by Adele Parks
Which surely meant he could love her again, didn’t it?
Martha had thought that she’d spend the money on a special piece of furniture once they’d bought their dream home; she’d thought a family dining table and set of chairs would be appropriate. However, Martha was beginning to get nervous that if she didn’t do something radical they might never live in a dream home, not the Bridleway, not any sort of way.
So that morning Martha had been to the post office and withdrawn all the money. Then she’d visited a travel agent and booked a one-week holiday for all four of them at Disneyland Paris. She’d spared no expense. She bought first-class train tickets. She chose the best hotel, bought day passes for the park, and secured a babysitter for two of the evenings so that she and Michael could dine alone. She’d booked the train for the day after Maisie’s party, so they’d travel on her actual birthday.
Surely Michael would be moved. It was exactly what they both needed, all needed. Michael just needed to remember how wonderful it was being a family. The last few months had been cruel and angry and not representative. They needed to have some good times to restore the family equilibrium, jog the memory away from past troubles. They’d often talked about taking the kids to Disneyland. They’d agreed that the flight to America was far too long for young children, and so they’d planned to go to Paris when Maisie was two and a half and Mathew four. Martha and Michael had agreed on this plan because the children would appreciate the trip more at that age; Mathew might even remember it when he got older. They were great planners.
But now Martha had decided to throw caution to the wind. She was certain that this trip was her ace card in winning the game of bringing Michael home.
The tickets sat behind the mug stand, on a unit, in the kitchen. Martha felt her eye being irresistibly drawn to them; she was so excited. She couldn’t wait to present him with the tickets. She’d spent the day in a state of heightened anticipation, simply imagining the pleasure on his face.
Michael had come round to read the children a bedtime story. Martha’s plan was to offer him a glass of wine and then spring the surprise gift on him. She knew he’d be delighted with the gesture and the actual holiday. It was odd how the household responsibilities seemed to have naturally divided over the years. Michael always booked the holidays; it was his job. Martha was sure that he’d be thrilled to be treated in this way, for someone else to take over his responsibility. The same as she would be thrilled if he ever cooked a meal for her. Or emptied the dishwasher. Or put petrol in the car.
In fact one of Martha’s biggest fantasies was Michael bathing the kids, drying them, putting on the creams and nappies, massaging in the vapour rub, battling to clean their teeth, warming their milk, putting them into their pyjamas, feeding them milk, reading them a bedtime story and getting them to settle in bed. Since he’d left home, he had on three occasions arrived in time to read a story, but in almost three years of parenthood Martha had never known him to complete the full routine from bath to bed.
‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ she offered.
‘Yes, that would be very nice,’ replied Michael.
Martha wished his brain would tell his face that he thought the idea was very nice because, to be honest, he looked as miserable as ill-fitting shoes.
God, where does this impatience come from? thought Martha. I haven’t even had a glass of Chardonnay yet.
She carried on with her plan. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Maisie’s birthday,’ she said. She felt a flutter of nervous excitement; she loved giving gifts, she really did. She liked choosing the gift, wrapping it up, adored attaching bows and ribbons and always used far too many. Her gifts often ended up looking like Easter bonnets made by eight-year-olds. She loved springing surprises, and she had an overwhelming conviction that this was going to be the best gift, a real cracker, a gift that was going to draw her family back together.
‘Yes, I want to talk about that too,’ Michael said, and then he fell silent, not showing any inclination to talk about anything at all.
Martha took this as her cue. ‘I’ve planned a –’ she gushed.
‘I want a divorce,’ he interrupted.
‘Surprise,’ she completed. The word hung uselessly in the air.
‘After the party,’ he added finally.
He said he hated having failed at his marriage, but it was better than failing at life, because you only get one life, and his just wasn’t any fun any more.
The wedding photo was a lie. The house was a lie. Their holidays together were lies. The children and hamster probably didn’t exist. What was this man saying now?
He was telling her that it was expensive to stay in a hotel; he was saying that he thought he ought to rent a flat, which seemed horrible, final. He was telling her that he’d been unhappy before he’d left and that the rows since he’d left had exasperated him further. He couldn’t imagine how they’d ever find a way to a reconciliation.
She heard herself tell him about Disneyland Paris. He spat out a peculiar sound, like a sea lion, a shocked indignant sound, and he replied that he couldn’t bring himself to spend seven hours with her, let alone seven days, not now. She heard herself shout that he had to spend seven days with her because she was his wife, his wife, his wife.
He repeated that he wanted a divorce. That she hadn’t been listening to him, not for months now. She repeated that she was his wife, his wife. He shrugged and looked pitying.
Finally she stopped repeating the word. It sounded ridiculous, she’d said it so often. Wife was apparently a defunct currency.
He was right; Martha hadn’t been listening to him. She was sure that this separation was just a silly spat. An early mid-life crisis thing. A tiff that had got out of hand. An issue that they could, and would, solve. They were married. Married. People didn’t just stop being married. Well of course they did, but not people like Martha. Not Martha. Martha had always believed marriage was for ever. That’s what she’d believed and she’d believed it with her heart. Her heart. Until that moment Martha hadn’t given that much thought to her heart, beyond keeping it in good repair by choosing low-cholesterol spreads and knowing she should be drinking red wine rather than white (but still drinking white anyway – it didn’t stain her teeth). As for the notion that the heart was more than an organ that pumped blood around her body, that it was a source of great romantic emotion, well, it wasn’t scientific, was it?
She hadn’t understood what people meant when they said they were heartbroken, particularly as the phrase was often used of a minor disappointment. ‘They didn’t have the shoes I liked in my size, I was heartbroken’; ‘Someone scratched his car, he was heartbroken’; ‘Man U are two-one down to Leeds, it’s heartbreaking.’ The constant repetition had absolutely silenced the expression. And anyway it wasn’t scientific.
She heard her heart shatter. She felt it crumble to dust. At that moment Martha wondered how she’d ever be able to tell the children that the world was a good place, that telling the truth was best, that being kind was essential, that a happily-ever-after was possible. As unfashionable as it sounded, she’d always believed in goodness, truth and kindness. She thought she was living in the happily-ever-after. But what was the point of giving to charity, helping old ladies in supermarkets, always having time to listen to your friends, cooking, cleaning, caring and cherishing your husband if things could still turn out so ugly? Her belief in people, in goodness, in truth, in kindness, in her life was entirely based on the fact that she and Michael were happy.
And now he’d pissed on it. The whole show. He’d pissed on it.
Martha concentrated very hard. Through the ringing in her ears she managed to decipher ‘the children… our priority’; ‘sell house, no rush, springtime good time for house sales’; ‘solicitors… not likely to be necessary’; ‘surely still be friends’; ‘simply impossible to live with’;‘one life, no fun’.
‘Is there someone else?’
‘Christ, Mart
ha, this again?’
‘Everyone thinks there is.’
‘You mix with some very small-minded people, Martha.’
She ignored his arrogance and focused on what she wanted, an answer. ‘Is there?’
‘I’m not dignifying that question with a reply.’
‘So there is.’
‘Grow up.’
‘Just tell me, tell me! Are you having an affair? Or maybe not an affair, not yet, but… but you think you’re in love with someone else, or just fancy them, or…’ Martha gasped for air through her tears and agony. ‘Just tell me. Help me understand why you’ve ruined everything. Are you having an affair?’ She wanted him to say he wasn’t. She would believe him, despite the mounting evidence suggesting he was. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Eliza, but she’d come across a statement from Michael’s gym. He’d taken a guest there. Who? And why had he worked so late, so often, recently? Was he really at work? And the weekend break he’d just taken – does anyone really go to Paris alone?
Martha wanted to believe that there could be innocent explanations. She still trusted him more than anyone. But if he was having an affair she wanted to hear that too. She just wanted some honesty. He owed her that at least. Surely he realized that she needed to have some respect for the father of her children. Even if it was galling, reluctant respect, because he’d told a truth she didn’t want to hear. ‘Just talk to me,’ she sobbed.
‘I can’t talk to you, Martha. Don’t you understand? You’re silencing me. I know I’ve disappointed you. You’ve made that very clear, but I’m sorry, I just don’t love you any more. And as uncomfortable as that is for you to accept, you’re going to have to, because I’m not spending the rest of my life with someone I don’t love. Not to save you this hurt, not for the sake of the children, not because our friends and parents want it. It’s my life and I don’t want you.’
‘Just fuck off, Michael. Get the pissing hell out of here, you spineless, faithless bastard.’
Martha was beginning to feel rather affectionate towards expletives.
20
Eliza considered this date a success. She was deciding whether to have pudding and coffee or just coffee. Best just have coffee. She didn’t want to look down at a bulging stomach whilst lying flat on her back, and she did want to get flat on her back (and on top as well, for that matter). She was debating whether she would take him back to her place or go to his. Obviously, dating law dictated that it was safer at her own place, but as her own place was actually Martha’s place, Eliza thought it would probably be best going to Charlie’s. He was unlikely to prove to be an axe-wielding psycho because he was a friend of Martha’s; besides which, Martha was trying to seduce Michael tonight with tickets to Disneyland Paris. If she succeeded, it was likely they’d soon be in the throes of passion; and if the ruse failed, she’d be sobbing into her handkerchief.
Again.
Eliza didn’t really expect the plan to be successful. She thought that Martha was reading Michael wrongly. As Eliza read the situation, he’d buggered off because he was fed up of having the responsibility of being a father. He’d tried ditching as many responsibilities as possible (Eliza could hardly believe it when Martha confided that Michael had never once got up in the night, not for either of the children). However, ditching the responsibilities of being a father had, unexpectedly to him, incurred the wrath of Martha, and Michael had obviously found being constantly reminded of his shortcomings about as comfortable as washing his bollocks in bleach. His only option was to take himself out of the picture altogether. Even thinking about it made Eliza want to puke.
She felt guilty knowing that Martha would in all likelihood be crying right now; on the other hand, she didn’t half fancy a shag. It had been weeks and this man was the nearest thing to a possibility Eliza had come across since Greg.
Charlie was a dot-com millionaire. He’d had the sense to sell his shares early on before people became too greedy. He’d walked away with enough to retire on at the age of twenty-eight. But he hadn’t retired; instead he’d set up his own company, something to do with DVD licensing. Eliza didn’t really listen while he explained it, although she was very impressed with the fact that he was still working when he didn’t have to. She knew for a fact that if Greg were ever to make enough money to retire, he would do just that. And he’d be penniless again in next to no time. Not that he ever would make enough money to retire.
It surprised Eliza how often she thought about Greg.
Of course it was never favourably. Well, except when she’d been out with Tarquin and thought how much she preferred Greg’s name. And when she’d been out with Sebastian and thought how much she preferred Greg’s heterosexuality. And when she’d been out with Henry and she’d preferred Greg’s humility. And when she’d been out with Will and preferred Greg’s sense of humour. And when she had been out with Giles and he was nice enough but when they’d got to the tongue action, she preferred Greg’s kisses.
But Charlie had a reasonable name, he was heterosexual, he seemed amusing, charming, he remembered her name, he was good-looking. She would have to do something about his clothes; the woolly jumper would have to go. Greg would never be seen dead in something like that. But he did pay for dinner and besides which, she was gagging for it.
It wasn’t for want of trying. It wasn’t for lack of effort or will, but something went wrong. Charlie took Eliza back to his place. They’d both happily hopped in to the cab. They were both clear about what her accepting a coffee really meant, so there were no embarrassed silences. In fact, Charlie immediately got down to snogging her, although actually Eliza would have preferred it if he’d waited until they’d got to his flat. Yes, she was keen for a bit of action, but it always seemed so sordid to snog in a cab. It usually meant that the couple were adulterous, or minors.
His flat was fine. Clean, comfortable. Clearly, everything in it was expensive, but the general impression was not showy. There were no horrors in the bathroom, no stray pubes on the sheets. He had a cleaner because Eliza noted that the windowsills were dust-free and no man dusted windowsills. Or at least Eliza hoped they didn’t because she didn’t, and whilst her housekeeping standards weren’t great, she liked to think they were better than the average single man’s.
He poured her a glass of wine. He had an impressive wine selection but didn’t talk about it endlessly or highlight her ignorance by asking her to select. He made a suggestion, told her it was full-bodied, that she’d like it, then opened the bottle.
When she thought she was drunk enough to get on with it and yet not too drunk so as she wouldn’t remember it, she suggested they move into the bedroom.
Technically it was OK, she supposed. She’d had worse. But the problem was she’d had much, much better. It wasn’t his fault. He knew that a certain amount of foreplay was polite and he obliged. He was neither squeamish nor prudish, neither kinky nor lazy. But he wasn’t familiar with her body, he wasn’t right.
She wasn’t a tease, and as she was lying in his bed wearing nothing but a G-string (he was totally naked, men loved taking their clothes off) she felt she couldn’t back out. So she bumped and ground her pelvis into his fingers, hoping that things would improve when he got up. They didn’t. The deeper he got the more disappointed she felt. He couldn’t seem to find the spot that worked for her. Eliza tried to push his hand in the right direction; he took the hint but still nothing, even though his fingers were so far inside her she expected him to soon tickle her tonsils. How odd. When Greg finger-fucked her she went wild. The neighbours once knocked on the adjoining wall and asked them to keep the noise down. What was it? Were Charlie’s fingers too small? She’d never thought of herself as particularly roomy; she did lots of pelvic-floor exercises and she hadn’t even had a baby.
Perhaps if they just got down to it. He had a reasonable-size penis. Normal size. In Eliza’s experience they all looked pretty similar and only incited comment if they were especially small or excitingly large. He poppe
d it in and started to groan. He seemed to be having a good enough time at least. Wasn’t it bizarre, she’d been gagging for it for weeks? Now, here she was, flat on her back in between Egyptian cotton sheets, with a cute-enough dude – and all she wanted to do was roll over and go to sleep. Of course she couldn’t. It would be rude and he was doing his best. Eliza manoeuvred so that she could climb astride, it was usually a faster way to orgasm for her, and she had the feeling that Charlie wasn’t going to come until she did. That’s how you spotted the gentlemen of the twenty-first century. Normally she was appreciative of such consideration; tonight it was a nuisance.
He grabbed her boobs, and started to knead them. The pressure he applied was the right side of rough but it still wasn’t happening for her. Irrespective of this, Eliza started to rotate her head and moan. It had been a while since she’d had to fake orgasm, but in her day she could have earned an Oscar. The good thing about faking it with a new man was that he didn’t know the difference between ‘show time’ and ‘real time’. The bad thing was that he thought he’d done something well and would be inclined to repeat the same non-sexy stuff next time you slept with him. But Eliza already knew that wouldn’t matter: there wouldn’t be a next time with Charlie.
21
Eliza pushed open the front door; the house was unusually, eerily silent. Maybe Martha had taken the children to the park. She picked up the post. Two bills, a mailshot for expensive, French children’s clothes and another postcard from Greg. It was the third Eliza had received. It was odd, but only a week after Eliza had left Greg, his group had been asked to back quite a big, up and coming boy band, on a tour around the UK and Germany. He’d dismissed their music as crap and it wasn’t exactly a big break, more of a slight crack – most of the gigs were in clubs, not mega venues – but it was regular work for six weeks. The first six weeks that Greg would ever have received a regular income in all his adult life. Eliza was pleased for him.