by TM Logan
‘You finished mate, or what?’ His voice was muffled through the glass. He had a black baseball cap perched on the top of his head with a metallic green cannabis leaf on the front.
I pushed open the door.
‘What?’
‘You finished?’
‘No.’
‘How long you gonna be?’
He was wearing a dark hooded top, jeans hanging halfway down his backside, showing off four or five inches of his boxer shorts. A sparse scattering of stubbled acne along his jaw, a toxic blend of stale joints, body odour and unwashed clothes hanging around him like an invisible cloud. There was something familiar about him. Four others, dressed almost identically, lounged on a bench a few yards away.
I said: ‘As long as it takes.’
He turned to his four mates, grinned. Turned back to me.
‘Get on with it, yeah? Been waiting like, ages, innit.’
‘Really? I’ve got an idea for you, then.’
‘What?’ His head wobbled slightly side to side, like a combative guest on The Jeremy Kyle Show. He looked jumpy and strung out and I had a pretty good idea why he’d want to make a call that couldn’t be traced. ‘What idea?’
Most of my professional life as a teacher had been spent taking low-level disrespect like this on a daily basis, without being able to do anything about it. At least, nothing effective. It was always take a breath, take a minute, be the adult, have a word – not that that ever achieved anything. But I wasn’t a teacher today. Everything was boiling up inside me, like a chemical mixture about to explode.
‘How about,’ I said, ‘you turn around, pull your fucking trousers up, and fuck off. ’
I expected him to square up to me, react, get angry, start pushing or shouting. But instead he looked taken aback, utterly surprised, as if he’d never been spoken to that way in his life before.
‘All right mate, chillax, yeah?’ He backed off, swaggered over to his friends on the bench who were laughing and jeering, calling him out for being dissed in public.
I turned back to the list of numbers, the blood pumping in my ears.
The mobiles were next, the first of them designated with the letter A. Presumably this was her main method for contacting Ben – and the way she had warned him about my plan in the mall last night. I put another coin into the payphone but my fingers hesitated over the keypad. If he picked up, what would I say? What should I say? Or was it better to say nothing?
It is better to know than not know. I dialled the number and waited, my hand on the receiver slippery with sweat. It rang once, twice. Six times. Then went to voicemail, an automated female voice asking me to leave a message. I hung up. Dialled it again. Six rings and then voicemail again. What should I say? Hi Ben, this is Joe, you tried to wreck my marriage, you bastard – let’s meet up to discuss? I hung up again, and was about to hit redial when I stopped myself. A couple of random calls might be OK, but a third from the same number might arouse Ben’s suspicion. I put the phone back in its cradle.
The lanky youth in the cannabis leaf cap had come closer again, holding out his mobile, taking pictures of me in the phone booth. I realised why his face had seemed familiar. He had been a student at Haddon Park, maybe a year or two ago. Ryley something. Ryley Warner. Polite, quiet kid in Year Seven, trainee arsehole by Year Eleven. How did that happen, exactly? It seemed that he had now graduated summa cum laude from the arsehole academy.
I turned my back to him, checked my list of numbers again. Lover, hotel, work, husband’s work and so on. They performed a very specific function: enabling Mel to run her double life, to carry on the affair, while keeping it contained and airtight from the rest of her life. Keeping the two separate and distinct so they could not overlap, so they always ran in parallel and never converged. Except they had converged, the moment our four-year-old son spotted her car in traffic last Thursday night.
The payphone rang, tinny and loud in the enclosed booth. Then a second time.
For a few seconds I was completely frozen.
What?
It rang a third time, the digital display showing the last mobile number I had called.
But the last number was –
Ben was calling me back.
53
I picked up the phone before it could ring again and held it silently to my ear, listening as hard as I could. Background noises. The sound of someone breathing. Faint traffic noise, wind blowing, a siren, distant and almost inaudible. He was taking the call outside, in the open air, maybe in the street or in a car park. We were connected at either end of this electronic silence, but separated in every other way possible. We might be a thousand miles away from each other. Or a few metres away.
He could be watching me right now.
‘Hello?’ I said quietly, pitching my voice low.
The silence stretched out further. Five seconds. Ten. I was about to speak again, but held back. Don’t show your hand.
A click, and the line went dead.
Instantly, I regretted my silence.
‘Don’t hang up,’ I said to the dial tone. ‘You bastard, don’t hang up!’
I smashed the phone back into its cradle. In the distance, a siren sounded, and I had a sudden irrational sense that I’d heard it moments before, down the phone line. It felt like we were close, in the same neighbourhood. As if Ben was nearby.
So close.
The sound of teenagers sniggering reached me from outside the booth. I ignored them and rang the number straight back, using my last 20p. This time it rang six times and went to a computerised voice asking me to leave a message. Instinct told me not to. I hung up.
There was still one number left on the list. It was the most puzzling of all: the escort agency. But all my coins were used up. My wallet was empty. There was a cashpoint down the street, but then Ryley Warner and his mates would claim this one remaining phone booth. And I couldn’t stop now.
Screw it. I took my mobile out and dialled the last number, with only the germ of an idea of what I might say. It rang four times and went to voicemail, a woman’s voice, husky and deep.
Hello, you’re through to VIP Escort Services, you’re just one chat away from the most sensational night of your life. Leave your number and we promise to call you right back.
I hung up, not wanting to leave my name on their answering machine.
The last number I dialled wasn’t on the list and hadn’t been on the secret phone in Mel’s handbag, but that didn’t matter – I’d known it by heart for years. I knew it better than my own.
I sat on a bench in Regent’s Park, hands in my pockets against the cold, watching the joggers as they circled the lake. The water was grey and choppy with the autumn wind, a cluster of tired-looking rowing boats tied up and covered for winter next to the café.
It was here, in a rowboat on a scorching July day, that I had asked Mel to marry me. Pulled the oars in, mustered my courage and gone down on one knee with the ring. She had been so surprised that she stood up and nearly tipped us both into the water, but I had held on to her and steadied her, sat her down, watched as she pushed the ring onto her finger, smiling, laughing with delight, the small diamond flashing in the sunlight.
Nine years ago.
I stood up as she approached, watching her walk quickly up the path, hands deep in the pockets of her long winter coat. Her face was pale and drawn. She looked exhausted.
She folded into my arms and hugged me.
‘You OK?’ she breathed.
‘Fine. Thanks for skipping your meeting.’
‘It’s fine, I sent Andrea instead.’ Her office was only a five-minute walk away from Regent’s Park. ‘What’s going on, what did you want to talk about?’
‘Let’s sit down for a minute.’
We both sat and she put her handbag down between us.
‘What is it?’ There was a wariness in her voice, a reticence, as if she was getting ready to apologise again but didn’t yet know what for. ‘Is it Ben?
Has he called you?’
‘No. Not exactly.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘I called him. I’ve spent half an hour this morning making phone calls.’
‘To Ben? What did he say?’
‘Nothing.’
She looked confused.
‘OK. I don’t . . . Should I know what you’re talking about, Joe? Who have you been phoning?’
In answer, I picked up her handbag, unzipped it and reached inside. Under normal circumstances she would have slapped my hand playfully away, told me off for being nosy. But not today. Today she just looked sad and defeated, and too guilt-ridden to try and stop me. So I rummaged through the contents, feeling for the cut in the inner lining.
I couldn’t feel the secret phone.
It was gone. She’d taken it out, moved it. She was going to deny it.
No. My hand closed around something flat and solid. It was there.
I fished it out and put it on the bench between us, saying nothing. Mel looked at the little mobile and her shoulders slumped. She couldn’t meet my eyes.
‘Oh, Joe. Darling. No. That isn’t . . .’ She shook her head, tailing off.
‘Just one question, Mel.’
‘OK.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.
‘And remember what I said on Sunday about packing those two suitcases with your stuff if I think you’re lying.’
She bit her wobbling bottom lip. Nodded once.
‘No lies,’ I said.
‘No lies,’ she repeated.
‘Are you still in contact with Ben? Is it still going on, even now? Is this the phone you’re using to call him on?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Look at me.’
She did, the first tears starting from her beautiful brown eyes.
‘It was,’ she said, her voice catching on a sob. ‘While I was seeing him, but not any more. I forgot it was there in my bag. Should have taken it out, smashed it, thrown it away. Stupid.’
‘Is that the truth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘Do you swear on your life?’
‘Yes.’
‘On our son’s life?’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Not even a half second of hesitation. ‘Please, Joe. I swear. It was only while we were . . . while it was going on. Ben bought it for me when we first started seeing each other. If you’ve ever believed anything I’ve said to you, believe this: it’s finished between me and him. Finished. I’m so sorry that it ever started.’
‘So you haven’t used the phone since the weekend?’
‘No.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about it on Sunday?’
She shrugged, sniffing.
‘I don’t know, I thought . . . I’d told you everything. Everything important. I was going to draw a line under my mistake, a line under everything, and I just forgot it was in there with all the other crap I have in my handbag.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘How did you even find it?’
‘Checked your bag last night when we got back. I was angry, confused, couldn’t believe we’d been so close to Ben and still missed him.’
‘You thought I warned him off.’
‘The thought did cross my mind, yes.’
‘Oh Joe, I promise you, swear to you, I didn’t warn him.’ She paused, desperation in her eyes. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’
I looked at her for a long moment, trying to decide whether I was ready for my marriage to be over. For family life, as I knew it, to cease. To lose my wife, my best friend.
No. Not that.
Her face told me it was the truth.
‘Yes, Mel. I think I do.’
54
She let out another sob and buried her head in my shoulder, crying harder now.
‘I love you, Joe. Always.’ Her voice was muffled in my coat.
‘Always,’ I repeated, holding her as her body was racked with sobs. A couple of elderly ladies passed by on the path, bundled up against the cold, looking at me accusingly as Mel cried into the shoulder of my jacket. I gave them a small smile in return.
‘Stupid phone,’ Mel said through her tears. ‘Can’t believe I’ve been carrying it around in my bag all week.’
‘It was very well hidden. In amongst the twenty-seven lipsticks and thirty-eight lip balms, not to mention the forty-nine biros.’
She gave a sad half-laugh.
‘That’s probably why I forgot about it.’
‘Probably.’
‘I’m so stupid and thoughtless. Why do you put up with me?’
‘Because I love you.’
That only made her cry harder. I found a pack of tissues in her handbag and handed one to her, waiting for the sobbing to subside a little.
‘Mel?’
‘Yes?’
‘I want you to ring him.’
She looked startled, dabbing her eyes.
‘Now?’
‘Now.’ I handed her the phone.
‘I’m not even sure it’ll have any charge left, it’s been off for quite a few days.’
‘Give it a try.’
She turned it on and put in her passcode, the one I’d guessed last night. The screen came to life, showing the battery was at eighteen per cent. She selected the address book, picked Ben’s mobile number, her finger hovering over the green call icon.
‘Are you sure?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘And put it on loudspeaker.’
She hit call and selected the speaker option.
Two rings, then it was picked up. I thought I could hear the same faint background noises, traffic noises, steady breathing, that I had heard in the phone booth an hour ago.
Mel looked at me, eyebrows raised in a question.
I nodded again.
‘Ben?’ she said into the phone. ‘Are you there?’
No answer. But a rustling noise, a click.
‘Ben? Talk to me. Please.’
Another click, and the line went dead.
Mel breathed out a big sigh.
‘Try again,’ I said.
Six rings this time. No pick-up. It clicked into voicemail, the automated Stepford Wives voice asking us to leave a message. Mel left a brief one asking Ben to call her back, and hung up.
‘What now?’ she said.
I slipped the little Samsung phone into my jacket pocket.
‘I’m going to keep this for the time being.’
‘OK. Maybe you should give it to the police or something? It might help them to find Ben.’
‘Good idea.’
‘I’m sorry, Joe. So sorry.’
I gestured towards the lake.
‘Remember when I took you out on that rowing boat, nine years ago?’
‘Of course,’ she said in a soft voice.
‘You nearly tipped us both into the water.’
‘I didn’t mean to.’
I held her to me, rubbing her arm gently against the cold, breathing in the wonderful soft scent of her hair.
‘Thought you were going to jump out and swim for it before I could get it on your finger.’
She smiled, sadly.
‘Not in that water, darling. It’s only three feet deep.’
‘I’ve been thinking, with it being our tenth wedding anniversary coming up, I was going to get you a proper-sized engagement ring to replace the one I gave you that day. It was all I could afford at the time, and I know you like it, but I’d like to get you a new one. For a fresh start. Draw a line under everything and just start again. What do you –’
‘Joe.’ She said it abruptly, cutting me off. Her face was paler than ever.
‘Yes?’
She looked away from me and I thought she was going to cry again. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered, ‘oh God.’
‘What is it, Mel?’
She shook her head and said nothing.
‘Mel,’ I said again. ‘What is it?�
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She paused for the longest time, gathering herself, gathering her strength. Seeming to come to a decision.
Finally she said: ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘OK.’
‘Something important.’
‘OK,’ I said again, the now familiar feeling of creeping dread worming its way into my stomach.
She closed her eyes. Swallowed. Took another deep breath.
‘Joe, I should have said this before, right back at the beginning. I wish I had.’
My mobile chimed loudly. A text.
Call me ASAP re: police
Peter Larssen 1.29 p.m.
‘Who’s that?’ Mel asked.
‘The solicitor, something about the police. It can wait.’
‘No, you should call him. Go on.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course.’
I dialled his number and got the engaged tone. Hung up, tried again. Same result. Put the phone back in my pocket.
‘Sorry, I interrupted you.’
She looked away from me. A moment ago it seemed she was about to open up, but now the shutters had come down, and her face seemed closed somehow.
‘It doesn’t matter now.’
‘You said it was important.’
She stared out over the lake, not looking at me.
‘I just wanted to say how sorry I am. For everything.’ Her voice was calmer, but tinged with sadness. ‘I really am truly sorry.’
‘I know that.’
She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, still staring out over the grey water of the lake.
‘Joe, do you think I’m like my mum?’
‘A little bit. You have her eyes, and her dimples of course.’
I always trod carefully on this subject. Even though it had been more than fifteen years ago, Mel still felt the pain of loss.
‘Not that.’
‘How do you mean, then?’
‘Sometimes I think however much we try to avoid walking the same path as our parents, we always end up repeating their mistakes. One way or another.’
‘We’ve talked about this. You’re not your mum. If you’re unhappy, I will help you find your own way. I will help you.’
She turned to me, put a gentle hand on my cheek.
‘Sweet Joe. You don’t deserve this, any of it.’
