by Woolf, Emma
It was a terrible mess of his own making. He couldn’t not spend time with Lily, she was like a drug to him, but this lying and hiding and coming home in the early hours was no good. Ever since Lily had begun working for him, Pippa had been suspicious; it was as though his obsession was written all over his face. This had never happened to them before. He’d never been unfaithful, and nor had she, in all those years of marriage. He had to see Lily, but then he had to come home too, because of the boys. Not that he was any good to them as a father, coming back late, missing dinner, missing their rugby matches and parents’ evenings, standing in the doorway of their bedrooms long after they had gone to sleep. What was he doing?
It was as though he had stepped through a door into another world with Lily. Nothing had ever been boring or mundane with her. From the beginning, everything was special because it wasn’t real life; they had never argued about taking out the rubbish or worried about gas bills or done the laundry together. It had always been just the two of them.
The cab swerved around a corner a little too fast, turning off the main road towards the village, skidding slightly on the wet tarmac. For a split second, Harry imagined a crash, the perfect way out, an easy ending. He clenched his fists harder. No, that wasn’t the solution. He could get back in control of this situation. He’d leave work on time the way he used to, he’d come home and spend time with Dan and Joe, maybe he could patch things up with Pippa. He pulled out some crumpled banknotes and his cigarettes, telling himself he’d sort things out. The one thing he couldn’t do was give Lily up.
He asked the driver to pull into the lane alongside the house to avoid the noise of tyres crunching over the gravel driveway. He thanked the man and paid him, trying to close the cab door as quietly as possible, praying that Pippa would be asleep.
As he walked towards the front door he could see a light on in the kitchen. Maybe she’d left it on for him, he thought hopefully, maybe she’d gone up to bed and he could sleep downstairs. There were spasms of pain shooting up his spine now; he was too wrecked for another argument.
As soon as he walked into the hallway, he knew she was still up. She didn’t come out, but the air was thick with resentment. Harry eased off his loafers and hung his jacket over the bannisters, dropped his keys on the hall table, ran his hands through his hair, and walked into the kitchen. Pippa was sitting at the table with a glass of red wine.
“So you’ve come home? Really good of you.”
“Pippa, listen, I’m sorry. It got late . . . I had a bite to eat with some friends, then I was walking around London, had a few drinks and fell asleep on the train. Missed my stop and it took ages to get back, sorry. You know, work’s been stressful lately, just needed to unwind . . .” he tailed off.
“For God’s sake, Harry, don’t give me work’s been stressful, it’s the Christmas holidays. Of course I don’t mind you going for dinner with friends, of course I don’t mind you coming back late and forgetting to ring, once or twice or three times even, but it’s the same thing every night.” Pippa’s face was pale, with red blotches on her cheeks. “I’ve been pretty patient, I think, but how much more am I expected to take?” She stared at him. “What the hell is going on?”
He’d never seen her this angry. “Nothing’s going on, it’s just work and—”
Pippa cut in, “Don’t treat me like a fool. There is something going on, and I’m not putting up with it any more. Why should I sit here night after night, ringing your phone, leaving messages you never return, not knowing when or if you’re coming home. Just go to her. She’ll let you move in, I assume?”
“What do you mean, go to her?”
“Lily.” Pippa almost spat the word out, and Harry flinched.
“Why are you bringing this up again? It has nothing to do with Lily . . .” Harry felt that the best defence was outright denial, but he hated himself. He was a lying bastard. “Lily and I work together, you know that Pippa—and yes we’re friends too. She was there tonight, but she left the restaurant before nine and there’s nothing going on. Look we’ve talked about all this: Lily has nothing to do with you and me.”
“That’s simply not true, Harry. You’re lying. You’re standing there and you’re lying to me and you’ve been doing it for God knows how many months now.”
What had she heard, what had she found out? She sounded more definite than before. “OK, Pippa, you believe whatever you want.” He couldn’t meet her eye. “So where does that leave us? You told me you didn’t want a divorce. You said we should stay together until the boys are older.”
“Well, that was before. I’ve changed my mind now. You’re not even here so what difference does it make, we might as well be”—she seemed to flinch at the word divorce—“we might as well be separated. Remember how you used to rush home from work early to collect them from school sometimes, to play in the garden and make their supper.” Pippa’s voice broke. “You used to want to be here with us.” She wiped away a tear and shook her head. “You always sneered at weekend fathers but you’re not even that . . . Think about it, Harry, when was the last time you helped Dan or Joe with their homework?”
“I helped Dan with his science project just the other night when you were playing tennis with that bloke, Peter. God knows what’s going on with the two of you.” This was a cheap shot, Harry knew that, and completely unfair. There was nothing going on between his wife and Peter from the tennis club, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Harry. The reason I have to ask Peter is that you’re never here—we used to play tennis together, remember? If you wanted, we could get a babysitter, I’d love us to play, but you’re never around. And when you are around it’s like you’re not. Even if you don’t care about me, think about Dan and Joe . . . when you take them out at weekends and ring her, do you think they don’t realise, you think they don’t tell me? When Joe was going to bed tonight he actually asked me, ‘Is Daddy in London with his girlfriend?’”
Pippa continued: “And you think I don’t notice anyway? The endless work trips, the late nights in London, the way you don’t come up to bed with me, the way you stand in the garden talking on your damn phone . . .”
Harry felt sick. He had no ground to stand on. Pippa was right, what kind of father was he anyway? And yet he couldn’t live without the boys. But a kind of madness had descended upon him in the last year: he was so consumed by Lily that he’d become reckless. It frightened him to realise that he would do whatever it took to be with her. When he was with her, he was happy, and he didn’t think about the rest of his life. He seemed to have a sort of amnesia at the moment. He couldn’t seem to grasp the consequences of his actions.
Pippa was still talking: “I’m never sure of anything now, none of us are. We don’t know when you’re going to be here. And I can’t trust anything you say . . .” Harry hated himself for causing this pain; he wasn’t in love with her any more, but he didn’t want to trample on her like this. “I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t sit here and take it any longer. Pippa the dependable one, Pippa the reliable, stable one at home, looking after the children. I’m forty-eight next month, and I’ve had enough. Either you stop lying right now, stop whatever’s going on with Lily or whoever it is, and come home to us, properly—or you go.”
There was silence in the kitchen. From Pippa’s expression Harry knew she was serious. The chaos, the alcohol, and the exhaustion in his brain mounted and he didn’t know what to say. Right now, living without either Lily or the boys was unimaginable. They were too precious to lose. But Pippa was right. He was a shit, he was wrecking his family’s life with his lies, he had to do something. Staring at the floorboards, unable to meet her eye, he finally spoke: “But, Pip, come on, this is our home, this is where we live.”
“Yes, this is where we live,” she said. “And I’m staying here with the boys—this is their home, this is where they go to school—but you have a choice, Harry. You can be with us properly,
as you used to be, or you can go to Lily. But you can’t have both any more.”
She couldn’t make him choose. “Look, Pippa, I work with Lily, you know that. Don’t overreact, it’s late, we’re both tired. Let’s talk this through rationally when we’ve had some sleep.” Harry barely knew what he was saying. The pain in his lower spine was spreading; it seemed to have entered every disc, every muscle and fibre of his body. “Please, can we discuss this tomorrow? We’ll have a proper day out, go somewhere nice with the boys and get a pub lunch. Come on, Pip, we can work things out.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the painkillers he always carried, shook out two white pills, and swallowed them without water. His throat was dry, his head pounding. He needed a cigarette too, badly, but she didn’t let him smoke in the house.
“Fine,” Pippa said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But just so you know, I won’t change my mind. I’m not having you seeing that girl again, simple as that. At the moment, you’re making my life a misery. Go to her if that’s what you want.” She pushed back her chair. “You won’t have the boys though.” He heard her climbing the stairs, then the bedroom door closed.
Harry sat at the kitchen table for the rest of the night. For months he’d been out of control, acting like a madman, ignoring the tsunami heading his way. He was sickened by the mess he’d made of his life, destroying his marriage, neglecting his children. All these years he’d been battling insomnia, depression, the constant back pain; now he was overwhelmed with guilt for what he was doing to everyone close to him.
Despite it all, he couldn’t stop thinking about Lily and why she had sounded so distant on the phone. Had her feelings changed?
Harry was still sitting there when the darkness gave way to dawn. Minutes, or was it hours, later, he heard one of the boys moving around upstairs. Come on, he told himself, get a grip. Take a shower, turn on the coffee-maker, sort yourself out, make them some breakfast, be a father, be a proper man, for God’s sake. But he sat there motionless in the grey light, staring at Pippa’s empty wineglass. He felt trapped, defeated, and very old.
It’s my own judgement day that I draw near,
Descending in the past, without a clue,
Down to that central deadness: the despair
Older than any hope I ever knew.
It had been strange weather, no longer autumn but not properly winter, when David had reappeared in Lily’s life. She hadn’t seen him for years, and on the December day she found herself trapped in the flat, a thunderstorm outside and depression within, he was the furthest thing from her mind.
The rain was not going to stop anytime soon. Normally airy and sunlit, even on these short winter days, today the flat felt too small and weirdly dark. It was a Sunday, and it seemed like the rest of the world was somewhere else: Susan had gone away for the weekend, Cassie’s phone was off, and Celia wasn’t home either. Harry had been ringing, but she didn’t want him to come into London, didn’t want to be part of the lies he would have to tell his wife, didn’t want to deal with his marital angst. After pacing from room to room, then trying to read a book, Lily realised she would go mad if she didn’t get outside.
She pulled on her J Brand skinny jeans, a pale pink cashmere jumper, a jacket, and Hunter wellies; grabbed the keys; and made her way downstairs. She needed fresh air and to hell with the rain. Being out in the open helped, and she began to feel calmer. She walked up Haverstock Hill, tempted to stop for breakfast, but decided to work up an appetite first and carried on towards Hampstead Heath.
“Lily?” At the gates of the Heath, a familiar voice made her turn. It was David. He was standing a few paces away near the entrance, locking up a silver sports car, smiling at her. She hadn’t seen him for five or six years, and there he was, exactly the same with those dark eyes and that megawatt smile.
“David? I don’t believe it!” Lily broke into a smile too, and crossed the gravel path to give him a hug. They stood for a moment beside the car, staring at each other, taking the fact of each other in. Lily had forgotten how handsome David was. She brushed her hair back from her face—at least it was clean—and wished she’d bothered to put on mascara this morning. God, he was gorgeous, had he really been hers for an entire year?
“I can’t believe it’s you!” David said, pocketing his car keys in a pair of loose, expensive jeans. “You’re looking great. Are you living around here these days?”
“Yes, a new place down in Belsize Park, I only just moved in. What about you, still in Golders Green?”
“Yes, still there. Mum’s not been well, so I’m staying close to her, and my offices are round there. So what else is new? Where are you working? Are you married or what?” He gave Lily a curious smile, which contained other unspoken questions.
“Are you heading towards the Heath?” She waved a hand at the green expanse. “I was just going for a walk . . .”
“A walk, absolutely,” he said. “That’s why I’m here too. I’ve been coding since six this morning”—David was in computer programming Lily remembered—“and needed to clear my head. Shall we?”
The rain had stopped and the sun was shining again. The gravel crunched wetly beneath their feet as they walked. Even though they were so different, they had always been able to talk. What did they break up over? Lily wondered as they talked. As far as she could remember, it hadn’t been an official break-up, more of a drifting apart, something to do with jobs and travelling. It all came back now, the frank enjoyment of each other’s company, and the mutual attraction. They knew each other well enough to feel relaxed, but it had been so long since she’d seen him that there wasn’t a hint of familiarity. Every time his bare arm brushed against hers, she felt a rush of desire.
Lily’s thoughts were racing. She had forgotten how David made her feel—she couldn’t wait to tell Cassie about this! Their conversation moved quickly from superficial small talk to the real stuff: Soon he was telling her about the girlfriend who came after her. They had married two years ago, and now they’d just divorced.
“Literally just divorced,” he said sadly. “The papers came through this week.” A defeated tone crept into his voice when he talked about the divorce. She was going to ask what had gone wrong, but something stopped her. She just listened quietly. He asked again if she was settled, seeing anyone, married with children, in his light-hearted way, but she managed to sidestep the question. She laughed, blushing, saying there were “plenty of interesting men on the scene,” and left it at that. She could have told David the truth, he would have understood about Harry, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. Words like “affair” and “married man” sounded so sordid in the cold light of day, and Lily didn’t know how she’d found herself in this situation. And she loved Harry. She didn’t want anyone judging him.
“Hey, we’re near Kenwood—how about coffee?” David said. He sent Lily off to get a table in the window, and bought an enormous chunk of gooey chocolate cake for them to share. After several more cappuccinos, they walked back across the Heath, more slowly now, meandering down different paths, around the ponds, taking each other in with their eyes.
What was happening? Lily intuited from his body language and from the lingering glances that if she was interested, he was interested. After nearly six years. Now there was a dilemma.
If only it were that simple, she thought. If only she could end it with Harry and have an uncomplicated fling with David, or even get back together with him. She had caught sight of her reflection as they were leaving the café and she realised that she was glowing. The anxiety about Harry, the sleepless, anxious look was gone—her eyes sparkled, she was smiling up at David almost flirtatiously. He asked for her phone number, but even as she gave it to him, she knew that it would never work. He was on the rebound from a divorce—and as for her? She was too deeply in love with Harry, too embroiled in the impossible, hopeless relationship they had created. No amount of physical lust could replace th
at, even with an ex as attractive as David.
She hadn’t confided in him about Harry, but she found herself talking to him about Claude, although later she didn’t know how it had come up. They were at the car park, and David was unlocking his car. Trying to sound casual, she said she was thinking of writing to her father.
“Your father?” David looked up.
“He probably won’t write back, maybe he’s moved a dozen times in the past couple of decades, I don’t know.” She paused. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I’ve got along fine without him for all these years. Not even sure why I asked Mum for the address.”
David knew what Claude meant to Lily. He was the only boyfriend she had ever discussed her father with. David’s father had died just a few months before she met him; he understood what losing a father felt like.
He looked surprised. “You’ve got his address; you’re going to write to Claude? That’s huge!”
Lily shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, he’s never made the effort to find me . . .”
David shook his head. “Lily, it is a big deal. Seriously, write to him. Give it a try. Whatever happens, you’ll have made the effort.”
Lily realised there were tears in her eyes. She suddenly felt closer to David than to anyone else in the world. He took her hand, so gently. She knew that within the next second they were about to kiss, so she turned her face and brushed away a tear. “I should probably get home, boxes to unpack, floors to wash!”
David smiled, and their eyes locked again. He leaned past her to open the passenger door. “I’m driving through Belsize Park—jump in, I’ll drop you off.”
Lily got out of the shower, wrapped her hair in a turban, and put on her bathrobe. If Harry didn’t get up soon, they’d both be late for work.
“Wakey-wakey, rise and shine.” She walked across the bedroom in bare feet and flung open the wooden shutters, letting sunlight stream across the bed. Harry lifted his head from the pillow and smiled.
