Men I've Loved Before

by Adele Parks

‘Well, I was.’ Nat looked at her mother, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘But I hadn’t thought it through. I don’t have any clothes. I don’t even have a hairbrush or make-up. My laptop is in Chiswick,’ Nat couldn’t bring herself to say the words ‘at home’ but just the thought of Chiswick with all her comforts, most notably her husband, forced the brimming tears to overflow. She quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand. Nat was not one for crying. ‘I haven’t even got my phone; I left in such a hurry.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Nina disappeared into her bedroom and returned with a wicker basket the size of a shoebox. Triumphantly she sat down and showed the contents of the box to Nat. ‘I read about this in Good Housekeeping or one of those magazines. There was an article that said it was always a good idea to keep spare toothbrushes, hairbrushes and toiletries etc. for forgetful guests.’

  ‘And is that what I am?’ asked Nat.

  ‘Oh, darling, you know I only meant—’

  ‘I know.’ Nat put her hand on her mother’s in a gesture that showed she understood Nina was doing her best under very difficult circumstances. ‘These things will be really useful but I still need clothes.’

  ‘You can borrow something of mine.’

  Nat looked at her mother in mock horror. Nina had a penchant for wearing whispery, layered clothes often decorated with sequins or tiny mirrors. Nat couldn’t see that sort of garb cutting it in her office. Nina allowed herself to smile, even amongst the gloom.

  ‘Maybe not. I mean, clearly things are bad but that would just be a disaster, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I can drive you to Chiswick now and you can get changed there. We could pick up the laptop. You probably wouldn’t be very late for work. If we set off soon then we’ll be ahead of the worst of the traffic going into town.’ Nina wondered if Neil would be at home. She hoped so. It was her opinion that they just needed to keep talking. They were a marvellous couple; they couldn’t let things go wrong.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s the best idea. You don’t mind coming with me?’ asked Nat.

  ‘No, darling,’ replied Nina, who rather hoped her daughter might take advantage of their journey together to enlighten her as to what was going on.

  37

  Neil did not hear Nat come into the house to collect her belongings. He’d spent the previous afternoon and night drinking bottled beer and when it was time to go to bed he couldn’t face sleeping in their room and so he’d opted to sleep on the floor in the spare room. He was surrounded by piles of ironing, defunct games consoles and boxes of Nat’s work stuff; it was ridiculously uncomfortable but Neil didn’t care. He’d drunk enough to guarantee that he’d sleep through his alarm, which he did.

  Nat had been nervous about bumping into Neil. She’d carefully put her key in the lock and quietly, oh-so-gently pushed the front door open. She’d found a hold-all in the cupboard under the stairs and then calmly, silently and methodically collected together enough clothes for the week, her laptop, her phone, her make-up and other toiletries. She stood in the kitchen and changed out of her mother’s three-tiered skirt and embroidered peasant blouse and put on a smart grey skirt and nipped-waist jacket, a pale blue blouse and high boots. She then wrote a note informing Neil that her dad would be back for the rest of her stuff the following weekend. Finally, she took her key off her Tiffany key ring (which Neil had bought her as a present to celebrate their last wedding anniversary) and she placed it on top of the kitchen unit, right next to the kettle; Neil wouldn’t be able to miss it there. Nina watched her daughter perform these tasks and she thought that anyone else watching Nat might have believed they were watching a woman who was calm, cool, collected and in control. Only Nina could see the bloody turmoil in her daughter’s eyes and around the corners of her mouth where the grim, fake smile was stapled.

  Neil woke up and was aware of a thread of saliva running from his mouth on to a small pool on the laminated floor he’d slept on. He checked his watch and saw that it was after midday. Good. He’d wanted to sleep through the entire day and the next and the next if he could. His head thumped but he’d had worse hangovers, the long sleep had helped take the edge off that particular drama. The thumping was more likely to do with the regret that was pounding about his being. Slowly he sat up and stretched. Damn. The same thoughts as the day before ambushed him. He’d been awake just a matter of seconds and already he was thinking about Nat. But what was he to think? She’d slept with someone else. She’d told him that was the case. If she hadn’t told him, he’d never have believed it. No, never. No matter who had said the same thing. But this wasn’t rumour or gossip; this was a confession from her lips. Nat had slept with someone else. When? How often? Was she in love with this someone else? Well, she was a bitch and she could have him. He was welcome to her, the stupid, silly, selfish bitch. It was done. It was over. He’d move on.

  Oh, but God, he loved her.

  That would stop. He knew that. He’d been in love twice before he’d been in love with Nat and then he’d stopped being in love with those women. OK, he’d never loved them so much in the first place, they weren’t such deep or long-lasting relationships but his point was, people got over stuff. Didn’t they? Crap happens. He’d get over Natalie Morgan, see if he wouldn’t.

  He stood up slowly and walked into the bathroom, put his head round the door of their bedroom, walked downstairs, checked in the living room and kitchen but they were all empty. She had not come back. He’d thought perhaps she might and, if she had, he knew he’d have taken her back. He was more sure of that than his thought that she was someone he might get over. He had thought that maybe, if they could contain this agony to just one weekend, it wouldn’t have to spoil everything they had. Somehow they’d work round it. But now it was Monday, a fresh week, and the treachery and mistakes of the weekend had soiled the new week too. The thought terrified Neil. What if this mess couldn’t be contained? What if they really had fucked up and they lost each other? What then?

  No, it couldn’t be so. Nat was a sensible woman. Far more sensible than he was. She wouldn’t let this fall apart. But then, she’d slept with someone else. She’d told him so. When? How often? Was she in love with someone else? Well, she was a bitch and she could have him. Oh, God, he was going round in circles. Was he going mad?

  He needed a plan. Neil thought about it for a minute or two as he peed and decided that his plan would be to make a cup of tea and then to call Nat again. A strong cup of tea, almost orange with tannin that hit the back of his throat was what he needed. He’d call Nat, she was bound to be at her parents’, there was no way she’d have managed to go into work today after such a traumatic weekend. He’d give her a chance to explain. Maybe. Or at least he’d call her and tell her she was a bitch. Maybe. He wasn’t sure but what he did know for certain was that he had to hear her voice again. This could not be it. But when he reached for the kettle he discovered the house key she’d left and the note telling him that she thought the situation was irretrievable. So he went back to bed instead.

  38

  Neil hadn’t noticed it any other year but the whole purpose of Christmas was to torment the newly dumped. Christmas came with overwhelming expectations; everywhere he turned there was the hint of other people’s hopes and unending promise of opportunity, happiness and intimacy. Everywhere he turned outside his own head, that is. Christmas was a time when families sat around hearths, couples dragged home Christmas trees and tear-jerking Nativity plays were performed in every school hall up and down the country. Neil couldn’t wait for January, when things would get back to normal. When the sky would be eternally grey, only tat would be left in the shops and everyone would be battling with weight gain and credit card debts; only then could Neil hope that people might feel just a fraction of the misery he felt. He repeatedly reminded himself that Christmas was in reality often a day of family bickering, interrupted by the giving and receiving of unwanted, usually useless gifts; there was no real reason for the soap on a rope to exi
st. But he wasn’t much consoled because somehow the Dickensian image of a more worthy and meaningful Christmas, filled with large and happy families, always niggled its way into his consciousness, and the truth was he longed for it.

  He’d agreed to go to Fi and Ben’s for Christmas Day because Fi had badgered him mercilessly. She loved it when it was her turn to host Christmas and she took her role as hostess very seriously; she’d insisted that Christmas would be entirely ruined if Neil didn’t join in. He would have been happy enough sitting around in a pool of stale self-indulgence (that smelt a little like a sewer) but Fi had visited Chiswick three weekends in a row in an effort to persuade him to join the rest of the family.

  ‘Neil, we wouldn’t be able to have a nice time if we knew you were all alone here,’ she’d said the first week. ‘My God, I think something in your fridge actually moved.’ She emptied the fridge of rotting food and bought fresh fruit to put in the bowl on the dining-room table but while Neil was on some level grateful for his sister-in-law’s attentions, he knew that the fruit would probably end up in a big black bin bag the next time she visited.

  ‘Neil, the kids will miss you. It’s bad enough that they haven’t seen you for a few weeks as it is but they will be expecting you on Christmas Day as normal,’ she’d said, the second time she visited.

  The guilt card backfired when Neil replied, ‘But it won’t be as normal, will it? Natalie won’t be there.’

  ‘Well, no,’ admitted Fi, somewhat embarrassed.

  ‘Have you heard from her?’ Neil asked. He tried to feign indifference but Fi could hear the tension in his voice. He was desperate for any scrap of information or news about his wife. Soon to be ex-wife.

  ‘Yes, she did call,’ replied Fi tentatively. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the middle of the two of them. Nat had asked the exact same question about Neil, she was clearly concerned about his welfare as she’d had reports from Karl and Tim that Neil was in a very bad way. But Fi was no go-between, she didn’t have the patience or the time; she already had three kids, for goodness’ sake, she didn’t need two more and they were behaving like kids. Neil was lolling about the house, refusing to even go to work or so much as pop out with his mates for a pint. Worryingly, he was drinking plenty, though, on his own, while listening to Take That tracks. It wasn’t as though Fi could even offer any advice. Neil would not explain what had gone wrong between him and Nat. All he said was that she was a bitch or sometimes a ‘fucking treacherous bitch’ but the exact reasons he’d labelled her as such were classified. It wasn’t dignified, not at his age. Weeks of nothing other than drinking and cussing and shunning the shower was unacceptable.

  And Natalie was no better. She had gone to the other extreme; she was behaving as though nothing had changed at all. She was going to work every day and working a ten-hour day minimum (the only change being she had to commute in from her parents’ in Guildford), she was still remembering birthdays and she’d telephoned to wish the kids good luck with their nursery Nativity play (Angus was a wise man, Sophia was a donkey, Fi thought they were both miscast). Nat hadn’t whined, moaned or grieved for her relationship, at least not in public. The closest Nat would be drawn towards complaining about the situation was that she commented that her parents’ rich food was making her put on weight and that the commute was tiring. To all intents and purposes, Nat didn’t even appear ruffled by the fact that she and her husband had split but Fi knew this was not the case. It just couldn’t be. However much Nat tried to disguise the fact, her voice had oozed concern when she’d asked Fi if Neil had plans for Christmas and whether he was eating properly or not. Fi thought that you could probably say he was eating properly if a diet of curries and takeaway pizzas, three times a day, constituted properly.

  She tidied away the tin foil cartons and the cardboard pizza boxes.

  ‘Do you recycle your cardboard?’ she asked Neil.

  ‘Used to,’ he muttered. It appeared even recycling was beyond him now.

  The week before Christmas, Fi arrived at Neil’s with an arsenal. She brought baby Giles with her and the moment she was through the door she dropped him on to Neil’s lap.

  ‘He needs changing. Can you do it? I’m going to warm his bottle.’

  Neil wasn’t especially enthusiastic (but then she had asked him to change a nappy, she couldn’t expect leaps of joy) but at least he got up off the sofa and took his nephew upstairs. When he returned with a more comfortable and smiling baby, Fi said, ‘Your mum and dad are coming down for Christmas. If you don’t join us, I’ll bring them over here.’ She glanced around the fleapit that had once been a tasteful home and said, ‘You don’t want them to see this, do you, Neil?’ Her tone was no-nonsense and Neil recognised that he was beaten.

  ‘OK. What time?’

  ‘Noon.’ Fi was building in a couple of spare hours. Lunch wasn’t likely to be served before 2p.m. but she felt there might be need for a buffer. If Neil didn’t show, she’d have time to drive over here and haul him to Clapham before the turkey was carved. Besides, she rather liked saying ‘noon’ as though she was demanding some sort of shootout at the old chaparral, and in some ways she was.

  39

  Natalie was dreading dropping off Christmas presents at Ben and Fi’s, the thought sent huge spasms of panic through her body but she knew she had to do it, she couldn’t neglect the children. Her life was a hideous jumble but Angus, Sophia and Giles had no concept of secrets, deception, lap dancers or adultery – thank God – and so their worlds should not be disturbed by the adult disarray. She had done something terrible, she felt the weight of that every moment of every day, but she had a duty to carry on as normal, especially where the children, her family and friends were concerned. None of them deserved to be embroiled in this disaster that she’d brought upon herself and for that reason she had never so much as shed a tear in front of a single soul. Her pillow was often wet at night, though.

  It was hardest to behave normally around Jen. For two weeks Nat had managed to avoid seeing or speaking to her directly; they’d simply swapped texts and voicemails as they played out an elaborate game of telephone tag. Jen’s voicemails oozed concern and asked whether Nat wanted her to drive down to Guildford and Nat’s voicemails were efficient and politely discouraging. Nat did not know what to do for the best. Should she tell Jen that she’d had sex with Karl? She had nothing to lose, other than face, but what about Jen? Nat now had the worst type of proof positive that Karl played away; surely Jen had a right to know exactly what sort of man she was planning on marrying. But Nat could not forget that night, last September, when Jen burst into her dinner party and revealed her suspicions about Karl; Nat was almost certain that Jen had known the score back then but wanted to surge on regardless. If she told Jen she’d shagged her fiancé, she’d be forcing Jen to confront the facts. Did she have any right to do that? Was it her place? Karl clearly hadn’t had a fit of conscience and he had not felt the need to talk about their drunken indiscretion with either Jen or Neil. Would she just be making more trouble by confessing? The whole thing was so bloody as it stood.

  When it became impossible to delay any longer, Nat had agreed to meet up with Ali and Jen for a drink after work. At the beginning of the evening Jen had asked Nat how she was holding up.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Should we talk about something else?’

  ‘Probably best.’

  ‘My wedding plans might distract you.’

  Ali had rolled her eyes and tutted but Nat had graciously agreed to hear all about the to-die-for dress, the stunning flowers, the delicious menu, the really quite original order of service, the fabulous shoes, the spoiling wedding list and the genius photographer. If Nat hadn’t shagged Jen’s fiancé she might not have been so obliging but as she had, she thought the least she could do was show a reasonable interest in the topic that was closest to Jen’s heart.

  Jen was
having a fantastic time planning the wedding. She’d picked a date in early May. She’d been delighted to secure a beautiful country hotel, out in the lush Sussex countryside. It wasn’t near her family home but it had been featured in Brides and Setting Up Home (Jen’s bible). She’d opted to marry on a Tuesday because if she’d wanted a weekend wedding she would have had to wait up to three and a half years for a free date at the country hotel. When Ali had pointed out that not all her guests would be able to negotiate a holiday very easily in order to attend a weekday wedding, Jen had dismissed such qualms with an easy wave of her hand. ‘Those who want to be there will make sure they are.’

  ‘But your dad’s a headmaster, he’s not allowed to take time off during the week,’ Ali cautioned.

  ‘He can throw a sickie,’ said Jen, determined not to have anything stand in the way of her speedy nuptials.

  Nat kept quiet, she prayed a conference would crop up that might offer a legitimate excuse for missing the wedding because she was pretty certain she fell in the category of someone who did not want to be there. She managed to get through the evening by saying very little at all. Her friends thought her quietness understandable under the circumstances and it had never been Nat’s way to blab in any case.

  Nat participated in most of the usual Christmas preparations and managed to appear reasonably cheerful while doing so. She drove to B&Q with her dad to buy a tree and she helped her mother decorate it with the mish-mash of ancient baubles and ornaments that, as tradition dictated, adorned the Morgans’ family tree every year. Nat tried not to think of last year when Neil had knocked over the tree after one too many glasses of port. The tree and Neil had both ended up splayed out on the sitting-room floor, baubles and tinsel scattered across the entire room. It hadn’t been a problem; they’d all thought it was hilariously funny, probably because it wasn’t just Neil who had been indulging in the port. Neil had emerged from the fray clutching their tatty angel and shouting, ‘I have her, don’t worry, the angel’s safe. No need to panic.’ Nat could almost hear him as she placed the angel at the top of the tree this year.