Annie gives me a knowing nod. ‘We’ll discuss it another time,’ she says, topping up my wine as I feel my phone vibrate yet again. I close my eyes briefly.
‘Right, what are we ordering?’ I pass a menu to Annie and, while she reads over it, I steal a quick look at the screen. A missed call and two text messages from a number I don’t recognise. Then another text alert flashes up from the same number.
‘Everything OK?’ Annie asks.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ I say, slipping my phone back in my pocket without reading the messages. I stare at the menu, even though my eyes won’t take it in. Random texts from an unknown number is feast enough, filling me up, sating me – a time-slip back to how things were, even though I know it’s not him. Couldn’t possibly be. I never gave him this number. ‘Shall we get one of the banquets to share?’ I suggest, not feeling hungry any more.
‘Good idea,’ Mark agrees as he and Ed sort through a load of vinyl from his collection. ‘Call it through, would you, love? Serious business going on here.’ He grins, holding up a T. Rex disc, gently wiping it before placing it on the turntable. He crouches down low, squinting as he drops the stylus. Then my phone vibrates again and, while Mark’s back is turned, I decline the call.
‘Someone really wants you,’ Annie says in a silly voice, without the men hearing. She gives me a look, nudging me.
‘Bloody work,’ I say, rolling my eyes, though she knows as well as I do that the clinic would never contact me on a Saturday night. I call through the food order, then switch off my phone, putting it in the kitchen drawer for the rest of the night. Just knowing it’s there, with all those unread messages, is some kind of comfort. Some kind of cheap thrill. Even though it’s not him.
Three boozy hours later and Annie and Ed stumble out to their taxi. ‘Good luck next week, mate,’ Mark says to Ed, patting him on the back. He’s going on some family law training course.
‘And enjoy your week,’ I say to Annie, giving her a hug. She feels full and healthy beneath her woollen shawl, as though her body matches her personality. What does mine say about me, I wonder, wrapping my arms around myself, feeling my ribs, the cold air making me shiver?
‘You coming Wednesday?’ she asks. Book club is really just an excuse to meet up with wine and no husbands or kids.
‘Sure am. Cath’s place this time, isn’t it?’ Another evening checked off. Another night filled up, not spent thinking about him.
She nods. ‘And don’t overwork yourself,’ she calls out. I’d already filled her in on my hectic week, how packed my client list is, not to mention the professional development course I have to attend. ‘Get through till Wednesday and we’ll recharge.’ She stumbles and giggles. ‘You know what Cath’s like.’
‘And don’t think we don’t know what she’s like too,’ Ed chips in with a grin, getting into the taxi.
Cath is the only single one in our group of friends, eternally dating and convinced ‘the one’ is out there. So far she’s had no luck, attracting married guys, emotionally unavailable guys, and guys who just want one thing. But Cath still believes in love and is resolute about finding it.
‘We’ll fix her up with someone from the real world one of these days,’ I say, feigning a swoon with the back of my hand. ‘Not some moron with a fake profile online.’
Annie gets into the cab and we wave them off before going back inside, Mark locking up and putting the chain on before taking it off again. ‘Just in case Jack decides not to stop over at the party,’ he says.
Secretly, I hope that he doesn’t come home in the small hours, waking us up, disturbing my already fragile sleep. My relationship with him has always felt fractured – a tentative dance, each of us unsure of the other. I’ve tried to make things OK, but sometimes it feels like I just make it worse.
‘You’re not my real mum,’ he said once, aged ten. ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’ I’d recoiled from his words. The expression on his face said it all. He hated me.
‘But you can’t do that in here, Jack,’ I’d said, glancing at my watch. ‘Please…’ It wasn’t long until Mark would be home, and Jack had decided to bring in a load of his dad’s dirty tools from the shed. They were spread out on the pale living room carpet, along with his broken bicycle chain. There were grease and oil stains smeared everywhere. I begged him to pack it all away, that I’d help clean up the stains, but he refused.
‘Dad won’t mind. He’s chilled and you’re not,’ he said, giving me a look I’d not seen on a child before.
Half an hour later he went out to play football, leaving the mess everywhere. I was scrubbing at the oil when Mark came home, breathless with worry.
‘God, I’m so sorry, love,’ I said, kneeling, scrubbing, rubber gloves on. It was coming off, but slowly. I told him I’d had an accident with the hearth blackener while I was cleaning but didn’t realise that Jack was standing in the doorway, listening, watching, saying nothing. I’d hoped it would help me get onside with him, show him he could trust me, but all it did was make him act up more. He knew what he could get away with.
But I won’t give up trying to reach out to him, to be something even vaguely close to the mother he never had. We went through a good patch when he was in his early teens, and I’d hoped things had settled, but recently, like Freya’s, his mood has changed again.
It makes me wonder why. If it’s me.
Kids pick up on adults’ behaviour.
‘That was a really lovely evening,’ I say, leaning back against the wall.
‘Mmm,’ Mark confirms, pressing up against me. ‘Lovely indeed.’ He looks me up and down with boozy eyes, grabbing hold of me.
‘I should clear up,’ I say after he’s kissed me. I pull away and head back into the living room to gather the foil cartons and plates.
‘Let’s leave it until the morning,’ he says, his hand settling on my bum as I bend down.
‘That’s not like you,’ I say, winking. ‘Mr Shipshape. It won’t take me a moment.’ I wipe up the spilt food with a napkin, gathering up some plates and glasses. ‘Anyway, Freya has Sunday school first thing, so we need some sleep.’
‘Can’t she miss it for once?’
‘It was your idea she go in the first place,’ I remind him.
Then the sigh, virtually imperceptible, although I know what it means. I close my eyes. ‘OK,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘Let’s leave it until morning.’ I dump the plates in the kitchen sink and turn off the lights. After everything, I can’t deny him what he wants. I give him a slow wink, but Mark hesitates a second, his eyes narrowing before the small smile comes. Then he takes my hand and leads me upstairs.
Afterwards, I lie awake listening to Mark’s breathing. All I can think of is my phone secreted in the kitchen drawer, the unread messages, the missed calls. All I can think of is him.
Chapter Four
Nikki
From where I’m sitting, the world is full of happy, contented, fulfilled women. Women quick-marching down the street, phones pressed to their ears, cups of steaming coffee to hand, laughter lines stretching their made-up faces. Women with purpose, women with zest, women with children, with loves, with jobs, with families – all painted nails and swishy hair, and those clippety-clip patent heels striding along the pavement, all in such a hurry to get where they’re going.
Women like that know how to avoid the cracks. Me, I tread on them with every footfall.
Today is a watching day. It’s either that or a shift with Denny in the burger van, the day ending with greasy skin and my hair smelling of onions. I have a usual bench, where I’m sitting now, overlooking the playground from a safe enough distance but still close enough to observe. Since lunchtime, it’s been filling up with young mums and toddlers – some in buggies, some running free, one in a baby sling rounding its mother’s shoulders as she struggles with its weight. If I were a man sitting here as often as I do, someone would have called the police by now. But being a woman, a book or newspaper to hand, I’m safe. No one
suspects anything. To anyone who notices me, I’m just another mum watching her children play, an auntie fondly looking after her niece or nephew, or maybe even a woman waiting for her secret lover. Now there’s a thought.
But I am none of these things.
The playground equipment is brightly painted, with noisy kids swinging, dangling, climbing and squealing. Grubby jeans, mittens on strings, baby dolls and toy cars fill the scene. One mother is on all fours filling a bucket with sand, while another pushes two swings at once. Other mums are chatting, huddled in groups, warming their hands on coffee cups, laughing and smiling.
And then there’s me, my eyes stinging with tears.
I’m feeling especially brave today, so I get up and walk down to the spongy-tarmac play area. Close to where the children are. Close to where she stands with her friend, laughing, chatting, her white teeth flashing, their two little girls squealing together on the swings. I lean on the black metal railings surrounding the area, kicking my foot against them.
Thud, thud, thud…
It looks an awful lot like a prison, though I have no idea if I’m on the inside or the outside.
Chapter Five
Lorna
I lean over the reception desk to sign in, my bag falling off my shoulder as I write, making my name wonky – pretty much how I feel after another night of little sleep.
‘Good weekend?’ Sandy asks.
Her question makes me defensive – as if she knows something, when of course she doesn’t. ‘Yes. Lovely, thanks,’ I reply, wondering if she’ll notice how my expression doesn’t quite match my words, or if she’ll spot the tremor in my hand as I try to get the pen back in its holder. ‘You?’ I drop it down on the desk. You’ve done nothing wrong, I tell myself for the hundredth time since yesterday morning. Even though I have.
‘Glad to get back to work, frankly,’ she says. ‘The in-laws came to stay so it’s good to be back with sane people.’ She gives a silly laugh before answering the phone, switching to her serious yet compassionate receptionist’s voice.
Sane people, I think, heading through to my consulting room which, until Friday, felt like a sanctuary, a safe place, a space where I help people, a room where I focus on my clients as well as taking time out for myself, working on my own self-development – crucial for a good therapist. But today it feels as though work has seeped out of it, is bleeding under the door. As if I’m cupping water in my hands.
It was just a trigger, I tell myself. A throwback… It’s over now…
I flick on the main lights as well as the two side lamps. It’s gloomy outside – cool and overcast. I like things to feel warm and welcoming for my clients. My clients, I think, glancing at the clock on the wall – the clock that only I can see during sessions with barely a flicker of my eyes. My stomach churns. None of them actually belong to me.
At my desk, I take a deep breath. ‘Sandy, hi,’ I say, buzzing through to reception, knowing I need to just get this out of the way. I was too ashamed to do it face-to-face. ‘I have a new client coming for an assessment at one o’clock today.’ I pause, swallowing. ‘In my lunch break.’
‘Oh. Is this a self-referral?’ she asks.
I clear my throat. ‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ I say. ‘It’s actually the person who kept calling on Friday, remember? Could you put him in the system, please?’ Treating one client differently to another is not in the rulebook, let alone contacting them directly, especially in a practice such as this.
‘Oh,’ she says again. ‘OK.’ She knows it’s odd but doesn’t say anything. It’s not her place to question me. That’s my job, questioning myself, my professional behaviour. I know I should take this to a supervision session, to work out my feelings, but I also know I won’t. Not about this. Not when, at its core, it’s all about him.
I lean back in my office chair, sighing. I didn’t get a chance to read those text messages from Saturday night until late yesterday morning. Mark and I went out for breakfast after we’d dropped Freya at Sunday school, and my phone was still in the kitchen drawer. The battery was flat when we came home so I charged it, but then Mark was with me for several hours as we flicked through the newspapers together, drinking coffee, chatting about the kitchen extension we’ve been considering. Besides, it was the anticipation I was after – nothing else. Just knowing the messages were there was enough. It was nothing to do with the content or even the sender – that was irrelevant, because it wasn’t him. And besides, for the full effect, just this once, I wanted to read them alone. Gorge on illicit texts, which these most definitely were. It was an addiction. He was an addiction. It was a methadone situation.
But then we’d had a brief panic about Jack’s whereabouts. He wasn’t home and hadn’t contacted Mark since the party on Saturday night. We couldn’t reach him anywhere and his mates weren’t sure where he was. It wasn’t like him to not get in touch, so we drove around looking for him. But by midday he’d come back, sauntering through the door saying his phone was dead, that he’d gone for a walk to think about stuff and that it was no big deal. It was a big deal for us, though, and Mark let him know it in no uncertain terms. I know Jack’s had stuff on his mind lately, that he’s keeping things bottled up. I just don’t know what. It doesn’t feel right for me to push him, as if there’s this unspoken buffer between us. After that, Jack sloped off upstairs for a while.
But a short time later he seemed OK again and was chatting with his dad in the kitchen as normal. I finally unplugged my phone, slipping it in my jeans pocket, heading down to the end of the garden. My heart was thumping and my throat tight and dry. I savoured every moment of it, pretending I was going to look for something in the shed even though no one batted an eyelid at me going outside. I’m just popping to the shops… just taking a long bath… just going for a walk…to the cinema… the gym… Echoes of the not-so-distant past.
And of course I still despise myself for it. Still despise him for being inside my head after all this time. To be the wife Mark deserves, the mother Freya and Jack need, I need him gone.
At the end of the garden, I held the phone in my hands, imagining, fantasising that if it was actually him who’d texted, what would he say? Maybe just a two-worder: Love you or Miss you. Or the promise of a meet – Usual place, 6 p.m. – or a cute emoji, or even a string of them to make a cryptic message like we used to do. Or perhaps one of the many soul-ripping exchanges we had, leaving me upset and edgy during the days of silence that would inevitably follow: I can’t do this any more… You don’t understand… It’s over…
‘You’re a class A drug,’ I whispered, glancing back up to the house. It looked warm and inviting inside the kitchen – Mark sitting at the table, his grey T-shirt stretching across his broad back, laughing with Jack, who was staring out of the kitchen window directly down the garden. I quickly ducked behind the shed.
I tapped my screen, looking at the notifications. The little white number sitting fat in its red globe looked like a ripe cherry. Full of promise and excitement. All those unread messages, little nuggets of delicious time snatched to read them, to savour the words, to type out a reply to him. I stared up at the sky, blinking back tears. Streaky mascara would raise questions and I wasn’t ready for those.
It should never have happened.
And I still don’t know why it did.
‘Fucking, fucking hell,’ I whispered, my head resting back against the wood. Over those few short months, there’d been thousands of messages between us – enough to gouge a planet-sized hole inside me. And here I was using the neediness of an innocent client that I’d never met to plug it up. To recreate the dangerous high.
I quickly opened the texts, holding my breath as I imagined what I wanted them to say, rather than what they actually said, which turned out to be mundane and intrusive, making me want to stamp on my phone.
It wasn’t him.
Of course it wasn’t him.
I’d like to arrange an appointment with you. Please phone back. David
Then…
Let me know asap. Monday preferred. David
Then…
You were recommended. Pls contact me with a time.
‘And this is why we don’t give out our fucking personal numbers,’ I muttered, clenching the phone in my fist. The effect was not what I was hoping for. Nothing to work with. There was no thrill, no fire in my heart, no head pounding with guilt that screamed out good sense while my body ignited from his words. And I already didn’t like this David person, being so demanding and needy, especially over the weekend. But whoever he was, whether he ended up being my client or not, he was already different from the others. I’d made sure of that by contacting him personally.
I can see you at 1 p.m. Monday, I texted back, my fingers shaking. But in my mind, I was typing I love you too…
My phone pings in my bag under my desk.
Squash cancelled. Dinner?
I smile, tucking it away again. I sit and stare at the pot plant in the corner, a palm of some type that could do with watering. A couple of leaves are brown and crisp at the edges, though it still manages to unfurl a new frond from the centre every month or so. The life force within, that driving essence behind all living things, never giving up, making the best of what’s available. It’s what makes people come to therapy amidst their hopelessness. I take a pair of scissors from the desk drawer and snip off the brown bits, tossing them in the bin.
Do I want dinner with my husband?
I take a breath, putting the scissors back in the drawer in exactly the same place.
That would be lovely. See you later x
I shake my head, chasing the thoughts away by straightening the papers on my desk. Order, order, order! My first appointment isn’t until 9 a.m. so I still have time for a coffee and to review this morning’s three clients.
Tell Me A Secret Page 3