The Other Woman

by Jane Green

  “That’s six,” Trish whispers to me, both of us keeping our eyes glued to Michael’s, who, fortunately, is completely unaware of our puerile behavior.

  “Seven,” I whisper as he casts a quick glance down at her cleavage, and the pair of us fall about giggling.

  Dan shakes his head, pretending to be stern. “How old are our wives exactly?” he says to Gregory.

  “I think tonight they’ve regressed to an approximate age of about five,” Gregory says, grinning.

  “Five and a half!” Trish shouts petulantly.

  “And I’m five and three quarters!” I shout, and it sets us both off again as the others shake their heads.

  I think we’re slightly drunk.

  By the time we sit down at the table outside, the pâtés and baguettes, which Dan had insisted Trish and I eat copious amounts of, seem to have soaked up some of the alcohol.

  “Dad,” Dan says, looking over at Michael seated at the head of the table, “I’ll thank you not to get the women completely sloshed every night.”

  Michael laughs. “Oh, relax,” he says. “You’re on holiday. You should try it.”

  Dan looks at his mother. “Is that really my dad or did an alien come and steal him away during the night?”

  Linda shakes her head in exasperation. “It seems the girls aren’t the only ones regressing tonight. Your father seems to think he’s young, free, and single.”

  Dan laughs. “Oh, he’s harmless, Mum. And you’ve got to admit, Lisa is rather stunning. Don’t worry.” He drops his voice so the others can’t hear, except of course for me, sitting next to him and tuning in to his conversation. “The more you get to know her the less attractive she is.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about him,” Linda says. “I’m just not so sure about her.” And she looks pointedly at Dan, as I roll my eyes and take another swig of wine.

  “A toast!” Michael calls out from the other end of the table. “To holidays! And new friends!”

  “To holidays and new friends!” we all echo, raising our glasses and drinking, and as we sit, talking and laughing and forgetting that there has ever been any discord with anyone at this table, I feel awash with contentment and a quiet sense of calmness.

  True to form, Linda has made an authentic French cassoulet, followed by a hot tarte tatin served with cold vanilla ice cream.

  And as we eat outside, sitting under the wisteria, lanterns on the table casting a soft, romantic light, I forget for a couple of hours the history that I have with Linda, and when she makes the odd comment about her grandson, or tells a story in which she implies that she and I are close, I just nod and smile, too contented, and possibly slightly too drunk, to comment.

  Or care.

  17

  Isn’t it strange how adding people can bring a whole new dynamic to the equation? When we have Sunday lunch with Michael and Linda, we discuss the events of our week without really discussing anything at all, finish the meal in about half an hour, then leave the table and count the minutes until we can actually go without appearing rude.

  And yet tonight, with Trish, Gregory, and Lisa here, it feels as if I am having a wonderful evening with a large group of friends.

  Instead of making small talk, we tell stories, each one trying to be funnier or more outrageous than the last.

  Afterward, when I am helping Linda wash up, she turns to me in the kitchen, her face flushed with sun and wine. “I never knew you had such lovely friends,” she says.

  I shrug. “You never asked. You sound surprised…are you surprised they’re lovely?”

  “Not in the slightest,” she says. “I’m pleased for you. I always think that being a first-time mother is the hardest job in the world. I always felt so isolated and lonely, and I think the only way you get through it is to have other friends in the same boat. I think it’s lovely that you all get on so well and all the babies are the same age.”

  “Yes, you’re right. It is lovely. I don’t know what I would have done without them.”

  “And Trish is such a sweetie,” Linda says. “She’s a very good friend to you; I can tell.”

  Uh oh. Here we go. I know even before she opens her mouth that she’s about to say something about Lisa, even though Lisa has been charm itself throughout the meal, has gone out of her way to let Michael and Linda know how much we all appreciate their hospitality.

  “Tell me about Lisa,” Linda says finally. “What’s her story?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Linda shrugs, affecting nonchalance. “I’m surprised that someone like her doesn’t have a partner.”

  “Oh, she does. Andy. Although he’s probably on the way out. But looking like that, I’m sure there’ll be plenty more where he came from.”

  “She is rather stunning,” Linda says. “She mentioned she’s divorced. Did she ever tell you what happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say, not wanting to betray my friend, not wanting Linda to know anymore, even though I’m pretty damn sure Linda thinks that Lisa had an affair—I can just tell.

  “However she comes across,” I say defensively, “she’s lovely. Very genuine and down to earth. She’s not what she looks like.”

  “A tart, you mean?” Linda attempts to make a joke.

  “Linda!” I’m genuinely pissed off. “She’s one of my best friends. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about my friends like that.”

  “You’re right.” She’s contrite. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it, and she does seem charming.” There’s a pause while Linda picks up a glass and focuses intently on drying it. “How does Dan get on with her?”

  And now I know where she’s going. My voice is stony cold. “Dan gets on fine with her, Linda. Why? What are you trying to suggest?”

  Linda sighs. “Look, Ellie, don’t take this the wrong way. I’m always so careful when I talk to you because I’m so worried about offending you, but I’ve been around in the world a lot longer than you, and I’ve met hundreds of girls like Lisa, and I just think you should be careful.”

  “What? Careful of what? You think she’s interested in stealing Dan?”

  Linda shrugs, with a shrug that says that’s exactly what she’s thinking. “I just think that it’s dangerous to have a beautiful friend who’s divorced, particularly when she has a child. A lot of those girls, girls like Lisa, are looking for security, for a wealthy man who can keep them in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed.”

  I let out a short bark of laughter. “Wealthy man? Well, that rules Dan out, then, doesn’t it?”

  “You may laugh,” Linda says, not a trace of a smile on her face, “but I’m telling you; I know her type and I’d be very careful. I’m not saying don’t be friends; I’m just saying that you can be friends with her without letting her become too close to your family. This holiday, for instance—you might not want to do it again.”

  I take a deep breath, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of this entire conversation, so ridiculous that it’s almost impossible for me to take offense. If anything, I just think the whole thing is funny. Of course Lisa’s gorgeous; you just have to look at her to see it, but she’s also a really good friend.

  “Look, Linda, while I appreciate your concern,” the sarcasm heavy in my voice, “and while I appreciate everything you’ve done for us with this holiday, I think you really ought to…” I stop while thinking of a nice way to say mind your own business, you old bat, “…keep your thoughts about my friends to yourself.”

  “I’m sorry if I offended you. That wasn’t my intention and I’ll try not to do it again, okay?”

  “Fine.” I put down the tea towel and go off to look for Dan.

  “You will never bloody believe your mother,” I whisper as soon as I find him, sitting on the sofa playing backgammon with Gregory. “What?” “Hurry up and finish; then we’ll go to bed and I’ll tell you.”

  I repeat the entire conversation to Dan in the privacy of our bedroom, and he looks at me
for a few seconds before bursting out laughing.

  “She is ridiculous, isn’t she?” My voice comes out hopefully; it emerges as a question rather than as a statement. I trust Dan. I absolutely do. I don’t think he’s the type of man ever to have an affair, and even if he were, I don’t believe he fancies Lisa in the slightest. But Linda has planted a seed, and while Dan was playing backgammon with Gregory, I couldn’t help but watch him closely to see whether he might have been glancing at Lisa more than would have been normal, whether there was anything going on that I might have missed.

  And all that was going through my head was, did Linda spot something that I hadn’t? I always thought that if I was ever with a man who was unfaithful, I would know instantly. You see those television programs where the husband phones home and says, “Sorry, darling, my meeting’s running on,” or they go away on business trips and don’t leave hotel numbers, and you watch the poor, dim wives and want to scream at them: “He’s having an affair, you silly cow! Don’t you recognize the signs?”

  And of course we all congratulate ourselves on how clever we are for spotting it, but perhaps we wouldn’t be quite so clever if it were happening on our own doorsteps; perhaps our instinct for self-preservation would protect us from things that we would rather not know.

  I had always thought, always said, that if anyone was ever unfaithful to me, I would leave immediately, with no second thoughts. But Fran once told me that I would change my mind as I got older.

  She had told me that before she met Marcus, the great love of her life was her university boyfriend, Tim.

  She and Tim were together for five years, and she had known, from the moment she met him, that Tim was the man she was going to marry.

  They had talked about it from the beginning. How many children they would have, where they would live, what their children would be called. (“Just so you know I’m consistent, one of my names was Sadie, and this was before Sadie Frost made it fashionable,” she explained. “Just so you know,” she had laughed.)

  They had spent hours planning their future together in the romantic, idealistic way you are supposed to plan your lives together when you are twenty and in love for the first time, when love sweeps you off your feet and you can’t possibly envisage a moment, let alone a lifetime, without the man who is unquestionably your other half, the half you’ve been looking for your entire life.

  “Jesus Christ,” I had laughed. “Who would have thought you were such a romantic?”

  “Not anymore.” Fran rolled her eyes as Sadie came up with chocolate-covered fingers and grabbed at her cardigan. “Young and very, very stupid.”

  After graduation Fran and Tim had moved down to London, Fran working as a young PR assistant and Tim doing some kind of sales job that took him traveling all over the country.

  She hadn’t suspected anything.

  “Nothing?” I said in amazement when she told me about how he was unavailable for days, about women phoning up and saying they’d got the wrong number before putting the phone down, about his sudden need to take his phone calls in the privacy of their bedroom, with the door closed. And finally she told me about finding scraps of paper, love notes in his pockets.

  “God, you really must have been naive,” I remember saying.

  “I don’t know whether it was naïveté as much as not wanting to know. I think deep down of course I knew, I must have known, but I didn’t want to believe, and so I blinded myself to it.”

  She would confront him, and he would always have an explanation, which sounded reasonable to someone who so wanted to believe. The phone calls were business, the deals were being conducted with the utmost secrecy, hence the closed doors, and finally the love notes were the result of this incredibly annoying, middle-aged secretary called Angela who had a huge crush on him.

  “What does she look like?” Fran said she had asked nervously.

  “She’s revolting.” Tim had laughed. “A middle-aged spinster with bad breath and greasy hair who thinks I’m the best thing since sliced bread.”

  Fran had laughed along with him until Tim started spending more and more time in Manchester and less and less in London, and eventually he confessed that he had been having an affair. The only thing that he’d said about Angela that had been true was that she had a huge crush on him. He hadn’t been entirely truthful about her being a hot, blond nineteen-year-old.

  “I hope you sent him packing,” I said.

  “Well, no. That’s the amazing thing. Like you, I’d always said that if anyone was ever unfaithful to me, I’d be out of there quicker than you could say Mrs. Robinson. I remember saying it over and over to Tim, that if he ever had an affair he’d lose me, as if it were the worst thing imaginable. And yet when it happened, I collapsed in tears, sobbed my heart out in this pathetic little heap on the floor, and begged him to stay.”

  I looked at her, not knowing what to say. The prospect of Fran—supercool, supersuccessful, supertrendy Fran—begging anyone for anything was beyond me. Particularly in a pathetic heap on the floor. The whole image was enough to render me completely speechless.

  But that was the point, Fran explained. You never know how you’re going to react to something until it happens. Up until that point she had genuinely thought she would just walk away, would have enough dignity to remove herself, head held high, and find someone who would appreciate her.

  But in her hysteria she said she would have done anything to keep him, kept insisting that she would forgive him, that they could carry on as if nothing had happened, that it would take time for her to get over the breach of trust, but that she could do it. She believed enough in the two of them to do it, and how could he throw away so many good years together?

  “Thank God,” she said, taking a sip of wine, “he chose to throw it away, and now that I’m”—she paused—“thirty-something, married to Marcus with children, I know I’d have a completely different reaction.”

  “Not that Marcus would ever have an affair,” I said quickly. “But if he did, how would you react?”

  “It wouldn’t be an issue,” she said, smiling. “Because I would dismember him.”

  I was newly married when we had this discussion, and remember being horrified when she went on to say, with all seriousness, that she wouldn’t necessarily leave if Marcus had an affair. She hoped to God she’d never be in a position where she would have to deal with it, but she suspected that she would find a way to carry on.

  “I love my life,” she said simply. “I love my girls; I love my home; I love Marcus, who is, by the way, a wonderful man. Of course it would depend on the nature of the affair—was it a one-night stand, a few fucks, or a full-blown love affair? But on the whole I’d have to say that I would seriously question whether it would be worth changing everything, uprooting the girls and changing all of our lives, for the sake of what was perhaps just a minor indiscretion. You won’t understand,” she said, smiling, “until you have children of your own.”

  I didn’t understand, but this evening I try to watch for signs that I might have missed something, that Dan might be more interested in Lisa than I may have thought.

  I don’t see any signs, but perhaps I don’t know what I’m looking for. Gazes that last a split second too long, a hand resting on a shoulder in a show of intimacy that you’re not supposed to see between your husband and your friend? I don’t know, and so I watch, but don’t see anything that might be misconstrued as something else. Something more.

  Maybe they are too clever, maybe they know I’m watching them, maybe there is no smoke without fire, and Linda would never have said anything if she hadn’t genuinely spotted something amiss, something that would give the game away to a woman like Linda, a woman far older and wiser than me.

  I don’t see the signs, but I start to think about what might happen if I did.

  Could I have missed something that Linda hadn’t? Did she perhaps bend down to pick up a napkin and notice hands brushing, or fingers linked underneath the ta
ble? Even if she didn’t, even if it were, just as I thought, mere supposition, what if Dan were to have an affair? What if Dan were having an affair now? What would I do?

  I don’t feel that my life would end without Dan. For the first few months after Tom was born, quite frankly, I wished he’d piss off altogether. Does that mean he’s not the great love of my life? Am I supposed to feel that my life would end if Dan walked out the door?

  I’ve felt that way about men before, but not men with whom I’ve had healthy relationships. I’ve felt that way when I’ve been giddily, crazily in lust, when the entire relationship has felt as if I’m balancing on the edge of a precipice. I never wanted that for my marriage. I never wanted those ups and downs, the feeling of never being in control, of giving yourself over entirely to another person.

  And yet the thought of Dan with another woman, specifically with Lisa, does make me feel rather sick. The betrayal. My husband and my best friend. How would you ever get over a betrayal like that, how would you ever be able to trust anyone ever again?

  Which is why Dan and I are standing in our bedroom and I am asking him hopefully if his mother is being ridiculous. I am waiting for him to tell me she is, to laugh at her inferences and implications, to tell me that I am the great love of his life.

  “She is being completely ridiculous,” Dan laughs, putting his arms around me as I start to relax. “I can’t believe my mother thinks I would be interested in Lisa!” He starts to laugh again, then sits me down on the bed and takes my face in his hands, looking at me very intently as he stops laughing. “Ellie, I love you. I love Tom. I love being married to you and having a family with you, and I would never have an affair. Not to mention the fact that, although I can recognize that Lisa is a beautiful woman, I have never been attracted to her in the slightest.”

  “What if you were single?” I persist. “Would you have asked her out then?”