Can I Give My Husband Back?: A totally laugh out loud and uplifting page turner

by Kristen Bailey

  I didn’t expect such gravity from this one.

  ‘Maybe you need to allow yourself some pleasure.’

  He looks me in the eye and I am little taken aback, mainly because of my physical response. I feel it deep inside a place I shouldn’t. Up to this point, pleasure was eating hummus by a river, a cup of tea in my favourite mug and fresh sheets on a bed. He knows exactly what he’s doing here too because he doesn’t stop holding my gaze. He puts a hand on my knee. I catch my breath and I am really not very sure what happens next except that reason goes out the window completely. Lucy’s words echo in my head that he’s decent. Like, because of the size of him or the technique? Is this a signal? Is this the person to help me open me up to sex again? He’s slept with one of my sisters; I think this might be incest. Is this incest? Am I doing this? Hell, I might be. I put my face near his and kiss him slowly on the lips. But then I completely pull back. Oh dear. He laughs. Kissing me was funny?

  ‘I don’t want to marry you or even date you and you don’t need to follow up on this, at all. But yes, I think we should have sex. What sort of sex were you planning on?’

  I just said that, didn’t I? I asked for a description of what we might do next. This is what I ask students in theatres. How are you going to dissect that tumour? Why are you using that method? What tools do you have in mind? That is not sexy, is it? He leans into me and all the people in this bar disappear from consciousness. His voice drops in volume.

  ‘Well, I know a spot out the back where I could perch you against a wall and you could unzip your jeans and I could slip my fingers into you. And then when you’re really wet, I’d roll your knickers down and push your knees back and really slowly fuck you. Help you remember what it feels like again.’

  I can’t quite feel my face.

  ‘Fancy a bit of that?’

  I nod without saying a word.

  It’s 10.58 p.m. and I am sat on Meg’s sofa bed in her pyjamas and I’ve just had sex with her brother-in-law. Lucy was not wrong. That boy knows what he’s doing and if I had skills like that then I’d probably share them with as many as I could too. It’d be like a public service. Simon did not have skills, despite all his infidelity, so I was always unsure about what he needed to share with people and what the appeal was. This time I had an orgasm, an actual penetrative orgasm. My knees high, his body gyrating against mine, that feeling of being taken, physically devoured by someone. I cup my mouth again and giggle. Am I still drunk? I’m not good on red wine. I take a large gulp of water sat here in fresh knickers and pyjamas fresh out of their packaging.

  Then I panic. Jag. Was that cheating on him? I feel awful. Or not. Now if I choose to sleep with him, it won’t be awful and awkward because I know how to do it. I remember how to kiss. Stuart was a good kisser. The stubble was a bit scratchy but there was a moment where he took my ear lobe in his mouth and then when he entered me. Christ. It’s all playing back to me in flashbacks. I just had sex. Me, actual sex. Afterwards, he got on his knees and placed my knickers back and kissed my inner thigh. I hadn’t even had a tidy down there. I thanked him and we shook hands. Is that weird? Did that make it like a business transaction? Then we waited until his lift arrived. And I looked at him again: scrappy blonde hair and blue eyes, seriously not my type at all with the big rucksack and the dishevelled T-shirt that looked like moths had attacked him. We laughed at what we had just done and he said something clichéd to me about self-worth and being pretty. And then we hugged and he disappeared. I’ve just had sex. With Meg’s brother-in-law. She will kill me if she finds out. I can’t stay here. I need to check train timetables. Oh my days, I’ve had sex with someone who’s also had sex with Lucy. Condoms don’t protect you from crabs either, do they?

  Eight

  640 days since I realised Simon had cheated on me for the eighth time

  It had been Tuesday and I remember that day well: Violet was still only one but I was back at work and my brain was at capacity from dealing with teething babies, a busy three year old Iris who was an expert furniture climber, and trying to figure in work around motherhood. That day, I had forgotten my lunch so I made the brave decision to eat at the hospital cafeteria. It was chicken alfredo day. I remember a square container of pasta bedded together like nesting material in a pool of cloudy water. I had messaged Simon a few times that day as we had a new Australian au pair who had been very good at sending me photos of Violet, as if proving to us that she was still alive. I forwarded all the photos to him. He didn’t reply. At that point, I hadn’t thought much of it. I just assumed he was busy doctoring. Stood in the line of the hospital restaurant, a voice piped up next to me.

  ‘Emma Chadwick, how the hell are you?’

  The person behind me was Martin Nelson. He had been at medical school with myself and Simon and was an obstetrician now. He was one of those doctors from a long line of medical professionals who had a thing for double denim and who I believe may have once caught a baby that had flown out of its mother’s nether regions in a lift, a move he’d always credited to his many years playing rugby. That day there was a long queue at the restaurant and talk naturally turned to Simon.

  ‘How is he feeling?’ he asked.

  ‘About?’

  ‘Oh, I thought he was ill. I was in theatre this morning and his surgeries had been rescheduled. A scrub nurse mentioned something about the flu. Tis that time of year, eh?’

  ‘Really?’

  I remembered at that time feeling concerned, a little panicked. Was this why he wasn’t picking up his phone? But he was fine that morning. We left the house together, got on the same Tube and we spoke about a family holiday next spring to Ibiza. I joked the babies were a bit young for clubbing. He didn’t get it. We went our separate ways at Westminster as he said he was meeting a colleague for a coffee. There was not so much as a sniffle from him.

  I sat with Martin for the rest of our meal. He told me about a recent incident where a baby had been born with teeth and it smiled at him on delivery and he nearly dropped it. After lunch, I jumped in a taxi and went home. I turned my key in the door, entered the house and stood in the hallway for ten seconds to compose myself. I then found Simon giving our Australian nanny oral sex on the kitchen counter while our daughters napped upstairs. She was a heavily pierced young lady and when I came through the kitchen door, I remember the light reflecting off her piercings casting patterns on the ceiling. I stood there planted to the spot as they scrambled around with fumbled apologies, trying to retrieve their clothes.

  I thought many things at the time. One, that was incredibly unhygienic to have your naked buttocks on the counter where I prepared food. Two, this was the fourth time I had caught him cheating on me Simon Chadwick. Fourth time. This time, I’d actually caught him as opposed to reading a text message or being faced with one of his many lies about where he was. One of those times, I was pregnant. And I think there’s a typical way one should react in these circumstances. I should have reacted with wronged woman’s rage and screamed and shouted and thrown things at him. I was in a kitchen, there were many things to hurt him within close vicinity: a Le Creuset casserole, a meat tenderiser, a watermelon. But I just stood there. I thought about my sleeping babies upstairs. I was very very quiet. If anything, I internalised it all and wondered what I had done to have this man treat me so badly. I didn’t even cry. I closed the door behind me and went upstairs to check on my girls. Violet was fast asleep in her cot and Iris in her little bed, clutching her blanket. I lay down next to her, savouring the warmth of her body. Five minutes later, Simon appeared at the door. He watched us lying there.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to see that, Emma. It just happened.’

  Deep down I knew it hadn’t. He would have got the train in with me and made a u-turn to go back to her. Where else had they had sex in this house? For how long? But I didn’t say any of this out loud.

  ‘She’s been coming on to me for weeks. I was weak. It won’t happen again, I promise. I’ll ring the agency,
we’ll get her replaced,’ he said.

  I was tempted to say with a seventy-year-old severe-looking character who resembled Nanny McPhee but it was likely that Simon would have stuck his member in her too. I just held our little girl close to us and inhaled her.

  ‘I should be back at the hospital. I’ll catch a cab,’ I whispered.

  I stood up, smoothed down my blouse. He stared at me, longing me to talk. I had nothing to say. Women suffer all sorts in marriage, maybe this was just something I had to endure. It wasn’t physical abuse and we had these small humans. I had literally just grown one and she was so very tiny. I had a responsibility to make this work for her.

  ‘You know that you and the girls mean everything to me.’

  This was his parting line. He whispered it as I walked past him and he tried to touch my hand. I moved it away as our fingers brushed.

  ‘I do not want her here when I come back. Wipe down my kitchen counters please.’

  And I left my child’s fairy-themed bedroom and I went back to work. I was asked to scrub in on a young lady who had a hole in her heart. I stayed married to Simon for three years after that.

  I’m brought back to the Australian nanny as I’m stood in front of three junior doctors hanging on to my every word. One, Alisha, has a collection of piercings that seem to have had a hypnotic effect in transporting me back in time. I use that story occasionally on my sisters to remind them of my stoic prowess when I was being wronged in my marriage. Naturally, they don’t see it that way. They just saw it as me being a mug.

  ‘I don’t think that prescription is right so let’s review that, get the parents to give me a call. Dylan Kelly, let’s get that clinic date in before we discharge him and the little man in cubicle four; I want to keep him in for another night on observation.’

  Alisha with the piercings nods. I like her but she lacks authority and I hope she can sort that out before the patriarchy swallows her up. I also want to ask about her piercings without sounding completely naive. Do they hurt? How pierced are you? Lucy apparently has a nipple pierced which I don’t understand. Does it get caught on your bras? What if you plan on breastfeeding? Milk would pour out of those holes like a broken showerhead. She catches me studying her for a moment too long. Now she thinks I’m weird.

  ‘Are you OK. Dr Callaghan?’ she asks.

  I smile. Christ, her gums are pierced. I’m too scared to go to the hygienist. Why would anyone put themselves through that type of pain? Oh.

  I didn’t miss any work after my brief trip to the Lake District. I simply jumped on a train home and got back to it. No one knows I’ve slept with Stuart Morton except me, and Stuart, obviously. Meg has a new sex toy angle with her marriage but is fine. I am fine. I have no idea what happened over these last few days but I will rely on work to provide distraction. I go through everything in my head that I need to do: eat, review three files about suitability for surgery, ensure I’ve signed the consent forms for Iris’ school trip online, check in on Meg’s leg. I go to my phone and there’s a message there. Balls.

  Ems, I am at the house and the girls aren’t here.

  Bloody Simon. It’s been this way a lot recently. Since he last called me to tell me he was gravely ill (sadly the sore throat didn’t cause his demise), we seem to communicate via the power of text. It is very flat and formal. I don’t mind this in the least but I still hate how he abbreviates my name and doesn’t ask questions but just state facts at me. The message was from ten minutes ago. I go to call Lucy.

  ‘Yo,’ she answers.

  ‘Luce, where are you? I’ve got Simon messaging me telling me you’re not at the house?’

  ‘We’re on the way back from swimming. Temporary traffic lights so the bus is stuck.’

  I can hear the groans of the bus in the background and the crackle of crisp packets.

  ‘He can piss off,’ she exclaims. I wonder how many people on the 65 bus heard that, including my own kids.

  ‘Or I can tell him why you’re late? This would work if you had his number.’

  ‘I refuse to taint my phone with it.’

  ‘Well, when you get there, don’t cause a scene.’

  ‘Have we not met? Talking of scenes, some mum gave me something at the school gate and I may have kicked off.’

  ‘Lucy!’

  ‘Did you go to that riding party the other week?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She said because V didn’t ride for the full hour, she wants a partial refund.’

  ‘She wants what…?’

  ‘Coming at me with her Louis Vuitton satchel asking us for twenty quid.’

  ‘How did you kick off, Lucy?’ I stop for a moment in the corridor and rest my head against the wall. Will this mean I have to change the girls’ school? Or change our family name?

  ‘She still thinks I’m some Swedish au pair so I put on my accent and pretended to swear at her in another language. I mostly likely just reeled off items from the Ikea catalogue. It’s part of my Frozen act when Darren has to be Sven the reindeer.’

  I can’t fathom if this is the best or worst thing she’s ever done.

  ‘Just get home. Text me when the girls have been handed over. Actually put them on. I want to hear them.’

  ‘Mama?’ It’s a sound which always me smile.

  ‘V. Is everything OK poppet?’

  ‘Aunty Lucy got us the good seats on the bus, on the top and at the front.’

  Little V living her best life on the buses. I try to think of a time when pleasures were that simple.

  ‘Be good at Daddy’s. I’ll see you in a few days.’ I hear the bus roll to a start and the phone go dead. I didn’t get to speak to Iris. I stand here for a moment too long.

  ‘Hello stranger.’

  I look up. He smiles. I smile back.

  ‘Jag.’

  ‘Hi.’

  I haven’t really got in touch with Jag since I’d been back. I did send him a photo on a train though. It featured a cup of coffee purchased before my departure and sneakily included the lady opposite who was asleep.

  Poor company on the return leg. If I hadn’t said it already, thank you x

  He responded with the kissing emoji which threw me a little. Was that to remind me I hadn’t kissed him? Or there’s a heart there, does that mean he loves me? I didn’t reply. But I guess I also realised that in between everything, I’d gone and had sex with Stuart Morton. Was that wrong? It felt wrong; I was racked with guilt even though what happened with Stuart was nothing.

  We stand here, exchanging smiles. He’s in scrubs and his Nike Air Max trainers.

  ‘How’s Meg and her leg? When did you get back?’

  ‘The leg is fine. I got back yesterday but I was busy sorting the girls and—’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s good to see you back on the manor though.’

  I think about the number of times I may have walked past this man before in these corridors. Had he been checking me out? Had he smiled and I smiled back? How many surgeries had he been in when I’d spoken to him and heard him read out orders to me? I feel almost apologetic for not noticing him.

  ‘Have I said thank you enough yet?’

  ‘I think so. I just don’t know how we’ll top that date though?’

  The indication that there will be a second date makes me smile.

  ‘I have many sisters. I’ll see who else can throw themselves into danger at a moment’s notice.’

  He laughs. ‘So maybe we can grab a coffee in the week?’

  I smile. That I can do. ‘Keep in touch and we’ll get something in the diary.’

  I hope that doesn’t make him sound like an appointment. I diarise everything, even my own menstruation.

  ‘That sounds golden.’

  ‘Like your Casio.’

  He laughs and waves his wrist around. ‘I’ll see you around, Dr Callaghan.’

  As he walks in the opposite direction, my phone bleeps.

  Lucy and the girls?

  Oh pi
ss off, Simon.

  Stuck on the 65 bus at temporary traffic lights, I reply. My finger hovers over whether to apologise but I didn’t arrange to put those roadworks in.

  My girls are on a bus?

  He may as well have said: my girls are on a peasant wagon? I don’t reply but text Lucy.

  Progress?

  Five minutes away. Tell that shitfaced shit to chill his boots.

  I don’t reply to that either. My brain feels stretched at feeling such a dichotomy of emotion. From the lovely warmth of seeing Jag to that feeling like I want to ring Simon up and scream at him. I was your wife. You were in that room when I birthed our girls so speak to me with an ounce of decency. And all at once that niggle about Susie comes to the fore. Is she a new girlfriend? Is she more? Tell me. Or don’t.

  ‘Are you OK?’ When I get to my office, Maddie senses I am a bit frazzled. I saw her for a morning coffee earlier but for the rest of the day she was simply pointing me in the right direction. I curl into her and she gives me a hug.

  ‘Simon – the girls are late back to the house. He’s being a dick.’

  Maddie pouts like this is information that she already knew.

  ‘Well, there’s little you can do from here. I’ve bought you a salmon salad for dinner and one of those green smoothie things you like. Eat it while you clear those files. I’ll stick around.’

  I hug her again. ‘Is that OK? I don’t want it to get in the way of home? The boys?’

  ‘Oh, Mark has it covered. Anyway, we need to have a catch up. I talked to Jag.’

  I laugh. I suspect the boys are not a priority given the large amounts of gossip in which we need to trade. We take a seat on the sofa where she sets everything up on my small coffee table. She’s remembered napkins too and got me a Snickers for my pudding.