‘Sure,’ Jack said.
She got to her feet, shed her dressing-gown, went into the en suite, turned on the shower and stepped under it.
A moment later Jack got in and stood behind her. His arms reached round her waist. She stiffened, then let her hands rest on top of his and allowed herself to lean against him.
She closed her eyes. She did think of Hannah and Adam in the shower together, but that seemed like a memory from another life, one that was beginning to lose its power to hurt.
They stood there for what seemed a long time, unmoving, as the water hissed and splashed and ran over and down and past them.
17
‘Why are you here?’
NOW THAT MATILDA had a regular bedtime, Natalie and Richard were theoretically free to snuggle up together on the sofa in the evenings, talk, bond, make love and rediscover what had attracted them to each other in the first place.
In practice they invariably retreated from each other, usually to different rooms. Somehow they never went to bed early, and they certainly never went to bed together. Although the cot was now in the small third bedroom, Matilda still often woke in the night, and they had used this as an excuse for Richard to stick to sleeping in the guest room. Natalie doubted whether this arrangement was sustainable, but she didn’t allow herself to look too far ahead. Meanwhile, they both continued to dance round a great unspoken row.
They got through Valentine’s Day without too much difficulty. They had agreed it would be best to get their own presents, rather than bother with the rigmarole of providing lists, and so Richard had picked out some new cufflinks and Natalie, who could now fit back into a size 16, treated herself to a new pair of jeans. In the morning Richard went out to get the Record and came back with chocolates, which Natalie thanked him for even though she was trying to give them up; in the evening the babysitter turned up, and the restaurant had their reservation and hadn’t put them next to the loos, and they made perfectly adequate conversation over dinner.
Natalie said she was looking forward to going to Cornwall at Easter; Richard said he wasn’t sure if he could get away, and he should really keep on putting the hours in if he wanted to make partner. Natalie said she was apprehensive about returning to work, and Richard reminded her that they were letting her go part-time, and ten months off was a pretty good innings, and anyway, she seemed to be getting a bit fed up with being at home. Natalie wondered if she should have gone for a nursery rather than a quarter of a black-market nanny share with Jessie Oliver from antenatal class, and Richard said he was sure she’d done the right thing.
They made it through to the pudding menus before Natalie’s mobile rang and the babysitter told her Matilda had woken up and wouldn’t stop crying, and could they please come back.
They were not, had never been, a couple who went in for slaps and threats and tears and tempests, and Natalie’s first clear warning that they were on unsafe ground was the timbre of Richard’s voice – accusing, and rather louder than normal – when she got back from her Tuesday night yoga class to find him waiting for her in the living room.
He was still dressed in his work clothes: a white shirt, dark grey suit and blue tie, which had not been loosened. Next to him on the sofa was a large piece of white sugar paper, which had, until recently, been kept rolled up tight, and was now weakly trying to return to its previous shape.
Richard switched off the TV and said, ‘Natalie, we need to talk.’
‘Is Matilda OK?’
‘Matilda is fine, she’s asleep.’ He picked up the drawing and opened it out. ‘I found this today.’
Natalie reluctantly took in the big breasts, the heavy belly, the strong legs and the posture of frustrated, hampered waiting. Somehow, even though she was no longer pregnant, it was still true to life; Adele had seen her accurately, seen something more than the way she looked, and had captured it.
‘I don’t think you would have ever told me about this. Would you?’ Richard said and let the drawing fall back on to the sofa.
‘I just . . .’ Natalie swallowed. ‘It was just something she suggested. You know she was really into art, and painting and everything? I thought it would be . . .’ She trailed off. What could she say? Fun? Novel? Different? A way to pass the time? Anything and everything would sound incriminating.
Richard crossed his arms and shook his head.
‘Natalie,’ he said, ‘I know you’re lying. It’s blindingly obvious that something happened.’
Natalie grabbed for the piece of paper. ‘Oh come on, like what? I was due to give birth any minute when she did this. I mean I was already overdue. But if it bothers you, I’ll get rid of it, OK?’
She tore the piece of paper right across – straight down through her pregnant belly – and then quartered herself, bisecting her limbs and torso. Then she screwed the pieces up into a ball, marched through to the kitchen and slung them into the bin with last night’s potato peelings and dirty nappies.
‘There. All gone,’ she said as she went back into the living room, slapping her hands against each other as if brushing off dirt. ‘Happy now?’
Richard sighed. ‘If I hadn’t found it you would never have done that. You’d have kept it. As a little memento. A trophy. What difference does it make, whether it’s in the wardrobe or in the bin? You still hid it.’
‘I’d actually forgotten all about it,’ Natalie lied. She sat down next to him and tried for a more jocular tone. ‘So what prompted you to start turning out the wardrobe, anyway?’
Richard folded his arms. ‘I wasn’t turning anything out. I was looking for some painkillers. You finished up the packet in the bathroom cabinet and put it back even though it was empty, which is the kind of thing you do quite a lot, Natalie, because you’re so wrapped up in yourself that half the time you’re barely aware of what’s in front of you. I know you sometimes keep a stash of medicine in the wardrobe, so I checked in there. And you know what? When I found that picture, part of me was shocked, but another part of me wasn’t at all surprised.’
He adjusted his glasses again and peered at her, and she had a glimpse of what it would be like to be one of his clients. People came to him, she knew, when they were desperate, and often when bankruptcy had long since become inevitable. Yet, even at the crowded court hearings at which their failed businesses were wound up, they would often plea for more time – another two days; a creditor would come through; a new order would be confirmed – and the judge, weary of excuses, having heard it all before, would chivvy them along and call for the next case.
‘Natalie,’ Richard said, ‘did something happen between you and that woman?’
For a moment Natalie was tempted to deny it, to prevaricate, to ask him to define his terms. Then she said, ‘It did. Just the once. I’m sorry.’
She wanted to add, It was a mistake, a one-off; but she knew he would say, What, just like the time before? So instead she said, her voice trembling slightly, ‘It didn’t mean anything.’
‘Can I ask when?’ Richard asked.
Natalie swallowed. ‘It was the night I went out with drinks for them, with the antenatal group mums, back in the summer. I went back to hers for a little bit afterwards. It was, you know . . . it was nothing really.’
Richard groaned something that sounded like ‘Oh God!’ and jolted upright and paced away from her. She stood too and moved towards him, and he spun round and shouted, ‘How could you do that to me? How could you do that to all of us? Your parents were here babysitting and you took it as an opportunity to . . . How could you be such a fucking selfish bitch? I could kill you!’
He had grabbed her by the shoulders and his face was inches away from hers; she had never seen it so distorted by rage and hate. And then, as quickly as he had seized her, he let her go. He stumbled back to the sofa where he sat still for a moment before beginning to cry – awful, wrenching, unpractised gasps and sobs that made his shoulders shake and his face stream with mucus.
She sat down next t
o him and waited, not knowing what else to do. After a while he took a red spotted handkerchief out of his pocket – he always carried a handkerchief with him; it was one of the rituals of their relationship that he would pass it over to her whenever something got the better of her and set her off, because she never had one.
He took his glasses off and wiped his face and blew his nose. Then he dried his glasses and put them back on and looked at her.
‘Richard,’ she said, ‘I know this sounds as if it can’t possibly be true, under the circumstances, but—’
‘Don’t say it,’ he interrupted. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Don’t sit there and tell me that you love me, but you’re not in love with me. Don’t tell me that you love me like a brother, or that I’m your best friend. I’m not your brother and I’m not your friend.’ He stared down at his hands and blinked as if to clear his vision. ‘What have you done to me? I could have . . .’ He looked up at her again. ‘I could have hurt you, Natalie. I’m not sure I can do this any more. You’re turning me into someone I don’t want to be.’
‘But it was nothing,’ Natalie whispered.
‘Oh, Natalie. If you can’t be honest with yourself, what chance is there that you’re going to be honest with anyone else? I don’t want to spend years of my life wondering and then find out that you were just denying yourself all along. Don’t cheat on yourself, Natalie. Don’t sacrifice yourself. If you do we’ll end up hating each other. And right now I don’t hate you. I feel . . . sorry for you.’
‘I’ll go and talk to a counsellor,’ she said. ‘I’ll work through it. I’ll sort it out.’
‘I suppose I should probably go too,’ he said. ‘Will you find someone? Find out what we have to do?’
‘I will,’ she said, and he nodded and another raw breath shuddered out of him, as if he was about to start crying again.
Did blessings always brighten as they took their flight? She had been tiptoeing round Richard for months and yet now she was suddenly reminded of how benign, how fair, how fundamentally reasonable he was.
If they did break up, and were open with their families and friends about why, he would be devastated, and at least part of his suffering, mixed in with grief, would be humiliation: the humiliation of being found wanting, and of becoming someone whom colleagues and acquaintances and fellow alumni would gossip about, for a season, and not always sympathetically.
But then how might his life take shape if she were to formally remove herself from it? He was the archetypal family man – affectionate, patient, decent, steady – and, despite his own misgivings, he was successful: he was a catch. Surely, by and by, someone would feel for him, and want to make it up to him: someone who wasn’t perpetually thwarted, someone who would be happy to take care of him.
His family would welcome this new person with open arms, relieved that Richard had found someone suitable. Perhaps, ultimately, the newcomer would become his wife, a stepmother for Matilda. Natalie herself would be spoken of in slightly hushed tones: the first wife, the mother of Richard’s first child – because probably there would be other children – someone of whom it wasn’t quite right to speak ill.
He would always be a good father to Matilda, she was sure: kind, committed, just. And how, or who, would she be? She didn’t know.
‘I don’t deserve you,’ she told him, ‘but for what it’s worth, I do still love you.’
‘I know you want me to say it back, but I can’t, not now,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe that love can feel like this.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Natalie said.
What more was there to say? She stood up and went slowly and heavily upstairs, got ready for bed, lay down in the dark and waited for sleep.
She listened to Richard’s footsteps creaking on the landing below. He used the bathroom and went into the room she had begun to think of as his. After a while she heard snoring.
Something still didn’t feel right.
She got up again and, as quietly and gently as she could, closed the bedroom door.
There was no couch in the counsellor’s office, just two overstuffed pastel armchairs next to a coffee table with a large box of tissues on it. Natalie imagined patient after patient – no, client after client – blubbing, and Louisa Mead delicately nudging the tissues towards them until they took the hint and blew their streaming noses.
Louisa invited her to take the other seat and Natalie perched, edged her buttocks back, tried to relax, wriggled, fidgeted, felt squeezed. The armchair was simultaneously cushiony and difficult to sit on. Something smaller and harder would have suited her fine. This was already like being loved to death.
Like the furniture in her office, Louisa was soft-looking, substantial and dressed in spring green. She had a round face with worried brown eyes and a sensible iron-grey haircut that reminded Natalie of Bella Madden, though Louisa seemed gentler, less of a cheerleader, more subtle. So this was the kind of person who made a living out of patching up the woes of married couples: motherly but a little mournful, blending the nurse’s dispassionate nurture with the tactful practicality of an undertaker.
‘So, Natalie, how are things?’ Louisa asked.
There was a large kitchen clock mounted on the wall by the door. Natalie’s session had officially started at 3.00 p.m., and it was now five past, which meant she had already had nearly a fiver’s worth of therapy.
‘Not too bad, I suppose,’ Natalie said, ‘could be worse. Could be better, obviously.’
There was more she could have said: how she was living from day to day, trying to get out of the house and keep busy, but not quite able to forget that Richard would have to return from work eventually, and that her heart would sink as soon as she heard his key in the door. She knew he was furious and hurt and distraught, and she could understand why, but her only defence against pure self-loathing was to withdraw from the way he saw the world and regard him as a hostile presence to be resisted and ignored.
Preserving her equanimity took effort – an effort so great it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. While Richard suffered and Matilda fretted, Natalie was dazed and distracted; she dropped things and forgot things and went from confusion to muddle to mess. It seemed to be impossible to ever focus her thoughts on the task in hand.
Even food had lost its appeal. She had not consciously made any decision to eat less, but all her clothes were noticeably looser. She was shrinking.
She had dreamed the night before that she was pregnant, and nobody could believe it because she was so thin. In the dream it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder how she could possibly be having a baby when she hadn’t had sex since that solitary attempt shortly before Matilda’s birth, which had not concluded in ejaculation. Still she’d woken up feeling surprisingly happy, until she’d remembered Richard was downstairs. Even in his sleep he emanated humiliation, anger and grief.
‘Tell me, Natalie,’ Louisa said, ‘why are you here?’
What would be an acceptable answer? ‘Because my marriage is in difficulty?’
Louisa nodded. Phew! That was easy! I hope all the questions are like that! Then Natalie realized that Louisa was going to let the silence drag on until Natalie filled it. A fiver’s worth of complete non-communication was a distinct possibility.
Natalie shrugged. ‘I’m here because Richard and I agreed that this was the best way forward.’
‘You understand the rationale behind me seeing each of you separately before I see you together? It’s so that you can speak freely about anything that is making you feel unhappy or uncomfortable or worried. Anything at all, whether it’s to do with friendships, family relationships, work, or caring for your baby. It’s Matilda, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Louisa consulted the personal details form on her lap. ‘Nine months old.’
Natalie nodded.
‘Who’s looking after her today?’
‘A friend.’
Richard had asked Natalie not to tell Tina where she was going;
he preferred not to disclose ‘this difficult stage we’re going through’ to anyone outside the family. Natalie had not respected this, which was something else to feel bad about. But Richard didn’t know that both Tina and Lucy had some idea of what had happened with Adele, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell him – she’d let him down badly enough as it was. So she’d told Tina about the discovery of the drawing, and the counselling, and it had been a relief not to have to come up with a lie.
Richard had pointed out that she could take some time off work, so that Matilda would be in the care of the nanny they were sharing with Jessie Oliver, but Natalie didn’t think this would create a good impression, not so soon after coming back from maternity leave. As for Richard’s suggestion that she could have asked her mother to babysit instead – could even have confided in her – no way.
She knew exactly how Pat would react if she told her; she would be angry, and distressed, and she would say, ‘But are you sure? What brought this on? What about Matilda?’ and then, if Natalie held her ground, she would start to blame herself. Natalie was going to need to be feeling very strong and sure indeed to face up to any of this.
‘Tell me about your friendships,’ Louisa said.
‘I don’t really see that as a problem area.’
‘So would you say you have generally good relationships with your friends?’
‘Yes, of course.’
There was a pause. Natalie added, ‘We’ve had our ups and downs. That’s inevitable, isn’t it? Over time, you change, sometimes you need a bit of space, then you come back together. I’ve known some of my friends since university. You can’t live in each other’s pockets. You have to cut people a bit of slack.’
‘Do you have any particularly close friends?’
‘Well . . . I suppose my favourite friends, though I don’t actually see them all that often, are Tina and Lucy. They had a massive falling-out last year, but everything’s kind of patched up now.’
‘So do they often fall out with each other?’
‘Oh no, that was very unusual.’
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