How to Fall in Love Again: Kitty's Story

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘How late?’

  ‘Gosh, nearly one o’clock.’ He grimaced. ‘Couldn’t you sleep? I told you not to wait up.’

  ‘You did. And no, I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Well, what can I do? Make you a cup of hot milk?’ he offered softly and she caught the slight slur on the word ‘of’, the one he had when he’d consumed too much wine.

  ‘How was the five-a-side?’

  ‘Oh, I hate football, as you know. It was in a cold, echoey gym with lots of shouting. But I clapped and hollered accordingly. I think it must have raised quite a lot of money. Sophie okay?’

  ‘Yes, Sophie’s fine. Where was the gym?’ She untucked her legs.

  ‘Err, near Clapham somewhere. I jumped in a cab from work with Leo and his gang. Nice bunch. Young. You know – keen.’

  How easily the words slipped from his mouth, with just enough detail to give them the ring of truth. But she knew different. And Soho was nowhere near Clapham.

  ‘I didn’t realise you’d be this late,’ she said neutrally, waiting to see how far he would go with his embellishments.

  ‘Yes, well, all a bit of a cock-up really. We, err, watched the match and then the one after and then some bright spark decided the only place for a decent curry was Brick Lane and so cabs were called and whatnot and we all ended up in a curry house over there.’

  ‘Till now?’ She wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Kitty, you must be getting old – the place was just hotting up, the restaurant was full. Great food though.’

  ‘Mmm… what did you have?’

  ‘Umm…’ He looked up. ‘Can’t remember. My usual – chicken tikka masala, naan. Why, do you fancy a curry?’ He chuckled.

  ‘Do I fancy a curry?’ Kitty pretended to consider this as she sat forward on the sofa and placed her hands on her stomach. Her next words were delivered coolly. ‘I thought Thomas looked well. I like his hair shorter, it suits him, but I have to ask, does he dye it? It was a little dark around the temples.’

  Angus turned and stared at her. The two high spots of colour drained from his face. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Gosh, I almost admire your tenacity, the way you can carry on lying. What are you going to say next – that it wasn’t you outside the Admiral Duncan but someone who simply looked a lot like you, with a man who looked a lot like Thomas Paderfield but with dyed hair?’

  She watched with a measure of satisfaction as his legs swayed. He staggered to the armchair and sat down hard. Kitty held his gaze briefly, knowingly, challenging him to speak.

  ‘You need to not panic, Kitty.’

  ‘I need to not panic? I need to not fucking panic?’ She let out a burst of nervous laughter. ‘I remember you telling me in no uncertain terms, when you found out about Theo, that if it happened again, we would be divorced before I had finished mumbling a confession. You sounded so self-righteous and I felt like trash. Your tone… “I can give you the benefit of the doubt, Kitty, but I won’t be made a fool of.” That’s what you said. You must have been chuckling over that, you and TP.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ he whispered.

  ‘And you were right, Angus. Strangely, it’s not about the sex as much as the lying, the deceit. I don’t want to live like that. I won’t live like that. I can’t.’

  Angus ran his hand through his fringe, once attractive but right now foppish, intended for whom? Her gut bunched with the urge to vomit.

  ‘I…’ He floundered, seemingly finding it a lot harder to speak when the truth was required. ‘Did you follow me?’

  ‘Yes! Because that’s the issue here, Angus, the fact that I might have followed you, not that you’ve been shagging some bloke and lying to me!’

  ‘I tried, I…’

  ‘You tried? Well, thank you for trying!’ She took a deep breath. ‘I am equally as angry with myself as I am with you. I trusted you. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and all this time…’ She shook her head. ‘I believed you when you told me it was a one-time thing. I am so bloody stupid! How long did you wait before you started seeing him again?’

  He stared at her.

  ‘I’m asking you, Angus, how soon after promising me it was over did you go back to him?’

  He looked at the floor and she gasped as the truth dawned.

  ‘You didn’t stop, did you? You never broke it off with him! You’ve been seeing him for all of this time!’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like for me, trying to—’

  ‘Trying to disguise the fact that you live with the best of both worlds!’

  Angus started to cry. ‘It’s not the best of both worlds, Kitty. It’s the worst of both. I’m caught in the middle and I’m tired. I’m so tired.’

  ‘Oh, poor you.’ She was amazed by her tone; she sounded cool, even though her stomach churned and her thoughts were anything but.

  ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I can’t choose, Kitty. I can’t—’

  ‘You can’t choose? You are my husband,’ she cut in. ‘You married me!’ Her tears fell freely now.

  ‘And I don’t regret a thing!’ he said levelly. His lack of hysteria suggested to her that he’d held this conversation in his head many times; she was probably just filling in the blanks of one of many scenarios he’d imagined.

  ‘You don’t regret a thing? Well, jolly good! Christ, you’ve been having sex with me since I was fifteen.’ She shook her head, trying to make sense of the pictures that were forming in her head. She tried not to think of their rather dull, infrequent sex, wondering whether for him it was a chore. There was no need to sugar-coat anything now. ‘I always felt you were… elsewhere.’ She stumbled on the words. ‘I trusted you.’

  My dad trusted you, my lovely dad.

  ‘Who gives this woman’s hand in marriage?’

  ‘I do…’

  ‘I feel so cheated, and so bloody stupid.’ Kitty ran her fingers over her forehead. ‘You’ve been stringing me along and of course Thomas has always known about the situation, so that makes me the mug. I feel sick about it. All those bloody lies! I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t. How much of our married life has been a lie? Some of it? All of it?’

  ‘You can’t think like that.’

  ‘Can’t I? I believed you, Angus. When you told me it was one night, an experiment, I felt in some way that it was like levelling the score. There was me and Theo and then there was you and Thomas. I accepted I would never fully understand your feelings towards men, didn’t know whether it was a compulsion or whether Thomas had turned your head, and ridiculously I actually blamed him more than you! But we sorted it out, put it behind us – or so I thought. You promised to give him up and we moved on and… we made a baby together. A baby, Angus! Christ. I believed in us, and I thought you did too. I believed I was your number one, that our relationship was the main event and everything else was a diversion, a temptation. I really did.’ Her voice wobbled, and she pulled unconsciously at the gold locket around her neck, but she was determined to finish. ‘But when I saw you with Thomas, the way you were together…’ The tears slipped down her cheeks now, as she spoke this unpalatable truth. ‘You looked like a different person.’ She held his gaze.

  ‘Different how?’ he asked softly.

  ‘There was no stuffiness about you. You held yourself differently. You looked… comfortable, at ease. Happy. Happy in a way I haven’t seen for a long, long time. And that’s when I realised that it’s me that’s the diversion. I am secondary, a smokescreen. And it doesn’t feel good. If it were anyone other than you, my husband, who was leading this life of struggle, I’d feel sad that a man has to live so divided, but as it is you, Angus, the man I’m married to, the man I exchanged vows with, the father of my kids, that same thought leaves me cold. And you know why that is? Because of all the lies, Angus. Because of all the chances you had to come clean, to be honest – with me, with yourself, even with Thomas bloody Paderfield. But you didn’t take them. You just made it all worse. Carrie
d on with your affair. Piled lie upon lie, led me down the garden path and left me there. So I feel duped. I feel stupid and I feel angry.’

  ‘And you have every right to feel angry,’ he said. ‘But you have other things to think about, Kitty. You need to concentrate on staying healthy and present for this baby and you need to keep things as normal as possible for Soph.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’ She raised her voice. ‘But you’ve made me doubt my life, made me doubt everything. You’ve pushed me into this dead end – ten years, more, of my life! – and now where? I wouldn’t give up being mum to this new little one, not for anything, of course I wouldn’t. My babies are my reward and my blessing. But oh, Angus, my God… The thought of you marrying me, becoming a dad, living our life unwillingly… It rips my heart.’

  ‘I love being married to you. I do! I can’t explain, but I love—’

  ‘No, Angus!’ She cut him short. ‘No more pretending. Don’t look so horrified. What’s the problem now – afraid your mum and dad might find out? I mean, God knows, I’m not sure they would know what Tupperware box to store this merry mess in. You’re a fraud and that for me is actually the worst thing.’ She paused at the realisation of this truth. ‘This isn’t about sex or even your sexuality, it’s about the fact that you’re a liar.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ He was getting upset now and she hated how glad she was to see it.

  ‘It is true and you’ve dragged me and Sophie into the whole charade.’

  At the mention of Sophie, Angus broke down. ‘I love her. I’m her dad.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but I can tell you now that you don’t need to worry about choosing. I am choosing for us both. You are free to go and be with the man you love. We are done. That’s it. We are over. You don’t have to pretend any more.’ Standing, Kitty pulled her wedding ring from her finger and placed it on the mantelpiece.

  ‘But the baby…’ He looked up at her, his eyes brimming with tears.

  ‘What about the baby? What will you do – promise to give Thomas up so we can all play happy families?’ She stared at the crumpled heap of him in the chair and felt strangely hollow. ‘It’s time for you to grow up and own up. As I said, Angus, we are done.’

  Moving Home

  Kitty answered her mobile phone.

  ‘Sorry, Mum, first chance to call. Crazy busy today.’

  ‘Darling, don’t worry about calling! I know you’ve got a lot on your plate.’ She smiled, delighted to hear from her son, whom she pictured in his scrubs in the busy A & E department where he was learning the ropes.

  ‘You say that, but I thought I’d better check in to see if you’d fallen under that mountain of boxes?’

  ‘Not yet. Progress is slow. I’m finding it harder than I thought. Lots of reminders, lots of memories.’

  ‘Yep, I feel the same. Our home…’

  ‘Oh, Olly, don’t say that! It’s difficult enough. I’m just about to tackle your school trunks in the spare room.’

  ‘Oh God, who knows what lurks in there! Are you up to date on your tetanus?’

  ‘Very funny.’ She smiled; speaking to her kids always restored her spirits.

  ‘Gotta go. Love you.’

  Kitty held the phone and pictured her boy rushing off to do his thing.

  ‘I love you too,’ she whispered.

  She had pulled their trunks into the middle of the room last week when the bed had been dismantled and disposed of and now they stood like sentinels, the keepers of secrets.

  Kitty flipped the latch on Olly’s trunk and pulled out his baby blanket. She brought it to her mouth and inhaled the glorious scent that had all but faded, picturing herself knitting of an evening in front of the fire up at Darraghfield. Kitty’s eyes filled with tears. She remembered that particular trip back home in all its sad detail. She and Sophie had gone up there for the autumn half-term, just a couple of weeks after Angus moved out. They had both needed the change of scene, and Kitty was in desperate need of a shoulder to cry on. Heavily pregnant with Olly, she could think of nowhere she’d rather be than with her dad.

  He was of course over the moon at having so much time with Sophie, and Sophie was as keen as mustard to go fishing with him. She looked adorable in Kitty’s old waders and her grandad’s fishing hat, and it turned out she was pretty good at tickling the salmon and even cleaning and gutting them.

  Good old Soph, mature beyond her years, even at ten. No wonder she’d made such a good teacher. Kitty smiled proudly. Her kids were her lifeline. Always had been.

  While her dad and her daughter were out on the river, Kitty nursed her hurt and rediscovered her favourite nooks and crannies at Darraghfield. The house always seemed even grander after any time away, another world from the narrow alleyways, terraced houses and twisty cobbled lanes of Blackheath. But there was a sadness about the place too, and it wasn’t just her own. Her mum was frail, aloof, and Kitty found it hard to get through to her. She asked her one afternoon if she remembered Balla Boy and her mum simply looked away, as if that time and the woman she was then were almost too painful to remember.

  There was one day, though, when her mum was in a quite different mood. Kitty had been resting in the library, trying to finish knitting the baby blanket for the new arrival. Her mum had walked in, composed and smiling. Seeing the little blanket, she took it from Kitty, saying, ‘Oh, darling, that takes me back… I so loved being pregnant with you. It was such a special time.’ And with a dexterity Kitty hadn’t seen in her mum for years, Fenella deftly added on the final dozen rows, chatting away as she did so. ‘I used to knit you a new wee jumper every year when you were little. I remember teaching myself how – it wasn’t my natural forte, you know, but I was determined to do it!’ She smiled dreamily. ‘Every stitch was made with love. You were the centre of my universe, Kitty. Still are, darling.’ Kitty was so choked up at this, she hadn’t been able to reply. ‘I can’t wait to meet your new little one in a couple of months. I’ll make them a wee jumper too – why not!’ And with that, her mum had floated out of the library and back up to her room.

  Kitty swam nearly every day, loving the chance to take the weight of her enormous belly off her feet. As she lay in the water, she would think about the day Angus had walked into her life. She’d been fourteen, a baby, as Tizz kept reminding her – lovely, loyal Tizz, who called up most afternoons while Kitty was at Darraghfield. ‘Who wouldn’t have fallen for Golden Boy?’ Tizz said emphatically. ‘He was gorgeous! Still is. You were fourteen, never been kissed, and the most handsome boy at Vaizey wanted to be your boyfriend? You didn’t stand a chance!’ Even Kitty had giggled at that.

  Tizz was of the view that she and Angus had never really been right for each other; that Angus had confused friendship with love and had had neither the self-awareness nor the courage to think about what he really wanted. Kitty hated that she might be right. She wished she could run to her fourteen-year-old self in the pool and yank her from the water. She would take her in her wise, adult arms and rock her until the danger had passed, until the shape of the boy had slipped back through the gap in the hedge and the world had returned to a simple, sunny, ordinary day… And then, just maybe, she might have gone on to meet a different boy, a boy who really loved her, loved her for herself and wanted to lead a simple life together. A life where they both got to see the whole picture, without lies, without hiding.

  Kitty placed the precious blanket back in the trunk and lifted out Olly’s first Vaizey College blazer. That had been another decision reached during that half-term at Darraghfield. ‘Send the kids to Vaizey early,’ her dad had urged. ‘Soph can start in the summer term. You’ll miss her, of course you will. But you’ll be so busy with the new baby, and she will love it there. I know she will.’

  He’d been right, of course. He always was. Her lovely dad. He had so many challenges of his own to deal with, especially that year, but he was always there for her, even when his own world fell apart.

  10

&n
bsp; Kitty cursed under her breath as the telephone in the hallway rang and Olly, who had just slipped into a deep sleep, stirred and raised his tiny fists as if in protest. She smiled at her little boy, just eleven weeks old and a source of endless fascination to her.

  Sophie ran down the stairs and grabbed the phone. ‘Hi, Grandad! Guess what? I went to the Horniman Museum and I saw the most amazing butterfly—’

  There was a pause in the chatter.

  ‘Oh, okay, Grandad. I’ll go get her. Love you.’

  ‘Mum, Grandad wants to talk to you and he sounds a bit weird.’ Sophie pulled a face.

  ‘Okay, keep an eye on Olly for me.’ She ran her hand over her daughter’s scalp as they swapped places.

  ‘Hi, Dad, is everything okay?’ All she could hear at the other end was the tearful rattle of his breathing. ‘Dad? What’s wrong?’ Her heartbeat quickened. She might have been a grown woman with kids of her own, but to hear her daddy cry was a painful thing, a reminder of his fallibility.

  ‘It’s Mum.’

  ‘Oh no, what’s wrong? Is she poorly?’ She tried to locate the words that evaded her. ‘Is she—’

  ‘She’s gone, Kitty. She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ She shook her head. ‘What? Gone? Dad, is—’

  ‘She’s dead,’ he managed, the words choked out between loud gasps. Kitty’s heart heaved as she pictured him there, sobbing in his chair. ‘She died, Kitty. Today. She died today.’

  ‘Oh! Oh no!’ The blood seemed to rush from her head and she swayed on the spot. Dropping down onto her knees, she stayed like that for a little while, holding the phone to her ear while her dad cried.

  Oh, Mum! My mum, gone…

  ‘Dad! How?’

  ‘I found her…’ He paused again. ‘I found her up at Kilan Pasture. She looked beautiful, Kitty. She looked—’

  ‘Oh Dad, I can’t believe it. I’ll come home, we’ll be there by the morning. Just hang in there and we’ll be with you as soon as we can.’