The Reinvention of Martha Ross

by Charlene Allcott

  I sink the first glass quickly, too quickly; the effects of the alcohol are immediately felt in my head and extremities. I pour another glass and then break a big chunk of cheddar from a block in the fridge to line my stomach. I walk round the house nibbling on my cheese, taking in little details that I’ve never noticed in all the years of coming here, like a small bowl of mints on the kitchen counter and a large vase filled with umbrellas by the door. As I head upstairs I realize there’s another reason I’m here. I want to study them – Leanne and James. I might get some insight into what it is that makes a marriage work.

  I start in the bathroom; the best questions are answered in the bathroom. The cupboard is full of very expensive cleansers and at least five different moisturizers, so perhaps the secret to a long-lasting relationship is very good skin. The only thing that looks like it might belong to James is a dusty bottle of aftershave. Alexander is metrosexual when it comes to products. Perhaps the answer is letting your wife have more space in the cabinets.

  The half a bottle of wine I’ve consumed has emboldened me and I decide it’s perfectly OK to go into the master bedroom. The room is all soft and creamy and not the sort of place secrets could hide at all. I peek into the cupboards and in the bedside cabinets; not a break-up letter or a sex toy to be found. I start to feel desperate. I look under the bed and deep into the sock drawer, and then under the dresser I find a battered old shoebox. I open it gingerly and as I do a photo slips on to the floor. It’s a picture of Leanne and James circa 2014; I know this because Leanne still has a tragically severe crop that she got in a bid to be taken more seriously at work and then spent a year growing out. In the picture James has his face squeezed up against hers; his eyes are closed but his face still bursts with pleasure. Leanne looks irritated by him but if you know her, as I do, you can tell that she’s loving it. I start to look through the photos, dozens of terrible, blurred selfies from a time before selfies were a thing; photos of a wet-eyed James holding a tiny, wrinkled Millie. I scoop up the box and take it to the living room, retrieving the rest of the wine on the way. The box is a journey through Leanne’s life. Unlike her Facebook it’s unedited; photos featuring her with no make-up or with sneaky rolls of flab showing sit right alongside shots of her looking radiant in her youth.

  Towards the bottom of the box are a collection of Leanne and me throughout our school days together, including a photo of us standing awkwardly in our school uniforms and looking ridiculously young. I remember feeling like I knew so much and that my troubles were so weighty; looking at the pictures we were clearly babies. There’s another picture of us in swimwear, which I’m sure was taken on the day Leanne discovered Troy’s fatal flaw. There’re photos of trips and events that have long since deserted my memory bank. I would never have kept evidence of a time when I felt so ugly and unfortunate. Looking at the pictures now, I regret this. I don’t look ugly, I look wonderful, and between the two of us this past version of me is far more fortunate. The secret, I think, is in this shoebox. The secret is cherishing everything, even the things that feel hideous at the time.

  I must fall asleep because light streaming through the window is what wakes me. The photos have gone, and I have been covered with a throw. My mouth feels dry, so I get up and go to the kitchen to find something to drink. Any evidence of last night’s carnage has disappeared and on the counter, covered in cling film, is a plate of twelve identical biscuits. I take one and bite into it. It’s light but still chewy. It’s honeyed and full of fruit and there’s also a touch of spice. It’s perfect.

  37

  I GO UP to the spare room and get into bed beside Moses. Shortly afterwards, Leanne comes to the door in a skirt suit and grey T-shirt. ‘See you tonight, I guess,’ she says. ‘The spare key is on the hook in the kitchen.’ She doesn’t mention the fact that I trashed her house or went through her personal belongings or got drunk when her children were supposed to be under my care; so I don’t either. ‘Do you want me to take Moses into nursery when I drop off Lucas?’ They don’t actually go to the same nursery but it’s sort of on the way. I know I should say no – I should tell her that she’s done enough – but I nod my head. She leaves the room and I wake Moses and get him ready. This is when I love him most, when his body is warm and uncoordinated.

  Leanne comes back up to get him. ‘Should I give him a breakfast bar?’ she says, looking at him anxiously.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ I say, ‘they give them breakfast.’ Leanne narrows her eyes at me. For once I can’t tell what her expression is saying but I think she basically believes I outsource my parenting. I’m too tired to try and challenge this so I let her reach out for Moses’s hand.

  Millie appears behind her and says, ‘Fanks for making the biscuits, they’re ’licious.’ Leanne and I look at each other but she doesn’t say anything. When they’re gone I climb back into bed and lie there until my bladder won’t let me any longer. I need a plan. My doctor’s note from the hospital has a couple more days on it and the hours stretch ahead of me intimidatingly. I need coffee and then a plan. I message George.

  Marthashotbod: Good morning x

  Undeterred83: How are you? Sorry I’ve been MIA. Just found out I’ve got funding for a new project. Been doing some research.

  Marthashotbod: No worries. I’m better thanks. Good luck with it.

  Undeterred83: Thanks. I’ll message you later.

  Marthashotbod: OK.

  I wish I had some news of my own to share with him. I try and work out how to make coffee in Leanne’s fancy machine and end up with a mug of dirty lukewarm water. I find a jar of decaf instant in the cupboard and add loads of sugar. As I drink it I look out to the garden. I’ve never really understood gardens – they’re like a whole extra room to maintain and clean but one that, in this country, you can only use two and a half months of the year. It does look very peaceful out there, though. I remember digging up potatoes on the retreat and I contemplate going outside.

  I decide against it because I know it won’t be the same doing it alone; I’ve never felt more alone. I meant to walk away from Alexander leaving everything else intact but it’s like ripping him out has frayed the edges of the rest of my life. Despite being an only child, I’ve always been shit at going it alone – I need someone else to validate my decisions. Leanne has done that for me for almost as long as I remember.

  We didn’t immediately become friends at school. I’d noticed Leanne but had written her off. I thought she was the kind of girl one would describe as perky, someone who wouldn’t have allowed my presence to dull their shine. For the first year of secondary school I hung out with a couple of girls I’d vaguely known at juniors – a mouthy brunette called Janine, who even at that age it was apparent would lead me down a path of destruction and promiscuity; and a meek, mousy girl, Sophia, who had the unfortunate affliction of frequent, unannounced nosebleeds. If I’m honest I wanted an upgrade.

  During a geography test I got one. I was stuck on a question on the formation of cliffs. We had attended a field trip to Seven Sisters but I had spent the day worrying about the fact that my new jeans didn’t fit right around the crotch. I couldn’t remember anything that we had been told and was chewing on my purple gel pen, hoping for divine inspiration, when Leanne, who was sitting next to me, hissed, ‘You need to write in black.’ She slid a biro across the desk and I quickly exchanged my purple pen for her offering. She finished the test long before me, and left the room before I could return her property. I carried it with me for nearly a week, until I found myself behind her in a long lunch line.

  ‘How did you do?’ she asked as I handed her the biro.

  ‘Crap,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ she admitted. I didn’t know at the time that Leanne’s ‘crap’ and my ‘crap’ were entirely distinct entities.

  ‘You wanna study together for the next one?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. She grabbed my hand and used the pen I had returned to write her number on it. Even when the m
ost attractive guy I have ever met gave me his number (a Trinidadian basketball player I met in a club in Soho, whom I never saw again because he either typed his number incorrectly or offered it insincerely), the thrill was not matched by the moment Leanne took hold of my hand and extended hers in friendship. From then on, I stopped feeling alone. There was always someone to bounce off and to reassure. We remained that way until after university, when I met Alexander. It’s like he was a virus killing off other parts of my life, making me weaker. And somehow, he was still managing to do it.

  The ringing doorbell startles me. I try to pull my tunic, crumpled from a night’s sleep, down my thighs before I open the door. Behind it is a handsome man, sort of surreally handsome. Blond, windswept hair; slow, sexy smile; and, despite the low temperatures, thick, brown biceps, gripped by the almost-too-tight sleeves of a brilliant, white T-shirt.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Hi,’ he says absent-mindedly, rubbing his abs with his hands. ‘I’m the window cleaner.’ I can’t help but think of a really bad porn film Leanne and I once watched after she stole it from her older half brother. This makes me blush and then the fact that I’m embarrassed makes me flush even more.

  ‘Just looking for this month’s payment.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  I run upstairs and grab my purse. When I’m back at the front door I try to count out fifteen pounds but only find eleven pounds sixty-three, a piece of chewing gum and a kirby grip.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Do you want a tenner and then you can get the rest from Leanne later?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘Give her my card; she can pay me next time or do a transfer.’ As he reaches up the step to pass me the card the bottom of his T-shirt rises up to unveil a thick stripe of taut skin. It takes me a few seconds to remember what to do with my arm before I reach out and take it. I watch him walk away. The business card is beautiful. In thick, gorgeous typography it says ‘Dean Halpin, Windows’ and his contact details. I feel a bit sick. Everything in Leanne’s life is aspirational; even her hot window cleaner has his shit together. If I want to be a woman to be reckoned with I can’t hang about in gardens, I can’t expect anyone to hold my hand. I need to face up to my problems and make things happen and I have to start today. I send a message.

  ‘MEET ME IN BILL’S AT 12 P.M.’

  38

  SHE ARRIVES NINE minutes late. She’s completely barefaced and when she takes off her leather jacket I see she’s wearing a soft grey T-shirt, so lived in that it’s evident that what she isn’t wearing is a bra. Her look says, ‘I try not to be sexy but, God damn it, I just can’t help it.’

  ‘Thanks for coming, Poppy,’ I say.

  ‘No, no! Thanks for asking! I wanted to message you but Alexander said you’d need some time.’ And there he is, casually coming out of her mouth within a minute of meeting. Fortunately, we are interrupted by a waitress.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ she asks.

  Poppy flashes her a brilliant smile before asking me, ‘Are we drinking?’ I want to slap her. My right hand actually itches.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Ooh, OK,’ says Poppy. She plays with a lock of hair as she looks at the menu. ‘I’ll have a hot chocolate, please. Do you have any marshmallows?’ She looks back at the waitress.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she says.

  ‘No worries,’ says Poppy. ‘You have amazing cheekbones, by the way.’

  The waitress touches her face. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Would you like some cream or something with your hot chocolate?’

  ‘Oh, you’re amazing,’ says Poppy. The waitress looks at her like she’s a little bit in love. When she leaves, Poppy turns her attention to me. She creates a little ledge with her hands and rests her chin on it as she appraises me. ‘You’re looking really good,’ she says.

  I fold my arms. ‘Let’s start by getting one thing clear,’ I say. ‘We’re not gonna be friends.’ I feel grateful that I have never liked her. I remember the first time she was introduced to me and stood there with this expression of faux humility, as if silently apologizing for being so attractive.

  Alexander, sensing my apprehension, would often try and sell her to me. ‘Poppy has started an ironic cross-stitch group for young professionals; you might like it?’ The fact that he stopped doing this several months ago should have alerted me to something. From what I understand, Poppy started as an intern, which meant fetching Alexander sushi and tidying up, and then her role stretched and morphed into a PA, which meant the same with the occasional email. She was studying interior design or visual merchandising or something that made me think, yeah, you probably don’t have to be able to read to do that. When our paths crossed at the flat she would often try to ingratiate herself with me by offering a macaroon or a used magazine, but I resisted her charm offensive. Today I see that all those little gestures were silent apologies for her betrayal. I take a sip of my water.

  ‘So, when did you start fucking my husband?’ I ask. It’s a bit soap opera but it feels so good saying it.

  Poppy coughs. She leans back and places her hands in her lap. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she says.

  ‘No? You haven’t slept with him?’

  Poppy clears her throat. ‘Neither of us saw this coming. It wasn’t like we planned to … It was more of an emotional relationship, I guess.’ Make me gag. ‘I know things have been hard for you two since Moses was born and so I … I just don’t think this had anything to do with me, really. Perhaps it made what was already there clearer.’

  Did Alexander cheat on me? I don’t know and the reason I don’t know is because, as many couples fail to, we did not lay down the groundwork and agree with each other, or even ourselves, what cheating actually was. Was it cheating to walk to the expensive coffee shop because the barista has a cute smile? Was it cheating to give up your seat on the train to a perfectly able-bodied woman simply because you want her to think of you as gallant? Was it cheating for your knee to be pushed against your new colleague’s thigh when having lunch in a crowded pub and to leave it there just a few seconds too long before moving it? If yes, then I suppose Alexander did cheat, but then so did I.

  ‘Did you ever think that maybe he was just spinning you a line? “My wife doesn’t understand me” – it’s like king of the clichés.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Poppy. ‘He wasn’t telling me to get anything from me, he just knew I could meet him where he is. Anyway, I had a boyfriend.’

  ‘And he had a wife.’

  The tips of Poppy’s ears turn red. She is so young and for the first time I don’t think about this with envy. I look at her and I see me ten years ago, seduced by Alexander’s insistence that I was the only woman that could save him.

  ‘You know why you can meet him where he is? Because you’re not fully formed; you’re basically amoebic in your emotional development. You can meet him where he is because you don’t know who you are. Let me tell you now – not as his ex or your rival or whatever – as a woman to a, well, almost woman. Get out, don’t make the mistake I did. However shiny and pretty he looks now, it’s all just an illusion.’

  ‘He said you’d say that,’ says Poppy. She looks sad, as if she’s disappointed that I’m so predictable. The waitress brings out her drink; I want to stand up, put my hand on the back of her head and push her face into the cream on top of that hot chocolate. Maybe Greg’s right; perhaps I do have a problem with violence. ‘People grow apart,’ she says. ‘I can’t help that.’

  ‘So when you two grow apart, or more specifically you grow up, it will be OK if some floozy takes him away from you?’

  ‘If that’s what he wants,’ she says.

  ‘How very big of you,’ I say.

  ‘That’s the thing: we just give each other what the other wants.’

  ‘I agree,’ I say. ‘He wants to pretend he’s a kid. He wants to act like he has no responsibilities but he does.’

&nbs
p; ‘Oh, he knows that,’ says Poppy. ‘He adores Moses and so do I.’

  ‘That’s cute,’ I say, ‘but he can’t raise our child on adoration alone.’

  ‘Look, Moses has nothing to do with this – he still loves Moses.’ Implication received. He no longer loves me. I move my chair closer to the table, so that she can see the seriousness in my eyes.

  ‘Tell him from me I want you nowhere near my child.’

  ‘That’s not reasonable,’ says Poppy.

  ‘It’s perfectly reasonable. Moses has been through enough without someone else playing Mummy to him. You’d know that if you had kids.’

  Poppy smiles and I am filled with horror. She is smiling because she doesn’t have kids but she is thinking, as most women at the start of a relationship do, that she could. She could have a child with the father of my child. We would be linked for the rest of our lives and Alexander would have to parent two children when he does such a sloppy job of parenting one. Poppy glances around before she speaks, as if checking for witnesses.

  ‘I’m in Alexander’s life, so I’m in Moses’s. I appreciate you might not feel comfortable with that but please accept it. It will be so much easier if we’re friends. I’m actually really nice.’ I think this is meant to be a joke but nothing about its delivery indicates this. Also, I get the sense that she’s loving this; she’s soaking up the drama of it all. How exciting to play the role of the measured mistress. I can see her later, recreating the scene for her friends. I know she’ll shake her head and say, ‘It’s insane!’

  ‘I know this is all fun and games for you, your little adventure with an older man, but this is my life; this was a family. You don’t know half of what we’ve been through. You weren’t there when his mum passed away or when our dead baby was dragged out of my body. You don’t know how devastating it all was.’