by Jane Fallon
I know full well that he did. That he’d been gutted when he hadn’t got it.
‘Let’s not watch that,’ he groans. ‘There must be something better on.’ Robert hates watching programmes that he missed out on. Even worse if the actor who got the role he coveted gets any praise or, God forbid, an award nomination. He just assumes that he would have garnered the same attention too had he got the part. Never a doubt in his mind about whether his performance would have been as compelling.
‘No, this looks good,’ I say, pressing the button to watch. It takes all my strength to pretend to be absorbed in it for the next hour and a half. But it beats having to make conversation.
I slope off to bed as early as I can but I don’t sleep at all, just go over and over it in my head. What does the text mean? What happened that made Saskia feel they were close to being caught? Caught doing what (yes, yes, I know). I think back. Last night I phoned Robert to ask if he knew what time he was likely to be home. The studio day finishes at seven but the cast are free to leave once their last scene is completed. A woman answered. Saskia, I now assume. I’d almost forgotten, it was such an insignificant event. Robert always has to leave his phone somewhere when he goes on set. No one wants to be the idiot who ruins a good take because some ironic eighties pop-song ringtone suddenly blasts out mid-scene. I’ve spoken to countless other people over the years who have answered on his behalf.
I didn’t ask her name. Why would I have?
‘Robert Westmore’s phone,’ she said when she answered.
I remember feeling like a bit of a saddo that I was calling my husband at work to ask what time he wanted his tea.
‘Oh, hi. It’s Paula, Robert’s wife.’
I remember that she said, ‘Hey!’ in a very matey way.
‘It’s nothing important. I just wondered what time he was going to wrap tonight. Maybe you could get him to call me if he gets a moment?’
‘No problem, Paula,’ she said.
Twenty minutes later he called me back. Maybe a little flustered, but he often is if we speak when he’s at work. He said that they might overrun a bit but he should be back by quarter past nine, latest. A mundane, routine call.
He got home at nine in the end. Nothing in the way he looked or acted gave away that he had been doing anything other than working. There was no lipstick on his collar, or anywhere else that I could see for that matter. He went straight upstairs for a shower, but then he often does. He was his normal, usual self. Which makes me think his normal, usual self is a man who is having an affair.
After he left this morning I turned on my computer. Googled Saskia Sherbourne. Of course, I already know what she looks like, but now I was confronted with hundreds of glamorous photos of her on red carpets and glitzy nights out. The thing that annoyed me most was how pleased with herself she looked. That ‘oh yes, you think I’m attractive’ smirk. It made me want to punch her.
Of course, she’s slim, verging on half-starved. But she has that kind of round-faced, cleavagey look that – hopefully – doesn’t age well. She’ll be busty barmaid before she knows it. I checked myself for being bitchy. I’ve always tried not to judge people on their looks because I know from personal experience how hurtful that can be. Then I reminded myself she was quite possibly sleeping with my husband so I allowed myself to revel in the two pictures I found of her in a short skirt which showed off her surprisingly straight-up-and-down legs and bony knees.
According to her Wikipedia page, she’s three years younger than me, which probably means we’re the same age. Born Susan Mitchell. Ha! Not so glamorous now. Grew up in Exeter. Went to LAMDA (chip on its shoulder because it’s not RADA). First job Nat West commercial.
I scanned down through the list of her credits, not really interested. Got to Personal Life. The Susan Mitchell/Exeter/LAMDA information was repeated. Married at twenty-seven to Simon, divorced two years later. Then again in 2009 – which would make her either thirty-one or thirty-four at the time, depending on who you believe – to Joshua. They seemed to still be together; no mention of children, no mention of what it is that Joshua does.
There was a link to a profile piece in one of the Sunday magazines so, of course, I tortured myself by reading the whole thing. She’s very grateful for the part in Farmer Giles, which came along just as she was wondering whether or not to call it a day. She would never take the role for granted. It’s important for actors on TV shows to remember they’re just a tiny cog in a huge machine. She reminds herself of this regularly to ensure she remains down to earth. If I didn’t know it was all phoney, I’d probably have thought she was coming across quite well.
In the next paragraph she banged on about how lucky she was to work with Robert. How they’ve become good friends and so they instinctively work well together. I’ve read enough of these kind of interviews to know this could just be PR bullshit but that didn’t stop it infuriating me. It was as if she was taunting me.
I found more interviews with her and then reread old ones with Robert that I must have read before with different eyes. Both of them are always at pains to tell the world how fabulously they get on, how they’re so relaxed around each other they sometimes squabble about the most mundane things, like a real couple. I remember laughing with Robert when we scoured one of these spreads together. Teasing him about the way he managed to make it sound as if he and Saskia were such great friends when, of course, he hated her. I remember him telling me it was important that the viewing public bought into their relationship. That was the key to its success.
‘I’ve never worked with anyone who cared so much’, interview Robert had apparently said, and real-life Robert had read the quote out to me in a mock-serious tone and added ‘about herself’, which had me falling about, I seem to remember.
When actually it seems as if the joke’s on me.
3
Usually, when Robert leaves for work, I go back to bed for an hour or so, but today I was on a mission.
I decided to hunt for clues to back up my suspicions. The text in itself wasn’t enough to build a case on. But if he was up to something there would be other evidence. In a crime scene, I would spray our bedroom with luminol and see where the blood showed up. As it was, all I could do was poke through his personal belongings and hope something jumped out at me as incriminating.
I hated doing this, by the way. I’m not a natural snooper. I’ve always been that person who believes you shouldn’t eavesdrop because you might hear something you don’t like. So I didn’t have a system. I just thought where I would hide my most precious secret things if I were him and started there.
Turned out he doesn’t think the bottom of a suitcase he hasn’t used in at least five years or the underneath of the drawer where he keeps random bits and pieces that I would never have any cause to go near – old receipts, two lighters from when he used to smoke, elastic bands, a Sony Walkman, a broken pedometer … it’s like a museum of his life; we refer to it as the ‘thing drawer’ – are as good places as I would. In desperation, I called my friend and boss, Myra.
‘Hypothetically, if you were going to hide something in your home that you didn’t want anyone else to find, where would you hide it?’
‘Are you talking about Robert?’
‘Hypothetically.’
‘Think about where you’d never look. How about a box of old scripts? Has he got one of those?’
‘I didn’t say it was Robert. But yes, he has.’
‘Try there. If you have no luck, call me back and I’ll come up with another genius suggestion. Actually, call me if you do find anything because I want to know what’s going on.’
I ignored that part and said goodbye. It took me a while to locate the piles of old scripts and call sheets that Robert has accumulated over the series. He’s paranoid about throwing them away because it’s drummed into all the cast and crew that they must never be leaked, as if the journalists of the world are lined up waiting with bated breath for the next implausible Farm
er Giles storyline to break. Eventually, I came across them at the back of a big cupboard in a room we laughingly call the office but which is actually meant as a bedroom for a very tiny person.
There must have been twenty there. I remember that we had a purge a couple of years ago and got rid of all the ones that were for episodes that had already been aired. Robert has signed a few and given them to charities to auction off over the years. I shook them all out one by one and, even though the odd thing fell out (a parking ticket, a tissue), there was nothing that resembled a strange pair of ladies’ knickers or a photo of him and Saskia in a compromising position. I piled them all back up and shoved the pile back into the depths of the cupboard.
I was thinking of phoning Myra again but I decided to rummage through the rest of the junk before I admitted defeat. I pulled out cartridges for a printer that we replaced about three years ago, an early laptop, its shell a garish orange, the empty case for Robert’s old camera. As I picked the soft case up again to replace it I felt a hard lump at its centre. I opened it up and there was a wooden box I’d never seen before. About the size of a pack of cards but three times as deep. Ornate lacquered wood, a beautiful shade of amber. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand before daring to open it.
Inside was a small, intricately carved silver heart, one side flat. A paperweight, I assumed. With a card: ‘Here’s my heart, I told you you could have it. S xxx’
I shoved it back in the box, the box back in the camera case, the camera case back in the cupboard. I piled things on top of it, tried to re-create the mess that was there before.
I warned you there was a reason you should never snoop.
For about an hour I paced around the flat. What was I going to do? How was I going to save my marriage? At last, it hit me. I wasn’t. I didn’t want to. I’d played a supporting role to Robert for too long and this is how he’d repaid me. I was done.
What I am not going to do is let him off lightly. I’m not going to allow him to ride off into the sunset with Saskia fucking Sherbourne and live happily ever after. I’m not going to look at smug spreads in OK! and Hello! as they set up home together. How cute! They played a married couple for five years and then they fell in love for real, their star power magnified exponentially by the number of photographs there are of them together. Fuck that.
So I came up with my plan. Like I said, we’ve drifted apart. He’s stopped noticing me, stopped confiding in me. Started shagging his colleague. I sacrificed everything because I thought we were in it together, but it turns out he was just in it for himself. But if I just confront him with what I’ve discovered I’m scared he’ll be relieved. He’ll be able to move seamlessly into a new life. And I don’t see why it should be that easy.
Most probably, he’d want to wait till Georgia goes to uni in September (medicine at Bristol, thanks for asking, she’s a smart girl) before kissing our marriage goodbye. For selfish reasons, mainly. He wants her to think he’s Dad of the Century. And, to be fair, I wouldn’t dream of disrupting her A levels by dropping a bombshell of this kind on her now. So I have some time. I may as well make use of it.
I am going to turn myself into Robert’s perfect wife. I’ll make myself over physically – Robert has always been big on looks and I know the way I’ve changed bothers him. He used to be proud to have me on his arm; now if we go anywhere together he just looks a bit apologetic. He keeps his distance, as if he’s hoping people might assume I’m his fat assistant, not his wife. I’m sure he doesn’t think I’ve noticed, but I have.
Don’t get me wrong, the way I’ve let myself go bothers me too, but for different reasons. It’s a symptom of the fact I’ve given up. I feel lethargic, unfit, older than my forty-one years. So I’m going to do something about it. Slowly, so he doesn’t notice. I’m banking on the fact that he’s pretty much stopped looking at me. If I keep on wearing the shapeless baggy clothes that have become my uniform, then I don’t think he’ll be too curious about what’s underneath. Then, when I’m transformed, I’ll emerge, butterfly-like, and I’ll take his breath away.
I don’t think he’s so shallow that my simply starting to look more like my old self will win him back. I’m going to go on a charm offensive too. Fake an interest in the day-to-day goings-on in his life, share my own work stories, read up on things that interest him, laugh at his jokes and offer up ones of my own, be there smiling with a G and T in my hand and a casserole in the oven whenever he comes home from work. I’ll try to remember all the things that used to connect us before it all went wrong – what we used to do on days off, what we used to laugh at. I’ll remind him who he fell in love with and, hopefully, he’ll fall in love with me all over again. He’ll dump Saskia and throw his all into his marriage.
And then I’ll tell him it’s all over.
It’ll be my greatest acting role ever.
I want to put my plan in motion before I bottle out. Exactly what that means, though, I’m not quite sure. I have no idea how I’m going to force him to reconnect with me on a mental level but I can at least begin to work on myself. Try to relocate the woman he used to be physically attracted to. But it’s so long since I’ve done any exercise that I have no idea what to do.
The world of fitness is a mystery to me. I know the basic principle is eat less, move more, but beyond that I’m clueless. I decide that walking to work is a good start. It’s not that far – four bus stops – but I’ve never done it on foot since I’ve been there. And anything other than sitting around seems like progress. I eat my usual toast, butter and marmalade breakfast, knowing that’s going to have to change but not feeling ready to think about it yet. I shower and dress, agonizing over footwear, as if I’m off to run a marathon. I settle on a pair of pink Converse I wear to do the weekly shop. The rest of my outfit is the same as I always wear to work – a baggy long top over stretchy black leggings. Very stretchy. My legs have the appearance of sausages threatening to escape their skins. Hair tied up in a high ponytail.
I almost throw in the towel before I’ve even started when Georgia shuffles into the kitchen at about quarter to eight. First thing in the morning she still looks heartbreakingly young in her pink flowery pyjama bottoms, grey T-shirt and no make-up. Can I really do this to her? I remind myself that Robert is the one who seems intent on breaking up our marriage. I would have stayed forever because that was the promise I made.
Georgia yawns, stretching her arms above her head.
‘Did you have fun last night?’ Eliza’s mum dropped her back about five past eleven but I had already claimed a headache and sloped off to bed to think. Despite his early start, Robert had stayed up watching the news. He hates going to bed early.
With you, a voice in my head says, and I block it out.
‘Mmm …’
I know there’s no point even trying to talk to her before she’s had a cup of tea and a bowl of something that looks healthy but almost certainly isn’t.
‘You in first thing today?’ Georgia’s school timetable has gone haywire now that her A levels are approaching. She only has to turn up when she has a class scheduled. The rest of the time is deemed ‘study time’ and the students are expected to be cramming either in the library or at home. Clearly, whoever devised this system had never met a teenager.
She rolls her eyes at me. ‘Why would I be up if I didn’t?’
‘Good point. I’m going in early. Make sure you lock up.’
I kiss the top of her head and leave before she can ask me why.
It’s a beautiful morning. The sun is out and there’s the promise of a warm spring day. I’m feeling positive. I’ve taken charge. Nine and a half minutes later, just before bus stop two, I feel as if I’ve been hit by a truck. My calves are burning and my feet, unused to being used for the purpose for which they were designed, are hurting in places I didn’t know they had. Under my arms dark patches of sweat have formed. I’m a biped. How can simply walking be this hard? Have I really let myself go this much? I try to remember t
he last time I walked any further than the bus stop at the end of our road. Fail.
Behind me I can hear a bus rumbling along. Sod it. That’s enough for day one. I have to trot the last few paces as it overtakes me, and when I heave myself on and sit down I can hear my breathing coming out in gasps. I try again to think when the last time I did any exercise was. Before I worked at the bakery, that’s for sure. So at least five years. I’m hit with a wave of self-loathing.
No wonder Robert looked elsewhere.
I’ve only met Saskia once. Years ago, when the show first started and everyone was still being matey. Before all the petty resentments and jealousies that come with working in close proximity with the same group of people kicked in. Before the cast started counting each other’s column inches and comparing storylines. I haven’t met many of Robert’s work family (as he calls them). Not since the early days anyway. But her face is as familiar to me as my own in the mirror.
I wonder what he’s told her about me and then decide I don’t really want to know. My wife doesn’t understand me. She’s let herself go. We have nothing in common any more. Tick all that apply. For the hundredth time I reread the text message in my mind. Is there any ambiguity? Could I be wrong? Could it just be a jokey text from a colleague? ‘Hope Paula bought it!!! Love you xxx.’ No.
‘Jesus, what happened to you?’ Myra looks me up and down as I sneak past the queuing customers, heading for the back room, my T-shirt soaked in sweat. ‘Is it raining out?’
‘It’s a long story,’ I say.
I have a swift wash in the staff toilet, only remembering at the last minute that there are no paper towels to dry myself with, so I have to lean bits of my body at a time towards the hot-air dryer, which is not as easy as you might imagine, as the air comes out from underneath, and then cram myself into the same sweaty clothes I took off. My ‘Myra’s’ overall (baby-pink retro chic with ‘Myra’s’ embroidered in italics on the breast pocket) will have to act as a shield. Note to self: bring a change of clothes if you’re ever going to attempt to walk to work again. Or maybe just walk home. It’s downhill.