The Mistress's Revenge: A Novel

by Tamar Cohen

  “Don’t mind me. I’m just one big wobbling mass of hormones,” Emily sniffed when she eventually returned outside where the guests, slightly bedraggled now, were doggedly eating lunch from sodden paper plates.

  It was quite sporting of her, I thought, to make that comment. She’s not very good on humor, is she? Least of all when it involves herself. But you could tell Susan had had a word and smoothed it all over.

  Good old Susan. And to think you nearly gave all that up, all that goodness. For me!

  I could have stayed there all day, in that lovely walled garden in Notting Hill, with the decked dais and the sculpted water feature in the shape of a large egg. In fact I very nearly did stay there all day. Don’t be so suspicious Clive, I was just enjoying myself, that’s all. But then I realized that it was just me and Susan left, and Emily kept talking about how exhausted she was (she’s quite right; all that sitting around can get very tiring in her condition), so I reluctantly said my good-byes.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Susan asked, seeing me out through the immaculate hallway, tastefully done out in different shades of taupe and ecru. Emily, I decided, was definitely the kind of woman who knows the difference between the two. Would you say that was fair?

  Susan said that while it was lovely to see me, she hadn’t really thought that babies were exactly my thing.

  How could babies not be someone’s thing? Silleeeee Susan.

  I told her it had been a fascinating anthropological experience. That seemed to mollify her a little and I felt I wasn’t some sad, nutty, premenopausal woman with too much time on her hands.

  On my journey home, I imagined Susan making her way back to your house in St. John’s Wood, already full of all the stories she would tell you. Were you waiting there for her when she got home? In that amber-lit drawing room with the squashy sofas and low coffee tables and the gold discs lined up on the walls like pirates’ treasure? Did you pour her a drink and stroke her cheek and say “well done, you”? Did you talk about your daughter, the Sacred Vessel, and your as yet unborn grandchild and all the other fragile ties that bind you together like spun sugar? Did she say “oh, Sally was there”? And did your heart roar, just for a moment, and your eyes involuntarily blink to shut out the memories? And did you think of me? Did you think of me? Did you think of me?

  Oh God, did you think of me?

  A man followed me this morning.

  No, I’m not saying that to try to be dramatic. It’s actually true!

  I had gone to the shops to get that math stuff Tilly’s been nagging me to get for weeks. She made a big scene last night, saying not to bother now because the test was over and she hadn’t had a compass or a ruler or that funny plastic semicircular thingy so she’d probably failed. She was trying to make me feel guilty of course. Good job the Citalopram stops all known guilt. Dead! (I must ask Helen why I go into advertising speak whenever I think about it? Maybe it’s a recognized psychological syndrome.) But I must have had some nagging concern because I set off purposefully for the hugely expensive stationery shop, and actually made it there, rather than meandering uselessly through all the other shops, vacantly picking things up off the shelves, unsure what I’d set out to buy, which is what I find myself doing more and more.

  Anyway, when I came out, I noticed a man leaning against the lamppost to the right of the stationery shop, smoking a cigarette. Now that in itself is unusual around these parts because the yummy mummy brigade have effectively brainwashed the populace into believing that smoking within a half-mile radius of their offspring is tantamount to child abuse. But the man was also looking directly at me.

  At first, and please don’t laugh at my conceit, I thought he might just fancy me. After all, there was a time not so long ago, when some men did find me attractive (“gorgeous,” you whispered under your breath as I came in). Then I reminded myself of my unwashed hair, my too-baggy jeans, the sweatshirt of Daniel’s that I’ve been wearing for the last four days, and the tortoiseshell reading glasses I’d put on to read prices in the stationery shop and forgotten to take off. (Don’t you hate that? That unignorable sign of encroaching age? The missing specs that turn out to be on your eyes the whole time?) And besides, there was nothing in the man’s gaze to suggest appreciation. He gazed at me steadily but blankly, like I was some kind of digital billboard.

  I hurried off in the direction of home, noticing that one of the laces of my ratty Converses had come undone, but feeling too self-conscious to bend to tie it up. When I passed the M&S food hall, I decided on an impulse to go inside. Normally Daniel does the food shopping, but he’s much more of a basics kind of person, whereas as you know I like readymade salads in little pots and the kind of bread that goes stale in hours. I thought how nice it would be to get something for Jamie and Tilly that they’d really like. That would be the kind of thing a good mother would do, I thought.

  But when I was inside, there was so much choice, I couldn’t really get my head around it. I thought I might get them a pizza, but then what kind of pizza? Stone-baked, or thick dough, or a plain one to please Jamie, or one with roast vegetables on it to contribute to their five a day? Or should I go for a readymade pie? Lattice-topped? Chicken and leek (would Jamie notice the leek?). I took one look at the bread section and felt giddy. Irish brown soda? Sunflower seed? Bagels? Rye? In the end it was too much and I stumbled out empty-handed.

  And there he was again! The same man as outside the stationery shop. Leaning against a car hood (there was a woman in the passenger seat who looked like she was about to spontaneously combust), staring at me.

  I know you’ll think I’m making it up, so I’ll describe him to you. He was in his thirties, dark and quite thick-set, with that kind of close-cropped hair men choose when they’re starting to go thin on top. He was wearing a black leather zip-up jacket with two cream-colored stripes up the sleeves, and pale, artificially faded blue jeans, stretched too tight over his body-builder legs. On his feet he had a pair of dazzlingly white sneakers with gold piping. His eyes looked black from where I was standing and, like I said, they were completely blank.

  Is he starting to sound at all familiar, Clive? Might you have met him somewhere before? At an anniversary party for your hairdresser, perhaps?

  I admit I started to feel very uncomfortable at that point. I wasn’t scared exactly, because there were so many people around, but I was anxious. The thing is that recently there have been a couple of times when I’ve seen something, or thought I’ve seen something, that turned out not to be there. One time, when I was out with Sian, I thought I saw my brother across the bar, the one who lives in Edinburgh, but it turned out to be no one, a stranger who didn’t even look anything like him. Another time I went to pick Jamie up from his friend’s house and after we’d said good-bye to his mother on the doorstep, I tried to get into this blue estate car parked outside and couldn’t understand why my key wasn’t working, then realized that not only was it not our car, but I hadn’t even driven there in the first place! That was embarrassing, you can probably imagine.

  So I didn’t completely trust myself about the staring man, not even then after I’d seen him for the second time. I began to walk home, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, which often helps I find. Do you remember, it was quite sweaty weather today, clammy and wet like just-removed sports socks? I get very tired these days, and sometimes it’s as much as I can do just to keep upright, so it took me ages to get to the corner of our road. When I did, I almost screamed out loud. Does that sound a bit too American B movie? Sorry, I don’t know how else to put it. Because there he was again, that same dark, squat figure with his whiter than white sneakers, standing in front of the gate to our house twenty-five meters away, just watching me come round the corner. I stood, absolutely transfixed just where I was, staring at him, just as he was staring at me. Can you imagine how we must have looked to anyone else? I dread to think. God knows how long we remained like that before, cool and unhurried, he turned ar
ound and sauntered away from me the opposite way up the street.

  Still I didn’t dare move, not until I’d watched him turn the corner at the far end, pausing briefly before he did so to give one last glance in my direction. Once I was sure he had disappeared, I hurried inside my house, grateful that I’d remembered to bring my keys (have I told you about the times I’ve forgotten them, twice in the last fortnight, and the hunky Italian next door has had to let me in through his house into his back garden and give me a leg up onto the flat roof over our kitchen?). My heart was like a metronome in my chest, loud and painfully sharp, and I stood in our cluttered entrance hall (no ecru, just loads of shoes) trying to remember how to breathe. The house was empty, and I was longing to tell someone what had just happened. Well obviously, when I say “someone” I mean you. I was longing to tell you.

  I rang your phone, for the first time in weeks. It went straight to voice mail, just as I knew it would (do you remember when you first got that phone? “Now we have a lifeline linking us, night or day,” you’d said. “I want you to know I will always be here for you. Nothing will ever change that.”). Rushing to the cubbyhole, I sent you an email, headed “URGENT.” After twenty agonizing minutes without a response, I gave in and phoned Susan. I knew that if she didn’t have a job ongoing, there was a good chance she’d be at home. It was the closest I could get to speaking to you.

  She listened quietly while I explained what had happened, trying to keep my voice from quivering. When I’d finished, she was uncharacteristically silent. “Have you called the police?” she asked me.

  I was shocked when she said that. It had never occurred to me to phone the police. What would I have said? A man looked at me in the street? Then I saw him again outside my house? Again, there was a pause after I’d tried to explain all that. Finally Susan spoke, and she sounded strange, like a slowed-down version of herself.

  “Look dear, I know you’ve been under a lot of stress recently with Daniel and not working. Don’t take this the wrong way, Sally, but don’t you think you should be seeing someone?”

  You know what’s funny, when she said that, at first I thought she meant seeing someone as in dating! I really did! I couldn’t see what the connection was between the man who followed me and me having an affair. Then it dawned on me that she meant a shrink, or a therapist. Someone like Helen Bunion.

  “I’m not mad you know, Susan,” I said, conscious of the slight warble in my voice. “It really happened.”

  Susan sighed loudly. “I’m sure it seemed that way,” she said kindly. “And I’m sure it must have felt very scary at the time. But you know sometimes when you’re under a lot of pressure, quite innocuous things can seem threatening. You really should see someone. You’ve not been yourself” (and yet again that expression. But if I wasn’t myself, I wanted to ask her, who else was I?).

  I didn’t tell her I was already “seeing someone.” Don’t ask me why but I didn’t want to share Helen with Susan. Helen is my own private thing. I don’t want to hand her around like a bowl of greasy peanuts.

  Susan got a bit more animated once she’d decided I needed to see someone. She likes to have a mission, doesn’t she? Likes to be able to provide a practical solution.

  “Leave it with me, I’ll ask around and get you some numbers,” she said.

  I told her we couldn’t afford therapy (and it’s true, Helen is a luxury, like quilted toilet paper) but she pooh-poohed me.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll tell them you’re on a budget.”

  Value counseling. It’s very apt.

  “The thing is, Sally,” she went on, “you must see that it doesn’t really make sense, all of this? Why would a perfect stranger stare at you out in the street, and then be waiting for you outside your house like he knew where you lived? It’s not very likely, is it?”

  I had to admit, when she put it like that, it wasn’t very likely.

  Not unless someone was trying to scare me.

  And who would be trying to scare me?

  I wish you’d been there, Clive, on the end of that phone that was to be our lifeline. Am I going crazy, or was he real, that man with the black dead eyes?

  The only one who knows is you.

  When I went back to the computer just now, I saw that you had finally replied to my email marked “URGENT.”

  In response to my message saying, “Something has happened. Please call me!” you had written just four words. Leave my family alone

  Did I invent it all, those mornings (not many to show for five years together, it’s true) when I’d wake up to find you lying propped up on your elbow? “I love to watch you sleep,” you’d say. “I love watching over you.” Was it all in my head? Your melting eyes? Your trembling hands?

  “People move on,” Helen keeps telling me. “It doesn’t mean they weren’t ever sincere.”

  People move on. I accept that. But what if they’ve promised to love you forever? What if they’ve told you they’ll never leave you? What if they’ve lied and lied and lied again?

  Shouldn’t people be held to account for that?

  Underneath the email from you was one from Emily. I clicked it open to find a rather limp sort of thank-you message. It didn’t even specify what she was thanking me for, just a generic “thank you for your lovely gift.” It was clearly a round-robin message she was sending to all her baby shower guests and not one that required any response. Still, I found myself double-clicking on “reply.”

  It was so lovely to see you the other day. I know how long this last stretch of pregnancy can seem. Why don’t you and your mum come round for lunch one day next week? Tuesday?

  I put in the bit about Tuesday because I wanted to give the impression that some days of the week might be a little more convenient than other days. I didn’t want them to know how the days of the week now blur together into one big long sea of empty hours. Once I’d clicked “send” I felt lighter than I had in days, stronger.

  Do you think that’s what Helen means by owning my own actions? I do hope so. I want Helen to be pleased.

  * * *

  The weekends are the worst.

  During the week I know there’s a good chance you’ll be working on your own in your box room (sad fuck in a box), or holding a meeting in your Fitzrovia office, or impressing a new signing with lunch at Le Gavroche.

  But the weekends are a different matter.

  It starts on a Friday night. I imagine you and Susan meeting after work at the Coach and Horses, or one of the half dozen other private members clubs you belong to. Possibly you’d each bring a posse from your respective offices, young things usually who hold you and Susan up as a shining example of everything they aspire to be when they’re that old (though in reality, of course, they don’t believe they will get old. Age is a hypothetical impossibility, like winning the lottery—they know it happens, just not to them).

  You and Susan would display your fabled largesse, buying everyone drinks, dispensing advice and sympathy, being loud and funny with just the right amount of affectionate putting each other down.

  “Aren’t they amazing?” they’ll ask each other. “They’ve been together over a quarter of a century!”

  It will seem like an impossibility to them, these young things who probably weren’t even born when you and Susan posed for photos on the registry office steps. It will seem a freak happening, like a tsunami or a snowstorm in May.

  And you will lap it up, the two of you reflected back to yourselves through all these young eyes. Then the Susan and Clive Show will get louder and wittier. You’ll probably take them to the Met Bar to show off how many celebrity has-beens you know.

  You’ll end up piling home in a taxi with Susan, drunk on your own vitality.

  Saturdays are worse. Then my imagination has you waking Susan up late with the papers and a breakfast tray, balancing it next to her on your huge white bed. Then you’ll climb back in beside her and the two of you will flick through the supplements, making each other laugh
with crass headlines or funny stories about people you know.

  You’ll get up and potter off to Borough Market. Probably you’ll have people coming round for dinner and Susan, queen of her own kitchen, will already know exactly what she wants to prepare (how I long to be one of those women who opens kitchen cupboards without a sense of trepidation, one of those who actually claims a proprietorial relationship with her appliances—“my oven is self-cleaning,” “I couldn’t live without my blender”). The two of you will walk hand in hand through the packed stalls, and you’ll hold the shopping bag (I imagine it to be one of those worthy burlap things with the long handles) while Susan piles in filets of fish wrapped in waxy paper and oversized vegetables and runny cheese that smells like old dishwater. It doesn’t matter that it all costs five times the amount you’d pay in the supermarket. You like the atmosphere of the place, and the way you’re guaranteed to bump into someone you know.

  Then later, Susan will start preparing dinner while you tidy up a bit (you love having Liam still living at home, but that boy has never learned to clean up after himself, you used to complain). Then you’ll both get ready, and you’ll tell her she looks beautiful, even though she’s probably just put on a different navy dress to replace the one she was wearing this morning. Your guests will arrive—probably other successful couples like yourselves. You’ll eat dinner, gush about Susan’s food, and laugh loudly at one another’s jokes. Then, when the plates are cleared from the blond wood square table, someone might put out a few small lines of coke to prove to yourselves that you’re all still young at heart, and when all the guests have gone you and Susan will dissect the evening, and work out who was damaged and who wasn’t and fall asleep back to back, but still holding each other’s hand.