by Adele Parks
‘At first everything between Daan and me was exciting and unreal. I told myself it had nothing to do with Mark, with my family. A discreet hook-up in a posh apartment once a month. Not honourable but not unprecedented. Minimal communication in between. Just sex. It was never meant to be serious, yet people can’t be contained. Feelings can’t be capped or controlled.’
‘No, they can’t,’ admits Fiona. I smile, grateful to her for trying to understand me.
‘He had this power over me. The desire I felt. The force of it was irresistible. And it never stopped. It never went away. Even in the moment I was sated, I’d want him again. I couldn’t ignore it.’ Confessing such intimacy is hard but I’m drunk and that helps. ‘It started with a drink on a trendy rooftop bar and specifically an incident in a toilet.’
‘Classy Kylie.’
I shrug. I know how it sounds. It sounds awful but it felt like something different altogether. Something brilliant. ‘I did not plan to see him ever again. After the first time. Of course not. I woke up waiting for the shame and guilt to kick in with the hangover.’
‘It didn’t?’
I shake my head. ‘I got out of bed and banged on the door of the boys’ bedrooms, made everyone’s breakfast, showered, went to work on the tube. I did everything I had done the day before as though nothing had changed. I did not feel guilty. It would be easy to say I wish I had felt guilty, because if I had I might have stopped. It’d certainly be more normal. More expected. But I don’t think that is what I wish. Even now.’
‘Even though you ended up chained to a radiator as a consequence?’
I take a gulp of wine. I don’t believe I asked for this. I don’t believe the response was justifiable or proportionate, but I almost understand it. I think I do. I shrug, ‘When I spoke, he listened. I felt more heard than I have ever been.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ comments Fiona. We both fall silent. She stands up, clears away the plates, tops up my drink again.
‘I knew it was wrong. Obviously. Moral compass rule number one. But as it didn’t feel wrong it was hard to believe it was.’ My heart is beating exceptionally fast. The confession is causing panic, or maybe the memory is churning up a familiar, formidable delight. ‘It just didn’t feel wrong. I should have felt bad, but I didn’t.’
‘I suppose you thought you were going to get away with it.’
‘I thought maybe if no one ever knew, then it wasn’t awful.’
‘That’s just something you told yourself to make things easier for you. It was convenient for you to think so. All lies are convenient.’
I feel the tender sting of my bruises under my clothes, the throb of my hand. It wasn’t as simple as that. There was more to it. Can I make Fiona understand? I blurt, ‘The thing is, in marriages, in all relationships, sometimes, we do things badly. We are in the wrong, we make mistakes. Life is full of small, undignified moments, insignificant like grains of sand but when they start to add up, to stack up, you make entire beaches of pain. I didn’t want a marriage like that full of tiny failures of character on my part – on his. I guess I chose a double life so that I could make both shinier.’
‘But neither was real.’
‘They felt real,’ I insist.
‘You can’t have it all.’
‘But I did. For a time, I did.’ We both sit in silence. I am reminded of the silence of waiting for the typewriter to clank into action behind the door and it makes me feel uncomfortable. ‘I need fresh air. I’ve been inside too much recently. Can we take a walk?’
Fiona looks outside, the wind is agitating the branches of trees in her garden, causing them to whip the air. It’s too dark to see the sea but we can hear the waves crashing. It’s inhospitable. I’ll understand if she refuses my request. She smiles and jumps up. ‘Sure.’
48
Daan
Daan is on his way to the airport when he gets the call; his passport in his jacket pocket, his smart Tumi luggage neatly packed, just carry-on size. He needs to be swift, can’t afford any potential delays. If everything goes well, he can have the rest of his belongings shipped to him. If he has to leave them behind, he can always start again. It’s just stuff. Suits, shirts, shoes, shit. It’s not real.
Not like she was.
Whoever is trying to get hold of him is being persistent. It rings out and then immediately starts up again. He doesn’t care who it is. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone.
She’s gone. It’s a fucking mess. The whole lot. He wants to leave it all behind him. The pain, the humiliation. He wants to get out of this country while he can. Put it all behind him.
It is an unknown number and he never answers those. It’s always just some scammer trying to tell him he’s been in an accident and is due compensation or some idiot asking about his most recent dining experience. His entire life is a car crash, now that he’s been taken in by the world’s biggest cheat. He can barely recall a time when it mattered to him what he ate, let alone who served it and what the ambience was like. That life has gone. She destroyed it. Twice over. Once when she invented herself as the perfect woman and tricked him into falling in love with her. And now this. Humiliation, anger, disappointment burn through his body. He has no choice. He has to run away.
The unknown number could belong to the DC or Mark Fletcher. He concludes that, whoever it is, it will be trouble. He doesn’t want any more trouble. He doesn’t want to have to talk to the DC whilst he’s on British soil. He’ll feel better once he’s back at his family pile in Holland. Protected. He supposes it might be his boss, who will have got his email by now, the one saying he wants to resign. Not that he did want to. He had no choice. She took away his choices. He could have asked for relocation maybe. But at some point, he would have to face everyone. Explain that his wife was a bigamist. It is too humiliating. Better he just disappears.
49
Kylie
Despite my limbs being unused to exercise recently and therefore being at once heavy and frail, my knees almost crumbling beneath me, it feels incredibly good to walk outside. We set off up the incline, intending to follow the path that takes us along the cliff edge. It’s utterly invigorating, to enjoy a freedom that I have never quite understood or appreciated until it was taken away from me. I think about Oli and Seb, calling them, calling the police. I have to do both things tomorrow, but right now I just need to clear my head. The wind lifts my hair. I don’t even mind the rain on my face.
Fiona and I have done this walk together a number of times before and we automatically headed this way without discussion. We’ve never attempted it at night, though. The narrow, winding path is harder to navigate in the dark and the ground is wet underfoot. The wine probably isn’t helping. Fiona insisted on bringing another bottle along. I reached for a can of Diet Coke, but she overruled me. I should probably slow down but am at that point of drunk when what I want and need is greater than what I am thinking or reasoning. I take sips from the bottle neck, occasionally remembering to offer it to Fiona. But she just smiles, ‘It’s all yours. After everything, no one can blame you for wanting to let your hair down.’ The wine is slackening my shoulders, that are scrambled up around my ears, it is also loosening my tongue.
‘He never asked me if I was married and I didn’t know how to tell him. I didn’t dare, in case he ended it. Because ending it would have been the worst thing. Or so I thought.’ I sigh. I’m not sure she hears the sigh. It’s probably drowned by the sound of the crashing waves somewhere below us. My feet slip and slide under me. I am wearing a pair of Fiona’s scruffy old trainers. As we left the house, I found them under a bench at the door and pushed my feet into them, not taking the time to lace them properly.
‘Whoops. You need to be careful,’ she says, catching hold of my arm. Her clasp is tight. She will keep me steady. Safe.
‘I never imagined it would last any length of time. Every time I was with him, I thought it was the last. Told myself it had to be. But I just couldn’t say no.’
‘Bullshit,’ interrupts Fiona. ‘Absolute fucking bullshit.’ I blink, surprised at her eruption. We do have a relationship where we call out one another on things from time to time. I’ve often been in the awkward position where I’ve had to point out that Fiona’s latest fling is a non-starter for instance, but I’m surprised by the ferocity of her curse at this moment, during this intimate confession. ‘There must have been a thousand times where you could have said no to him. Before you walked into the restaurant to meet him for the first time, before you sat down at his table, before you accepted the second glass of wine, stepped into the cab, walked into the lift, slipped between his sheets. Before you walked down the aisle, for fuck’s safe.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ I shouldn’t be surprised by Fiona’s anger. It’s going to come from every quarter. My sons, my brothers, my mother. I shall need to brace myself for it. Bear it. I think of the moment I slipped between his sheets. And afterwards, the views of the Tower of London, London Bridge and HMS Belfast that I enjoyed from our apartment window. These were places I had taken the boys. Trailed with them in ever-decreasing circles of interest. Crows, murders, battles – unable to enthuse them the way a YouTube video can.
‘Were you drunk?’ Fiona demands. The rain is clinging to us both now, not heavy but persistent, undeniable. Causing a film, like cellophane, that somehow separates us. My wet hair is getting in my eyes, I am carrying the wine in my one working free hand so I can’t push it away. Fiona persists, ‘Were you drunk when you first slept with him? When you started all of this?’
I glance at the bottle in my hand and realise I feel very drunk now. Blurred. Uncertain. I let the bottle gently slip out of my grasp onto the soft ground. In the dark, Fiona doesn’t notice. I reach for the truth. ‘No, I wasn’t drunk. I can’t use that as an excuse. I wish I could in a way. People would understand it more. Find it more forgivable, but I wasn’t drunk – or if I was, it was not on alcohol, it was something more. Maybe possibility. Maybe inevitability.’
‘You were greedy.’ Fiona raises her voice, to ensure I can hear her above the noise of the sea and the wind.
‘Yes, I was,’ I admit. Because that is it. In a nutshell. I was greedy.
‘I don’t get it. You had a permanent sing-along, dance-along, lifelong-adventure buddy in Mark but that wasn’t enough for you. You had to hoover up another guy.’
‘Well, I don’t see it that way. I—’
‘You don’t get to live two lives. You are just one person. One body. You have to pick a life. Why wasn’t one enough for you? You stupid bitch. You already had it all.’ Fiona’s insult is pushed out with a smile, but I can’t pretend to myself that she isn’t having a go. She clearly is more than confused. She’s not shouting to be heard above the sea, she’s shouting because she thinks I need telling. I stop and face her, it’s the least I can do. I’ve seen Fiona lose her temper before, many times. She is the epitome of the fiery redhead. Yet I’m shocked that her face is almost unrecognisable, twisted and split with what I now see is fury. ‘Do you have any idea what a freedom it is to be able to send a text, just a simple bloody text about what is on your mind, without having to second, third, fourth guess how he might take it?’
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Once you’re married, there is no such thing as coming on too strong, is there? You can’t be the crazy intense woman. That’s such a bloody luxury. Do you know how lucky you are that you got to be totally, one hundred per cent yourself because that’s what it means to be married?’
‘Well, not really for me,’ I point out. She splutters out a sound of indignation from her nostrils. She’s raging but a moment’s reflection must reveal that it was never that for me. The opposite. Having two husbands cost me the opportunity to be myself.
‘Which one of them were you planning to get old with?’ she demands. ‘Or were you going to hobble on your Zimmer frame backwards and forwards between the two?’
‘I don’t know,’ I stammer. ‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’
‘You hadn’t thought at all, had you? What about when you were sick? Who looked after you? One of them would, that’s for sure. You were never on your own. You never had to crawl out of bed and drag yourself to the chemist for tissues and paracetamol. They probably think the sniffling, snotty version of you is cute, do they?’
It obviously isn’t the moment to tell her that I haven’t been bedbound-ill once in the four years since this started. Mums rarely get the chance to be bedbound; bigamist mums have no chance at all. I had to push on. Instead, I remind her, ‘When you were ill, I brought you chicken soup. I went to the chemist for you.’
It is true: sometimes Fiona was like my third child. I’d drop everything to help her. As I know she would me. Even now. Wouldn’t she? She is furious with me at present, but I just have to ride out the storm. She’ll forgive me. Of course she will. Why else would she rescue me and bring me here to safety?
‘I’m struggling with this, Kylie. Because I don’t know who you are. What you think and feel, what you say, what you do. There’s no consistency about you! And without consistency, you are nothing. You might as well be dead.’ I recoil from her. It’s just a phrase, I tell myself. People say it, they don’t mean it. Except in this past week, for me, that seemed a scarily real possibility. I might very well have ended up dead. How can she say that to me now? She glares at me and adds, ‘You can’t be on two teams. You’ve got to pick a side. Tell me which one of them you loved the most?’
‘I don’t know why it matters. It’s not as though I’m going to get to choose between them. One of them abducted me. The other no doubt hates me just as much. I’m not going to be able to save either relationship.’
‘Just pick one!’ she shouts.
‘I took immeasurable risks for Daan, I lost friends for him. That shows I love him.’
‘You don’t know what love is.’
‘But I do. Twice over. I love them both.’
‘That’s not allowed.’
‘I know, but who decided it wasn’t?’
She raises her hands and for a moment I think she is going to hit me. Instead she pulls at her own hair. I guess she is trying to make me choose between them as some sort of therapy. Facing up to things. I’m frustrating the hell out of her. We stand on the cliff edge, drenched, incensed, bewildered. I imagine Daan walking away and I feel all the things I am going to miss about him. They hit me like stones. His loud, low, long laugh, his funny stories, his promise of the unexpected, a bright future. Then I think of Mark. His pride in his children, his solid, steady work ethic, his earnest interest in the land, our shared history. My bones snap.
‘Mark,’ I blurt. ‘Mark, Oli and Seb outweigh Daan. I guess they always did. I was never able to leave them. I’m glad it was Daan who abducted me. I choose Mark.’
‘Right, good, I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up. Finally.’ The dark night, the noise from the waves smashing, the wind whipping is disconcerting, overwhelming. Her breathing is as fast and shallow as mine. But something skitters across her face that looks a lot like triumph. We look at each other and it is as though it’s the first time we’ve ever really seen one another.
And I suppose in a way it is.
We see one another for what and who we really are. It’s hard to know who is most disappointed, disgusted. ‘Do you see what you have done?’ she asks. ‘Because you have tried to run two lives in parallel, you’ve shortened the one you really have. Sort of used them up, you know? You’ve run out of time. Do you see that?’
I feel the force of the shove a nanosecond before I anticipate it or understand it. I don’t know why I’ve been so slow. The wine? Something in the wine? It’s too late now. My knees crumble under me and I am flying. The grassy verge, the edge of the cliff, the black sea below are somersaulting into one. Round and around I spin. It’s a fraction of a second. It’s forever. I am plummeting. I am done.
>
50
Fiona
Fiona walks quickly back to the house. Her head is whirling. Twisting. She takes deep breaths. This isn’t the moment to lose her cool. She’s been so careful all along. She can’t afford a slip-up at this late stage.
She had expected Kylie’s eyes to be wide with horror and anguish, her face to be distorted. She thought there might have been a moment of realisation when she would beg to be saved. At least for the boys. But she didn’t do that. She stared, eyes wide open (finally!), as she understood what she had done and what it meant, which just goes to show how selfish she is. Was. She can use the past tense. Kylie should have wanted to survive at least for the boys.
Bitch.
She looked almost peaceful. That annoys Fiona, that Kylie found peace. That isn’t what she wanted to deliver.
Still, at least now she knows which man Kylie would have wanted to hold on to. Which she ultimately valued the most. It was as Fiona had guessed. There is some satisfaction in getting it right. Knowing Kylie better than she knew herself. Fiona guessed months ago. People are always assuming she knows little about intimacy, because she hasn’t ever married – it’s so insulting, so patronising – she knows more about any of them than they do about each other.
Fiona carefully but rapidly packs up the house. Removes any evidence that she – let alone Kylie – has been here tonight. Then she drives back to London. She hasn’t had a drop to drink. She was very careful about that. Not that she’d have touched the wine, of course. Not after what she’d put in it to ensure Kylie’s reactions were slowed. The drive should take just less than three hours. She wants to hurry but forces herself to keep below the speed limits for the entire journey; she cannot afford to get flashed by a camera.
