The Chance of a Lifetime

by kendra Smith

  ‘Tom, please can you tell Katie why you married her?’ Tina smiled, furiously yanking down her skirt as it whipped up behind her.

  The noise of the waves crashing on the shore was deafening.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Tom hissed.

  ‘What?’ Katie shouted, leaning towards Tom.

  ‘I can’t do this right now, Katie.’

  ‘Why not? It’s all booked; we can’t do it any other—’

  Silence.

  ‘No, not that. I feel weird about it…’

  ‘OK! Let’s lose the frangipanis,’ she said, yanking the floral garland over his head in the wind; it snapped. God, he’s always hated fancy dress, she thought, as she watched all the waxy flowers fall to the sand.

  ‘No, it’s not that, it’s that I…’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He was really starting to annoy her now. Why couldn’t he enter into it, make an effort?

  ‘I can’t talk here… I did, I had… just, oh honestly, Katie, I thought I could just forget about it,’ he said, his mouth twitching at the sides. ‘Just let it pass… but I can’t stop thinking of…’

  ‘Of what, Tom?’ she hissed.

  ‘We need to talk. Let’s go somewhere else… I didn’t know you’d planned this…’

  ‘No. It’s called a Nice Surprise!’ she yelled.

  ‘Katie…’ he said yanking her elbow and moving them out of earshot of Tina.

  ‘Everyone’s. Waiting. Tom.’ She stared at him, tried to smooth her hair down. Stared at the man she had been married to for nearly nine years and realised she couldn’t really see him any more. Couldn’t make out this nervous, angry Englishman who always had to do the right thing, always wanted things tidy, wouldn’t wear a goddamn flower garland for his wife, always wanted things his way…

  He leant in close and whispered in her ear. ‘Katie, look, something’s happened. Something not great…’

  ‘What, Tom? Are you drunk? Lost your job? What?’ Her voice was rising again. Tina stood a little way back, blinking at them.

  ‘No… it’s – I, well, have a confession…’

  ‘Tom?’ As she asked him, she felt her blood running cold, like that feeling before an exam, like when you’ve dented your parents’ car at 2 a.m. and woken in the morning and the realisation that you have to tell them seeps through your brain. She stared at him, as he looked down at the sand, shuffled his bare feet. What in the hell has my husband done?

  ‘What, Tom?’

  ‘Katie, I’ve been – um, with someone else—’

  Oh God. Her brain felt fuzzy. She stared at his feet, covered in sand; at the hairs on his toes. Her head felt light. The word ‘affair’ swam around her brain and suddenly it all came together, the late nights, the business trips… the minty smell, that familiar perfume… Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her husband in disbelief. She didn’t even care that her dress was practically up by her knickers. All she could hear was the wind blowing. To be faithful to all others until death do us part…

  ‘Unfaithful?’ She could hardly speak.

  Tina drew back, coughed.

  ‘It’s nothing… sweetheart it really is…’

  ‘DON’T CALL ME SWEETHEART – you and bloody Naomi, I knew it, knew it!’

  ‘No, no!’

  ‘Love me Tender’ struck up somewhere in the background, making Katie jump. The photographer had stopped taking pictures of them and stood, next to Tina, with his mouth open; Elvis continued to croon.

  ‘I knew you two were an item, couldn’t ever take your eyes off her bloody cleavage, could you? Too much of a temptation…’

  ‘No! Katie.’ He was shaking his head vigorously and whispering loudly. ‘You’ve got it all wrong… not Naomi…’

  ‘Then who, Tom, who? That busty secretary, huh? Whatshername: Fiona? That’s it!’ Suddenly Katie started laughing hysterically, then stopped abruptly. ‘All those business trips…’ A panic rose up in her chest; hot, venomous anger coursed through her veins like she’d never felt before. After all she’d tried to do, all she’d sacrificed… She looked at Tom to see tears in his eyes, proper tears, rolling down his cheek like he was five years old.

  He stared at her for a very long time with his green-grey eyes, looked out to sea and then held her gaze again. He was tapping his foot in the sand.

  ‘With who?’ she yelled.

  Tom shook his head and bit his bottom lip.

  ‘Tom, if you don’t tell me who it is, then I am going to go straight to the airport with the boys and you will never see me again.’

  ‘Ann.’

  She felt like she had been punched in the stomach. Her legs started to wobble. ‘What?’ It was barely a whisper.

  Tom was looking down at his feet, kicking the sand. ‘She just, just, was so needy, kept telling me that I was a real gentleman, a real man… Oh Jesus, I don’t know, Katie… I felt so alone… desperately alone and confused. We need to talk. Katie…’ He gripped both her elbows, his enormous hands squeezing her.

  ‘And did you consider how alone I was? With three kids, new house, new country.’ She briskly swiped at her tears, tried to stop the mascara river sliding across her cheeks. ‘I supported you by coming to the other side of the world. THIS is what you do to repay me?’ The poison was unleashed and she was really shouting, her heart pounding so loudly she could hear the blood in her ears.

  ‘Katie, I don’t know what to do…’

  Ann? ‘I know what you can do, you can sod right off!’ She stared at him, furious.

  ‘Um, guys…’ Tina was standing next to them.

  ‘I hate you; I hate this country! I hate Ann!’ she yelled throwing her garland at him, just as ‘Love me Tender’ came to a fitting finish.

  ‘Katie, please, please, please talk to me. It’s all been a bad mistake, I realise that now…’

  Running past the photographer, she barely saw him, she was blinded by tears as sand whipped up, painfully stinging her face.

  28

  ‘Let me in, Katie.’ Tom was hammering on the door.

  She looked at her watch: 6 p.m. Gingerly she opened the door. Tom was slouched in front of her and despite her fury at him, all she could see was the boy he used to be all those years ago, the fringe, the broad shoulders, the beseeching eyes.

  Silently, she let him in, shut the door and stood, almost dream-like taking in her surroundings as if she was the inventory clerk in her own faltering marriage: one unfaithful husband, check; one hairdryer, check; one teary, tired, misunderstood wife, check; two large suitcases under the bed, check; a dirty sock on the floor, check; half-finished bottle of wine on the dressing table, check; relationship on the rocks, you bet.

  ‘Tom, how has this happened?’

  ‘I don’t quite know where it went wrong. I know it’s my fault,’ he said sitting down heavily on the bed, ‘but, Katie, you are, you’ve been, so – I don’t know, detached from me for the last year. Every time I get home all you care about is things like what the kids ate, who shouted the loudest at the dinner table, how tired you are…’

  ‘That’s because I’m a mother, Tom,’ she said quietly. Then, suddenly, all the years of cooking, cleaning, changing nappies, ‘holding the fort’ while he’d been away, searching for odd socks inside pillowcases, night after long night of pacing the floor with a newborn and a husband on a business trip suddenly flooded to the frontal lobe of her brain. Something just plain snapped. She was furious.

  Walking to the dressing table, she picked up a gleaming vase. She threw it at him, watched as he lifted his arms above his head, then stared at it hurtling across the room, landing by his feet, shattering into fifty silver pieces.

  He grabbed a pillow from the bed, held it over his head. ‘Calm down! Darling?’

  ‘I know, why don’t we go get the kids from their Evening Film Club? Tell them what Daddy’s been up to while Mummy’s been at home making beans on toast, chanting the four times table, washing shirts and ironing them, cleaning the house because we couldn’t
afford any help; phoning their grandad as their daddy didn’t ever seem to. Shall we tell them what cosy little playdates Daddy has been going on, SHALL WE?’ She was quite surprised how very, very betrayed she felt.

  The wind was rattling the balcony doors so hard it felt like they’d break any moment. Suddenly she thought of Adam, and her heart stopped. Thought of what she nearly did with him, how far it went… But I stopped. I remembered my vows. She squeezed her eyes tight shut. When she opened them again Tom was in front of her.

  ‘Katie…’ He stood before her, sweat glistening on his brow.

  ‘God, Tom, how could you be so selfish? For better, for worse, remember? My best friend?’ More tears were streaming down her face; she wiped them away with her hand, noticed the smeared black mixture of tears and mascara on her palm.

  Then something else hit her, like a DHL delivery to another part of her brain: I called her my best friend instead of Lucy. Not bloody any more…

  ‘Katie, I know it seems selfish, but she really went for me. And it was only… only…’

  ‘HOW MANY TIMES?’ she yelled at him.

  ‘Once!’ He grimaced. ‘Possibly twice, I swear, I really swear. On the whole, she just wanted to talk. It’s her hormones. I… I… don’t know. She kept talking about a baby, about how I was a kind man. She kept saying how gentle I was—’ he shook his head ‘—how I knew how she felt about me… Honestly, I’m so sorry…’

  ‘Went for you? I thought she was my friend… But in case you hadn’t noticed having sex takes two…’

  Tom was quiet then. He slumped down in the wicker chair beside the bed.

  Looking outside to the beach beyond the balcony, Katie noticed how the palm trees were almost bent double. ‘I’ve never seen you like this,’ Tom said quietly.

  ‘Maybe that’s because I’ve never taken my family to Australia before, supported my husband and kids, only to find that he’s shagging one of my new friends, that’s why.’ She angrily pushed some hair behind her ears. ‘And to think of my plan for this holiday, for us to have some time together, the beach ceremony… God, I feel stupid.’ Katie clutched the edge of the dressing table as dizziness surrounded her.

  ‘Darling, I know, I really do appreciate…’

  ‘APPRECIATE – all you appreciate is bloody Ann!’

  ‘Katie…’

  ‘I was even beginning to like this blasted country. And what have you done for me?’ He came over, reached out to stroke her hair, but instead she grabbed his wrist. ‘I’ll tell you what you’ve done, you’ve ruined our marriage!’

  He winced. His eyes were red, his skin blotchy. ‘It didn’t mean anything…’

  ‘What didn’t mean anything? Making love to her, not me? Kissing her? What? You know, actually,’ she said, holding her hand up in front of her face, ‘I don’t want to know. How will I ever know? How will I ever trust you again?’

  ‘How can I prove it to you? It really was a lapse with Ann, I swear. I told her before we left, but she’d turned a bit weird on me. She’s very hormonal, even tried to phone me several times here… She’s desperate for a baby…’

  She put her hands over her ears. Then he stopped, pulled his hand away from his face and looked at her. His pale blue linen shirt was crumpled and there were frangipani petals caught in his buttonhole. He absent-mindedly brushed his shirt and the petals fell to the floor.

  ‘Some people use surrogates, Tom; some go to Eastern Europe and buy a baby. My best friend decided to fast-track that and have sex with a tried-and-tested donor. You.’

  ‘Katie…’

  ‘Ann’s not interested in you, Tom, is she?’ she said, storming over to the glass windows. She folded her arms across her chest. Her gaze fell on the black sea outside. She could just make out white breakers in the distance.

  ‘I know, I sort of felt sorry for her… She was crying…’

  ‘Tom. Stop!’ Katie turned her head around quickly to look at him, then opened the balcony door again, just as a massive gust of wind flew in.

  ‘My God, Tom, you’ve really messed this up… Because I thought that maybe we had a future here, but…’ She slammed the doors shut.

  ‘Sweetheart, Katie, let’s not throw our marriage away over this, what we’ve built together.’

  ‘Don’t sweetheart me! I’m not so sure – now you’ve done this!’ She stared at Tom and watched as his beautiful long lashes blinked a few times; his eyes grew wider as he watched her walk to the dressing table. She was blinded by tears; she picked up a cushion, held it close to her. ‘Did she jig about for you?’ Tears were streaming down her face as she wiggled her hips in a mock dance.

  ‘NO! Look I told you… she’s very needy… She feels like she’s a failure with only one kid… She said that you were a great mum, that you put your kids before yourself, a “super-mum”, she said once…’

  Katie stopped in her tracks. The beaded cushion was above her head, about to be hurled at him. She paced towards him.

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he muttered quietly, then started sobbing in between huge deep breaths. ‘She…’

  ‘What, Tom?’ Katie felt exhausted, clutched the pillow to her chest.

  ‘She’s right. And I’ve been too stupid to notice.’

  She felt a lump in her throat as she looked down at the cushion and noticed she had removed every single bead. She let it drop to the floor.

  ‘Katie, I’ve said I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I do love you. I always have loved you…’

  How could Tom have done this to me? He reached for her hand.

  ‘Too late. Let go of me.’ She said it formally, like you would to a stranger who took your arm in the street. He dropped her hand quickly.

  ‘I understand you’re angry. I’ll go for a walk,’ she heard him say as he headed towards the door.

  ‘Why don’t you walk all the way to a place where you can look back and really see the hurt you’ve caused?’ she said to his back. He turned and stopped, held the door in his hand, stared at her and frowned.

  ‘Remember, Katie, there are always two sides to any situation, OK?’

  Her mouth fell open. In a very even tone she told him: ‘When you come back I will have filled all the suitcases, I will have called a cab for the morning and the boys and I will be going to the airport. You can find somewhere else to stay, Tom, for a while. While I think about all this,’ then she went over to where he was standing in the doorway, removed his hand from the doorframe and closed the door in his face.

  29

  An hour later she was still lying on her bed. She took another gulp of red wine from the mini bar. Ann? Ann? I cannot sodding well believe it, she thought closing her eyes. She couldn’t help her mind wandering. Did Ann prance around in matching Agent Provocateur numbers? Had she seduced him at home playing French maids? Had she wandered around in an apron with little else on underneath, perhaps, cooking cassoulet in front of him, bending over. ‘Ooh, la la, Tom, I get bored in the kitchen, non?’ Did she use a French accent? Have French underwear? Tell him how much she needed him, wanted him. Katie imagined him wandering round the kitchen, tidying up, then turning to her, carefully slipping off her knickers, running his hands up her tanned thighs, then bending her over the kitchen table and gently sliding into her while she closed her eyes and murmured to him…

  That’s it. Katie picked up her phone. Her head was spinning as she texted her:

  I cannot believe you have done this. You were meant to be my FRIEND.

  She pressed send, waited five minutes. No reply. Then Katie punched in her number on the phone with such force she broke a fingernail.

  ‘Katie?’ Paul was on the other end. Oh Shit. ‘Katie, aren’t you in Queensland? What’s up?’

  ‘Ask your wife!’ she screamed down the phone, then hung up.

  How could she ever trust either of them again? She got off the bed and took a quick stroll. She knew her boys were safe next door in the adjoining room with the babysitter and she desperately
needed some fresh air.

  She walked around the tropical gardens, and then headed to the bar to get another drink. Catching sight of her reflection in the mirror by the pool she gasped: her dress was much shorter than she’d realised, her stomach was gently round, but not too fat. Her tsunami hair looked more post-coital than post collapse. She did, however, have Andy’s red Spider-Man sunglasses perched on top of her head, which added a jaunty touch. Her cheeks were bright red and she had a slightly odd-looking smile. Mustvebeenthose mini bar drinks, she realised, swaying slightly.

  A bunch of guys on the other side of the bar looked up. Then they waved and smiled at her. They pointed to her sunglasses and did the thumbs-up sign. She smiled and winked. One of the men winked back. By now she was feeling mighty light-headed as she studied the cocktail list. Rereading the ingredients of a pina colada twice, as the words went in and out of focus, she decided to leave the bar with a simple vodka shot. She downed it in one, then as she turned to leave, crashed straight into someone.

  ‘Oh God, sorry, did I spill your drink?’ She grimaced, watching clear liquid splash out of the glass and onto his trousers. It was the winking guy. He was standing right next to her.

  ‘No problem,’ he said, brushing his trousers. Must be in his early forties, she thought, as she noticed his greying temples. He had a sexy smile, checked shirt, chinos, diving watch. Smart casual, expensive. He caught her looking at him.

  ‘What’s your name?’ The accent was American, or perhaps Canadian.

  Why does he want to know that?

  ‘Oh, Katie,’ she gushed, holding out her hand, not sure what else to do.

  ‘Tony. Nice to meet you,’ he drawled, taking her hand in his – it was an incredibly warm and soft hand. ‘You on holiday?’

  ‘Yes, having a super time.’ Super?

  ‘Nice to meet you, Katie.’ Then he winked at her again. ‘Looks like you’ve had some fun already at the beach.’ He smiled and looked down at her ensemble. Her dress was crumpled and, unusually for her, very low-cut. Canadian Guy was getting quite an eyeful of the daisy motif. She felt herself redden.