by Jane Fallon
5
WHILE MATTHEW TEARFULLY TOLD HELEN that he'd spent the whole of the previous day and night thinking about her and figuring out for himself what it was he truly wanted, she found she was thinking about the frozen lasagna she'd left in the oven and how much she was looking forward to it, which can't have been a good sign. She was aware that she was tuning in and out of his monologue, catching bits here and there:
"…once they'd all gone, she made me sit down and talk…
"…tried to pretend it was all OK…
"…asked me point-blank if there was someone else…
"…told her that I love you…
"…blah blah, something something…"
Eh?
"What did you say?" She forced her brain to focus.
"I said, she didn't have any idea. She'd never even suspected, all these years."
"Oh."
Come on, she thought, concentrate, this is serious. But she looked at Matthew, sobbing his heart out on the couch, and found herself struggling to equate this rather broken-down, gray-haired man, who was only a few years away from his bus pass, with the man she had yearned for and fretted over and lusted after for the past four years.
"I've given up everything. A fifteen-year marriage. My house. Oh, God, maybe my children," he was saying. "I was so awful to her, I said things I never should have said. But it's worth it for you, I've realized that now. I have done the right thing, haven't I? Because there's no turning back."
She peeled him off her and stood up. "I just need to turn the oven off."
Out in the kitchen, Helen leaned her head against the cool of the fridge door and tried to make sense of what was going on. This was everything she'd been asking him for. She should be throwing herself into his arms, crying with happiness and gratitude, laughing at the prospect of a shared future—so why wasn't she? And why was this happening now? Why hadn't he rung her beforehand and said, "I'm about to leave Sophie, just checking you're still up for it"? Oh, yes, she thought, because she hadn't been answering her phone to him, that was why. She shut the kitchen door and called Rachel, running the tap loudly so that Matthew couldn't hear.
"Matthew's left Sophie. He's told her everything and walked out on her and the kids. He's here."
"What? I can't hear you."
"Oh, fuck it," Helen said, turning the tap off again. She repeated what she had just told her friend in a stage whisper.
"That's fantastic." Rachel sounded postcoitally sleepy.
"I don't know if it is. Is it?" Helen was irritated. "Haven't you been listening to anything I've been saying for the past couple of weeks? Things have changed. I've changed. I'm not sure what I want anymore."
Truthfully, Rachel had spent so many years listening to Helen go on and on about the complications of her relationship that it now washed over her and she rarely took in the details.
"Oh, shit, yeah. Shit. Well, you'll just have to tell him to go again."
"Rachel, are you listening to me? He's told Sophie and the children. I can't just say, 'Actually, I know I've been asking you to do this for the past four years, but what if it's not the right decision?' I can't just say, 'I know you've done exactly what I've always told you I wanted, what I more or less gave you an ultimatum about less than two weeks ago, but maybe you should think about whether it would be better to go back to your suicidal wife and your two devastated children and tell them it was all a windup.'"
"Why not?"
"Because he's only done it because of me. It's all my fault. What the fuck should I do?"
"I don't know, tell him you need some time. Tell him you've got a terminal illness and you're going to be dead soon, so he might as well stay with his family."
Helen could tell Rachel's heart just wasn't in this conversation and she could hear Neil in the background cajoling her to come back to bed.
"Oh, forget it."
She put the phone down. OK, she thought, the facts are these: I've already potentially ruined three people's lives—Sophie's and the two girls'. She realized, with a wave of guilt, that she could only remember the name of one of Matthew's daughters, Claudia.
What I can't now do is add Matthew to that list. I have to make sure this is really what we want. Both of us.
She fixed a smile on her face and forced herself back out into the living room. Matthew was looking at her like an abandoned puppy on an RSPCA advert. She noticed that he was wearing a rather comfy pullover, a bit like something her dad might like, and realized that she'd never seen him in anything other than his office uniform of a variety of well-fitting suits and hand-finished shirts. His usually immaculately combed hair was standing up in places, like a baby bird's, and she could see his bald spot peeking, pink and vulnerable, like a long-forgotten fontanel, through the strands. He was pitiful. She sat on the sofa next to him and put her arms around him.
* * *
The next morning, Helen got up early because there was a stranger in her bed. Or that's how it seemed. She'd spent most of the night trying to work out why yesterday evening wasn't the happiest of her life and why, in fact, she now felt like crying, while Matthew slept like a baby. Well, a baby with sinus trouble, because Helen had discovered that he snored, a fact which thus far she'd been blissfully unaware of, having never had the pleasure of his company for a whole night before.
The sight of her tiny living room overcome with boxes and suitcases brought her mood down further. For a man who'd upped and left in a hurry, he'd managed to do a lot of packing. She could see things which resembled skis and, God forbid, a guitar. She poked about a bit and came across a shoe-cleaning kit. Surely not? What kind of man owned a shoe-cleaning kit, for fuck's sake, let alone remembered to pack it when he was in the midst of the biggest crisis of his life. She dug a bit deeper and found herself opening a small photo album—always a mistake. Photos of a happy, smiling family looked back at her. There she was—well, Helen could only assume it was her, although the real Sophie didn't even come close to any of the pictures Helen had been carrying around in her head. Helen didn't know if she was more shocked by Sophie being so much younger than she'd thought, so much more beautiful, so happy looking, or just by the fact that she was real. She sank down into an armchair and began to leaf through the book from the beginning.
In a previous life, Helen would have scanned these photographs with the precision of a laser, looking for details to torture herself with. Once she'd gotten over the shock of Sophie's looks, she would have fixated on her and Matthew's body language, looking for telltale signs of affection. Today, all she could see was two children who clearly loved their dad, and a woman who looked open and friendly and confident and who blatantly had no idea that her life was about to fall apart. She had to talk to Matthew. If this wasn't what she truly wanted, then she had no right to take him away from his family.
She sneaked into the bedroom, looked down at him fast asleep, and tried to rationalize how she felt. The nervous energy she had always experienced when she was around him before seemed to have entirely disappeared and been replaced by what?
Pity?
Embarrassment?
Matthew slid a finger into his nostril in his sleep and rooted around a bit.
Distaste?
* * *
He looked like he didn't quite know where he was when she woke him up. Then a brief look of panic crossed his face. She decided to tackle it head-on and sat down on the bed beside him, stroking his shoulder.
"You can still go home, you know, if you think you've done the wrong thing. I'll understand. Tell Sophie you were drunk and you made it all up or something."
"Don't say that. What are you saying? I did this for you. I can never go back now, not after what I've done to them in the last couple of days."
"I'm just saying, if you think you've made a mistake, then it's OK. I'll support you, whatever you want to do. I mean, maybe we've rushed into it a bit."
"Rushed into it? You've been telling me that this was what you wanted for years
. I did this for you," he said, not for the first and not for the last time. "Tell me I've done the right thing."
Then he said the saddest sentence known to mankind.
"Don't you want me?"
She couldn't push him any further. He was so desperate and so pathetic, she had to put him out of his misery.
"God…Matthew…you know I do. This is all I've ever wanted. I just want you to be sure it's what you want, too, and you're not just doing it because I've pressured you."
"I want us to be a proper couple," he said. "I want us to live together. I want to meet your friends and you to meet mine. I want to wake up next to you every morning and go to sleep next to you every night."
Helen could have sworn she could feel the walls of her already tiny flat moving in to suffocate her.
"Me, too."
He moved in to kiss her and they had awkward and slightly self-conscious sex. She noticed that his unfreshened morning breath was a little off-putting.
6
ON BARTHOLOMEW ROAD, Sophie was struggling to understand what the last twenty-four hours had been about. She was waiting for Matthew to breeze through the front door and tell her it was all a joke. After their row, she had known there was something seriously up with him, but she'd assumed it was work. Matthew had a way of hitting out at those around him when he was wounded, and she had convinced herself that he had messed up a campaign or been voted off the board or asked to take early retirement. Maybe he had developed a gambling habit and had blown all their savings. Or he was just feeling his age and kicking out against it as he sometimes did. She knew he took aging very badly, as if it were a personal slight, happening only to him. But there was nothing that had happened in the last fifteen years that had prepared her for this.
It had flitted through her mind that they'd get through this. It could take years and hard work, maybe counseling. They'd present a happy front while they repaired their marriage from the inside out and, one day, eventually, it'd be forgotten. She'd even heard people say that their relationships ended up stronger after they'd gone through something like this, although at the moment it was hard to see how. Then she'd heard him talking about arranging visits to see the girls and coming back to get the rest of his possessions, and she'd realized he really was going. This was it. After all these years, it had come to a straight choice between her and another woman and the other woman had won.
She knew that she had to put on a brave face for the children, but she also knew that they'd heard the shouting match that went on last night, though they were pretending they hadn't. Despite her best efforts, Claudia caught her crying in the bathroom.
"Where's Dad?"
"I'm not sure, darling. He's gone away for a bit."
"Is he ever coming back?"
"He's coming back to see you and Suzanne, of course he is," Sophie said, hugging her daughter. "He'd never not want to see you."
Suzanne stomped in, aggravated at being left out.
"What's going on?"
"Apparently Daddy's being a bit of a cunt," said Claudia, who'd been practicing, and had a feeling she might be allowed to get away with it at the moment.
"Isn't he, Mum?"
Sophie laughed, despite herself.
"Yes, sweetheart, he is, a bit. And don't say that word."
There was still a day to go before it was time to go back to work. Matthew set about unpacking his bags and boxes, mainly to put his things in piles on the living room floor, although Helen managed to clear out one drawer in the bedroom. Among other things, Helen noticed, he seemed to have brought a pile of washing. She forced herself to offer to put it into the machine.
"No, no," he protested, "I can do it myself."
They were being very polite and on their best behavior, as if they were two strangers who had found each other through a "roommate wanted" ad. Helen realized she couldn't remember how they'd ever used to have fun together, if indeed they did.
Matthew's mobile phone rang. His sister, Amanda. He took it in the bedroom and Helen could hear his muttered, defensive conversation. When he came out, she felt genuinely sorry for him, because she guessed he'd had a sisterly dressing down. Fuck, thought Helen, how am I ever going to explain this to Mum and Dad? When the ringing started again, at about six o'clock, Matthew made a joke about throwing the phone out the window, then went white when he looked at the caller ID.
"It's Suzanne."
Helen knew a reaction was expected, but she was struggling to place quite who Suzanne was in Matthew's overstuffed family, so she settled on an expression which she thought said "Really! How interesting," but which in fact read as blank.
"My daughter."
He sounded hurt that he had to remind her.
"I know! Answer it."
More shuffling off into the bedroom, more low voices. Despite herself, Helen couldn't resist listening in. She heard Matthew comforting and reassuring Suzanne, who was obviously in pieces. He was trying to convince her things would be no different between them.
"You and Claudia can come over here whenever you like. You can meet Helen and hang out with us at the weekends."
Ignoring the slightly disturbing fact that Matthew had just used the expression "hang out," Helen went straight for the big scary thought at the heart of what she'd just heard. Never in any of her fantasies about life with Matthew, post-Sophie, did she factor in his children. There was no doubt she felt bad for them in a way she'd never imagined she could. She didn't want them to lose touch with their father, but couldn't he go and visit them somewhere? Take them to the zoo and then McDonald's for lunch, like part-time fathers always did in films?
Move back in with them and pretend nothing had happened?
It had never been a decision for Helen not to have children, it was something she had always known. The responsibility was too much, the potential for fucking it up too great. Besides, she wanted to make something of her life, be ambitious, carefree, spontaneous—everything her parents weren't. It had occurred to her that maybe that was one of the reasons she had allowed herself to be suckered into a relationship with a married man, because the last thing he was ever going to do was put pressure on her to have a child. It just hadn't occurred to her that she might end up having to be a stepmother to his children.
7
AT LUNCHTIME THE NEXT DAY, Helen went out to meet Rachel in a café on Berwick Street, having kept out of Matthew's way pretty successfully all morning. They'd decided the previous night that it wouldn't be a good idea to let the office in on their little secret at this stage, something Helen felt grateful for—how would she ever have explained to her colleagues that she had been shagging the boss for the past God knows how many years, but just somehow failed to mention it? They'd traveled in to work separately, Matthew in his large impractical car and Helen on the overcrowded underground, and had only passed in the corridor once, so far, with a friendly-but-businesslike hello.
"I feel guilty about his family."
Rachel snorted. "Since when? You hate Sophie."
Sophie had been on the Women We Hate list for some years now, even though Rachel had protested that she had no feelings about her either way. Helen had countered that she herself had no problem with women who'd had therapy, either, but that she had allowed Rachel to keep them on the list for all this time.
"I don't know Sophie," she replied now.
"Never stopped you hating her."
"Which is why I feel guilty. Stop trying to make me feel worse."
"Well, send him back to her, then."
So Helen explained how she'd tried to broach the subject of him going back, and how clingy Matthew had become, and how he'd burned all his bridges because of her, so she had to try to make it work.
Rachel wasn't convinced. "How flattering to have a man want to spend the rest of his life with you because he doesn't think his wife'll take him back if you throw him out."
"It's not like that." Helen knew it pretty much was.
"Well, it sounds li
ke it."
They sat in grumpy silence for a minute or so, then Helen softened.
"I think he really loves me. And, like you said, it's what I've always wanted. I just need to get used to the idea, that's all."
What Helen loved most about Rachel was that she never once said, "I told you it'd all end in tears."
* * *
In forty-eight hours, Sophie had gone through crying, anger, disbelief, and hatred, and ended up back at crying again. She'd dealt with endless calls from Matthew's family, all phoning to say how dreadfully he'd behaved, but all, without exception, leaving her feeling as if it must have been somehow her fault. Suzanne had more or less said this outright to her. Claudia, slightly more touchingly, had taken her mother's side—not that Sophie was encouraging either of them to choose—and had declared she'd never speak to her father again.
What the girls knew was that Daddy had moved out, that he had a new friend, and that he was living with her now. Sophie was trying to spare them the gorier details, while examining them herself to try to make some sense of what'd gone on.
If the truth be told, Sophie shouldn't have been surprised by what had happened to her, having, as she had, stolen Matthew herself from the first Mrs. Shallcross all those years ago under very similar circumstances. Because, oh, yes, Sophie had been a mistress, too, once, before a wedding and children and a bit of history had blurred this fact from people's memories—even her own, sometimes. Sophie had been thirty, Matthew forty-five, as was his wife. It hadn't passed Sophie by that Mrs. Shallcross the first was exactly the same age that she herself was now when Matthew had moved on.
