The Woman Next Door

by Natasha Boydell

  Angie and Indie entered the kitchen looking like some sort of supermodel dream team. Sophie felt instantly inferior, despite her earlier confidence. They were both wearing little black dresses, which showed off their long legs, their hair loose and curled, and long gold chains around their necks. Sophie braced herself as Angie came over and hugged her.

  ‘Sophie, it’s good to see you. I’m so sorry I’ve been useless recently. I’ve just been absolutely snowed under; I don’t know where the days go. But it’s inexcusable.’

  Sophie hugged Angie back. ‘No worries,’ she replied, ‘I completely understand.’

  She felt like they were both lying to each other.

  Angie stood back and looked her up and down. ‘You look absolutely gorgeous, Sophie! Have you changed your hair?’

  ‘Yes, a few weeks ago.’ Sophie couldn’t help feeling delighted that Angie had noticed.

  ‘It really suits you, and that dress is beautiful!’ Angie smiled at her again before moving away to greet Alan and then picking up the champagne that Jack had poured for her.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said brightly, raising her glass and they all clinked glasses, including Indie who was clutching a champagne flute filled with lemonade. Sophie caught her eye and the teenager stared back at her. Was it just her or was Indie looking at her a little strangely? Feeling uncomfortable, Sophie looked away. When she glanced back, Indie was smiling sweetly.

  ‘Mummy says I can stay up until midnight,’ she announced.

  ‘Of course, darling, you’re thirteen now,’ Angie said, putting her arm around her daughter.

  ‘Old enough for some champagne?’ Indie asked hopefully.

  ‘Nice try,’ Jack replied. ‘But you know the answer’s no.’

  Indie sighed theatrically and drifted off to see what her older brother was up to.

  Sophie looked at Angie. ‘How are things?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh fine, nothing to report,’ Angie said. ‘But never mind me, tell me about you. I’m dying to hear about your swimming course.’

  Sophie started filling Angie in on her training and her new job, hesitantly at first and then more enthusiastically as she relaxed. Despite what had happened over the last few months, she remembered how lovely it was to be in Angie’s company and how much she’d missed it. I might as well make the most of tonight, she thought. I doubt it will happen again.

  Within a couple of hours, they were both in fits of laughter at Alan and Jack’s attempts to dance to ‘Gangnam Style’. Ellie, Freddy, Tom and Katie, who had been determined to stay up late, had completely exhausted themselves by nine thirty. They took a child each, carrying them up the stairs like they were babies and settling them into their beds before heading back downstairs to continue their party.

  ‘Who’s for shots?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Christ, Jack, we’re not twenty-one,’ Angie replied.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ange, it’s New Year’s Eve! One little shot won’t hurt.’

  ‘Not for me,’ Angie said.

  Jack looked at Alan. ‘Al, mate?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  Finally, he looked at Sophie. ‘Come on, Brennan, don’t let me down.’

  Why not? she thought. The children are asleep. After a momentous year, why shouldn’t I go out with a bang? She looked at Jack conspiratorially and grinned. ‘Go on then!’

  Jack beamed and dashed off to get the tequila. Sophie watched him as he diligently prepared lemons and salt before ferrying everything over to the table and passing a shot glass to her.

  ‘One, two, three, cheers!’ he said as they both lifted a glass to their lips. Sophie swallowed it in one go and winced, almost gagging. ‘Jeez,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘There’s a reason why I don’t do this anymore.’

  ‘I’ll get us another one,’ Jack announced, heading back to the kitchen.

  Before she could protest, Sophie got the sensation of being watched again and saw Indie staring at her from the corner of the room. She looked around at the others, but they were chatting away and didn’t seem to have noticed. When she glanced back at Indie, she was looking down at her phone. Had she imagined it? The tequila sloshed around her stomach and she felt queasy, but then Jack hijacked the stereo and put ‘Gangnam Style’ on for the third time that evening and everyone got up to dance. She joined in and tried to forget about Indie.

  By midnight, she was half-cut and declaring to anyone who would listen that she hadn’t had this much fun in ages. As the amount of alcohol she consumed increased, her anxiety about being around Angie decreased. They made their way unsteadily to the den so that they could watch the countdown and fireworks on television. Benji and Indie, who had disappeared to text their friends, rejoined them.

  Sophie smiled, enjoying her drunken buzz. Change lay ahead but everything was going to be okay. More than okay. She couldn’t wait. She started counting down.

  ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven… Happy New Year!’

  She turned to Angie and hugged her first before moving on to Alan.

  ‘Happy New Year, Al!’ she said, giving him a quick peck on the lips.

  ‘You too, Soph,’ he replied.

  She looked for Jack who grabbed her and picked her up, spinning her around. ‘Happy New Year, Brennan,’ he said.

  She laughed with delight and pulled away from him to wish Benji and Indie a Happy New Year. But just as she was about to move towards them, Indie stepped forward.

  ‘I’d like to propose a toast,’ she said, looking around the room at each adult, one by one. When her eyes fixed on Sophie, her hairs stood on end as she realised what no one else had yet. Indie was about to do something bad. Very bad.

  ‘Lovely!’ Angie exclaimed, beaming.

  ‘I’d like to toast to the new lovebirds.’

  Everyone looked confused. Sophie glanced at Jack, who was looking at Angie, who was watching Indie. The atmosphere shifted and their smiles started to falter.

  ‘Indie…’ Jack began, but Indie simply looked at him and shook her head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she said.

  ‘Indie, what’s going on?’ Angie asked urgently.

  Indie looked at her mother and raised her champagne glass of lemonade.

  ‘To Mum and Alan – who have been having it off behind everyone’s backs.’ Indie announced with a flourish. ‘I hope you’ll be very happy together.’

  16

  Angie stood frozen with terror. This had not just happened. Surely this had not just happened.

  How did Indie find out?

  How much does she know?

  The silence was deafening. Angie looked at her daughter and she stared defiantly back. She looked positively triumphant. Angie realised with alarm that Indie’s warmth towards her over the past few weeks had been entirely false. She felt like she’d been slapped in the face.

  Someone turned the TV off.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ Jack asked, looking at Angie.

  ‘Mum?’ Benji asked, looking between his sister, mother and father in confusion.

  ‘Kids, out,’ Jack said. Benji obediently turned to leave but Indie hesitated.

  ‘Out,’ Jack roared.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ Indie said again, before turning to Sophie. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie. You’re a nice person. You don’t deserve this.’

  Angie observed her daughter as she walked past. The look of contempt on her face was something that she knew she’d never forget.

  ‘I’ll ask again. What the fuck is going on?’ Jack’s confusion had turned to fury.

  Angie risked a glance at Alan who had sunk down onto the sofa with his head in his hands. There’s no getting out of this, she thought. There’s nothing I could possibly say to make this go away. She looked away. Alan was going to be no good to her at all; the man could barely hold it together. It was, as usual, down to her to take control of the situation.

  The first few minutes of the new year ticked on by. It was meant to be the new start that Angie had been waiting for. A chance
to sort her life out and put everything behind her. But the past had come back to haunt her and now all that was left to do was to find the words to explain why she had betrayed all of the people she loved in one fell swoop.

  With a final glance at Alan she said, ‘Look, can we all just sit down and I’ll explain.’

  ‘No, we can’t sit down and you’ll explain everything right now.’

  Angie closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself at work, attempting to summon the calm control she felt when she was representing a client. This is not my life. This is someone else’s life. I’m just telling their story. She opened them again and said steadily, ‘Well I’m going to sit down.’

  She perched on the sofa, all eyes on her. And she began to talk.

  It was never meant to happen. And when it did, it was only ever meant to happen once.

  Jack was working away all week and Angie had come home early so that she could pick the children up later. She was working on a case about a woman who had been accused of assaulting her fiancé. Her mitigation was that she had found him on top of their kitchen table, having sex with one of the bridesmaids-to-be. Angie knew that the case was going to attract media interest and she felt sorry for the woman. She had reacted in a moment of humiliation and anger and as a result was going to have her name splashed across the papers. In her experience, women like that went one of two ways. They either hid away, avoiding attention and refusing to speak to anyone, or they sold the whole sordid story to the highest bidder. She wondered which way her client was going to go.

  Yet the case had set her mind whirring. This woman had been convinced that her fiancé adored her but he was sleeping with her friend behind her back the whole time. He was even going to marry her, despite his affair. What kind of person does that, she wondered?

  The same type of person as Jack?

  He fit the profile after all. A previous track record of sleeping with plenty of women. Unpredictable behaviour. Disappearing for hours on end without telling her where he was going.

  And then it hit her. She was just like the fiancée.

  It was like a bolt from the blue. Suddenly she saw her past in a completely different light. Snippets of memories, small things she’d dismissed at the time, came back to her, loaded with new meaning.

  When one of his female colleagues had started acting strangely around her for no reason, as though she felt awkward in her company, Jack had said it was because she was having personal problems. Was Jack the cause of those problems?

  When a Sunday League football buddy of Jack’s made a comment about him being a love-rat, then quickly backtracked and claimed he was referring to his university era, even though he hadn’t gone to the same one as Angie and Jack. Jack had told her it was because they’d shared stories of their student days.

  And then of course there was the pink thong. How quick she’d been to believe his story.

  Had Jack been sleeping around behind her back? Were these late nights out really a front for his hook-ups with various women? Could he have been doing it, and getting away with it, for years? Did everyone know about it apart from her?

  She had always told herself that she could trust Jack, that he’d never hurt her, not seriously. Yes, he’d been a bit of a party animal in his younger years but she thought she’d tamed him when they got together. Now she realised how naïve and stupid that sounded. You couldn’t tame someone. A leopard never really changes its spots. Jack had never changed, not really.

  She didn’t have any proof. She hadn’t walked in on her partner shagging someone on her kitchen table. Yet in her mind she had already convicted him. It was like a moment of revelation. She sat there, staring at the case notes, as the words blurred in front of her eyes, and considered the prospect that her entire marriage had been a lie.

  And that’s how Alan had found her, when he appeared at her back door asking to borrow some milk. ‘Sorry to trouble you, Angie, I’m doing the invoicing and I’m gasping for a cuppa.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said, forcing a smile and beckoning him inside as she went to the fridge to grab a bottle. At the time, all she could think about was how quickly she could get rid of him.

  ‘How are you?’

  They were three simple words, a question that she answered every day without a second thought. Yet suddenly they were loaded with meaning and something gave way inside her until, before she knew it, she was crying. And then she was sobbing – partly for that poor woman whose bridesmaid-shagging fiancé had ruined her life but mostly for herself.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried but once she started, she couldn’t stop. Years of anxiety, frustration, anguish and guilt poured out of her until she was shaking with the violence of her tears. Poor Alan hadn’t known what on earth to do with her. Really, he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps if he’d popped by another day, another time, things might have turned out completely different.

  He walked carefully up to her, like she was a wild, unpredictable horse, and prised the milk bottle from her tightly clenched hand, placing it gently on the kitchen surface. Then he put the kettle on, made her a cup of tea and waited until she had calmed down.

  ‘Oh, Alan, I’m so sorry,’ she said when she was finally able to speak again, frantically wiping away her tears in embarrassment.

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about. Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No, honestly, I’m fine.’

  ‘Are you sure? A problem shared is a problem halved, you know.’

  She looked at him then, really looked at him. He was such a nice man. Jack was funny, charming, charismatic, but was he a nice man? She wasn’t sure anymore.

  ‘I think I’m going mad, Alan,’ she told him.

  ‘Tell me,’ he urged.

  And so she did. She told him everything – about Jack, her suspicions, the pink thong. And then about how she felt like a failure, how her children loved their father more than her and she hated it but didn’t know how to make it better. And, finally, how she hated herself. As she talked, he sat beside her and listened, and when she was finished, he put his arm around her and held her close to him for a long time. She leaned into him and a feeling crept over her, one that she hadn’t felt in years. She realised what it was. She felt safe.

  After a few minutes she had come back to her senses. She handed him the milk bottle.

  ‘You’d better be getting on with your invoicing,’ she told him.

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t like to leave you like this.’

  ‘I’m feeling much better, honestly.’

  He hesitated but nodded. Giving her arm a squeeze, he walked towards the back door.

  ‘Alan?’

  He turned and looked at her.

  ‘Thank you. And please, don’t tell anyone about today?’

  ‘I won’t say anything,’ he replied. ‘But you need to talk to Jack. You won’t feel better until this is all out in the open.’

  She nodded. ‘I know. I will. Thank you.’

  She really had intended on talking to Jack that evening, but then something or other had happened to distract her. Then the next day Freddy had a temperature and had to stay home from school and before she knew it, the opportunity had passed.

  Looking back now, it was painfully obvious that she shouldn’t have bottled it all up inside. She should have dealt with it straight away. If she had, it probably wouldn’t have manifested itself in the way that it did. But she’d always been terrible at talking about her feelings and the longer it went unsaid, the harder it became to say it at all. So instead she tried to bury it.

  But there was something else too, something niggling at her. She had enjoyed the intimate moment with Alan. He had listened so attentively to her as though, in that moment, she was the only thing that mattered in the whole world. She had always thought of Alan as a steady, perhaps even boring man, but now she saw him differently. She found herself thinking about him and wondering how different her life would have
been if she’d married an Alan rather than a Jack.

  Afterwards Jack would accuse her of wanting revenge against him for crimes that he hadn’t even committed, but she knew it wasn’t tit-for-tat that had prompted what happened next. It wasn’t a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the garden fence either. No, it had been far more basic than that. By chance, Alan had become her knight in shining armour when she needed help and, like all fairy-tale damsels in distress, she had fallen for her rescuer.

  He came round to see her again, a couple of days later. She had just got back from court and was opening up her laptop when he appeared at the back door and she rushed to open it and ushered him inside. ‘Come in, it’s freezing out there!’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming by,’ he said as he took off his dirty shoes and rubbed his arms up and down his jumper to warm up. ‘I saw that you’d come home early again, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to catch you on your own and see how you are.’

  ‘Not at all, it’s lovely to see you,’ she said. ‘I’m still horribly embarrassed about what happened the other week though.’

  ‘You have nothing to be embarrassed about, don’t give it another thought.’

  She smiled at him and a warm sensation crept over her body. He had checked up on her. He cared about her. Suddenly she didn’t want him to leave and she was relieved when he accepted her offer of a coffee. He sat down on one of the bar stools and watched her as she made the drinks. She felt his eyes on her and subconsciously smoothed down her hair.

  ‘Have you spoken to Jack?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she admitted, handing him his coffee and sitting on the stool next to him.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well that’s the million-pound question, isn’t it?’

  Alan regarded her, waiting for a better response, until she was compelled to say more. ‘I’ve never been good at talking about my feelings, I have no idea why I blurted it all out to you. You’re wasted on property, Alan; you should be a therapist. Anyway, I’ve always been more of a stiff upper lip type of person and until recently I thought it was working rather well for me.’