by Fiona Neill
‘Is that a reference to the seven dwarves?’ I ask, because at this stage of the evening it would not surprise me if Elvis Presley made an appearance.
‘The nits,’ she says. ‘I checked with his secretary and she was insulted that I thought she had given him head lice. So if she didn’t give them to him, then who did?’
‘I agree, that all sounds compelling,’ I say, because it seems ridiculous to disagree. ‘But it’s not conclusive.’ I take a deep drag from her cigarette.
‘Don’t pretend to feel sorry for me. I’m not the kind of person that people pity. In fact, I’m the kind of person that people hope this will happen to,’ she says.
‘So what are you going to do about these suspicions?’ I ask, resisting the urge to scratch my head.
‘I have a number of choices. I could do what my mother did and overlook his indiscretion, but the trouble is that Guy is the kind of man who could easily think he has fallen in love with someone else and decide to leave me. And I am not going to risk that happening. He’s not practical, and if my life is going to fall apart, then I want to be the one in charge of its dissolution. I could do what his mother did to his father and divorce him with a hefty settlement tucked under my belt. And then I would never be invited to dinner anywhere else, because women would always worry that I might steal their husband. Or I can expose the situation and try and rebuild our marriage.’
‘Do you love him?’ I ask her.
‘I love what he used to be, but I don’t love what he has become,’ she says thoughtfully. ‘And I think he would say the same about me. It’s a strange thing, but money can make you less sure about things because it presents too much choice. I think we need radical solutions. Actually, I have already taken action.’
‘What kind of action?’ I ask warily.
‘I’m doing a course,’ she says.
‘A horticultural one?’ I say a little too eagerly, because that is the next logical step in her life trajectory.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lucy,’ she says. ‘It’s a sleuthing course. Devised for people who want to spy on other people. But popular with women in my situation. Even if my instincts prove wrong, it’s a good insurance policy for the next couple of decades, until his sex drive diminishes. He is someone who needs to be kept close. He is vain, and vain men are always vulnerable to flattery.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I say, holding several debates in my mind at once. I can warn Emma about this, insist that if she is going to end the relationship, it is imperative that she should do it now, thereby ensuring there is nothing to uncover. Yummy Mummy No. 1 can put the evidence to rest, burn the Paul Smith shirt and enjoy the fruits of a more varied sex life. If it was me, would I want to know?
‘By the way, what name has he been shouting out?’ I ask with faux innocence.
She angrily stubs out the cigarette, a little too close to my bare left calf. There is a long silence, in which she nervously smoothes the legs of her jeans. I am rapt with attention, because I know what she is going to say.
‘Yours,’ she says finally. And then she looks at me intently. ‘He says the same thing over and over again. “Lucy Sweeney, what have you done?” And now I’m wondering the same thing. So tell me, are you fucking my husband? Where did you meet him? Is all that flirting with Robert Bass just a cover? And before you humiliate me further by lying, I should tell you that I have discovered that Guy has two other mobile phones registered in his name and that the bills from one of those numbers have endless calls made to you. And it is no secret that it was your children who started that outbreak of nits last term.’
I open and shut my mouth like a goldfish, but no sound comes out. She must be talking about Emma’s phone.
‘Can I get back to you on this?’ I ask hopefully.
‘No,’ she says sternly. We sit in silence for a moment.
‘Have you considered that the phone bill you have might not be mine, but belong to someone else who knows me?’ I say finally, carefully choosing my words.
‘No,’ she says. ‘But actually that makes sense because the second phone has lots of phone calls to the first phone and when I dialled the first phone it wasn’t you and when I dialled the second number it was Guy at the other end. Tell me what you know. Please. If you can’t do it for me, consider my children. If you put the children first, then everything else is logical.’ She is gripping my knee tightly. ‘You can’t imagine what hell it is, Lucy, going through something like this. Everything you have taken for granted suddenly seems uncertain. There are no guarantees. I am suspicious about everyone and everything. Can you imagine the humiliation when I was waiting for him to turn up in that restaurant? I kept telling people that he would arrive at any moment and endlessly dialling his mobile phone and he never appeared. People knew something strange was going on, because they avoided asking the most obvious questions about his whereabouts. That’s the reason I need to resolve all this now, because otherwise I’ll end up hating him.’
‘Perhaps you should confront Guy with this?’ I say.
‘I’m not giving anything away until I have all the evidence. We’re studying surveillance techniques at the moment. Then, when the time is ripe, I will choose my moment and act,’ she says. ‘Which of your friends do you think might be having an affair with Guy? Think about it, there will be someone obvious, probably someone he has met through work. He’s always overly impressed with those clever women in suits. That’s how I met him.’
‘I’ll give it some serious thought and get back to you,’ I say.
‘Do you promise that you don’t know?’ she asks.
‘I have a couple of ideas, but nothing confirmed,’ I say, wondering if this constitutes a lie.
‘Let me know if you turn anything up. Please.’
We hear the bedroom door open and put our heads round the corner of the balcony to see Celebrity Dad and Alpha Mum come into the bedroom. They look round the room and then shut the door behind them. Celebrity Dad puts a chair under the handle. He busies himself with chopping further lines of cocaine and Yummy Mummy No. 1 and I look on with wonder as Alpha Mum hungrily snorts a couple and the two of them leave.
‘She’s definitely done that before,’ whispers Yummy Mummy No. 1. There’s no doubt about it.
In the cab on our way home to the suburbs, I sit in silence, trying to make sense of everything that has happened this evening. It has always puzzled me how people have such different experiences of the same party.
‘God, that was boring,’ says Tom. ‘Apart from the thing with Guy, but actually I think you were right not to tell me. His wife seems nice though. Surprisingly so. I had a good chat with Celebrity Dad too. He says you are the most authentic person that he has ever met and wants me to take him to an Arsenal match. And I made my peace with Deep Shallows. I think he has forgiven me. So all the loose ends are tied up. Where did you disappear to?’
I shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep. The coward’s way out.
17
‘Old Sins Cast Long Shadows’
SOMETIMES DURING MY five o’clock insomnia, I try to send myself back to sleep by counting how many decisions I have made in a day. When we were camping in Norfolk last summer, the point at which, I now realise, the insomnia became embedded, I once got as far as seventy-one. They roamed a pyramid-shaped range, starting at the bottom with the tiniest: whether to go for another day without having a shower in the cold, muddy communal washroom on the campsite or give in to the children’s pleas to eat breakfast inside the tent because of the cold, knowing that the Rice Krispies would inveigle their way into my sleeping bag, and blend with the sand and dried mud to form an uneven sandpaper that made going to sleep even more difficult than it was already within the confines of a small tent with three restless children.
‘Think of it as a free exfoliation service,’ Tom said, earlier in the week, when he was trying to play the role of fun dad, before his mood grew gloomy. In the greater scheme of things the consequences of those decisions
were immaterial.
They then tapered into medium-sized decisions: should we abandon the campsite in favour of a small B & B somewhere along the coast? Should I tell Tom that the missing passport, the reason that we had to forsake the holiday in France for a rainy campsite in Norfolk, had been found in the glove compartment of the car? I decided against in both cases. Then there were the big ones. To laugh or to cry? To stay or to go? And that fateful one that caused the rot to set in. One of those rogue decisions, that started at the bottom of the pyramid and then erupted out of the top, when I was least expecting it.
If marriage is like a landscape, then on the North Norfolk coast that summer, I think I reached my natural home. I looked behind me from the beach and could see the marshes stretching out and behind them a line of arthritic-looking trees, their branches bent into unpredictable shapes by squalls of wind. Ahead was the sea, looking moody and treacherous. Depending on the tide, it could either carry you mile after mile along the coast to Cromer or far away towards Holland. I could see where I came from but not where I was going. I saw myself as a piece of luggage carried on one of the huge passenger ships that drifted by on the horizon, with ‘destination unknown’ stamped on my side.
The insides of my ears ached so much from the cold that I could feel the pain in my throat, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was reassuring. I was diminished by the elements. They allowed me to escape from myself for a while. We stood there in a row, bent forwards against the wind, heads down, huddled like soldiers in retreat, Fred holding hands between Tom and me, because we had discovered that a strong squall could knock him over and Joe was terrified that he would be taken into the sky, like Dorothy in the opening scene of The Wizard of Oz.
‘It comes in straight from Russia,’ Tom shouted to the boys above the wind and even Fred looked impressed. ‘That’s why it is so bitter.’ I got out another jumper from my bag and put it on.
‘It’s not that cold,’ shouted Tom over the wind. ‘It’s worse when you don’t have any pants, that’s for sure. My bollocks are a shadow of their former self.’
‘You promised you wouldn’t mention the pants again,’ I said.
‘It was a quid pro quo if you stopped complaining about the weather,’ he shouted back.
‘You’re the one saying it’s cold. I didn’t complain about the weather, I simply put on another jumper,’ I insisted.
‘I’m being descriptive. Putting on a jumper is implicit criticism,’ he said. ‘Put your jumpers on in a less public way.’
‘Where do you suggest I go to put my jumpers on?’ I asked, waving an arm along the deserted beach. A black-and-white oystercatcher turned its head, which was tucked low into its body to conserve heat, and looked at me inquisitively as if to wonder why I was so emotional. Conserve your energy, it seemed to be saying.
‘I just don’t understand how you could forget to pack any pants for me when you have put in ten pairs for Sam, six pairs of shorts for Joe and three bobble hats for Fred. It’s all so irrational, Lucy. Didn’t you make a list before we went away?’ yelled Tom. Even across the wind, his voice was unnecessarily loud.
‘Why don’t you consider all the things that I have remembered, rather than the things that I forgot? You could have packed your own clothes,’ I said.
‘But you know how busy I was, trying to sort out that problem in Milan,’ he replied.
‘Well, you could get some pants in Holt,’ I retorted, determined to hold my ground.
‘I’m not doing that on principle,’ he said, a sanctimonious tone entering his voice.
‘And what principle would that be?’ I asked, knowing instantly that this question was a strategic error.
‘The principle that it is important to learn by your mistakes and that you will never again forget to pack my pants if I have to endure a week without them,’ he said smugly.
‘I won’t, because I will never again pack for you. You are so ridiculous, Tom, I’m not going to even grace it with a response.’ And then we started laughing, because it was so absurd, and the children laughed too without knowing why, but it was all a little shrill.
We were a family marooned. Condemned to each other’s company within the confines of a tent measuring around thirteen cubic metres. This I knew, because Tom and Sam spent a rainy afternoon with a tape measure, doing the exact calculation. Things were out of kilter from the moment we left home. The future of Tom’s library in Milan, a project that had already absorbed the best part of two years, was in jeopardy. Our financial situation was bleak. Tom’s company had already invested too much time and money in the library. As we stood on the pavement outside our home while he packed the car, I began to consider for the first time that we might have to sell the house.
I watched him lining up the luggage on the pavement, trying to find the most perfect packing solution. He might not be able to control the vagaries of the Milan planning department, but he could impose order on the boot of the car.
‘Surely, as long as it all goes in, it doesn’t really matter how it is packed?’ I pleaded in the face of impatient children strapped into the back seat.
‘Systems, it’s all about systems,’ Tom muttered. ‘I’m trying to assess what we will need first when we arrive and put that on the top. Do you know what you’ll be cooking for lunch?’
Another decision. But one that could and must wait, because determining what we will be eating for lunch before nine o’clock in the morning is a step closer to derangement.
‘We’ll get something there,’ I said. ‘Or on the way.’
‘But if we stop on the way, then that requires a different system,’ he said, starting to prioritise small folding chairs over gas canisters. ‘And will we stop at a service station or have sandwiches on the side of the road?’
‘You have to accept that we need a degree of flexibility, Tom,’ I said, trying to circumvent another argument. ‘Not knowing what is going to happen can be liberating. In fact, it is the endless repetition of routine that kills the human spirit.’ He looked at me as though I was a creature from another planet. I closed the passenger door and opened the glove compartment and that was when I discovered the passport. Sam saw.
‘Don’t say a word,’ I told him. He understood. Some day, Sam will make a very good husband.
Then there were the pants. Feeling guilty one afternoon after our argument on the beach, on the only day that the sun made a consistent appearance for more than a couple of hours, I volunteered to go back into Holt and find an underwear shop. It was the kind of gesture that marked a ceasefire between Tom and myself. A bilateral peace accord.
‘Are you sure, Lucy?’ he said gratefully. ‘That’s so nice of you.’
‘We might be hard up, but new pants won’t tip the balance. However, it is generous of me,’ I concurred, because I wanted to accumulate enough points to see me through the three remaining days of the holiday. Of course, there is little self-sacrifice involved in spending an afternoon in your own company, browsing through shops in one of those North Norfolk towns which sells five different kinds of olive oil and has resisted the pressure to build an out-of-town shopping complex. I was happy to be on my own and leave him on the beach with the children for the afternoon.
In Holt I quickly found a shop that boasted an underwear department with big aspirations. The breadth and depth of its selection was disconcerting for a shop of its size and location. It ranged from raunchy little numbers in pastel shades to Jockey Y-fronts in colours that I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager, when Mark would insist on wearing only red pants to show his credentials as a ‘hot lover’. Then there were lacy knickers and bras that made me want to weep because they were so white and delicate and would inevitably fray and turn grey within a week in my possession. They were also very expensive and because Tom’s library project was indefinitely on hold, and my credit card debt was out of control, I resisted the temptation to buy, but couldn’t leave without trying them on.
I stood there, in front of the mirror, a
nd found that somehow they reduced the rolls of fat around my tummy and made my breasts defy gravity. So, having chosen Tom a pair of sensible boxer shorts in thick, white cotton that would protect his manhood from any sea squall, I decided that I would hold on to this bra and knickers to enjoy the moment for a little longer.
I was daydreaming under a large sign saying ‘Lingerie for him and her’ with a red heart drawn around ‘him and her’, when I realised that I was no longer alone. A man was searching through the Calvin Klein section. I was contemplating whether the male ego was affected by buying a pair of pants in a small size, and whether I should exchange the medium size pants that I had chosen for Tom for the extra large, thus currying even greater favour, when this man turned round to face me and I realised immediately that I recognised him.
Ten years on, he was a little heavier. His cheeks were rosy and full, and I could see more clearly what he might have looked like as a chubby toddler, because the extra weight meant fewer wrinkles. It added flesh to the bone. It was the look of a man who eats and drinks well. His hair was thinner, which meant his face looked disproportionably large, and underneath the first chin, I could see the hint of a second. The broad brush-strokes were the same. We ruthlessly assessed each other for a couple of seconds, and I concluded that, on balance, time had been marginally kinder to me, mainly because it was easier to hide my flaws.
‘Lucy,’ he said in surprise. ‘What are you doing here? Did you follow me in?’ I bristled. It was typical he should assume, even after all this time, that he was being pursued by me. The foundations of our relationship lay in mutual flirtation, leaning over a desk to look at something in the newspaper for a little too long with our shoulders touching, making each other laugh too much without letting other people enter the fray, and always ensuring that we sat next to each other at office parties. It was a pursuit of equals. But underneath his studied nonchalance, he was a vain man. In the same way that first impressions often give clarity of judgement, I was pleased to find that an unscheduled meeting after almost a decade provided similar insight. Distance doesn’t necessarily lend enchantment to the view, which is just as well during the Middle Ages, when nostalgia for the past and fear for the future can prove an explosive partnership for the present.