by Adele Parks
It was hard; because he was older than she was, because he’d been studying for a PhD when she was a mere undergraduate, she’d never quite asserted herself. Most of the time they were fine, they were equals – in bed for instance – but when they talked about current affairs, art, literature or even money, he seemed to be in control. She was cast into the role of deputy.
He hadn’t even finished his damn PhD!
She supposed it was these conversations that hurried him into the vasectomy. She supposed he thought he was so clever.
She felt such rage. Pure, unadulterated, fiery rage. She had nowhere to spend it. No way to dissipate it. He didn’t want to listen to her. She couldn’t tell anyone else. Her friends, her mother, Mel. It was too humiliating. So, the rage flung its way around her body, ricocheting off her heart, bouncing around all her vital organs, spreading through her veins and arteries up to her brain. It intensified, multiplied. It ravaged her from the inside, while outside she had to keep smiling.
17
Melanie
‘She has a lovely way about her, don’t you think?’
‘She’s nice.’ Ben has his back to me, unbuttoning his shirt. We both feel tired after the busier than usual weekend.
‘She’s more than nice.’ The word is almost an insult used in reference to Abigail Curtiz. ‘She’s charismatic,’ I say firmly. I wash my face and then slap on a bit of moisturiser. I know I should gently smooth in the cream in long, even, upward strokes but it’s never been my way. ‘The kids loved her stories. She’s met everyone.’
‘I’m not sure that Lily and Imogen actually know who half the people are that she talked about.’
‘Oh they probably do. They loved hearing about Selena Gomez.’
‘Abigail only happened to be at a party that she was at. They didn’t speak to one another.’
‘Have you been at a party Selena Gomez has attended?’ I ask, amused. Ben shrugs. I think the effects of lunchtime drinking are making him feel a bit grumpy and out of sorts. He’s been acting moodily all afternoon. ‘Tanya and Liam were certainly impressed,’ I point out. ‘I mean, she’s interviewed three people from Game of Thrones.’
‘There’s a cast of thousands,’ he murmurs, as he walks into the bathroom to put his clothes in the laundry basket. ‘Do you think Liam and Tanya are OK?’
‘Liam and Tanya?’ I put toothpaste on both our brushes. ‘They seem as happy as ever.’
‘Really? I thought Liam was tetchy today. Not himself.’ I shrug. ‘You know, a bit spiky.’
‘He was just being a teen.’ I’m irritated that Ben seems to be looking for problems. Creating them. My experience is that enough come along without me going to the bother of hunting them out. Why can’t Ben just chill, enjoy this exciting little interruption to our lives? I mentally hum as I clean my teeth, relaxed, content. I spit and then say, ‘Have you noticed she seems to put people at their ease? I think it’s because she’s comfortable in her own skin, you know? Accepting of herself? So much so, that she finds it easy to be accepting of others.’
‘Tanya?’
‘No, Abigail.’
‘And you got all that from this weekend, did you? After a seventeen-year hiatus in your friendship,’ he asks, raising his eyebrows.
I finish my ablutions and climb into bed, Ben turns out the bathroom light and follows me. ‘Obviously, she’s still in pieces over Rob but she did well today, I think.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘She’s really brave. I don’t think I’d be able to get out of bed for a month if I found you doing that.’ Suddenly, I feel scared. Stupid of me because Ben’s fidelity is something I’ve always believed in and counted on. I trust him, he trusts me. We’re just not the sort to cheat on each other, to have affairs, to skulk around. We haven’t the energy, for a start. As I haven’t turned off my bedside lamp, Ben picks up a supplement from the Sunday paper. I don’t reach for anything to read. I want to chat.
‘It’s nice being around her,’ I observe.
‘Because she’s met famous people?’
‘Because she’s exceptional.’
Ben looks over the top of his magazine. ‘I’ve never seen you like this with anyone else before.’
‘Like what?’
‘Giddy. Eager. You seem eager to please her. Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why is she so important to you?’
‘What do you mean?’ He holds my gaze.
I shrug. ‘It’s just fun having a friend stay.’
‘Why didn’t Abi come to our wedding?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t remember,’ I mumble vaguely, suddenly deciding I do want to read after all. I look at the floor beside the bed – as usual there are about half a dozen books scattered about. I grab the nearest one and open it on any page, start reading immediately.
‘Did you invite her?’
‘I suppose I must have.’
‘But you can’t remember why she couldn’t make it.’
‘No.’
He’s silent for a moment. ‘She says she wasn’t invited.’
‘You’ve talked about it with her?’ My heart speeds up.
‘It came up when we were looking through the albums today.’
‘Well, I suppose I can’t have invited her then, if she says not. We didn’t have a huge wedding, did we? It’s a long time ago. I can’t remember exactly who could or could not attend and why.’ I hope he believes me. I hope he lets the matter drop.
‘I just wondered why I haven’t met her before and yet now you’re all my-home-is-your-home with her.’
I don’t know how to explain it to him but I know I need to say something. After a while I admit, ‘I feel I owe her.’
‘Owe her? How?’
I put down my book and turn on my side to face him. ‘She was kind to me when it mattered.’
‘In what way?’
So, I tell him the story of how Abigail was the first person I told about being pregnant. Sat in the tiny, utilitarian student bedroom in our scruffy student flat in Birmingham. As I tell him I drift back there. I see the Buffy and Trainspotting posters on the walls. The door to the skinny wardrobe is ajar, clothes are falling out and onto the floor; I’ve never been naturally neat. The positive pregnancy test is in the bin under my desk. The air is scented with my perfume (Flower by Kenzo); I squirted it around the room because I was sure I could smell the urine from the stick. Missy Elliott is playing. My heart is banging against my chest. It’s too much. I pull myself back to the here and now. This room. This bed.
‘She didn’t make me feel stupid or doomed,’ I explain. ‘She told me I could still have a fairytale. She said even Snow White got her prince and she had seven little fellas hanging on her apron strings, not just one. It was that. That kindness.’
I know I’m not explaining this fully or even well when Ben’s look of confusion just deepens. ‘So she’s here because she made a joke about dwarfs?’ he asks. His reaction annoys me. I’d hoped he’d get it.
‘Kindness,’ I reiterate. ‘She made me think that the pregnancy was just something that was happening, an experience, part of me, obviously, but not defining.’ Ben doesn’t look convinced and nor should he be. The truth is, my teenage pregnancy did define me, for good and ill, whether I like it or not.
The pregnancy was the reason I never managed to complete my degree but instead work in a clothes shop on the high street. Certainly, a good job – but not the one I’d been expecting. The pregnancy was the reason my parents practically kissed Ben’s feet when he proposed to me, they were so grateful that he’d ‘taken on’ their fallen girl. Ben always says he felt their gratitude was excessive; it wasn’t meant to be insulting but sort of was – their surprise that he’d fall in love with me and Liam. Insulting to everyone.
Ben runs his hand through my hair and murmurs quietly, ‘The pregnancy did define you, sweetheart, you know it did. But that’s not a bad thing. It’s a brilliant thing. The pregnancy is the reason you’re
Liam’s mother, fact.’
‘Well, obviously.’
‘You know, the way you were as a single mum was one of the reasons I was so attracted to you in the first place. I admired you. You were so strong and determined. So focused and selfless.’
I shrug off his hand that is stroking my hair. I like it but this sort of talk embarrasses me. I don’t deserve praise for just getting on with the mess I’d made.
‘You were so unlike any other twenty-five-year-old I’d ever dated, so unlike me at the time,’ he says.
True. Aged just twenty-seven when I met him, Ben was still pretty hedonistic back then. He was leading a life full of corporate meetings (where he shone), high-end holidays (where he surfed) and fun dates (where, more often than not, he shagged) but even so, from the moment I met him, I knew he was a good man. When he proposed to me he said he hoped he could be a better man, and he thought Liam and I might help him become just that. I already thought he was perfect but I understood what he was saying. We all want to be better. None of us can really forgive ourselves for being human.
Ben leans into me and kisses my lips. Softly. Tenderly. As he pulls away he says, ‘I don’t care what defined you. I love you fiercely, Mel. You and the three children you’ve given me. You’re the best things that ever happened to me.’
I don’t quite know what to say to this. Ben and I liberally bandy the word ‘love’ around our house. We say it to each other and the kids many times a day. This shouldn’t mean that it’s lost its currency as a word but it has, a bit. ‘Love you’ said at the end of a phone call or as you are dashing out of the house doesn’t hold its potency. This declaration was designed to hit the mark, to send tingles up my spine. Odd then that I just feel a little weighed down by it.
‘You know, it’s great you have a friend staying with us, but you don’t owe her anything for being nice to you,’ he says carefully.
I shake my head. I do owe her. I can’t explain.
He continues, ‘Hers was just the normal reaction. It was the other clowns that were odd.’
It’s true, everyone else wanted me to be ashamed. I roll away from him and turn out my bedside lamp. It’s worse than that: on some deep and long-buried level, I was ashamed. But saying so out loud would be a horrible betrayal of Liam.
18
Ben
Friday 2nd March
The week proved to be just as busy as Ben predicted. It was the sort of week where he and Mel only managed to see each other at handovers, conversation never developed beyond swapping of essential information: who had eaten what? Who needed to be where? What had to be packed in a school bag or a lunch box? Abi, true to her word, took time out to help Liam prepare for his internship interview. Time out from what exactly Ben couldn’t say. Abi wasn’t the sort of guest who pitched in generally. She’d wait until everyone was home from work and school then ask, ‘So what’s for dinner?’ rather than think of boiling some pasta and heating a tomato sauce. She lounged, while they scurried. She was always underfoot, as Ben’s mum would say. Abi spent her time calling London friends, ranting about her ex-husband, and drinking coffee and wine with his wife. There was a lot of that because no matter how harried they were, Mel always had time to pause for a joke or a chat with Abi. It was different with him; he couldn’t expect the type of manners that were reserved for visitors. There was no time for coffee. Or anything else, for that matter.
He was trying with Abi, he really was. Putting himself out, small courtesies to make her feel welcome, accepting her need to be tactile, when really he thought all her hugging and touching was a tad excessive. He wanted to make her feel at home. He liked her, on the whole; she was undeniably attractive, physically, it was just that he didn’t like her quite as much as Mel seemed to. Mel adored her. And Abi seemed to adore Mel; in fact she was oddly possessive about her. That was a bit irritating – after all, Mel was his wife. Abi was forever talking about their time at university, ‘Before your time, Ben,’ she’d say, waving her hand dismissively. A hand that usually held a cigarette, and although she followed house policy to the letter of the law, and did not smoke in the house, she often hung out of the window or lingered by the open patio doorway. Letting the heat out and the cool air and clouds of smoke in. It seemed that Abi had countless stories about their undergraduate antics. Stories she retold with great panache and relish, stories that caused Mel to sigh, and giggle, and blush. It was obvious that Mel had managed to have quite a lot of fun in her brief time at uni. He was glad of that and, also, a bit surprised. He hadn’t heard these stories before. When Mel talked about her time as an undergraduate she was always a little reticent; there was some level of embarrassment and disappointment. Hers? Other people’s? He wasn’t sure.
It appeared that Mel wasn’t the only person Abi had kept tabs on; she seemed to know about everyone they’d studied with. This showed a level of interest in others, a friendliness, which was something, he supposed, considering she’d moved abroad and was so successful. Since she was ‘A Famous’, as Lily kept saying, he’d have understood if she’d let old relationships slide. It was admirable that she hadn’t. She was always saying, ‘You must remember him’ or ‘How could you forget her?’ Mel nodded along but didn’t commit to a comment, and Ben knew that Mel didn’t have a clue who these people were. If they had ever been friends, then they had fallen by the wayside a long time ago. Apparently, according to Abi, everyone they’d ever studied with was ‘just absolutely brilliant’, ‘totally marvellous’ or (this was her favourite) ‘very, very successful’. This accolade was delivered with reverence, often in a whisper and the information accompanied by a wink. Other than Abi herself, Ben had never met a single person from Mel’s university years. They must have all been so absolutely brilliant, totally marvellous and very, very successful that they couldn’t send a Christmas card. It might have been different if she’d kept up her studies, but it had proven impossible; not enough hours in the day, not enough pounds in the bank account. And since? Well, they connected from time to time on Facebook at best. He used to resent the way these people had let Mel slip out of their lives. He felt angry that they hadn’t valued her enough to want to stay in touch. Now Abi had found her way to their door, it was churlish to wish she hadn’t bothered.
Fact: there was just not enough space, they were falling over one another. Last night he came home to the house and assumed it was empty. Mel took the girls to ballet on Thursdays, Liam usually went round to Tanya’s. As he pushed open the front door he heard it – silence. He mini-punched the air. It was such a relief. Abi, he guessed, had gone along to the ballet class. He loosened his tie, kicked off his shoes. He didn’t have any plans to hog the TV and remote, he just wanted to clear some emails that he hadn’t managed to get to as his day had been full of meetings. Not a lot to ask. That nirvana now seemed within his grasp. However, he no sooner set up his laptop on the kitchen table than Abi dawdled in. It was only just seven but she was dressed in a silky robe; her bare legs and painted toes distracted him more than they should.
‘I was just taking a bath. I didn’t expect you home yet,’ she commented, as though he was the interloper. ‘Normally you aren’t back until after eight.’ This wasn’t true – normally he tried to get home by six, preferring to spend a bit of time with his family, even if it meant working late at night after the kids were in bed. Since Abi had been visiting, he’d found it more efficient to stay in the office a little longer. More efficient and more comfortable.
‘I thought I’d have the house to myself. I’ve some things I still need to plough through.’ He knew he was being tactless, rude, really. He couldn’t help himself. It was her legs, and her skin, soft and flushed from her bath – they agitated him. Made him snappy. Abi moved to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Chardonnay.
‘Do you want a glass?’
‘No thank you, I need to keep a clear head.’
She shrugged. The cold wine shivered into her glass; he wished he’d said yes. Ben tried to turn h
is attention to his work, hoped Abi would take the hint, go and sit in the TV room, leave him to it. She didn’t. She sat down and then swung her tanned, toned legs up onto the chair next to his. She let her head flop backwards – her hair dangled down behind her, damp. She closed her eyes but her mouth parted. A little wet gap.
‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ she said suddenly. He was startled. Looked away quickly. Did she know he’d been staring?
‘What for?’
‘Well, for being here. Being in the way.’ She sat forward now, eyes wide open. She clasped at the neck of her silky robe. It pulled the material across her breasts, somehow making her seem less respectable, not more.
‘Not at all. No,’ he said, without conviction. She waved away his objections and he was too honest to continue to protest.
‘I’m a complication you don’t need,’ she stated, flatly.
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Why not? It’s true. I can see you are a busy man. Conscientious at work, a good husband, an involved father of two.’
‘Three. I have three children,’ Ben corrected.
‘Yes, of course. I only meant you have two little ones. Liam is grown up.’
‘Well, not entirely.’
‘Three. Right. I didn’t mean anything.’
Ben knew he should leave the matter – she probably hadn’t meant anything by her comment; a slip of the tongue. Still, he found himself saying, ‘One readymade, the other two needed popping in the oven and baking.’ It was a crass explanation. Why had he put it like that? He was always jokey in public when anything deep was being discussed; he was not the sort to wear his heart on his sleeve – he kept that for Mel alone. But suddenly his explanation for the evolution of their family seemed wrong. Next, he’d be telling Abi he’d bought one and got one free, that Mel was a BOGOF.
Abi obviously thought he was vulgar too; she looked faintly disturbed and murmured, ‘Quaint.’
Ben turned his attention back to his emails. It was probably best not to get into this. He didn’t have the time or inclination. Unfortunately, Abi obviously had other ideas.
