by Emily Barr
I feel Kate looking at me. I can’t look back, so she turns away. She takes the food into the kitchen, and I follow and start hunting for the corkscrew.
‘It’s easy for me to say this,’ she says carefully, ‘but I don’t think that missing him is necessarily the same thing as wanting him back. I think that missing a relationship that’s been at the centre of your life for years is completely normal. If you were really completely lost without him you wouldn’t have dumped him in the first place. It was your choice, remember?’ She looks up and smiles, her face framed by her light brown hair. Kate doesn’t realise it, but she is saying exactly what I wanted her to say. ‘You’re just not used to being on your own. It’s a different issue. You’re going to be absolutely fine, whether you take him back or not.’
I smile at her. ‘Promise?’
She puts a plate of fish and chips in front of me. ‘Promise,’ she says.
I open the first bottle of wine, and take the huge wine glasses - for special occasions only - from the top shelf of the cupboard. I hand her a glass as she puts the salt, vinegar and ketchup on the table.
‘Cheers,’ she says. ‘To you coming through this and enjoying being single.’
The fire is beginning to warm the kitchen. It is cosier with company. I shudder at the idea of a future where I am on my own, and clink my glass with hers. ‘I quite like the idea of being single, most of the time,’ I tell her. ‘Cheers.’ I try to think of something to toast other than my seducing a young boy from a manufactured band. ‘To something happening, anyway,’ I say lamely. ‘To your and Ian’s baby.’
‘We’ve got some news on that front, actually,’ she says with a grin.
I put down my glass and grip the edge of the table. ‘You’re not!’ I shout.
She holds up a cautioning hand. ‘No, no, no, hold your horses. Just another avenue to explore. Eat up and I’ll tell you.’
With the first hot salty chip, I realise exactly how hungry I am.
chapter three
Early December
After four weeks of separation, I go to meet Jack in a café we used to go to, years ago. He has been begging me to meet him. It has been quite embarrassing. I’m fine on my own now. I don’t particularly want to see him, except to discuss putting our house on the market and the terms of our divorce. If he gets difficult about that, I’ll tell him to divorce me for adultery. That will shock him.
However, a small part of me is interested in being wooed back. I have a slightly open mind. If Jack surprises me and impresses me, I might give him another chance. It would be good, at least, to leave him believing he might have another chance. I like knowing that he is there, waiting for me, desperate for me. I will probably not mention the adultery, today, to keep my options open.
When I see him pretending he hasn’t seen me walk in, I pause and try to judge my reaction. I wait for my heart to leap, for my stomach to constrict, for every fibre of my being to tell me that I have made an enormous mistake, but it doesn’t happen. Jack looks bad. He seems to have made very little effort for our meeting. His hair is shaggier than normal, he’s pale, and he doesn’t look as if he has been sleeping. He looks as if he’s been drinking, instead. He is wearing a thick green jumper that I bought him four Christmases ago.
Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second, before he looks away. I see his face light up, briefly. Then he picks up his coffee and cradles it between both hands. He flicks a page of the magazine in front of him. He is pretending not to have seen me, trying to keep his composure.
‘Jack,’ I say, warmly, pulling out the seat opposite him. He looks up, pretends to be surprised to see me, and jumps to his feet. He lunges to kiss me, and for a moment I panic. There is no etiquette for situations like this. I don’t want to kiss him on the mouth, which seems to be his plan. A kiss on the cheek would be a slap in the face. I give him a firm hug, and deflect his snog. Jack smells nice, unfamiliar and slightly perfumed. He must have been using Kate’s shower gel.
I sit down gracefully, aware of the way he is watching me and knowing that I look good. The tabloids and magazines caught up with me a couple of weeks ago, after I got fed up of waiting and made my agent tip them off. I was delighted, the following day, to see a solitary photographer from the bedroom window, so I washed and dried my hair, plastered myself in make-up and changed from tracksuit bottoms to a micro skirt and knee-high boots.
The paparazzo beamed when he saw me. ‘Evie, love,’ he said. ‘Give us a smile, darling.’ I obliged. I played the game, simpered winningly, and stood in a flattering pose, peeping back at him over my shoulder. I paused to decline to comment, then strode confidently all the way to the DLR. I made sure I strutted, putting one foot directly in front of the other as if walking on an imaginary tightrope. Someone once told me that this is what models do. If you do it right, you bounce gracefully as you walk. I led him down the alley and past the Trafalgar pub, then along the riverfront. Maze Hill station is closer to our house - to my house - than the DLR, but I wanted to take him along the scenic route. When I reached the station I stopped by a ticket machine to check he wasn’t still following me, and skulked around till I thought it was probably safe to go home via the main road, in case he was lurking or, more likely, having a pint in the Trafalgar. As soon as I got in, I took off my make-up.
The photos turned out well. ‘Evie riding high,’ said the headline, in reference, I assume, to my hemline. I know Jack will have seen it, because his colleagues have always shown him anything they could find about me in the papers. They love the fact that he has a famous wife, and I’m sure there is a hint of hostility in their scouring of the tabloids. I’ve never got on with Jack’s colleagues. I don’t know how to behave with them, and I have never had the patience to make an effort. Normally I can make people like me by smiling at them, but these men demanded more. They wanted to interact with me, to make me their mate, and I lacked both the inclination and the ability. It doesn’t matter any more.
I have always happily accepted demi-celebrity as part of my job. This is the life I have chosen for myself. People ask if I find it annoying, being in the tabloids, and I find it hard not to laugh. I find it annoying when I’m not in the tabloids. I enjoy the publicity more than I enjoy the music. I relish it, and I have to hold myself back from offering everything I have to the media. I know that people who serve themselves up to the press end up mauled by them. That will not happen to me, because I force myself to be elusive. I know that my slight obscurity makes me appear classier. The attention validates me. I love the knowledge that people out there whom I will never meet, millions of them, know who I am. I hope that Louise and the other girls see me and regret everything they did, everything they said.
I am meticulous about the way I appear in front of a lens. I almost wish I could walk in front of a photographer wearing my tracksuit bottoms and Jack’s old T-shirt, with my hair in its morning bird’s nest, and three-year-old espadrilles on my feet. I should make myself do that one day. But I know I am incapable. I couldn’t do it. I care too much about what people think of me. The current version of Evie Silverman was created to be looked at: she is an object. She exists to be photographed, packaged, bought, played on a stereo, and written about. I have no idea whether the old me still lurks beneath my brittle exterior. I suspect she does, and I will make sure she stays hidden, for ever. Being shallow works best for me.
The café is busy, and no one takes any notice of us.
‘How’ve you been?’ says Jack. He leans back and tries to catch the waitress’s attention, without success.
‘Oh,’ I tell him, ‘you know.’ I shrug and smile. It is one of my professional smiles, which gives nothing away. ‘I’m getting by.’ I assume an expression that I hope appears wry.
‘You look great.’
I toss my hair. ‘Thanks.’ I changed outfits six times before I came out to meet him, finally settling on jeans and a red top, with my hair swinging jauntily, and red lipstick.
I look at my
husband’s face, at the short stubble that means he didn’t shave this morning, at his black hair, barely tamed, today, by his Brylcreem. He is as familiar to me as my own reflection, and that is extremely familiar. I have declined interview requests, so far, because I wasn’t sure whether to say that I am being strong and moving on from my failed marriage, or whether to hint that we are giving it another go. Now I know.
‘That’s fine,’ he says. ‘You know you look good.’
‘How are you?’
‘I’m all right. Getting by too. Feeling quite positive, actually.’
‘Good.’
We both look up, relieved, as the waitress arrives. She is toned and blonde, and looks like an LA rollerblader.
‘Latte, please,’ I tell her, trying not to feel threatened. I prefer it when pretty women are dark-haired and short, so they don’t intrude on my territory. I hate anyone else to be blonder than I am.
‘I’ll have another cappuccino,’ adds Jack.
‘Lots of chocolate,’ I add, and we smile at each other. I want to leave, now. I should never have come to meet him. Now that I’m with him, I feel nothing. All those nights and days I’ve spent at home on my own, forcing myself to play my cello, making myself get dressed and look decent and leave the house from time to time, I’ve half hoped that the moment I saw Jack again I would heave a sigh of relief and book an exotic holiday to put the excitement back into our marriage. That’s what the magazines tell you to do. Instead, I’m accepting that being married to this man left me feeling half dead. Of course I made the right decision.
‘How’s life at Kate and Ian’s?’ I ask, when the waitress has gone.
‘Fine, if you like sofa beds,’ he tells me. ‘And baby obsessions.’ He’s looking at me with a strange expression on his face. Mentally, I beg him not to say whatever it is that he’s thinking. ‘Are you sure,’ he adds, sadly, ‘about giving me back the house?’
‘Until it’s sold, yes.’ I am as brisk as possible. ‘It makes sense. To be honest, I’d like to be somewhere else and see what it’s like.’ I regret my briskness at once, so I look at the table. ‘I miss you when I’m there,’ I tell him sadly.
To my slight horror, Jack reaches across the table and takes my hand. ‘I miss you too, Evie,’ he says quietly. He is staring at me with a horrible sincerity. ‘I really do. I know you think we’re finished and I can see why you say that, now that I look back on it. I guess things were pretty stale for a while there. When I saw you in the paper looking fucking fantastic, I knew you missed me. Well, I kind of thought you did. I hoped you did. You looked to me like you were trying just that little bit too hard.’
I glare at him. ‘Cheers.’
‘Only because I know you so well, babe.’
‘I’m not a babe.’
‘You looked like one on the front of the paper. And you knew it.’
‘You know what I’m saying. You know I hate it when you call me babe.’
Jack looks at me. His nostrils flare slightly, and his fullish lips form a self-satisfied smirk. ‘I do know that. Sorry. But that’s my point: we know each other inside out, you and me. I’m not sure if we should be throwing it all away because it went a bit stale. I think we should be trying to jazz things up before we give up on it. Let’s go to Venice for a weekend. Hire a car and drive to a grand hotel in Scotland. Anything. We can do anything together.’
I look at Jack. I am imagining Venice, and it is seductive. Jack and me walking together across St Mark’s Square, as we did on our honeymoon, avoiding the pigeons and laughing at the tourists drinking seven-pound cups of coffee. Riding water buses without tickets. Stepping into the darkness of a church and waiting for our eyes to adjust before we saw the frescoes. Throwing coins at buskers. If I took him back, I wouldn’t have to be alone any more. It won’t be long, I know, before I find out whether I am as strong as I imagined I was, in the post-performance euphoria at the Palladium. I was confident that, now I’m thirty, I would be able to cope on my own. I didn’t think the cracks I’ve papered over could be ripped open, after all this time. I am terrified. If I took him back, I could make myself safe again. It would be a trade-off, but a sensible one. Everyone has to make compromises. I don’t have to tell him anything he doesn’t already know about me.
Jack is looking back at me intently. ‘You read enough magazines to know what I’m talking about,’ he adds, fixing me with his dark eyes and staring. ‘They’re packed with articles about putting the passion back in, and regaining the old magic. I used to read them all the time on the loo.’
I sigh. ‘I know.’ Jack would shut himself in the bathroom with a mug of coffee and a stack of magazines, and I wouldn’t see him for hours. Occasionally he would shout to me to bring him the phone. I found the whole ritual entirely unsavoury, but he said he went there to relax.
‘So how about it?’ He lets go of my hand and I remove it immediately. I pick up my coffee and take a large slurp.
I study his face. This is the man I married for many reasons that seemed good at the time, but which don’t add up to a recipe for long-term happiness or stability. I longed for security, to be able to say ‘my husband’ in a casual, tender way. I wanted someone to look after me.
I needed somebody. I couldn’t bear to be on my own. I had to consolidate my reinvention of myself, and Jack, without realising it, let me do it. Whether I loved him or not was irrelevant.
Jack and I did love each other, I think. We have had happy times together. But we are adults now; we are more than adults. We’re thirty. And what we have is no longer enough. I always feared there would come a time when I had to stand alone, to jump from a cliff and hope I could fly. In recent years, I have sometimes longed for that test.
‘The past four weeks haven’t been easy,’ I begin, slowly, knowing exactly what I want to tell him, but not how to phrase it. I don’t want him to hate me. ‘I have thought about us a lot, and I’ve watched our wedding video far too often.’
Jack interrupts. ‘Crazy woman!’ He is laughing, pleased with what he is hearing. He is about to crash to earth.
‘But,’ I continue, looking into his eyes, ‘I don’t feel that I’ve made a mistake. I truly believe that our relationship has run its course. I just don’t think we can make each other happy any more. I’m sorry, Jack, but we need to accept that this is permanent. And we both need to move on.’ I wait for a response, but he is just gazing at me, so I keep talking. ‘You say we could go to Venice or Scotland, but we’ve had the opportunity to do those things for years and we never did them. Every winter we’d talk about trekking in Nepal, or skiing, but we never even looked up the prices of flights. We don’t do each other any good. We both need to see what else is out there for us. It would be so easy, sweetheart, so easy to say OK, let’s give it another go. But it would be the wrong thing to do and I’m not going to. That’s why I want to leave our house and find a flatshare.’
I try to make eye contact. Jack looks at my right shoulder. There are tears in his eyes.
‘So this is it?’
‘Yes,’ I say firmly, reminding myself not to smile. ‘This is, indeed, it.’
Jack puts his head down on to the table. I watch him, interested. He leaves it there for a while, then pulls himself up and rests his chin on his hands.
‘You have to give me one more chance,’ he says, suddenly. ‘You have to, Evie. I love you. I’ve always loved you and I always will. I know you love me a little bit. I’ll do anything.’ He is crying now. I am embarrassed. ‘Anything at all. Whatever it takes, just tell me and I’ll do it.’
‘Jack.’ God, this is awful. ‘Stop it. I’m not saying it’s over for ever, all right?’
He sits up, smiling warily. ‘It sounds like you are.’
‘I can’t say what’ll happen between us in the future.’ I spread my hands. ‘I have no idea. Maybe we will come together again and maybe it’ll be fantastic. We were young when we got married. We need to reassess things.’
‘We don’t! We
don’t. I don’t. I know how I feel about you and I know that I can’t manage without you. I can barely make it through the days.’
When I look at him, I believe him. He looks dreadful.
‘Jack,’ I say, sharply this time. ‘You have to make it through the days. You have to be strong. You’re better than this.’
‘I don’t think I am. I’m useless. I can see why you don’t want me around any more.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ I tell him. ‘Go away for a break or something. Go to a Buddhist temple and get yourself together.’
He nods. ‘OK.’
‘But first of all, get our house sold. We’ll pay off the rest of the mortgage and split the rest fifty-fifty. All right?’
‘But you’ve paid for more of the mortgage. You should have more of the money.’
‘I don’t care. I don’t need it.’
By the time I leave the café, I am beginning to despise him.
Kate and Ian are waiting for me outside WHSmith by Notting Hill tube, as arranged. I’m late, because the train stopped for fifteen minutes in a tunnel, with no explanation. The staff don’t bother to apologise any more, if the delay’s less than half an hour.
I am on my own. I am free. Jack is in reserve, just in case I need him, but I am ready to move on. I am thin and thirty, stylish and celebrated, and I plan to begin having a very good time indeed.
