by Jane Fallon
‘We haven’t sorted out the details yet.’
‘And you’ve always been on at me to learn golf. I could come for a lesson with you.’
He scoffs. ‘You hate golf.’
I do. I hate it. It’s up there with darts and motor racing for me. Sports that really should not be called sports. ‘Only because I’ve never tried it. It’ll be fun. Anyway, Myra’s already got someone in to cover for me, so you’re stuck with me now.’
‘Fine,’ he says, with complete disregard for how curt he sounds.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ I say, turning on the tears. Just enough to make him feel bad, not so much he wants to run a mile. I do a good job of looking like I’m trying to hold them back too. Look away, as if I’m trying to hide them from him.
He softens, because he’s not a monster. I don’t think for a moment he wants me to be unhappy, whatever he’s doing.
‘I am, love. I just wish you’d have talked to me about it first. Maybe the following week would have been better …’
‘I wanted to surprise you. I didn’t think.’
He leans over and kisses me on the top of the head. ‘I appreciate it, thank you.’
‘And if you have plans, that’s fine,’ I say, knowing that I’ve pissed on his bonfire so thoroughly that he won’t feel invincible enough to sneak off for extended periods of time any more. And I can make sure he doesn’t anyway, by springing the odd surprise on him here and there. ‘I’m happy pottering around on my own, you know that.’
When I text Josh to tell him what I’ve done, I get a smiley face back in return.
12
I’m back outside West1 Hot Yoga!, this time by arrangement. I sent Saskia a friendly text a couple of days ago – ‘Fancy brunch on Saturday?’ – and she almost bit my hand off to accept.
She’s positively glowing, although whether from the Bikram or the extended session I’m pretty sure she had with my husband when Josh and I were both at work on Thursday I don’t know. It was pretty surreal knowing it was going on (when I’d told him I’d be home from work a bit late – because of Chas and his metallic torture implements, although I didn’t fess up to that, obviously – he said he wouldn’t be there anyway because he’d arranged a game of golf with the pro at the club he’s a member of in Highgate) but not being able to do anything about it. I’d tried to channel my anger into my exercise, like I’d read people apparently did, but all that happened was that I told Chas he was an arsehole when he asked me to hold a bigger weight the third time I did a set of step-ups on to the box.
Anyway, whatever is going on with Saskia, she looks well. She gives me a hug and tells me how lovely it is to see me.
‘You look really good,’ she says disingenuously.
‘You too.’ She’s wearing a pair of white rolled-up jeans and a tight raspberry-coloured top that shows off her mighty cleavage to anyone who’s interested. Some kind of fancy flip-flops. Her legs and arms are tanned a honey stain that’s too perfect to be natural. She’s still looking as toned as ever so I imagine Josh is losing the battle to have her eat herself fat. I tug my T-shirt down over my stomach and hate myself for doing it at the same time.
‘How are you enjoying the break? I thought you might have gone away.’
‘Well, of course Josh doesn’t get the time off, does he? And it’s no fun on your own. And all my girlfriends are working, so poor old me is stuck at home on her lonesome.’
I seize on that, putting down the menu I’ve just picked up. ‘Oh yes! Wasn’t it the story conference last week? Robert’s always on eggshells, wondering what awful fate they’re going to impose on him.’
‘Tell me about it.’
I fake a laugh. ‘Surely you don’t have to worry. Josh wouldn’t dare.’
She gives me a pious look. ‘I’ve always told him he mustn’t treat me any differently to the rest of the cast.’
Yeah, right. ‘So have you got any spoilers? Or is he sworn to secrecy?’
There’s a pause where she thinks about whether or not she can tell me her bad news. On balance, she likes me, and she knows that, being married to one of the other actors, I know the rules, so I think she will. I wait patiently.
‘Usually, but … oh God, Paula, you mustn’t tell anyone, not even Robert …’
‘Of course not. I haven’t even told him we’re friends, remember.’
So she takes me through the whole thing. How challenging it’s going to be and how Josh said she would probably win awards. I feign surprise when she gets to the bit about having to pile on weight.
‘Wow. That’s dedication! Good for you.’
‘I know this sounds shallow, but I don’t know if I can.’
‘Trust me, it’s easy.’
‘Haha. You know what I mean. What if I can’t lose it again and then I’m …’ She peters out, probably realizing she’s about to insult me.
‘You will. Think of it as a challenge. Josh’s right, you’ll be drowning in BAFTA nominations.’
‘Do you think?’ she says, looking hopeful for the first time, and I think, God, they’re so alike, her and Robert. They just want praise and attention. They’re like that needy girl at school who knew she was prettier than everyone else but needed to hear it said. Repeatedly.
‘Definitely. And hey, I can help you. I’m an expert.’
‘You really should stop putting yourself down all the time,’ she says, which is a nice thing to say, I have to admit.
The waitress appears to take our order. Saskia goes for her usual salad Niçoise with the dressing on the side.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ I say. ‘Pick something more lardy.’
She makes a show of protesting and then she selects a baked potato with cheese and butter. The sweaty ladies of West1 Hot Yoga! would have a stroke.
‘Extra cheese,’ I say on her behalf. ‘And extra butter. Extra everything.’
I order the salad Niçoise for myself, force myself to ask for the dressing on the side.
‘How about you?’ she says as we wait for our food. ‘Are you and Robert jetting off somewhere?’ There’s not a hint, not the tiniest giveaway, that she knows anything. I assume Robert’s told her about our ‘staycation’ by now. How I sprung it on him and ruined his summer. I decide to mess with her head a bit. When I told Josh we were meeting up – having filled him in on the history – his advice was not to keep playing the sympathy card.
‘She’ll see a weakness and she’ll pounce. Sas doesn’t really do female solidarity. Or empathy, for that matter. Where you might start to feel sorry for the other woman, she’ll just see an opportunity.’
I interrupted him. ‘I wouldn’t be doing it in the first place.’
‘Well, yes, there is that. All I’m saying is that I don’t think trying to get her to feel sorry for you will work.’
I wanted to say, ‘She sounds lovely, I can see why you want to save your marriage,’ but of course I didn’t.
‘No, we left it too late,’ I tell her now. ‘Although Robert’s persuaded me to have a couple of weeks off work so we can at least spend some time together.’
This isn’t the story in so far as she is concerned. In the – true – version that she will have been presented with, Robert was as horrified as I imagine she was by my decision. I watch for a reaction and, because she’s not that good an actress, she can’t help but give away that this is news to her. She covers it up quickly, though.
‘How lovely. You’re getting on better then?’
‘You know, actually, we are. Just the last couple of weeks he’s been, well … let’s just say, really attentive.’
I raise an eyebrow in a way that I hope conveys that Robert’s and my sex life has swung back into action. It works (God, I’m good). Saskia looks a little as if she might be sick. She gives me what I can only describe as a grimace. A rictus grin that has nothing behind the eyes.
‘Wow. That’s great. I’m so pleased for you.’
‘Me too! I don’t know what’s hap
pened but we’ve been a bit like randy teenagers for the past week or so.’ I almost laugh as I say this. It’s so far from the truth. Her expression is priceless. Eyes wide, mouth open. ‘I mean, sorry to be so graphic but … you know … I know I can trust you.’
Actually, I am taking a bit of a risk that this gem will make her forget our agreement to keep our friendship a secret and she’ll storm straight over to confront him. Deep down, I know she won’t, though. She would never want to risk him finding out she’s been sneaking around, discussing him with his wife behind his back. It would make her look far too insecure.
‘Of course you can. No wonder you’re looking so well.’ She attempts a laugh. Settles instead on a dry ‘haha’. I wonder if I do look different. Better. In the couple of weeks since I saw her last I’ve done more exercise than in the previous ten years combined.
‘So what are you planning to do with your two weeks off? Now that Robert’s “persuaded” you?’ She can’t help herself, she has to know the details. ‘What treats has he got in store?’
‘I’m not sure yet. He’s being very mysterious.’
‘Gosh. How exciting.’
‘I think he just feels guilty for being a bit distracted lately. I feel bad now about ever mentioning that to you. I was over-reacting, I think.’
She’s squeezing a corner of her napkin in her fist. I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it. I savour the moment.
‘Let’s hope so. I’m sure you’re right.’
We sit there in silence for a moment. I’m buzzing from my tiny victory. Saskia has a face like fury, as if she blames poor old me for the fact that my husband is apparently showing signs of caring.
‘He said something at work on Friday about you taking Georgia to the airport last weekend …’
I knew it! Robert had tried to protest that George was only going away for a few weeks so it didn’t need two of us waving her off and making a show of ourselves. And I knew, I just knew, that he was hoping he could sneak off and meet Saskia then. Josh would think she was at Bikram. I would be hanging around, otherwise engaged in Luton. It would have been the perfect crime. So I made a big thing about George having said she wanted us both there. How she was being all sentimental because it was her last summer before she left home. A little while later he’d sneaked out ‘for a run’, no doubt mobile in hand. One point to me.
There’s no need for me to tell Saskia all that, though.
‘Well, I did. He cried off because he would have had to get up too early, bless him. I left him sleeping in like a teenager.’
Honestly, if someone knew how to develop an invisible camera that you operated with just the blink of an eye, I would stump up the money for it right now, just to capture her expression.
‘Oh. From the way he was talking about it, I thought it was a matter of life or death.’ She’s trying to pass it off as a joke but I know her brain must be screaming out that he lied to her. That they had the perfect opportunity to meet up but, for some reason, he chose to make up an excuse.
‘Typical Robert,’ I say, and roll my eyes in a way I hope conveys affection.
I feel I’ve done enough for one day. Now, she’s the paranoid, insecure one. I don’t want to risk losing her altogether, although I imagine curiosity is going to make her desperate to meet up again.
‘How was yoga?’
‘Fine.’ I wait for more. For the usual yapping nonsense. But she’s concentrating on her newly arrived baked potato – the size of a small submarine – like it’s a script she has to learn for tomorrow.
I leave my dressing firmly on the side and tackle my salad.
Because I’m going to have to cancel two weeks of sessions with Chas, I’ve scheduled extra for this week, knowing that Robert will be off most days, trying to understand why his carefree, confident lover has suddenly become clingy and suspicious. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate Chas and all he stands for with a passion (that’s not fair, he’s perfectly nice, I would just rather never have to see him again) but I am on a mission. As Saskia expands, so I’ll contract.
I’ve picked the middle two weeks of Robert’s break to take as holiday. It felt the most disruptive. This way, hopefully, Saskia will be in a mood with him for the next few days, following my bombshell, but unable to tell him why. Then she’ll spend a fortnight wondering what he and I are up to, unable to call him when she wants, at the mercy of him contacting her. And then it’ll only be a week till filming recommences, during which time, almost inevitably, relations will be strained, because I will have laid it on thick about what a great time we had. Hardly the long summer idyll they were hoping for.
I arrive home from work every day, bruised and battered, bits of me I didn’t even know I had screaming in protest. Despite Chas’s efforts to stretch me senseless at the end of each workout, I ache like I’ve never ached before. I’ve been sick once (after he made me push a heavy wooden box up and back along the gym floor), cried twice (when he asked me to push the heavy wooden box for a second and third time), and sworn more times than even I think is acceptable. Through it all, Chas has smiled his big, cheerful smile with his big, white, straight teeth and barked words of encouragement. I tell him I want to punch him so he suggests we add boxing into our routine from now on. I’m too worn out to argue.
There is no denying that bits of me are getting smaller, though. Random bits, like the couple of inches just above my knees and the wobbly stuff that hangs over the side of my bra. Chas tells me everyone is different but he’s reassuring about the fact that the rest of my body will catch up soon. I won’t end up essentially a fat person but with unfeasibly small upper knees and bras that are too baggy. All my clothes already feel looser to one degree or another, and there is something that I think resembles muscle tone appearing under my surface. Deep under the surface, but still. On the third day I walk all the way home after my hour with Chas and I actually enjoy it. I decide that I must have been brain-snatched by aliens. This can’t be me.
Robert is absent every afternoon except one when I get home so I lie in a hot bath and soothe my war wounds. I try not to think about where he is and what he’s doing. Josh and I compare notes about timings and excuses given and we’re both pretty certain they have spent most days together, although where, we have no idea. I scour our bedroom for signs, just in case Robert has the nerve to bring her here, but I don’t find any stray blonde hairs or catch a waft of her cloying flowery perfume anywhere. When I tell Josh this he admits he’s been doing the same. Although what he actually says is that he scoured their bed with a magnifying glass for unfamiliar pubes, which makes both of us slightly hysterical when we think about the absurdity of it.
In the evenings Robert and I sit in – what must seem to him – companionable silence with a bottle of wine and the TV. I never quiz him about what he’s been doing with his day, I don’t mention that his breath smells of wine when he tells me he’s spent the afternoon walking in Hyde Park, or that there’s a faint smear of pink lipstick near his left ear when he’s describing the frustrating time he had in John Lewis, trying to find us a new chest of drawers. I don’t even tell him I don’t want a new chest of drawers, nor have I ever said I do. I smile and I laugh and I make jokes and laugh at his. Who wouldn’t want to be married to me?
On the Friday evening, when Robert finally gets back from a ‘game of golf’, he seems frazzled. Agitated. Hardly the demeanour of a man who has spent all day wandering around the countryside in pursuit of a ball he keeps losing. For someone who tans easily, there isn’t a speck of colour on his face on this beautiful, sunny summer day. I have to stop myself from asking if he wore a veil, or if Highgate has its own microclimate which meant he was under cloudy skies while I bathed in sunlight. I went a shade darker just walking home, despite the factor thirty, that’s all I’m saying.
Of course, what I actually do is ask about his game (conveniently played against someone I have never met, someone he got to know at the golf club and seems to have no intenti
on of ever seeing outside). His heart’s not in it, though. Something’s happened.
When I get a moment I send Josh a text, asking if he’s safe to talk. The reply I get back says, ‘No. Half an hour?’ I can’t risk it. Robert has gone for a shower but then we’re in for the duration.
‘Can’t’, I reply. ‘Tomorrow?’
We agree to chat once Saskia has safely left for Bikram. I’m half tempted to try to arrange to meet up with her, but I’ve already told Robert my Saturday-morning massage session has been cancelled. I’m eaten up with curiosity, though, so I send Josh another message:
‘She seem OK?’
I’m still waiting for a response when Robert strolls back in and heads for the cupboard to get the wine glasses. Later, when I get the chance to look, there it is:
‘No, actually’.
Saskia was red-eyed, he tells me when we speak in the morning. I’m walking around the park in circles, having told Robert I was going on an emergency mission to get milk because we’d run out. This involved me having to pour what semi-skimmed we did have down the kitchen sink when he wasn’t looking. I knew he wouldn’t argue, though. Neither of us can contemplate facing the day without coffee.
‘Do you think they’ve broken up?’ I ask, breathless. ‘It seems too easy.’
There’s a pause and then he speaks. ‘I checked her phone when she was asleep. Nothing, obviously.’
‘Christ, it’s so frustrating not knowing what’s going on.’
‘I wonder how they communicate,’ he says.
‘Telepathy,’ I say, and he laughs. ‘That’s how intense their relationship is.’
‘I feel as if I have no idea who she is any more.’ He sighs. I sit down on a bench, my face in the sun, wait for him to speak.
‘Maybe I should cut my losses …’
‘Just wait. We have no idea what’s going to happen.’ I watch as a little girl in a red hoody flaps along after a pigeon.
‘Do you think I’m an idiot for wanting to stay with her?’
‘It’s not about what I think.’ I stand up and keep walking. Might as well get some exercise in as we talk.