago. What could have possibly transpired in an hour to bring her out here?

  “Yeah, it’d be better if we chat in private, I think.” Het gestures with her eyes it’s not going to be pretty – whatever it is she has to say.

  “I think we’re all grown-ups here,” my mother says.

  Hetty hands Elizabeth to Granny, then brings out her phone. “Joe’s in a WhatsApp group with some local sportsmen who all do work for this one particular charity and sometimes, you know men, the banter can get a little fruity. Often, Joe doesn’t even participate, he’s only in this WhatsApp group because he wants to help at official events… you know? Anyway, he came home from training today and showed me this picture someone had posted in the group. He’s someone called Gareth or something, apparently a teammate of Gage’s, and he’d been away in Copenhagen at the weekend…”

  My mother looks lost, shaking her head. However, I have a feeling I know what this might be about.

  “Show me what you have,” I beg her.

  Hetty passes me her phone, and on the screen, I spot a load of lads out on the lash in some bar. They’re all dressed in tiny little women’s dresses. Nothing out of the ordinary for a stag do. But then, there’s Gage. He’s pictured snogging this random woman in the background while everyone else poses for the photo. Gareth probably thought he was being funny, showing up so many well-known rugby players dressed as women, their muscles bulging in ridiculous ways out of a bunch of tiny pink dresses. There’s no denying it’s Gage and there’s no way on earth he could ever explain his way out of this. It just makes me wonder how many other weekends there have been – how many other women he’s messed about with. I feel dirty and disgusting. I feel hurt… and I feel appalled.

  Hetty shows my mother the photo and she scowls. “Oh, what a stupid boy.”

  “Stupid for getting caught, or stupid altogether?” I almost bark, but somehow, I stop myself.

  Hetty turns to me, murmuring quietly, “I thought after our talk, you’d want to see it. Joe says there are other pictures like this… from other weekends, but he says he’s always tried to stay out because it’s not his business. I just thought you’d want to know.”

  Surprisingly, her revelations don’t make me feel any better. I wish Joe had shown me this stuff ages ago. I wish I didn’t feel as filthy and disgusting as I do right now. I haven’t had sex with my husband in months but I stupidly thought it was because he was drinking so much, he wasn’t interested in it anymore. I never, ever imagined our diminished sex life was due to him having found other ways to get his rocks off.

  It’s obvious Hetty has gone and told Joe everything I told her in confidence this morning – and that’s why he’s suddenly felt brave enough to come forward with this picture. The funny thing is, I empathise with Joe. I know exactly what it’s like to feel responsible for breaking up a family – and I know he watched his own parents’ marriage fall apart, and so I know it would have been difficult for him to decide what to do for the best.

  “I’ve gotta go anyway, Liz. I’ve gotta head off to Jules and Warrick’s for dinner. I hope you’ll call me tomorrow so we can talk some more?”

  I nod slowly. “Yeah, thanks, Het. Thanks.”

  We hug it out, or rather she tries to give me sympathy, I think. I don’t know.

  Mum and Hetty speak at the door while I stare at my children in the playroom.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I always thought I could cope with anything – that whatever Gage had to throw it me, my love for him would prevail. Yet gradually, over the years, he’s etched away at my resolve bit by bit. Me sleeping with Sam happened because I literally don’t have anything left. I don’t. I’m completely depleted. When I was with Sam, I didn’t know myself because for once, someone was giving something back, and I have never had that before. Ever.

  I thought if anyone would fuck up life, it would be Hetty. Her teenage years were wild, with all her smoking and drinking and having underage sex. I thought if anyone would get pregnant by the wrong bloke, it would be her, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was never the one who was supposed to fail – she was – and yet here I am, having failed miserably. She’s winning at life – meanwhile, my whole life is crumbling all around me.

  Am I not enough for him?

  Did I create the bastard he’s become?

  I don’t know.

  Is it my fault?

  Mum returns to the kitchen having spoken with Hetty out in the hall for long enough. She tries to avoid my eye and busies herself with tidying and wiping sideboards that are already clean.

  “I’m going to end it, Mum. You know I have to.”

  “Yes, I know,” she says, sounding almost as bereft as me.

  “I tried, I really, really did. Sometimes, you can’t force someone to change. He is who he is.”

  She takes a deep breath, clinging to the sideboard. Her back is to me because she doesn’t want me to see how guilty she feels (now Hetty’s probably told her what for in the hallway).

  “I’m sorry I encouraged you to marry him, I’m sorry about the whole lot.”

  “I think this is life, Mum. You win some, you lose some. I won two beautiful kids. You know I can’t bring them up around that… around his lifestyle.”

  Not when my own father has a secret dependency none of us ever talk about. I don’t even have to ask where he is now… I know he’s at the pub. I know Mum will reheat his shepherd’s pie later on, no matter the time he returns home, no matter how little appetite he has after a skinful.

  I’ve watched my mother suffer, but I won’t suffer in the same way. I know women have problems with drink, too – but it seems to me that so many women I know are expected to hold the fort while their boyfriends and husbands go about doing whatever they want.

  “Will you be okay if I go for a walk?” I ask. “I shan’t be long, I promise. Just need to clear my head.”

  “You go, I’ll have dinner ready in about half an hour, okay?”

  “That’s great, I’ll be back for then.”

  I kiss my kids in the playroom and tell them I’m just going to get them some sweets from the shop. Emily busies herself brushing her dolly’s hair while Rupert bashes bricks together.

  I walk out into the village, taking some deep breaths as I go. I find a bench by the playing fields and send Sam a text:

  Hey, can you talk?

  He rings a couple of minutes later.

  “Hello.”

  “Liza, are you okay?”

  “I’m at my mum’s.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “I’ve left him.”

  There’s a pause. “Okay.”

  “I got home and he was passed out drunk, the toilet was a mess and it was like he wasn’t even home to see us. Our home is just a place h
e comes and passes out inside.”

  “I’m sorry, kitten.”

  “Then I spoke with Hetty and she showed me a picture of him from Copenhagen. Apparently, his teammates all dressed up in women’s clothes for the stag and they’ve all been proudly showing off photos to all and sundry. Joe happens to be in a WhatsApp group with one of Gage’s teammates. It just so happened Gage was captured in the photo… kissing a woman in the background.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, so that’s where I’m at right now.”

  “Did you have words? Or did you just leave?”

  “I left.”

  “I think that was best, Lizzy. I think he would’ve been ugly if he was still drunk.”

  “That’s what I thought. Anyway, I’ll have to speak with him tomorrow, I suppose, once he’s sobered up. I’ll leave Rupert with my mother and confront him. I’m going to ask for a divorce.”

  “If that’s what you want, you’ve every right to ask him for that.”

  “It’s not a recent thing, Sam. I left him before. This time, there’s too much against us. I can’t stay with him. All he ever does is make me feel shit about myself. I feel shit about every single aspect of my life because he makes me feel like an utter failure.”

  Sam sighs down the phone. I hear someone knock on his office door and he covers the receiver, shouting, “I’m on the phone with a client, give me ten minutes.” There’s quiet and then he says, “Liza, I wish I was there right now. I’d just hold you and tell you it’s going to be all right.”

  “I know.” I wish for that so much, I really, really do.

  “I’m not going to tell a soul about us. Are you?”

  “I told Hetty. She’s probably told Joe. But they won’t say anything to anyone. Besides, I didn’t even tell her your name.”

  “Okay, well try to say as little as possible. You don’t want to give Gage any ammunition. You have every right to remain in the marital home and kick him out. You deserve a home for you and the kids.”

  “I know, but Sam, a part of me just wants a clean break. I just want to start fresh and look after my own family. I don’t want any part of his world anymore.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve and he must hear me crying, because he says, “Oh, Liza.”

  “Sam, I’m just glad to hear your voice.”

  “I’ve got to go. Will you send me one of your famous emails… when you get time? I’ll look forward to it so much.”

  “Yes, yes, if you like.”

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. You’re always in my thoughts.”

  “And you’re in mine.”

  “Speak to you soon?”

  My chest heaves with longing. “Yes, of course.”

  “I love you,” he says, hanging up before I can compromise myself.

  Chapter Eight

  AFTER SPENDING A SLEEPLESS NIGHT in my mother’s spare bedroom, having received no texts or calls from Gage wondering where we are, I start to think he’s happy we’re not there. Or maybe he slept straight through – unlike me, tossing and turning everything over and over.

  By seven o’clock in the morning, I’m dressed and impatient to get this over with. I leave the kids with my mother, who’s more than happy to drop Emily at school and look after Rupert for the day. I tell her I’m going to collect some more of our things and to have it out with Gage, once and for all.

  On the drive there, my hands go numb and my limbs grow heavy and uncomfortable. Anxiety snakes along my spine, making my neck and shoulders feel tight and immovable. I try to shake it all out, but it’s difficult.

  By the time I arrive home, it’s just a little before eight, owing to traffic and the fact that I’ve driven around the block a few times, trying to get it straight in my head what I will say to him. I’m still not sure what I’m going to say, but I know that asking him for a divorce is on my list of priorities, as is confronting him over his antics in Copenhagen.

  I sit in my car on the driveway for a while and an image of Sam pops into my head. Sam with his arms around me, Sam with his lips against my skin, Sam with his passion and yearning for me…

  I remember what it was like feeling wanted, and half of me wants to brag about it all to Gage, to make him feel bad – to make him see sense and accept his own failure. I don’t think he would be able to handle it, though. I just don’t.

  I sit remembering the day we bought this house. Gage had just signed a long-term contract with Hull FC and I was about to give birth to Emily. I thought I’d won the bloody lottery. Five bedrooms! Plus, the master had an en suite – it seemed unreal. For most of my childhood, before Mum and Dad’s chip shops took off, we lived in a flat above the chippy and there was a tiny living area and two tiny bedrooms. The house Gage bought for us seemed like a mansion in comparison.

  Then I grew up and realised there were more beautiful things than a nice big house and a husband willing to look after me financially. I realised I had a dormant yearning for passion, travel and finally exploring my ability to string a sentence together. However, Gage has always found ways of distracting me from my own pursuits, with his inability to lift a finger around the house or even offer to look after the kids for an afternoon while I go and get my hair done. He goes on trips with friends and tells me, “You can go away with Het, if you want, leave the kids with your mother…” – but I’ve never seen the point of going on holiday with my friend, not when romance is part of the attraction of a holiday for me – and so throughout our four-and-a-half-year marriage, we’ve never been abroad together. We’ve been to Cornwall and stuff, for a week or two, but we never went abroad. Even our honeymoon was short because I was due to give birth – and we ended up spending most of our time in bed watching TV.

  Truly, I always thought it was me. I really did. I felt like I must have made Gage feel trapped and that I’d ruined his life by getting pregnant – and so all these years, I’ve lived with this guilt that I’m the one who’s made his life a misery.

  Anyway, there’s no time like the present, as they say. Time to face the music.

  I enter the house and the alarm doesn’t go off, which means he’s not gone out for a morning run or anything. He’s still home… unless he forgot to set the alarm.

  I walk around downstairs and nothing seems to have been moved or changed since yesterday. He’s not had the TV on or made a cup of tea… or anything. He’s probably been snoring all night while I’ve lain wide awake, tossing and turning, agonising over my marriage and the end of life as we know it.

  I take a deep breath and trudge up the stairs, my legs threatening to buckle. It’s horrendous how nervous I feel – how much he’s hurt me and continues to do so.

  As I creep closer, I hear the extractor fan. Most likely it’s been going all night.

  I shake my head, growing ever angrier at him. He probably hasn’t budged from that bed all night, not one inch.

  I push the door open and discover him flat on his stomach, exactly how I left him the day before. Fucking great.

  “Gage, come on! It’s time to get up. Don’t you have to get to training today?”

  There’s no response as I enter the bathroom and pull the cord to switch off the extractor fan. I roll up the blind in the bathroom and throw some towels in the laundry bin. I notice by the light of day that there’s a lot of feculent splatter up the back of the toilet seat and some has spread to the wall, too.

  “I just… can’t. Not today Satan, not today,” I mutter to myself. He can clean that himself.

  I throw open the curtains in the bedroom but he’s still not moving.

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Gage! You’ve been in bed almost an entire day now!”

  The other laundry basket in the bedroom is full to the brim with clothes. When he got home yesterday, he must have just thrown it all in. He didn’t think to put some of it in the washing machine downstairs, did he? No. He never does.

  “Fucking hell, Gage! Get the fuck up!” I yell, because I’m ready to have this out with him already.<
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  Then I touch his skin, intending to shake him awake, but it’s freezing cold to the touch.

  I cover my mouth with both hands and step backwards.

  No.

  No.

  Tentatively, I step forwards again and roll him over, my hand almost refusing to work as I touch him again. Gage was never small. I always knew he’d never be easy, either. But as I reach out with two hands to shift him, he feels like a gargantuan monolith in my hands. Still, I somehow manage it because I just need to know.

  As his huge body moves with some effort on my part, I uncover vomit on the mattress beneath where he lay, and there’s vomit in his mouth and a trail of it from his nostrils, too. He falls on his back and apart from the vomit, he looks as though he’s still just sleeping. He looks peaceful.

  I’m shaking violently as I take out my phone, dialling 999.

  “Emergency Services, which service do you require?”

  “Ambulance, please.”

  I’m put through to a non-automated thing and a woman asks, “Can you tell me your name and what’s happened?”

  “I’m Liza Fitzpatrick and I’ve got home to find my husband covered in sick and he’s as cold as ice. He’s been home alone all night. I think he was drinking yesterday.”

  “Okay, someone’s coming. While we’re waiting, can you check if he’s breathing? Use a mirror… or check for a pulse.”

  “No, he’s not breathing,” I determine, “and there’s no pulse. What do I do?”

  “Okay, Mrs Fitzpatrick, please go downstairs and wait for the emergency services, okay? They will be with you any moment now.”

  “He’s not dead, is he? He can’t be dead. They can revive him, right?”

  “Mrs Fitzpatrick, you need to wait for the responders to confirm. I’m very, very sorry.”

  Something in me recognises the pity and empathy in her tone of voice, moreover the truth of the matter, but even while looking down at his inert body, I still don’t want to believe this is happening. I can’t.

  “They’re going to be with you in two minutes so I’m hanging up now, Mrs Fitzpatrick. Please be ready at the door. Thank you for your call.”