by Marian Keyes
Greta takes a vanilla-coloured shirt off a hanger and, in a rustle of freshly ironed cotton, Matthew shrugs it on and does it up. Before my astonished eyes, he quickly unbuttons the waistband of his trousers and unzips the zip, giving a shockingly enticing flash of navy Calvins and dark hair leading down to an evident bulge and – Oh! No! Way too quickly, the show is over: the shirt is tucked in, the thrilling stuff is covered with a bland white nothingness and I’m stunned with loss, as if I’ve been watching a gripping movie and suddenly, at the vital moment, the screen has gone blank. In under a second, everything is zipped back up and tidied away. Actually, my head is slightly reeling.
And what about Dante’s face? Sour as you please. It must be hard to have a brother who’s a demi-god. No wonder he’s always cross.
‘Well?’ Matthew asks Greta.
‘Good.’
He throws a dark tie around his neck, and Greta moves towards him. I see. Among Greta’s duties is knotting Matthew Carlisle’s tie.
‘No one does it like Greta,’ he says apologetically.
Greta says nothing while lifting his shirt collar, then methodically threading the tie over and under, her youthful face mere millimetres from Matthew’s beautiful one. What a job! Mind you, she probably has a PhD in political science and hates every demeaning second of this.
When she’s done, she silently holds out a little hand mirror to him, clearly part of a well-worn routine.
‘Nice and fat.’ Matthew shifts the knot a little and smiles. ‘Thanks, Greta.’
Matthew is hustled away by Greta, then Dante and I and my rogue knocker make our way back downstairs into the outside world.
‘Can I give you a lift?’ he asks.
‘You live in Islington. I’m going to Heathrow.’
‘Can I do anything helpful?’
‘No.’ I’m abrupt. Then, ‘Actually, would you be able to get me a map of Fulham’s ground?’
He focuses on something in his head, his eyes flicking as he considers options, the same eyes as Matthew’s, I notice, the only thing they have in common.
‘How soon do you need it? ASAP, I know. Tomorrow morning do?’
I nod. What now? There’s a spare hour before I should leave to catch the later flight. There’s plenty to be done – nailing down a photographer, making contact with the picture editor at one of the nationals, probably The Times. But I’m tired and I need a new bra and the thought of buying something is attractive – the thought of buying something is always attractive. The bra wins.
60
Thursday, 3 November, day fifty-two
‘I’ve booked us a cubicle,’ Matthew said.
‘Okay.’ I was breathless.
‘In Marks & Spencer. You go there first. Pretend to be trying on bras. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes. For fifteen minutes. That’s all I’ve got, then I’m on the telly, shaming politicians.’
‘Fifteen minutes is fine.’
Next thing I was in M&S. I’d picked up three bras and gone to a changing room. Just as I was wondering how Matthew would know which one I was in, the door barged open and he rushed in and was kissing me frantically. His glasses went skew-whiff and he took them off and flung them over the top of the cubicle door, and I said, ‘Won’t you need them?’
And he said, ‘Wardrobe can get me another pair.’
‘Did anyone see you come in?’
‘Maybe.’
‘No, but that’s bad, Matthew, we might get caught.’
‘That makes it even better. The chance of being found out. But we’d better be quick.’
He unbuttoned his trousers, took my hand and slid it inside – his erection was huge.
‘Nice and fat,’ he said.
‘Like your tie knot!’ I said.
‘Nice and fat.’ He laughed, and I thought, He’s very different from the way I thought he was. Much more laddish.
I began pulling his trousers down and he protested, ‘No, no, we can’t take them all off. This is just a cheeky little shag.’
Somehow my knickers and tights were gone and he had his hands on my breasts because my dress wasn’t a dress any longer but a convenient top and skirt. He was standing up, I had my legs around his waist, he was inside me without any drama and it was all a lot easier than I’d anticipated.
He pounded himself in and out of me and we were looking at ourselves in the mirrors – we could see things from all angles.
‘They’re excellent,’ he said. ‘Aren’t they?’
‘The Marks & Spencer’s mirrors? Yes, excellent.’
‘You can see everything. You’ve a nice body,’ he added. ‘You shouldn’t worry.’
I looked at myself and he was right: I had.
‘I’m going to come now,’ he said, ‘because I’m late for make-up. So if you want to come, you’d better do it now.’
‘Okay.’ So I did. Then he did, and his face in the mirror reminded me of Richie’s when I’d caught him with that girl all those years ago.
Next thing he was zipping himself back up. ‘I’m leaving with Greta now,’ he said. ‘In five minutes you come out. Act natural.’
‘Do I buy a bra?’
‘Yes. I think I broke the one you’ve got on. And have you got the thing, the tag, with the number of items you took in?’
And then I woke up.
Jesus, that was quite a dream. I hadn’t looked too bad in it … Then I realize that the body that had had sex with Matthew Carlisle was the one from twenty-five years ago.
I’m a little disturbed by it all – Matthew had been quite … dislikeable. Laddish, wolfish, even. And this morning I feel less compassionate and less protective of him than I had yesterday. Which is very unfair – it’s hardly real-Matthew’s fault how dream-Matthew behaves.
But something had happened yesterday in his little glass cubicle. A tiny moment so strange that I’d forced myself to file it away for consideration on some other occasion: when he was tucking his shirt into his trousers, it seemed like his hand, which was moving fast, slowed down infinitesimally when he reached his bulge. It seemed to pause for the briefest moment, cupping it – and while he was holding it, he had looked straight at me.
For way, way less than a second. This wasn’t some lengthy, meaningful silent exchange, but something that was over as soon as it began. But our eyes had definitely met.
In fairness, though, was that even his doing? After all, the office was tiny and there was almost no place for his gaze to land. And, of course, it might have been an accident. Or perhaps he was touching himself as if his mickey was a talisman – I think lots of men do … to check that it’s still there?
Then there was always the possibility that it was a look of apology: I’m sorry you have to sit here and watch me partially undress myself.
And maybe I’d just imagined the entire thing.
61
Friday, 4 November, day fifty-three
Mum has new hair! It’s a blonde, bouffant bob, really glam. ‘I got extensions!’ she cries. ‘Neeve organized it, got it done for free!’
‘In exchange for a vlog, Granny. Nothing is ever free.’
‘But that’s no bother to me,’ Mum says. ‘I’m a natural at the vlogging, everyone says.’
Derry and I exchange a smirk.
‘Well, you look amazing,’ I say.
‘I know! I’ll tell you something, girls, all of those years when I was sick, I had no life, but it’s never too late! I’m getting the two-week manicure on Monday, isn’t that right, Neeve?’
‘That’s right, Granny.’
‘And I’m thinking about an inking,’ Mum says.
‘Over my dead body!’ Maura shouts from another room.
‘In that case,’ Joe says to Mum, ‘please get it.’
To stop open warfare breaking out between Maura and Joe, Derry interrupts, ‘I dumped my boyfriend.’
‘Good for you,’ Mum says. ‘What would you want to be settling down for and you only forty-five? Play the field, love, pla
y the field!’
I hoick Derry away for a private chat. ‘What the actual? Is she on tablets or something?’
‘You mean, anti-depressants? I don’t think so. But it’s all extremely fucking peculiar.’
‘So what happened with your new man?’
‘Nothing. His socks. They were the worst. Yeah, look, I know, I’m a commitment-phobe. We all have our thing.’
I’m just getting ready for bed when Neeve appears at my bedroom door. ‘Mum?’ The expression on her face worries me.
‘What is it, sweetie? Come in.’
She sits on my bed but doesn’t meet my eye.
‘Tell me.’ It’s not like her to be reticent and my anxiety is growing.
Focusing on her hands, she says, ‘Look, I don’t know, I’m not sure …’
What’s she done? Libelled someone in her vlog? Totalled Hugh’s car? ‘It can’t be that bad.’ Finally, she looks at me. ‘Mum, I’m sorry. I wasn’t spying, just like keeping an eye. On Hugh. On Facebook. And –’
Like a blow, I realize that whatever has gone wrong, it isn’t about her. ‘He’s posted stuff?’ It’s a couple of days since I’ve checked.
‘No. But he’s tagged in someone’s pic and –’
Automatically I’m reaching for my iPad. ‘Mum, Mum, wait, wait a moment. Seriously, stop!’
So I stop.
She takes a breath. ‘Mum, you need to prepare.’
That makes everything worse. My heart is racing, my mouth is dry. I need to see whatever it is and I need to see it now.
‘It’s okay.’ My voice is high and unconvincing. ‘I knew he’d be meeting other …’ My fumbling fingers have opened Facebook. ‘We agreed, it’s all agreed –’ Oh, shit.
It’s Hugh. With a woman. Or a girl, really. Young. Pretty. Cute. Dark hair, shortish and tucked behind her ears, doe-like eyes, pointy chin. And Hugh, big and beardy, with a slightly ruddy tan. He’s wearing his white linen shirt … and he’s taken off his wedding ring. Well, of course he has. Why should that come as such a terrible shock?
They’re on opposite sides of a rough, dark-wood table in what looks like a beach-bar at night – two identical bottles of sweating Thai beer stand on the wooden slats and a storm lantern flickers. Their heads are tilted towards each other – I mean, they would do for the photo – but everything fairly pulses with intimacy. Both of them, their far arms are stretched along the table, in two parallel arcs, almost but not quite touching.
I stare and stare while blood roars in my ears. The tips of my fingers are tingling and I feel as if I’m awake in a bad dream. I knew this would happen, knew it was happening, but to see it …
‘Mum?’ Neeve says, from far away.
Desperately, I try to get it together. ‘Thanks, Neeve. Ah, thanks for showing me this, ah … You did the right – I mean, I’d have seen it myself soon. I look on his page most days.’ I’m the adult here: she can’t feel guilty about this and she can’t see me fall apart.
‘Mum.’ Her voice is soft. ‘It’s okay. I know it hurts.’
The girl’s name is Raffie Geras.
‘Yes, but no, not really,’ I babble at Neeve. ‘Like I knew in theory, so it’s all okay …’ I’m clicking on Raffie Geras’s page.
‘Mum! Don’t!’
She’s Scottish, apparently, Edinburgh University, graduated in 2002, so she’d be thirty-five or -six, right? It’s young but it’s not shockingly so. Imagine if she’d been nineteen. That would have been much, much worse.
‘Mum!’
She trained as a barrister – a barrister! How could I ever compete with that? I’m scrolling down her feed …
‘Don’t, Mum!’
There she is, snorkelling. There she is, on a boat. And – Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God … It’s Hugh. In bed. Asleep. A white sheet covers him to his chest but it’s obvious that he’s wearing nothing. The bedroom is one of those simple South East Asian ones. A muslin mosquito net is gathered above the bed, slatted dark-wood shutters are on the window. Then I see the caption: ‘Foxy Irish man in my bed.’
I’m going to puke. My feet hit the bedroom floor and Neeve scoots aside to give me a clear run at my bathroom. I barely make it. Everything in my stomach comes up in one go. I spend a minute or two slumped in place, waiting for my stomach to return to normal, then give my teeth a desultory brush and crawl back into bed.
‘Christ,’ I mutter, and close my eyes. The jealousy is hot and green in my veins and I start to shake, as if I’ve been injected with poison.
‘Mum …’ Neeve’s voice is wheedling, apologetic. What is it now? ‘Kiara and –’
‘The girls!’ I exclaim, sitting bolt upright. Kiara and Sofie cannot see the picture on Hugh’s timeline. Because then they’ll click on Raffie Geras’s page and they’ll see everything else.
‘Exactly!’ Neeve says. ‘They can’t see this. Hugh mustn’t know that she’s tagged him. You have to tell him.’
What should I do? Text him? Personal Message him? I could even ring him. This is a perfect opportunity. But I no longer want to talk to him – in fact, I don’t think I could. A ball of toxic feeling has swollen inside me – a mix of grief, jealousy, betrayal and fury. I absolutely hate him.
‘WhatsApp is the best way,’ Neeve says. ‘He reads his WhatsApp.’ Apologetically, she adds, ‘It’s what Kiara and Sofie have been using when they want to, you know, talk to him.’
This is so profoundly humiliating.
With trembling fingers I type, Please get your girlfriend Raffie to untag you in the photo that’s on your Facebook page. Make sure it doesn’t happen again. You promised you’d protect the girls.
‘Show me,’ Neeve orders. She reads it and nods. ‘That’s grand. Send it.’
‘Is it bitchy to call her his girlfriend?’ I ask.
‘Who cares?’
I hit Send, then Neeve and I sit watching each other. ‘You’re not to feel guilty,’ I say. ‘Christ, I can’t fucking breathe.’ I heave air down into my reluctant lungs. ‘I’m so sick of this.’ Tears of grief and fury flood my eyes. ‘But you’re not to feel guilt–’
My phone beeps and my heartrate goes through the roof. My eyes can hardly focus on the words. I’m sorry. It’ll be gone asap. It won’t happen again. Hugh xxx
That’s it? That’s all? No enquiries as to how I’m doing? No denial that this woman is his girlfriend? Two months of silence and he sends eleven words? I didn’t think I could feel more wounded or more angry, but apparently I can.
‘Show me.’ Neeve says. She reads in silence, then hands me a cushion. I shriek into it.
62
Saturday, 5 November, day fifty-four
‘Why are you watching a football match?’ Neeve asks. ‘Is it something to do with Dad?’
‘Wh– Oh!’ She means Richie Aldin. ‘No. No. A work thing. A client is at the match. I’m just wondering how he’s getting on.’
Every time they show the crowd, I search for Matthew and his kids but I don’t spot them. In fairness, there are an awful lot of people there.
Last night, I literally didn’t sleep for one second. I Facebook-stalked Raffie Geras for hours and hours. I stalked her friends, her family, her colleagues, and today I’m sleep-deprived, sick and stunned with shock.
I’d thought it was hard when Hugh first went away but that was nothing compared to this.
The photo had quickly disappeared from Hugh’s timeline, but by scrolling through Raffie Geras’s Facebook, this doesn’t look like a casual sex-driven encounter. It seems more like an actual romance.
My worst fears are coming true: Hugh won’t be coming back. It was delusional to think he ever would – once he got the newness and freshness he craved, the genie would be out of the bottle.
I’d sustained myself with the pathetic hope that, after plenty of empty sex, he’d start missing meaningful connection and decide he wanted me again. Now I’m watching the unfolding of a scenario I hadn’t considered: Hugh meeting a new someone special on
his travels and she’s the one who’ll provide the connection he may want.
He’s going to fall in love with her – if it hasn’t happened already, and it certainly looks like it has – divorce me and marry her.
And maybe that’s what I deserve – maybe this is something I myself brought about, thanks to my carry-on with Josh Rowan.
I’m so grateful to have work to escape into. At around six o’clock, I get the images of Matthew with his kids at the match and they’re golden. In every single one Matthew looks handsome, loving, kind and affectionate. There he is, crouching to tie Beata’s shoelaces; speaking solemnly and lovingly into Edward’s face; sitting with one child on each knee, his giant hands holding them steady; high-fiving Beata when Fulham score; squeezing Edward when Fulham eventually win; opening a mini-bag of raisins with earnestly fumbling fingers … Two or three shots have him laughing but mostly he sports this wonderful – and authentic – tragi-smile.
It’s going to be a tough job narrowing these down to twenty or so for the newspaper. Out of the twenty, only three or four would make the printed version but they might run the rest online.
I already know that when the public see these pictures, their opinion of Matthew will improve. And they’ll be queuing up to replace Ruthie – nothing as hot as a loving dad.
Of course, Matthew needn’t for a second consider exploiting his hotness, he has to live like a monk for the foreseeable. But I’m slightly worried he might break out. He’s done nothing wrong, but since that dream the other night, where we had sex in Marks & Spencer, I’m starting to think of him as a predatory cad. Which is mad.
‘Sofie!’ From her bedroom, Neeve is hollering. ‘Come and sort my hair out NOW!’
There are the sounds of running feet and a sense of frenzy beyond my bedroom door because tonight’s the night that Neeve is going to Richie Aldin’s fecking charity ball. She’s much more nervous than she’s ever been about going on a mere date. If he hurts her …