Any Way You Want Me

by Diamond, Lucy

  He looked utterly gobsmacked, as if I’d just told him I had been a secret Man United fan for years. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t deserve you.’ I wiped my eyes, and looked at him. Time to come out with it – bludgeon him with the truth before Mark had a chance to do it for me. Oh God. The moment I’d been dreading.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I am so sorry for what I’m about to say. You’re going to hate me and I don’t blame you.’ I flinched under the confused squint of his eyes. Christ, I could hardly bear to say the words to him. How on earth was he going to look when I’d told him? ‘I . . . I had an affair. But it’s over now.’

  His body jerked at the words, and his fork went skidding off his plate. ‘You what? You had an affair?’

  I nodded. It was so hard to do this to him. If anybody else had caused him to look quite as stricken and battered, I would have hated them for it. ‘Yes,’ I said. My voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘I did. And I really regret it. And I’m so very, very—’

  ‘An affair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had an affair?’ He had been looking at me, but he suddenly wrenched his head away as if he couldn’t bear the sight of my face any more. He pushed himself away from me and sent his tray of food sliding off the edge of the bed and crashing down to the carpet. ‘When? And who with? And why? Why, Sadie?’

  It felt like we were acting out a scene from a TV drama. Right, OK, so this is the bit where I tell you about the affair, yeah, and you go mad and . . .

  Only we weren’t acting. It was really happening in our bedroom, the room where we slept and made love. The room where our son had been born only six months before. It was happening right now, a moment neither of us would ever be able to forget. I had spoiled both of our lives now.

  I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I had to tell him whatever he wanted to know. ‘For the last month or so,’ I said. ‘With Mark. Julia’s husband, Mark.’

  ‘With Mark? That posh twat we . . .?’ His voice was shaking and he banged his fist down on the bed. ‘Oh God. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that you and Mark . . .’ He looked at me then and his eyes were swimming with tears. ‘Tell me it’s a joke. Please, Sadie, tell me this is a joke.’

  I couldn’t bear that I had hurt him so much. I wished I could retract it, tell him yeah, it’s only a joke, don’t worry. As if I’d go off with ‘that posh twat’ anyway!

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ I said miserably, hating myself. You little bitch, Sadie. You little bitch.

  He was scrambling away from me, out of the bed, backing across the floor. ‘I don’t want to be near you,’ he said. ‘You . . . I don’t want to know. I’m going.’

  ‘Going?’ I echoed. ‘What do you mean, going? Can’t we talk about this?’

  ‘No,’ he said. He was at the door. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I need to go and think. I can’t stand to look at you any more.’

  I tried to go after him but my head was spinning as I got up. ‘Please,’ I said desperately, one hand at my temple, the other clutching on to the bed for support. ‘Please don’t go, Alex. I’m so sorry. I love you.’

  He stared at me, as I swayed there pathetically in my pyjamas. ‘Was it his?’ he said hoarsely. ‘The baby. Was it his?’

  ‘No!’ I went towards him. ‘Please let’s talk about this. Please. I . . .’

  The door banged shut. I heard him thud down the stairs. The front door crashed behind him.

  I heaved up one of the sash windows, leaned out over the road. ‘Alex, come back. I’m sorry!’ I wailed.

  He ignored me. He was at the car, opening the door, sliding into the seat. Then the engine started, the lights clicked on. He drove away.

  I had told him. I had finally told him the truth – and it had wrecked everything. From having a partner, a lover and a new baby inside me, I’d been left empty-handed. The eternal quadrilateral had become me, Sadie, on my own. The joke was on me. What sort of a fool was I to have lost everything?

  I stood at the window staring out at the quiet street. Alex had left me. He’d been so devastated, he had left me. The shock and hurt in his eyes had been the worst kind of punishment. I couldn’t see any way this was ever going to work itself out. And what the hell was I going to tell the children in the morning?

  I didn’t think I would sleep, but the painkillers the hospital had given me were so full-on, they knocked me into a stream of terrifying dreams. Then, the second I woke up the following day to Nathan’s lusty yells from the next room, I felt the empty space next to me in the bed, and my heart sank. Alex had been out all night. He hadn’t come back or phoned. He must really, really hate me.

  Of course he bloody hates you, a voice in my head scolded, as I dragged on my dressing gown and hurried to get Nathan. Of course he hates you, you utter fool. You’ve just told him you betrayed him with none other than his boss’s husband. What is he supposed to do – congratulate you?

  There was a tiny hope pulsing inside me that I’d go downstairs to find Alex crashed out on the sofa, but no. No sign that he’d come back, even to get some things. He’d literally gone out with nothing but his keys. Where could he have gone? Who could he be staying with? Would he have slept all night in the car?

  I flicked on the central heating, whacked one of Nath’s bottles in the microwave to warm, and filled the kettle. All the usual early morning things, yet there was no Alex upstairs in bed, brown hair sticking up against the pillow, murmuring in his sleep. I even used his sacred Leeds United mug for my tea in the hope that it would be comforting, but it wasn’t. It was no comfort at all. It just reminded me that he wasn’t there.

  Dear Sadie,

  Great to see you the other night. Sorry if I got a bit amorous on you at the end – well, I’m not at all sorry that I tried, actually, but I am sorry if it made you feel awkward. I couldn’t help myself when you looked so gorgeous and we’d had such a laugh all night. Excuses, excuses. Hope we can do it again sometime. (The seeing each other thing, not me making drunken passes.) Perhaps next time we could lose the Bee Gees soundtrack, too.

  Hope all is well with you and your kids. Still can’t get over that. I feel a callow, pimply youth compared to your maturity. And of course, it’s made my mum bang on even louder about how she’s never going to be a grandmother, and why can’t I stick with a nice girl for longer than two months, so cheers very much for that. You know you’re now a legend in the Cooper household as The One That Got Away, I hope you realize?

  The world of recruitment is as dynamic as ever. Applied for any jobs yourself lately?!

  Keep in touch

  Your partner in bullshit and Terry Jacks songs

  Danny xxx

  Molly, Nathan and I lay low for a few days. I still felt too weak and weepy to leave the house, and certainly had no desire to wash my hair or even brush my teeth, or, in fact, dress myself most of the time. Instead, we sat in and watched end-to-end videos and ate biscuits. Not something you’d find recommended in the good-parenting guide, but hey, it got us through. The buzz of the telly washed over me as I drowned in my thoughts.

  People had been phoning – Mum and Lizzie and Anna and Becca and Rose – all tentatively asking after me and saying that if there was anything they could do, I just had to ask, blah blah.

  I changed the subject instead, and asked about them. How’s the job going, Rose? (Great, kicking media arse left, right and centre.)

  What’s the gossip, Bec? (Well, actually, there’s this bloke at my gym, right, and . . .)

  Is Theo crawling now, Anna? (Yes, but only backwards, commando-style at the moment – not hardcore just yet.)

  My mum and Lizzie weren’t quite so easy to fob off. I asked Mum something innocuous about her garden, and she sighed. ‘I hope you’re not trying to change the subject,’ she said sternly. ‘Listen to me, love. I know you’re upset – of course you’re upset – but please stop blaming yourself. You’re a smashing mum, you really are, and—’

  I nearly f
ell off the sofa. ‘I’m a what?’

  She chuckled. ‘I said, you’re a smashing mum. You’re brilliant. A damn sight better than I was.’

  I passed a hand over my forehead, reeling with shock. Or was I hallucinating? Had my own mother just said that to me? ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied shakily in the end. Was this a wrong number, maybe?

  ‘You know, I feel sorry for you mums today,’ she went on chattily. ‘All the expectations. All the choices. I mean, I’m as much of a women’s libber as you, dear’ – I stifled a snort at that – ‘but at least when we didn’t have choices, it made life simpler. None of this agonizing about work and what have you. We were mums and housewives and that was that.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I said, not sure where this was leading.

  ‘And bloody boring it was, too,’ she sighed. ‘Now don’t get me wrong, I loved you all to bits when you were babies. But . . .’ She stopped herself suddenly. ‘Why am I rambling on like this, when there’s your lunch to make? I’ll pop over in a bit with a casserole.’

  ‘No, no, don’t,’ I said hastily. The only way out of this was a bare-faced fib. ‘Er . . . Alex is making something.’ I squeezed my eyes shut as I said it, hoping that would be my last lie for a while. There had been far too many of them lately.

  ‘Is he? God love him,’ she said warmly. ‘I told you he was a good one, didn’t I?’

  A tear trickled down my cheek and splashed onto my lap. ‘Yes, Mum. You did,’ I said.

  Lizzie was far less dissuadable. ‘I’ll come over and take the kids out to the park,’ she said. ‘Give you a breather. It’s a lovely morning.’

  ‘No, Liz, you don’t have to do that,’ I said weakly.

  ‘I know I don’t have to but I will,’ she said. ‘I’ll be twenty minutes.’

  ‘No,’ I said again. ‘Honestly. I think I just want them near me.’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘Fine, well, I’ll come over and put some washing on for you, then. Clean your kitchen floor, that sort of thing.’

  There was a lump in my throat at her kindness. ‘Actually, Liz,’ I said, clutching the phone so tightly, my fingers started to ache, ‘could you just come round and talk to me? I really need to talk to you.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Absolutely. It’s probably the best thing to do after what’s happened.’

  After what’s happened? I thought. Then I realized she meant the miscarriage. I leaned my head back against the sofa. ‘There’s something else as well. Something worse. Please come, Lizzie.’ I was crying all over again for the millionth time that morning. ‘Will you come now?’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ she said. ‘Hang in there, sweetheart. I’m on my way.’

  She came on her own, having left Felix with a friend. She hugged me on the doorstep and I cried and cried on her shoulder. ‘Oh, Sadie,’ she said, stroking my back. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  I knew that Molly was standing right behind me, so I tried to curtail my sobs. ‘It’s Alex. He’s . . .’ I sniffed. No. Mustn’t do this in front of Molly. ‘Sorry. Come in,’ I said, trying to sound normal. ‘Everything’s gone wrong.’

  I stood there in my own hall like a wooden doll while she hung up her coat and found a box of jigsaws for Molly to do on the living-room floor. Then she steered me into the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. Then, while the water boiled and she sorted out cups and tea bags, I told her. I told her the lot.

  I had always thought that, if I was going to tell one of my sisters, it would be Cat. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it with Lizzie, as I’d always felt that her life was so much calmer and better ordered than mine. Now I wanted her to understand the chaos of mine.

  She listened to me all the way through without speaking, without judging, then she put her arms round me. We were both still standing at the kitchen worktop and I leaned gratefully into her.

  ‘What a mess,’ she said. ‘Has he been in touch since?’

  ‘No,’ I told her. ‘I haven’t heard a thing since he stormed out on Tuesday night. His mobile’s switched off, he’s not at work and nobody seems to have heard a word from him.’

  Pls phone, I had texted about five hundred times. I am so sorry. My ears had been straining for days, hoping to hear a replying beep from my mobile, but there had been nothing.

  ‘He’ll come round,’ she said. ‘He’s angry. I know how he feels. He’s hurt and angry. He needs to think about things before he can talk to you.’

  I nodded. ‘You know, I was so irritated by him when the Mark thing all kicked off,’ I told her, drinking a mouthful of tea. ‘I know that’s not an excuse to go and have an affair, but it was like I just fell out of love with him for a while. I think he did the same with me. It was as if we were living together but we never spoke, you know? Or if we did, it was just about boring things like why the phone bill was so expensive or . . .’

  ‘Boring things,’ Lizzie repeated. ‘Steve said the same to me.’

  I clamped my mouth shut. I hadn’t even asked her about Steve. What kind of a crap sister was I?

  ‘And do you know what?’ she went on, staring out of the window. ‘I think he’s wrong. I’m not a boring person. I think he was just looking for an excuse.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said hoarsely. Just like I had been, I thought with a jolt.

  ‘It’s got to the point where I feel angry with him,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’ve told him as much. I’ve told him he has to make his mind up – me or Jessica – and live with that. I don’t want Felix – or me – to be messed around for another day, while he goes through his mid-life crisis, or whatever the hell it is. It’s gone on long enough already.’

  She spat the words out, a fire in her eyes. I hadn’t seen her look so alive or determined for months. Years, even.

  ‘Good for you,’ I said timidly.

  She looked at me then. ‘I’m not having a go at you,’ she said. ‘I know these things happen. I just never wanted it to happen to me, that’s all. So I’ve told him – make your mind up. I’ve taken back some control. Because there are boring parts of relationships, of every relationship. You just have to accept that. It’s not sex and holidays for ever, is it?’

  I goggled at her. I couldn’t help myself. She didn’t sound like passive, we-aim-to-please Lizzie any more. ‘Right,’ I managed to say. ‘No.’

  ‘I feel so angry with him for hurting me, you know,’ she said. ‘And now that I’ve got over the shock and the humiliation and all the rest of it, I’ve started thinking about what I want. And I don’t want to compromise. He’s either with me, or not. If he’s with me, great. We’ll try again. If he’s not, then fine. I will manage.’

  ‘I will survive,’ I said, half-joking, half-serious.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Every woman’s bloody theme song, I know. But it’s true. Life goes on without men. It’s true for you, too. I know you feel bad about Alex and I hope, for your sake and the kids’ sake, he comes back. But if he doesn’t, then you’ll still be OK. We’ll come through the other side, Sadie. We’ve got each other and our children and friends.’

  Molly ran in just then. ‘Help me, Mummy,’ she said, holding up some jigsaw pieces. I followed her obediently. Bloody hell, I was thinking. First my mother shocks me with her mothering praise. Now Lizzie comes over all strong and angry. If I hadn’t heard them with my own ears, I wouldn’t have believed it. It just showed – you thought you knew someone but really, you never even came close.

  The one thing that was really terrifying me about all this was the thought of Mark turning up and shouting at me again when I had sunk to such a vulnerable low. I scared myself by imagining him forcing his way into the house, frightening the children as well as me, pushing me about, hitting me, hurting me. I could take anything he wanted to do to me, yeah, bring it on, Mark, I would fight him all the way, gouge my thumbs into his eyes, rip his hair out, you name it. It was the thought of Molly’s white, drawn face, eyes wide and fearful as she saw her mummy getting beaten up by ‘that man’.
That was what really did for me.

  So far, though, he hadn’t shown up. He hadn’t even phoned. I toyed with the idea of writing him a letter and sending it to his office, but got stuck whenever I tried to put the words on the paper. What on earth would I say, other than ‘Sorry. Goodbye’? There was nothing else that I wanted to say, more to the point, other than, ‘Don’t you dare come round to my house again, especially not if my kids are there, you psycho stalker.’

  Somehow or other, I didn’t think that would go down too well.

  And then, suddenly, it was the weekend, and Alex still hadn’t come home or phoned me. I felt faint with fear. I had to face facts: he might not be planning to come home at all. For the first time in days, I had a shower and washed my hair, dressed myself and the kids properly, and cooked a proper breakfast.

  ‘Daddy home today?’ Molly asked at the kitchen table. I had told her he had gone on another course, as the Wolverhampton trip was still fresh in her mind.

  I shook my head, trying to find the right words. ‘Not today, love, no,’ I said, feeling the familiar catch in my throat at the thought. ‘Actually, it’s quite a long course so . . .’ I took a mouthful of coffee. How should I say this? ‘It might just be us three for a while, Molls. Me, you and Nath. But that’ll be all right, won’t it?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want my daddy back.’

  Clunk. I sighed, feeling a cold hand squeeze my heart in a painful tight grip. Christ. I couldn’t believe I was seriously getting close to the conversation I thought I’d never have to have, the one about how Mummy and Daddy aren’t living together any more, but how they both still love you and you’re still the most important thing in the world to both of them . . .

  I couldn’t believe I had done this to my children, the very people I wanted to protect from all the hurt in the world.

  I couldn’t believe I was staring single parenthood full in the face.

  ‘I know you want him back,’ I said. ‘I do, too.’ I did, I really did. I wanted him back more than anything. He had his faults, sure, but so did I. And I’d hurt him far worse than he had ever hurt me.