All We Have Lost

by Alexander, Aimee

  ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘You came to me because you were concerned about the children. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t tell you that what is best for them is a stable environment, ideally with both parents.’

  I stare at him.

  ‘I just want to make sure that you’ve chosen the right path for you. Might you consider listening to what he has to say, coming to see someone like me, together? An affair need not end a marriage. Sometimes it can strengthen it.’

  I stand up and grab my bag. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘You can talk to my secretary, outside.’ He stands. ‘I know this is not an easy time. You’ve been hurt, betrayed…’

  ‘I have and I don’t think I’d be giving great example to my children if I was just to lie down and take it! Do you?’

  ‘Reconciliation need not mean submission. It can offer a way to reclaim what you had.’ He smiles professionally and extends his hand. ‘Please do come back at any time. The door is always open.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I’d rather go see the real Mr Bean. At least he’d make me laugh.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I drive fast. Have I ‘stupid’ tattooed on my forehead or something? I take Ian back I give him a licence to cheat. I switch on the radio, needing loud music.

  What I get – unbelievably – is a discussion on infidelity.

  ‘And why do people have affairs?’ the presenter asks the expert.

  ‘Well, Simon, affairs generally begin when a person feels insecure in a relationship, unimportant, unwanted, perhaps unloved. Many describe it as feeling invisible.’

  Actually, it’s the person who’s been cheated on that feels invisible.

  ‘A common scenario is for a father to feel that his partner’s main focus of attention is on the children and that there is nothing left for him.’

  Yeah, because the father is the child.

  ‘Then someone arrives on the scene who makes him feel attractive, desirable, sexy, powerful. Add to that the excitement of having to keep it a secret and you have a heady cocktail.’

  Cocktail! It’s people’s lives he’s talking about.

  ‘But it’s not all fun and games. There is the excitement, absolutely, but there is also the guilt…’

  Let’s hear how hard it is for cheats. I turn off the radio and honk at the driver in front who is too busy dreaming to pull away from the lights. I’ve just wasted an entire morning. I have still no idea what to tell the children.

  Sam and Chloe are nowhere near ready to leave when I call for them. Mum and I sit on the patio watching them drench themselves, Chloe using a water pistol that’s almost bigger than her, Sam the hose. The sun creates rainbows in the mist.

  ‘You OK, love?’ Mum asks. ‘You look shattered.’

  The hair I run my fingers through feels greasy. It reminds me that I’m in need of a good scrubbing. I almost ask her to do it.

  ‘Do you want to go upstairs and lie down? I’ll keep an eye on them.’

  Suddenly, it just comes out. ‘I’ve left Ian. Well, I told him to leave.’

  ‘What?’ she whispers.

  ‘He was having an affair.’

  ‘Oh, Kim. Are you sure?’

  I nod.

  ‘How though? Did he admit to it?’

  ‘When his back was to the wall, yeah.’

  ‘Who?’ she whispers.

  ‘His boss.’

  ‘His boss?’ She looks appalled.

  ‘A woman.’

  Marginal relief. ‘Kim, are you sure about this? It’s not like Ian, is it?’

  ‘Ian’s human.’

  She comes over and gathers me up in her arms. I feel about six.

  ‘How could he, Mum, after all we’ve shared? The pregnancies, births, first steps, first shoes, first days at Montessori... Whooping cough. Casualty. Dad dying. He was always there.’

  ‘He can be again.’

  ‘No. He’s gone. Mentally, physically. I’m not his woman any more. How could he just switch off like that? Wipe out seven years as if they meant nothing?’

  ‘He made a mistake. I’m sure he’s sorry.’

  ‘Don’t even think of making excuses for him.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Why? Why did he do it? I know I’ve put on weight. I know I don’t dress up. I know the writing hasn’t worked out. But I’m still the same person.’

  ‘You are. And you can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘Have you looked at me lately? I’m a mess.’

  ‘Of course you’re a mess at this very moment. But…’

  ‘I should never have given up work. My confidence is in the toilet.’

  She hugs me tighter.

  ‘I didn’t flatter him. I didn’t tell him how bloody great he was all the time. And I didn’t do those pelvic floor exercises.’

  ‘Nobody does, love.’

  ‘I let the children come between us. I always said I’d never let that happen. Wait, you’re right. Why am I blaming myself? He’s the one who cheated.’ I turn to her suddenly. ‘Oh my God. What if she has an STD? Syphilis, the clap… Is the clap the same as syphilis?’

  ‘I’m sure they wore protection.’

  And then I’m picturing them. ‘Comforting thought, Mum.’

  She grimaces. ‘I knew it sounded wrong as soon as I’d said it.’

  ‘Gonorrhoea.’

  ‘People don’t get that any more, love.’

  ‘It’s making a comeback!’ I panic that he’s passed it on, then remember: actually, no problem there.

  ‘Do you still love him?’ she asks.

  I stare at her. ‘How could I?’

  ‘Does love go away when someone hurts you?’

  ‘This is more than hurt.’

  ‘Have you talked to him, discussed this, given him a chance to explain?’

  ‘Talked to him? I can’t even look at him.’

  ‘Kim, think about what you have, what you’ve built together. You’re a family, a gorgeous little family. You can’t let some hussy just come along and help herself. You have to fight for your family. Not just hand it over.’ She delivers this with uncharacteristic passion.

  ‘Why should I do all the fighting? Anyway, I’ve none left. I’m tired of fighting.’

  She sighs deeply and sits back at the table.

  We look at the children who are now standing perfectly still, heads bent as they refill the water pistol using the hose.

  ‘I didn’t want this for you,’ Mum says.

  ‘I didn’t either,’ I joke. Then it hits me. ‘Why would you have even thought about this for me? Were there signs? Was there something wrong with us?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No. Doesn’t stop it happening.’

  ‘Since when did you become a pessimist?’

  Chloe screeches.

  ‘Sam, your sister is not a fire. Take it easy,’ I say.

  ‘It’s OK, Mum,’ she calls. ‘I like it.’

  I smile.

  ‘So he’s actually gone?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Kim.’

  ‘Kim what? Fuck him. You think I care where he’s gone?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I need a coffee.’ I stand up and go inside.

  I hold onto the worktop and take deep breaths. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care where he’s gone. But I do care – if he’s with her.

  Shit.

  I hide out in the kitchen until the coffee is ready. I inhale its smell as if it will provide inner strength. Then I brace myself and go back outside.

  She is drying the kids off and wrapping them in towels.

  ‘My little angels,’ she is saying. ‘Here, let’s put on your hoodies and you can go play in the sand.’

  Then they’re off again. The energy. It’s exhausting.

  Mum comes back to the patio.

  For a while we sit in silence.

  Then she looks at me. ‘
When you told him to leave, what did he say?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Did he say he was sorry?’

  ‘Don’t they all?’

  ‘No, Kim, they don’t.’

  ‘What would you know? With your perfect marriage.’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘No marriage is perfect. Not one.’

  I tighten my fingers around my mug wishing it were his neck.

  ‘Did he say he’d stop seeing her?’

  ‘Mum, I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘But I do. It’s important. So. Did he?’

  ‘Yeah but so what?’

  ‘What do you want, Kim?’

  ‘I don’t want him back, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘This again? He cheated. End of story.’

  ‘People cheat. For lots of reasons. Doesn’t mean it has to be over.’

  ‘I take him back, I may as well lie on the ground and say, “walk all over me”.’

  ‘It’s called forgiveness.’

  ‘Jesus, Mum.’

  ‘What do you want, Kim? You have to ask yourself that – I mean really ask yourself – before it’s too late. Before he’s gone for good. What, do, you, want?’

  ‘I can’t have what I want. I can’t go back to the way it was. So what I want doesn’t matter, does it? It certainly doesn’t matter to him. He’s made that clear.’

  ‘You want your life back. OK.’

  My laugh is bitter. ‘Yeah. Just like that.’

  She sighs. ‘Well, I’d like mine back too but death is non-negotiable. I’ll never see your father again. I wake to rediscover that, every day.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…’

  ‘You and Ian have a chance. I’m not going to say it’ll be easy. But you have your lives ahead of you. You have the kids – who need their parents, Kim. And you have your love for each other.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘He made a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake! Dad would never have “made a mistake”.’

  She looks away. Too quickly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What is it?’ Jesus. ‘Mum?’

  She swipes at the tear. Then another.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘You’ve always been so stubborn. To you, there’s only ever one way. Ian said he was sorry; he said it was over. He’s a good man. You love each other. Take him back, for God’s sake, before it’s too late and he decides he doesn’t want to come back.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can. I did. You can.’

  ‘What? What did you say?’ I’m asking but suddenly I don’t want to know.

  She looks down. Her shoulders rise as she takes a deep breath. Then she looks at me. ‘I didn’t want to tell you because I know how you worshipped him.’ She looks at me.

  ‘No. No way. Not Dad. He’d never…’

  ‘And yet he did.’

  Silence now as questions flood my mind. When did this happen? Who with? For how long? How did Mum find out? What did she do? How didn’t I notice? Did James? Poor Mum.

  ‘Life’s not as simple as you think,’ she says. ‘There’s more to a man than his mistakes. Your father was a good person and a great dad. Yes, he had an affair, but should that be the only thing to consider? Just that one thing?’

  ‘I think it’s relevant.’ Very fucking relevant.

  ‘Would you have forgiven me if I’d just demanded he leave?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I would.’

  ‘Really? Think about that. If I had, you’d never have known him.’

  I stare at her. ‘Wait, that means he had the affair when I was very young?’

  ‘Yes and think what you’d have missed if I’d made it the most important thing about him?’

  ‘How could you forgive him?’

  ‘I loved him,’ she says like it’s the simplest thing in the world. ‘I loved him and I didn’t want to lose him. I wanted us to stay a family. It was the most important thing to me. It still is. I’m glad I did what I did. I’ve never regretted it.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  She looks at me for a long time. ‘On one condition. You have to remember the good in him, how much you loved him, how much he loved you. Because if you start hating him, everything I’ve done will have been a waste.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Promise me, Kim,’ she demands.

  ‘OK, I promise.’ To try.

  ‘I don’t want you telling James.’

  ‘James is part of the family. You can’t keep it from him.’

  ‘Promise me, Kim. Not a word to James. Or I’ll take this with me to my grave.’

  ‘Don’t say grave.’

  ‘Promise me or I’ll say no more.’

  ‘OK. I promise.’

  ‘Your father was a good man who was unlucky enough to fall in love with two women.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you swallowed that one.’

  ‘Do you want to hear or not?’

  ‘OK. Sorry,’ I grumble.

  ‘He fell in love with another woman, a friend of ours.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Kim, will you let me tell this my own way, please?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘When you were born, there were problems; you know that. You and I had to stay in hospital for two months.’

  I nod. She’s told me.

  ‘It was touch and go for both of us for a while. Dad was in a desperate state. On top of that he had to mind James. I asked a friend to help him out. She was always so capable…’

  One word for it.

  ‘But something happened that I never expected. Their friendship turned to love. When we were discharged and I came home with my little girl, you,’ she smiles, reaches out and holds my hand, ‘they told me immediately.’ She lets me go, sits back and looks into the distance.

  If I hadn’t been born, this would never have happened.

  ‘So I do know what you’re feeling, Kimmy. Except you’re lucky: Ian wants to stay with you. Your father wanted to continue seeing this woman. He said that he loved her and wanted to be with her and if he couldn’t, he’d leave. I was hysterical. Didn’t know what to do. I told him to give me a week to think. I didn’t want to lose him. I loved him. And I wanted my family to stay together. So I came up with an idea. A deal. I told him he could go on seeing her but with conditions.’

  ‘What conditions?’ I don’t believe this. This is not my mum.

  ‘Firstly, he’d continue to live at home. Secondly, he’d only see her at regular, allotted times; there would be no sneaking around, no surprise disappearances. He would be there for all important family occasions and always if you were sick.’

  ‘What regular allotted times? I don’t remember him being away at all.’

  ‘Every Friday night he’d stay with her and come back early Saturday morning. And every six weeks he’d stay for a weekend.’

  ‘Oh my God. So those trips to London weren’t to London?’ I feel so stupid.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was doing this all my life?’

  She nods.

  ‘I hate him.’

  She smiles. ‘No. You don’t.’

  ‘He treated you like shit.’

  ‘Those were my terms. I got what I wanted. It wasn’t the traditional way to live but it was my way. Yes, in an ideal world, he’d have been just mine but that wasn’t an option and I had him most of the time. We had him most of the time.’

  ‘My childhood was a lie,’ I whisper.

  ‘Stop.’ She slaps her hand down on the table. ‘Stop seeing the world only from your point of view. Stop making rules for everyone else. Stop expecting too much from people. We’re all human. We’re all just doing our best.’

  This person is not my mum.

  ‘You were a happy child who grew up in a loving environment with people who loved you and each other. It wasn’t orthodox. But it was real. Very real. Remember the good
in your father. There was plenty.’

  Yeah, like his ability to have his cake and eat it. ‘Who was she?’ I must know her, if she was their friend. I must know her.

  ‘I’d rather not say. I don’t see how it would help.’

  ‘Tell me. No more secrets. Just tell me.’

  ‘You have to promise not to do anything. Not to let on to her that you know. And not ever to tell another living soul. This woman is in the public eye.’

  Who the hell is it? ‘I promise.’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘It was Deirdre French.’

  ‘Deirdre French? The novelist?’

  She nods.

  ‘But you’re still friends.’

  ‘Acquaintances who are, on the surface, friendly, yes.’

  ‘I asked her for help! You sent me to her! You think I’d have gone if I’d known? My God, Mum. I have my pride.’

  ‘That is exactly your problem.’

  I stare at her. Who is this person?

  ‘She owed us,’ she says simply.

  ‘I’m sorry but this is so messed up. Seriously. The woman has everything – success, fame, fortune – and she had to have my father too?’

  ‘You’re wrong. She doesn’t have everything. Don’t you see? She loses. She has nothing. No family, no husband, no children. Another part of the deal – they agreed never to have children – your dad was only ever to be a father to you and James. Deirdre French has nothing. She’s a lonely woman. If you want to feel sorry for someone – feel sorry for her.’

  ‘Well, I don’t. Look what she took from you.’

  ‘Nothing, that’s the point. I didn’t throw away my husband, lose the father of my children, like you’re doing. I kept it all. I won.’

  ‘Why did he stay with us? Why didn’t he just go off with her if he loved her so bloody much?’

  ‘Because he loved us too. He loved you and James. And he loved me. We just learned to share. You don’t have to, Kim; you can have Ian to yourself. Don’t you see? You’re one of the lucky ones.’

  ‘This is like something out of a Deirdre French novel.’

  She looks at me. ‘It is a Deirdre French novel. The Deal.’

  ‘You’re fucking kidding me?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Oh my God. Living off us, rubbing our nose in it…’

  ‘Read it, Kim. It explains a lot. It’s her confession.’

  ‘Taking a psychological dump on us and making a profit as well. I have to hand it to her.’