The Other Woman's Shoes

by Adele Parks

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes!’ ‘Duh’ wasn’t articulated; it didn’t need to be. ‘How many times did you text him today?’

  ‘I don’t know. I lost count. About four.’

  ‘Martha! Bloody hell, you should never, ever text more than once in a day.’

  ‘But he texted me too,’ said Martha in self-defence.

  Eliza ignored this. ‘And then you sent chocolate. Well, forget it, it’s over. Start checking out your Filofax for alternatives, Babe, you’ve left yourself wide open. There is no way he’s going to get back to you now you’ve opened yourself up.’

  With that happy prediction, Eliza swiftly changed the subject and started talking about a pair of brown cord jeans she’d seen in Karen Millen at lunchtime, and thought she might buy the next day. Then she said to Martha that she had to go, she had to finish her spreadsheet on the budget for some video or other.

  Eliza said she had a date and wouldn’t be back until late; Martha needn’t wait up.

  Martha was barely listening.

  Martha fed the children, bathed them and started to read to them. Maisie, as usual, paid no attention whatsoever to the progress of the story, the concept of turning pages in sequence, or indeed which way up the book should be held. She irritated Mathew by chewing its corners and snatching at the pages. This induced an almighty row that Martha found she had little patience for. Instead of carefully negotiating her way through Peter Rabbit– by offering Maisie distractions and pleading with Mathew for his understanding – she smartly popped Maisie into her cot and tucked Mathew into his bed. She turned out the lights.

  Martha pulled the sitting-room curtains closed. Stupid of her to imagine that February was anything other than bleak. She stood with her bottom resting on the radiator, which she’d hiked up to full heat, and folded her arms across her body – but she still couldn’t get warm. She picked up the remote and flicked through the channels; nothing could hold her attention, not even the tawdry goings-on in Eastenders. On automatic pilot, Martha wandered through to the kitchen and opened the fridge. She stared inside and tried to decide what to eat. The problem was, she wasn’t hungry. None of it looked tempting. She had no appetite.

  He hadn’t called.

  How exactly had a Crunchie bar opened her mind and her heart?

  She pulled out a bottle of chilled white wine, and opened it. She carefully poured herself a large glass; she no longer guiltily looked around the house, waiting for someone to shout at her for doing this. She supposed that was some progress. But then she thought how frequently she was opening a bottle of wine and immediately doubted that it was. She could clear away the children’s tea plates, she could wash up. She could put on a load of washing, or do some ironing; there was always plenty of that. She could tidy the drawer where she kept plastic carrier bags. These were the kind of tasks that she used to do when she was waiting for Michael to come home and he was caught in a long meeting. None of it appealed.

  She flicked through her CD collection. She had a number of recent acquisitions: Chemical Brothers, Nelly Furtado, Röyksopp. She was proud of her growing collection but, sadly, none of them suited her mood right now. She didn’t have any Smiths. ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ would have been perfect.

  She couldn’t believe it. Eliza was right. She was wrong. He was a faithless, fickle and, and, and… Martha searched around for a word that was damning enough. A faithless, fickle, ordinary man, she seethed.

  Why hadn’t he called? He was supposed to be coming to see her tonight, but he hadn’t called to confirm the arrangements. Martha didn’t know if she should make her own supper. The thought of a lifetime of lonely suppers was too distressing; she knew she wouldn’t be able to swallow a bite.

  He’d found someone new.

  He was probably kissing her collarbone this very second.

  It was clear that he would be spending Valentine’s Day, and for that matter every other day, with a new woman. Who was she kidding, but herself? Probably several new women. She was forgotten. What was so wrong with a Crunchie bar? Because things had been fine up until then. Did men really hate it so much when you showed them you cared?

  Martha thought about Michael. Her caring hadn’t done much good there, either. She took a slug of wine.

  But Jack had even made plans. He’d talked about the summer. He’d actually said things like ‘can’t wait to see you with a tan’. What was that, if it wasn’t planning ahead? Of course, she knew Michael had said that they’d be married for ever and he’d lied about that. Of course, after that she should have taken everything any man said to her with a mountain of salt. But she’d believed in Jack. She didn’t know why. It defied logic and reason, but she had. Martha pounced on her mobile and reread the text messages that he’d sent her that day. They were, without exception, flirtatious, witty, friendly.

  Martha didn’t get it.

  She poured herself another glass of wine, and noticed that she was shaking with rage. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling serene again. The world was a disappointing place. He was just as disappointing as her husband, and the next man in her life would be just as disappointing too. Her arms felt like lead. She couldn’t raise them even to waist height to continue pouring her drink. She put the bottle down before it slipped out of her grasp. The glass that was in her other hand wasn’t as lucky: it fell to the floor and smashed. She didn’t bother picking it up. The glassware that she once loved meant nothing to her.

  They all let you down in the end. They all hurt and tear and spoil. They all leave. She could feel her heart pounding against her chest. She wanted to ring him so that she could give him what she used to refer to as ‘a piece of her mind’. Now she wanted to give him ‘a right-royal bollocking’.

  Didn’t he see? Couldn’t he tell? Hadn’t he guessed how much he’d wormed his way under her skin? He’d seemed like another layer of her skin, somewhere between all the messy bits, the innards, the heart, the soul and her toughened outer skin. Although it was not tough enough, as things had turned out.

  He could at least have called. But to leave her just sitting here. Imagining…

  He had never treated her so disrespectfully in December, and December was the party season, wall-to-wall totty. If he’d wanted to exercise his right to have other women, indulge in this naked-friend thing, then that would have been the time. The ideal opportunity.

  Martha wasn’t being bullish. She genuinely hadn’t minded that there were other women. Jack helped her get through the endless renditions of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’. Something to help her swallow the endless, syrupy films, programmes and adverts that appeared throughout the season. The ones that persisted in showing the ideal family unit: husband, wife, two kids and a dog; they were, if not actually sitting around a piano, then certainly gathered around a TV. Every one of them, even the dog, smiling contentedly, oozing self-satisfaction and perfect happiness. The same dream she’d been living, the dream she’d watched Michael flush down the loo, as though her marriage were a dead goldfish. And Jack had helped her through all that sentimental claptrap. Like a very large glass of wine, he’d anaesthetized the voracious, relentless pain that ripped at her heart, the pain of not being wanted by her husband. At least Jack wanted her. Even if the way he wanted her wasn’t the noblest. Maybe, as Eliza had repeatedly insisted, it was just sex, but it had never felt like that to Martha; it had always seemed friendlier, kinder, and gentler.

  Then there’d been January. He’d been a friend to her. He’d always been at the other end of the phone. When Michael wouldn’t take her calls, Jack would. And Jack listened to her endless frets about the children’s colds and ear infections; but more than that, he took her out to bars and clubs and shops. He acted as though she were fun. He acted as though he wanted her around. But now it appeared he didn’t want her – either nobly or ignobly.

  Maybe ‘acted’ was the operative word. Suddenly Martha was faced with the double shock of dealing, really dealing, with not being wan
ted as a life partner or even as a casual, friendly shag.

  She thought she was going to implode.

  Martha waited until nine forty-five when it was absolutely certain that he wasn’t simply working late at the office. Jack always arrived at her house by seven-thirty, latest. He wasn’t coming. The bottle of wine was empty and Martha couldn’t think of anything more constructive to do than sink into bed alone.

  Except.

  She punched his mobile number into her phone. It rang two or three times before he picked it up. The tiniest smidgen of hope she’d still been harbouring – that somehow he was stuck in the office, unable to get to either his mobile or a land line – was dashed; she could hear the definite sounds of a good time in the background. A bar, possibly a club.

  ‘Hello.’ He didn’t exactly sound thrilled to hear from her. Yet he’d answered. He’d have known the call was from her because her name would have popped up on the screen.

  The only thing Martha could deduce was that he wanted her to know that he was out with someone else. This was the coward’s way of giving her the brush-off. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. ‘I’m calling to tell you not to come round tonight,’ she said. It was pretty clear that he had no intention of coming round. Well, possibly, if he didn’t get lucky, he might have been planning to come round after the club closed to roger her senseless. She had to make it perfectly clear that this was not an option.

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said.

  ‘I’m too tired,’ she said, meaning, of course, It’s very late for a date. ‘And I don’t want to see you. Tonight – or ever again for that matter. Whatever we had, which was irritatingly ill-defined, is over. OK? Forget it.’

  ‘If you like.’

  The phone went dead.

  Martha fell back into her bed and cried herself to sleep.

  35

  Martha couldn’t remember feeling worse. In fact, the hangover was a blessing. She deserved it; it couldn’t cause enough pain, no matter what. Thank God Eliza was still sleeping; Martha really couldn’t face a dose of ‘I told you so’, even if Eliza had told her so.

  Especially as Eliza had told her so.

  But what could she have done differently? How could she have resisted Jack?

  Martha poured the children large bowls of Coco Pops. Recently she worried less about their teeth; she spent more time wondering how she’d protect their hearts. The children ate their Coco Pops with unsuitable cheeriness, oblivious to their mother’s disappointment.

  Of course all good sense had dictated that Martha’s fling with Jack would be meaningless and short-lived. Everything was against it. She hardly knew him (although it had felt as though they’d known each other for ever). She’d slept with him far too quickly (although at the time it had felt right, good, proper). They had great sex, which meant he’d had zillions of lovers (although when he made love to her it didn’t feel like Kama Sutra, page 124 – it felt like affection). He’d insisted on a non-exclusive relationship (a fact that was indefensible, and as such, Martha wasn’t going to try to defend it; she’d planned on continuing to ignore it). If ever she’d given the naked-friend situation any thought, she’d assumed that he was simply articulating a right; she hadn’t really expected him to exercise that right. She wasn’t sure when he’d have the time to do so. He was always with her.

  She’d sort of assumed that the time he spent with her, which was high in quality and quantity, meant that he couldn’t possibly be seeing anyone else. It would require too much energy. She hadn’t given any real thought to how she’d feel learning that he was kissing other women’s lips and necks, nibbling other ears, cupping other breasts. But now she was thinking about it, and the thought was horrific. Of course there were others, he’d said there was going to be, hadn’t he? It was clear that sooner or later he’d meet a more attractive naked friend. He’d moved on. She could have asked him last night. His horrible honesty policy meant that he would have told her the truth, she was sure of that. But, Christ, Martha had sharpened the knife, put it in his hand, even guided the plunge, with her ridiculous naivety and hopefulness; she wasn’t going to twist it too.

  OK, maybe she hadn’t been very realistic. Why would the one remaining single, exceptionally good-looking, fit, wealthy, witty, hung-like-a-donkey Sex God left in London – or possibly the whole of the UK – choose her, Martha Evergreen? And, more unlikely still, why would he choose the whole package? A mum aged thirty-two, a toddler and a baby.

  Martha glanced over at her children and her heart melted with love as she watched Maisie spoon Coco Pops into her ear, and Mathew, who really should have known better, squash a banana on to the seat of the chair next to him. Both children had green slime running out of their noses, because it was the season that children got colds – in other words, it was any month apart from July or August (of course their noses ran then too, but that was from hay fever not a cold). There was an awful smell coming from Maisie’s nappy, and an awful whine coming from Mathew’s mouth. Situation normal, then, thought Martha. Irresistible? Hardly. Even their bloody father had resisted. How could she hope that Jack would want it?

  Martha showered and brushed her hair. She forced the children into clean clothes and then into the car. She drove to Selfridges. Surely looking at an abundance of overpriced luxury items would make her feel better. Normally the Food Hall did the trick, or at least the cosmetics area. But Selfridges failed to cheer her up. Martha sighed. She remembered when a trip around the local supermarket was a treat, and that wasn’t so long ago. Was her life better or worse now that she expected more from it?

  She couldn’t understand it. She didn’t believe it. Michael and she had been together for ten years and he’d shocked and failed her – there was no denying that. But she thought she’d been doing quite well; she’d thought that if she wasn’t quite getting over it, then she was, at least, getting on with it. Admittedly, she still rowed with Michael on occasion – well, fairly frequently, actually. But she hadn’t rubbished him to anyone. She’d worked hard at maintaining the relationship he had with the children by arranging days together for them, even though she hated being without the children on Sunday afternoons. She’d agreed to his idea that they handle the divorce themselves and not introduce solicitors into the proceedings, even though most people thought acquiescing made her a sandwich short of a picnic.

  And, recently, and she knew this sounded mad, she’d started to get a feeling that Jack was some sort of reward.

  Obviously, she didn’t mean a reward from Heaven or anything like that – she wasn’t certifiable. It just seemed to her that, as horrible as it was for her to lose Michael and have to go through a divorce, maybe there was a consolation, or possibly more than that: maybe there was a reason.

  Because Jack seemed different from any other man she’d ever met.

  Special.

  Of course, it didn’t make sense to believe that they could really make a go of it. Of course, they were just having a fling. A rebound thing.

  But a girl can hope, can’t she?

  And that was another thing; his surname was Hope. That had to be more than a coincidence; that was a sign. When she’d thought she’d never believe in human nature again. When everyone had thought Martha was wrong to expect loyalty, morality, decency in this world, Hope had come along.

  It was such a shock that Jack had turned out to be a Jack-the-lad, and had treated her with such foul disrespect. She had, despite everything – experience, evidence, expectations – believed in him. She couldn’t help it. She had trusted him and this wasn’t simply to do with her ‘un-fucking-believable naivety, gullibility and propensity to choose toss-pots’, as her sister maintained; it was because he really seemed decent.

  She knew it, believed it.

  Or, at least, thought she had.

  She wasn’t expecting a marriage proposal. She knew what game he was in because he’d told her. Her mistake had been to think she could play that game. Her mistake had been to tru
st him, but she did trust him.

  Had trusted him.

  And since they’d met, there had been no reason not to trust him. They’d been having a great time together. She’d made dates with him, gently suggesting when they could meet. She tried to sound casual and spontaneous, but the truth was that any night in or out with him demanded that she balance childcare, Michael’s access rights and Eliza’s social life. It wasn’t easy. Jack always immediately agreed to the dates or, at worst, said that he might have a previous arrangement to check. In those cases he gave her a time when he’d get back to confirm. He always confirmed, one way or another, at the agreed time. He was rarely late, and if he were going to be, he’d call to say so.

  Jack opened doors for her, he made her cups of tea even though he didn’t drink tea himself, he fixed things around the house without her having to ask or even hint, he changed the batteries in the kids’ toys. She could have done these things for herself, but he always wanted to do them for her. He’d treated her with respect and kindness. But Eliza had been right after all. You can’t trust them. They are all the same, fallible and unreliable.

  And it hurt. The disappointment was quite astounding. Martha felt incredibly, indescribably and unrelentingly sad. She missed him. She scrabbled around in her handbag to find her phone (how had she ever managed without one?) and called Eliza.

  ‘Hey, Doll, where are you?’ asked Eliza, sleepily.

  ‘Selfridges.’

  ‘Cool, keep an eye out for brown cords, and if you see any you think I’d like, I’ll come and meet you.’

  ‘OK. I didn’t see Jack last night.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise.’ And then more thoughtfully she added, ‘I’m sorry. I wish it hadn’t had to turn out like this.’ She was a woman of the world, she’d already assumed the worst.

  ‘I think I’m going to call him.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Martha, don’t call him.’ Martha could almost see Eliza jumping out of bed in alarm; she was probably grabbing her travel pass and running for the number 94 bus in a frantic effort to intervene.