by Lucy Dawson
Do I regret that decision? No. If Claudine didn’t exist, I’m pretty sure we would have absolutely no problems at all.
But she’s very much real and, as far as she is concerned, it’s not her sleeping with someone else that destroyed her marriage and broke up her family: it’s me.
From the moment she realized Marc wasn’t going to let me bow out of the picture after all, she has done her utmost to try and convince him – sometimes sober, sometimes very much not, occasionally in tears, often shouting – that they are meant to be together, and that he will eventually see that.
A typical phone call will consist of her ranting away in French – she always becomes angry enough for me to hear her from the other side of the room – with Marc saying things like, ‘I’m not going to do that,’ or, ‘That’s not going to happen,’ over and over. She will, by turns, become cajoling or pleading, then angry and frustrated. It’s amazing what you can glean from a conversation you understand less than half of, just from the tone.
As soon as Marc told her he wanted the children to meet me, she took the gloves off completely. She ‘lost’ their passports, meaning Marc had to drop our plans and go over to Paris at a moment’s notice instead. The next time they were too ‘ill’ to travel to the UK, and once she had run out of excuses, she announced instead that she intended to once again contest the already hideously dragging divorce. It was ostensibly on money grounds, but really it’s because she knows all the time that she and Marc remain technically married, our lives remain in limbo. I can’t deny it’s put a massive strain on our relationship, her looming over my happiness like a malevolent black crow.
We did split up temporarily two months ago – I shift uncomfortably, changing down a gear to go around a corner and really not wanting to think about that – but we somehow managed to come through it. I assumed Claudine would absolutely flip when Marc told her we’d got back together and, to cap it all, become engaged, but oddly, she had gone quiet.
‘Perhaps at last she’s got the message,’ said Marc hopefully. ‘She must realize that she’s never going to get what she wants. I think there’s a real chance she might give up, and actually agree to the divorce.’
But now I see she was just building up to this. She’s fully aware it’s my fortieth birthday tomorrow because we asked her if the children could come over, and she said no – they already had ‘plans’ for that weekend and, in any case, the children had no desire to celebrate anything with me. ‘“The children detest Sophie,”’ Marc said incredulously. ‘That’s actually what she said.’
‘Wow,’ I said, after a pause. ‘That’s a really strong word.’
‘Hey!’ he replied, appalled. ‘They don’t at all.’ He drew me into a hug. ‘You know they don’t – it’s just her being a bitch, Soph.’ He sighed. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll talk to her again when she’s calmer.’
Except, of course, that never seems to happen. She is only capable of extreme actions, this woman who I have never met, and who seems intent on punishing me for something I’ve not done. I didn’t wreck her life – she did that all by herself. However sad it is that, as a result, her husband is not coming back, she remains so consumed by jealousy and hatred, all she wants to do is hurt me.
She really wants to hurt me.
I think about that man in my room, touching my hair, whispering her threats to me, and shudder. I just want to get to my sister’s and make sure she’s OK – he said he’d go there first. I simply cannot believe even Claudine can have done something so extreme, so deranged.
I glance down at the envelope, now slip-sliding around in the footwell, with dread.
In all this time she has never tried to contact me directly, until now. What can she possibly have to say that she can only tell me in front of everyone I love best?
CHAPTER THREE
I ring Alice’s doorbell repeatedly, thumb on the buzzer for her flat, until, thank God, the grubby plastic intercom crackles. ‘Please just go away,’ my sister says tiredly. ‘For the last time, it’s the bottom flat you want, OK?’
‘Alice – it’s me!’
‘Soph?’ She is immediately alert. The door clicks and I push my way in past a pile of junk mail and pizza menus on the floor, trying not to knock over a push-bike that someone has left in the hall. The stairs of the Victorian building creak as I try to climb up quietly, although light is still coming out from under the front door of the couple that live below Alice, and I can hear faint music. I check my watch – it’s twenty past three in the morning. The irregularity of other people’s lives seems completely surreal and somehow only unnerves me more.
My sister is standing at the top of the stairs wearing a spaghetti-strap vest, arms crossed over her braless chest, and stripy pyjama bottoms. Her long, dark hair is all over the place, and she has huge smudges of mascara under her eyes. She never, ever takes her make-up off before she goes to bed.
‘What’s happened?’ she says urgently as soon as I reach the top of the stairs. ‘Is it Mum – or Dad? Or Imogen and Evie?’
‘No, no.’ It’s such a relief to see her standing there, safe, that I just want to hug her, but manage to restrain myself. ‘It’s nothing like that. Everyone’s fine. Can I come in?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ she says, dazed, and stands to one side, eyeing my overnight bag as I pass her and put it down on the carpet. She looks at me expectantly.
‘I’ve had a fight with Marc,’ I lie, wanting to protect her, imagining the man from the bedroom walking slowly towards my little sister with his black gloves.
‘Really?’ she says slowly. ‘You look like you just found out you’re fifty tomorrow, not forty. Oh, except it’s today now, isn’t it? Happy birthday.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What did you two fight about?’ she asks. ‘I thought Marc was away with work tonight?’
‘He is.’ I try to think faster on my feet. ‘We rowed on the phone. How do you know he’s away?’
‘Oh, Mum told me,’ she says vaguely. ‘Marc was worried about you waking up on your own on your birthday, so he’s asked Mum to go round to yours with a champagne breakfast as a surprise.’ She yawns. ‘You’d better set a reminder to text her in the morning, or she’ll be pretty pissed off if you’re not there. I assume you are staying?’ She nods at my bag.
‘Yes, please. If that’s OK?’
‘’Course. Let me just go and put a jumper on, and then I’ll make us a cup of tea.’
‘We don’t have to talk about it all now.’
She looks away, waving a hand. ‘Don’t be daft. God, it’s freezing. I’ll be right back, then you can tell me what happened.’ She shivers, then shuffles out of the room.
‘Do you mind setting a reminder to text Mum?’ I call after her. ‘I can’t.’ I pause again, trying to think how to explain away the fact that a stranger who knows my name stole my mobile from my bedroom, right in front of me, about an hour ago. ‘I’ve lost my mobile.’
‘I thought you said you rowed on the phone?’ She reappears wearing an old jumper of Dad’s.
‘Jesus, Al!’ I almost explode, and she looks surprised. ‘OK, I didn’t lose it! I threw it at the wall and it broke.’
‘Right.’ She gives me a considered look. ‘Well, don’t worry. We’ve all been there. Is it completely fucked?’
I blink. ‘It’s fair to say it’s pretty much unusable.’
She sits down on the sofa. ‘I’ve probably got an old one somewhere here you can use. You brought the SIM with you?’
‘Um, no.’
She stares at me. ‘Well, it’s not like you’ve got a big birthday and anyone is going to be calling you… dick. Although I suppose you’ll see everyone at the party later anyway, and I can tell Marc you’ve lost it.’
‘Thanks.’ It occurs to me instantly that that’s probably the point of Claudine having stolen the phone: to prevent me from speaking to as many people as possible ahead of tonight. I need to ring the phone company and put a stop on the number, but ho
w am I going to explain that to Alice? In any case, do they even have manned call centres at 3 a.m.? I’ll have to use Al’s phone to call first thing in the morning.
Alice suddenly cranes to listen, and I tense, terrified. ‘What?’
‘Kettle’s boiled.’ She gets up, looks around and picks up a couple of mugs. ‘I’ll just give these a quick wash.’
I breathe out slowly, trying to calm down. But all I can see in my head is the picture of her on that man’s phone, blithely crossing the road, and Imogen struggling with Evie.
She comes back in holding two steaming mugs, one of which she passes to me before sitting down on the sofa opposite and crossing her legs in the lotus position. I go to take a sip of tea and notice a brown tidemark ring just above the hot liquid. Hastily, I make out like I need to blow on it instead, then set it down on the side table.
She scowls at me. ‘I didn’t lick the cup – I rinsed it in actual water. It’s clean. Just drink it.’
I hesitate, but pick it up again.
‘So it must have been a pretty serious argument to make you throw your phone at the wall and come over here at 3 a.m.?’ She takes a mouthful of her tea and swallows. ‘A “we’re over” kind of row?’
‘No, it’s not like that.’
‘Sure? It’s only two months ago that you were convinced you couldn’t take any more of Claudine and that was it, then out of nowhere he’s proposed, you’ve said yes and it’s all happily ever after.’
‘Honestly, it’s nothing. We—’
‘Yeah, I don’t believe you,’ she interrupts. ‘You haven’t had another change of heart, have you? You’re still sure you want to be with him?’
I stare at her, utterly confused by this out-of-left-field interrogation based on what is, after all, a completely fictitious argument. And suddenly, overwhelmed by the last hour of my life, with the realisation that I was essentially trapped with a man who could have killed me then and there, in my own house, I burst into tears.
‘Shit! Oh, Soph – hey!’ Alice puts down her tea, slopping it over the carpet in her haste, and scrabbles across the sofa to me, wrapping her arms around my tight shoulders. ‘Right, that’s it. Tell me what’s actually happened!’
‘Don’t, Al.’ I pull away from her. I can’t. It’s too dangerous. That man in my room meant every word he said. ‘It’s nothing, I promise.’
‘Bullshit.’ She looks at me.
She’ll tell me to call the police, that they’ll protect me, and then we’ll have to argue about the fact that everyone thinks that there is a system in place when stuff like this happens: that you dial 999 and the cavalry arrives, swinging into action… when, actually, there isn’t. We are all just bloody lucky that 95 per cent of the time, 95 per cent of people decide not to break the law.
‘Sophie, you have to tell me. I can’t help you otherwise.’ My beautiful little sister looks at me earnestly, now very concerned indeed.
‘Sorry,’ I whisper, wiping my streaming nose.
‘Did Marc say something to upset you?’
‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘He’s been amazing since we got back together. If anything it’s me who…’ I pause wretchedly and close my eyes. ‘I don’t deserve him, Alice, put it that way.’
She frowns. ‘Don’t be a prick. You’ve been a bloody saint to put up with—’
‘No. I haven’t!’ I interrupt, starting to get upset again. ‘You don’t understand!’ A jumbled film begins to play in my head: a hazy mass of naked limbs, a soundtrack of theatrical gasps and moans that makes me feel sick – sick to my stomach with guilt. ‘I… I cheated on Marc.’
‘What?’ She stares at me, astonished. ‘When?’
I look at her, completely horrified at what I’ve just said. It’s as if my brain is now spitting out other secrets, overloaded because it can only deal with the enormity of what happened an hour ago. ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ I plead. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. It was the day before Marc proposed.’
‘OK,’ Alice says slowly. ‘Well, you were still split up then, so you weren’t unfaithful.’
I rub my eyes tiredly. I don’t want to patronize her, but that’s just a ‘Ross and Rachel’ technicality. Back in real life, how does she think Marc would have reacted if, right after he handed me an engagement ring, I’d said, ‘Yes! I will marry you, but by the way, I had sex with someone else last night. That’s not going to be an issue, is it?’
‘Er, Sophie,’ she says suddenly. ‘That’s not why you said yes when he proposed, was it? Because you were spinning out over what you’d done the night before?’
‘No,’ I reply instantly. There’s a pause – and, as much to my surprise as hers, I add, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, God…’ she says slowly. ‘You’re not still involved with this bloke, are you?’
I look at the floor and whisper, ‘We’ve been in contact since it happened, yes.’
‘You’d better tell me exactly what happened.’
CHAPTER FOUR
It was bang on half past five as I shut my computer down and stared out of the large, uncurtained office windows at the lit-up block of flats opposite. Other people were already arriving home, and I realized I simply didn’t have the energy for the gym. I knew I ought to: I didn’t feel like going back to an empty house, but then, in all honesty, Marc wouldn’t have been finishing until at least eight had we still been together, so I would have been going home alone anyway.
‘Done!’ groaned Nadia, one of my team, stretching. ‘Jesus, what a crap week. I’m going to have the biggest glass of wine in the world tonight. Jude’s doing tea and putting Lily down, so I’m free – a whole night off! What does your Friday night hold, Soph?’
‘Gym, then dinner.’
‘Is Marc taking you somewhere nice?’ She reached into her desk and pulled out her make-up bag.
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell people at work that we’d separated. I could already see the pity on their faces, knew that they would immediately be thinking, ‘Poor thing, there goes her last chance to have a baby…’ There are some bullets that single women past a certain age are just unable to dodge. ‘It’s dinner at home, actually. Marc’s… away.’
‘What?’ She wrinkled her nose while peering into her compact mirror. ‘Balls to that. Come to the pub! It’s Ben’s leaving-do tonight. Go on, it’ll be fun!’
I hesitated. I’d read the email reminder, but I wasn’t sure I felt like a shouty night in a packed bar in aid of some bloke I’d barely ever said hello to. Nadia knew him much better than I did. Then again, I had no dependents. I ought to be going out and doing something. If I’d planned it, I would be, but spontaneity among my friends was a little harder to come by these days. This was the middle of tea or getting back from swimming, ballet or football and about to start tea, or on the way back to take over from whoever else was doing teatime… Pretty much all of my lot would laugh hysterically if I rang now and asked them if they wanted a drink.
Family wasn’t an option either. Imogen and Ed, I already knew, were preparing to host an insane dinner party for ten. Imogen was desperately clinging to an insistence that having an eight-month-old wasn’t going to stop them living their lives. That left Alice, but I’d already declined a gig in Camden that she had sweetly invited me to.
I looked down at my office skirt and blouse, and wondered if I could reconsider. No, I couldn’t, unless I really wanted to look like a past-her-sell-by-date-Mad-Men-wannabe standing in a sea of Alexa Chungs. So that left Mum and Scrabble; going home alone; or witnessing ‘Ben’ get drunk enough to insult whichever senior management was stupid enough to overstay their welcome.
‘Come on!’ wheedled Nadia, sensing I was weakening. ‘At least just for one or two.’
I looked at her doubtfully. ‘The last leaving do I went to ended up with that bloke from sales head-butting the marketing director.’
‘Yes, but in fairness, he had been perving over his girlfriend all night, it’s just no one rea
lised they were actually going out because she’s in HR, and it served the dirtbag right anyway – he’s married. So, you’re coming then, yeah?’
I sighed. ‘Go on. Just for a bit, though.’
‘Excellent!’ She beamed, and perversely, I felt immediately old, knackered and suddenly really wanted to go home. Where was Marc right now? How was he going to be spending his Friday night? I swallowed and mentally shook myself. I had to stop this.
Two weeks had passed since I’d come home later than normal to find him yelling on the phone to Claudine, yet again, in French. My heart had sunk – him having a key to the house had turned into somewhat of a mixed blessing. I’d sat down at the kitchen table, poured a drink and listened to him shouting. As usual, she’d finally hung up on him and I’d listened again when he’d marched in – still in his work shirt and trousers – and ranted to me about how angry he was because she’d taken the kids out of school on some trip to Italy that he knew nothing about. She had no concept of how irresponsible and selfish that was! She never stopped to think, that was her problem. She just did what she wanted, when she wanted. When was she going to realize that the same rules applied to her that applied to everyone else? It was nothing but attention-seeking, because she knew it was going to get a reaction, that he’d be forced to call her, that’s what this was about!
He sat down, rested his head in his hands in frustration, and before I even knew what I was doing, my mouth said, ‘How are you supposed to move on with your life when you’re still married, Marc?’
He looked up in astonishment. ‘You know how hard I’ve been trying to get her to agree to the divorce.’
‘I’m not talking about the piece of paper.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean, then?’
‘One of the first things you said to me when we met was that you were in a good place with your ex-wife. Eight months further down the line, I don’t know how you’d describe it now, but it’s certainly not good for me.’
He leant forward with energy. ‘I don’t like the situation any more than you do, but I have to speak to her. I have children with this woman. Children that I love more than anything – or anyone,’ he added warningly.