The Best of Friends

by Alex Day

He hasn’t come into the cafe, or visited the club at all, since it happened. But I find a new chain and defiantly restring my charms anyway, fastening the necklace around my throat before heading to the cafe. If he does turn up, this will show him that I am unbowed, even though I hate going to work now and can’t stand the smell of rubber soles and air freshener and freshly laundered tennis kit that assails me as soon as I walk in the door. It makes my heart jump into my throat and cramps clutch at my gut.

  The club is Dan and Dan is the club and I can hardly bear that I still have to come here every day, that the future for me and the boys rests on keeping my job here, that I can’t just simply run away. I can’t drop out, the way I did after Charlie left me, because I have Jamie and Luke to think about now, responsibilities I didn’t have then. I can’t so much as contemplate the idea of finding another job or even of moving again. It’s far too soon for that.

  So I chop and dice and season and taste, and as I do so, some tiny part of my mind that believes in fairy tales and not in real life allows me to fantasise about Dan, to imagine that, despite everything, eventually it will all come right. I think about his and Charlotte’s imminent meeting and picture the scene, the looks on their faces when both of them realise that their differences are irreconcilable, that there has been an ‘irretrievable breakdown’ in their marriage, that citing ‘unreasonable behaviour’ and adultery will be the best way out of it. How, when that moment comes, Dan will turn to me to pick up the pieces and put him back together again. And how, because we’ll be discreet and subtle and take things slowly, Charlotte will never need to know that it was me, always me, for whom Dan was prepared to risk everything.

  In the meantime, offering to provide the food was a way for me to make sure that I am present at that meeting, that both of them are reminded of me. Plus, cooking Dan’s favourite food – super-spicy curry – something that Charlotte has said she won’t do, will make Dan realise that I am so much better – more considerate, nicer – than her.

  At this thought, I take my phone out and look, again and again, at the text Charlotte sent me the night she discovered Dan’s infidelity, venting her rage, telling me in detail what she felt like doing to her husband.

  It’s one of those texts that no one should ever send.

  Chapter 35

  Charlotte

  You call me to make sure I’m in and can take delivery of your gourmet offering. You’ve finished work for the day; the batch you’re giving me is a pepped-up version of the one you’ve been serving to your customers and you tell me it’s gone down a treat. You’ll pop over right away with it.

  This is my cue to get my act together. I’ve been up and down all day, my mood vacillating from one of willing conciliation, of desiring to clear things up with Dan, brush all his misdemeanours under the carpet, pretend that none of it ever happened and that nothing has to disturb our comfortable life, to one where I rage and scream at him for what he’s done. Why should he get away with the humiliation and ignominy he’s dealt out to me, seemingly without giving a second thought to my feelings? I’m going to keep him – but I’m not going to make it easy. My resolve strengthens when I think of the boys, his sons, his flesh and blood. Sam’s confused little face haunts me. I don’t know if he believes the work trip story. All he wants is for his dad to come home.

  By the time you arrive, bearing a large casserole dish and your usual duplicitous sympathetic-but-encouraging smile, I’m all over the place, my hair wrapped in a towel because I decided I needed to lay the table before drying it, clothes strewn across the ironing board because I can’t make up my mind what to wear. I want to look smart, resolute, and purposeful, clearly not someone who can be pushed around or suppressed. The Charlotte that I always was, and will be again. But I also want to look seductively vulnerable so that Dan sees what he’s done to me and feels deep remorse for it. That’s a tall order for anyone’s wardrobe and make-up bag and whether I can achieve it or not, I’m not sure yet.

  I take your red coat, hang it neatly in the cupboard, then make tea for us. It sticks in my craw to be offering you hospitality but I don’t want you to know that I know. Not yet.

  Plonking down the mugs of tea, I sweep aside the mess I’ve created on the breakfast island, which is littered with napkins and napkin rings, silver cutlery, recipe cards for desserts, and a huge packet of plastic straws that Sam got out for some reason and, as always, left lying around. It looks like I’m expecting twenty people for dinner, not just one, and that one my husband of twenty-five years.

  You have clearly come to the same conclusion.

  ‘Gosh,’ you say, rolling your eyes. ‘I’m worried you might be over-thinking this!’

  I break a weak smile and nod. ‘I know. I’m going to clear it all up. I’ll make it look like I threw everything together at the last minute because I’ve been so busy going out and having fun.’

  You take a deep breath and then pause, biting your lip, that habitual tic I’ve noticed you fall into when you’re thinking or are worrying about something.

  ‘It’s not my place to tell you what to do, but …’ you say, enunciating each word carefully and slowly as if you’re having to work really hard to get them out.

  I bite back the retort, ‘No, it isn’t, you two-faced bitch’. Your statement is instantly recognisable as one of those ‘everything before the but is bullshit’ moments. And so it turns out to be, when you proceed seamlessly to tell me precisely what I should do.

  ‘Honestly, I’ve held back from saying this; I’ve been tactful and tried to understand where you’re coming from. But the truth is that I can’t believe you’re even thinking of giving him a second chance. He’s treated you so badly. If I were you, I’d let him run off to whoever it is who’s caught his eye this time and be done with him. If you try to force him to choose you, to love you, surely you’ll always have that nagging doubt about whether it’s genuine. And after all, only a few months ago you weren’t sure you even wanted to be with him anymore anyway.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, because it’s all I can manage. I’m trying to work it all out. To understand Dan. To understand you. I could confront you here and now, lay down in front of you everything that I know.

  But I am sure that revenge, unlike curry, is a dish best served cold.

  I turn to where I’ve placed the dish on the worktop and lift the lid. A dense, mouth-watering aroma of thick spices engulfs me – cumin, coriander, and turmeric. I’m not that big on curry but this smells delicious. I take a teaspoon from the drawer, dip it in, and taste a mouthful of the sauce. It’s an explosion of flavours that starts off tasty and then, when it hits the back of my throat, has me coughing and choking with the chilli hit.

  ‘Fuck,’ I splutter, when I regain the power of speech. ‘That is one hot curry!’ It’s funny how the one thing that a sense of smell can’t detect is the heat of the spice.

  ‘I did perk it up a bit from the cafe version,’ you apologise meekly. ‘But I said I would, remember?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely, you did. It’s … well, it’s fine. Lovely. Thank you.’

  You look at your watch. ‘No bother at all,’ you reply, sounding relieved. ‘I need to be off now though, to take Jamie to a cinema party. He and Luke are waiting in the car. Do you think Sam’s ready?’

  You’re taking him for a sleepover so that Dan and I have the place to ourselves. Agnes doesn’t work weekends and we no longer have an au pair. Hana left in the summer and I haven’t got round to replacing her. With only Sam at home, maybe I won’t. So the house is empty. No one to hear the screams, I think to myself, with a hollow, inward laugh, as I fetch my youngest son from the games room. He leaps and bounds down the hallway, distracted from the worry over Dan’s absence by the prospect of a fun night with his friend. He shows you a flint arrowhead he found on a school nature walk last week that he’s bringing with him to impress Luke with. When I was a child, we found them all the time but they’re rarer now. I guess so many have been collected over the yea
rs. I take a picture of you and him examining it. His enthusiasm and pride is cute and heart-warming.

  Despite this happy moment, a twinge of fear plucks at my heart as I hand you back your red coat and see you off. It’s not ideal for my son to be in your care but I need him out of the way and it’s vital that Dan doesn’t get wind of the fact that I know who he seduced in my absence. Or who he was seduced by. Not before the time is right, anyway.

  But as you exit through the back door, an angry, chill wind blows up and I am overcome by a sudden, inexplicable feeling of dread.

  Two hours later, in an attempt to bolster my spirits before Dan arrives, and to remind myself of your perfidy, I look at the photo I took. I’ve opened the wine and had one glass already, and together with the gin and tonic I drank earlier, I’m feeling a little woozy. Normally, I’m just a social drinker and, unlike you, I never have more than a glass or two so of course it’s going to go straight to my head. This is a night when I might have to break my no-carbs rule and absorb some of the alcohol with rice and naan bread.

  Impatiently, I zoom into the details of the picture, teasing the edges outwards until the part I want to see is centre-screen, blown up to almost life-sized. It’s further proof, more evidence, the absolute confirmation of your betrayal.

  I take a gulp of wine.

  Are you deliberately taunting me by wearing the very necklace I returned to you in the post or is it just that you are stupid? What is the curry all about? Some crazy, half-baked (pardon the pun) way to get back at me for trying to reconcile with my husband? A way to get into Dan’s trousers?

  And, most chillingly of all, how far are you prepared to go to get what you want?

  Chapter 36

  Susannah

  I turn in my seat to check that Luke and Sam have fastened their belts. They are chattering and giggling about something, a shared joke, a hidden secret. Jamie is silent, intent on his phone. He’s been so quiet since they got back from their time with Justin; I’m sure he knows there’s something troubling me, however hard I try to behave as if everything is absolutely normal. Before starting the engine, I rub my hands over my tired eyes, hoping to dispel the anguish that’s suddenly engulfed me. An intense pain sears through me. Shit! I’ve got chilli on my fingers from making the curry and I’ve managed to get it into my eyes. They smart and water and I squeeze them shut in an attempt to dispel the pain.

  Suddenly, it all feels too much. I want to cry and sob and roar at the sky about everything that’s gone wrong. I want a cuddle and a hug and someone to tell me it’ll be all right. But there is no one to do that and instead I am the one who must be strong and indomitable, making sure my boys don’t find out that the world is dissolving around us. Again.

  At this moment, the boys notice that we haven’t actually moved yet, that we’re sitting with an idling engine going nowhere.

  ‘Mum!’ says Jamie. ‘Let’s go. We’ll be late for the party.’

  I nod. ‘Yes, sorry, just had something in my eye.’

  He’s in the passenger seat next to me and I see him looking closely at me, appraising my response, calculating whether it’s anything extra he should be worried about. Charlotte regarded me in the same way, just now, in her kitchen. In fact, her whole manner was a bit off, her gaze uncanny.

  Remembering that Charlotte’s bedroom window looks out on the circular gravel driveway, I release the clutch and move off. She might be watching me, wondering why I’m not leaving. Suddenly, I want to be away from here, out of sight of the house within which Dan held me close. The stones scrunch beneath the tyres as I pull away.

  The gates open as I approach, silent and smooth; in the mirror I see them closing behind me, monumental and black, separating the house from the real world outside, preserving Charlotte in well-heeled luxury.

  And suddenly I understand. I know, fully and unequivocally, how much it all means to her and how far she will go to maintain her hold over it all – including Dan.

  Where that leaves me, I don’t even want to contemplate.

  Chapter 37

  Charlotte

  When I open the door to Dan, he leans in to kiss me in greeting. I sidestep quickly away from him but I’m already pleased about one thing. That he’s rung the bell rather than used his key. This shows he’s taking things seriously, not just assuming that because I’ve invited him for this meal, everything is back to normal and he can act as if he still lives here. He’s going to have to work very hard to earn that right back – if he ever does.

  He retracts from the almost-kiss and I usher him in. A storm is coming. The wind howls and gusts, banging the loose garage door, sending a flurry of leaves plummeting downwards from the ornamental cherry in the centre of the driveway. I push the door to and it slams itself shut. Though it’s not cold, it’s a wild night out there. This will be the first autumnal tempest. The weather forecasters predict it will be a big one. As we retreat down the hallway to the kitchen, I hear the rain starting, the gale flinging it aggressively against the windowpanes like handfuls of pebbles.

  In the cosy safety of the kitchen, I offer Dan a glass of wine. He accepts and I discover that the first bottle, the one I opened earlier, is empty. I didn’t think I’d drunk quite that much but what the hell? I uncork a second one. One only confronts one’s lying, cheating husband once in a while, right? Might as well make it an occasion for indulgence.

  ‘So,’ Dan says, doing his best to look and sound contrite. Actually, he’s managing both quite well. His face is drawn and pale. His hair is too long, giving him the look of a man trying, and failing, to preserve a lost youth. I’m pathetically and meanly glad that he doesn’t look his normal devastatingly handsome self – and that it’s not just me who’s showing signs of being the wrong side of forty.

  ‘So what?’ I say, belligerently. ‘So you’ve got some explaining to do, haven’t you?’ I’m not going to make this easy for him, however much he makes those puppy-dog eyes at me. Why should I? He’s the one in the wrong. Even though the pain in my heart is tearing my chest apart, I won’t let him walk all over me. He’s done that for years. Enough already.

  ‘Oh, Charlotte,’ he says, staring into his wine glass as if that’s who he’s talking to. ‘I’m sorry. Please believe that I’m sorry.’ He looks up and meets my eyes. ‘In all honesty, what happened is that for a moment – just one stupid, thoughtless moment – I gave up on you. I thought you were lost to me, that you didn’t want me in your life anymore. I mean, well, we weren’t … we hadn’t had sex in so long … You went off to Corsica and you didn’t seem to care that I wouldn’t be there. You were content to be on your own with the boys. There seemed to be no place for me …’

  His voice peters out after this string of petty excuses.

  ‘What I’m hearing is you bleating that you’re sorry and then going on to explain how it’s all my fault.’

  My voice sounds hard and uncompromising. That’s OK. Right now, it’s how I feel.

  ‘No!’ he protests. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. It’s not what I think or mean. When I say I’m sorry, that’s how I really feel. I want to make it up to you, Charlotte. What we had in Corsica … that was like it used to be, wasn’t it? That shows us we can be good again.’

  I listen to all this with scepticism. But then he smiles, a meek, apologetic smile and it’s the same smile Sam has when he’s knocked the heads off my delphiniums with his football or scraped holes in the toes of his new school shoes doing tricks on his BMX bike. I sigh.

  ‘OK, I accept that you’re sorry, remorseful, regretful, whatever. But how do you expect me to just accept that you’ve betrayed me? Again.’

  ‘Don’t accept it. But at least try to understand it.’

  I have to think about this for a moment. Should I try to understand? I think about my little problem and realise that, as I so desperately need Dan to reciprocate in understanding how that all came to pass, I probably should.

  As if reading my mind, Dan says, ‘And you’ve been
so distracted …’ His forehead furrows as if he’s trying to calculate something. ‘I was going to say lately, but actually I think it’s been for a long, long time. Hasn’t it?’

  I shrug. I’m not ready to be drawn on this quite yet. He needs to expiate his sins before I’ll do mine.

  ‘You’ve broken my heart, Dan,’ I tell him. ‘Ripped it out of my chest and trampled on it with hobnailed boots.’ Suddenly, it’s all too much. ‘Why would you do that to me?’ I wail, no longer able to keep the calm demeanour I had planned on. ‘Why would you want to hurt me like that? And what if the children found out? What would they think of you then? How would you explain yourself to them?’

  Dan doesn’t answer. He looks as if he’s about to cry. I can’t feel sorry about that. He’s brought it entirely on himself.

  We talk for an hour or more, polishing off the second bottle of wine and opening a third. Sometimes I feel that we’re getting somewhere, and then Dan says something that makes me think we’re back at square one. Eventually I realise that if I don’t eat something I’ll fall over.

  The casserole dish has been in the oven warming since before Dan got here and the rice is ready to cook. It only takes ten minutes to have everything on the table. I’m ravenous and load my plate with rice, naan, and several poppadoms. Dan raises his eyebrows but says nothing. I only take a little of the curry, two or three pieces of the lamb and a tiny bit of sauce. My earlier taste, when you delivered it, convinced me that a little goes a long way – unless you have a passionate love of chilli, as Dan does, but I don’t. I pass him the spoon so that he can help himself. He looks thinner, reduced somehow, as if hotel food and solitary living have diminished him. It doesn’t suit him, being exiled. He piles his plate high, as if he hasn’t eaten for a week.

  ‘Go easy,’ I say jokily, trying to dissipate some of the tension that’s been building between us. ‘I’ve tried it and it’s pretty fiery.’