by Sue Welfare
She fancied Andrew, her body fancied Andrew, it was just a simple physiological reaction, not that she wrote that either. Instead Kate said,
‘I’ve been married for so long and up until recently have always thought no, assumed, that we were happy. Well, at least most of the time and on balance – you know how these things go, more ups than downs more good than bad – but now I’m beginning to wonder. This thing with my husband has made me peer over the ramparts, and the view’s not so bad on the other side.
Have I been kidding myself all this time? Is it just that you learn to live with the things that aren’t right? Was I too busy to really look at what was going on? Is that why my husband slept with somebody else, Sam? Did he realise that we were living in a mirage sooner that I did?
So in answer to your question, lunch went just fine, although it seems like a lifetime ago now, so much has happened since then. It’s like somebody detonated a bomb under my life. First of all, my husband’s lover rang me at the pub during my lunch date, a mixed blessing as I was just beginning to go all gooey around the edges – so in some ways she saved me from myself – and then as I was getting back home from lunch my husband turned up, followed by the guy I’d just been out to lunch with and then, when I just getting over the shock of that, my neighbour rang to say that the kids found my husband and my best friend in our bed tonight, so to say life’s a bit messy at the moment is something of an understatement.’
Oddly enough it was a relief to see everything written down in well-ordered paragraphs. Putting the things that had happened up on the screen somehow relieved Kate of the burden of them, contained them, and helped to make some kind of sense or shape of what was going on.
‘Tomorrow I’m going to ask my neighbour to put the kids on the train. It’s straight through from London to here with no changes so they should be okay. I’ll pick them up at the station. I can hardly ask him to drive all this way and don’t feel I’m ready to go home yet – the thought of facing my husband and his lover is almost unbearable. To hurt me is one thing but to do that to the kids is unforgivable – okay, so you could probably argue that he didn’t know they were coming back tonight. But the two of them were in our bed – they must have been in there before, but somehow it seems much worse that the kids found them there. I bought that bed as a wedding present to the two of us. To my husband and me. My husband – even that seems wrong now, I mean he’s hardly mine, is he? He hasn’t been mine for years. Maybe I ought to think of something else, something less possessive to call him.
We can’t go back to how we were. I don’t know if I’m even able to go into the house again. Everything is tainted. You probably think that I’m mad, or overreacting. The problem is that the house is the very least of it. I can’t imagine going to bed with him again – how can I do that knowing that the last time he slept in our bed was with her? The last body he touched was hers? It makes me feel physically sick thinking about it. Please, whatever you do, Sam, don’t let it get to this point in your marriage. Go home and sort it out while there is still a clear way back or forward.’
Kate re-read his mail. It was odd talking about such personal things to a complete stranger, but there was real relief too, a bit like pouring your heart out to a stranger you meet on a train.
‘So how’s your day been? I won’t mind at all if you tell me it’s been dull – I’d really like to read something sane and ordinary – something about shuffling bits of paper from one side of the desk to the other. Meeting clients, doing business …’
She read through her page and then scrolled down his:
‘Venus, I know this might sound crazy but how about if we met up some time for a coffee? Or a meal maybe? No strings, no pressure, cross my heart. In many ways you and I have got a lot in common, or at least a lot we could talk about. I’m based in London a lot of the time – or would you like to call me, maybe? I’d be happy to give you my mobile number? It would be such a help to talk to someone who understands – from the outside I’ve got a good marriage, I’ve really got no one else I can confide in without letting the light in.’
Kate reddened slightly. The last thing she wanted at the moment was to talk to anyone else but it sounded churlish and ungrateful, after all hadn’t he spent most of the week listening to her?
Kate considered it for a few moments and then wrote,
‘I don’t think meeting up at the moment would be a good idea, Sam. My life is so bloody complicated I can’t work out which way is up and which down, so I’m not sure if face to face I’d be any help at all. Can we just carry on mailing for the time being? It isn’t that I don’t want to meet up at some stage. It might be nice. I kind of feel as if we are both survivors from some terrible disaster, dragged from a sinking ship. So maybe later when things have settled a bit – for both of us? I hope that’s okay. Thanks for being there, Sam. Night, night. With all best wishes, Venus.’
Kate pressed send and stretched before switching the machine off and heading up to bed. Across the hallway Maggie’s lamp was still on. For a few seconds Kate hesitated outside the sitting-room door wondering if she ought to go in and say goodnight. Eventually she turned and headed for bed; there would be lots more time to talk in the morning.
‘Will you stop snoring,’ Chrissie snapped in frustration, furiously digging Joe in the ribs.
‘Uh-mth-tun-m,’ snorted Joe, rolling over onto his side. Blessedly, it was enough to shut him up, but for how long? Waiting for him to start again was almost as bad as listening to him rumbling and snorting and growling.
Chrissie was cold and tired and on the edge of tears as well as the edge of the bed. The light outside the bedroom window was already changing from streetlight-orange to grey. The alarm would be going off soon although Chrissie didn’t dare look at the clock to check; she was depressed enough already. Beside her, Joe shifted position again, farted triumphantly, and then rolled back onto his back, dragging the duvet with him. She waited with baited breath for the snoring to resume.
How the hell had this happened? She’d traced the cracks that crossed and re-crossed the ceiling, tracing them to the lighting rose, and then back again to the edge of the room. Chrissie would have liked to close the curtains but couldn’t risk disturbing him. If she woke Joe he might want to talk some more or make love some more, or possibly eat some more, as he had pointed out at least half a dozen times that he’d had nothing but the Thai meal all day and he’d been sick since then.
Although it was late, Chrissie had fixed him beans on toast, hoping it would soak up any residual traces of alcohol – it was all she had had in the house – but it was maybe not such a wise choice for one who enjoyed his flatulence with such boyish gusto.
The bedside clock ticked. There was a long silent tense hiatus and then all of a sudden Joe made an odd wet noise in the back of his throat as finally he breathed in and then out. A one-man orchestra tuning up for his next performance, and then, sure enough, he fired up again with a great bubbling sonorous bellow.
Chrissie groaned and covered her ears, not that it was much help, the vibrations were almost as ghastly as the noise itself. Surely to God Kate hadn’t spent sixteen years listening to this?
It was too much. Careful not to wake him, Chrissie slithered out of her side of the bed, dropped onto all fours, and crawled silently across the bedroom, pulling her dressing gown after her as she went. Robbie hadn’t come home; his bed at the far end of the landing was empty. She could set his alarm, maybe get a couple of hours sleep before it was time to get up. As she got to the door Chrissie glanced back at Joe.
Rolled up in the duvet he looked like some enormous bull elephant seal beached up there amongst the pillows, lying diagonally across the bed, but more than that, worse than that, the whole room seemed to be suffused with him, his smell, his clothes and something less tangible that, if she was still a practising hippie, Chrissie would have sworn was his aura. Joe filled her space with self-centred gusto, squeezing her to the margins.
Kate stared at the bedside clock. The numerals were as red as her eyes felt. She felt as if she hadn’t been to sleep yet. Every time she closed her eyes her brain dropped down a gear and raced away into the distance finding new and terrible things to torment her with.
Finally, admitting defeat, Kate crept downstairs and went to the kitchen to get herself a glass of brandy. Maybe that would help. A shot of liquid anaesthetic to soothe away the residual pain. In passing she glanced up at the hall clock, annoyed by its smug tick-tick-tick cutting through the gloom. She felt horribly disturbed and unsettled and tired right through to the core. When the boys were little Kate used to think it was purely a matter of time before she died from lack of sleep.
Joe had been gigging a lot back then and would roll in, in the wee small hours, high as a kite on a combination of lager and adrenaline, banging and singing and – once he had got past the pretending to be quiet phase – desperate to talk, to share the evening with her. On those nights, as he had sprung onto the bed reeking of booze and fags, Kate had wished him dead. Or worse than dead, as one or other or both of the boys woke up at the sound of his voice, unnaturally loud in the otherwise quiet house.
At noon Joe would still be sound asleep. Lying in, unwakeable, while she sat in front of the TV trying to juggle a grizzling toddler with a pile of ads to write. Kate sighed and unscrewed the brandy bottle. Was that the smell of martyr burning? she thought grimly, pouring herself a hefty slug. Seemed that the torment hung on in there even when she hadn’t got her eyes shut. Maybe the booze would quieten her mind.
Across the hall Maggie’s light was still burning; Kate assumed that she’d left it on in case she needed to get out in the night, so it came as a surprise, when, as she tiptoed back to the bottom of the stairs, she heard Maggie’s voice call, ‘Kate? Is that you?’
Kate went over to the door and eased it open. ‘Yes, Mum. Do you want anything? Are you all right?’
‘I was about to ask you the same question.’
Maggie was propped up in bed, surrounded by a great nest of pillows, her plaster cast supported by a foam wedge and cushions. Unkindly the light picked out the bruises, the plains of dark and shade pointing out the tired circles under her eyes.
Kate smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t disturb you. I can’t sleep. I was just getting a drink.’ She held out the cut glass tumbler as if proof were needed. The brandy glittered in the lamplight.
Maggie looked as exhausted and pale as Kate felt. ‘I’m so angry,’ she said. ‘I keep snoring and waking myself up. It’s absolutely infuriating. God alone knows how Guy puts up with it. Presumably I don’t do it when I’m lying on my side or he’d have left me by now. Do you want to talk?’
Kate sighed thoughtfully. ‘Actually, I think I’ve probably done enough talking to last me for the rest of my life. I’m sick of the sound of my own voice, sick of the noise of my own thoughts. And I’m so tired,’ her voice was wobbly with emotion. ‘I’m tired right through to the core.’
Maggie beckoned Kate closer. ‘Come here, honey, it’ll be all right,’ she said gently.
Kate didn’t resist, instead she put the brandy down on one of the side tables and, like a child, settled down on the outer shores of the makeshift bed. Wriggling her toes under the comforter that hung over the end, she teased it up with bare feet until she was under it.
Maggie watched in amused silence. ‘If you’re going to stay there you’ll have to stop jiggling around.’
Kate giggled; they were words straight out of her childhood.
For a few minutes they lay side by side in companionable silence staring up at the shadows on the ceiling.
It was Kate who spoke first. ‘Is it all right if the boys come down here until Guy gets back?’
She felt rather than saw Maggie turn to look at her. ‘Well, of course it is, you know it’s all right. It doesn’t matter whether Guy is here or not. You can stay as long as you want. Want to tell me why now?’
Kate shook her head. ‘No, not tonight.’
Maggie stroked the hair back off Kate’s face. ‘Okay. Snuggle down then.’
Kate curled up onto the bed enjoying the uncomplicated feelings of comfort and within minutes was sound asleep and if Maggie snored, she certainly didn’t notice.
Chapter 15
‘Look, I’ll tell you what Mum, how about if I just leave these brochures with you and then you can take a look through them later, when you’re feeling up to it. At your leisure. Kate mentioned that you’d already said the house was getting too big for you.’ Liz paused, her mouth fixed in a little moue of concern.
Kate looked heavenwards. ‘I didn’t put it like that at all, Liz.’
‘No, no, it’s fine,’ Maggie said, waving her embarrassment away. ‘It is too big. I’ve been thinking about getting somewhere smaller for a while now.’
They were all sitting out on the terrace the following morning and if Kate had ever doubted God’s warped sense of humour this was the morning to prove her wrong.
Liz had arrived bang on ten.
‘Exactly. You see, Kate? I think it’s much better to make the move while you’re still fit and active and able to enjoy it. And South Acres Park looks absolutely perfect to me, although don’t let me influence you. They’ve got bowls and a little luncheon club, bus trips,’ Liz held the brochure out towards Kate and Maggie, ‘whist drives, and these wonderful self-contained little bungalows with a warden and meals brought in if you want them.’
Bloody brochures. Kate glared furiously at Liz, forgetting that her sister was totally flame-resistant.
‘Sounds like heaven if you ask me,’ said Julie Hicks, sipping her coffee. Julie had arrived at ten past ten bearing a Victoria sandwich and an extremely determined expression. Denied access the previous day she was unstoppable this morning. She took the leaflets Liz proffered and began to flick through them as if they were for a holiday cruise.
‘Looks so nice, I wouldn’t mind living there myself,’ Julie continued enthusiastically, reading the words under an artist’s impression of the finished development. ‘“The bungalows are situated around a secure and attractively landscaped environment, complete with extensive gardens, paved seating areas, a pergola, wildlife pool and wrought iron bird table, and yet are just a short walk from local amenities and bus route.”’
Liz looked smug. ‘There we are –’
Kate didn’t like to point out that she’d spent almost all her working life writing stuff like that and that Julie and Liz had taken the maggot, the hook, the line and the sinker whole.
Julie was on a roll now. ‘Twenty self-contained luxury flatlets, and twenty-five one-bedroom superior standard bungalows, with a central alarm system.’
‘It’ll be just like a little village when it’s finished – for a nicer class of person, obviously,’ Liz said. ‘The developers said it had already generated a lot of interest from a wide range of people, mostly retired professionals obviously at those prices. An ex-guards officer, a nice lady from quite high up in the civil service. It would be good to get in quickly on this new phase; they’ve got a view over the pond.’
‘You never know, you might even find yourself a new man, Mrs Sutherland,’ Julie interrupted with a wry smile.
Liz looked affronted. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she snapped.
For a moment Kate and Maggie’s eyes met conspiratorially, but before either of them could say anything, Liz continued, ‘It seems like a reasonable solution whichever way you look at it. I was talking to Peter about it; I thought that maybe we could get you one of those little pendant things that have got an alarm in them. I’ve seen them in the Sunday papers. We could get it as an early Christmas present.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Julie, ‘I know what you mean, with a red cross on them.’
Kate watched this performance in a kind of awe-struck silence wondering who it was that Liz – and come to that, Julie – saw when they looked at Maggie. Certainly not the woman curled on the beechwood sun lounger sipping apple a
nd mango juice through a straw. It had to be some kind of fictional projection that passed Kate by entirely.
Maggie was wearing a white tee-shirt and a denim skirt that finished just above the knee, one flat sandal, her hair tucked away in a soft knot, the tendrils falling round her face framing her strong jaw, and a pair of pendant drop earrings. Her toe and fingernails were painted dark flame orange. She had a light tan, she was wearing eyeliner, and smoking a roll-up. She could easily pass for someone in her late forties. She certainly wasn’t someone who appeared in need of meals on wheels, an alarm pendant and the odd shuffle round beautifully landscaped gardens to put crusts on the bird table to keep her going.
Kate glanced surreptitiously at her watch. It was just after eleven; the boys were due to arrive on the 12.03. It would be a relief to get away from Julie and Liz who had buddied up a treat.
Liz had turned up with a whole stack of catalogues, leaflets and brochures, covering everything from stress incontinence through lightweight surgical stockings to meals on wheels. Some of them had Post-it notes on the cover to flag up pages of interest. From the sun lounger Maggie had been watching Liz conduct her hard sell with a kind of bemused indulgence.
Liz was expecting to stay for lunch and Kate realised that unless she was very careful Julie Hicks might very well flex her gate-crashing muscle one last time and insist on joining them.
Julie and Liz had really hit it off and in an odd way Kate was relieved that they were picking on Maggie; she feared, though, that unless they could come up with another topic of conversation pretty quickly, Julie was planning to steer the conversation around to Joe. And then very possibly Andrew.
Kate was torn. Did she stay and help entertain the gruesome twosome, keeping everyone off the subject of men, marriage and common misconceptions, or leave things to fate and make a start on lunch?
‘So, how are things with you?’ Liz asked finally, turning to Kate now that her prepared speech had run its course. It felt like the opening wager in what might prove to be a long drawn out and possibly bloody game.
