When he finished work at last, he realized that everyone else was in the pub. He could have gone home to find out how Hannah was, and to see Ellen again. And yet as much as he wanted to, which was very much indeed, Matt decided to go to the pub again. Because as much as he wanted to see Ellen, he also didn’t want to see her. He wasn’t at all sure he was ready to be “having feelings.”
Ellen stared at herself in the wardrobe mirror. She had been staring at herself for some time now, she wasn’t sure how long except the afternoon had become evening. It was like reading a familiar word over and over again—the more she looked at it, the less it made sense. Sabine had come home to find her sprawled on the hall floor, an anxious Allegra trying to talk her to her feet.
“What’s this?” Sabine had asked, with some consternation. “Why is Ellen on the floor?”
“She has just discovered that her sister, Hannah, who last night appeared to have been rather savagely attacked, was having some kind of sexual dalliance with her late husband,” Ellen heard Allegra tell Sabine as if from a very great distance.
Sabine must have checked the time, because the next thing Ellen heard her say was, “This is no good. Charlie will be home soon, Ellen. Do you want him to see you like this? You must get up at once and wash your face.”
Ellen had rolled onto her back and begun to laugh but Sabine was clearly in no mood for joking. She had grabbed Ellen’s hand and pulled her arm until Ellen realized that she either had to get up or have it torn out of the socket.
“Ellen, come now—you are not a lunatic, so stop acting like one.”
“Actually I am.” Ellen giggled. “I am officially mad. It looks like I am agoraphobic after all. I tried to kick my sister out onto the street and ended up nearly giving myself a coronary instead. Charlie was right, I’m afraid of the outside, I’m afraid of grass and flowers and bumblebees and… and noise and people and crowds and buses. No wonder Nick… no wonder he… You know, it all makes sense now. At least now it all makes sense.”
“I’ve tried talking to her but she’s in shock, I think,” Allegra said anxiously. “I called Simon but he’s not in the office. I really didn’t know what to do.”
“I’ll tell you what we will do,” Sabine said firmly to Ellen. “We will go to your room and wash your face and you will rest. When Charlie comes in, I will take him to the pub for tea, tell him you have a headache or something. Allegra will stay with you and you will talk about everything that’s happened and you will see that it is not so very bad.”
“Not so very bad?” Ellen laughed. “My deadbeat sister is in love with my dead husband. How can that not be bad?”
Sabine thought for a second before answering, “Well, at least he is already dead. That saves you from having to kill him.”
True to her word, Sabine had bodily escorted Ellen up the stairs and into her bedroom, propelling her into the bathroom, where she scrubbed Ellen’s face all over with a sponge, like a mother cat cleansing a kitten.
“You are very hurt,” she informed Ellen as she guided her back in the shadowy room, curtains still drawn from the night before. “And you are very shocked. And you are very tired. You should sleep and get drunk and then talk to Hannah—find out exactly what this means.”
“Do you think he had a list of things he couldn’t stand about me?” Ellen asked. “You know, frumpy, sexless, boring, meek, never goes out. Do you think he had a list like that? Of course he preferred Hannah to me. I really thought that he was the first, the only person in the world who didn’t prefer Hannah to me, but of course he did. I mean, look at her and look at me. Of course he did.”
“Ellen,” Sabine said, sitting Ellen down on the edge of her bed and crouching in front of her. “I know what it feels like to find out that the man you love is or was in love with another woman. I know it rips you in half. But think about it, you only have Hannah’s word. Nick isn’t here to defend himself. You only have her version of events, and who knows, perhaps over the last year she has made something that maybe was nothing into some grand affair—something that never was. And as for everyone preferring Hannah to you, I think that’s in your head only. If you don’t expect very much for yourself, you won’t get it.”
Ellen looked at Sabine. “Do you think so? Do you think that whatever it was that happened wasn’t that serious?”
“Its possible.” Sabine shrugged. “I’m just saying don’t fall apart. Not yet. Not until you know something that you have found out for yourself.”
“But if it wasn’t true, if it was all in her head, then she wouldn’t have been drinking, messing up at work—putting herself at risk. She wouldn’t have let what happened to her last night happen if all this was in her head. You should have seen her, Sabine, she looked like a broken doll. She kept telling me that whatever had happened to her didn’t matter, that it was just what she deserved. And I kept saying that she was wrong, but you know, what I kept thinking, even before this, even before she told me about Nick, I kept thinking she was right. I kept thinking she did deserve it, that she careens through life expecting everything to fall into place around her, and that maybe this time she’d learn that this is not how it works. What sort of person does that make me, to think that when she’s been so badly hurt?”
“Ellen, sleep. Rest. I’ll take Charlie out for tea, and later, when you have a clear head, we will talk. We can make a list, look for evidence. We can find out the truth ourselves. But for now, rest. I promise you, sleep is a welcome refuge from even the worst the waking world can offer.”
Sabine had all but pressed Ellen back onto the bed and left her lying there staring at the ceiling, her head swimming in confusion. Ellen thought she must have slept for a little while at least, her body giving in willingly to the physical exhaustion that her mind fought, and she was dimly aware of the sound of Charlie’s feet on the stairs and someone opening the door to look at her. When she woke again, the house was silent, and she sat up abruptly, coming face-to-face with her own reflection in the wardrobe mirror.
Her hair, which she hadn’t brushed since yesterday, nested around her shoulders in a mass of dark tangles. Her face was creased with sleep, the seam of a pillowcase indented across one cheek; her eyelids were swollen and red. She looked like a grieving widow, and she felt like one. She felt that she had lost Nick all over again, and worse than that, she’d lost every memory, every moment they had shared together, which she had treasured so dearly. If what Hannah had told her was true, she would never be able to think about them again.
As Ellen stared at herself, she thought of the woman she had believed herself to be, the woman who was a little shy and reserved, who avoided crowds and noise and enjoyed nothing better than getting lost in a good book. A woman who was adored by the husband she had happily devoted herself to, a mother who always put the needs of her son first. A widow who, having faced adversity, had found the strength to carry on.
But Ellen realized as she looked into her own green eyes that she was none of those things. She was a woman betrayed by her own sister, deceived and mocked by a husband who, if Allegra was to be believed, thought of her as nothing more than a possession that he could control. A husband who had not loved her, at least not for the last year of his life, and very possibly even longer than that. She was a woman who had virtually ignored her son, so caught up was she in her sorrow, a woman who hid from the world, who shut it out along with life so that she could live a virtual existence between the pages of a book. She was a coward, and a fool. A misguided, smug, and selfish fool who had allowed herself to be led into a prison cell by the hand and who, now that the door was wide open, still didn’t want to leave.
Ellen stood and pressed the tips of her fingers against those of her reflection. This could not be the story of her life, it couldn’t end like this. A thought occurred to her and she flung open the wardrobe and rooted around in the back. Somewhere, somewhere… Ellen pulled out the dress she had worn on her first date with Nick. It was a dark bottle-green, figure-
hugging cotton jersey with as low a neck as she would ever dare to wear and a hem that fell just above the knee. Ellen laid the dress on her bed and smoothed it out. She had felt so wonderful wearing it, so powerful and sexy. She remembered walking through the restaurant, returning to her and Nick’s table after a trip to the ladies’ and feeling heads turn in her wake. For the first time in her life, she had felt that she was on the brink of discovering who she really was, the woman who she could be, the woman who didn’t merely watch the world go by but who took part in all life had to offer.
That night, Nick had told her that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, which was why she had been surprised when a few weeks later, she put the dress on to go to some work function of Nick’s and he asked her to change into something else.
“I thought you liked me in this,” Ellen remembered saying, smoothing her palms over her hips.
“I do, I do like you in it,” Nick had told her, glancing up briefly from the newspaper he was reading. “That doesn’t mean I want the rest of the male population of the world to like you, too. You’re mine now, Ellen; save that for the next time we’re alone.”
Although she had always kept it as a token of that first night with Nick, Ellen had never worn her green dress again. She racked her brain and thought and thought and realized that if she wasn’t very much mistaken, that might have been the last piece of clothing that she had ever chosen on her own. Uncertain of exactly what she was doing, Ellen rummaged through her drawers. Pair after pair of sensible knickers floated onto the floor, along with firm-control bras in shades of white and beige, until she found what she was looking for. A set of underwear that she had bought to surprise Nick with the first Valentine’s Day after Charlie was born.
Things had gone off the boil after Charlie came along; in fact, Ellen recalled getting the feeling that in those early days, Nick was more resentful of Charlie’s demands on her time and her body than he was proud of his newborn son. What she was certain of was that Nick had thought of her differently after her pregnancy. He stopped looking at her in the way he used to or even touching her in the same way, his fingers never tracing the stretch marks that ran across her belly and hips, his mouth hardly ever seeking out her larger and newly shaped breasts. Ellen had been at a loss as to how to get him to come back to her as the lover she had come to depend on until she read an article in a women’s magazine, something about how to keep the lust alive on Valentine’s Day. There were several hints and tips, some involving ice cream and melted chocolate or some kind of dressing-up outfit; the only thing that Ellen had liked was underwear. She went out and bought some sexy lingerie. It had taken her hours to find exactly the right thing, steering clear of all the bright red nylon and feather-trimmed bras that seemed to line the shops that February. Eventually, after enduring the humiliation of a fitting by a very young, very pert girl, Ellen had chosen a black lacy underwire bra and matching panties. By most women’s standards it was very tame, but for Ellen it was quite risqué. That night, as she waited for Nick to come home, she made preparations that would give them at least an hour to themselves, feeding Charlie and putting him down in his crib at just the right moment. She had timed it to perfection; the house was silent, Charlie was asleep, and as she heard Nick coming up the stairs she slipped off her dressing gown and lay on the bed in her new underwear.
Nick walked in and chuckled. This wasn’t exactly the response that Ellen had expected, but still she tried her best seductress smile on him.
“Dinner’s in the oven, Charlie’s fast asleep, I thought perhaps…?”
Nick had sat on the bed and kissed her on the cheek. “Bless you,” he had said. “But, Ellen, you don’t need to do all this for me. To be honest, I’m exhausted and I want a shower before I eat. Why don’t you get dressed and talk to me while I clean up, okay?”
He hadn’t been cruel or unkind, he hadn’t mocked or insulted her, but as Ellen dragged on her clothes she had been awash with the humiliation and rejection.
Ellen felt the humiliation again as she relived the memory now. This was not going to be it, she decided. The way she had folded in on herself over the last ten years, losing herself to her house and her husband, was not going to be the sum total of what her life amounted to. She refused to let it be. True, she didn’t know exactly what had happened between Hannah and Nick, but she knew that something had, because whatever Hannah was, she was not a liar. But even if she hadn’t found that out, Ellen had been changing these last few weeks. She had been evolving and now she was determined that a wife, a mother, a flawed sister, a lost widow… an agoraphobic would not be the sum total of her existence. She would not let one more minute of her life slip away unlived to its fullest potential.
Spontaneously, she slipped off the clothes she had been wearing since last night and stepped into the underwear that she had bought all those years ago. After hooking the bra, she returned to look at herself in the mirror, shying away from making full eye contact with her reflection for some moments. The bra was now a little too small, so her breasts gently swelled over the lace trim, but Ellen was surprised to see that the effect wasn’t too disgusting. She ran her fingers down her torso and into her waist before meeting the curve of her hips. Her gently curving stomach still bore the silvered stretch marks that her pregnancy had left her with, and her bottom was dimpled and a little more generously proportioned than it used to be, but as Ellen turned first to one side and then the other, she found that her body wasn’t nearly as old or as repulsive as she had imagined. After a moment she slipped the dress on. It didn’t fit her the same way it had all those years ago, it strained across her breasts and clung more to her bottom, but unless Ellen was very much mistaken, it didn’t look that bad.
Impulsively she sat down at her dressing table and rummaged through her drawer. Thoughts and feelings about Hannah, Nick, and everything else clamored for her attention, but Ellen ignored them. She was certain that somewhere in here there was some mascara and lipstick.
After several minutes of looking, Ellen finally found a long-neglected tube of lipstick. Very slowly and carefully, her hand trembling, she applied the dark red gloss to her mouth. Nick had never liked her in lipstick, he’d always said it made her mouth look too big. But when Ellen checked her reflection in the mirror, she was fairly certain that the result gave her already-generous mouth a little more definition and color.
“Fuck you, Nick,” she said out loud, utterly unaware that she had spoken at all. Then she unscrewed a mostly dry and caked tube of mascara and batted her lashes at the wand. The effect here was less pleasing: there were black clumps that she had to tease out of her lashes with her fingernails and a fine powdery dust that collected on her cheeks, which when she tried to wipe it away left a smudge—but after several minutes with a damp cotton-wool pad, Ellen thought she’d done the best job possible, and what remained of the black mascara did seem to intensify the green of her eyes.
After dragging a brush through her hair, Ellen knelt down and slipped a shoe box out from underneath her bed. Unwrapping the tissue paper they nestled in, Ellen took out her one pair of smart shoes, black and plain with a low heel. They were her funeral shoes.
Ellen looked at them for a long time, so sedate and sensible, the dull, smooth leather emitting a faint shine. She realized for the first time that she hated these shoes, they were ugly and frumpy—the kind of shoes that Nick would have picked for her, but that she had picked for herself, choosing only that which he would approve of, unaware that she despised them. Without a second thought, she took them to the window and threw them out, hearing them clatter on the path below. Then, just as purposefully, she marched to Sabine’s room and knocked on the door, even though she knew that Sabine was still out with Charlie. Sabine had very many pairs of shoes and Ellen borrowed the highest, shiniest pair she could find, a pair of silver stiletto peep-toe sling-back sandals. Sitting on the edge of Sabine’s bed, she fiddled with the minute jeweled buckles for several minutes before s
he finally managed to secure the shoes to her feet. They were a little small and the straps pinched her toes but Ellen didn’t care. They were her finishing touch, the final element to a plan that she barely knew she had been formulating until she took her first teetering steps in those shoes. Just as she was about to leave, Ellen spotted a bottle of wine on Sabine’s dressing table, a Rioja with a screw-cap top. Next to it was an unwashed glass, and from what Ellen could tell, about one glass’s worth of wine was missing from the bottle. Pursing her lips and shrugging, Ellen picked up both the bottle and glass and took them with her.
Returning to her room, Ellen heard Charlie and Sabine coming in from the pub, which meant it must be about eight. Hastily she climbed into bed, pulling the covers over her head as her son’s feet thundered up the stairs, hoping that if he did come in he wouldn’t notice her makeup.
“Charlie,” she heard Sabine whisper, “let Mum sleep, okay? It takes a long time to get over a migraine. We could hook up our DSs if you like and play Mario Kart.”
“You’ve got a DS?” Ellen heard Charlie outside the door, sounding clearly impressed.
“Of course, and I’m pretty good, too. Come on, let’s go downstairs and see if we can’t teach Allegra how to race, too.”
“Okay,” Charlie said after a moment’s hesitation. “Yeah, all right then, probably best to let her sleep it off.”
And then it was just a matter of waiting, taking one more sip of the warming, numbing wine and waiting for Charlie, who came in to see her around ten o clock.
The Home for Broken Hearts Page 28
