That, truly, was when it started. The beginning of the end.
Chapter 20
Autumn 1997
Jenny and Guillaume
Four months. Four short months. That was all that it lasted. Such a short space of time that cast such monumental ripples.
Jenny knew that she was lying to herself, telling herself over and over that she had tried to resist it – but she hadn’t. Being with Guillaume – the secret moments, the meticulously arranged rendezvous – she hated herself for them, but she never tried very hard to resist.
Like a wave, the affair lifted Jenny out of something – some fug in which she was stuck, the rut which she had created for herself. It carried her along in a sea of sparks and excitement. It gave her a dull ache of longing and anticipation in her stomach when she wasn’t with him, and allowed her to absorb herself fully in the moments that she was, so that time spent in his arms, inhaling his scent, feeling the delicious smoothness of his skin, seemed to fly at the speed of sound.
But there was also the time. Having the affair took up so much of it. Planning where and when to meet next, travelling to and from the forbidden assignations. Thinking about when the next moment would come to steal a phone call.
Had Jenny thought for a second as she hurtled through the autumn of 1997 into its winter that these months were the last of her life, she would have come screeching to a halt to make them last. As it was, every day felt like it lasted just moments. One minute the leaves on the trees along the pavements of Pilton Gardens were gold, and the next they were gone. There was scant time for illicit evening walks on the common nearby on the pretext of getting some exercise once Bee was asleep, before it grew dark in the afternoons and smoke from chimneys curled into the night sky and the meetings switched to out-of the-way wine-bars or hasty visits to Guillaume’s new flat in Notting Hill, ostensibly meeting old friends.
It was all about time. Precious time.
Lying in Guillaume’s arms with the last rays of afternoon sun travelling down the rumpled sheets of his bed, Jenny often longed for more of it. More time to snooze, to make love, to talk. Because they talked all the time. Sometimes about music, about art, about fashion – but mainly about themselves of course. About how it had been between the two of them before September 1st. About how Guillaume had at first perceived her as dull and unworthy of his friend, but how she had come alive before his eyes that summer. About how she resented him and his relationship with Ed, how she felt insignificant around him before all of this started. And Guillaume would rush to contradict her and tell her how wonderful she was, and then Jenny would reciprocate and they would forgive each other for their initial impressions, wondering how on earth they could ever have come to them.
They acknowledged Vicky’s existence occasionally – Guillaume still saw her, but not as often, or as intimately as he had before. “I’m letting it die,” he told Jenny, and she believed him. She had seen how he had looked at Vicky, how their relationship had turned on its head that night over “The Stilton Incident”, as they referred to it. It was one of their favourite tales, their war stories.
They talked about that spark that had flared between them that night after the Princess of Wales had died. Over and over they recounted it, each time uncovering a new feeling, a new way of describing the attraction, feeling it anew every time they had the conversation. And as long as they stayed firmly on the subject of themselves – how amazing each one thought the other, how dizzy their passion made them feel, how the very longing for the other made the air they breathed sweeter – then they didn’t have to touch on the one subject that hung between them like an invisible curtain.
Ed.
Because Ed was Real Life. For Jenny anyway. And she knew that Guillaume loved her husband too. That was what made thinking about him so inconceivable. Their betrayal was so enormous, Jenny knew, that to cope with it – to carry on through the days – she had to do her utmost not to think about him at all when she was with her lover. Her lover who made her feel so alive, so filled with ideas and inspiration, so creative. She sketched daily – pages after pages of designs. She devised games and activities with Bee that she thought up on the spot. She made the house in Pilton Gardens even more perfect than it had been before – adding touches here, finishing things there. She even began to take driving lessons. It would make sense to finally be able to take her dad places, she reasoned with Ed. And to be able to bring Bee to all of the activities that were to come over the years. He agreed with her – the practicality of it wasn’t something to be ignored and he had encouraged her to learn for years. But if she thought about the real reason – that if she could drive herself, she could get to Guillaume faster and more often – she would have been so ashamed that she might never have sat behind a wheel.
But she didn’t think. Because Jenny Adams, for the last four months of her life, was a woman who could split herself in two. She was Janus. One head was the perfect wife and mother, a creative force, someone who was absolutely making the most of her life – all of these things she could do on one hand, because of the secret that fuelled the other – the fire of the taboo passion that she kept hidden from the world that she saw through her second face, the clandestine nature of her life force fuelling her everyday motions and behaviour. And all of it combining to make her feel like a better, more complete person. There were times, in the autumn of 1997 when Jenny Adams-Mycroft, cresting on a wave of her own importance, fired up with lust and fuelled with the adoration of a man that she physically craved, thought that she could potentially be the perfect woman. Whichever Jenny Adams-Mycroft that woman actually was.
Chapter 21
2020
Jenny
It seems such a cliché to wonder what I was thinking – but what was I thinking? It seems a cliché to say that I had everything – but I literally had everything. That autumn, when I started taking driving lessons, Ed even bought me a car for heaven’s sake. And I let him.
I had everything I could ever want – my beautiful home, my gorgeous girl who I look at now that she is an adult with such pride and sadness, my every desire fulfilled.
And all that love. Because the love that Ed possessed for me was greater than the moon and the stars and the universe combined. Bee and me – together we were the axis around which he revolved. We inspired everything that he did from the moment he took his first waking breath each day to the second he closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep at night.
It has taken the filter of a lifetime apart for me to see all that. To fully understand the vastness of his love for me. His contentment at our togetherness. He wanted us to be everything and more. He thought that we could be invincible.
And clearly through the filter of time, and the complementary filter of death – of this constant watching and observing and understanding more day by day that I have done over the past twenty-three years – I have come to understand that I took all of that away from him. His job, his life-path, his plans, his dreams, his vision for the future. For our future.
It was my own stupid fault that I lost the life that I could have had with him. I took it all away from myself, and away from him. All that love that he had invested. All the love of which he was capable, that grew inside him every day of his life – I destroyed it.
If I hadn’t acted rashly and stupidly to try to change things for myself, to add some spark to a life that I had made dull for myself, then I could have had that life. And Bee could have had a mother. And Ed could have been with the woman he loved, as we had agreed in that registry office with his disapproving family looking on.
Except for a time she didn’t exist any more.
It is the greatest regret of my death that I gave in to those urges that summer. That I acquiesced. Not to Guillaume. He knew no better. It was in his nature, after all, to seek and pursue. Even if I had lived to go with him, as he had asked, it would never have worked.
No, I gave in to myself. I gave in to boredom, to the fear. Ra
ther than go and seek what was missing out of my life – like Ed wanted me to do, like he gently encouraged me to do all of our years together – not bullied me as I liked to believe. But rather than go and try to fulfil myself I went for the instant hit, the cheap shot and took what presented itself to me on a platter. All of that fizz and excitement, all that fun that I thought I was having.
It was absolutely nothing except a diversion, something to defer reality. And to stave off boredom.
I thought it made me a better person, a different one. But it didn’t. I can see that now. It made me a horrible person. A person who was a liar, a duplicitous cheat. A person who was hiding. Hiding from herself behind the haircut, the clothes, the thrill of keeping a secret lover.
But I wasn’t that person. Not deep down. I was just Jenny Adams. Penny Jenny. Scared of failure. Scared to poke her stupid head over the top, lest it be blown off before she could even see what was out there.
Shame I didn’t cotton on to that at the time of course, all things considered.
Chapter 22
December 8th, 1997
Ed and Jenny
Ed glanced at Jenny. “Jen?”
“Yes, Ed?”
“Let’s bunk off today.”
“What do you . . . hang on . . . shit! I am terrible at this, Ed – why on earth am I bothering to learn? I nearly ground the gearbox out that time!”
“Just calm down, Jen. And watch the language – Bee can hear you. Now start to slow down well in advance of the lights – and change down through the gears gradually . . . that’s it.”
Jenny followed Ed’s instructions and they sat in the car – the Volkswagen Polo that he had bought her to learn to drive in – as it juddered, Jenny’s foot held inexpertly at biting point, waiting for the red light to turn amber.
The morning was still dark, even though it was close to nine o’clock. Stopped in traffic at the brow of a hill, Jenny could see for yards ahead, the red tail-lights of car after car, the clouds of exhaust fumes being chugged into the frosty morning air. The houses around them were white-roofed and passing pedestrians walked gingerly, their expressions nervous.
Ed reached out to the radio and turned it up slightly. It was the first time that year. The first play of ‘Fairytale of New York’. Unexplained tears prickled at the back of Jenny’s eyes as she was drawn into the moment that was all around her, seeing London go about its business on a frosty morning, smelling the coldness in the air, gripping the wheel with her knitted gloves, Ed in the seat beside her, and Bee, beautiful Bee, about to have her third Christmas, strapped into the car seat in the back, her woollen hat pulled too far over her eyes, copper curls escaping from underneath. Jenny glanced at her in the rear-view mirror and felt that rush of love that never failed to catch her by surprise when she saw her daughter. All of this played out to the opening bars of the song, just before Shane McGowan growled that it was Christmas Eve, babe.
The low rumble of traffic intensified suddenly, as the stationary train of vehicles began a slow crawl again. Jenny’s Polo jumped a little and she tutted loudly, hands flailing between wheel and gearstick, trying to figure out what next to do. Ed reached out a hand and rested it on her thigh to calm her.
“Calm down, love. You’re doing fine. We’re nearly there.”
Jenny obeyed, taking a deep breath and pulling herself back together. She hated this. Driving, that is. But it had to be done. She stopped the thought before she could finish it, before she could reinforce to herself the reason why. Not in Real Time, she subconsciously chastised herself.
“So yeah, whaddya think?”
“Hmm? About what – speed up, mate, for heaven’s sake!”
“Bunking off. Aren’t you listening to me?”
Jenny bristled. “Ed, I’m trying to get us to nursery and then back home in one piece on the frostiest morning of the year so far. So no, I’m not exactly listening to you. What do you mean ‘bunk off’ anyway?”
Ed smiled. “See? I knew you were listening. All that ‘women are better multitaskers than men’ stuff is true – watch, that guy is prone to braking quickly – we don’t want to skid into him. What I mean, Mrs Mycroft, by bunking off is just that. Do you know that I have never rung in sick in my entire life and looking out the window this morning I thought, why not today? Why don’t we drop the Beezer off as usual and then, instead of heading back home and me going to work, why don’t we go shopping? Have some fun for a change? Please, Jen – can we bunk off today? Can we? Can we? Will you play truant with me today?”
Baffled, Jenny dared herself to take her eye off the road ahead for a millisecond and glanced to her left to see Ed grinning broadly. From nowhere, Jenny felt a jolt. Felt her heart leap. For some reason, caught in the early morning light, Ed looked just like he had that evening in Darvill’s when Jenny had seen him for the first time. She was filled, momentarily, with the most unexpected surge of love.
She returned her eyes to the road and in an instant the feeling had vanished. True to form, the car in front had stopped suddenly again and Jenny suddenly felt her own car slide out of her control. She impulsively jammed her foot onto the brake.
“Easy!” Ed shrieked, sitting bolt upright. “Don’t panic! Pump the brake gently! That’s it. Slowly, slowly . . .”
The car slowed to a halt. Jenny’s heart, however, didn’t. It pounded. She could feel it against her ribcage, banging against her chest. Her breath came in rapid bursts and she gripped the wheel for her life.
“For fuck’s sake, Ed!” she barked suddenly.
“Jen!” he chastised her. “Just stay calm – there’s no need to panic – we’re fine.”
“It was your fault,” she growled. “If you hadn’t been banging on about Christmas shopping and bunking off and acting like a total idiot, then I’d have had my eyes on the road and that would never have happened.”
She knew she was lashing out. She didn’t care. She was too pumped with adrenalin, her nerves tingling at the prospect of what might have happened.
“O-kay, Jen,” Ed responded harshly. “Steady on. I didn’t get out and forcibly give you a push into his rear end. And anyway, we’re fine. We’re all fine. That right, Beezer?” Eyeing Jenny nervously, he half-turned to see his daughter who was absorbed in a plastic fish that was her current constant companion.
Jenny took a deep breath and concentrated deeply as she gingerly edged the car another few feet forward.
“Look. By the time we get back home, it’ll be almost lunchtime anyway at this rate. What is happening with that traffic this morning? Tell you what . . .” He stole another glance at his wife.
“What, Ed?”
“Do you a deal. When we get to nursery, how about we swop places and I drive? I’ve decided that I’m going to have a terrible cough today anyway so I’ll need to do something to keep my mind off it. And it’s not Christmas shopping I’m thinking of, although it is Christmas-related. So why don’t you shift over to the passenger seat and let old Ed-ster take over and have a bit of fun for a change? Whaddya say?”
Jenny remained silent as she finally indicated left and turned slowly into the cul de sac where Bee’s nursery nestled behind a protective screen of trees. She could see it ahead of her now, the large iron gates wide open, a few straggling cars negotiating the turn-space out front. She was flooded with relief as she drove through them and pulled up beside the grass verge.
“Agreed, then?” said Ed, not giving her a chance to reply, bounding instead from the car like an eager Labrador and whisking Bee out of her seat before Jenny even had a chance to think about it.
“Bye, Mummy!” called Ed, bending down at the passenger door which he had left open, Bee held in his arms waving frantically with a mittened hand.
“Bye, Mummy!” she echoed, and Jenny smiled broadly at the sound of happiness in her voice.
“See-la-later!” prompted Ed, and Bee mimicked him.
“Love you, darling!” called Jenny after them as Ed turned hastily, slamming
the passenger and rear doors shut with his foot and charging off up the driveway to where small children, wrapped in colourful coats, hats and gloves, hand in hand with parents, filtered in through the door and then moments later the parents filtered back out again, their offspring carefully delivered.
Jenny watched them go until they disappeared inside. When she could see her husband and child no longer, she allowed herself to slump back against the headrest, overwhelmed momentarily by a wave of exhaustion and emotion.
For a moment, she stepped outside of herself. Alone in the car for an instant, Real Time Jenny allowed Other Jenny to come to the surface. New and Improved Jenny. Except from this angle, with the smell of Ed’s aftershave lingering in the car and the sound of Bee’s voice echoing in her ears, Jenny couldn’t imagine why she thought Other Jenny was New and Improved.
And it was getting so complicated. Guillaume. Asking her that question. Saying that he was desperately in love with her. Saying that he wanted them to be together all the time. Talking about a new life together, in Africa, of all places. Cape Town. But he would take her everywhere, he promised. Exotic places like Zanzibar and Mali and out into the desert with the Bedouin. They’d have such adventures together . . .
Jenny gazed at the scene before her, taking in everything she could see on the freezing cold December morning. The white hoarfrost on the grass, on the roof-tiles of the nursery building – a converted Victorian villa. Grey brick against the grey sky, the black branches of the bare trees thrust upward. It was beautiful, yet stark. It was where she should be. It was Real Time.
But Guillaume offered her Other Time. Heat, colour. For a moment she imagined sinking into a hot bath against the freezing cold of the morning, just escaping from it. As it stood, she could barely feel her fingers and the cold that entered her body through her feet had spread all the way up her legs.
Sing me to Sleep Page 12
