Chapter 25
Over the next few weeks the world around Julia seemed bleaker and emptier. The inner void she had felt so many times now seemed to have encapsulated her. She was a bundle of nerves and jitters and was living on coffee, anti-depressants and alcohol. The evening glass of wine was often turning into the evening bottle of wine so that she would flit into a state of unconsciousness the moment her head hit the pillow. In this way she did not have to think of Ben lying there besides her. She would not have to find excuses or push him away when he crept close to her in bed.
The rest of the Christmas holidays had passed in a blur. She was grateful that the au-pair had taken over a lot of her motherly duties and although she was plagued with guilt she felt relieved that this meant she could focus her energies in digging deeper into the affair. Was it normal to feel this way? Was she only tormenting herself to find out more? Why did she need to find out more? Was it going to make a difference knowing how long it had been going on? How many times had they met up behind her back? Where did they meet? By now she was sure that Sophia had never been in her house. She had obsessively gone through everything in her house, examined the bed-linen, the bathroom; even examining the contents of the dustpan when she swept up the house. She had never found any tell-tale signs of Sophia’s long hair. Did they meet up in a hotel room? Did they meet at Sophia’s house? Julia thought back of all the times she had dropped by at Sophia’s house always unexpectedly. She had never thought of phoning Sophia beforehand. How did Ben contact Sophia? Since the accident Julia had been sure that she never picked up her houseline and she had never seen her mobile lying around. Had Julia misinterpreted this? Had Sophia done this to avoid showing Julia who was trying to contact her? Was it the fear of being caught out why she had chosen to ignore the ringing telephone and to discard her mobile, and it was only Julia’s fault that she had mistakenly interpreted this as part of Sophia’s depression that she did not want any contact with the outside world?
By this point Julia had prepared herself for the worst. She was totally convinced that the affair could not have started before Sophia’s attack. Before the attack Julia and Sophia had seen each other far more regularly and with Sophia’s job and with dating all the guys she had dated it would have been next to impossible to fit in an affair. So Julia had convinced herself that the longest it could have been going on was a year. This did not give her any consolation however; it strangely made her feel better in that she was attempting to piece the puzzle together. For starters she knew with whom her husband had betrayed her; she now also knew an approximate time frame. She still had her heart filled with pain and fear, where this would lead she was unsure, but at least she was removing the uncertainty. The numerous questions; each generated their own pain. At least she would not torture herself with having to ask Ben these questions when she was finally ready to confront him as she would have discovered everything.
Ben had clearly seen the change in her behaviour. He had always been good at interpreting Julia’s moods. He had gently commented on her drinking habits as he was worried about her. Julia had merely brushed this off with the excuse that she was going through a stressful period with her new job and that it would pass. She was frightened that if she spoke to him more about it she would just break down and would be unable to prevent herself from telling him that she knew his terrible secret. Ben genuinely seemed concerned about Julia. She tried to hide the amount of pills she was taking from him and was certain that he only suspected that she took half the amount that she actually took. Julia felt sorry for him at times. He was like a giant St Bernard’s running around the house trying to make her feel better. He would bring her paracetamol for the headaches she said she was experiencing, and even offer to run her a bath. On two occasions he had even brought down her bedroom slippers when she had arrived late in the evening after having driven Andrew to football practice. At times she felt that her heart would bleed with the pain of it all. Despite the hurt and the anger inside her she knew that she couldn’t end it all. But what was the other option? How could she survive this? She couldn’t keep living this lie. She couldn’t keep drinking the way she was, trying to hide the harsh reality of what was going on in her life. And for how long could she keep up this pretext? Weeks, months, a year? And what then? She felt that the longer she bottled up the pain inside her the more severe the explosion would be when it all erupted. She felt like a pressure cooker being left to simmer. She couldn’t continue in this way. It was damaging her family. It was damaging her health. She would lose her job if she kept on like this; but was her job still important to her? At this point when all around her seemed to be in ruins, even her job which had given her so much satisfaction in the past weeks had now turned sour.
Through all of this she still hadn’t seen Sophia. Julia knew that Sophia would not suspect anything as she knew that Julia had started a new job, so she would presume that she was getting held up with her job, but pretty soon Sophia would also start getting suspicious. How long could she keep on going without visiting Sophia? When would Sophia start getting suspicious? Would it take weeks? Would it take a month? Had she already started suspecting anything? Could she go to visit Sophia and not tell her anything? This was an option she would have to consider if she wasn’t yet prepared to reveal that she had discovered their deception. At times she felt that she was strong enough to do so, at other times she felt that she could never look into Sophia’s beautiful eyes again and not confront her with all the hurt and pain she had caused her.
There were days where she contemplated ending it all. It was only the kids who kept her going. She loved them too much to go through with anything like that. What if they grew up and hated her for it? This thought was too terrible to bear. She didn’t deserve their hate. It was Ben and Sophia who they needed to hate, but was it good of her to think this way. Ben was a devoted father as ever, so was it fair to expect the kids to hate him for what he had done. In all of this she realised that Ben clearly still loved her, so how could she expect the children to hate him. Julia knew that deep down; under millions of layers of hate she still loved this man. At times she also found excuses for what had happened. Perhaps it was her fault. She had been so dedicated to the children that he had fallen in second place. She had also placed Sophia’s friendship before their marriage on so many occasions. Perhaps it was really her fault. She had pushed him into this affair. After all she had introduced him to Sophia. Why was she so angry that Ben had fallen for Sophia? She must have been the biggest idiot on earth not to realise that if Sophia had had such an effect on her then surely she must have had just the same effect on Ben. After all, Julia had known that Sophia had always been Ms Popular in the field of men. Why had she assumed that Ben was any different? Perhaps the indifference Ben had initially shown her towards Sophia was just an attempt to hide his feelings of fascination and infatuation as Julia had felt so many times.
On many occasions Julia had gone back to her notebook entries. She was now certain that the entries she had listed were all somehow connected to Sophia. She realised that she had totally misinterpreted the emotions she had read on Ben’s face. Ben was not angry that Julia had kept those photos or that she was spending time with Sophia. Ben was feeling guilty. She had mistaken his guilt for anger. It was all so clear now, how could she have been so stupid. The signs had all been there. It was not anger at her relationship with Sophia; perhaps it had never been anger in the first place, perhaps it had been resentment at what Julia had and at what Ben had wished to have. When had that wish become reality? Was it something that had always been there like an egg waiting to hatch open? Or was it something that had developed over time? Perhaps the pity that Ben had felt towards Sophia was the same pity that Julia had felt for Sophia. Perhaps the anger that she had felt towards Julian had also been felt by Ben. It was as if someone had just turned on a harsh set of colourful spotlights, so the stage now showed what it truly was and Julia could now see all the defects on the wooden floor, the
frayed curtains and the faded backdrop. A stage that had once seen its glory and fame, but was now just a skeleton of what it had once been.
Chapter 26
It was all that Julia could think about. She woke each day with the image of the two of them embedded in her mind and she would sink in a deep sleep at night where she would recreate the same scene over and over again. The scene would commence with Julia stumbling upon Sophia and Ben in the act of intimate love-making. At times this would take place in her bedroom at home, at others in Sophia’s home, at others in some unrecognisable location. Julia was always the outsider watching the two of them till she enters the room. There were dreams in which she killed both of them, dreams in which she killed one of them, dreams in which she slit her wrists in front of them whilst they frantically sobbed over her and others in which they pleaded with her for forgiveness. In one dream she had forgiven Ben and sent Sophia in exile to a desolate island somewhere off the coast of Denmark. There was another dream in which they had all gone home together, the pain having been washed away with love and forgiveness. The dreams exhausted Julia and she often woke up in the night drenched with sweat. They made her feel frightened and confused. Each ending seemed to imply that either way she would always been the loser. She felt angry at herself for feeling so weak. She had done nothing wrong; she was the wronged one so why did it feel as if she was the one who had done bad? Looking at the two lovers entwined, she felt envious at the beauty of the couple. They looked so perfect. In her dream she never spotted Ben’s white hairs or the scar on Sophia’s forehead. Their bodies were those of two young people, strong, healthy and supple. The energy and lust they had for each other went beyond sex and desire. It made Julia shudder and she was torn in anguish. Should she remain as she was pretending that things were well, living the lie that all three were currently living? What if she approached Ben and things fell apart? It would be too hard for her to bear, it would mean losing him all over again. It felt as if that would mean losing much more than her friend and lover. She would lose the person who had been through everything with her. Losing the father of her children, so that all memories they had with the children would turn sour and rot. All future memories that they could create would be aborted before they had time to be born. It made Julia feel as though she had committed a crime. She needed to purge herself from it all, but how could she when she had done nothing wrong.
Dropping off the children at school she would stare at the other parents, imagining whether anyone else was experiencing the same heart break she was feeling. She had no one to confide in. Her Sophia was now out of the equation. She wished there was some support group she could go to. She imagined herself standing up in a semi-circle of other middle-aged women. She would introduce herself and relate her story.
“My name is Julia. I am here with you today because my husband has been having an affair with my best-friend and I am trying to find the courage to overcome it.”
There would be the sound of loud startles and looks of pity followed by an applause of encouragement. Over a coffee she would chat to the other women in the group, perhaps she would even make friends with someone in the group.
This possibility made Julia think of Sophia. She couldn’t imagine ever having a friend like Sophia again. Sophia was unique: she had completed Julia in every way. Deep down, below all that hurt, pain and anger, she still loved her husband, she knew that whatever Sophia had done she had already forgiven her. Sophia had stolen that which was sacred for Julia. She had smashed up the inner core of her family, yet she was ready to forgive her. Had this been the cause of the affair? Had both Ben and Sophia known her so well that they knew that in the end Julia would just accept things? Had they tormented themselves with these questions, the way Julia had been tormenting herself? Had they discussed her at all? She felt sick at the thought of them talking about her and the way she would react, but she felt even sicker when she thought about them carrying out the affair completely oblivious of how she would take it. Had they even considered that she would find out.
Julia thought back to the time she had once considered talking to Sophia about the notebook and about the observations she had jotted down about the ‘looks’ she had observed in Ben. What would Sophia have told her? Would she have just comforted her and hugged her, reassuring her that there was nothing to it? Would she have come clean and broke down in tears? She had so many questions. Was this the reason that Sophia had decided to sell her house? Maybe she knew that if she kept on living so close to Julia she would keep on betraying her best-friend. Maybe she was too weak to resist Ben, so the only option she could think of had been to physically move away to prevent her from carrying on the affair. Julia kept trying to find answers to the many questions; however, she knew that these were only wild guesses at what could really be going on.
At one point she had even imagined the possibility that perhaps Julian had attacked Sophia because he had found out that she was cheating with Ben. Perhaps Ben had just committed the grave mistake of this betrayal; once seeing the state that Sophia had ended up in just because of him had made him feel guilty and perhaps he was still seeing Sophia out of this guilt. He never really intended to carry on this affair. He was just with Sophia to ease his guilt at having to see her in this state. When Julia started to think on these lines, all of these story-lines started to make a lot of sense. She realised that in reality she was just trying to make herself feel better by trying to see things from her rose-coloured spectacles. In reality things didn’t have to be rosy at all. There did not have to be any justifications or excuses. She had married Ben for better and for worse. They had promised each other to be faithful and even if Sophia had been an unfair test it was a test in which he had failed miserably. Julia had never ever imagined it could have come to this. How could she ever love him again the way she had loved him. How could she ever look into his eyes again and not torture herself with reminders of what he had done. Of the things he had told Sophia, of the feelings she had aroused in him. How could she ever make love to him again knowing that he had thrown away all that she had given him? Would time be able to heal all this? Would she manage to save their marriage for the sake of the children? The children were still so young and their separation would have negative repercussions for years to come. She had always imagined them growing old together, taking care of their grandchildren; she had always imagined that they would have loads of grandchildren. This had all been destroyed. Even if their marriage survived she would never feel that happiness she had once managed to feel with Ben, she was sure of it. She could love him again but there would always be something there which would hold her back. Perhaps it would also be the same for him, he would never fully believe that she was capable of forgiving him completely and they would live the rest of their lives with this torment. Even in all her dreams and nightmares there was never a solution to this. Julia wished she could ask someone who had been through this. Had they really managed to forgive? Was their marriage really strong enough to survive betrayal or were those couples who were still together after a betrayal together to save face. Were they together to save themselves the even scarier prospect of separating? Were they in reality all just unhappy souls? Each one simply counting down the days till one half of the couple passed away?
Julia felt as though the web of lies that she had started building around her had engulfed her. She was no longer the spider in control of the lies being spun; she had become the defenceless insect caught up in the web awaiting its death. She felt as if she had been stabbed in the heart and she had been going around her daily tasks over the past few weeks with a knife embedded deep within her so that she left a thick trail of blood wherever she went. Her home must have looked like a blood bath right now and she could picture her work station in the office and the office equipment all smeared with this invisible blood.
At work she had managed to immerse herself in her work so that she could avoid the office chit-chat. The last thing on her mind was gossip about wh
o was having a fling or who had a crush on whom. She couldn’t bear anything on these lines. She felt totally sexless, like some sort of zombie doing things instinctively without emotions or thought. She felt lifeless and loveless like some narcissist caught up in her own world. She imagined that this was possibly what Sophia had felt like after the attack. At work she kept her mind occupied with work and more work. She was a model employee worth her weight in gold.
By the end of January the CEO had already informed her that she would shortly be promoted to a better position. A colleague had just handed in her notice and although she had been working at the office full-time the management had decided that Julia would fit into this job perfectly. Two months ago this would have meant everything to her because apart from the pay rise it meant that slowly she was moving up the career ladder. Now, although she feigned happiness when told about this opportunity her happiness dissolved as soon as she set foot outside the office. Her life in the office was just an act. She was acting out the role of the model employee, popular with her colleagues, not afraid of challenges, a risk taker, ambitious and hardworking; however if anyone had looked closer they would have realised that this was just a cover-up. The enthusiasm and energy put into her work was a mask for the despair and sadness she was experiencing.
Chapter 27
Julia's Secret Page 18