by Adele Parks
‘And I spent ages on eBay tracking down the original nineteen seventies Star Wars figurines because you once told me that as a child you’d adored your set and since then you’d lost them. They’re just plastic dolls! And I spent literally hours!’ she pointed out with indignation.
Hadn’t he appreciated anything? Steph sighed. Even she realised that a plastic Princess Leia was unlikely to turn him on as much as the possibility of having sex with another woman. The thought was overwhelming. Sickening. Even now, having lived for three days with the knowledge that her husband was an adulterer (the longest three days of her life) she still did not know what to do with the nasty, icy, solid fact. How exactly ought she to react to it? She’d tried to get revenge by meeting up with Subhash – that had been disastrous. She’d considered walking away from Julian, but how could she when he lay in a coma and there was absolutely no chance whatsoever that he could run after her? And she’d tried to ignore the fact altogether – at least outwardly that had been the most successful route. She had not divulged his secret to anyone other than Pip. She had not confided in her parents, or confessed the true state of affairs to the police and she certainly had not coughed it up in anger to the children. She had been restrained and careful. She’d tried to be dignified.
Of course, she’d spent hours sitting here by Julian’s bedside, imagining this woman. This Other Woman. She’d clawed and scratched at the thought of her. Steph felt like a rat gnawing at its own foot that was lodged in a trap, she’d tried to free herself so that she could limp away from the very thought of this woman but it was impossible.
Even though Steph had just called the woman a daft little tart, she feared this was unlikely to be the case. She thought that the other woman must be a high flyer, super intellectual type because Julian wouldn’t waste himself on a bimbo. Surely. And no doubt, besides being a brainiac, she’d be glamorous too, Stephanie supposed. The Other Woman would have manicured finger and toenails, they would probably be painted an edgy but sophisticated, on-trend midnight-blue colour – or similar. Steph never dared to paint hers anything more exciting than nude or a pretty pink for holidays. She’d have an eternally tidy bikini line. Oh God, let’s face it, she’d probably had the area in question lasered into a permanent Brazilian or a Hollywood. There would be no stray stubborn hairs crawling around her inner thighs when she went to the swimming baths. Not that Steph could imagine Julian’s mistress ever having to endure the local public swimming pool, which was made up of fifty per cent eye-stinging disinfectant and fifty per cent eye-stinging kids’ urine. She’d have amazing legs that stretched to her armpits. She’d be so incredibly beautiful, terrifyingly cerebral and witty that every other female would vanish in her presence. Steph clearly had, at least as far as Julian was concerned, which was all that mattered to Steph. The imaginings of this woman’s tight waist, cellulite-free bottom, interesting laugh and orgasmic groan haunted Steph.
The thought of the affair made her boil.
It made her weak.
Steph glared at her lifeless husband. ‘And I’ve always supported you through stressful times at work. And you know there’ve been enough of them.’ Still, he did not reply. The only sound was her livid, shallow breathing. She wished to God she could rile him. She’d like to hear him form his defence. Maybe he’d point out he’d done his share of supporting too. He’d been fantastic with her throughout the pregnancies and when the boys were tiny, people had commented upon how much of a family man he was. So many men bailed at that point, either through panic or maybe there was an affliction that affected men more severely than women which created a genuine repugnance to dirty nappies (odd that so many men would become squeamish when they were undoubtedly the smellier of the two sexes). Steph didn’t necessarily mean that they all bailed in such a dramatic way as Dylan had, they didn’t all actually leave the country. Most were happy enough to linger in the office five nights a week or nip to the pub until the really grotty part of childhood was safely dealt with and passed through and then they’d pick up the reins and carry on. But Julian had not lingered in the office or hidden behind the dartboard at their local, he had been a hands-on dad.
She’d like to hear him point out that he hadn’t minded when she’d slept with chilled cabbage leaves in her bra (in an effort to ease her throbbing nipples when she breastfed), and that he’d wiped his share of runny noses and bums and that he was even known to make tea for the children on Saturdays (fish fingers, chips and beans being his modest but adequate and welcome specialty). He played football with them, he took them swimming. He always booked her car in for servicing because she didn’t like dealing with mechanics and he sometimes picked up a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates for her, without there being any sort of occasion. Steph could hear him, in her head, robustly defending his abilities as a husband and father.
‘I’ve always been generous with money and I’ve never had debts,’ he would say. Something he knew she was terrified of since she’d lived through a childhood which, while generally happy and always loving, was blighted with financial insecurity because of her father’s gambling addiction. ‘I’m polite and inclusive with your friends and family,’ he might add. ‘And even when I stopped pouring on the passion or even tenderness, I continued to treat you appropriately. Maybe I haven’t nourished you with the same intense kindness and thoughtfulness as I did in years past, my affections might have dulled down to respect and consideration. But isn’t that enough?’ Would he be shouting by this point in their exchange? Or contrite? Steph didn’t know.
Steph thought about it and was certain. She had been a good wife, he had been a good husband, theirs was a good marriage. Until the affair.
Steph sighed again. The problem was, even in her head she couldn’t make him say, ‘I love you.’
42
Pip had never felt more alone. Her stomach turned to liquid, mercury probably, she felt poisonous. She sat in the kitchen, stomach sloshing, heart melting and considered her actions. The problem was, while she knew she had done the proper and truthful thing, it somehow felt a lot like the wrong thing. It felt a lot like betrayal. Usually, whenever she had any sort of panic about anything (from the colour her hair had turned out after using a home dye kit, to being drastically overdrawn and not able to afford Chloe’s school trip) Pip would call Steph. Stephanie would always soothe and suggest, calm and correct. But Pip could hardly call Steph now, could she? What would she say? ‘Sorry, I think you drove into your husband, probably not in cold blood, more likely in a hot rage, so I’ve just told that lovely policewoman as much.’ No, that wouldn’t do.
Pip glanced at the clock. It was time to pick up Chloe from school. Had she sat here, frozen, for all those hours? Following pick-up, Pip had to take Chloe to her swimming lesson. After swimming Chloe might have some homework to do and then she’d need bathing and putting to bed. That was what Pip would concentrate on. Thank God she had Chloe to keep her sane.
Much later, after Pip had watched Chloe receive her 200 metres swimming certificate, after they had read two chapters of Charlotte’s Web and Chloe had fallen asleep, Pip found herself once again at her kitchen table, her mind full of Steph, and Julian and Steph, and the police and Steph. Pip picked up her mobile and began to flick through the contact list to see who she might turn to for a bit of solace. Not her parents, they were in New Zealand and it was goodness knows what time for them right now – the middle of the afternoon probably, or the middle of the night? Most likely they’d be having a barbie with the neighbours and they wouldn’t be free to talk. Not that she’d ever called her parents when they were having a barbie with neighbours, let alone any other social occasion that prevented them from talking, she was in fact conjuring this scenario from hours of watching Neighbours, the Australian soap, and while she knew New Zealand was a totally different country and the scenario may or may not be at all accurate, the truth was she didn’t feel comfortable calling her parents with this drama. Her brother would be at work and would be stunned
to hear from her. They had a habit of calling one another on birthdays and holidays but they rarely bothered in-between; if she called he’d assume someone had died.
She had girlfriends other than Steph, of course. When she and Dylan had been a couple they went to dinner parties every weekend and met friends in bars and restaurants at least twice during the week. They’d had a great social life. But Pip knew they had not had great friends. When Dylan left, no one brought tureens to her door. Well, she hadn’t had a door for them to do so. She’d moved in with Steph almost straightaway. Steph hadn’t brought tureens to her door, she’d done more than that, she’d brought a tray to her bedside and, on the odd occasion, she’d actually spoon-fed her. Back to Steph. Pip’s stomach churned again. There were about a dozen telephone numbers of mothers of children in Chloe’s class. But Pip didn’t feel she was able to call those women for anything more urgent than a discussion on lift-sharing to a netball game. Those women had never known the perky, spiky, fun-loving Pip and while that Pip hadn’t been in evidence much these past few years, Steph at least knew she had once existed and for that reason Pip always felt her true self around Steph. Back to Steph. The truth was they hadn’t needed other friends, not really. Not while they had each other. Practically all of Pip’s memories were intricately woven into the fabric of Steph’s life. They were meshed and indistinguishable. Now it felt as though she had taken her shiny, sharp needlework scissors and severed them. Without Steph she wasn’t even sure she existed.
The other names in her contact list were the names of the guys she’d fleetingly dated since Dylan and she had divorced and even some of those she’d dated before him. Why on earth was she still storing those numbers? Pip demanded of herself. The pre-Dylan boyfriends were likely to be married and have Von Trapp size families by now, she would never ever speak to any of them again, and the post-Dylan contacts couldn’t really even be described as boyfriends. Most of those relationships hadn’t managed to last quite as long as a mayfly’s life cycle. Of course when she’d been crushed by the brevity of these affairs, Steph had always been on hand to console her.
Time slipped away as Pip’s thoughts continually flew back to Steph. It was after half past ten before Pip came across Robbie’s number. She hesitated. This was a lot to land at the door of a new relationship. But who else could she talk to? There was a serious chance that she was some sort of needy, overly dependent type and no doubt she’d have to see a counsellor about that at some stage but not right now. This wasn’t her moment to make a bid for independent living. She called Robbie.
‘Hi, I was just going to call you.’ He sounded genuinely happy to hear her voice.
‘Beat you to it.’
‘I wanted to know if there had been any change in your friend’s condition.’
‘No, no change, except that I might have put his wife in jail.’
Pip filled Robbie in with the details of the conversation she’d had with Steph this morning and the one she’d had with the police this afternoon.
‘Shit,’ he gasped.
‘Yup, that about covers it.’
‘But you had to tell the truth, Pippa. And the truth is she wasn’t with you.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you think she’s really capable of such a thing?’
‘Do you?’
‘I don’t know her, she’s your friend.’
‘I think it’s safe to say it’s out of character,’ said Pip, not able to keep sarcasm out of her voice. ‘But she was desperate. Besides, why would she lie to me and say she went straight home when Mrs Evans said she didn’t? Where can she have been in those lost hours?’
‘Shagging someone?’ suggested Robbie.
‘What?’
‘Is that possible?’
‘No, no, it’s ludicrous, it’s—’
‘More or less ludicrous than her trying to kill her husband?’ probed Robbie calmly.
‘Fuck.’ Pip took a deep breath and considered the possibility. It wasn’t a great explanation but it was at least an explanation. Why the hell hadn’t she thought of that? If Steph was having an affair, she would see that as about as big a crime as a hit-and-run, she would not want to share the details. Oh the stupid, stupid woman. Pip wasn’t sure if she meant Steph or herself. ‘Damn! Can you come over here and look after Chloe? I need to see Steph.’
‘On my way.’
43
Kirsten arrived at the pub at ten past six, she wasn’t going to sit and wait for him, no matter how long his eyelashes were! Thinking about her day, it was a case of so far, so good. The police had arrived this afternoon, as rumoured, but she had not been one of the people called by HR for an interview. The police, it seemed, only wanted to talk to Jules’s line manager and they’d checked his schedule with his PA. They had not linked her to him. Not my fault. Not my fault. And a drink with Jake Mason, well, that was unexpected and not all bad. As she pushed open the heavy wooden door she was hit by an unfamiliar, yet not completely unpleasant, smell of beer-soaked carpets and the noise of animated chatter which, almost but not quite, drowned out the pop song that was playing on the jukebox. Kirsten had become used to posh wine bars that smelt of expensive aftershave and where competitive braying drowned out the sound of indistinguishable (but very trendy) lounge tunes. This place struck her as altogether different in ways she couldn’t yet assess.
The light of the spring evening rushed through the original nine-teenth-century stained-glass windows, throwing slashes of colour that played on the optics behind the bar. The dark oak floorboards were splattered and made sticky from slopped drinks and scuffed by thousands of feet scraping out a good time. The chairs were a hotchpotch, none of them matched and most of them were threadbare. Kirsten had grown up in a home which had expensive leather three-piece suites in the reception room and the conservatory, and pristine nests of tables liberally scattered throughout the house so she was surprised to find that she appreciated the casual, quirky muddle of functional, tatty furniture. It was nothing like the ugly, cheap, modern crap that her flat was full of. These chairs seemed to hold on to the good times that they’d witnessed; the furniture in her flat had never witnessed any good times, she was pretty sure of that and if it had, all evidence had slipped off the mean veneers. Strangely, and Kirsten really didn’t give it too much thought, the pub had a soothing effect on her; for the first time in longer than she cared to admit, she felt almost relaxed. Maybe the hypnosis was working. Not my fault. She took a deep breath in and out, to the count of three.
Kirsten spotted Jake immediately. He was sitting in the snug in the corner, reading a magazine. Not the sort of magazine she enjoyed, the cover had a picture of President Obama rather than Gerard Butler, but Kirsten was glad that at least he wasn’t reading that big pink paper that Jules liked. When Jules had read that big pink paper across the breakfast table at Highview, she’d found that there were absolutely no pictures to look at at all! Not that she imagined that scenario was going to be a problem to her in the future. Kirsten couldn’t decide if Jake was genuinely oblivious to the admiring looks he was attracting from the various gangs of girls scattered around the pub or whether he was just pretending to be so. It was quite a laugh watching their faces drop as she flounced over to him and dropped a big smacker on his cheek. It was quite a different sort of reaction to the reaction she got when she was with Alan or Brian or Mark or even Jules. When she was with those guys, women might have flung envious looks her way but they were always tempered with knowing ones. The barmaids and waitresses knew the deal Kirsten had struck with those men.
Jake looked quite surprised by the smacker too. Surprised but chuffed. He looked like a man who knew his luck was in. He pointed to the vodka and cranberry on the table and said, ‘I seem to remember vodka was your poison at uni.’
‘Thanks.’ Kirsten had always tried to avoid drinking beer or cheap white wine at uni, the way all the other girls did, she liked to stand out from the crowd whenever she could.
‘And I c
ouldn’t decide between cranberry and orange. Both have loads of vitamin C but I went for the cranberry in the end. Nice colour.’ Kirsten wasn’t sure whether he was laughing at her but she didn’t really care because it was a double. She swallowed a glug. ‘I bought some crisps too.’
‘I don’t eat carbs in the week,’ said Kirsten.
‘That figures. You always have a hungry look about you. Go on, knock yourself out. I promise you won’t balloon up to Beth Ditto size during the course of the evening.’ Kirsten was starving, she hadn’t been able to face food since Tuesday night, she figured one crisp couldn’t hurt her. As she munched her first crisp she thought, actually, an entire bag was unlikely to hurt her either, nor would washing it down with another vodka.
‘Easy, tiger,’ said Jake with some concern, as he watched her knock back the vodka. ‘That was a double.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s my round. What you having?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant that’s a lot to—’
‘I’m a big girl. I can look after myself,’ interrupted Kirsten impatiently. Now she was here in the pub she’d decided that she just wanted to get out of her head as quickly as possible. Not at all surprising when you considered what she’d been through recently. She was under tons of stress since the incident, it was all seriously horrible and, since the police hadn’t called her in for questioning this afternoon, she now had something to celebrate. Getting pissed was the order of the day. Besides, she found that she was always quite nervous around Jake. She had no idea why. It wasn’t like he earned as much as her boyfriends nor was he in a position to promote her. It really didn’t matter what she said to him or what he thought of her. Not really. She tossed her head back so that her hair bounced on her shoulders. ‘I’m good. I can handle my drink. What do you want?’
