David
17
David went downstairs to read the morning papers armed with his iPad and waited for the coffee machine to warm up. He tried to remember where he had put the Viagra prescription, although after yesterday’s stonking middle-of-the-day erection he knew he wouldn’t need the tablets any time soon. The virility of his teenage years had returned, and to celebrate he tried to high-five an unwilling Oscar who swished his tail in disapproval.
Despite nearing his forty-sixth birthday, he would always be his mother’s special little soldier. He had left Lillian’s with an armful of Easter goodies plus a bottle of finest single malt. He’d already demolished the After Eight egg and looked forward to cracking open the six-pack of Cadbury’s creme eggs. Were they getting smaller? They looked tiny in his hands.
David had been blessed with the metabolic rate of a teenage athlete and had taken it for granted all his life. But now, after he had adopted a healthier lifestyle, it seemed Mother Nature was having the last laugh. He’d have to work harder at the gym and maybe book a couple of personal training sessions to identify more effective exercises. He looked at himself in the mirror. Karma was out to get him. Ever since he’d slept with Amelia-Rose he had been the unluckiest man in the world. As if the Greek god of marital affairs wouldn’t let him have his cake and eat it. It was a stupid one-off. He’d not fallen in love with Amelia-Rose, it wasn’t even about her; it was about how she made him feel. Alive and young. That only made the guilt worse, his action all the more selfish. He knew he was a walking cliché. She’d been so youthful and full of energy but David regretted being steered by the contents of his pants; he knew she had merely stroked his ego, and then some.
He questioned where the intimacy he used to share with Rachel had gone. When had the romance disappeared? His wife used to do sweet little things for him and then it stopped. She was distant. She had pulled away. None of this was enough to excuse what he did, though.
He didn’t know where to look when Rachel dropped her towel to get dressed for work. He snuck a quick peek when she turned away and then quickly left the room.
When David asked if Rachel wanted to accompany him to an IT conference, she’d said she couldn’t have time away from work, but it sounded like an excuse. They loved going to conferences together, or they used to, mainly because it meant staying in a fancy hotel. They would choose somewhere with a spa and a Michelin-quality menu. He tried to remember the last time he’d had his wife’s full attention. He put it down to him being busy; he was distracted by the buy-out and hadn’t been paying her enough attention. He didn’t even know now if he wanted to sell the company. Of course, there was the money to look forward to. And it was agreed he’s be on hand a few hours a week. But what would he do then? Would he look for another job? Would he start something new?
It took David most of the day to get his head into his work. And then before he knew it Rachel was home. She kissed him on the forehead and mentioned something about an early dinner. He had squandered the day being busy but accomplishing nothing. David was about to shut down his computer when Rachel’s phone screen danced. He unplugged her phone from the charger and was going to call out to her but stopped when he saw the display. He presumed it would be Norma, or Jojo, or Eva calling, but he didn’t recognise the caller’s name. David could hear Rachel hoovering on the stairs. The vacuum crept closer, one step at a time.
He sat at his desk and quickly Googled ‘Stefan Stratos’. There were a number of people with that name in the results. But on a map showing an area less than two miles away was the entry ‘Stefan Stratos – Family Law’. David clicked through to the website:
Stefan Stratos’s Family Law. Experts in dealing with divorce, the breakdown of family relationships, co-habitation or civil partnership. Areas of expertise: how to separate. Resolution negotiation. Code of practice promoting a sensitive approach … likely to result in an agreement.
The words ‘divorce’, ‘breakdown’, ‘separate’, jolted him. Panic washed through his body. Maybe it was the wrong number? But how could it be a mistake when she had his name saved in her phone?
He called the number back.
A smooth voice answered the call immediately.
‘Rachel, hi, thanks for calling back. Listen, about your separation agreement, I have one quick question about—’
David hung up the phone.
Separation agreement? Rachel was going to leave him. Why? What did she know? The noise from the vacuum affected his ability to think. How did she find out about Amelia-Rose? Had he been talking in his sleep? What on earth had a forty-five-year-old been doing with someone twenty years his junior? Amelia-Rose didn’t know his music; she had no point of reference to a life before the Internet. She wasn’t born when he left home for university. He was the archetypal dirty old man. Self-loathing suffocated him. And now he could only presume that Rachel now knew what he’d done.
She was metres from the office. The door was ajar. His heart was thumping. He quickly deleted the calls (missed and dialled) from the log. Maybe it would buy him some time. Time to do what, he had no idea. He locked the screen and put the phone back on charge where he’d found it, deliberately askew, and waited for her to push the Hoover through the door. He sat in his leather chair with his legs crossed at the ankle and perched on the matching footstool. He tried to appear nonchalant. He waited, his pallid face blotched red with guilt. He could hear the edge of the Hoover bump against the door before it moved noisily away along the hallway and towards the bedroom. He let out a sigh.
The bottom had fallen out of David’s life. It was destroyed. And the worst part of it was, it was entirely his own fault. He felt nauseous. His lunch and three chocolate creme eggs were threatening to make a reappearance. He ran to the downstairs toilet and retched.
One possible scenario was that Rachel knew everything. But that didn’t make sense. She would have blown her top. Or she’d have organised a conscious uncoupling meeting had she wanted to separate. Or, heaven forbid, demanded a divorce. She would often compile lists and objectives for their relationship. She’d start with communication strategies from marriage counselling through to holidays “to reconnect”. There would be months and months of talking through their problems. No, Rachel couldn’t know what he’d done. BUT OF COURSE SHE KNEW SOMETHING – WHY ELSE WAS A FUCKING FAMILY LAWYER CALLING HER?
When he went back upstairs, Rachel had finished in the office. He gave her a sheepish smile and patted her bottom affectionately, which left him with a lingering feeling of awkwardness. Was he still allowed to touch her? He loitered, waiting for her to finish. She took the Hoover downstairs but returned straight away, making him jump. She reminded him that she had a video-conference scheduled and needed to use their office. It was a call with Australia – it was already tomorrow there. David made a point of double-checking that the Ethernet cable was attached for the best connection with the other side of the world.
He needed to keep his hands and his head busy; he went to the kitchen to make cocktails. Rachel came downstairs to get a glass of water while she was waiting for her call to start. He presented her with a tropical cocktail, complete with umbrella and cherry.
‘What’s this?’
‘A Bali Bombshell!’
‘A what?’
‘You must remember, from our wedding.’
‘In Bali?’
BALI BOMBSHELL RECIPE
25 ml Vodka
25 ml White Rum
15 ml Watermelon liqueur
35 ml pink grapefruit juice
75 ml pineapple juice
‘Yes, in Bali.’
David took a sip and was instantly transported back to their wedding night. It was a bitter-sweet reminder. Rachel’s face didn’t reveal any sign of uncertainty or duplicity. Who was this woman? Once he could read his wife like a book and her voice had been a measure of her mood. He kissed the back of her neck, aligned his body with hers and snuggled in. She didn’t outright push him away but
she nudged out of his immediate personal space and said something about needing to join the video-conference; she’d only come down for water. She left the untouched drink on the side. He knew this was a bad sign.
David needed to know how long Rachel had been feeling like this. He was loath to think that during their anniversary weekend she’d had doubts about their future. Had she already set an official separation in motion? He felt betrayed and rejected. The irony of this was not lost on him, though it was submerged by fear. Fear of being found out. Because if Rachel was seeking a divorce, it was only a matter of time before she found out David’s biggest secret.
He paced the kitchen. Think, man. David was determined to fight for his wife. Marriages had survived worse, hadn’t they? A terrible realisation dawned on him then. Rachel might forgive a one-night stand if he promised a lifetime of apology and no repetition, but if she found out they weren’t actually married – there would be nothing to stop her from walking away.
Rachel
18
On the whole, Rachel was a cheerful person. She wasn’t one of those ridiculously chirpy people who floated through life on a cloud of unicorn dust, but she woke up most mornings on the right side of the bed and walked with a spring in her stride. Or she used to. This was yet another morning when she’d had to drag herself out from under a dark cloud.
She looked at her never-husband, his head gently balanced on two thick pillows. She visualised how easy it would be to take her own pillow and push it down against his face … The fantasy both thrilled and disgusted her and she was snapped out of it by the unmistakable sound of one of the cats knocking the fruit bowl to the floor. She had recently bought a metal one from Habitat. Neville and Oscar had smashed enough pottery to teach her a lesson.
Rachel left David sleeping and tiptoed down to the kitchen. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs the cats had scarpered. Rachel couldn’t remember ever before experiencing such inner turmoil or feeling actual hatred. Because wasn’t that what this was? Hatred? It blackened not only her heart but also her every waking minute. She wanted David to suffer, she wanted him to feel incredible pain and indignity, and she wanted him to beg and beg for her forgiveness. Then, and only then, could Rachel leave him. She needed to find her happy place. Sadly, David and the home they shared was no longer that.
The kitchen was the epitome of extravagant living. There was a bronze food processor on the birch worktop: a lavish appliance chosen to complement their self-indulgent lifestyle. It had come at an exorbitant price, costing more than Rachel’s first car. The worktop was also expensive and so delicate that any liquid would stain the finish. The wood needed oiling every two months. It was an impractical worktop for anyone who liked to use the kitchen for cooking or, heck, even reheating food.
She wanted to make herself a coffee but didn’t want the noisy built-in bean grinder to wake the selfish bastard sleeping upstairs. She wasn’t ready to stretch her facial muscles into a smile, nor to act normal in front of David. She wondered how they would split their life in two. Rachel would rather die than let him have both an affair and the coffee machine. She thought of her mother and of the traditional, nuclear family in which she had raised her children. Soon both of them would have experienced divorce. Rachel had two teenage nephews, but she rarely saw them. Isaac and Hendry were always on the continent somewhere with their glamorous and very French mother, Elena. Kevin’s ex-wife had been granted full custody as part of the divorce settlement. He was the parent-in-absentia who followed them from country to country for weekends, much to the annoyance of Elena’s newly acquired fifth husband. Rachel couldn’t imagine getting married again, let alone another four times.
She heard David’s footsteps overhead. His heavy-foot-edness irritated her. His every movement annoyed her. He trudged down the stairs and complained again about his disturbed sleep. Rachel insinuated that his ‘habit’ was to blame for his sleeplessness. She even suggested research into the half-life of coffee, but David was having none of it. She left the house after using the fewest words possible to ascertain that they would both be at home for dinner.
Eva had interrupted Rachel’s daydream about her formerly happy marriage. The time when David was still in love with her. She was relieved her thoughts were moving away from hate and vengeance. The truth was, she didn’t want a new husband. She wanted her own husband back; the original Mr David Ross Chatsworth. The formerly loving, funny, attentive David.
Eva pulled down the blinds to Rachel’s glass-walled office. The blinds that hadn’t been used once since they’d moved in. The creaking and comic slowness of them failing to cover the glass panes adequately was painful. Rachel could see Lydia trying to spy on them over her monitor.
‘I’ve got some bad news,’ Rachel said.
Eva was stopped in her tracks. ‘What else could possibly go wrong? How many mirrors did you break in a past life?’
‘Jojo’s getting married.’
‘Isn’t that good news?’
‘Yes and no. David’s volunteered my, ergo our, services to organise it.’
‘Shit!’
‘Yep.’
‘I didn’t think we were doing any more weddings. Do you think your friendship with Jojo will survive?’ Eva, as always, was blunt and to the point.
‘I really don’t know.’
Eva reverted back to the task in hand and nodded towards the open-plan office beyond the blinds.
‘Lydia is drowning in work – she needs some direction. Timothy is afraid to come into the office and is making every excuse under the sun to work from home. He’s only here today because he wants to close month-end.’
Timothy was an enigma to Rachel. He came in, did his work and went home again. He was a stealth accountant. He had three book-keeping jobs. He worked two days a week with Rachel at Keatley Marketing, two days a week at a private art school and one day a week for an urban farmers association. In the early days, he had told Rachel he liked working with her the best and that if she could offer him more hours, he’d take them. Rachel knew she frequently forgot about invoices and yesterday only authorised the staff salaries at the very last possible moment. And that was after four very polite email reminders from Timothy.
‘And Wendy hasn’t been given any freelance work in months.’ Eva clicked her fingers under Rachel’s nose; she had already zoned out. Eva laid down the law to her boss. ‘Time for some tough love.’
Rachel nodded in agreement. She was in another world though.
‘Cards on the table? I can run the office with my eyes closed but it’s dead boring doing it on my own.’
Rachel nodded again, having nothing of value to contribute. She promised to do better, to be better. Lydia wasn’t the only one who was out of her depth. Rachel was five foot and three inches underwater. She would have to talk to her PA and book-keeper and ask for their understanding a little longer. Lydia was far too good to lose, and Timothy was great. He never complained about anything and worked autonomously without questions or errors. And she would think of a small project she could throw to Wendy who liked being freelance, charged good rates, and didn’t complain when things were too busy or too quiet.
Eva added that she’d seen Lydia lingering over the job pages in the free paper on the morning commute, and that it wouldn’t take much more rudderless behaviour from their boss for the whole team to start looking elsewhere. Rachel wondered if that was Eva’s way of saying she too was eyeing up other jobs.
Rachel’s phone buzzed. It was David. He was going for drinks after his squash game and would be back late.
Rachel hung up, frowning, and explained this was another lie from her never-husband. ‘You know, he doesn’t even play squash!’
Eva immediately toned down her bad cop tactics and, with a twinkle in her eye, suggested drinks after work.
The restaurant had a garden bar that overlooked the river. Instead, Eva persuaded the waiter that they needed a booth at the back, out of sight but, importantly, by a wi
ndow so they could see the people coming and going at the country club opposite. The two women waited there for David to finish his “squash game”.
Rachel opened the GPS app and found the blinking blue beacon that signified David’s location. He was less than two hundred metres from where they sat. Eva asked the waiter to turn down the music. Rachel was silently relieved. Her taste in music hadn’t changed much with the passing years. It wasn’t that she didn’t like contemporary music, she didn’t understand it – felt no connection to it. There were a handful of songs she genuinely liked and even fewer albums. She could think of only one CD she’d purchased in the last few years: Michael Kiwanuku’s Home Again. Was that what happened when you got older? You bought albums based on the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury? Whatever happened to going to festivals? As he got older, David liked the idea of festivals more than the reality and had listed complaints about the camping, the mud, the noise.
Rachel had always liked her older brother’s favourite bands: The Cure and The Smiths. She loved George Michael and Prince. She still liked to dance to Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ and Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’, and not in an ironic way.
‘It’s only been a few minutes, and already I’m sick of staring at an empty car park.’ Eva waved to the waiter.
She ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir. Rachel was in awe of Eva’s self-assurance. She was a force of nature, attractive and strong. And her taste in wine was impeccable – the bold red tasted sublime. Rachel picked at the label of the wine bottle.
‘Salut!’ said Eva,
‘To not being married,’ Rachel added, and they clinked glasses.
Rachel checked her phone. The flashing blue beacon hadn’t moved.
How to Marry Your Husband Page 11