by Eva Mazza
Jen parked her car and pulled down her visor to check her appearance, pleased with what she saw. She had taken in some sun, which gave her a bronzed and healthy look, and she had to concede that her facial treatments had made a difference. She’d have more faith in the benefits of beauty treatments from now on.
As she opened the farmhouse door, their two ridgebacks came bounding towards her. She gave them each a pat then she called out to John. To her relief, there was no reply. Jen dropped the beautifully wrapped purchases from the spa’s boutique on the entrance table. John was going to go crazy when he saw his final bill.
Passing the kitchen on her way to their bedroom, she had to backtrack. It was in a state of chaos. Pete’s fruit bowl was smashed into pieces on the floor, the contents strewn all over the kitchen tiles. There were two dirty dishes on the counter and the frying pan lay unwashed in the sink. Where’s Gladys? she wondered.
“You can see how badly I cope without you, Jen.”
She swung around, startled to see John leaning against the kitchen doorway, unshaven, his shirt unbuttoned. It was clear to Jen that he had been drinking and he looked as unkempt as the house.
“Where’s Gladys?” Jen asked.
“I gave her yesterday and today off.” Jen’s eyes widened as they usually did when she was angry. “I didn’t feel like moping around with her mopping up after me.”
“Well, this is a fabulous welcome home!”
Chaos in her home always put her in a bad mood. She used to scream at the kids when they had left the house in a mess after entertaining their friends. It drove her crazy. At least Gladys had come in after the party, or the house would be in complete disarray.
“I didn’t know you would be coming home today. I didn’t know how long it would take you to come back to me.” John ran his hand through his mop of hair. “This is where you belong, Jen. There’s too much at stake, you leaving. I love you, Jen.” She studied his face. He seemed genuine. “Jesus, Jen, I don’t know what I’d do if you left me. We’re meant to be together.”
“I know,” is all she said as she started picking up the pieces of the fruit bowl.
“Let me help you.” An unusual offer. “I lost my temper and I smashed the bowl. I’m sorry.”
“It was Pete’s first attempt at pottery. He was in primary school. I loved that bowl.”
“I know you did. I’m so sorry.”
They were bent over, picking up the pieces together. As they reached for the same piece, their hands touched. John leaned over to kiss her, and she kissed him back.
“You’re looking great, Jen. I often don’t tell you how beautiful you are.”
These were words of affirmation she had longed to hear, and without thinking, she grabbed his hand and led him to their unmade bed. They made love with an urgency and passion that hadn’t been there for a long time. But after sex, while they lay next to each other on the rumpled covers, Jen couldn’t help but feel deflated. She was a pushover. Why couldn’t I have resisted him for at least a day? She had yearned for physical contact, and his kindness and vulnerability had made him irresistible to her; but more than ever, she needed to know that she was desirable to him. How was she ever going to get what she wanted from this marriage if she couldn’t stick to her guns?
“I saw two plates on the counter. Did you have a visitor?” she asked as he combed his fingers through her hair.
“In fact, I did,” John said. “You asked me to get rid of Patty, so I had to negotiate a…”
Jen jumped up before he could finish.
“Tell me Patty was not in my house! I can’t believe that you would invite her here.”
“Relax, Jen,” John said, getting up off the bed. “Frans came over. I have to pay Patty a substantial amount to stop her taking me to the labour court. I asked Frans to cede one of my insurance policies,” he said, searching for his jocks.
Jen was enraged. “Don’t tell me to relax! Look at the cost of your philandering! You let this whore into your life and now she has you by the balls. And who does it affect? Me! It affects me, John, and our children.” She threw his scants at him. They landed on his head and then fell to the floor. “And then you tell me to relax?”
John scooped them up off the floor. “I’m sorry. You’re right, but I’m trying to make it go away.”
“Really! At a financial cost. And let’s not mention the cost to our happiness and to our marriage! Why should money from our policy go to Patty, for God’s sake? Why should Patty benefit from your…” She had become flustered. “Your… fuck up?” Jen started whipping on her clothes, not caring that her t-shirt was inside out.
“Look, Jen, I did what you asked me to do. I got rid of her, and it wasn’t easy. She threatened to take me to court and to make a huge hoo-ha about it. Do you want that?”
At that moment she could have punched him. Her fists were at the ready, but she screamed at him instead, “I didn’t want any of this! If you had kept your fucking pants on you wouldn’t have to ask me this stupid, stupid question!”
This is why you left him in the first place! Jen chastised herself. His inability to genuinely see the shit he’s caused. And don’t forget the so-called poker nights. Are you going to allow these debauched evenings to continue now you know the truth?
Overcome by exhaustion, she longed to crawl into bed. She could not face the mess, literally or figuratively. “I’m going to lie down in the spare room.” He moved towards her, but her hand came up in a gesture to stop him. “Please don’t disturb me. I want to be alone, to think.”
“But you’ve been alone thinking since Sunday,” he protested.
“Do me a favour, John, clean up the house and the rest of the mess you’ve made. And, John, just because we had sex, all is not forgiven or forgotten. We have a lot to talk about.”
“So, let’s talk, Jen, please.”
“I just can’t face it right now.” She turned her back on him and walked out of their bedroom.
The spare room was on the other side of the house, and sometimes, if they had had a fight, John was usually relegated to the spare bed. Jen opened the French doors leading to the rose garden and the neighbouring farm’s vineyards beyond. She pulled back the duvet and crawled into the double bed still clothed. Suppressing the urge to cry, she told herself this was no time to turn into an emotional wreck. She breathed in deeply and exhaled, trying to release the tension in her body. Soon she felt her eyes become heavy, and after a short while, she was asleep.
She didn’t hear John tiptoe into the room or feel his kiss on her forehead.
Nineteen
Jen woke up just after four in the afternoon to an immaculately clean house. It was obvious that John had asked Gladys to tidy the mess, as everything was spotless – something he was unable to accomplish alone. He wasn’t home, but he had left a message on the fridge door saying he was in the cellar if she needed him.
The sheets in their bedroom had been changed and Gladys had sprayed vanilla room mist and had opened the curtains and the windows, allowing the hot summer sunshine to stream through. Jen’s parcels had been placed neatly on her bed. She unpacked and hung up her unworn purchases and threw the worn ones in the wash basket. She kept aside a stone linen shirt dress, imported from Italy, to wear to her appointments the next day. She certainly did not want to look like a woman who was falling apart. No matter how she felt inside, from now on she would project a strong and confident persona.
A warm, relaxing bath was what she needed. That’s one thing she’d missed when she went away: her own bath. She never bathed in hotels – even in upmarket places like the lodge.
After she had undressed, she studied her naked body in the mirror. Two days of stress had made her shed some unwanted weight. Well, at least something good has come from this fiasco. She climbed into the warm water and submerged herself to just under her chin and lay soaking. She washed her hair and she took the time to exfoliate her tired body.
Jen didn’t usually spend long in
the bath, but she had resolved to indulge herself from now on. She remembered the body butter Pete had bought her for Christmas, which she had packed away in her bathroom cupboard with her fragrances and toiletries. Today was as good a day as any other to use it. She opened the cupboard to search for it and as she did, an unfamiliar perfume bottle caught her eye. Tom Ford. Maybe Brigit had left it behind. Her hands shook as she pulled off the lid and put her nose to it. Instantly she knew to whom the distinct fragrance belonged. It was her best friend’s signature smell!
The room whirled and, crouching, she held onto the cupboard door to steady herself. “Gladys,” she called out, “could you come in here, please.”
Jen was on the bathroom floor, towel wrapped around her wet body, holding the bottle of perfume in her one hand and the cupboard door in the other. She stood up and pulled her towel firmly around her when she saw Gladys standing in the doorway.
“Gladys, did you pack this perfume away?” she whispered.
“Yes, Jen. Sorry, were you looking for it?”
Jen ignored the question. “When? When did you pack it away?” Her voice was louder now, more demanding.
“When I… cleaned the bathroom?”
“Today?”
“Yes, today.”
The truth: a singular, well-aimed blow to her stomach. And instead of feeling rage and anger, calm descended upon her – a calm that comes with clarity. She sat down heavily on the tiled floor.
My husband is screwing Frankie. John is cheating on me with his best friend’s wife. With my best friend. Oh my God! Of course! It all makes perfect sense now.
It wasn’t as if the perfume was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It had acted more as a catalyst: a stimulus to wake her up to the possibilities and suspicions that lay dormant within her subconscious.
“I know you were off yesterday and today, Gladys, but do you know if John was alone last night?”
“Yes, Madam. I saw no one.” Gladys had worked for the family since Brigit was born and she hardly ever called Jen Madam. It was obvious she felt unnerved.
Gladys, like many of the workers on La Vigne Sacrée, lived in a cottage on the farm. Her cottage was close to the main house and Jen knew that she missed nothing.
“And Sunday night?” Her eyes searched Gladys’s for the truth.
“Sunday? I’m not sure, Madam. You left and then…”
Jen interrupted her. “So, you’re not sure. Okay. So, who was here last night?”
“Boss was alone last nght.”
“But he wasn’t alone on Sunday?”
Gladys’s eyes danced around. “I saw Frankie’s car. She came late morning, now I remember. Soon after you left.” Jen knew she was holding back the truth.
“Don’t hide things from me, Gladys. I’m asking you a question. What’s going on?”
“Frankie’s car was parked here on Sunday, late morning. And Sunday night, Lee was here, but not for long. Then Frankie came back after Lee had gone. It was very late.”
“John said Frans was here.” There was a long pause. Gladys looked down at her feet.
“I didn’t see his car.”
Jen smiled at her helper, her babysitter, her wingman. She knew that she had put her in an awkward position. She knew that Gladys had been reluctant to divulge information for fear of losing her job. Domestic staff didn’t involve themselves in the affairs of the madam and the boss.
“Thank you, Gladys.” Jen closed the bathroom door before the tears streamed down her face.
Claudia had warned her that after her initial discovery, more truths would be revealed, whether she wanted them to be or not. “And when they do, Jen, you need to explore their validity, but try not to act immediately. Start to gather more and more evidence. Put the pieces together as you would a puzzle. It’s important to remain as ‘normal’ as you possibly can, because if you do reveal what you’ve discovered too soon, you will blow your one chance at finding the whole truth, perhaps for good.”
Jen closed Frankie’s perfume bottle and hid it at the back of her closet. She also took out the accumulated winnings that she had ‘earned’ from John and hid them more securely in her wardrobe. “This is it. It’s time to put on those big girl panties, darling,” she told herself as she dialled Claudia’s number.
Claudia was clearly not surprised. “It’s fairly obvious with hindsight, isn’t it? Frankie saying she was with you, knowing full well you wouldn’t be at home. Instead, she used the gap you’d inadvertently created to spend time with your husband. You now know that John cheated on you with Patty, his boys’ night poker games are actually visits to a brothel, what he is buying on his credit card is dubious to say the least, he lied to you about Frans being there last night and you know for sure that Frankie was ‘visiting’ while you were at the spa.”
She reminded Jen of what she had set out to do. “You have two very important appointments tomorrow. For God’s sake, Jen, please just go to them.”
Another call came through. “I need to take this call, Claudia. It’s Pete.” Jen added, “I will go, I promise. And thanks for everything.”
“Hang in there, Jen,” Claudia said, before hanging up the phone.
“I’ve been worried about you,” Pete said, not giving Jen a chance to say hello. “Dad told me you two came to blows after his party. Can’t comment on your speech. I was too pissed to say my speech, never mind listen to yours.”
Jen changed the subject. “Where are you? Are you still at work?” she asked.
Jen could hear Pete inhale deeply before answering. “I’m done working for him.”
Jen paused before speaking. “Don’t be impulsive, Pete,” she advised. “Dad needs you. The farm needs you.”
Pete tried to sound convincing, but Jen knew her son too well. “Ma, don’t worry about all of this shit.”
“I worry about you.”
Pete laughed. “Well, don’t. It’s time you start thinking about yourself, Ma. We all fine. As for me…”
“Does Dad know?”
Pete hesitated. “I’ll let you know what I decide. I’m pretty sure Dad’s not gonna expect me back after what went down yesterday, and I’m not sure I want to work for him any more. But I don’t want you to worry, okay?”
“Just give yourselves a little time.” The growing rift between Pete and his father was apparent to all. She shifted the focus again. “Tell me about Brig. Have you heard from her? I see she tried to get hold of me.”
“Brig is Brig,” he said. “I must admit, she’s been quite upset. I think she feels bad about her histrionics at Dad’s party. But you never can be sure with her. Phone her back, Ma. Maybe she wants to say sorry.”
Jen couldn’t face speaking to Brigit, although she knew she must. Pete ended the conversation.
“Ma, got to go. Phone Brig back, Ma. Love you.”
Jen sighed. How she loved both her children. But Pete, he had a very special place in her heart.
Twenty
Lee sat in his armchair, feet on the coffee table, reading the paper when Frankie walked in from her afternoon’s pampering at Radiance salon in Technopark. She carried a month’s supply of creams, tonics, oils, cleansers and polishes – the bare necessities for her beauty regimen.
“You’re home. I was worried about you. I’ve been trying to reach you the whole day,” she sang, trying to sound jovial.
He grunted back at her, his eyes still scanning the business section.
“Have you eaten? I asked Faith to make her lasagne you love, and a salad.”
He didn’t answer but she served up his meal anyway, sitting opposite him at the kitchen table, an empty plate in front of her.
“I’m not eating alone, Frankie. Dish up for yourself. I’ll wait.”
Usually, she would argue, but Frankie sensed that this would be a bad idea tonight. They ate in silence.
“I need some wine,” Lee barked, scraping his chair back. He selected his farm’s flagship, the Cabernet Sauvignon 2001, from the cellar jus
t off the kitchen. One of their best years, but older than Frankie would have thought appropriate for a simple supper at home.
Lee sniffed the cork. He poured a little wine into his glass, swirled it then lifted it to his nose.
“Is it corked?” Frankie asked softly.
He took a sip.
“It is corked, isn’t it?”
Lee’s wine glass hurtled across the kitchen. Frankie shielded her face with her hands as the glass shattered against the wall behind her, red wine dripping down the tiles. Lee’s fists hit the table. “Yes, the wine’s corked, Frankie. Like our fucking marriage?”
Anger replaced anxiety. She had witnessed too much aggression growing up to not tolerate it in her home. She mocked, “What’s with the ridiculous comparison? Feeling poetic, darling?” Lee’s breath heaved. Frankie continued regardless, “And what’s with you throwing your weight around? Does it make you feel more like a man, now that your dick isn’t working as it used to?”
Lee shoved his face in front of hers. His fingers dug deep into her arm. Panting he shouted, “Don’t you ever mock me!” He grabbed the bottle with his free hand. Frankie cringed. “You hear? I won’t have it! Our marriage, darling, is like this wine: corked! Spoiled!” He slammed the Cabernet against the wall so that he was left holding only the bottle neck. “Absolutely fucked!”
Red wine was everywhere. God, it looks like Violet Beauregarde has exploded in the kitchen.
He let go of his grip on her. The chair took his full weight as he collapsed into it. “We had a great marriage, Frankie, and you screwed it up.”
So, there it was. She had been caught out after all. Anxiety resurfaced and, in an attempt to calm her nerves, she began to pick up the broken glass from the floor. A shard tore into her forefinger.
“Sit down, for Christ’s sake! What have you got to say?” he asked. “I want to know what you’ve got to say!”
“I, I don’t know what to say,” she said sucking the blood from her finger. “What do you want me to say?”
