Double Deceit

by Julienne Brouwers

  In which case, I reasoned, there was little harm in simply confirming this by taking a quick peek. I decided that I was merely doing this to find peace and closure, to be able to move on. And so I put the phone charger into the port.

  As I waited, my gaze wandered outside, where in the evening darkness the first flakes of sleet in December struck the restored stained glass window, only to instantly melt away again. Yesterday’s forecast had been quite off as they’d predicted a blizzard. I stood up to close the curtains.

  After a few minutes of charging, the device lit up and I entered Oliver’s six-digit code with trembling fingers. I went to his contacts and immediately typed the first three letters of her name. A stab went straight through my heart – there it was. Sandra.

  So it was true after all.

  “That doesn’t have to mean anything,” I said out loud, trying to reassure myself. Sandra was a common name, it could just be an old acquaintance, a friend of a friend or a colleague.

  I opened WhatsApp and searched for a chat session with Sandra. I soon spotted one, but to my disappointment it was empty when I opened it. The contents had been erased.

  There was only one alternative to find out more. It would be bold and potentially harrowing but then again I didn’t have much to lose. Being kept in the dark was worse than exposing the truth, even if it meant I’d been deceived by my husband.

  I pressed the green button and heard the telephone ring.

  There was a click – I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Oliver?” I heard a woman say. “Long time no speak.” I sensed sarcasm in her tone. “I didn’t expect to ever hear from you again.”

  It became clear to me the woman had no idea of Oliver’s fate.

  “This is Jennifer. I’m Oliver’s wife,” I declared.

  There was a short pause and then out of the blue I was cut off. This lady had some guts – she’d hung up on me.

  Surely she didn’t think she was going to shake me off that easily? I redialled the number and she answered again. “I’m sorry for hanging up like that. I was shocked, I mean … I still am.” There was a short pause. “Why are you calling me?”

  I didn’t answer, wondering what I was hoping to gain from this conversation. I hadn’t yet asked her any questions – even so, I knew everything. At least, enough to recognise it was true – Oliver had cheated on me. As the unsettling truth seeped in, I felt a numbing fatigue wash over me.

  “I er …” I faltered. “I don’t really know why I’m reaching out to you. I stumbled upon a postcard with your name written on it. A card addressed to Oliver.” The words now came tumbling out of my mouth. “I had no clue of what was going on between the pair of you. Or actually I still don’t know anything.”

  I eased myself up from the couch to pour myself a glass of wine hoping it would take off the rough edges of the painful heart-to-heart with this stranger.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sandra said again. This time it was a resolute apology. “I had no idea Oliver was married,” she added, leaving me wondering whether she was being truthful.

  I clenched the phone between my right ear and shoulder and with two hands I jerked open the heavy, stainless steel fridge-freezer door, which had been jammed for weeks. I resolved to have someone look at it soon. Lindsey would undeniably know a guy, who knew a guy. She had a way of taking care of those kinds of things.

  “Although come to think of it, it doesn’t surprise me,” Sandra continued, while I poured the wine into my glass. “I’m afraid I can’t help you though.”

  This conversation was far from over. “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.” I pressed one of the buttons on the black display of the freezer and dropped an ice cube into my white Chardonnay. This old habit of mine had initially made Oliver smile – the plain, village girl he was dating put ice in her wine – but as the years passed, his amusement progressed into openly annoyed looks at my apparent lack of sophistication. Sometimes he’d resembled his mother more than he realised.

  Sandra seemed to want to ditch me. “If you don’t mind. I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait,” I yelled, afraid she’d end the phone call again. “Hang on a moment. You don’t understand. Oliver is … er … He has died.”

  There was the sound of a sharp intake of breath. “He’s dead?”

  I leaned my back against the fridge, took a sip of wine, and felt the cool liquid slide down my throat. Although completely wrong, it felt satisfying to shock her like that as well as having a trick up my sleeve to blackmail her with. Presumably she’d not dare to dismiss me again.

  It stayed silent for a while.

  She recovered. “How awful for you. I’m sorry for your loss. Honestly,” she added softly. “But I really can’t do anything for you.”

  I needed to push on. “I’m looking for answers. Please. My husband is gone and all of a sudden I find a postcard from you. A card that shouldn’t have been sent to a married man. I don’t know what to think about it. Your response speaks volumes, but I need to know for sure. Did you …” I took a gulp of wine and closed my eyes. “Did you two have an affair?” Saying it out loud made me feel sick.

  “Yes,” she admitted reluctantly after a few moments. “It ended some time ago. But … Yes, we were in contact for a while.” She appeared to be downplaying whatever had gone on between them and it annoyed me immensely.

  A range of thoughts and questions flashed through my mind. When had all of this happened? How could I have missed this? She was probably young, pretty and childless, I thought cynically. Did she also live in Amsterdam? I felt an almost irrepressible urge to know the down and dirty truth.

  “Can we meet?”

  “Meet? You and I? What good could come from this?”

  I lost my temper. “You have no idea what this feels like. I need to know what happened between Oliver and you. Do you understand that I was under the assumption we were happily married?” For the sake of simplicity, I left out the quarrels we’d had recently. It was none of her business. “This is a lot to process. Please. Just a short talk from woman to woman.” I felt tears welling up, but I pulled myself together.

  She released her breath with a long, weary sigh and I imagined her shaking her head. “Alright then.”

  9

  “Cheers.”

  “Chin, chin.”

  We clinked our glasses of gin and tonic and I pondered if this drink fell outside of my self-imposed quota. I decided it did, there was no point in torturing myself unnecessarily.

  “To better times,” Karen proclaimed.

  I took a sip and felt the liquor burning my throat. I didn’t particularly like the flavour, but then nothing seemed to taste right since Oliver had died. Lindsey had shown up on my doorstep tonight unannounced, declaring she was meeting all of our girlfriends in a bar called ‘Home’, but I questioned whether I’d made the right decision by joining her. Going for drinks with the girls wasn’t where my head was at right now, but Lindsey was insistent – I had to get out of the house.

  “How are you?” Frederique asked with eyes full of compassion.

  I lifted my shoulder in a half shrug. “Alright, I guess. I’m constantly feeling tired though. I can’t seem to get a good night’s sleep. But I’ve just got to keep going, you know?” I tried to sound strong and upbeat – over the past few months I’d grown to despise the continuous looks of pity – but my attempts failed miserably. I sounded as convincing as a chocolate teapot.

  “How are you holding up?” Karen asked.

  I stared off into the distance. “There’s no other option than to just put one foot in front of the other. I can’t allow myself to fall apart. I need to stay strong for Tim, who simply doesn’t understand what has happened, and for the patients at my practice.” I didn’t like to abandon the sick people relying on my aid and I’d feel awful if they thought their doctor wasn’t there for them. I looked at my girlfriends. “It’s remarkable how easily you can put on a front when needed.”

  Karen l
ooked at me with a tormented expression on her face. It really wasn’t her thing to talk about emotions.

  Frederique touched my arm. “Ah you poor thing. You’re so incredibly strong. I don’t know how I’d cope if I were in your shoes. I can’t believe out of all the people out there this has happened to you.”

  I turned away and smiled faintly. “Thanks darling.” My eyes fell on my reflection in a mirror a few feet away and I realised that I hadn’t looked this presentable in months. Upon Lindsey’s arrival tonight, I’d flung on some clothes while she’d left the baby monitor with my befriended neighbour upstairs, after which I’d made a vain attempt to conceal the bags under my eyes with some makeup. Lindsey had entered the bathroom with a glass of wine in her hand, shaking her head with a smile as she leaned against the door. “You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl,” she’d commented, looking at me from head to toe. My gaze had self-consciously descended. “Is there something wrong with this outfit?” Fashion had never been my strongest point, to be fair. Lindsey had firmly placed her glass on the washbasin and yelled back whilst walking towards my bedroom. “No need to worry. I’ll find you something with a bit of oomph.”

  Frederique spoke again. “You know we’re always there for you, don’t you? Just a phone call and we’ll come over. Bring you food. Or watch Timmy for a while.”

  “Or get you drunk,” Karen added, with a mischievous giggle.

  Everyone laughed with relief. I noticed Frederique had recently whitened her teeth again. They contrasted sharply with her cherry red coloured lips.

  Lindsey gave me a wink and bobbed her head. “This is good for you.” Lately everyone seemed to know what was good for me.

  Lindsey resumed, waving her hand airily. “Getting out of the house, mingling with the girls.” She was following the latest fashion trends as usual and wore an ochre-yellow oversized jumper with jeans that clung to her waist. Her long blonde hair framed her oval face. She looked radiant.

  “How’s Tim doing? Do you notice any difference in his behaviour?” Frederique asked.

  Tim obviously sensed something had changed, but he wasn’t able to comprehend what was going on, let alone verbalise his feelings. “He often asks for his father, like when we’re eating. Or when I put him into bed, he’ll say ‘daddy kiss’.” The pain of those words was almost unbearable.

  Frederique’s eyes filled with tears. “Sorry,” she said, quickly wiping her cheeks. “I don’t want to upset you anymore. This was meant to be a fun evening,” she added and smiled.

  I gave her a reassuring look, I genuinely appreciated my friends’ efforts. “I try not to break down too often while he’s around because it upsets him terribly,” I went on, happy to be able to air my feelings. “But I haven’t really noticed anything particularly unusual about him. I often let him kiss Oliver’s picture. I framed one and put it in his room, to keep Oliver’s memory alive.”

  “I’m sure he’ll never forget him,” Lindsey said sympathetically. “How could he? He was his father.”

  “I’m so worried he won’t be able to remember him though,” I said against my better judgment.

  Karen ran a hand through her short hair and cast me a look of pity. “Hun, he’s two. He’s too young to have any vivid recollection of his father.”

  I found it hard to swallow. “Yes, I know that,” I said miffed. “In any case, it feels better.”

  Lindsey shot Karen a warning glance, to which she responded by letting the subject rest.

  The song All I Want for Christmas suddenly blasted over the speakers and reminded me of how Oliver and I had met in the weeks before Christmas. It had always remained ‘our song’. The joyful tones made me reminisce about him so intensely that I couldn’t speak for a brief moment.

  “Isn’t this a nice place,” I heard Lindsey say.

  I managed to respond flatly. “Yes, it is. Hadn’t heard of it before.”

  “It opened just a few months ago, and it’s become the place to be.”

  Over and above the buzz, I caught fragments of the chitchat at the table next to us, where a young man was boasting to his date about his performances in the gym, presumably to impress her. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I burst out laughing and could hardly stop. I guffawed to the point of Lindsey looking at me questioningly.

  I repeated his ridiculously pompous words quietly, afraid I’d insult him, but it didn’t sound quite as amusing coming out of my mouth.

  She smiled. “I’m delighted to see you laugh so freely again.”

  I realised that during those seconds of hysterical laughter it seemed for a fleeting moment as if nothing bad had happened and everything was the same as before, and it gave me a blissful feeling of hope. Hope of a future in which I could once again feel like the old Jennifer, something that had seemed impossible in recent months.

  A waitress with a perpetual smile came to ask if she could be of any help to us.

  “How about some nachos?” Karen suggested.

  “Sure,” Frederique said, but, knowing her, she wouldn’t have many of them. She didn’t want to ruin her slender figure.

  “How’s work?” Lindsey asked me.

  “If I’m honest, I never feel like going in, but once I arrive it provides some distraction. On Wednesdays I still have my day at home with Tim, which is a welcome break during the week.” I took a sip of my gin and tonic and wondered whose idea it had been to order this drink. “I’ve noticed though that I’m becoming increasingly irritated by the trivialities with which patients come to see me.”

  Frederique nodded her head supportively.

  “You have no idea what kind of things people make appointments for.” I resumed with a funny voice, “Doctor, you wouldn’t believe the headaches I’m having. Doctor, my daughter has fallen in the playground and has a scrape on her knee. Doctor, my big toe is all swollen up.” I got worked up again just thinking about it.

  Lindsey and Karen looked up, a glint of laughter flickering across their faces.

  “Darling, this does not sound like you at all,” Frederique said, with a frown of concern. “You’ve always been so … so considerate and understanding of all those ailments.”

  The waitress brought the nachos, which Karen eagerly started nibbling.

  I pondered Frederique’s remark. It was indeed against my nature to pass comments on the daily worries that I encountered at work. Had I become so insensitive to the aches and pains of my patients? Was I no longer able to sympathise with them? It was as if my feeling of empathy had diminished, the whole situation had just chipped it all away. Perhaps Oliver’s death had made me emotionally numb. I found it a sad and depressing conclusion.

  “I’m sure it’s just a temporary thing,” Karen said, chewing on a nacho. “I think it’s just a phase that will pass.”

  I flicked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I hope you’re right. Either way, I seem to be struggling to focus and listen properly to my patients. I have to restrain myself from saying ‘your big toe is supposed to be fat. My toe is fat too’,” I tried to quip.

  Frederique smiled.

  My gaze fell on the Christmas decorations again, and it suddenly dawned on me that this year I’d be spending the holidays without Oliver and my heart sank. The last couple of years we’d spent Christmas Day with my parents, together with a single aunt, ploughing through the mountains of food that my mum would prepare. Boxing Day we usually celebrated with my in-laws and Oliver’s sister, her husband and their two children. Although the tradition was quite nice, I couldn’t bear the prospect of being there all by myself at the nothing-less-than-perfectly set table, the rows of cutlery announcing the various courses. Tim was at an age where he was unwilling to sit in a high chair for hours, for which Oliver’s mother seemed to have little understanding, just like our choice of name for our son. When my parents-in-law visited us after giving birth, my mother-in-law had repeated “Tim” with an expression of disgust on her face. “I’m assuming hi
s full name is Timothy,” she remarked, clearly expecting a name with a little more grandeur. “No, it’s just Tim,” I’d murmured in discomfiture. “We like the name,” Oliver had added to nip the discussion in the bud. I’d seen my father-in-law give Bernadette a poke. She’d pursed her lips together and managed to mutter “yes beautiful, indeed”.

  Lindsey pulled me out of my musings. “What’s the matter, darl?”

  I shared my doubts with her about how to navigate the Christmas period, after which she asked whether it was an option to skip dinner at the in-laws altogether this year.

  “I can’t do that to Bernadette,” I replied. I’d learned from Oliver’s father that she was still rather shaky. I didn’t want to rock the boat by denying her time with Tim during Christmas. After all, he was the only tangible memory she had of her son.

  Lindsey’s eyes suddenly lit up. “What about if you take Tim to your in-laws and then come over to my place on Boxing Day? I’ll arrange a decent bottle of wine and some comfort food. We’ll hang out on the couch and spend the evening putting the world to rights.” Lindsey hadn’t been in a stable relationship for years and I knew she never had any plans for Boxing Day.

  The idea filled me with relief and joy. This was the perfect solution. Tim could see his grandparents and I wasn’t forced to muscle my way through a culinary spectacle, with Oliver’s absence screaming in my face.

  I gave her a warm hug. “That’s a great idea, Lindsey. Thank you.”

  She took a mouthful of her drink and looked at me contentedly.

  My gaze moved to the rest of our friends, who were sitting around the table, and then I suddenly recalled that Karen had recently lost her job as an orthopaedic surgeon after a long labour dispute. “How are you doing now?” I asked, feeling a sense of guilt. I’d been so caught up in myself over the last couple of months, I’d forgotten that I wasn’t the only one going through difficult times.