by Rachel Marks
I shake my head, because I know the reason my marriage to Kate ended had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with me.
Sure enough, Kate pushes herself up and puts her hand on the door handle.
‘He doesn’t love you as much as I do. He couldn’t. It’s not possible.’
Kate turns and gives me the saddest smile I think I’ve ever seen.
‘Don’t go,’ I grab her hand and try to pull her back.
‘The girls are waiting for me.’
‘Choose me. Choose our family.’
Kate appears to contemplate it deeply for a few moments and I wonder if she might actually say OK, whether I’m on the verge of victory, but then she drops her eyes and shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Noah. I can’t.’
Then she goes back into the room, leaving me facing a closed door.
As I walk back down the corridor, my legs threatening to give way beneath me, I hear a door open and look around to see Kate running towards me. When she catches up with me, she puts her arms around my neck and kisses me, on the lips, with a tenderness that breaks my heart.
‘Thank you for loving me that much.’
Then she turns and walks back to her room and, to stop myself from breaking down the door, I head straight for the hotel bar.
*
I line the drinks up, methodically working my way through each one.
‘Heavy night?’
I hadn’t noticed the woman sitting beside me. She’s in her forties, pretty, wearing a tight-fitting black dress and a bit too much make-up.
‘You could say that.’ I nod to her exceptionally large gin and tonic. ‘And you?’
‘It’s my third. Just found out my husband’s been cheating on me for three years with the nanny. I mean, what a bloody cliché.’ She laughs, despite the fact she clearly doesn’t find it in the least bit funny.
‘Ex-wife is getting re-married tomorrow.’
She lifts up her glass and clinks it on to mine. ‘To shared sorrow.’
‘To shared sorrow,’ I repeat and then down what’s left in my glass.
The woman finishes her drink too and then she pulls her room keycard out of her handbag. ‘You could come up and join me if you wanted? I’m putting the minibar on my husband’s account.’
I know exactly what she’s offering me and I can’t pretend I’m not tempted. But I’ve come far enough to know that sleeping with this stranger, however lovely she may be, is not going to make me feel any better. In fact, it’s only going to make me feel worse.
‘I better get home. Got to take my children to their mother’s wedding tomorrow.’ I raise my eyebrows.
The woman nods, and I feel bad when I see the sadness of rejection in her eyes. ‘Well, I hope it’s not too unbearable.’
‘Thanks.’
She climbs off the bar stool and turns away, and I feel the need to offer her some sort of reassurance.
‘You’re very beautiful, you know? And your husband is an idiot.’
It’s a stupid thing to say – I’ve never met him and I have no idea of the ins and outs of why they really split up. But I can’t just let her walk off without saying anything.
She turns around and offers me a sad smile. ‘Just not beautiful enough, hey?’
I shake my head. ‘Not at all. I’ve just been doing this long enough to realize that sleeping with beautiful strangers isn’t the answer.’
She gives me a proper smile now. ‘I’ll try to remember that. Thanks.’ And then she heads off to her room.
*
In the taxi on the way home, a message from Kate flashes up on my phone. It’s hard to read with blurry eyes, but I just about manage it.
Why don’t you bring Mimi to the wedding? We’ve had a couple of cancellations so there’s spare food and I can make space next to you on your table. I know the boys really like her too. I think it’d be good for you to have a friend there x
I veer between feeling deeply patronized and oddly grateful, but she’s right, the thought of going alone feels unbearable at this moment, so I text Mimi. I’m not exactly sure what my message says, but when I arrive at my door she is sitting on the step. When she sees me, she doesn’t speak. She just takes my keys from my hand, opens the door and gently guides me through to my flat.
‘Go and lie down. I’m going to make you a coffee and some toast.’
I shake my head. It feels heavy, stuffy, like I’ve got a stinking cold. ‘Just get me a JD and Coke, will you? No need for the clean living any more.’
‘Except the fact you have a wedding to attend tomorrow. You are going to go with your head held high. You’re going to look after those boys and show them what a hero you are.’
I haven’t got the energy to fight so I go through to my bedroom, kick off my shoes and lie on top of the cover. When Mimi comes through with a coffee and piece of toast slathered with peanut butter, I reluctantly prop myself up against the headboard and take them off her, putting the coffee on my bedside table and tucking into the toast. The smell of it reminds me how hungry I am, not having eaten anything since my cheese and ham sandwich at lunchtime.
Mimi takes off her trainers and climbs on to the bed beside me. ‘So I’m guessing it didn’t go to plan?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘OK.’
We don’t say any more as I finish my toast. Then I put the plate on the floor and reach over for my coffee, taking a sip before putting it back on the bedside table. I shuffle down the bed and rest my head on the pillow, feeling suddenly exhausted.
And then I turn to face Mimi, saying the question in my head first, wondering whether to voice it aloud, before it slips out. ‘Am I completely unlovable?’
I feel like a once-treasured teddy lamenting being tossed aside for the new, fluffier edition.
Mimi turns on her side and runs her hand through my hair. ‘Not completely.’
I’m so drunk that my emotions threaten to overwhelm me and I feel my eyes filling with tears. ‘I’m just so fucked up, Mimi. Why am I so fucked up?’
She reaches for my hand. I notice she looks tired, and it reminds me of how Kate would look at me near the end of our relationship, like she was bone-tired of me.
‘The only thing in life you have control over is you, Noah. You will get past this and you will get over Kate, but what you do with the rest of your life is up to you.’
I know she’s right but it feels like there’s this invisible force constantly holding me back.
‘I am trying.’
‘I know you are.’
‘Will you come to the wedding with me tomorrow? I’m not sure I can face it on my own.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure I can quickly muster up a wedding outfit in the morning.’
‘Thank you.’ I want to go to sleep, but I’m suddenly scared to be alone, like I’m a kid again and I’ve just woken up from a nightmare. Having Mimi here is like clutching on to a comfort blanket and I don’t want to let go. ‘And will you stay with me tonight? Just fall asleep with me?’
Mimi seems to contemplate it for a few seconds and then, to my relief, she says, ‘OK.’
She slips off her jeans and climbs under the covers, so I go and turn off the light and then copy Mimi and climb into bed beside her.
‘Get some sleep, OK?’ she says. ‘You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’
I nod and she turns away from me and pulls the cover up over her shoulders, the street lamp from outside shining through the window and illuminating the side of her face.
On the windowsill, I notice the memory box she gave me and I guess she must notice it too, because she says, ‘Have you put anything in there yet? Your memory box?’
‘Things have been really busy, with Kate and everything. I will soon,’ I lie. I don’t see the point of dredging up the past, it’s not going to change anything, but I don’t want to upset her.
Mimi’s head ruffles the pillow as she nods. ‘I think you should try. When you get the chance.’
> ‘I will.’
‘Night then, Noah.’
‘Night.’
I lie behind her, facing the same way but not touching, feeling a strange amount of comfort just to have her there.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I wedge my fingers in the gap between my collar and my neck and yank, trying to loosen it, and pull at my woollen trousers, which are itching the skin on my thighs. I feel at once too hot and slightly shivery. I turn to Mimi, who is looking beautiful sitting beside me, dressed in a floral print dress, her hair adorned with a fake rose on a clip. She’d gone by the time I woke up, leaving me a note to say she was just popping home to get ready and that she’d meet me back at my flat. I was secretly relieved to wake up and find her not there. Without the haze of the alcohol, my outpouring of emotion last night felt embarrassing and entirely too much, and I was glad of the time to steady myself with several cups of coffee, paracetamol and a very greasy fry-up.
Now, in the ceremony room, the man on the keyboard in the corner begins the first few bars of his introduction and everyone stands up and turns to look at the back of the room. I can’t look back. Instead, my eyes fix on Jerry, who looks like the cat who got the cream. When Kate passes our row I force my eyes to look up, following the length of her white dress, simple and stylish as could’ve been predicted; and then my eyes reach her face, but she’s not looking at me, she’s looking forward, at her husband-to-be. Mimi reaches over and puts her hand on my knee. I want to remove it, like when you’re about to be sick and someone rubs your back. They mean well, but it just makes you feel worse, but I don’t want to hurt Mimi’s feelings.
At the moment the registrar asks the bit about whether anyone knows of any lawful reason that Jerry and Kate can’t be married, I clear my throat and Kate looks over at me, her eyes pleading, but I’m not entirely sure if they’re pleading with me to say something or not to say anything.
The registrar quickly scans the room and my hands feel heavy in my lap, too heavy to raise one in the air but too heavy to leave them there. The boys are sitting at the front of the room with Kate’s parents, looking adorable in their suits, and I wish that they were sitting with me, anchoring me, telling me what I should do.
All too quickly, the moment passes and the registrar utters the typical, ‘Well, that’s the hard bit done,’ and the congregation laughs.
And then it’s the vows. I rub my palms together but the sweat just keeps coming. I take a deep breath and visualize Kate stopping at the critical point, realizing she’s making a terrible mistake and running down the aisle into my arms, our two boys circling us, jumping up and down with excitement that their mummy and daddy are reunited, their once broken home stuck back together with superglue, never to be broken again.
But she doesn’t even look my way, her eyes firmly fixed on the man that she wants to share the rest of her life with. I had my chunk, my portion, now it’s his turn. As she says the words ‘I do’, her voice falters, the emotion clear in the little giggle, the loving way she reaches up and wipes a tear from Jerry’s cheek. And for the first time since she told me she’d met someone else, it dawns on me that she is really and truly in love with this man. She’s not with him to get back at me, he’s not a safety net, a plaster to cover the wounds I inflicted. I was so wrapped up in myself I missed it. Kate marrying Jerry has absolutely nothing to do with me.
*
During the meal, Mimi and I manage to knock back a bottle of wine each. I wouldn’t say it makes listening to the speeches easy, but it makes it bearable. Kate’s dad’s speech is as gushing about her as it was at our wedding. I notice he cleverly uses different words, different examples, but the sentiment’s the same. There’s the addition of her being a wonderful mother and the noted omission of me, in my entirety, as if our children just appeared in her womb like she’s the Virgin Mary.
Then the best man stands up. He’s six foot, looks like he plays football, good-looking if you like that kind of obvious storybook-prince image. I hope he’s going to reveal Jerry for the twat he is, but then he starts talking, and there’s no mention of other women, stag dos, drunken escapades that end up with Jerry humiliating himself, no dark truths thinly veiled with humour. The only character flaw he reveals is that he’s messy. I mean, seriously? That’s not even a proper flaw. Your best man is supposed to tear you to shreds and hang them up for public scrutiny. When he’s finished his speech, he and Jerry embrace in a manly hug with lots of back slapping, and then it’s Jerry’s turn.
I take a large sip of my champagne.
‘Can we go and play outside, Daddy?’ Gabe says, reminding me that he and Finn are sitting beside me.
‘OK. Just stay by those doors though, yeah? I want to be able to see you at all times.’
‘OK, Daddy.’ Then the boys run through the room of crowded tables, adorned with lavish bright pink floral centrepieces and through the glass doors to play on the large lawn.
Jerry holds up his champagne glass. ‘To my wife.’
The crowd cheer and clinking glasses echo around the room. Mimi touches her glass to mine, but I’m unable to lift it from the table.
‘I knew from the moment I met Kate that she was the one.’ Here, he turns from the audience to gaze into Kate’s eyes. Jerry has what I would call weak eyes – an unremarkable colour, his eyelids hidden by the skin above. His face in general is quite unremarkable – not ugly, but not striking either – what one might call handsome or kind. He has a kind face – meaning what? That he’s not attractive enough to break your heart? Pleasant, I think that’s the word I would use to describe it. Like his best man, he’s roughly six foot, but more rugby player in physique, although a rugby player who’s not trained for a few years, softened around the edges.
Kate looks back at him in the way one might look at a well-loved dog, not like she used to look at me – there’s no fire. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. Because otherwise, I might smash my glass on the table, charge towards Jerry and stab a shard into his neck.
‘She’s kind. She’s loyal. She’s a wonderful mum. She makes the best cooked breakfast.’
It’s a lie. She always burns the bottom of the eggs and overcooks the bacon so that it’s too crisp.
‘We started out as friends. We helped each other through some hard times …’ (the implication being that I was the cause) ‘… but it only made us stronger, and now I know nothing will ever break us.’
More cheers from the crowd. I’ve had enough. I can’t listen to any more.
‘I’m going to go and check on the boys,’ I whisper.
‘Do you want me to come?’ Mimi asks, and I can tell she wants me to say yes, but I just can’t face the enquiry about how I’m ‘holding up’.
‘No, it’s OK. I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘OK, if you’re sure.’
The boys are playing rugby on the lawn, which has been set up with a range of activities for the kids. Giant Jenga, boules, croquet. Kate and Jerry are lucky. It’s a lovely day. The sun is shining, there’s only a gentle breeze.
‘Can I play?’
‘Yeah, you can be on my team,’ Finn says, running up to me and jumping into my arms.
I swing him round. ‘Come on then, let’s show your brother what losing feels like.’
Gabe smiles and runs the ball past me whilst I’m lowering Finn to the ground and throws himself down between the two stones he’s found to mark out the touchline.
‘Hey, that wasn’t fair,’ Finn shouts.
‘It’s OK, go and get the ball. I’ll sort your brother out.’
I run over and grab Gabe, lifting him up whilst Finn gets the ball and runs it towards the opposite end of the pitch.
The rest of the game morphs into something more representative of a wrestling match and eventually the boys decide to team up on me, grabbing my legs and pulling me to the ground and then both jumping on top of me. I tickle each one in turn until they’re screaming at me to stop.
‘Shh,’ I giggle
. ‘We’ll ruin the speeches.’
‘They’re boring,’ Gabe says.
‘I know, but they’re important to Mummy.’
I gently manoeuvre the boys off me and we lie on the grass looking up at the clouds. Considering it’s not very breezy, they seem to be racing across the sky.
‘Look, Daddy,’ Finn says, pointing at the sky. ‘That cloud looks like a monster. See, there’s the arms and the legs. And it has horns.’
‘You’re right, little man. It does.’
‘I don’t think it looks like a monster,’ Gabe says, painfully honest, and I jab him in the ribs. He looks at me and rolls his eyes. ‘Well, I suppose it does a tiny bit.’
I look over at him gratefully and touch his arm. ‘You know, boys, just because Mummy is marrying Jerry, you know I’ll still always be your dad, don’t you?’
‘Yeah. He’s our step-dad now. You’re our dad dad,’ Gabe says confidently.
I nod, but hearing him describe Jerry as his step-dad sends a jolt of pain through my body. I don’t want someone else to be anything that has dad in the title, even if it has an added prefix.
‘And you know how much I love you and how much I want to see you, even though I don’t see you as much as Mummy and Jerry do. It’s not because I don’t want to.’
‘Why don’t we live with you half the time?’ Gabe says.
‘We just thought it was easier for you to have one home where you spend most of your time instead of moving around all the time. And I work, so you’d have to do breakfast club and after school club, and I guess I worried you’d miss Mummy.’
‘I want to live with Mummy,’ Finn says, his face suddenly full of worry.
‘Exactly. I know, little man. Everyone needs their mummy. It’s OK, Daddy doesn’t mind. I understand that. I just don’t want you to think I don’t want to see you. Or that I’m too busy. You two are the most important things in my life.’
