by Sarah Hope
‘Oh Elsie I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re the only one I can trust. Them lot are just out to get me.’ Her body begins to shake with relief and I hug her back tightly as she cries into my shoulder.
Once I’ve promised Betty we will be fine and managed to convince Mum it’s perfectly safe to come out from behind her cushions we sit on her bed, Mum lying in the foetal position, her head in my lap. Stroking her hair, I feel her body begin to relax and her breathing regulate. Looking down I see her sleeping.
Only now I allow my mind to remember what brought me here in the first place. The row with Ste. How can I accept that he’s replaced me so quickly? What if they haven’t just started seeing each other? What if it’s been going on longer? Before he left me even? That would make more sense. He must have been having an affair. What type of word is that for such a dirty lie? A fair. Not so fair for the person left to pick up the pieces that’s for sure.
How could he? We’ve been together since kids. We love each other. He promised to love and care and cherish me forever and ever ‘‘til death do us part’ and all that. It was him who was eager to get married. He who wanted to promise himself to me. I didn’t force him into anything. So why would he want to leave? Has he really no feelings left for me? Does he really not love me anymore? Does he love that blonde tart? Who is she? What’s she got that I haven’t?
My head’s spinning for all of the unanswered questions. Looking down into Mum’s face I see her cheek is wet and it takes me a minute to realise it’s my tears and not hers. Watching them splash on her check and form little streams, running through the dips in her wrinkled skin, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to stop. I can’t help myself. I cry for Ste. I cry for what he’s putting the kids through. I cry for what might have been but what will no longer be. I cry for the third child I so longed for and thought he would agree to. I cry for the problems left to face. I cry for Mum. I just want my Mum. I need my Mum. Why can’t she be here for me?
And finally I cry for me.
After what feels like hours I wipe my eyes and carefully manoeuvre Mum’s head onto her pillow. Letting myself out of her room as quietly as possible I head out towards the car.
I hate to think it but it’s a relief when it gets to eight o’clock and I can get Charlie out of the door and take him to school. He’s been so excited since I told him his dad was coming to see him today. Ste is all he’s been talking about. It’s Dad this, Dad that. He seems to have completely forgotten the rat ignored him in town on Friday.
Me, on the other hand am absolutely dreading it. To be honest it’s all I’ve been thinking about too, though for completely different reasons. Obviously. I really don’t know how I got through the weekend. I couldn’t have coped at all had it not been for Rachel having Charlie round to ‘help’ her with Thomas. Bless her. I spent Sunday morning crying in the bath and the afternoon trying to talk to Mandy when she eventually rose at gone one o’clock. Not that it did any good. Mandy is adamant she will not see Ste this evening and berated me for letting him come round.
We’re walking to school today. It’s not far, only half an hour’s walk but we normally go by car. I don’t usually have the time to spare but today I’ve decided that we shall walk. Mainly to get out of the house early but I also need to clear my head. I’ve been all over the place since my confrontation with Ste. I’ve either been desperately crying or feeling so angry that I can hardly breathe.
After seeing Charlie into his classroom safely I turn and quickly make my way out of the school gates. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen him into class since Ste left.
Oh no, just as I’d feared, there’s Alison dolled up in her bright red coat and matching lippy. She’s one of the worst. I remember when poor Laura divorced her husband it took Alison months to stop looking at her pitifully and exclaiming, ‘Oh I don’t know how you do it, raising poor Michelle on your own, you poor love.’ She even prepared dinner for her at least twice, brandishing a casserole dish in front of all the other parents. Well, I certainly don’t want her pity. Pulling my scarf up higher and my hood down lower I turn quickly in the direction of the office pretending to have business to attend to with the school secretary. Phew, that was close she even called my name but I think I did a good job of pretending not to have heard or seen her.
Leaving through the main entrance I head towards home. Mandy will have left for school by the time I get home. It disconcerts me to acknowledge that I’m quite pleased she will have already gone. It sounds awful but I don’t feel strong enough to face her again. She really doesn’t want Ste coming round tonight and if she says it again I might just cancel on him. That’s what I want to do. I really do but I know I can’t. I know it’s best for Charlie, and Mandy even if she doesn’t know it yet. In the long run she’ll thank me.
Coming round from my thoughts I find myself, soaked to the bone, sat on a soggy bench in the park halfway home. Shaking I go to stand up but I can’t stop thinking that Ste might have been seeing this woman before he walked out on me. What if he had? Does he really have it in him to have an affair? I would never have thought so before but if these last few weeks have taught me anything it’s that I don’t know him like I thought I did. Or of course that he has changed so much since I thought I knew him. I don’t know if that makes any sense. It doesn’t really to me but nothing about this situation makes any sense anymore. We were in love. At least I was. But even if he has changed could he really have changed so much that he would be unfaithful to me? To our kids?
It would all make sense though. If he had been seeing her whilst we were still together I mean. His shifts at the hospital getting longer and longer. All the urgent phone calls he had to take away from me because he was protecting patient confidentiality. What if he had been talking to her? What about the two, three weekends he had to go away on consultant training or whatever it apparently was? What if he had been with her? Retching I run to the nearest bin and throw up.
I throw up thinking about him and her. Them together. Them holding hands. Them having sex. Or worse making love. When I finally stop I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my coat and look up to notice three youths hanging around the swings watching me. Sod them; I don’t care what they think of me. I just don’t have it in me to care, to think anymore. All I want to do is get home and shower, scrub the horrible thoughts away.
I let the water spray my upturned face for far longer than necessary, trying to imagine the pounding water washing away the events of the last few weeks. I imagine that when I step out of the shower Ste will be waiting with a towel to wrap me up in like he did when we first got together. I imagine that we will go downstairs and enjoy a cosy day on the sofa until we go and pick Charlie up from school.
My thoughts switch to me shouting at him. Shouting at him for leaving us. Shouting at him for ignoring the kids. Shouting at him for being with another woman. Shouting at him for seeing her behind my back. It’s all I can do to stop shouting out loud. Letting some of the pent up anger inside of me out.
I need to know if they were together before he walked out. They must have been surely? I need some proof. I just need to know. Getting out of the shower I wrap a towel around me, not having the energy to dry, go into our, my room and start to rummage in his drawers. Not that there is much left. I look through the few underpants and socks that he has left behind. Too manky looking to be seen by another woman I guess. There’s nothing. No receipts or love tokens.
Now to the wardrobe. There’s even less in here, just the odd summer t-shirt. Nothing. Running to the box room, the urge to find out the truth is almost too much for me to bear now. What am I looking for? I pull books off the shelf and look behind photo frames. Anywhere that he may have hidden something. Nothing.
Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. It’s his desk that will hold the answer. Tugging open the drawers I sieve through piles of medical papers. Some medical business cards fall out but nothing looks suspicious. None that suggests anything untoward.
I rummage in the next drawer where he keeps all of the bills. No, nothing. I yank the third and final drawer but it’s stuck fast. It’s jammed. I pull harder but it won’t budge. Stopping I look closer. It’s locked. It has a small padlock on it, just at the side. One he’s put on himself. It was never there before. Why would he have put a lock on it? Oh yes he did say something about fitting a lock on a drawer to keep the passports and kid’s birth certificates in. Looking around for the key I chuck everything off the desk in the process. No key. Glancing behind me I see a trophy Mandy won for gymnastics years ago now lying on the floor by the door. Grabbing it I hit the padlock. Knowing Ste it will be a cheap one, probably one of those ones you get in Christmas crackers. He certainly wouldn’t have paid much for it. He never pays much for anything. Always watching the pennies as he says. Stingy more like. He’s got worse recently insisting that we needed to put more and more away each month into savings for a rainy day.
Yes, there it goes. The padlock pings across the room letting me tug open the drawer. Passports, birth certificates and a black folder. What’s that then? I open it up hurriedly. Oh, bank statements. Just bank statements. Locking them away is going a bit too far in the security stakes surely?
Slouching back on my heels defeated I look around me. The carpet is covered with papers, magazines and trinkets that were once on or in his desk and shelves. Maybe he wasn’t seeing her before he left. Maybe. But then again it just doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he answer me when I asked him at the hospital? A thought suddenly occurs to me and I grab the folder with the bank statements it.
And there it is. In black and white. I don’t understand. Surely not. Not him. Not my Ste. There is a standing order on last month’s statement for £597 to Halifax. What on earth? I look back at the previous month’s statement and the one before that. This amount has been going out of our account since August. That’s almost six months ago. It’s an odd amount to transfer to a savings account each month. Then I remember our savings are with our normal bank, HSBC, not Halifax. And, look, there is still a monthly transfer to our savings account. So what’s this then? A loan? That must be an awfully big loan. Why would he have taken out a loan? I sieve through the other bank statements until I find an agreement at the back of the folder. An agreement for a mortgage. Not our mortgage. A different one. What?
Barely focusing anymore I can’t take it in. Why would he have a mortgage for another house? Has he brought one to rent out? He was always talking about it. About letting property to secure our financial future but he wouldn’t have done so without me agreeing.
At that moment I hear a key in the lock and it hits me. Ste is here. It can’t even be eleven o’clock and he’s here already.
I sit exactly where I am clutching the mortgage agreement in one hand and holding my bath towel tight around me with the other until I sense that he is behind me.
‘What’s this?’ I thrust it at him, my voice barely a whisper.
‘Lynette what have you been doing? How dare you go through my things? Look at the state of this place.’ Unbelievable. He doesn’t even look down at me or what I am brandishing at him. He’s more interested in the state of his precious office.
‘I said, ‘What is this?’’
Reluctantly taking it from my hand he looks at it and I watch the colour drain from his face.
‘Well?’ He doesn’t have to answer me. I can see it in his face. It’s not a buy to let mortgage. It’s much worse. It’s a place for him to be with her.
‘You’ve moved her in there haven’t you?’ I physically spit the word ‘her’ out. ‘You’ve not just met her have you? You’ve been having an affair. How long for? How long has it been going on? You brought the place in August. That’s six bloody months ago Ste. You must have been seeing her before that even.’
‘Lynette I...I didn’t want you to find out. Not like this.’
‘Oh no? So how did you want me to find out then? Through my kids? Like I found out you were seeing someone? Someone I naively thought you had started seeing after you broke off our marriage.’ I spit the words out at him.
‘I love her. It’s not a sordid fling like you’re making out it is.’
‘You love her?’ shouting now, I can’t stop myself. ‘You love her? Like you loved me? You don’t know what bloody love is. You’re incapable of loving anyone but yourself. You think of no one else. And you don’t care who you hurt in the process.’ Standing up I push him out of my way trying to get away from him. I push him with such force that he stumbles falling backwards.
‘Let us talk about this.’ He grabs my wrist and yanks it so hard I almost trip up. Twisting out of his grasp I run into the bedroom, locking the door behind me.
I sit on the bed shaking, gripping my towel tighter and tighter around me as though it can shut the world out. I can hear Ste calling me to open the door.
‘Just leave me alone Ste. Just leave,’ I hope he can hear my hoarse voice through the door.
‘I’ll come back later when you’ve calmed down.’
And with that I hear him retreat back downstairs listening with relief as the door slams shut again.
Calmed down? When will I ever be calm again? He has tossed my life up in the air and seems to be enjoying watching it tumble down in pieces. Everything is hundreds of times worse than it had been only hours earlier.
My life is in shreds. What’s she like? This woman? This slapper that would bed and move in with someone else’s husband? She can’t have any morals. Obviously she can’t care about anyone but herself. Why would she want to break up someone else’s marriage? Why did she even get involved with him in the first place knowing that he had a wife and kids? Who would even do that?
I can picture her in my mind’s eye. This woman. She has long blonde hair. I know that already from Charlie’s description of her. I bet she’s young, beautiful and slim. Everything I’m not. I bet she has a flat stomach compared to my flabby mummy tummy still bearing the stripes of pregnancy. I bet her boobs are large and firm not almost non-existent pancakes that have never been the same since breastfeeding two kids. I bet she’s interesting too. Ste always moans at me for only talking about the kids or my Mum. Well, that’s my life. They are my life. I don’t have time for anything else.
The hatred I feel for her knots my stomach. She has ruined my family. She has come into our lives and blown everything apart.
What am I supposed to do now? What will this do to the kids? Fair enough the complete treachery will go over Charlie’s head thank goodness but what about poor Mandy? She will understand the enormity of what he’s done. She’s taken him leaving bad enough, how will she cope knowing this?
How dare he? He couldn’t cope with having another child whilst waiting for his promotion to consultant but can cope with juggling two lives. He must have gotten a pay rise. A big pay rise. Big enough to have hidden this mortgage and bills going out of our account without me noticing a drop in his income. Even though he kept saying there wasn’t much of a pay rise, nothing to speak about he had said, it was the prestige not the money that counted. What a load of rubbish. How thick am I to have just accepted that lie?
My head feels like it’s going to explode with all the questions and possibilities that keep running through my head. Sinking into the soft pillows I let my eyes close, trying to shut my brain off to the mess in my head.
The shrill noise of the phone ringing cuts through my sleep. Jumping up I run down to the hall to answer it.
‘Hello?’ I ask breathlessly.
‘Mrs Andrews? It’s Mrs Radcliffe. I’m calling from your son Charlie’s school. Nobody has collected him.’
‘Oh no,’ looking at the clock above the sideboard I see that it’s ten to four. I’ve slept for hours. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll be right there.’
Throwing the phone down I run upstairs, dropping my towel in the laundry basket on my way.
Ten minutes later and feeling very flustered I run into the school office.
‘I
’m so sorry,’ I mumble to the sour faced secretary and grab Charlie in a bear hug. ‘Charlie, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.’
‘That’s okay Mum, I’ve been practising my spellings for Friday.’ He shows me a list of ten words and I spot ‘hate’ and ‘mate’ on there.
‘Oh are you learning the long ‘a’ sound this week?’ I ask whilst simultaneously thinking what a cruel joke it is for the teacher to give the word ‘hate’ together with ‘mate’.
Bundling Charlie into the car, I try to listen to him chattering on about all the sounds he’s been learning and how many ways there are to spell the long ‘a’ sound.
I get to the top of our street and stop, right there in the middle of the road. It’s his car. Ste’s car. Parked outside our house. What? Is it not enough that he’s revealed to me he has set up home with his mistress? He’s got to come back to rub salt in my wounds? Make sure I understand that he doesn’t love me or want to be with me again?
‘Mum, why have you stopped?’ Charlie peers around the seat from his position in his booster. ‘Look, it’s Dad. It’s Dad, Mum look. He’s come to see me.’
Well there goes the thought of me turning the car around and avoiding him. My fault for being so slow. ‘Yes, it’s Dad, Charlie.’
Edging forward and turning onto the drive I tell myself to keep calm and steady my breathing.
Once out I approach the door. Maybe he won’t stay now. Maybe he’ll just say ‘hi’ to Charlie and go. The door is already unlocked and not even shut properly. It’s from my position on the front doorstep that I first hear the shouting.
‘I don’t want to see you. Why don’t you just go and die?’
It’s Mandy shouting at Ste.
I can’t hear Ste’s response but I can tell by the tone of Mandy’s voice as she shouts back at him that she’s crying. Rushing in I see them both standing facing each other in the living room.
‘Mum, tell him we don’t want to see him. Tell him to go.’
