by Carol Mason
‘Ah . . .’ I set the glass down. ‘Well, that’s easy . . .’ I smile. ‘I’d finished uni in London. A 2:1 in English Lit. Zero idea what I was going to do with it. I quite liked the idea of a year of travel to, you know, maybe help focus me. Seattle seemed cool. It had a great music scene. I loved Frasier! BA had a seat sale. Voila! It was a done deal.’
‘And how did you meet your husband?’
A tiny tug of nostalgia and sadness threatens to break my stride. ‘Literally the day I landed. I’d just rented a car at the airport. First time driving on the other side . . . He was driving his dad’s black pick-up. We’d both come to a four-way stop. He was making a left, to my right . . . I can vividly see his big, shaggy-dog head hanging out of the window as we passed each other on the turn. He said something I didn’t quite catch.’ I smile. ‘I’d always gone for academic, buttoned-up types. And there he was – this big, leering . . . mess, really, for want of a better word.’ I let out a little laugh. ‘He was so shameless, so male. I just had this overwhelming desire to be pursued by him to the moon and back.’ We’ve told this story so many times – I will start it and Mark will usually finish it – that I forget it’s all that special. Right now, though, it besieges me, like a quiet reminder of everything we have been and are. ‘I ploughed right into the back of the car ahead. I was probably jet-lagged and tired. Nobody was hurt, of course. Mark pulled over and helped me sort out all the insurance stuff. And that was it, really. It evolved from there.’
‘Sounds like he was the one. Love at first sight.’ His leg jiggles briefly then stops.
‘Hmm . . . My mother once said there’s only the one you choose. In her mind, if I’d stayed in England I’d have married an Englishman and been just as happy. And how do I know she’s wrong?’
What I do know – that I can’t begin to say – is, if I hadn’t come here, one thing wouldn’t have happened. What would I sacrifice to turn back time?
‘Are you OK?’ he asks, and at first I’m not sure why he’s asking. I am staring off into space. I only realise this when I feel myself coming back from it.
‘Yes.’ I nod, refocus. ‘What was I saying? Ah yes . . . I can’t say I went around thinking, Ooh, I’m in love! We just blended and we complemented one another. We had deep conversations, we challenged each other, and we laughed. Mark gives you his all, and he’s surprisingly more of an introvert than you’d first think. He has this truly amazing gift of being able to be annoyed with you while staying amiable. And you sense that no matter what terrible thing you’re about to tell him he’s going to find a bright side.’ Until the one time he couldn’t, of course.
Emotion makes a stab at overcoming me. I don’t believe I’ve ever had cause to sum him up before. Or to properly articulate his good qualities, even to myself. It’s as though familiarity has given me licence to forget them.
‘It wasn’t as passionate as my one-year relationship back in uni but somehow it was more real. With Mark, I wasn’t walking around aware of how big it was. I wanted him without desperately needing him. I was still very much my own person. I still knew who I was without him. It felt healthy . . . He always made me feel I had choices and freedom. And then I got pregnant and he didn’t encourage me to be anything other than a happy young mother, and he took it on with me and pulled his weight every step of the way.’ I briefly think of Beth again and the loneliness of her dilemma.
He says, ‘He sounds like a fine guy.’
When I look back at him his eyes are asking, What causes a good marriage to end after all that time? I dip back into the wine, after raising the glass and staring through it again, avoiding his eyes.
‘Fish swimming around in there?’
‘Sorry,’ I harrumph, swelling with sadness. ‘I’m not good with trips down memory lane.’ Now that Mark has invaded this space I can’t see past him, I can’t peer around him; he’s blocking everything, even my air.
‘Go on,’ he says, ‘I love listening to you.’
But I can’t go on. Twenty years of marriage are filling in before my eyes. All I can see is the shadow of what love was and how happy I was. I was wrong in my take of it all those years ago: I don’t know who I am without it.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asks. I can tell he is banking every beat of this change in me. I’ve been rendered mute. I stare hard at the bread, aware of my eyes being ready to spill tears.
When I look up, the waitress is walking towards us. ‘I’m thinking here comes dinner.’
TWENTY-FIVE
‘The truth is I don’t know if my marriage is over,’ I tell him, as we share a piece of warm pecan pie.
‘The necklace on the floor?’
Hearing that makes me feel ridiculous now. ‘It was actually something I did as much as what he did.’
I can tell he’s puzzled. He is searching my face as though trying to decipher my code. ‘What did he do?’ he asks, tactfully picking the better question. ‘I’m guessing from the little you’ve said he had an affair.’
I stare at an oil spot on my napkin. Clarity is pushing in where there has been a void for so long. I just want to go with it, let it direct me to a higher truth because I’m tired of my judgement always being so clouded. ‘It wasn’t quite that, I don’t think. Not in the way you mean – though I thought it was at first . . . And, of course, I was pretty convinced for a time that the minute I moved out and came here I’d paved the way for it to become that.’
‘Tell me,’ he says.
I don’t quite know where to start, so I say, ‘Well, I saw them together. I mean – just talking. But I saw enough to make it hard for me to believe his claim that it was just a friendship . . .’
Someone dims the lighting a degree or two – remarkable timing. I can no longer see the intensity of his eyes, which makes it easier somehow.
‘I’d boarded a bus that was due to leave in about ten minutes for downtown Seattle. I used to do it once in a while when I didn’t feel like the hassle of driving . . . Mark’s office is close to the bus terminal. I saw him walk past – it was around 2 p.m. so I just figured he was on his way back to the office from lunch. I went to knock on the window, to surprise him . . . But then there was a woman walking towards him.’ I can picture it vividly. Mark spotting her, then his legs just seeming to stop. He swung around and said something to her that made her face suddenly burst into a smile. ‘She was a very striking girl. Early thirties. Beautiful figure. She’s actually part Fijian.’ I tell him how they chatted for what felt like a while – seemed quite engrossed. ‘I remember thinking he looked so utterly smitten by her – and the way she was tossing her hair and laughing . . . I don’t know, it seemed quite mutual.’
Ned’s face is a picture of scepticism and intrigue. I try not to let it put me off my story.
‘Mark can be a bit of a ladies’ man. Not in any bad way. Women like him. Something about him being bovine and a bit sensitive – it seems to be a winning combination.’ I snicker. ‘I’ve never really been threatened by it. It’s completely unrealistic to think that just because we’re married we go through life immune to the appeal of others . . . He’s never cheated, of course, or I’d not have been with him. And nor have I . . .’ It strikes me that any rational person would say I can’t know this for sure, and it’s true. But as far as I’m able to know it, I believe it. ‘Anyway . . . this felt different. There just seemed to be this intimacy, like they were a little under the spell of each other . . . I can’t really describe it. But it’s one of those things you know when you see it.’
‘He didn’t see you?’ Ned is resting his chin on the back of his hand, looking at me intently.
‘No. Like I say, his attention was more than occupied.’
‘So what did you do? I’m sensing this is leading to something big.’
I’m not sure he’s taking me all that seriously. ‘Not really.’ I shrug. ‘It was like a time warp, really. A bit like how he’d looked at me that first time we met. Like I was the sudden centre of eve
rything, the change . . . I felt sad.’ My explanation is inadequate. In the interests of not over-dramatising it, I’ve actually played it down, done myself a disservice. It sounds even more absurd than it probably even was. When he doesn’t immediately react, I say, ‘I rang his cell.’
‘You did?’
I can picture the moment he heard it. The slight disappointment, tinged with annoyance. ‘When he saw it was me, there was this studied hesitation. I thought, Interesting! He’s not going to answer! But then he did. When I asked him where he was, he said he was in a meeting. I said, “You’re in a meeting right this second? At work?” And he said, “Yup” . . . I didn’t realise he could lie so effortlessly. So then I kind of lied too and I told him I was in Neiman Marcus and I thought we could grab a coffee – we used to do that occasionally during the day once I started working from home; I’d meet him in the little courtyard of The Shops at The Bravern . . .’ Summer or winter we would sit in front of that same outdoor fireplace, either in the shaft of a warm sun or by the glow of the fire. It was kind of like stealing together-time when we weren’t supposed to be doing it. ‘When he’s not being truthful he gets a little lisp. It drives him mad but I’ve always found it endearing. It gave the game away every time. When he said, “Look, I don’t have time. Just got way too much going on right now . . .” I could hear that little lisp. But what really struck me was that the entire time he was saying all this, he never once took his gaze off her face.’
As Ned hasn’t, from mine.
‘Anyway. That was it. They said goodbye. I watched her walk past me sort of looking like she had a little buzz on. He walked a few steps and then he turned and just stood there for a moment watching her from behind.’
Ned whistles, then finishes off his drink. ‘Did you tell him you’d seen him?’
‘Over dinner. He was speechless at first. “You were sitting on the bus? I thought you’d said you were in Neiman’s?” As though my white lie was bigger than his. He played it pretty cool, said she was the new head of their legal team – which I doubted at first because she looked way too young, but it turns out he was right – a high-flying brainbox as well as a beauty . . . He said he’d mostly just dealt with her on the phone but just a few days beforehand they’d met for the first time – they’d been seated in a boardroom together for a couple of hours. So he was shocked she’d just walked past him like she’d never seen him before. He said she was embarrassed when he called her on it. She’d had a little laugh.’
‘Sounds plausible, I guess.’
‘But if she’d been three hundred pounds and his age, I doubt he’d have cared if she didn’t remember him.’
‘Maybe not. But that doesn’t make him a cheater. It just makes him human.’
‘Perhaps,’ I say. ‘He certainly didn’t understand why I was making a big deal of it.’
Ned is looking at me as though neither can he. At the time I couldn’t bring myself to say, Well if it was nothing, then why were you turning and gawking at her legs as she walked away? It felt beneath me. As does putting too much emphasis on it now. ‘If it had only been that . . . But I found some texts shortly after. His phone was on the table and one just popped up and I happened to glance at it and then I was, like, hmm . . . They were meeting for lunches. I think he’d also grabbed a drink with her one night after work, because there was one text from her that said, simply, Six? And then his reply. 5:30? And then she sent him a winky face . . .’ I remember how hopping mad that emoticon made me! ‘Then I found a bill for a restaurant – it had fallen out of his pants pocket and was just lying on the floor. He’d ordered a pretty pricey bottle of wine.’ I have never known Mark to drink booze in the afternoon, no matter what the circumstances; he says it makes him feel unwell in his head. ‘He got quite defensive about that.’
‘Did he admit it was her?’
‘Not at first. Then he said they were just friends – that he’d needed someone to talk to because, well, he and I weren’t exactly talking . . .’
‘Why not?’
I give this question a wide berth. ‘Apparently he nipped it in the bud when she told him her husband and kids were out of town one weekend and she wanted to go out for dinner with him on the Friday night.’ He didn’t exactly volunteer this. I had to pry it out of him. I remember thinking, If you’ve nothing to hide then why are you being so cagey about it? I didn’t understand. ‘He said at that point he knew they were probably about to cross a line.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘Like I said earlier, back then I didn’t know what to believe. I was very fragile, emotionally. Half the time I didn’t know what was real and what was fantasy in my own life, never mind his . . .’
‘Well, I guess it sounds reasonable to me. If he’d been going to have an affair, surely he’d have had his opportunity right there. Sounds like she was putting out all the signals.’
‘Yes, but to admit he knew they were coming close . . . how do you think that made me feel?’ I remember his words, once I’d pushed him on the topic: ‘OK, so I liked being in her company! I got to be normal around her, feel normal. I wasn’t always reminded . . .’
‘Besides,’ I continue, ‘some people think an emotional affair is way more threatening than a physical one. Once you’re looking forward to your cosy long lunches together, and texting each other about it afterwards . . . When you’re enjoying being in that person’s company and finding you can talk to them more than you can your husband or wife . . . And I honestly do think that even if he was truthful and it wasn’t physical at that point, it would only have been a matter of time if I hadn’t tumbled to it – he would have weakened eventually.’
‘Not fair to hang him for what he might have done, though.’
I frown. ‘I’m not hanging him.’ I actually thought I was being quite objective.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I guess I’m just trying to keep some perspective. He knew when to pull back, and he was honest when you asked him about it.’
‘When he knew I knew. I’m not sure that’s being honest – more like saving your ass.’
He doesn’t seem to have a reply for this.
‘It’s hard for me to explain and you probably had to be there . . . I was going through a bad time. I was so careful that no one knew how bad, because I’m a very private person, and he was probably blabbing about it to some gorgeous young woman over tuna tartare and a bottle of Sancerre . . . It stung. But what hurt the most was knowing he was relishing being in her company because it was just so hard for him to be in mine.’
‘Why?’ he asks. ‘What bad time? Tell me.’ Then he adds, ‘I’ve known for a while that there’s something.’
The question takes me completely off guard, despite my having almost led him to ask. Then I think, This is the problem: you can’t tell half the story. This is precisely why I should have stayed quiet.
‘Sorry, that’s not something I feel like getting into.’ I shake my head, seeing it before my eyes, trying to edge my way around it like it’s this thing that’s always blocking my path.
‘It might help,’ he says. ‘And I’m sure you know by now you can say anything to me. I’m a pretty unshockable guy.’
A cold sweat has broken out on the back of my neck. I cut him off with a firm shake of my head. ‘Thanks. I know I can. But I . . . can’t.’ Emotion is like hands around my throat and I can’t sit here any longer feeling put on the spot. The waitress is passing. I almost leap on her for the bill.
‘Hey!’ he says. ‘Let’s not go. Let’s just forget I asked. I really didn’t mean to back you into a corner.’
I just keep on shaking my head. I can’t look at him. Someone has moved a few tables aside and made room for a dance floor. One or two people are shuffling around to a male vocalist singing a touching version of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’. ‘I just need to get out of here,’ I say, searching for the girl, praying for her to come back quickly. ‘Sorry,’ I add. ‘I really don’t mean to be melodramat
ic . . .’ Part of me thinks, Then don’t be! Just tell him!
We sit rigid with anticipation while I try not to have any more of a meltdown than I’m already having. Or perhaps I am the only one who is rigid. He looks more sorry than uncomfortable. The instant she returns, I go to intercept the black bill folder but he beats me to it.
‘Please.’ I hold out my hand.
‘Sorry.’
My arm is trembling. ‘You’re going to make me feel very bad if you don’t let me pay.’ I am overwhelmed by my own drama and just wish I could climb into a manhole and pull the lid across.
He lifts up from the seat slightly and reaches into his pocket for his credit card. When the waitress comes back she looks at us as though we’re having a bit of a blowup.
I watch him pay, aware of an utterly debilitating helplessness. As we leave, the women at the table for four are paying up too, but they stop to perform a synchronised jaw-drop at us as we pass. I suddenly hate small towns again. But then Ned’s hand touches the small of my back and something in me says, Nothing lasts forever. This too shall pass. That hand stays there, making me feel a tiny bit less like imploding, until we get outside.
The air feels so good. I don’t want the night to end this way – with me having ruined it. Under the unflattering glare of a street lamp, he turns to face me. His bloodshot eye seems sore and tired, and he’s pale, probably because I have made him pale with my behaviour. I am sure I must look like an old harridan to him. Then again, it’s not a beauty contest.
I could scream until my vocal cords snap beyond repair.
‘Walk you home?’ he says, trying to be a good sport about it.
I stare at a point past his arm. ‘I’m going to put you out of your misery and walk myself.’
‘Why am I in misery?’ He sounds genuinely puzzled.
I meet his eyes and become transfixed by his gaze – the questions in it, the concern. It suddenly occurs to me that I came to this place to escape my prison, and yet, at the same time, to remain in one. And yet somewhere I lost my way and joined a writing club. I started granting myself tiny pardons, finding intervals away from my pain, opening myself up to the possibility I could feel human again. Nothing has really changed. And that’s because I refuse to let it.