by Mason, Carol
She’s a walking magazine article.
I look at her side-profile, the flush of her cheeks, the half an inch of grey re-growth at the temples where her hair needs colouring again. ‘Well, how do you know then?’
‘D’you want to sit here a minute?’ She points to a bench that’s covered in graffiti and missing its central plank. We sit. She leans forward, hands either side of her knees. I notice she isn’t wearing her wedding ring. When will Rob take his off? When will I take off mine?
‘Something happened. Years ago. We’d gone to Edinburgh for his job. We were in a bar.’ She looks at me briefly, her neck a translucent peach flush. ‘There was hardly anybody in, except this young waitress. She was a cute little thing in a little short tartan skirt, with long, runner’s legs; strawberry blonde hair in two low stubby bunches. She was instantly taken with Neil.’ She shrugs, straightens her legs, looks at her clean white running shoes. ‘I thought nothing of it. Women always look at Neil. It’s par for the course. Anyway, we went and sat down in a corner. It was a nice evening out and it seemed a pity to be in there, but Neil didn’t want to leave given the girl seemed so happy to have customers… We just ordered mineral water. She brought them to us. Neil gave her five pound and told her to keep the change.’
That sounds like Neil. A little bit flash, but not enough to be criticised for it.
‘So she gets this good tip and she looks at him. I can still picture her face. Pretty, but a bit hard, like a young Meg Ryan. She stood there chatting with us. Why were we here? Etc. Then Neil told her he was a police detective.’ Her eyes comb my face. ‘Women react to that. Every time.’ She swats a fly that keeps dancing before her eyes. ‘Anyway, a few more people came in. But every time she walked past us she’d look over, not directly at him, but almost as though she was inviting his eyes on her. And Neil… he was talking to me but it was the same thing: they were very much aware of each other.’ She shakes her head. ‘Funny thing is, I don’t think either of them was particularly aware of me, noticing this. We had our drinks then he asked her where the toilet was. I remember the off-hand way he got to his feet, stood tall and buttoned his jacket, like a man does who knows he’s handsome. It was a very assured gesture. Everything about him was confident of himself, I thought, as though he held all the power. The girl said it was downstairs, she’d show him.’ Wendy shifts on the uncomfortable bench, hugs her knees so her black Capri pants ride up her legs that could use a shave—something you’d never see, back in the days of Neil. ‘And I’m sat there thinking, Why does this girl want to show my husband where the toilets are? Isn’t he big enough to find them himself? And I got a really bad feeling. Just,’ she punches a fist to her rib cage, ‘I don’t know, like I was somehow at a disadvantage, helpless. Anyway, she led him down the narrow, dark stairwell. I remember it had prints of jazz musicians on the walls. And just before they were out of sight, I saw her turn and look back at him. And it was all there in her face: that rapt, mischievous, illicit understanding.’
‘No! God. Was he gone a long time?’
Her grip tightens around her knees, pushing pockets of muscle out on her arms. ‘Long enough.’
‘How did he look when he came back up?’
‘Well not like you’d think he’d look if he’d done anything. But I know he had.’
‘How?’
Her pupils drill into mine. ‘I knew.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Well I asked him what had gone on. He said I was being ridiculous. It was my bad mind.’
‘You don’t have a bad mind.’
She smiles. ‘I didn’t think I did either.’
She gets up now and we start walking again. ‘You have to remember, I wasn’t looking for anything to upset my world. I had two boys. I loved him. I was very happy with my life. The last thing I wanted was a reason to leave him.’ Our feet crunch stones. We pass a fisherman who turns and says ‘hello,’ and three young Chinese girls in a rowing boat whose giggles cut an echo across the still, opaque, green water.
‘I never actually saw her come back up again.’ Our walking trails to a stop and she seems breathless. ‘Whether she left… I thought about going down to the ladies’ room, but then I thought, what if she’s down there? You know, cleaning herself up, or putting her clothes back on. What’ll I do? She’d know I knew then. And I’d know Neil was lying. And I’d have to do something. And I didn’t know what I’d do.’ The remaining colour drains out of her face.
‘My God Wendy.’
‘You always think when you hear things like this, that Oh I’d flip out… or I’d kill her… or kill him... But when it does… I tell you, I didn’t know what I’d do. I was intimidated by the situation. It felt bigger than I knew how to handle.’ We start walking again, my eyes on the slow forward-rhythm of our shoes. ‘We got back to the hotel and had a massive fight because of course I wouldn’t let it drop. But it all boiled down to his word against my suspicions. The way I saw it I had two choices. I either had to leave him or believe him. So I believed him.’
‘This is incredible, really… So how did you feel towards him after that then?’
She laughs a little, humourlessly. ‘Alert.’
A picture of Neil floods up in my mind. Neil, who I have always felt was a little bit unknowable, but it added to his appeal. Then I think, hell, he’s not the man Leigh thought he was either, is he? The loyal man who was only cheating with her because she was special. ‘So was that it then? Or did anything else happen?’
‘Oh, the phone calls to the house. Hang ups. There’d be none for ages, then a run of them. A few other things… ‘ She shrugs and I know she’s not going to elaborate. ‘In the beginning I’d be checking his pockets all the time, his credit card statements. But not trusting the person you live with is an exhausting way to live. It’s completely emotionally poisonous. Besides, I didn’t want that sort of unhealthy relationship. That’s not who I am.’ She stares off into the distance. ‘Funny though, when I found out about Leigh and I asked him how many others there’d been, he hesitated, just for a second, before he said None.’
‘So how many do you think there’ve been?’
She shrugs. ‘Lots.’
‘Lots! You’re kidding.’
‘No,’ she almost laughs. ‘I know this is a shock to you. And you must think I’m pathetic. And I am. And I’ll have to live like that. Or change myself, which I’m trying to do now.’
‘Wendy you never let on…’
‘I can’t. I’m good at being happy but I’m not good at being sad.’ She looks at me, sadly. ‘And like I said, there never was real evidence. I wasn’t going to walk out on my marriage and rob my lads of a family on a hunch, was I? Even a very strong one. Or that’s my excuse, anyway. But, I don’t know, I feel so…’ She shakes her head, doesn’t finish.
I think of that day in the restaurant when Wendy said Not always to Leigh’s comment about how she only ever wanted to be married to Neil. Leigh took her two-word response to be, how did she put it when we were talking about it afterwards?—humouring, as though Wendy said it to condescend or just to fit in. But I’m sure she was really just being honest, only we refused to believe it. We’ve pigeonholed Wendy into being this poster-child for happily-marriedness. Why? Maybe to give us some ideal that our own lives fell short of. Maybe to justify our gripes. We walk to the end of the path, and then come back up onto the high street again. ‘I did something the other day that I’m quite proud of,’ she eventually says, brighter. ‘There’s a course at Northumbria Uni. It’s basically a conversion course for people who think they might want to be lawyers, who have a non-law degree. I’d have to study for the Common Professional Examination, which takes a year full-time, and I’d not be able to start it until next September, and that’s assuming that I enrol almost this minute to complete my two credits to get my degree. But the CPE would guarantee me a place on the Legal Practice Course, and then after that I’d be working as a trainee solicitor for two years, but I’d b
e collecting a salary. After that, there’s the Professional Skills Course, but that’s really only twelve days.’ She looks at me, freshly. ‘So Jill, I just about reckon that by the time I’m fifty I could be a fully-fledged solicitor!’ She laughs a little. ‘So I think I’m going to go for it. What do I have to lose?’
‘That’s incredible Wendy.’ And amazing that, as far as life goes, she seems to be back on the horse. ‘I can see you making a brilliant solicitor.’ She analyses the hell out of everything as it is. ‘Would it not just be easier to become a law clerk or something though?’
‘Yes. But I don’t want to be a clerk. I want to be a lawyer. I always did.’
I mourn my own job now. The job I was happy in. Wendy has a path now. What’s mine?
‘My problem is I always tend to need to do things well. So I was a good parent, a good wife. But the whole ultra-domesticated thing has really been something I’ve taken a false pride in. It’s not really me. It never really was, much as I thank God for my lads… I don’t know, I suppose if I’d never had children I could have still been happy. A part of me has always felt I short-changed myself by marrying Neil, even though I’ve always convinced myself that by landing him I’d hit the jackpot.’ She huffs, shakes her head. ‘Neil knew about the law thing but he showed such little interest in the discussion that he even managed to convince me that I wasn’t really interested in it myself. Because Neil has to be top dog. But I think it’s because deep down, if he didn’t trade so much on his good looks, Neil’s not really a confident man. And men who lack confidence in themselves don’t want successful wives; they don’t want wives with brains. Besides, he detests lawyers. Always says they get the bad guys off. So imagine how ironic it’ll be...’ She looks at me, widens her eyes.
We walk to Crook Hall, the mediaeval manor house that makes a fabulous homemade afternoon tea, as she tells me the ins and outs of the studying she’d have to do, the courses she’s most looking forward to. We claim a table in the shade in a pretty little rose-filled courtyard by the fountain. Then she’s flat again. ‘Where do you suppose they went to do it? Leigh and my husband.’ We’ve already had the conversation about how we can’t believe she made up the name Nick, which is so close to Neil, and she managed to call him that without a slip of the tongue. But then again, she didn’t really use his name all that much, I don’t think. It was usually him. Come to think of it, I didn’t really ask all that much about him. And I was so trusting of her that I never looked for flaws in anything she told me. But now I’m ashamed that I believed so convincingly in the existence of a person who wasn’t real. I should have seen some sort of sign. ‘I always wonder that about people who have affairs. Where do they go?’
She holds my eyes before I drop mine. I know where they went. ‘I have no idea Wendy. Probably to a hotel. Isn’t that what people do?’ People. Adulterers. Me. The judge and the judged.
I feel her probe me with her gaze. ‘What, Newcastle people? Maybe the ones on the television, but this is real life Jill. In real life people have bills to pay. Responsibilities. They don’t run around throwing money at hotels for cheap sex. Neil wouldn’t.’
She knows I know where they went. But she has too much class to press me.
‘You always liked him, didn’t you? You and Leigh,’ she says after a bit as we stare at a three-tiered tray of baked goodies that’s been set before us.
‘Yes. I suppose it’s because he’s so damned good-looking Wendy. You don’t see past it. You see his looks, the job he does, and you imagine everything else must be great about him too. And it didn’t help that you seemed so besotted with him. He was so perfect in your eyes, so that made him doubly perfect in ours.’
She gazes through the spray of the fountain and we listen to its silvery sound. ‘I adored him.’ Her face pales and those red patches appear on her forehead again. The fine hairs on her arm stand up. She looks chilled. She has to put her teapot down. An inch of milky liquid sits in the bottom of her rose-festooned cup. ‘But you’re wrong thinking I thought he was perfect. I was never blind to his shortcomings. I just thought him… essential. Essential to me. Isn’t that weak?’
I pour her tea for her. ‘Well maybe now you regret not having acted on your instincts, but that’s only because what he’s done now makes what you thought he might have done back then more likely. Wendy, you stayed in a relationship mainly for your kids. You booted him out the second you found out he was sleeping with Leigh. And you’re forty-two and thinking of going to become a solicitor. Weak is the last word I’d use to describe you. You’re probably the strongest woman I know.’
She pulls a wry smile and I know she’s thinking about her diagnosis. She picks up a Yorkshire ham and brie sandwich. ‘I only ever exercised for him. I hate exercise! I thought that if I looked as good as I possibly could it would give him less reason to stray. Can you believe somebody could be so soft? I kept thinking that by marrying me so young he’d missed out. And I know he got opportunities with women far better looking than I am. I almost felt sorry for him at times.’
‘But he married you because he wanted to. Nobody put handcuffs on him.’
‘I know. And he loved me. And he was attracted to me. And I know he still is. He just… Neil. has to live on the edge. That’s why he’s so good at his job.’ She looks around the small cobbled courtyard, tilts her sad face up at the hanging peach blossom drooping from a tree above us. ‘Oh, we shouldn’t be talking about this. Not here. Not today. Look at it, it’s too nice…’
It’s odd but I feel closer to her now. With Leigh I suppose I had to know her really well to learn that we were strangers. Yet Wendy has had to open up to me, to let me know that we really are friends.
Her sandwich sits on the plate with just a half-moon bite out of it. ‘I’m alright though. I am. I’ve spent a lifetime suspecting him of being unfaithful. Finding out that he actually has been is surprisingly not that much worse.’
‘Why haven’t you had it out with her?’ I have to ask this, because this is what surprises me most. Along with the fact that Leigh still hasn’t phoned and apologized to my friend or offered any explanation. She has just disappeared. It’s as though the last near decade of our friendship had an embolism and dropped dead.
She shrugs coldly, stares at the bread she’s absently poking holes in. ‘I can’t. I just can’t see it happening—me in one corner of the boxing ring and Leigh in the other. Can you? All this over him.’
‘No. You have too much dignity for that.’
‘I don’t have the balls,’ she says, surprising me. ‘Mind you, if she’d rung me I’d probably have let her have it. But am I going to ring her? Say Oh hello Leigh, I heard you’ve ran off with my husband…. It’s like being back in that bar again, all those years ago. It fills me with a dread that immobilizes me.’ She shakes her head. ‘Besides, I don’t want her explanation. I just want never to lay eyes on her again. Him neither. All that counts is being there for my boys now. They’re at that age where sex and life, it’s all just starting to make sense, and they’re getting slapped with a harsh truth. That people who we think would be the last to fail us sometimes go ahead and do it, and leave us with this legacy of never being able to trust. You know, this is the age that I really do believe shapes who we become, whether we become cynics or not, later on.’
‘Don’t think like that. They’ve got your influence as much as his—maybe more.’
She lays both hands on her stomach. ‘Jill, I don’t want them being brought up by his example.’ She looks at me vehemently. ‘And I never want them living with Leigh.’ She says it in a way that suggests she’s going somewhere, and I know what she’s referring to.
‘Don’t talk like that! They’re never going to live with Leigh. They’re only going to live with you—always—because you’re their mother.’
She looks at me and I see a glint of humour saving the moment. ‘Well, not always. I mean I do eventually want them to get married and move out. Imagine if they were both fifty an
d still living at home. And I was the breadwinner—the eighty-year-old lawyer, hacking away at a living.’ We chuckle. We walk out through the rose garden, leaving a tray of goodies we’re too full to eat. ‘You know I spent years thinking if I left him, where would that leave me? Who would I have? And the funny thing is, now I know the answer. I have me. You’re born just you, and you go through life buffered up against other people, but first and foremost you are just yourself. And then you die just you. So the sooner you get used to yourself the better.’
Her words won’t leave me. She drops me off at the bungalow, gives me a kiss. I watch her pull off in her car, suddenly very moved by our day. I sneak in the front door and am just picking my way across floorboards when I hear a quiet, ‘Goodnight lass,’ from my parents’ room. I’m thirty-five yet my dad still waits up until I’m home.
‘Goodnight Dad,’ I whisper. I climb into bed and lie there staring at the ceiling, wide awake.
Maybe that’s exactly what I am now.
Just me.
Chapter Twenty
I drive along the A19 with the radio on. I’m going to look at a flat for rent in Jesmond. Wendy told me about it. Somebody she knows is moving out. I drove by our house the other day again. The For Sale sign still hasn’t gone up. It’s been nearly two months.
I pull up at the house—number thirteen; lucky for some. It’s one of those white stucco three-level Victorian terraces with tended gardens and quiet children playing on the path. I park across the street and sit staring at it.
‘You can have both tickets.’ Rob said on the phone when I rang him about our Barbados holiday the other day, which is supposed to be this Saturday. ‘Take your Russian.’
‘Don’t say that!’
‘Well then, take somebody, take Wendy.’
