Lucy began to sob again. “This is unbelievable,” I said.
“At first I didn’t believe her,” choked Lucy. “I sat on the bed with the phone in my hand, vaguely aware that the girls were playing on the landing, but there was this awful feeling of ‘Please, no! This can’t be happening to me.’ It was like a moment out of a film, and even though you’ve seen it a thousand times, you never in your wildest dreams think it’ll happen to you. I rang Edward at work and just came right out with it. ‘Who is Susie?’ I asked him, and there was this awful scared silence and I knew instantly it was true. I just put down the phone, got dressed, and took the children to school. I was on automatic pilot. I don’t remember one thing about the drive or what I said to the girls. I could have been high on drugs, I was so out of it.”
“That’s when your guardian angel steps in and protects you,” I said.
“Well why didn’t her guardian angel step in and stop Edward from having an affair?” asked Jess sarcastically.
“Edward has been unfaithful to me,” hollered Lucy. “Can you believe it? My husband has been playing around for two years. Our marriage is a sham.” She downed another brandy in one swallow. “I’ve wasted all this time being faithful while Edward was cheating on me. I look and feel like an utter, ugly fool.”
“He’s the fool,” I said quietly. I took Lucy in my arms and she fell against me weeping. After a while she pulled away. “Do you know what really hurts?” she said in a little voice that broke my heart. “That Edward had his affair while I only fantasized about having one.”
“Lucy, you are far too decent to betray anyone, let alone the father of your children,” I said, tears welling up. “It was just a mental diversion.”
“It’s not only that I gave up my career, took on the mantle of trophy wife, and then morphed into a loving mother, or that I ran a perfect home and that I was always there, supporting him,” said Lucy, digging her fingers into her eye sockets. “It’s that deep down, I . . . I bloody trusted him.”
Jess and I nodded, not knowing what to say. Lucy gave a twisted laugh. “When I got back from the school run, I went into the house and it was as if our home was in shock too. It was silent and tense and I felt possessed. Do you know what I did? I grabbed a carving knife and went into the drawing room and slashed all Edward’s family’s beloved Old Master paintings. You know why? Because when he gets home tonight, I want him to feel in as much pain as I do.”
Jess clapped. “Good for you. How did it feel?”
“When I was dragging the knife through the canvas it felt incredible,” said Lucy. “The ripping noise was fantastic. It was the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done in my life.” She slumped back. “Oh God, they’re worth a freaking fortune. What am I going to do?”
“They’ll be insured,” I said.
“From robbers, not wives-turned-maniacs,” she said. She let out a tortured sob. “How am I going to get through this?”
“Lucy,” said Jess softly, “you’ve spent so much time being the woman behind the man. Try being the woman behind the woman and see what happens.”
“You’re strong, Luce,” I agreed. “You’ll survive. What I don’t understand is why that bitch had to phone you in the first place.”
“It gets worse.” Lucy bit her lip. “Edward’s lover told me that he bought her a flat eighteen months ago. Half the time he’s not at work but is semi-living with her. Today was the day that he promised her he was moving in with her for good.”
I knew from experience that Lucy would wake unfeasibly early because unhappiness, like loneliness, pushes its jagged edges through sleep and rouses you when you most want to ignore it. I had been exactly where Lucy was now—after leaving Jamie and after my abortion—lying in an alien bed in a friend’s spare room (usually Jess’s), eyes so swollen from crying you could hardly open them, body aching from lack of sleep, mind whirring into self-punishing overdrive, heart pounding with fear yet broken just the same. It was before six when I crept in from the sitting room where I had been sleeping on the sofa, with a cup of tea. Just as I suspected, Lucy was awake, staring at the ceiling, and the room was choked with despair.
I got into bed beside her and handed her the sweet tea. She sat up, took a sip, and said, “I’m forty years old and I’ve never let myself go. I’ve looked after my skin, my hair, and my figure. Edward has never seen me with a greasy fringe, dark roots, an unruly bikini line, or bulging blackheads. For Christ’s sake, I exfoliate my T-zone and loofah every single day. If I’d let my standards slip, if my husband had ever seen me with cracked heels or cellulite, if he’d ever commented on a few strands of nonbleached moustache, or smelled a hint of B.O., maybe I could understand. But to betray me when all I’ve ever done is my best for him, when all I’ve ever done is to love him and look after our children, is unbearable.”
I threw some soggy tissues into the bin and handed Lucy a fresh wad. She turned to me, her face streaked with tears. “I didn’t deserve this.”
“No,” I whispered. “You didn’t.”
“You know what really frightens me, Daise?” I shook my head. “That I don’t think I have the strength to fight for him or the courage to shoulder the pain now that I have lost him.”
“I don’t think you’ve lost him,” I said. “He’s clearly lost the plot but if you want to, you’ll sort it out.”
“What, with Edward buying a flat behind my back and telling some little tart he loves her and is moving in with her? I don’t think so.” Lucy sank back against the pillows. “I’m so ashamed,” she sighed. “What am I going to tell my parents? My children? My friends? The worst thing is that I haven’t done anything wrong and yet I feel mortified because of the slur on our family. On my life.” She started beating the duvet with her fists. “Don’t these bastard men get it? By sticking it elsewhere, they don’t just betray us, they do something far, far worse.” Sobbing, her face puce with pain, Lucy started screaming, “They make us doubt ourselves. When your husband cheats on you, you can no longer trust your own judgment. The man, the marriage, the make-believe-happily-ever-after is all shot to pieces, just so he can feel like a sex god getting his end away in his lunch hour.”
The anger seemed to drain from Lucy as she said, “It’s not just the lies and deceit that really hurt, or even the actual sex. It’s the fact that he lay entwined with another woman and woke up with her. Letting someone see you sleep is far more personal than seeing them awake, no matter what you get up to, because then they see you how you really are in life: vulnerable and alone.” Lucy’s body convulsed with grief. “How am I going to get through this? I’ve never felt lonelier or more scared.”
“When I left Jamie I was petrified of life on my own,” I said softly, stroking Lucy’s arm while she quietly wept beside me. “The only thing you can do is get away and think. For me, living with Mum was the final insult to my ego, but somehow, through the maelstrom of emotion, there would be milliseconds of peace when I felt at one with myself. Over time those milliseconds turn into minutes and minutes into odd hours, and then suddenly you find you’re actually living a better life for yourself than before, regardless of the circumstances, because there is a clarity and hard-won self-respect.”
Lucy blew her nose. “I want to be as brave as you’ve been, Daisy. I want that better life. To feel okay inside.”
“I know,” I said. “We all deserve nothing less.”
It had been just over three weeks since Lucy discovered that Edward was having an affair and once she had ferried her children to her parents where they would feel safe and adored, and where they would be far from the battle being waged between their parents, Luce more or less camped out with me at Jess’s. We spent hours dissecting her plight, dusting down her pain, and allowing her anger to surge.
Just as she was rallying, I fell flat on my face, emotionally speaking. I saw the latest copy of Hello! with Julius and Alice’s wedding plastered across five pages and billed as the society wedding of the year. As I obsessiv
ely pored over every millimeter of every page, I was irrationally focused on the knowledge that even if I had been invited, I would have had nothing to wear. All the women sported those wide-brimmed hats that cost a small fortune and wore family jewelry that had been passed down through generations. The massive three-strand pearl choker that had been Granny’s, the socking engagement rings that had been their great-grandmother-in-law’s, the jaunty teardrop diamond earrings that had been Mummy’s aunt’s. The guests weren’t just rich Sloanes, they were a mix of Euro aristos and the private-jet set. I tried to tell myself that it would never have worked if Julius had married me; can you imagine how tired and scruffy my parents would have looked, like a couple of old badgers next to these smooth, sleek seals, but of course I was devastated. As I stared at Alice, dainty in Empire-line ivory duchess satin, with a glittering tiara that must have weighed a ton, I tried to console myself that her victory was Pyrrhic because couldn’t you tell from Julius’s tight smile that he didn’t love her? But inside I felt the well-worn beat of failure. Let’s face it, she had won.
When the absurdity of life hit—that here we were, me and Lucy, weeping and single at fortyish, as opposed to being happily married and settled—we would collapse in fits of giggles. It was like being back in our flat-sharing days of our early twenties, especially as Jess didn’t see our presence as a barrier to bringing the odd lover home. One evening, Lucy and I returned from the cinema to find a naked man making toast in the kitchen. Without uttering a word, he threw a tea towel over his manhood and winked at us as he took a tray of buttered buns and tea back into Jess’s room. I turned to Lucy and said, “That’ll be Jess’s dick delivery boy.”
“I’m beginning to understand Jess’s penchant for casual sex,” said Lucy, refilling the kettle. “Did you see how buffed he was?” She imitated his cheesy wink and we doubled up. “Why are we bothering to try and have fulfilling relationships when we could get shagged when we need it and spend the rest of the time luxuriating in the bed alone?”
“You know as well as I do that we don’t have the single-mindedness to pull it off,” I said. “I’ve tried casual sexual relationships and they were never quite as casual or sexual as they should have been.”
“But the more you love someone, the more you open yourself up to pain when they betray you,” said Lucy bitterly.
“Here, let’s see what the universal wisdom has to say.” I grabbed my copy of Dating Dharma, opened a random page, and read out: “‘It only takes a minute to get a crush on someone. An hour to like them. A day to love them, but a lifetime to forget them.’”
“Oh, great!” said Lucy. “I’ve only got a lifetime’s misery ahead.”
“Hang on, hang on,” I said. “That can’t have been the real message. I wasn’t fully focused.” I clutched the book to my chest and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I flicked through the book and read, “‘It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives.’ There!” I said triumphantly. “You see, you’ve got to keep positive because who knows what lies ahead?”
The next day I was due to have lunch with my father at Thai Temptations before meeting Lucy and Miles, as Lucy had asked us both to accompany her home so she could collect some clothes before Edward returned from work.
Dad was sitting in his booth with a science book open in front of him, spooning greasy noodles into his mouth. A dribble of soy sauce ran down his chin. He looked old suddenly, or at least fallible, and I felt myself bristle. I wanted him to be strong and supportive—there for me. Suddenly I was sick of my parents looking like they needed a free pass to the nearest mental asylum. Why couldn’t he have been the sort of father who dressed crisply in a city suit with a copy of the Evening Standard tucked under his arm, the type you knew just from looking who had a fat pension amassing in some private account and who fully intended to spend his retirement traveling the world in high style? Unlike my father, who looked one step up from a homeless person and acted the same.
Like most academics, Dad considered clothes an irrelevance. After all, it’s what’s going on upstairs that counts, isn’t it? Who cares if your tie is soup-stained or your cuffs are frayed if your brilliant brain is pulsing with facts and finely calibrated figures? Dad still wears the discount Kickers he bought from Kickback, a seconds store on Wandsworth Bridge Road, nearly thirty years ago. Their rubber-rutted soles are worn down to paper, but educated university types seem addicted to shoes that squelch as opposed to snap and echo through academic stone corridors of power. Bizarrely for an Englishman, Dad is fond of the preppy look—more New England than Home Counties—and so he was wearing a long-sleeved cotton polo neck and chinos darned in various places. His watch was a staggeringly awful black plastic number with a smattering of diamante on the face; a gift from some scientific attaché from South Korea who must have been having a bit of a laugh. Do they know that the only specimen of English gentleman likely to wear their tat is a scientist who firmly believes it’s gauche to care?
I rushed up. “Dad, sorry I’m late.”
“I hope you don’t mind, I started,” he said, without seeming to acknowledge me. “Did you know that they’ve raised the parking meter prices? I’ve got the meter filled until 1:40 p.m. but that cost me nearly six pounds. It’s obscene.”
Yeah, six pounds for the meter and almost eight quid a head for this muck and you’re really shelling out. What must it be to feel utterly spoiled by Daddy? I sank into the booth opposite him. “Mitosis is fascinating,” continued Dad. “Did you know that when a cell splits . . .”
Why do we do this? I thought. What is the point in running through this charade when we never connect on any level that means anything to either of us? I stood up. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”
He looked up, stunned. Finally, I thought, I’ve shocked him into some sort of feeling-induced reaction. “But Daisy,” he said. “You can’t go. I’ve already paid for your meal.” He stared at me beseechingly. “It’s £7.99 a head.” He looked genuinely hurt (yes, a wasted tenner, that’s bound to sting) so I slumped back into my seat. I put my head in my hands, not sure whether to laugh or cry. When I looked back he had actually put his fork down and was viewing me, not with particular concern or alarm, more with the detachment of the scientist, watching and waiting to see what color the litmus paper will turn.
“Dad,” I sighed, “I . . . I . . . just feel that you don’t know who I am anymore. I’m not sure what purpose these lunches really serve.”
“Purpose? Purpose?” he repeated pensively, as if filtering and decoding everything for extra meaning. “Does everything have to have a purpose? In science not everything has a purpose as in ‘What’s the point of it?’ When somebody asked Michael Faraday . . .” Catching my blank expression, he filled me in. “He was the inventor of electricity, Daisy. Anyway, when someone asked Faraday, ‘What’s the point of electricity?’ he answered ‘What’s the point of a newborn child?’” He gave a warm chuckle of delight. “But when Gladstone asked Faraday, ‘What’s the point of electricity?’ Faraday said, ‘You can tax it!’” Tickled pink, Dad was guffawing with laughter, and against my will, I felt myself soften.
“Dad, you once said to me, ‘The difference between you and me, Daisy, is that you’re interested in people and I’m not.’ The problem is that I don’t feel that you’re particularly interested in me because I’m a person. I don’t feel,” I said, looking straight at him, “that we have a connection.”
“You’re quite right,” he said proudly. “I’m not interested in people.” He grinned as if he’d just said, “Forget professional validation and critical acclaim—it’s my family that means everything to me!”
“But how do you have a connection with people if you don’t like them?” I asked.
“I have a connection with what they do. I’m interested in lawyers, in artists, in painters . . .”
“But I don’t have a great jo
b, so what about me? How can you connect with me?” I said, aware that I sounded, as ever, painfully petulant. Daisy—nearly middle-aged and still it’s all about me, me, and more me.
Dad took a sip of water—tap, naturally—and said, “I admire you Daisy because you always try to connect with people even if it means getting hurt.” He continued speaking steadily in his usual measured way. “Ever since your mother and I, well, we . . . we, you know . . .”
“Divorced?” I chirped helpfully.
“Yes, since we divorced, I’ve shied away from that kind of connection. I find books and theories safer, but you’re a great risk-taker, whatever the consequences. You keep searching, as love or that sort of connection clearly means something to you. That, my dear, is to be applauded.”
Afterwards, as I walked to the tube, I felt unusually buoyant. So what if my father wasn’t a wealthy pin-striped slicker with an animal print Hermès tie and Italian loafers? It didn’t matter that he didn’t ply me with compliments or dole out checks on demand. Like my mother, in his batty, offbeat way, he was able to let me know that he cared. Isn’t that what that sort of love connection is all about?
Daisy Dooley Does Divorce Page 12