The Accidental Wife

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘Dom, your dad’s said sorry –’ Alison began, trying to head off another confrontation before it ignited.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ Marc said, holding his hand up to stop her. ‘It’s a fair question. And the answer is that of course I’m sorry. I’m always sorry. The truth is I’ve always wanted to be better than I am, and until now I’ve always failed. I’m a far from perfect husband, a far from perfect father, a far from perfect man. But I am so proud of you and the decent, caring, principled boy you’ve become, despite me. I think I need to try and live up to your standards.’

  ‘Are you going to tell us that you’ll try and change?’ Dominic asked him, a hint of sarcastic serration in his tone.

  ‘No, I’m not saying I’m going to change,’ Marc said. ‘I’ve said that too many times and it hasn’t worked. I’m saying I’m going to do what I know that I can, which is to be a good father to you and your sisters, and I want you to remember that I will always be around for you, no matter what happens between me and Mum. I want you to remember that because I’m going to move out. Find a place of my own. You can all stay here if you want, or sell it and buy somewhere new. It’s up to you. But I want you all to understand that I’m not moving out because I don’t love you. I’m moving out because I do. I wanted to tell you two first. I’ll explain it to the girls in the morning. I hope you will both be there to help me with that.’

  As Marc spoke Alison felt ice-cold panic grip her heart and squeeze it, and a sense of dizzying unreality, as if she were watching this next turn her life was taking playing out before her on a movie screen.

  This was it: the moment she had seen coming for months, possibly years, and yet had never quite believed would arrive, and he had chosen to make it happen, he had found the courage. He was really going. After all of this time he was going to leave her to stand alone in the world, and even if this had been the very thing she knew had to happen, hearing him say it shocked and terrified her.

  ‘Are you leaving for ever?’ Dominic asked him stiffly, two red blotches standing out on his otherwise pallid cheeks.

  Marc looked at Alison and picked up her hand. ‘I think so,’ he said.

  Alison returned his gaze and for the first time in a long while she felt close to him.

  With a single nod Dominic stood up and held out his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday too, Dad,’ he said. ‘I behaved like a kid.’

  As Marc let go of Alison’s hand in order to stand up and shake his son’s, Dom added, ‘And for what it’s worth, when I was a little kid and thought you were the best dad in the world that wasn’t because I was little and didn’t know any better. It was because you were the best dad in the world. And … I’m glad you’re my dad because I think you will still be a great dad. I think you and me will be OK.’

  Dominic looked at Alison, nipping at his lip.

  ‘I might go up now,’ he said. Alison, still unable to speak, nodded.

  Dominic picked up his still-full plate. ‘I might take this with me,’ he added apologetically.

  Alison was surprised to hear herself laugh. ‘Go on then,’ she told him. ‘Just this once.’

  When Dom had gone Alison got up from the table and found an opened bottle of wine in the fridge. Her hand shook as she poured herself and then Marc a glass.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ she said, setting the drink down in front of him, ‘but I could do with a drink.’ Marc mustered a smile for her and held the wine glass by its stem.

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Marc,’ Alison said eventually. ‘Or how to act. I don’t think that what you’ve just told me has sunk in yet. I can’t believe this is happening now, that after more than fifteen years we’re splitting up.’

  ‘Pretty good going, I’d say,’ Marc said. ‘Considering we’d only known each other five minutes when we got together. Considering that, I’d say fifteen years and three kids is pretty good going.’

  ‘We’ve grown up together,’ Alison said. ‘I’ve always had you, always relied on you. Even when you weren’t very reliable I could always rely on you. I’m thirty-two and I’ve never had a job, never had to pay my own bills. God, I’m a spoiled bitch.’

  ‘I’ll still be around,’ Marc said. ‘I’m not leaving the town. I’ll still be building the business. I’ll see the kids as much as I can and you too, if you’ll let me. You don’t have to get a job if you don’t want to, or even pay your bills. I can still take care of all that.’

  ‘No.’ Alison smiled but shook her head. ‘It’s about time I learned how to be independent. You should keep contributing towards the children but not to me.’ She laughed and took another sip of wine. ‘I can’t believe that we’re sitting here talking about the end of our marriage like this. Where are the tears and the screaming?’

  ‘I think there’s been enough of that recently, don’t you?’ Marc said.

  Alison nodded and the two were silent for a minute longer.

  ‘This is going to be hard on the girls,’ Alison said.

  ‘Yes,’ Marc said. ‘It will be.’

  ‘Do you think,’ Alison felt panic surge through her like a current again, ‘that we should just keep things as they are after all? Just until the girls are older, maybe until they’re at uni …? I mean, we rub along OK, don’t we, you and me? We understand each other now, and I’m … I’m frightened.’

  Marc shook his head and covered her hand with his own. ‘Jimmy Ashley told me today that you can only ever ask somebody to forgive you once, because once is the only time they might actually do it and mean it. But if you ask them a second or a third or a fourth time, no matter what they say they can’t ever really wipe the slate clean again because they know now that you won’t change. You know I won’t be the sort of husband you deserve, and now I think I know it. I love you but I’m tired of hurting you and if I stay I know that sooner or later that will happen again. I don’t want to do that any more.’

  ‘Jimmy Ashley was the one that made your mind up to leave?’ Alison asked. ‘That’s ironic.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Long story. Funny that after fifteen years and three kids there’s still so much you don’t know about me and so much I don’t know about you.’

  ‘How did it go with you and Cathy?’ Marc asked her suddenly, as if he had just remembered something about himself that Alison didn’t know.

  ‘It went well,’ she said. ‘We talked, we told each other … everything.’

  ‘Ah,’ Marc said. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘Marc,’ Alison said carefully, ‘do you honestly think there is still something there between you and Cathy? I mean something real? Because if you don’t, don’t go after her, please. Don’t get her caught up in everything that’s happening between us again. She doesn’t deserve it.’

  ‘There’s something there,’ Marc said, and Alison was surprised by how much the revelation stung her. ‘I don’t know if it’s real but there’s something, something that would be hard to leave alone.’

  ‘Just be careful with her, please,’ Alison said. ‘Don’t treat her like you treated the others.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Marc promised her.

  ‘Right,’ Alison said. She looked at the kitchen clock, it was barely ten p.m. ‘What shall we do now?’ she asked him.

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ Marc said. ‘And if you don’t mind … can I sleep in bed with you tonight? It’s just that … you’re my best friend, Al. You’re the person I want to hold now this is happening to me.’

  Alison nodded and held out her hand. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Me too.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ‘DO YOU THINK you can sprain your vagina?’ Kirsty asked Catherine and Alison as they met for lunch on Monday. ‘Do you think it’s possible that too much sex in too many positions can actually make you pull an internal muscle – let’s call it the love muscle – because I’m telling you I’ve had so much incredible sex this weekend I think I might actually have sprained my vagina. I might have
made medical history, because you know what, it is actually true. Sex is better when you’re in love with someone, isn’t it?’

  Catherine ignored her tuna salad sandwich and Alison sipped her coffee.

  ‘God, I thought the whole point of you two making up is that the world would be a happier lighter place, ceasefires would be called across international war zones, mammals on the verge of extinction would start mating again, the ozone layer would repair itself overnight. If I’d known you were both going to be so miserable I wouldn’t have bothered getting you back together again, let alone asking you to meet for lunch. What is the point of me being blissfully happy and in love if I can’t share it?’

  Catherine looked at her. ‘I think that being blissfully happy and in love is sort of the point.’

  Kirsty raised a brow. ‘If you say so.’

  She looked from Alison to Catherine. ‘OK, I give in. Go on, tell me what the problems are and make it snappy because I want to talk about me and Sam and the sex we’re having again before I have to go back to work, although if I’m lucky I probably could have sex in the storage cupboard with Sam if I got back before my two o’clock so …’

  ‘Jimmy told me he loved me, that he wanted to get back with me and then he went to London,’ Catherine blurted out.

  ‘No wonder he wouldn’t sleep with me,’ Alison said.

  ‘According to Jimmy, he’s always been in love with me,’ Catherine said bleakly.

  ‘Interesting,’ Kirsty said on a yawn, wincing as both women looked daggers at her. ‘Well, the fact that he’s in love with you and wants to get back together with you is old news. I could have told you that months ago. The part where he gets on a train and goes to London is a bit confusing. How does he think that’s going to help?’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ Catherine said. When Kirsty looked perplexed she went on, ‘Well, of course I’m not going to get back with him, am I?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ Kirsty asked.

  ‘Of course I’m not!’ Catherine exclaimed. ‘I told him that I didn’t love him. I told him that we weren’t going to get back together. And he looked really, really sad and said he was going to London to find work.’

  ‘And let me guess, now you’re feeling really, really sad?’ Kirsty asked her.

  ‘What if I am? I don’t want things to be bad between us, do I?’ Catherine snapped at her. ‘He’s the father of my children …’

  ‘The love of your life,’ Kirsty mumbled.

  ‘He’s not,’ Catherine protested. ‘I told him, I took long enough to get over him. But I did. Our relationship is finished and that’s that.’

  ‘OK,’ Kirsty said, more than a little sceptically. ‘If you say so. What about you, Alison? Why are you in such a mope?’

  ‘Marc is moving out of the house at the end of the week,’ she said. ‘We’re appointing solicitors. We’re doing it, we’re getting a divorce.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Catherine said, reaching over the table.

  ‘Me too,’ Alison said, biting down hard on her lip. ‘It’s so stupid, I keep crying. It’s me that wanted it. It’s me that doesn’t love him any more and it’s him that’s a selfish unfaithful pig, so why am I crying?’

  ‘Because it’s the end of a part of your life,’ Catherine told her. ‘A part of your life that when you started it you believed would always be wonderful, and would always be happy. And when you have to face up to the fact that that isn’t going to happen any more it’s sad and makes you want to cry.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Kirsty said. ‘You two are really bringing me down here.’ She turned to Alison. ‘Look, you’re doing the right thing. You’ve just got to tough it out now because things will sort themselves out. You might even end up being best friends like Catherine and Jimmy, although that degree of closeness can lead to confusion for some ex-spouses, particularly the less intelligent ones like Jimmy.’

  ‘He is not less intelligent,’ Catherine said indignantly. ‘He’s one of the cleverest, most brilliant and sensitive men I know, the ignorant pig.’

  ‘Is he?’ Kirsty said mildly. ‘You should marry him then – oh, no, wait, you already have.’

  ‘He was brilliant with Dominic,’ Alison said, and when it became clear that neither Catherine nor Kirsty knew anything about Dominic she filled them in on his disappearance and how Jimmy talked him into going back. ‘He even said something to Marc. Something that made him decide to leave.’

  ‘Now that’s what I call marriage counselling,’ Kirsty said. ‘It was probably, “Hey, mate, fancy coming on the pull?”’

  ‘What did he say to him?’ Catherine asked Alison, studiously ignoring Kirsty.

  ‘He said that you can only ever ask someone to forgive you once and if you do you have to really mean it and never let them down again. And if you don’t think you can do that you shouldn’t ask them. Marc said he couldn’t ask me to forgive him again because he knew I wouldn’t be able to do it.’

  Catherine stared at her tuna and salad sandwich. ‘He’s such a bastard.’

  ‘Who, Marc?’ Kirsty asked.

  ‘No, Jimmy. Jimmy is such a bastard,’ Catherine said furiously. ‘I was happy with him, I trusted him – it nearly killed me to let myself do that after … well, after you know what. But I did it. And then he had sex with Donna Clarke in the ladies’ loos in The Goat. Now he’s saying that he still loves me, that he still wants me and he’s going around rescuing teenage boys and giving the kind of advice that finally makes men leave their wives and he’s doing it all too late. Two years too late. And that makes him a selfish, fucking bastard. And I hate him. I hate him because I can’t love him now. It’s too late.’

  ‘Have you ever thought,’ Alison said, laying each word down ever so carefully, ‘that the reason you feel so angry towards him is because you do still have feelings for him?’

  ‘No,’ Catherine said firmly.

  ‘OK then,’ Alison said, catching Kirsty’s eye.

  ‘Come on, ladies, snap out of it,’ Kirsty said, banging her fists on the table so hard it made the two old ladies at the next table send her disapproving glances. ‘Let’s summarise. You,’ she said, pointing at Catherine. ‘The man you say you don’t love has just cleared off to London for a few days. What’s the big deal? There is no big deal, that’s what.’ Kirsty shifted her attention to Alison. ‘And as for you, your no-good cheating husband, who you don’t love anyway, has finally packed his bags, leaving you in the nice house with every chance of a great big fat divorce settlement. We shouldn’t be moping, we should be celebrating! I know, let’s go out tonight. Let’s go to The Goat. I hear there’s a great new band playing and every chance of some toilet action if you play your cards right.’

  Catherine and Alison looked at each other across the table.

  ‘Well, I suppose I’ve got free babysitting until the end of the week,’ Alison said. ‘I should probably make the most of it.’

  ‘And I’m sure Mrs Beesley would babysit if I asked her,’ Catherine said, a little less certainly.

  ‘Great,’ Kirsty said. ‘Let’s tear this town up. Monday night in Farmington, rock on. Two bitter single chicks and their blissfully happy friend – how can we fail to have a great time?’ Kirsty flashed her best smile at the outraged old ladies. ‘Now can we get back to talking about me and my vagina?’

  ‘Mummy, what are you doing?’ Eloise asked Catherine as she hovered in front of the mirror that hung over the fireplace, her nose about an inch from its surface.

  ‘Applying eyeliner,’ Catherine told her. ‘The trouble is, I don’t know how people do it because as soon as I get this sharpened pencil anywhere near my eyes I want to screw them up, so I can’t see what I’m doing. I don’t understand eyeliner. It’s not natural. Why would anyone ever want to wear it?’

  ‘You are trying to wear it,’ Eloise observed, tilting her head to one side as she watched her mother jabbing at her eye. ‘Trying quite hard, and you never normally wear eyeliner, especially not green eyeliner.’

>   Catherine put the pencil down on the mantelpiece and looked at Eloise.

  ‘On the way back to work from lunch today I brought a magazine. I thought spring is here, it’s a new start, a fresh beginning, I’ll give myself a spring clean …’

  ‘Are you dirty, Mummy?’ Leila asked her as she stomped down the stairs in a pair of Nana Pam’s special clear plastic high heels that set off her Dalmatian pyjamas particularly well.

  ‘No, not that sort of a clean,’ Catherine said, looking rather perplexed at the magazine article she had open and balancing precariously on top of the TV so that she could refer to it while attempting eyeliner in the mirror. ‘Give Your Make-Up a Spring Clean and Put a Spring in Your Step!’ it yelled at her, the headline feeling more like a set of orders than a suggestion.

  Catherine never normally bought magazines, especially not women’s magazines, because she supposed, perhaps a little loftily, that on some level she didn’t consider herself to be that kind of woman, concerned with earthly things such as shoes and make-up and … hairdos. But in the last couple of weeks her life had changed completely. Old wounds had closed and healed over, final breaks between herself and the past had been made at last and she felt as if she should be a new woman. Somehow the tentative renewal of her friendship with Alison had helped her see her life from a new perspective, as though through a fresh pair of eyes. She hadn’t realised until she had told Jimmy point blank that she was over what had happened between then, that it didn’t hurt her at all any more. And seeing Alison again now, as an adult, a mother with her own problems almost engulfing her, made Catherine realise she couldn’t blame either the woman she now knew or the seventeen-year-old Alison had once been for what had happened to her back then. She couldn’t even blame Marc because all that happened to her was the same set of wrong turns and bad choices that had beset almost every seventeen-year-old girl since the dawn of time, mistakes that had to be made and owned in order for her to become a whole person, a grown-up woman. Just recently everyone had been telling her how strong she was but it was only now that Catherine believed it. She would always mourn the loss of the baby that she never knew, always regret that she couldn’t have been close to her parents, but whereas once she thought those two things defined her, now she realised that although they were a part of her, they did not represent her whole. Finally, at the age of thirty-two, Catherine was ready to become herself.