by Izzy Bayliss
I shook my head again.
“What a prat – I always said that anybody who introduces themselves when you meet them for the first time as ‘Marc - spelled with a C’ is a tosser anyway.”
“How could he do this to me, Frankie?”
“I don’t have an answer for that, honey I’m afraid,” she said softly.
“I just have so many questions spinning around in my head. Like how long has it been going on for? I still keep thinking that maybe it was all just a bad dream. I can’t believe it. We’re newly-weds, we’re meant to be in the throes of post marital bliss - surprising each other with little post-it notes when you open the fridge, making each other breakfast in bed with toast cut into heart shapes. We’re meant to be watching our wedding video on repeat and freezing it on the bit where we say our vows. We should be running out of wall space in the living room because we’ve hung so many wedding photos up, all that sort of thing - he’s not meant to sleep with someone else!” I spluttered. “I mean I haven’t even sent out our bloody thank you cards yet!” The panic started to rise inside me again as I thought about what all of our family and friends would think. “What am I going to do?”
“Don’t worry about all of that yet. You can stay here for as long as you need to, but that bastard better not come within an inch of my door because he will be going home minus the bits that God gave him.”
I sent my boss a text message to say that I had food poisoning and that I wouldn’t be coming in that day. Frankie was able to call in a favour from a friend to cover the shoot she was supposed to be working on, so the two of us spent the day laying back on her double bed drinking endless cups of tea. We were both wearing what Frankie termed “lounge wear” but essentially they were just like really baggy tracksuits. She flicked on Jeremy Kyle and we both stared brainlessly at the screen. It was car-crash TV, like a bad accident – you knew you shouldn’t look but you just couldn’t help it. I realised that after the drama of the night before, I could star in my own episode of Jeremy Kyle with the headline I found my husband in bed with another woman. Suddenly the guests didn’t seem quite so pathetic, I could relate to these people. I wished I could have Jeremy put his kindly arm around my shoulder while the audience tutted with sympathy, before he would give Marc a good stripping down.
After two more episodes, titled Is my boyfriend my brother? and Three men could be the father of my baby, I made up my mind – I couldn’t take anymore. I needed to get some answers. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and jumped up.
“Where are you going?” Frankie asked.
“I need answers, Frankie. He hasn’t even bothered his arse ringing me. I’m going back over there to ask him what the hell he is playing at!”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” she said cautiously.
“No, not really but it’s something I have to do. I need to know how long it’s been going on and why? All the questions are driving me demented.” My voice waivered and threatened to break into tears again.
“Okay, if that’s what you want, then I’ll come with you.”
Frankie threw me a pile of clothes from her wardrobe. She didn’t even check to see what she was giving me, which I thought was odd for a stylist, so I got dressed into a pair of beige harem pants, suede ankle boots and a mint-green vest top. Then she handed me a khaki parka jacket to throw over it. It was still Spring after all. When I asked her if she was sure the whole ensemble matched, she assured me I looked fine, but I wasn’t so sure. It was the kind of outfit that she could pull off, but on me it just looked plain stupid. I felt like MC Hammer in the trousers, plus they didn’t fit me properly. They were digging into my waist and the boots were pinching my toes, but I dared not complain.
Once we were dressed, we hopped into Frankie’s electric blue Mini Cooper, left the city behind us, and headed for Ballyrobin.
“Jesus, Lily – how do you do this commute every day?” Frankie moaned lowering down the Lady GaGa CD.
“We’re not even half way there yet!” I said.
Soon we had left the suburbs behind and were in the greener territory of the countryside. As we drove along I fell silent, as I thought about everything that I wanted to say to Marc.
An hour after we had left Frankie's apartment, we finally turned into my estate. We drove down the back to where the developers had decided to hide all the cheap box-design, flat-roofed duplexes. A quick scan around the car park told me that Marc wasn’t there. My heart sank – I had spent the whole journey psyching myself up to confront him.
We got out of the car and climbed the steps towards the house. I hesitated at the front door, afraid to cross the threshold into my own home. After the events of the night previous I thought I would be scarred forever, and that fear would always stay with me.
I looked around the living room briefly, but there were no obvious signs of last night’s events, so with trepidation I walked down the hallway towards the scene of the crime. As I stood in the doorway to our bedroom, to my horror the evidence of what I had seen the night before was plain to see. The photo frames were still lying face down on the locker, and the frozen spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread that I had picked up on the way home for dinner were now sitting defrosted in a pool of water. The paper bag had split, from where the water had seeped through onto the carpet. He hadn’t even bothered to pick it up. I noticed that there were two champagne flutes left on the locker that I hadn’t remembered seeing the evening before. The duvet lay tossed in a messy pile on the floor. Now what on earth had possessed me to think they would have a shag and then stop to tidy up the place afterwards was beyond me, but it felt like more salt in the wound. I automatically went to lift the duvet back up onto the bed.
It was then that I noticed that all the wardrobe doors were wide open. With trepidation I walked across the room and saw that all of Marc’s clothes were gone.
Tears gave way to anger. “He's gone, Frankie! He’s left me!”
“How do you know that?” she asked rushing over behind me to take a look.
“He’s taken all his stuff. Look!” I showed her Marc’s side of the wardrobe.
I turned around and bent down to check under the bed.
“They’re gone!” I wailed.
“What are?” Frankie asked swinging around to see what I was after finding now.
“The suitcases - the new Samsonite ones that we got as a wedding present! How dare he do this,” I cried angrily. “Shouldn’t he be here in tears waiting for me? Shouldn't he be all remorseful saying what a terrible mistake he made and begging me to come back?”
Frankie put her arm around my shoulder and guided me down onto the bed. “Lily, I’m so sorry, for once I don’t know what to say – I can’t believe the audacity of that bastard, I really can’t!”
“You don’t think –”
“What?” Frankie asked.
My voice started to tremble. “That he’s gone . . . with her . . .”
Frankie wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You do, don’t you? You think he’s gone to stay with her?”
“Lily, I don’t know, but well . . .” She paused to choose her words carefully. “You found him in bed with someone else, and now he’s packed his bags - you don’t need to be Sherlock Bloody Holmes to figure out he is probably staying with her.”
“You’re right, oh God what am I going to do? I'm only thirty-two years of age - only just three months married and already my husband has left me? God I’m such a fuck-up!” I held my head in my hands.
“No you are not – it’s Marc, he’s the fuck-up!” Frankie said grabbing hold of my shoulders and forcing me to look her in the eye. “You’ve done nothing wrong here. Do you hear me?”
“Pass me my phone,” I said.
“Why?”
“I’m going to ring him.”
“Are you sure that's a good idea?”
But I grabbed the phone out of her hands before she could try and talk me out of it.
With tremb
ling fingers I speed-dialled his number, but it just rang through to his voicemail. His familiar rhyming greeting played: “Hi, this is Marc - spelled with a C. Leave a voicemail . . . I'll call you . . .”
I thought about leaving a message, but no message I would leave could begin to express how desolate I was feeling right then. I was about to hang up when Frankie grabbed the phone out of my hand just as his mailbox beeped to record a message.
“Hey, 'Marc - spelled with a C' – this is Frankie with an F – a big fuck-you wanker!” And then she hung up.
“Frankie!” I cried out in shock.
“Sorry I’m just so mad with him, Lily!”
“I suppose I should say thanks,” I mumbled.
“Don’t mention it.”
She then started to strip down the bed, pulling off the sheets, taking off the duvet cover and pillowcases like a woman on a mission. When she was finished, she gathered up the pile of dirty laundry and proceeded to walk out to the kitchen. I followed behind and watched in horror as she started stuffing my luxury 100% Egyptian cotton bed-linen (another wedding present by the way, because we could never have afforded such fine bed-linen), into the bin.
“What do you think you are you doing?” I cried in horror. “Those sheets have an 800 thread count!”
“Lily, do you honestly think you will ever want to sleep on these sheets again?” she replied as she grappled with a sweeping brush to shove them down further into the bin.
She had a point. They would be forever tainted by what had gone on between them.
“Well no, I suppose you’re right . . .”
“There!” she pronounced rubbing her hands together when she finally had managed to stuff the remainder of the pile in. “All done!”
I gave her a grateful smile. I really couldn’t have faced stripping off those sheets, where they had done the deed. “Thanks, Frankie you’re the best.”
“I know!” she sang. “Do you want me to order you a takeaway – you must be starved at this stage?”
It was only then that I remembered I hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime in work the day before. I had purposely starved myself of my daily four p.m. Mars bar because I had wanted to save my appetite for the special dinner I had planned. Almost instantly my tummy started to rumble, but the thought of food made me nauseous.
“I’m okay, really, Frankie, I think I’m just going to have a bath and get an early night.”
“You can’t stay here on your own!” she protested. “Come on back to my place, we can share a bottle or three of wine.”
“No really, Frankie I want to be here.” I didn’t dare say it to her, but I wanted to be there just in case Marc decided to come home.
“I don't know, Lily . . . I don't like the idea of you being alone right now. I can stay here if you'd prefer?”
“Please, Frankie, my head is in a spin - I think I just need some time alone."
“Well if you’re sure . . .” she said hesitantly. "Ring me if you change your mind and I'll be straight back.”
“Honestly, I’m fine.”
She gave me kiss on the cheek, and promised she would ring later.
As soon as Frankie had gone I reached for my phone again and dialled Marc’s number. I waited for an eternity for him to pick up. But yet again, it just went to his voicemail:
“Hi, this is Marc - spelled with a C. Leave a voicemail . . . I'll call you . . .”
I hung up again in despair. I sat looking around the living room - the house, although not big by any stretch, felt so empty and lonely without him. What had I done wrong? What on earth had I done that was so awful that it had caused my husband to walk out on me after only three months of marriage? I thought we were happy. We had a good sex life, or so I thought, but maybe I just wasn’t good enough – maybe I should have tried spicing things up - like maybe . . . I don’t know, by getting some kinky new underwear instead of my usual M&S sets, or dressing up in a nurse’s outfit. Didn’t you always hear how men love that kind of thing? Or even tantric sex, although I wasn’t too sure what exactly that was, all I knew was that Sting and his wife raved about it. Then there was the little voice inside my head that was saying maybe it was because I just wasn’t attractive enough – I had put on a few pounds on honeymoon what with the free cocktails and the all you can eat buffet every night. Marc was always jiggling my tummy. And Nadia Williams had such an amazing figure – I could never compete with that. Was that the reason? I felt sick just thinking about it. And where was he? Yes I was angry, but we were married, we had things to talk about. I had so much I needed to say to him, so many questions. How had it happened, and how long had it been going on for? But I didn’t even know where Nadia lived. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach as I thought of them together. I was wracking my head trying to find a reason for Marc’s behaviour. None of it made any sense. I kept trying to come up with some reason for it all. It wasn’t like Marc – was he going through a crisis of some sort? But at thirty-four surely he was a bit young for a midlife crisis? Maybe he was depressed? But he certainly hadn’t seemed depressed - I would have noticed something like that. I tried to think of a reason – what had happened to make him run into the arms of another woman after only three months of marriage? The only thing I could think of was maybe it was because I had recently started to mention that we should think about starting a family? But I hadn't meant right now, I had just meant someday in the future. I thought that was what married couples did - but maybe I had completely scared him off? It wasn’t as if I was in a hurry! Hell I wasn’t sure if I was even ready yet myself.
But no matter how I tried to make sense of everything I still couldn’t stop wondering how on earth had I let it happen? How did I always manage to ruin everything that was good in my life? Well at least I was consistent in constantly messing things up. I could feel the weight of fat tears bulging behind my eyes before spilling down my face. I sat there sobbing until I could taste a horrible mixture of snot and salt in my mouth. They kept on coming, I just couldn’t stop them. How do you go from one day being a fresh out of the box newly-wed, to walking in on your husband shagging an A-list actress in your bed the next? Only I could manage to achieve something like that. Good girl, Lily McDermott - you have gone and fucked up your life yet again!
Chapter 3
I woke sprawled uncomfortably on the couch. My neck was stiff and sore and a round damp patch stained the cushion where I must have been drooling. As I opened my eyes, it all came flooding back to me like it did every day when I woke. The pain washed down through my body. I instantly checked my phone, which I still was clutching in my right hand, but there were no missed calls or messages from Marc. I lay back on the cushions and closed my eyes to try and stop the tears from streaming down my face.
It had been three days since I had found Marc in bed with Nadia. I had been living a zombie-like existence. I couldn’t face sleeping in our bedroom, so I had been sleeping on the sofa because our spare room didn’t actually have a bed in it – I had never got around to getting one. My body hadn’t seen any other clothes besides Frankie’s outfit and the too small boots. My routine was watching Ireland A.M., followed by Jeremy Kyle to make me feel better about my own situation. Then it was time for Oprah, and then Ellen. Judge Judy was on at three, which helped to pass another chunk of time, and somehow the mornings turned into night and this was how I got through the day.
I had told my boss that it was a really severe case of food poisoning, and once I started the descriptions of my bowel motions, he seemed happy enough just to accept my word for it.
I had been working in the call centre of Rapid Response pregnancy tests for the last eight years. Initially it was only meant to be a summer job, but it had ended up turning into one long fulltime one. I was promoted to supervisor two years ago, so it was my job to deal with customer complaints. These usually took the form of distressed customers, and I have faced all sorts of questions over the years from “What do two lines mean?” to the more common “
Why isn’t there a second line on my test?” It’s very hard to bite your tongue in those situations. Then there are those people who need instructions on how to do a test, "Eh – hold it under your pee and wait three minutes – read the back of the box, moron!” The worst part of the job is that all the used tests that are faulty are sent back in to the lab for analysis, but we have to process them first. No matter how many pairs of latex gloves and facemasks that I wear, the stench of ammonia first thing on a Monday morning is vile. On the plus side we get as many free pregnancy tests as we want, which would have been useful if Marc and I had been planning on starting a family at some stage. But it's a job and it pays the bills, well actually it doesn’t with our huge negative equity laden mortgage. Compared to Marc’s job, mine is so boring. Although the acting business is tough, and he is out of work a lot, when he does get a job it usually pays well. But it also means that he has to spend a lot when he is working away from home, or buying clothes to wear to the fancy premieres and work dos that he’s always going to, so he’s even broker than me if that’s possible.
Every January my New Year’s resolution was to find a new job, something that excited me and that I didn’t mind getting up for in the morning, but then life got in the way and before I knew it, January had turned into December and I still hadn’t started looking, and I’d another year done. My older sister Clara was always on at me to do something with my life – a call centre supervisor just wasn’t impressive enough for her.
I still hadn’t been able to contact Marc to find out what had happened. I had left countless messages on his phone all saying the same thing, begging him to come home. “Marc - it’s me, I love you, come home. Pleeeease.” I had lost count of the number of times that I had sobbed hysterically down the phone to his voicemail. I had tried bombarding him with text messages but he still never replied. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t banging on the door begging for my forgiveness. It was all starting to hit me now; whatever was going on, it was serious. I needed to know “Why?” I was tormented with whys. Why did he have to leave? Why wouldn’t he come home? Why did he do those awful things? I needed to know what was going on inside his head. And this might sound stupid but I was worried about him too. What if he was going through a mini-breakdown and I wasn’t there for him? I was telling myself that it was just a blip, a minor speed bump on the road, and that he was obviously in a difficult place but we could get through it together — if he would ever just turn on his bloody phone. Everyone always says that marriage has to be worked at, but I didn’t expect these were the kind of things you had to work at. It was a pity we hadn’t covered “What to do when you find your husband in bed with someone else” in our pre-marriage course. I just needed to talk to him and get to the bottom of it all. The longer he was gone, the more the niggling worries inside my head were starting to become real – what would happen if he never came home? It should have been the happiest time of our lives; he should have been so in love with me at that stage. Why would you ask someone to marry you if you’re not in love with them? Was he confused? We had been going out since we were seventeen. Was that the problem? That he had never lived his youth? I had thought back over the last few months. Had there been any signs? But I couldn’t see them if there were. This had come as a bolt from the blue. Was my marriage over, after only three months? It was just so hard to accept – I didn’t want to give up on our marriage and be separated at the age of thirty-two – I wanted to fight for it and to get my husband back. It seemed too cruel. My heart felt as though it was being wrenched in two. I felt an overwhelming lump in my throat, and the panic was rising inside me. I just wanted him back – I didn’t care, we had taken our vows for better or worse.