The Mistress's Revenge: A Novel

by Tamar Cohen

  At this, Jamie remembered to put on a vaguely pained air.

  “I can’t, I don’t feel well.”

  “You look fine to me.”

  Then, to my horror I realized he was about to cry. Jamie hardly ever cries. I put my arms around him, and realized by how awkward it felt that it must be a while since I held him. He felt much more fragile in my arms than I remembered, his shoulder blades sharp as beaks. I don’t know whether this ever happened with you, but when I’m away from my children I always imagine them to be far bigger, far more mature than they actually are, and then I’ll hear them on the phone or come across them quite by chance and realize they’re still young, and it always shocks me. I expect all parents feel that, don’t they?

  Jamie seemed very tense at first but then he kind of slumped into me. We sat there for a while just gently swaying. The thing was though, that after a while I started to get this really anxious feeling. I get it quite a lot at the moment, but this was worse than usual, like something was slowly burning through me. I began to feel very uncomfortable sitting there with Jamie and, I know this is going to sound odd, but I missed the cubbyhole. I missed the computer and I missed this journal.

  “I know, why don’t I take you to school?” I said to Jamie, brightly. “You can still get there for lunchtime.”

  He looked slightly crestfallen.

  “Can’t I stay here with you?”

  The kids don’t really get this working from home thing, do they? They seem to think we’ve got all the time in the world to sit around doing nothing. When I explained I was busy, Jamie’s face kind of closed up, like a serving hatch. I tried not to notice, and stood up ready to go. Jamie didn’t move.

  “You can’t go out like that. You’re in your dressing gown. As usual.”

  His voice was different than it had been a few minutes before, as if he’d taken a pencil sharpener and sharpened it up.

  When I looked down, I realized he was right. I had on the old fleecy beige dressing gown that Sian is always threatening to burn. How come I hadn’t noticed that before? I’d just assumed I was dressed. To be quite honest, I then started to wonder whether I’d actually got dressed yesterday either. I tried to picture what clothes I’d put on but found nothing came into my head. Uh-ohhh.

  Feeling wrongfooted, I told Jamie he could stay at home, as long as he kept himself occupied. But now I’m back in the cubbyhole, I feel resentful. Daytimes are my time. They’ve always been my time. I know it’s wrong, but it feels like Jamie is intruding. I feel like I can hear his breathing, even though I know I can’t really. My head keeps whooshing, and the anxious feeling just won’t go away. My computer screen is still open to Emily’s Facebook page, and her face looks out, haughtily from under a cowboy hat.

  Sally Islip feels like her brain is exploding.

  Sally Islip doesn’t understand anything.

  Sally Islip has lost her way.

  This morning there were two more calls from debt agencies. I told them they had the wrong number. I said we’d been getting a lot of calls for Sally Islip and maybe she’d had that number before, but she certainly didn’t now.

  “I’m terribly sorry to have disturbed you, madam,” said the first man. “Can I have your name so we can wipe you from the records?”

  My head, with its exploding brain, had to think quickly.

  “Susan Gooding,” I said. “Mrs. Susan Gooding.’

  “My apologies, Mrs. Gooding,” came the reply.

  I have to say it quite shocked me just how easy it was to become your wife. In fact I can’t imagine why I haven’t become her before. All it takes is a few words into a telephone, and here I am. Mrs. Gooding. I try it out tentatively, like a spoonful of extra-spicy curry.

  While the phone was in my hand anyway, I decided to phone Susan. The real Susan, of course. Well, it’s been nearly ten days since that coffee in Starbucks, and I wanted to know how she’s getting on. You really must watch that diet she’s on, Clive. I mean I know Susan thinks she could do with losing a teensy bit of weight, but she doesn’t want to overdo it. Even former models can’t afford to be too thin once they reach a certain age.

  When I rang, she was at her desk in her office. I could hear lots of loud voices in the background. I must say they did sound like they were having fun, all of them. I envy that sometimes, that camaraderie.

  Susan sounded distracted, but she wanted to know how I was, how I was feeling. I said I was fine. I didn’t tell her about the debt phone calls, or the man in the leather jacket, or the headache that never really goes away. Instead I told her how much I was looking forward to the big party, and asked her whether she wanted me to come round early to help her prepare stuff.

  “That’s all right,” she said, and she sounded almost peevish. I think those companies must be very high-pressure places to work. “I’ll have my family there to help.”

  There was something in the way she said “my family” that made my headache worse. I don’t know why. Even after I’d put the phone down, I heard the phrase sounding in my head. “My family.” Why should she have said it like that? Why should she have said it at all? I just don’t get any of it.

  Back at my computer, I googled you to see if there was anything new since I last did it yesterday. I noticed there was a little thing in the Mirror about a singer who objected to the way she’d been “packaged” by you and your record label.

  “I feel he has cheapened me,” she said.

  I read that sentence a few times. There was something there that resonated.

  How many more of us are there, I wonder, who feel cheapened by you?

  I imagine our numbers swelling like the tide.

  I am begging you. Don’t come next Saturday. Not for my sake, but for Susan’s. Please don’t ruin her big day.

  It’s a very touching message, I must say, Clive. It’s only natural that you should be concerned about Susan. I’m sure you only have her best interests at heart too. (Although that wasn’t always the case. Remember? How I used to have to remind you that you were married? How I used to have to make you return home at the end of the evening, shoving you back onto the platform when you attempted to board the tube home with me? “Susan’s very self-sufficient,” you’d say. “She won’t actually notice I’m not there.” I’m so glad to see how protective of her you’ve become. God knows she deserves a little cherishing after everything that has happened.)

  But you see, you don’t need to worry. I adore Susan, as you know. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything to upset her. If I didn’t think Susan wanted me at the party I certainly wouldn’t go. But she has been so very insistent that I must come. And I promised to bring a bag of baby clothes for Emily. They’re my favorite ones from when Tilly and Jamie were little, lovingly folded and smoothed down and packed away in a thick plastic bag in the loft. I’d half a mind to save them until Tilly had children, but now I can see that’s quite ridiculous. How old-fashioned will they seem in fifteen or twenty years’ time? Silly me! Emily seemed quite taken aback when I told her about them. U shd kp thm 4 ur kids! That was her first response (took me a while to decipher, I must say. Aren’t they clever, these young people, doing away with all those excess letters. Who’d have thought vowels would prove so easily expendable?). But after I assured her that I wanted her to have them, she was clearly pleased. Gr8. Tnx a mlln! she replied.

  Also, and I know this will mean something to you as you always were so careful to tell me how concerned you were about Daniel’s welfare—(“I know I probably sound like the worst sort of hypocrite, but I genuinely care about Daniel,” you’d say, magnanimous to the last. “I’d do anything not to hurt him.” Anything apart from not fuck his girlfriend, obviously)—Daniel is really looking forward to the party.

  “It’ll do us so much good to have a change of scene,” he said the other night. “When was the last time we did anything fun together? Please promise me you’re not going to change your mind about going.”

  He has in fact got a po
int. Increasingly often over the past days, I’ve been avoiding leaving the house, pleading illness and exhaustion. And to be honest, it’s not mere show. The headaches and nausea seem to be getting worse rather than better. I must make an appointment to see the blonde-haired doctor, only I can’t bear her look of disappointment if I tell her I’ve taken myself off the pills. I don’t think she’ll understand how wanting to feel again might be worth putting up with all the other stuff.

  Several times I’ve backed out of things at the last minute—the pub quiz with Sian and the usual crew, dinner at Daniel’s brother Darren’s house. Poor Daniel, no wonder he’s fed up. You can understand, I’m sure, why it’s so important for us to come. I’m quite certain you wouldn’t want to do anything to disappoint him.

  And besides—how ridiculous is it that I almost forgot to say this!—I’m also greatly looking forward to it myself. I really am. I feel like it’ll be a big turning point in what everyone keeps calling “my recovery.” You know, Helen is very keen on me confronting things that make me uncomfortable (she calls it “probing my discomfort zone”) and I think this is just the scenario to test that out (although strangely Helen doesn’t seem keen on me going to the party and has actively tried to dissuade me). You and Susan and your lovely house with its elegant curved driveway and your engaging children and your enviable marriage—you’re my discomfort zone (please don’t take that the wrong way), and I owe it to myself to probe away until my fears lose their capacity to scare (that’s another of Helen’s sayings).

  So what I’m trying to say in this very long-winded way is that you needn’t worry about anything. I just want to be there to see you and Susan celebrate this auspicious day. Is there anything wrong in that? Please be assured that I’m not going to stand in the corner wishing it was me, or follow you around reminding you of all the things you said. I’m not going to bring up the marriage proposal, or the baby that never was. I’m not going to talk about the five years of hotel rooms paid for in cash (how much do you reckon we spent over the years? How many thousands? How many tens of thousands?). I’m not going to talk about the other vows you made, the ones you made to me. I won’t mention the way you ripped my heart out through my throat and squeezed it till the blood ran through your closed fist and pooled on the floor and all that was left in your hand was a fibrous mulch.

  I’m not going to say any of that. So please be reassured.

  And neither, of course, did I put any of that into the email I sent you just now. Instead I just told you about Daniel and the baby clothes, and how very much we are looking forward to the event. I hope that puts your mind at rest, I really do. This is your big day too, don’t forget. You owe it to yourself to relax and enjoy it.

  Well, I can’t say it wasn’t a shock.

  It wasn’t even me that found it. As I’ve said I don’t leave the house so much these days. Not if I can help it. So it was Daniel and the kids who went to the car this morning and found the side window smashed and a brick with a note tied to it lying on the passenger seat. Not terribly original was it, the brick and the note I mean. Don’t be offended but I do think it detracted from the overall effect of the gesture—the clichéd aspect of it, I mean.

  Of course it didn’t stop Tilly from getting hysterical. She was convinced there was someone watching them as they inspected the car for damage. She was sure that whoever had written that “Back Off! This isn’t a game!” in such huge red letters was still there, lurking just out of sight, watching to see what effect his actions had had.

  Does it make you feel big, Clive? Terrifying a young girl? Does it make you feel like a big, hard man?

  Jamie’s eyes were huge when he came running back inside the house to tell me what had happened.

  “Who did that, Mum?” he asked me. “Who smashed our window?”

  That’s pretty much what Daniel wanted to know too.

  “Can you think of anyone who might have done that?” He watched me carefully as he waited for an answer, and I felt a bit like a criminal in an identity parade trying not to look guilty. Do you know what I mean?

  “Don’t be silly, Daniel,” I said. “It was obviously meant for someone else. Do you remember that time with the guy at the door with the baseball bat?”

  I don’t think I ever told you that story, did I? We’d been living in our first flat only a few months when there was a knock on the door and there stood this massive chap with a baseball bat in his back pocket and his almost-as-massive sidekick, demanding recompense for the dodgy check we were supposed to have written. Well, after a long time and a lot of explaining on our part, we finally worked out that the people who’d written the check lived at 76b Summerfield Place, while we lived at 76b Summerfield Avenue. He was perfectly charming after that, but it was an alarming encounter nonetheless.

  So, it wasn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination to convince Daniel that someone had thrown the brick and the warning note through our car window by mistake. After all, he doesn’t know anything about the guy with the leather jacket, or the malicious emails sent from my account, or the being followed or your hairdresser and his family. But still, he did give me a very odd look, which I wasn’t sure how to interpret.

  Of course he insisted on calling the police, which made Tilly even more hysterical and Jamie rather thrilled. They arrived a few hours later, in fact they’ve only just left really. It’s amazing how thorough they were, going through the car, checking the brick and the note and the door handles for fingerprints. They didn’t find any though.

  “Whoever did it knew what they were doing, and obviously wanted to give someone a fright,” the young policeman with the shaving rash told me. I couldn’t be sure but it seemed like he too was looking at me strangely, and I wondered for one mad moment if he thought I might have done it myself. Yes, I know that’s just silly, but the whole thing is so surreal, you’d be amazed what passes through one’s mind.

  After the police left and I managed to slip gratefully back into the cubbyhole, I thought a lot about that note, with its twin exclamation marks, so doubly emphatic.

  “This isn’t a game,” the note said, and I wondered what exactly might not be a game. Life? The world? You? Me? Us?

  I wondered whether you’d written the note yourself, but thought it more likely you’d dictated it. I imagined the thickset man in the leather jacket, painstakingly copying down what you told him. Did he buy an extra-thick felt pen especially for the job, I wondered? I thought he was probably the type to stick the tip of his tongue out just slightly between his teeth as he concentrated. I pictured him with his wide forehead slightly furrowed.

  Now of course I know it could turn out to be nothing to do with you at all, in which case please do accept my sincerest apologies. It could indeed turn out to be an innocent mix-up, some local youths mistaking our old blue Saab for another very similar. Happens all the time. But something tells me that it isn’t a mistake. Something tells me you’re behind this, Clive. I actually find it quite flattering (He cares!! See, you’re not the only one who can work the double exclamation mark). But I didn’t like that fevered look in Jamie’s eyes, or the way Tilly peeped through the living room window to check the coast was clear before venturing outside earlier on.

  The car window has been boarded up with part of a cardboard box. Wouldn’t it be lovely if everything was so easy to patch up? Wouldn’t it be great to tape a sheet of tatty cardboard over the gaping hole you’ve left through the core of me?

  I don’t like what you’ve done to my family, Clive. I don’t like the way you’ve made us all afraid of dark corners and looking nervously through curtained windows. I don’t like the way you’ve put a brick through our lives.

  Don’t threaten me.

  Do NOT threaten me.

  Back off. This is not a game.

  What are you hoping to achieve?”

  I’m not joking, Helen was like a stuck record today. She really was. In fact I was left seriously wondering whether it was really worth pa
ying £75 just to listen to her asking me about what I hoped to achieve, again and again, and again. I could have just played a recording of it on a loop for an hour and gotten the same effect. Maybe I should think about ending my sessions with Helen. I’ve been considering that more and more recently. Don’t get me wrong, at the beginning she was tremendously useful. My personal development came on in leaps and bounds. Well, it was off the scale, really. Like I said I’m so grateful to you for recommending therapy and I can quite see why you took to it. But recently Helen has seemed a little lackluster, and a little negative, which has got to be one of the worst things you can say about a therapist, surely? I wonder if she’s going through some sort of crisis in her own private life. It wouldn’t surprise me.

  Anyway, the upshot is I think the honeymoon period is well and truly over for me and Helen. I’m starting to think I might have absorbed all I can from her, which is probably a compliment in a way.

  Like I said, this afternoon she just seemed to be obsessed with me going to your party tomorrow night.

  “What are you hoping to achieve by it?” she kept asking.

  I tried to explain again and again that it wasn’t a question of achieving anything—it’s going to be a lovely social occasion that everyone is looking forward to—Daniel, Susan, and even Emily. It would be very bad form for me not to go. But Helen just didn’t seem able to grasp this. That phrase “willful sabotage” came up several times. To be honest I’m getting just a bit bored of it. My head was hurting—it felt as if someone was shrinking my skull, tightening it up so that it pressed painfully against my brain. I kept looking down at my denim-clad legs and feeling disoriented and realized it had been days since I last saw them covered in anything but that old dressing gown.

  “Don’t you think you might be trying to insinuate yourself back into Clive’s life?”

  That was the very word she used. Insinuate. I have to say I wasn’t too thrilled about it—it has unpleasant overtones, don’t you think? It’s a snakey, underhand kind of word.