What Holly's Husband Did

by Debbie Viggiano

  I caught the worry in her tone, and it snapped me out of the horror of the last hour.

  ‘Dad’s fine, darling,’ I managed to say between sobs. ‘I’ve left him at the surgery. He's finished with the patient and just doing a bit of paperwork.’

  Sophie scrutinised me. Her father was doing paperwork at the office on a Friday night? I could see she didn’t buy it.

  ‘You’re shaking. And you never cry. Tell me the truth. What’s happened?’

  I said the first thing that came into my head. ‘On the way home, I ran over a fox.’

  ‘Oh no! Did you kill him?’

  I shook my head, as I thought of Alex driving off with Jeanie. ‘N-no, he got away.’

  ‘Oh, Mum. Poor you. Let me give you a hug.’ My daughter once again wrestled me into her arms, squeezing me the way I used to tightly enfold her as a little girl when she’d scraped a knee. It made me cry even harder. Suddenly, and for the first time ever, my daughter was the one in the parental role.

  ‘I-I’ll be fine,’ I stammered, whipping out a tissue from my sleeve and dabbing frantically at my eyes.

  ‘You’re in shock.’

  ‘Yes.’ Too bloody right.

  ‘Come into the kitchen,’ said Sophie, taking me by the arm and leading me gently, as if I was a five-year-old. ‘I’ll make you a nice cup of tea with lots of sugar. It’s meant to be good in situations like this.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied, thinking that a brandy might be preferable, and no messing about with glasses, just neck it straight from the bottle. I had an overwhelming desire to pass out. Anything to make the hurt stop.

  I sat hunched on one of the tall stools while my daughter busied herself filling the kettle, grabbing a mug, sniffing the milk dubiously from the fridge and ladling sugar into boiling water. At this rate I’d be drinking syrup, not tea. My body was now giving involuntary shakes, as if it couldn’t quite decide whether it was cold.

  ‘Here,’ said Sophie, ‘get this down you. Do you want a chocolate biscuit?’

  I shook my head and glugged gratefully. The hot liquid scalded my throat and the sweetness instantly coated my teeth with a sugary film. Sophie monitored me, rather like a beady-eyed nurse, as I worked my way through the half pint mug. Gradually the shudders ceased. I was left feeling wrung out.

  ‘Better?’ she asked, taking one of my hands in hers.

  ‘Much,’ I said, giving her a watery smile. ‘You’ll make a great mum one day.’

  She grinned back. ‘That’s because I’ve had a great mum to teach me.’

  I damn well nearly burst into tears again.

  ‘Will you be okay if I go back to my room? Only I promised Lizzie I’d give her a call before nine o’clock. We need to sort out what we’re doing tomorrow night when I have a sleepover with her. Caro has suggested we watch a film, but we’re quite keen to stay in with a pile of sweets, and practice giving each other a make-over.’

  ‘I’m fine now,’ I patted her hand reassuringly, ready to take back the parenting reins from my girl who was keen to revert to teenage mode. ‘You go and ring Lizzie. In fact, I might give her dear mama a call. Caro is always good at lending an ear.’ I wasn’t quite sure what Caro would have to say when I told her that I’d discovered exactly who our friend was having a fling with, and that her husband’s jokey comment about Alex and Jeanie having an affair was an unhappy truth.

  ‘Here,’ said Sophie, handing me my mobile. ‘Have a good chinwag with Caro.’

  ‘Thanks, darling.’

  My daughter skipped off, and I ran one hand wearily over my face. But before I could even tap out Caro’s number, the phone dinged with a text message. I read it with disinterest and then, as horror registered, read it again.

  Holly, we need to talk. Urgently.

  I went cold. The text was from Ray.

  39

  I’d barely finished re-reading the text message when my mobile exploded into life, making me jump violently and drop the damn thing. It skittered across the worktop, striking out precariously at the edge, but fortunately didn’t smash to the floor below. I snatched it up.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Holly, it’s Ray.’

  As if I didn’t know. ‘Hello, Ray.’

  ‘You sound nervous.’

  ‘Er, yes, I am a little.’

  ‘As well you might.’ God, he sounded livid. ‘I’ve tried ringing Alex, but he’s not picking up.’

  ‘Ah.’ Well if I was Alex, I wouldn’t want to pick up the phone to a husband on the warpath either.

  ‘I take it you know what’s been going on,’ Ray demanded.

  ‘I’ve had my suspicions.’

  ‘How long have they been meeting like this?’

  ‘Well I don’t know for sure, but certainly since last Christmas.’

  ‘Last Christmas?’ Ray’s voice was harsh. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

  ‘How could I?’

  ‘How could you not?’ he spluttered.

  ‘Sometimes ignorance is bliss,’ I countered, my voice low.

  ‘What sort of attitude is that? Actually, I’ll tell you,’ he spat, not waiting for me to answer. ‘It’s a cop out, that’s what it is.’

  ‘I’m sorry you think that,’ I said, my voice starting to quaver with emotion, ‘but actually this isn’t just about you, you know.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ he asked, sounding incredulous. ‘Who else is involved?’

  ‘Me!’ I cried. ‘For God’s sake, Ray,’ I said, aware that my tone was getting shrill, ‘Jeanie has mentioned in the past that you can be insensitive but—’

  ‘Oh she has, has she!’

  ‘–But this takes the flaming biscuit! I have feelings too, or is this just all about you?’

  ‘You’ve got a cheek, Holly,’ Ray growled. ‘Your husband earns wads of money—’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Good heavens, was he already jumping down the divorce route, thinking about settlements, pointing out I’d be all right because of what my husband earned?

  ‘–And you work part-time for Alex, no doubt at a hugely inflated salary thanks to your name being down as a Company Secretary, or some such fancy wording. The pair of you are rolling in clover, but in this household, it’s just the one person working.’

  Oh my God, he really was only interested in the financial side of it all. Never mind about broken hearts, or his children’s devastation that their parents would be separating. For Ray, it all boiled down to money, and the fact that he was going to be out of pocket when he had to give half the house to Jeanie.

  ‘I must say, Ray, I don’t care for your attitude at all. I thought you might be just a tiny bit compassionate about my feelings in all this.’ My voice wobbled alarmingly and once again I found my eyes filling up.

  ‘Don’t try and pull the overflowing tear-duct trick on me,’ he sneered. ‘I’ve already got Jeanie here trying to defend her actions.’

  ‘Jeanie’s home?’ I asked, deeply shocked.

  ‘Yes. She has been for the last ten minutes, frantically trying to plead with me and make me understand there were good reasons why she did it.’

  ‘Good reasons?’ I repeated, my gaze falling upon the riot of tiny dots within the granite worktop, the odd one glittering underneath the kitchen spotlights. What the hell was Ray talking about?

  ‘Don’t play dumb, Holly. You know perfectly well that Jeanie has been meeting Alex secretly.’

  ‘Y-yes,’ I stammered. That much was true. But I wasn’t quite sure how my treacherous friend was trying to blag her way out of things by saying it was justified. At that moment I heard Alex’s key in the front door.

  ‘I want a word with that chuffing husband of yours. Is he home yet?’

  As Alex came into the kitchen, I looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Yes, he’s literally just walked in.’

  ‘Put him on the phone, Holly. Now!’

  ‘My pleasure,’ I said sarcastically, before rounding on my husband. ‘Guess who wants to speak to you?�
� I enquired sweetly. ‘Ray. He wants some questions answered. And frankly, so do I.’ Alex scowled, and held out a hand for the phone. Angered, I slapped the mobile into his palm, then folded my arms across my chest. All I needed was a rolling pin and hair-rollers, and I’d look like Andy Capp’s wife.

  ‘Ray!’ Alex barked. ‘Was there really a need to ring my wife? I’d have been more than happy to have talked directly to you. I see. Well, to answer your question, yes I have been seeing Jeanie.’ What a good thing I wasn’t armed with that rolling pin otherwise I might have physically struck Alex. ‘Your wife has paid me a total of one thousand pounds.’

  Pardon?

  ‘Yes, I agree Jeanie shouldn’t have gone behind your back, but surely you want your daughter to have a smile she’s not self-conscious about? The other guy she saw wasn’t prepared to do anything about it. My treatment is in Charlotte’s best interests. Okay, I’m sorry you feel that way, but I gave Jeanie a discount of two thousand pounds as a favour, and frankly I don’t need to listen to your stream of invective. Good-bye.’ Alex disconnected the call and handed me back the mobile. ‘Blasted man. You try and do someone a favour and it just comes back to bite you on the bum.’

  ‘Alex, where have you been?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he huffed. ‘I’ve been with Jeanie. This month’s instalment on Charlotte’s brace was due.’

  Charlotte’s brace. Yes, Jeanie had told me as such at my dinner party. But how long did it take to pick up an instalment?

  ‘You’ve been gone ages,’ I said carefully. I didn’t want to make accusations if there was a genuine reason for Jeanie and Alex meeting, but nonetheless my husband had been gone for over two hours.

  ‘I can tell the time, Holly,’ my husband snapped, his tone now one of irritation. ‘I made a private arrangement with Jeanie to treat her daughter with an orthodontic brace. She didn’t want Ray knowing about it, because he’d already said no to Charlotte having the treatment. I warned Jeanie at our dinner party that secrets have a horrible way of coming out.’ I listened intently, as the pennies rolled around in my brain, clattering into place one by one. ‘I drove over to Jeanie to collect this month’s instalment for Charlotte’s treatment, but Jeanie texted me ahead saying Ray was home early and to meet her further up the road. She was bawling, so I told her to get in the car and took her for a quick drink. She said Ray had seen their bank statement and was questioning why they were overdrawn.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Oh indeed,’ Alex sighed. ‘Anyway, what’s the matter with you? You look like you’ve been crying.’

  I stared at my husband, wide-eyed. There was a perfectly plausible explanation for him being with Jeanie. He wasn’t having an affair with my friend. The relief was so enormous I thought I might faint. Adrenalin was whooshing around my body. This wasn’t good. I seemed to be in constant fight-or-flight mode, with my whole being over-reacting. One minute I was in tears, the next I was accusing my husband of all sorts and behaving atrociously – from stalking Facebook folk like Annabelle, to shadowing my husband in my car. Was I going mad? I let out a whimper.

  ‘Well have you?’ asked Alex.

  ‘No,’ I lied. ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘You look it,’ said Alex, his tone gentler this time. ‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Please,’ I said, thinking I’d be swimming in tea at this rate. Suddenly I felt ashamed at the way I’d been carrying on. Thank God Alex had not spotted me earlier in his rear-view mirror. I offered up another prayer of thanks that I hadn’t blurted anything about an affair to Ray. I closed my eyes for a moment. That had been a close call. Too close. It was quite obvious I was losing the plot. Maybe even going mad. I needed to see my GP. Ask for some anti-depressants, or something. Maybe have counselling. Cognitive Brain Therapy, or whatever it was called.

  ‘Here,’ said Alex, putting a steaming mug in front of me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmured. On impulse, I leapt off the stool and flung my arms around his neck.

  ‘Steady,’ he said, as I nearly sent him flying backwards. ‘It’s only a cup of tea I’ve given you, not diamonds.’

  I let out a shaky laugh. ‘I need a hug,’ I said, my words muffling against his shoulder.

  He patted me on the back, a bit like one would burp a baby, then gently disengaged himself. ‘I’m a bit tired, Holly,’ he said, by way of explanation.

  Immediately my spirits sank. Being too tired for sex was one thing, but since when was a husband too tired to give his wife a hug?

  40

  The following morning, when I was putting the breakfast plates in the dishwasher, the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Holly, it’s me,’ said a subdued voice.

  I paused, mid-stack. ‘Jeanie, hi. How are you?’

  ‘Feeling wretched,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve rung to apologise for my husband being so rude to you and Alex last night.’

  ‘Shouldn’t he be the one to do that?’ I said lightly.

  ‘Yes, except he’s a pig-headed, stubborn-minded, idiotic—’

  ‘I get the picture,’ I interrupted. ‘So where is Mr Angry this morning?’

  ‘Out. Don’t ask where, because I don’t know. We’re not talking. He’s still livid about me paying for Charlotte’s orthodontics behind his back, plus lying to him that it was being done on the NHS, rather than privately with Alex.’

  ‘Well, never mind,’ I sighed. ‘What’s done is done. I’m sure things will blow over.’

  ‘I’m sorry you got roped into it, Holly.’

  ‘No worries. Alex and I had our own exchange of words last night, culminating in him removing himself from the dinner table and taking himself off for a drive. I did wonder, at the time, where he was going.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said, curiosity piqued. ‘I didn’t think Mr and Mrs Perfect ever rowed.’

  ‘We’re not Mr and Mrs Perfect,’ I said, slightly irritated. ‘And we hadn’t rowed, as such. It was more … a difference of opinion.’

  ‘About what? Tell me, Holly. I like to know other couples have “a difference of opinion” and it’s not just me and Ray currently at loggerheads.’

  ‘I can’t really talk,’ I said, lowering my voice, and glancing beyond the kitchen door to make sure Alex wasn’t hovering. I was pretty sure he was in his usual Saturday morning repose – horizontal on the sofa in front of a sports channel. ‘It was something and nothing,’ I murmured into the handset, ‘he took umbrage about a comment I made regarding one of his colleagues involved with the trigeminal neuralgia charity. It didn’t go down too well.’

  ‘Ah. Yes, never ridicule or complain about their stuffy male friends, even if they are the most boring farts on the planet.’

  ‘Except this particular friend is female, very beautiful, and has probably never farted in her life – or if she has, it’s most likely puffs of glitter.’

  Jeanie giggled and I joined in. Oh the relief that my dear friend wasn’t having an affair with my husband! I abandoned the dishwasher and, handset clamped to one ear, walked off to the study. Grabbing a biro from the pen pot, I flicked through my desk diary and turned to the upcoming page for Monday. The ink flew across the paper. Make an appointment to see GP regarding rampant imagination and discuss counselling! I chucked the pen down on the page and returned to the kitchen.

  ‘Are you still seeing you-know-who?’ I whispered.

  At the other end of the phone there was a pause. When Jeanie next spoke, it was to address her daughter.

  ‘Charlotte, you’ve left the fridge door open. Well if you don’t close it, things will go off! It’s a perfectly reasonable request to ask you to shut the—’

  There was the sound of an almighty bang and my handset positively reverberated from the noise. I gathered Charlotte had slammed the kitchen door in Jeanie’s face. Nice to know it wasn’t just my teenager who was partial to rocking wooden panels off their hinges.

  ‘That girl!’ Jeanie hissed. ‘Honestly,
where’s the gratitude?’

  ‘So, now the door is shut – to both the fridge and the kitchen – you can answer my question,’ I prompted.

  Jeanie heaved a sigh that sounded like it was coming from the very foundations of her house. ‘If you must know, we’ve decided to try and stop seeing each other.’

  ‘Try?’ I queried.

  ‘He’s intoxicating, Holly. But, yes, I’m definitely going to try and stay away from him, and he has said the same thing about me.’

  ‘Good. I’m sure you’re both doing the right thing,’ I said. ‘So, given that you’ve both made this decision, can you now tell me who he is?’

  ‘No, Holly,’ Jeanie’s reply was both instant and adamant. ‘I haven’t told Caro either, so don’t be miffed. It’s better this way. Some secrets must be exactly that. Secrets.’

  I privately conceded that Jeanie had a point. After all, Caro had already been careless in a drunken moment and told David about Jeanie’s infidelity, and I’d done the same with Alex.

  ‘When did you both make the decision to stay away from each other?’ I asked.

  ‘Last night.’

  The doorbell interrupted our conversation. I knew Alex wouldn’t get up to answer it, so padded through to the hallway with the phone still to one ear.

  ‘Someone’s at the door, Jeanie. I’d better go. We’ll catch up next week.’

  ‘Sure. Oh, and enjoy your dinner dance. It’s tonight, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I grimaced. Today was the day I was going to transform myself into The Most Amazing Looking Woman in Great Britain. Well, one could hope. ‘See you soon. Bye.’ I hung up, and then opened the door. Ray was standing on the doorstep, and looking sheepish.

  ‘I’m not stopping,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve been driving around, getting my head together, cooling off after my ding-dong with Jeanie. I found myself in your road, so thought I’d do the decent thing and apologise for my outburst last night.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ I said. ‘We all say things in the heat of the moment, and I can appreciate you were cheesed off about the deception.’