by Tamar Cohen
The messages themselves are surprisingly touching. After all these days and weeks building up a picture of Simon the Monster, it’s a shock to read about all the kindnesses he did for people. So many moving anecdotes about the kind of man he was. And yet, did any of them really know him? This man who kept hidden another woman, another child, another life?
There’s a card from Chris Griffiths that arrived a few days after the funeral in a pale blue envelope with a puckered, overlicked seal. It’s long and rambling and written in a tiny, cramped hand. I set it aside without reading it.
Ah. Finally, a card that’s a bit more tasteful than the others. That Monet painting—elegantly arching bridge over a river carpeted with lilies and banked by weeping green trees. Good grief, it’s from Caroline Howard! I had no idea Simon had kept in touch with his old university girlfriend. How curious.
“A lion among men,” she has written. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
I feel a prickle of unease. I haven’t thought about Caroline Howard in decades and now this. Hackneyed sentiment spills across the page like cheap perfume. How strange that she should be writing like that after all this time, with such an emotional message. I can’t believe he’s gone. As if she saw him yesterday rather than thirty years ago.
I must tell Hettie. I’m not sure whether she and Ian will even remember Caroline from university days, but I need a sounding board, someone to bounce the strange message off, to see if I’m overreacting. It’s about time I spoke to Hettie anyway. I’ve been putting it off because I don’t want to have to tell her about Greg. Not that I’m ashamed. Not really. But he’s my secret indulgence, like a long bubble bath or a Cadbury’s Cream Egg. Hettie wouldn’t approve. No matter what Simon has done, at heart she’s still loyal to the idea of him, or rather to the idea of him and me and her and Ian. I can imagine her face when she finds out that Greg’s married. Infidelity is anathema to Hettie. Of course, I believed my own marriage was sacrosanct, but Hettie believes all marriages to be so. She regards other people’s affairs, even people she doesn’t know, as a personal threat. Plus, I’m not altogether sure Greg would stand up to public scrutiny. I’m afraid that whatever it is that makes him attractive to me will disappear if Hettie or anyone else finds out, and I have to see him through their eyes, like ancient relics that crumble on exposure to light.
But I need to talk to someone about Caroline Howard, so I pick up my phone.
“Yes, I remember her.” Am I imagining the hesitation in Hettie’s voice?
“But don’t you think it’s odd?” I persist. “That she’d write to me like that? In those words?”
Hettie is silent.
“Hets?”
“I think,” says Hettie eventually, “you should probably talk to Ian about it. We’d better come over.”
What? Why on earth would I talk to Ian about Caroline Howard? But Hettie has already cleared the line. Twenty agonizingly long minutes later and they’re on my doorstep. Ian is loitering behind Hettie and looking sheepish.
“He didn’t want to come, did you, darling?” says Hettie. Ian shakes his head, looking miserable. For some reason his hangdog expression infuriates me. After everything I’ve been through these past few weeks—the death, the funeral, the revelations about Simon’s double life, the money worries—what right does Ian Palmer have to look as if he’s carrying the world on his shoulders?
“If you’ve something to say to me, Ian,” I say, leading the way into the den, “I’d rather you just get on with it.”
“I’ll pour us a drink, shall I?” says Hettie. She darts off into the kitchen carrying the bottle of white wine she brought with her.
Ian stares after her disappearing back as if he might cry.
“I don’t quite know how to say this,” he says, gazing at a spot on the floor by his right foot. His discomfort is tangible, perching on the sofa between us like an uninvited guest.
“Oh, just spit it out, for Christ’s sake!”
There’s a knot of anxiety sitting heavily in my stomach like undigested steak.
“Well, the thing is, Selina, that years and years ago, when you two hadn’t been married very long, Simon told me—and I want you to know I’ve wished many times since then that he hadn’t—that he and Caroline had been, well, had been...”
I stare at the red flush sweeping up from his neck over his face. The knot of anxiety hardens inside me as realization sets in.
“Fucking?” I suggest. Ian looks horrified. His hand shoots to his upper lip to urgently stroke a nonexistent mustache. Good. Let him suffer. He’s telling me this now? Twenty-eight years too late? What does he expect from me, a fucking medal?
“I told him I thought it was...reprehensible.”
Reprehensible! What kind of person uses the word reprehensible? How stuffy my friends are, I now realize.
“You and Simon had small children by then, if I remember. He said he felt awful about it and was ending it. He begged me not to tell you or Hettie.”
“He knew I’d have killed him if I’d known,” says Hettie, coming in and plonking three large glasses of wine down on the coffee table. The wine splashes onto the smooth wood.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Sel! Coasters—I forgot!”
Coasters? Is that really what she thinks of me? Her husband has just told me that Simon was already unfaithful, even at the very beginning, and she thinks I care about coasters?
“Bugger the coasters,” I say.
“I told Hettie about Caroline after the funeral when all that other stuff came out,” Ian says. “I hated keeping it from her all these years. You know we always tell each other everything.”
Ugh! That look that passes between them. Complicit. As if nothing can threaten them. I shouldn’t mind it, but I do. I mind violently. For a second I want to take a baseball bat to the cozy shield they’ve built up around themselves. Not so cozy now! I’d yell as I smashed it to pieces around them.
“But I’d promised Simon,” Ian continues. “And it did seem to be all over—a momentary blip.” The knot in my stomach has become a hard ball, pressing on my lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Wine. That’s what I need. I take a long, thirsty gulp. That’s better. Can it really be just a few hours since Greg and I shared a bottle of sake over lunch at that Japanese restaurant? Already it seems a different era, and me an entirely different woman. Is there to be no end to the number of Selinas there turn out to be, hiding one inside the other like a never-ending Russian doll?
“Are you okay, Sel?”
Hettie’s hand is on my arm, and her brown eyes are soft with sympathy.
I shake my head. “I know I shouldn’t be shocked, not after everything else. It’s just so...disappointing!”
I’m not explaining myself well. The fact is, I’ve been clinging on to that first near-decade of marriage, the pre-Lottie years, as the one pure thing remaining to me. In my mind, I’ve pegged out those ten unsullied years proudly on the line like clean white sheets. And now in one moment they’ve been ripped off and stamped into the mud.
“It was all a sham, then,” I say. “All of it.”
“No, no!”
I can’t remember the last time I saw Ian so worked up.
“Simon adored you. He worshipped you. He was always going on about how lucky he was. You mustn’t ever believe his feelings for you weren’t completely genuine.”
“So why Caroline Howard? Why the other one—Lottie?”
Ian shrugs. Disquiet radiates from him. “What can I say? He was Simon. He had that massive appetite for life. I just don’t think he knew how to stop himself.”
“Or perhaps he didn’t know why he should stop himself,” Hettie offers. “After he’d got away with it once, he must have thought he could just go on getting away with it.”
* * *
Now Hettie and
Ian have left. I’m still on the sofa, drinking wine by myself. This new betrayal of Simon’s burns like acid in my gut. Was it right, what Hettie said? Is that how it works? Are our moral choices predicated on no deeper level than what one can and can’t get away with?
It’s true what Ian said about Simon, that he could never say no to himself. His own mother told me much the same thing a few years before she died. “As a child he always wanted more,” she said of her only son. “More, more, more. He was never satisfied with what he had. When it comes to the things he loves, Simon can be very greedy.”
A warning, perhaps? Of course, stupid me didn’t want to be warned. I was so sure I’d be enough for him, so sure I knew him better than his mother. Ha!
What do I remember about Caroline Howard? She was one of those slightly intimidating redheads—tall and pale, with long hair that she gathered in a loose plait to the side. She wore sunglasses a lot, I seem to recall. Large ones that hid most of her finely boned face. The only thing I’ve heard about her since university is that she married someone incredibly rich. A Lord something or other, as far as I remember. Yardley, was it? He was a lot older than she was, by all accounts. Some people at the time said she only married him on the rebound from Simon. It made me feel rather powerful, hearing that, I remember, knowing that I had what other people wanted.
How dare she come back into my life, into my marriage? Simon was done with her. He’d chosen me. Why couldn’t she just leave it at that? If he’d never strayed that first time, with her, and opened up that chink in the armor of our marriage, maybe that other one would never have found a way in. At least Lottie hadn’t known he was married. Caroline Howard knew exactly what the situation was, that he was now another woman’s husband.
Fury mixes with the wine inside my system, propelling me off the sofa and into Simon’s study off the main hall. I hardly ever come in here anymore. It’s too redolent of him. I always expect to find him leaning back in his leather chair, his arms behind his head, long legs stretched out in front of him, listening to music full blast and gazing at nothing.
Flinging myself into the chair behind his large oak desk, I yank open the top drawer and extract the mobile phone I tossed in there after the police handed back that plastic Ziploc of Simon’s things.
No power. Obviously. The briefest of hunts through his desk locates the charger. That’s better. Scrolling through his contacts list is like bringing Simon back to life, and for a moment I’m hit by a powerful wave of loss. So typical of him—always so awful with names, he developed his own system of logging contacts—a first name, accompanied by an identifying description. Anthony (bald), Anthony (banker), Anthony (wanker), Ben (vet), Beverley (ghastly). Reaching the Cs, I find there are four Carolines. Caroline (golfer husband), Caroline (PR), Caroline (travel agent, helpful). The fourth is plain “Caroline.” Nothing else. The pain is sudden and crippling.
Naturally, she wouldn’t need any description. What would he have put? Caroline (whore)? Caroline (husband-stealing bitch)?
Anger bursts inside me like a blood vessel.
Dashing into the hallway, I snatch my own phone from my bag and come back into the study to punch in the number. She won’t get away with it. What was she playing at?
Listening to the ringtone, I realize that it’s quite late. Eleven thirty-five. What do I care? Let her be disturbed. Let her know what it’s like not to be able to sleep. Let her be put on the spot in front of her husband or children or whoever else is there, so that her famous alabaster skin turns pink and mottled with embarrassment.
Four rings. Five.
“Hello?”
A deep, cool voice that cuts through the years, as if the past three decades never happened. Only now do I remember how impossibly self-contained Caroline Howard was—always that Pinteresque pause before she spoke. I must be calm. But oh, Lord, I think I might explode with the effort of keeping myself under control.
“This is Selina Busfield here.”
That’s right. Composed. Businesslike. Not the voice of someone given to histrionics.
There’s a pause (of course). Then, “Ah.”
That’s all she has to say? After all this time? Just ah?
“I need to speak to you about a private matter, so if your husband is present, I suggest you take the phone elsewhere.”
“Don’t worry.” The voice on the other end sounds maddeningly amused. “My husband and I have been separated for five years now. And even if we weren’t, he’s deaf as a post.”
“I’m afraid this isn’t a joking matter. You see, I’ve just found out you had an affair with my husband.”
What am I hoping for? That she’ll exclaim, or gasp or beg forgiveness?
“I see.”
I close my eyes. It’s too much.
“Is that it? Is that all you have to say? I see. What kind of a person are you?”
Again a maddening pause.
“Selina, dear, I know this must be a dreadful time for you.” Her voice is measured but kind. It’s the kindness that is the worst thing. “But you must know this all started a very long time ago.”
“Well, forgive me if my rage is fucking inappropriate, but I’ve only just found out!”
It feels good, letting rip. Saying what I mean after the effort of trying to stay in control. I continue: “And when our children were so little, as well. Shame on you! Thank God Simon had the sense to call it off!”
What’s that noise on the other end? A sigh?
“Okay, I think it’s time to be very straight here.” Now her tone is less practiced. Less patronizing. “How much honesty do you want, Selina?”
How much honesty? What kind of a question is that?
“Obviously, I want the truth,” I say stiffly, doubting it instantly. Do I? Do I really want the truth?
“Very well, then,” says Lady Yardley, nee Caroline Howard. “The truth is, Selina, that Simon and I... That is to say, your husband and I... Goodness, I sound like the queen suddenly, don’t I?”
A peal of laughter follows. I can’t believe that woman is actually laughing. Isn’t she supposed to be apologizing at this point, or justifying herself?
“Sorry,” she continues. “Well, the truth is—and I’m trusting this won’t come as a complete shock to you, given what you now know about Simon’s character. Well, Simon and I, we never really stopped being lovers.”
The leather chair is squishy underneath me, but the walls of Simon’s study are coming toward me and then going back the other way, moving forward and backward, forward and backward. I feel sick in the bottom of my stomach.
“Never stopped,” I repeat dully.
“Well, when I say never, what I mean is, we stopped, of course. We had periods of years, sometimes several years, when we didn’t see each other, when life got in the way. I had my children, of course, and he had his. And his, well, his other family.”
The blow catches me unawares. She knew. She knew about that, too. What was I, just another part of the “life” that kept getting so inconveniently in the way? The last person to be told about anything?
“So you slept together all through my marriage?” Incredibly, my voice is steady, polite, even. I could be requesting formal clarification of something—a driving license number, or the time of a delayed flight.
“Off and on,” she says. “Well, obviously more off than on. And once he was with Lottie, it grew more difficult. She was quite demanding, quite high-maintenance.” (As if I should be flattered by the inference that I, by contrast, am the very model of laissez-faire.) “Although we did manage it on occasion. More for old times’ sake by the end than anything else. You know, I hope you don’t think this is too dreadful of me, but it’s such a relief to be talking to you about this, Selina. I miss him so much, you see, and you’re the only one who has any idea what I’m going through.�
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Oh! The pain of it! The nerve of the woman!
“Don’t you dare,” I say.
“Now, Selina, dear...”
“Don’t you dare compare what you’re going through to what I’m going through. How could you have any clue what it’s like to be me? You weren’t married to him. You didn’t have his children. You have no clue. Do you understand, Lady?”
When I press End, my heart feels as if it will thump a hole right through my chest, and my breathing is shallow and uneven.
I have no idea how long I stay seated at the desk in Simon’s study, staring at my phone. At some point I retrieve the bottle of wine from the kitchen and bring it back to the study, where I sit, gazing around me as if seeing the room for the first time and trying to work out what kind of a person might inhabit it. Pinned to the notice board on one wall is a photo of Simon presenting a large check to the fundraising director of some charity in Dubai. “You sanctimonious prick!” I tell it. “You fuck! You cunt!” I’ve never said the c word out loud before. For a second I’m dizzy with the power of it.
I feel as if I will burst if I don’t tell someone what just happened, but who? Not Greg, probably snuggled up with his oh-so-understanding wife. Not one of the children, who’ve been through enough. Then who? Who could possibly understand? There is only one person.
LOTTIE
I’m having a dream where Simon is calling to me from inside the television. “How do I get to you?” I keep asking, jabbing uselessly at the remote. “How do I get in?”
For a moment, I think the ringing tone is part of my dream. “I’m coming,” I mumble, reaching for my phone. “Just tell me how.”
Disoriented now, I can’t read the name that flashes up on my screen.
“Hello?” My voice is croaky with sleep.