by Sue Watson
‘The boys were upset you weren’t there – you should have called me and at least I could have told them,’ I say, trying to speak calmly, gently, so as not to ignite this.
‘Oh, that’s right, I should have called you while my patient hung on between life and death. I should have downed tools and said “I’m sorry theatre staff – I know the patient is bleeding profusely from his left aorta and may die any moment, but I really have to call my wife”.’ He looks at me with barely concealed disgust and takes another glug. ‘I wish you lived in the real world, Marianne,’ he is saying now. ‘I wish I had someone to talk to, someone who understands.’
‘You do have someone though, don’t you?’ I hear myself say.
He whips round to face me and I know this is what he wants – my wild accusations, my tears, my begging, because that way he can deny everything, say I’m mad, send me back to the hospital and set up home with Little Miss Caroline and her nasty rumpled sheets. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying, you can talk to me. I’m your wife, I understand.’ I need to play for time. I need to erase this thing that’s living in our marriage. If I argue or start accusing now, I know who’ll be leaving our home tonight, leaving the kids – and it won’t be him. I have the written evidence in the emails, proof that this affair is real and I’m not mad. I look at his handsome face, knowing his lips have kissed her, his hands have been all over her body, and I want to ask him why. I want for him to break down and tell me everything, what a mistake he’s made, how he only loves me and can I forgive him? I don’t know if I can, but it’s immaterial, because he doesn’t ask.
‘I’m going to do some work,’ he says, and heads for the door, then just before he leaves, he turns to me, landing one more fatal blow. ‘Marianne, I’ve been thinking… are you finding everything too much… again?’ A loaded question that doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘It’s just that… well, you shouted at Charlie, called him stupid… and the boys abandoned on the sofa surrounded by biscuit crumbs for their supper the other evening, and now this… this aggressiveness in your tone… I have to say I’m rather concerned.’
‘I’m fine, I told you…’
‘Yes, but you told me you were fine with Emily, and look what happened there.’ With a warning look, he walks out of the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Closing the door on me.
‘Come on, boys, bath time. Mum’s not feeling too good, she’s a bit confused again,’ I hear him call.
I run to the door and open it. ‘I’ve told the boys no bath tonight. They showered after rugby, and they’re already in their pyjamas,’ I call, knowing it will confuse them to be given conflicting instructions.
‘Come on boys, bath time,’ he says calmly, repeating his command like I’m invisible. I hear the protestations from their bedroom as he heads upstairs. ‘Yes, you are having a bath. I told you, Mum’s not very well again.’ He’s now reclaiming the children. He’ll be the perfect father: reliable, hilarious and loving. Meanwhile, I will fade into the background until I’m of no consequence, until they don’t trust me any more, until I don’t trust myself. They will live happily in Simon’s world, a world where I don’t belong, but where a shiny new mother waits.
I see the tableau in my mind’s eye, Caroline in weekend casuals, blonde hair in a messy updo, make-up free with flour on her nose. The sun’s coming through the window in that pleasing way and bathing her and my lovely Farrow and Ball wall in buttery morning sunshine. She’s making pancakes in my kitchen again, just two feet away, using my pans, my ingredients, even my fucking handwritten recipe I keep in the drawer. The boys are excited. They love Caroline’s pancakes – and Simon loves Caroline. He kisses the flour from her nose and she gives him a lingering ‘later’ look and, putting the children first, like all good mothers, she throws pancakes in the air and the boys whoop with delight. I’ve never been able to toss pancakes – they land on the floor or never leave the pan – but I bet Caroline can toss. Even Sophie is seduced by Caroline’s youth and beauty; this mum is so much prettier and happier than the old one, and she doesn’t disappear to hospitals for weeks on end or throw pints over barmaids in local pubs.
That was last year, when I got myself all wound up over… nothing, or something or… I’m not even sure what it was any more. Caroline will be a breath of fresh air for poor tormented Sophie. She’ll help her with her homework, and they’ll ‘like’ each other’s Instagram posts – Sophie loves social media, she’s always on it. Caroline will probably know someone in a cool band and get free tickets because that’s the kind of woman she is. All things to all men and children. My children. #PerfectWife #CoolMum
I sit on one of my beautiful leather kitchen bar stools, put my head on the Calacatta Oro marble worktop and cry.
Yes, there were the warning signs, but I hoped after our troubles that they would become less and the love become more. But because of what happened with Emily, it was the other way round. And it was all my fault.
I was a new mum, my emotions were all over the place and so I retreated into numbness. I soon found I was balancing Simon’s feelings with my own plus my baby’s needs and just went through the motions of feeding, nappy changing and praying she’d sleep. She cried so much, and so did I. Simon said Nicole had never had these problems with Sophie; she’d been able to soothe her instantly and they bonded straight away, which made me feel even worse. I tried desperately to feel something more than a robotic, perfunctory caring for Emily, but my emotions were so frayed. I’d built a wall around me and no one came in or out. I had no friends, no mother to turn to, and then Simon’s mother came and took Sophie again at Simon’s behest. This made things worse for me. I missed her, and being without Sophie made me even more lonely, more lost. Meanwhile, I was struggling to care for Emily, who refused to eat and rarely slept – just screamed most of the time. Simon was working long hours and being alone all day I wondered vaguely if I should try and make friends by joining a ‘new mums’ club’, which I mentioned to Simon, but he said it was beneath me. ‘Sitting in a circle on a cold floor of a draughty town hall – is that really what you want to do with our child?’ he’d said, shaking his head in despair at my suggestion.
I agreed, but not because I believed it was beneath me but because a gaggle of cooing mothers who knew exactly what to do when I didn’t was the last thing I needed. I was sleep-deprived, covered in the aftermath of baby weight and deeply unhappy. It was difficult enough to comb my hair and appear ‘normal’. I longed for peace. All I wanted was what I’d previously taken for granted: to go to bed and sleep. But Emily was colicky and fretful and the days rolled into each other in an endless loop, both of us helpless, in tears and alone. I’d wake each morning with new resolve that today I would get it right, but trying to calm my baby seemed to have the opposite effect and exacerbated her. I was also dealing with my own feelings, irrationally hurt when she wouldn’t take my breast and feeling a personal slight when she slept happily in Simon’s arms but yelled constantly in mine.
‘You’re too anxious, and you’re passing it on to her,’ Simon would say as he took her from me. ‘This is what Nicole used to do.’ He’d smile, rocking Emily gently, or holding her up and talking to her, making her little hands unfurl, big blue eyes on his. He was wonderful with her, but I never had these beautiful moments and, if I’m honest, I was jealous. I was jealous of Simon, of Nicole and of every other parent who walked down the road with a contented, sleeping baby in a pushchair, because they could do it and I couldn’t. I couldn’t even leave the house with her in case I had a panic attack and something happened, so I’d sit with her on my knee all day and turn the TV up to cover her screams. I’d sit there watching smug bitches on TV ads mock me with their perfect post-baby bodies while enthusing about their chosen brand of disposable nappy. It was a world of mystery to me, as inaccessible as the moon, and I wondered again if it was postnatal depression or because I didn’t have a relationship with my own mother. Is being a bad mother inherited? Simo
n thought it was.
‘Your mother’s suicide worries me,’ he’d said one evening when he’d come home from work and I was still in my dressing gown, crying.
‘Does it?’ I sighed lethargically over Emily’s usual screaming as he took her gently from me.
‘Yes. I was talking to a colleague, – she says you may have a genetic propensity to mental health problems. Plus, your mother’s absence will naturally have an impact on how you respond to Emily… nature and nurture.’
‘It’s how she responds to me,’ I said, through big, blobbing tears. Emotions and hormones whirled around my head. I was concerned about my mother’s genetic input but I was more worried about the fact he’d discussed me with someone at work. Another woman too. It’s the little things that eat away at you when you’re vulnerable. I felt ashamed, and alone, so alone.
‘I’m disappointed, Marianne,’ he said, now cradling Emily who was sleeping peacefully in his arms. ‘I thought you’d be a strong mother, that you’d cope.’
‘I can… I will, I just—’
‘And you know I’m not shallow – I didn’t choose you just for your looks, but I have to say, I’d be embarrassed to walk down the street with you right now. Quite frankly, you’re a mess. You spend all day lolling around filled with self-pity and completely letting yourself go. I could understand it if this was because you were busy being a mother, but it seems you have no mothering skills. I imagine your mother was just the same…’
‘My mother was ill.’ I’d been taken from her as a baby because there was a risk she might harm me. I wasn’t like my mother, was I?
‘You said yourself, you don’t love Emily – what kind of mother says that?’ Simon was right, and I was as scared as he was that my illness meant I would never be a mother to our child. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for; he’d done his part, providing a loving home for me and the baby. I was here in this brand new house with my lovely husband and perfect baby, but for some inexplicable reason I couldn’t be happy. Simon was right, I’d let myself go, sitting around all day in my faded blue dressing gown, hair unbrushed, face permanently wet with tears. I had to do something about it, because if I didn’t I might lose him.
‘I’m going to get dressed,’ I’d said, quietly walking out of the room.
‘About time,’ he answered without looking at me, but he added a parting shot. ‘Though I’m surprised you can find anything to wear, you’ve got so fat.’
This was like dunking me back underwater when I was already drowning. It was just one more blow to the heart.
I thought you were meant to mend damaged hearts, Simon.
I think about this now, sitting in my designer kitchen, the boys laughing with their father upstairs. We’d both known I wasn’t worthy of Simon, so he tried to mould me, shape me into the wife he wanted. But unfortunately the real Marianne kept emerging and spoiling everything, but now he’s found Caroline, a woman he doesn’t need to shape, because she’s perfect just as she is. And there’s not enough room for both of us.
Chapter Twelve
At the moment, I am permanently on edge and can’t wait until the evening when I am calmed by a veil of medication. I’ve started to take my pills late in the day because I have to be alert to drive the kids around, but at weekends I sometimes dose myself up in the mornings. I don’t want to take drugs, but I need them to calm the thoughts that have taken over since Caroline’s arrival in our lives. Simon says the medication will help me get better, but I’ve been taking various pills for nearly ten years now, and I’m beginning to think they make no difference – this is who I am. My mother.
After finding my mother’s body I was deeply traumatised for a long time. I had therapy, and professional support from social workers, and between the ages of ten and fifteen was placed with a lovely foster family. The mum, Mrs Fellowes, had been an art teacher, with two kids of her own and me, plus the odd little one who stayed on a temporary basis. Mrs Fellowes – or Jean as she liked me to call her – was the only kindness and consistency I had in my childhood. Jean was wise and caring, and when we came home from school to find her at the oven waiting for us kids with warm tray bakes and glasses of milk, I felt I was living a fairy tale. Jean was the one who gave me a sewing kit and saw the potential in my drawing and designs. She read women’s magazines with glossy pictures of models and I’d pore over these, copying the pictures with my own handmade clothes made from old fabric and hand-me-downs. It was through Jean my love of colour and fashion was born, and without her I reckon I’d have probably ended up on the streets. Jean and Bob were thinking of adopting me when she became ill, but she was in and out of hospital for months and they seemed to have forgotten. Jean was going for regular chemo and Bob was beside himself with grief, so when, one day, I asked him about the adoption he was a little short. ‘I’m sorry, Marianne, when Jean goes I won’t be taking in any kids.’
I was terribly crushed. It hadn’t occurred to me that Jean might ‘go’, I wasn’t sure where to but it was unexpected because she was the one person I’d thought I could count on. When she died, I realised that’s what happened to people I loved: they left me on my own. Marrying Simon and becoming stepmum to Sophie erased all that – at last I had my own family, and no one could ever take that away from me. Until you came along, Caroline, with your perfect white teeth and rumpled sheets.
I lift my head from the kitchen worktops; everything’s quiet and for a moment I wonder if I blacked out and Simon’s taken the kids, but then I hear a giggle and Simon’s deep voice. He’s obviously bathed them and is reading a story – everyone’s home, everyone’s safe. I have to be grateful. All is right with the world. For now.
Thinking about Jean and the calming qualities of art therapy, I wander into the utility room and open the cupboards where I keep my bag-making stuff. Everything’s neatly tucked away in biscuit tins and old chocolate boxes and I open them up, touching the crispness of lace and the softness of velvet. Then I remember Jen’s bag, how she’d loved it so much and how, a few weeks later, she had asked me to make one for her friend.
I was so flattered that she liked it, I suppose I got a bit carried away. I saw it as a first commission, a little chink of light in the navy-blue darkness. Business empires were built on these little things, a friend telling a friend, and before you know it you’re in a Vogue spread. Jen said her friend liked green, and the ocean, so I bought some beautiful sea-green fabric and made tiny pearl starfish. I knew Simon wouldn’t approve – he’d already said that my sewing was a waste of time – but I wanted to prove to him that I could make a success of this. I felt I might be able to persuade him to get behind me once he’d seen this latest creation so spent days sewing, creating, forgetting. When I’d finally finished it, I lay it on the kitchen table and admired it. I was so proud. It really was beautiful, and for the first time in forever I felt good about myself, like I had something to give to the world. Sophie said it was gorgeous, and even the boys noticed it on the table and said it was ‘awesome’ and ‘wicked’ and, later that evening, Simon spotted it.
‘What do you think?’ I asked proudly. Surely even Simon had to admit it was good?
‘It’s a bag,’ he sighed.
‘Oh, Simon, I think you’re being mean,’ I said playfully, covering my hurt.
‘Oh, you do? Well, I think you have more important stuff to do in the day than play with your sewing kit,’ he’d said slowly, almost with a growl as he walked away from the table.
‘I’m not just playing, Simon,’ I said with a fake brightness that bordered on brittle. ‘This is my first commission, I’ve just finished it.’ I lifted it from the table, holding it in front of me, admiringly, desperate for his approval. If I had his approval I could pursue this without him throwing landmines in my way.
He sighed. ‘We talked about this, Marianne. You can barely cope with the kids without taking anything else on. And who exactly “commissioned” it?’ This was said with fingers signalling quotation marks.
‘Jen… she said her friend Suzie loved the one I made for her and Jen wants me to make it for Suzie’s birthday.’
‘Oh dear,’ he sighed again, his head to one side, a look of faux sympathy on his face.
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I think Jen’s probably making fun of you.’
‘Why would she do that? I don’t understand.’
‘She didn’t like the one you gave her; she’s hardly likely to be asking for more.’
‘But she said… you were there, at her party, you saw how pleased she was. She wore it on her shoulder all night. She said she loved it.’
‘Of course she did, she’d hardly tell you she hated it, but I’m afraid I heard her saying something quite nasty about it to one of her friends later. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I can’t watch you make a fool of yourself all over again… darling. Think about it. She owns Prada and Gucci handbags. She doesn’t want your handmade stuff… She was just being nice.’
So I abandoned the bag on the table and did the only thing I could still do well: I finished cooking dinner. I’d made lamb boulangère from Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking – a book David’s mother swore by when she was alive. It had taken me all day to prepare, and if she’d still been with us I’m sure even Joyless Joy would have approved. But I stood over the lamb, my eyes brimming with tears, feeling so upset that Jen would say something ‘nasty’ about my handbag, my gift. I’d really believed she loved it, especially when she asked for one for her friend Suzie. I wondered if Simon had perhaps misheard, or was exaggerating – lying even? But why would Simon say it if it wasn’t true? And I have to admit it had sounded like her – it’s the kind of thing Jen would say in one of her more humorously bitchy moods.
