by Lucy Dawson
God—I have to go…I have to…My phone rings. It’s Pete.
“Excuse me,” I say, and Debs nods and just hovers.
“Hi, its me,” he says. “I’ve just tried you at work but the answer phone’s on. Did you know?”
“Yeah. I’m not there at the moment.” This is of course true. I haven’t lied. I just don’t mention I’m sitting on the bed he has shagged another woman in—looking at his picture.
“Are you okay?” I can tell he’s frowning. “You sound weird.”
“Do I?” I say, forcing a smile on to my face…Don’t go to pieces—come on, hang on in there. “Well, everything is absolutely fine.” I force the words out, trying to keep my voice level while still looking at his face smiling back at me. “I’ll have to call you later. I can’t talk properly now.” Quite literally, actually. And I snap the phone shut. I just want to get out of here. The cloying smell of her perfume is making me feel truly sick.
I stand up, and take a deep breath.
“I’m going to need to think about this, Debs,” I say lightly. “It’s a bit smaller than I’d hoped for and I’m worried things might get a bit…crowded. Can I call you?”
“Absolutely!” Debs smiles happily at me. I’m not sure this girl has ever had a bad thing happen to her in her life. She couldn’t care less if I took this flat or not.
In less than five minutes I’m back in the street, leaning on the closed door, gasping for air. If I didn’t have the card and her earrings in my bag, I wouldn’t have believed that just happened.
FIFTEEN
My feet find their way back to the station on their own, and before long I stumble on to the train, sitting down heavily. I feel a bit dizzy and thick-headed. What the hell did I just do? What happened there? Did I really see Pete’s picture next to another woman’s bed? It can’t be real…but it is! I saw it with my own eyes. I saw her, her flat, her clothes, her bed. And him next to it.
As the doors jolt themselves shut to a mechanical bleeping, I get the card out of my bag. Looking at it, I trace the loop of his writing with my fingertips, before putting it back guiltily; which is ridiculous, because no one else knows that I stole it from another woman who my boyfriend seems to be sleeping with.
Once we get out of London, I have a couple of moments when silent tears of utter desolation course down my cheeks, and at one point I do a strange hiccup and sniff at the same time, which earns me a couple of darted glances from behind books and papers. I have to stare furiously out of the window and focus on familiar landmarks to stop myself losing it completely. Pretty much everybody does their best to ignore me, keeping their heads buried in the Evening Standard, not wanting to get involved. Only one girl stares curiously. I look back, hoping to shame her into looking away, but she continues to stare, chewing gum with her mouth open, completely unembarrassed. I break the gaze first and try to ignore her. I don’t want a confrontation now. Reaching into my bag for my iPod, I fumble around with it and select shuffle. I don’t care what it is; I just want something, anything to focus on, but, of course, every song it lands on is a slow ballad or love song that I can’t listen to, as the words seem to relate to just me and Pete.
Eventually I can’t bear it any more and I turn it off to sit in a silence that is punctuated only by other people’s mobiles and coughing. When the rooftops of houses on the outskirts of our town finally begin to flick past the window, the sense of relief that I am nearly home is almost overwhelming.
Having hung around in town until the time that I would normally be home from work so Pete isn’t suspicious, I’m knackered and should be hungry, but I’m not. In fact, have I eaten at all today? Can’t remember. I don’t want anything anyway, so what does it matter?
I feel flat, empty and shell-shocked. I went to confront her and I’ve been smacked in the face with the truth instead. Walking up to the front door, I try to fix a smile to my face, smooth my hair back, take a deep breath. Pete has obviously heard my key in the lock, because he appears at the top of the stairs straight away. I smile up at him and ask him if he’s had a nice day, and he says not bad, but where have I been and am I okay? I look like I’ve been crying.
I look at him like he’s mad, laugh and say of course I’m okay, and that I still feel under the weather, which probably explains why I look like I’ve been crying, and where does he think I’ve been? Work, of course!
He looks at me doubtfully. Big fat liars are always the hardest to fool…but he buys it and says as he comes down the stairs, “So why couldn’t you talk to me earlier? And you didn’t call back. I was waiting to speak to my lovely girl all afternoon.”
I manage to fake a puzzled look, as if I’m trying to remember what he’s talking about, then I laugh and say, “Oh, that. I was in the middle of something. I can’t just stop for you!”
Then I pat his arm fondly and walk past him into the kitchen. It’s incredibly difficult to do. I actually want to collapse on him and cry and cry and show him the card, tell him that today I saw his picture by the bed of another woman. That I know, I know he is lying to me…but I don’t.
Just stay calm. Don’t blow it. He’ll think you’re mad if you tell him what happened this afternoon. And it was mad. It was! What was I thinking? I just wanted to get rid of her. Get her out of our lives.
“You don’t happen to know where my black gym shorts are, do you, babe?” He follows me in, slides his arms round my waist and kisses the back of my neck. “I looked for them earlier but I’m buggered if I know what I’ve done with them.”
“They’re in the ironing basket,” I say automatically, managing not to stiffen and shove him away from me
“You little star,” he says, releasing me and stretching. “What’s for tea?”
I shrug and say I don’t know. Has he any plans?
He looks blank. Like what?
Like calling Liz from the bathroom? Like taking Gloria out so you can phone Liz, like going to the gym so you can call her? I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!
“You look tired, sweetheart.” I try to look concerned. “Why don’t I do us a stir-fry—something quick—and then if you like, we could go out for a drink later. Perk you up a bit.”
This is something we never, ever do. Our usual evening is, of course, food, TV, bed. Maybe with me talking on the phone to Amanda or Louise while he’s upstairs doing a bit of work.
So he looks a bit surprised by my suggestion, but after thinking for a second says, better still, why don’t we go out to dinner? This in turn surprises me…and actually I don’t want to. I’m so tired I want to just curl up in a dark place and sleep for a thousand years. My dry, swollen brain needs a rest from thinking; but the girl who is tired and whingey doesn’t get the man. So I smile and say that would be lovely, I’ll just go and get changed.
I go upstairs and hide Liz’s card and earrings in the bottom of my underwear drawer. They nestle up alongside the first card Pete ever sent me and a small box with a dried leaf in it from the first walk we had together. He picked it up, handed it to me and said, “This is my first ever present for you. It was really expensive, so don’t throw it away.”
So I didn’t. In my mind all those years ago, I imagined me keeping it and then sticking it on a card that I would give him on our wedding day. So much for idle dreams.
I get changed into a dress that I know he particularly likes and put on enough makeup to look like I’m not actually wearing any. I make sure I’m quick so that he doesn’t lose the urge to go out, and as I come downstairs, I see I am just in the nick of time. He’s sitting on the arm of the sofa, remote in hand. When he sees me, he smiles. “You look very attractive,” he says. Not beautiful, not sexy. Attractive. My heart breaks just a little more and Liz smiles smugly, alluringly blowing him a slow-motion kiss. I force her out of my head, and in silence we get into the car.
Over dinner, we start to talk about the breakin and he begins an unnerving line of conversation about how weird it was that they didn’t take anything apart from my je
welry and he can’t understand why they did so much reckless damage. I can feel my skin starting to prickle with worry and I’m immediately suspicious. Has he guessed it was me—how has he guessed? I must have been watching one too many cold and flu remedy adverts, because in the true spirit of attack being better than defense, words that surprise me more than him slide smoothly and effortlessly out of my mouth.
“I know,” I agree, pouring myself a big glass of wine. “It was almost as if someone knew what they were doing.”
“What?” He wrinkles his brow and looks confused.
“I mean, why did they do so much damage to your office in particular?” I say casually. “No forced entry…they didn’t take anything of value. And why take the trouble to stab a picture of us? That’s a bit…chilling.”
He doesn’t say anything, just jabs his fork into a bit of steak before reaching for the pepper. I’m searching around for something, anything to throw him off track.
“I don’t mean this to sound odd,” I say lightly, reaching over and pouring him some more wine, “but at first I wondered if you’d done it.”
“ME?” He chokes slightly and reaches for a napkin. “Why on earth would you think that?”
“Don’t get angry,” I soothe. “It’s just like the police officer said, it’s so odd that they didn’t take anything much…and how did they get in? I just got thinking about that and wondered if maybe you’d had a flip-out about something? Is everything okay with work?” I reach over and rest my hand on his arm. “You’ve seemed a little agitated recently. I just put two and two together. You could tell me if anything was wrong.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “What are you talking about? Nothing’s wrong…I can’t believe you think I’d trash our house. Have you gone mad?” He pulls his arm away from me.
“Sorry, sorry. You’re right.” I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have asked if it was you…it was just so odd. Almost as if someone had a key or something…and let themselves right in!”
And I’ve hit on it. Completely by accident, but that taps right into a nerve. He stops chewing for the briefest of moments. If I wasn’t looking for it, I’d have missed it, but I don’t.
I realize he doesn’t think it was me at all. He thinks it might have been her! My mind starts to race. Is she the kind of girl who might have “borrowed” a key? Is he now thinking she could have let herself in and for some reason gone crazy and smashed our house up?
We fall silent, presumably both dwelling on the ramifications of Liz being the kind of girl who might be…could be…a bit of a bunny-boiler.
As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter if she is or isn’t. Clearly he thinks she could be, and that’s all I need. I think I’ve seen the chink in the armor, and just to make sure, I carefully dig a little deeper.
“Maybe we should call the police back, get them to do some fingerprints or something? I might call them tomorrow.”
He doesn’t say anything at first, but then casually says, “I don’t think we should bother. It’ll only prolong the situation. I think we have to just put this behind us and move on. Anyway, I doubt they have the resources for that sort of thing. They’re not the FBI, and it’s hardly crime of the century.”
Steady, Pete—you’re babbling.
“Let’s just leave it. I don’t want to put you through anything more than you’ve already had to deal with. It really shook you up.”
I take it I can assume from that little speech that her prints will be everywhere, then? So she has been in my house. Has she been in my bed too, with her disgusting perfume and cheap clothes? He has screwed someone in our bed. How can this be happening?
“Okay! You know best!” I manage to smile at him. “Still odd, though…just like they let themselves in and went mental…I’m just nipping to the loo. Won’t be a minute.”
Off I totter, leaving him with that indigestible little nugget. In the loo, I stare at my reflection as I apply another sweep of mascara, and then it occurs to me that I might have stumbled on a far more effective way of getting rid of her than going and finding her.
What if he was to start to believe that Liz was not all she seemed? That she was not in fact perfect—but very far from it? What would he do? Might he just decide that she wasn’t worth it?
Could I be shot of her without reducing myself to little more than a fishwife, scrapping in the street? I might not have to lose Pete or my dignity after all. I am suddenly glad that I didn’t come face to face with her earlier. Not because I couldn’t have done it—I could have slapped her so hard my hand would have left the mark of each finger on her face—but because I know now that I can be much, much cleverer and smarter than that. This way, she really won’t know what’s hit her.
“Tell you what as well, I haven’t been able to find some of my other stuff since the breakin,” I say as I sit back down.
He stops chewing altogether now. “Like what?”
“Strange, really.” I drop my voice, like I’m telling him a story. “I didn’t like to say anything to you, but the bag you got me? It’s missing.”
He raises an eyebrow and then says quickly, “I’ll get you another one.”
Three bags in one month? You might want to think about opening an account at Mulberry, my darling.
“You don’t have to,” I say gallantly. “I did love that bag, though. Although I’d got an ink stain on the lining already.” I pause and let that sink in. “Anyway, let’s change the subject. Tell me how work is going.”
So after a long, boring conversation about his work and a silent drive home during which I make a mental note to hide my bag the second we get in, we arrive back.
Under the pretense of needing the loo, I dash upstairs and kick the bag under our bed. He puts the dog out and is remarkably quick. Not texting tonight, it seems.
I’m in bed when he walks in, tired but wired. I’ve had a bit too much wine and am feeling very carried away with my own success. I want to giggle and confide in him, tell him what I’ve done today. I feel flushed and a little overexcited. I watch him strip off moodily—he’s been very quiet since we left the restaurant. Then he climbs into bed and switches off the light.
And turns away from me.
It takes less than a second for my mood to switch from girlishness to tight misery. Why on earth has he done that? He never does that. Ever. What has this woman done to him?
I start to cry tipsily and he sighs and says, “What’s the matter now?” I sob something about the burglary (I’m going to have to come up with another excuse soon—this one is wearing very thin), and will he give me a hug? And he does, although reluctantly.
I’m not wearing anything, and I press up against him and whisper that he makes me feel safe. Despite his pensive mood, the combination of wine, my soft naked flesh, maybe the thought that his lover might have gone temporarily and scarily nuts…possibly even feeling like the big brave man who is my protector…seems to do the trick and he starts to kiss me.
His hands slide over my trembling skin and his mouth crushes mine—it’s urgent, deep, fucking kissing. There’s no preamble—just straight to it.
I throw myself into the role, gasping little gasps, telling him he’s amazing…and he starts to respond, getting a bit rougher and biting the skin on my shoulder, which actually I don’t like, but I don’t say anything, I just gasp a little louder and wiggle away from him so that he has to move after me. He says nothing throughout the whole thing apart from a hoarse “Oh my God, you’re good!” as I lick and suck and stroke.
Strangely, I’m not actually feeling anything myself. When he’s finally lying on top of me and saying my name and then, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” all I am feeling is like I’m having an out-of-body experience, as if I’m watching myself. My body feels limp, unresponsive and as if my limbs are made of Play-doh. I certainly don’t feel like I couldn’t be closer to anyone than him, or that I just experienced some deep spiritual connection.
Afterward, he doesn’t kiss
me gently as we lie there, stroke the hair off my face, look deep into my eyes or whisper in the dark that he loves me. He just rolls to his side of the bed and is silent.
By the time I have shut the bathroom door behind me, I am crying. This is not us. This is not how we are. I don’t feel sexy and powerful any more, I just feel like shit…I didn’t know it was possible to feel this bad about myself. How have things come to this?
I look at myself in the mirror and lean my forehead against the cool glass. That doesn’t calm me either. Pulling away wretchedly, I feel as unhappy for myself as if I was standing opposite Clare watching her cry like I am now. I think this is how it might feel to watch my little sister’s heart breaking in front of me. It’s so strange, seeing myself like this and not being able to do anything to make it go away. I feel helpless and just want someone’s kind, warm arms around me. And yet I have just been as intimate with another human being as you can be.
I hang my head eventually, all cried out—there are no more tears. He used to kiss me gently, tenderly. I didn’t imagine it. I know I didn’t…Why can’t she just go away—just drop off the face of the earth? I’m not a bad person. I just want her to GO AWAY. Let me live my life with him. Like we always have done.
I look like crap. Blotchy red skin with scarlet patches on the cheeks and a livid nose. Small slivers of eyes buried in puffy lids. I can’t look like shit when she’s out there in her muslin bedroom with her lilies, busy being perfect.
Splashing water on my face, I blow my nose. At least he won’t be able to see me in the dark.
I needn’t have worried anyway. By the time I creep back into our room, he is so dozy he barely murmurs good night. In seconds he is asleep. I wonder who he’s dreaming of.
SIXTEEN
When he wakes up, I am dressed for work with my coat on, standing over him.
“Bye,” I say quickly. “Got to dash—bit late. See you tonight.” I duck to kiss the top of his head, and then I’m gone.
