Who Needs Men Anyway?

by Victoria Cooke

  ***

  ‘I go away for three nights and all hell breaks loose – why didn’t you tell me?’ Kate was as sympathetic as ever when I filled her in the following Monday over breakfast. She’d popped round after James had left for work and knew something was wrong immediately by the fact my ‘hair looked like shit’.

  ‘We didn’t want to spoil your trip, and besides, we were all too shocked, hurt, or whatever.’

  ‘You should have told me when I got back.’

  ‘I know, but I’ve been in a cloud of smog all week and you’ve been gushing over your trip. I wanted you to have your moment of happiness.’

  ‘Well thank you, but I can be happy for myself and sad for you at the same time. I knew it wasn’t the underwear,’ she added. Oddly, her lack of overbearing sympathy was somewhat comforting.

  ‘Right as always,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t believe it. Megan, then you and Sam . . . I hope infidelity isn’t catching or Carl will be an unwilling volunteer in my new castration scheme.’ She sipped her tea.

  ‘I know. They say things come in threes,’ I said, glad Kate didn’t stand for maudlin.

  ‘So, what now? Are you going to leave him? Is he leaving you?’

  ‘He said he’s sorry and he still loves me and doesn’t want to leave me.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ve told him I need time to think; but to be honest, I don’t know how to react. I didn’t see this coming.’ There was a part of me that didn’t quite believe it.

  We’d spent the week sleeping apart, exchanging polite but necessary conversation but not really working on the problem. How do you work on a problem like that? I didn’t want to leave James, but I couldn’t be close to him either; I still felt as though it was happening to someone else.

  ‘Well, what was your initial reaction? Did you hit either of them? Or both of them? Did you burst into tears? Stamp on his Breitling?’

  ‘I sat in the car and had a controlled panic attack in front of a stranger and came home to make dinner.’

  ‘That is the most Stepford-Wife-style reaction to infidelity imaginable. You weren’t filled with rage and fury then?’

  ‘Of course I was, but I was shocked, then I panicked about what people would think, and then I felt humiliated because I’d tried to seduce a fully satiated man.’ I paused because of a pain in my chest. ‘He turned me down in my sexy underwear because he’d already slept with her. I was rejected by a man who supposedly wanted to have a baby with me, Kate. What lower ebb could I sink to?’

  ‘Exactly – so you should have punched him in the face or stamped on his Breitling. Though you do have delicate hands, so I’d have gone for the latter,’ she said, missing the point completely.

  ‘I don’t want revenge. I just want to feel normal again. Anyway, when did you become so violent?’

  She sighed. ‘I suppose I’m angry with James too and I’m fiery – it’s my Italian blood.’

  I smiled; it was about as close to compassion as Kate got. ‘Perhaps I’m partly to blame. I was so preoccupied with the charity, catching Mike and so on, that I’ve neglected James a little.’

  ‘Don’t even think about blaming yourself. He was “working late” way before you started interfering in Megan’s life.’

  I shrugged. She was probably right. ‘I just don’t know where this leaves us. When Mike cheated on Megan I just assumed she’d throw him out like she did. I didn’t see an alternative. But this feels different. Splitting up just seems so . . . messy. Especially if there’s a chance we could work through it.’

  ‘Personally, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sleep with a man who’d cheated on me.’

  I thought about what she was saying. Could I sleep with James again without thinking about Samantha? Maybe in time I could. But it would take time. ‘The alternative is to destroy everything we’ve built up and forever walk around with people throwing sympathetic glances my way. What would happen to our house, our social circles, our plans?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but it sounds like you have some thinking to do.’

  As Kate prepared to leave she hugged me. Kate wasn’t a hugger and at first, holding her bony frame felt odd and uncomfortable until I warmed into it. I sensed she felt the same. ‘Thanks,’ I said knowingly, breaking away.

  ‘We’ll get through it,’ she said and winked before leaving.

  I sat and thought about it. I took in my beautiful home, the sofa we’d chosen together, the elegant vase we’d picked up in Venice, and the photo on the mantelpiece taken on our wedding day. The big, beaming smiles plastered on our faces stemmed from a deep, genuine happiness. We’d made a commitment to each other in front of one hundred and forty guests. We could work through it.

  After spending the day setting up a charity auction for some designer handbags I didn’t need, cleaning frantically, and preparing hearty spaghetti bolognaise, I sat nervously at the dining table, awaiting James’s return. He walked in just after six and came straight into the kitchen, tentatively approaching the chair opposite before sitting down.

  ‘Hi,’ he said eventually.

  ‘I’m willing to try and make this work,’ I blurted out before he had the chance to say anything more.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh. Okay.’

  ‘Oh?’ It wasn’t the reaction I’d hoped for.

  ‘I’m just shocked.’ His face broke into a smile. ‘I’m happy – I didn’t expect you to be able to forgive me, that’s all.’ He reached across the table and took my own clutched hands in his. I stared at it like it wasn’t my own because his touch didn’t invoke any feeling. Kate was right; I did have small hands.

  ‘It’s not going to be smooth,’ I warned him. ‘In fact, it’s going to challenge us both, and you’re going to have a lot of making up to do.’

  ‘Anything. Charlotte, I made a mistake. I love you and the thought of losing you is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever faced.’

  I studied his face. The slight furrow in his brow, the watery glaze across his eyes, and the twist to his mouth suggested he was genuine. I wanted to throw myself into a hug and for everything to be normal, but a hook in my brain tethered me to the chair. Hugging James wouldn’t be the same for a while.

  Chapter Eleven

  The following Friday, Sam sat staring into his cup of tea. He’d been staying at Megan’s house, at her insistence, since he’d walked out on Samantha. He’d just finished telling me how she sat there silently as he packed his bags and I felt bad for him. He hadn’t said as much but it must have hurt that she didn’t even try to make him stay. At least James had fought for me.

  ‘I just can’t believe you’ve managed to forgive him. I always thought you were more strong-willed,’ Megan said, ignoring Sam as he gazed into the steaming brown liquid.

  ‘I haven’t really forgiven him. But I feel like it’s just a blip in the marriage. He’s been under a lot of pressure at work and he hasn’t been himself. Our marriage is strong and James loves me. We can survive this – I can’t just give up on it.’ I glanced at Megan, whose face had fallen. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest you’d given up.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s okay. Nobody ever thought Mike and I were right for each other anyway. Perhaps they were right.’

  Sam was still away with it, sat tracing the outline of the Mr Happy motif on Megan’s mug with his finger. If the situation wasn’t so dire, I’d have chuckled at the irony.

  ‘Could you forgive Samantha like Charlotte has forgiven James?’ Megan asked softly.

  ‘I haven’t forgiven him,’ I repeated. ‘But would you, if she comes to her senses?’

  ‘I don’t know. At the moment, I can’t even look at her and she didn’t seem all that bothered.’

  I understood how he felt, and Megan nodded in agreement. It was strange how the three of us had just come together and grown close in such a short space of time. Suddenly we were all connected by this invisible bond of pain and emotion that we shared with no other person. We could sit in silence; w
e could vent our rage, sorrow, and humiliation. There was no pretence about our little group, no high-end fashion or keeping up appearances required. We were truly ourselves, we were enough, and that was just what we needed.

  Suddenly, the nauseous feelings re-emerged, and the smell of my tea made me heave. I placed the cup on the table with a clatter, and Megan and Sam looked at me with concern. ‘I’m fine,’ I said, waving it off. ‘I’ve felt a little ropey recently, what with everything that’s been going on. I just haven’t been myself. I even forgot the birthday of the lady who runs one of the charities I work with the other day.’

  Megan leant over to look at me and then gasped. ‘You’re pregnant!’

  She was lucky I’d placed my tea down and not taken a sip or I’d have sprayed her with it. ‘What? That’s the most absurd thing you could have possibly said.’

  ‘The sickness, the forgetfulness, even your face is fuller. Think about it! It explains a lot.’

  ‘Yes, but so does my husband cheating. Plus, don’t you think I’d know if there was a human growing inside my body?’

  ‘No, people don’t “just know”; if they did Clearblue wouldn’t have their little sticks in every pharmacy going. Would it hurt to do a test?’

  I ran a mental calculation, trying desperately to think back to my last period. ‘Ahh, but I had my period, when you came round, just before you found out about Mike.’ And then I remembered.

  ‘Oh come on. That was the worst acting performance of the century. It definitely wasn’t going to win you an Oscar. I saw right through it, but just assumed you just couldn’t be bothered with the workout.’

  I clasped my hand to my mouth. I couldn’t actually remember when my last period was – even the pretend one was well over a month ago. Megan stood up. ‘Come on, get your perky bottom upstairs. We’re doing a test – I’ve got one left over from a two-for-one deal and a careless night.’

  ‘What? No! That’s a ridiculous idea,’ I protested.

  ‘Humour me then!’ she said, walking towards the stairs. I followed her, plodding up one stair at a time, not allowing myself to think about the possibility or the what-ifs because it wasn’t going to be positive. I sat on the toilet with the lid closed and sighed dramatically as Megan read the instructions. Sam leant in the doorway silently.

  ‘Okay, so you unwrap this, wee on the end, and then wait. Easy.’ She handed me the stick, and I stared at it for a moment. Did I really want to do this now? I’d never taken a pregnancy test before and always imagined James by my side when I took my first one. He’d hold my hand and whisper that he loved me as we both waited anxiously for the minutes to pass. Never in a million years did I picture my gardener and personal trainer forcing me to wee on a stick.

  ‘This is silly. I can’t be pregnant. The timing isn’t right.’

  ‘I don’t think Mother Nature gives much thought to timing; if she did, Michaela Browne at my school wouldn’t have been in labour instead of sitting her GCSEs,’ Megan replied.

  Of course, I didn’t just mean that it was bad timing – which it was; it was terrible – I meant James and I hadn’t been intimate. Then I remembered – that night.

  ‘But we’ve literally been together once in an eternity, and I’ve barely seen him. Surely these things take a few attempts?’ We’d certainly tried and failed before.

  ‘The words of every caught-out teenager,’ Sam replied dryly.

  ‘Indeed, Sam, let me refer you back to Michaela Browne,’ Megan mused.

  ‘Well I’m glad we’ve piqued your interest, Sam,’ I snapped, ignoring Megan’s one anecdote.

  ‘Just wee on the stick!’ Megan bounced impatiently next to the sink.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Out. The pair of you.’ I shooed them away and closed the door before unwrapping the stick. It was one of the expensive digital ones. Pregnant. Not pregnant. Foolproof.

  I lifted the lid on the toilet and slid down my jeans. It took a second for my body to release anything, despite all the tea. Stage fright. For a split second, I considered the possibility. It was what I’d wanted for so long and it would be almost cruel to be positive in such circumstances after wishing for it to happen when everything was perfect. I’d felt something in my stomach for weeks but that was a churning ball – not a baby. When the deed was done, I placed the cap on the end and laid the stick down on the toilet cistern before washing my hands.

  ‘You can come in no—’ They burst in before I finished my sentence.

  ‘What does it say?’ Sam asked with a hint of excitement. In a way, it was good to see him actually engaging with something, even if it was at my expense.

  ‘It doesn’t say anything yet. I’ve got to wait a few minutes. You do realise Kate will kill me when she finds out we’ve done this without her?’

  Neither of them replied. They both had their eyes fixed firmly on the stick. I’d placed the screen face down; I didn’t want to see any flitting and changing, if that even happens.

  Megan drummed her fingers on the doorframe. ‘If it’s positive, do you think it will it help you and James rebuild your marriage? Y’know, having something to look forward to?’

  ‘It’s going to be negative. I’m humouring you here.’ I sighed.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do,’ Sam said, ‘if Samantha announced she was pregnant I mean. At least you’ll know it’s yours.’

  Sam’s words seared my stomach. I would know it was mine, but it was entirely plausible that a pregnant Samantha could be carrying James’s baby. Her baby and my baby would be half-siblings. Not that she was pregnant, I hoped, but just the fact it was feasible stung.

  Megan looked at her watch. ‘It’s time.’

  I took a deep breath. I could be pregnant like I’d always wanted or I could be the same as I’ve always been. It should be a win-win situation, but the moment was tinged with the stain of James and Samantha’s affair. No matter what the outcome, my life would be different.

  Chapter Twelve

  Pregnant.

  I gasped and checked it again as tears pricked my eyes. My hands began to shake, and my ever-present nausea churned quicker in my stomach like the final spin of a washing cycle – almost as if it could unleash itself now the truth was out.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Megan paused before diving at me, wrapping me in a hug and squeezing me tightly. She obviously knew my emotions were darting around like fireflies.

  ‘Bloody hell. How do you feel about it?’ Sam asked.

  Through sobs, I could just about answer. ‘I’m . . . ecstatic, it’s all I’ve ever wanted but . . . I’m devastated too. I’m happy and sad at the exact same time – should the planets not collide or something on such an occasion?’ I tried to make a joke through the tears, but nobody laughed in the thick of my tangible turmoil.

  ‘It could be just what you and James need to get yourselves back on track,’ Megan said eventually. Hopefully.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded for effect. ‘I shouldn’t be worried. This is what we’ve always wanted. It’s what we’ve needed the entire time. A family.’ I forced a smile. ‘I suppose I’d better go and break the good news to the daddy-to-be.’

  ***

  When I pulled into the driveway, James’s Porsche was already sitting there, all shiny and polished like new. I wondered if a shine and polish of our relationship would be enough to make that like new too, or at least restored enough to turn into a family. I’d never been without answers before, without control or a plan, and there I was, rudderless in the wind, sailing towards unfamiliarity, and it was scary. I checked the time. It was almost six. So James managed to get home from work on time when he wasn’t banging the barrister. The thought made my throat feel thick.

  The house was quiet when I went inside, and I looked from room to room until I found James sat in the study working on his computer. I felt a little guilty; of course he worked most of the time. I was ashamed of the thoughts that ran through my head lately: the insecure, accusing, untrusting thoughts that just weren’t me.
He said it was a mistake and I had to try and believe him now more than ever.

  I perched on the arm of the grey two-seater sofa that sat under the window of the study and watched him as he turned to greet me.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, lacking his usual air of confidence.

  ‘We need to talk.’ I wanted to get straight to the point. Under different circumstances I’d have planned some elaborate reveal, like placing clues around the house, if he hadn’t been there when I took the test. It seemed pointless. I just wanted him to know.

  ‘Okay.’ He drew the word out, and I was thankful he didn’t ask me to come back later as he normally would when he was working.

  My chest was light and I could feel the quickened beat of my heart. ‘I’m pregnant.’ After the words spilled out, I paused, awaiting his reaction.

  His body stiffened slightly before relaxing again and a slow, warm smile broke on his face. ‘Charlotte,’ he said, his smile turning into a beam. ‘That’s wonderful news.’

  Strangely, seeing him so happy did nothing for me other than make me want to wipe the smile off his face. I should have been thrilled he was so happy but the moment was tarnished by the memory of what he’d done. I had to make a go of us now more than ever – it would just take time.

  Before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled me into a hug and the side of my face became oddly moist. Then I realised he was crying. ‘We will make this work,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll do whatever I have to do to make this right again.’ His words should have thawed my heart, but they didn’t. The ice in my chest was thick and heavy. He was going to need a bigger pickaxe to break through.

  James slept in our bed that night. It was the first time since it had happened, and it was odd, like a stranger was lying next to me. There were moments where I thought I could move past his affair, like I could lock it up in a box and toss it out to sea, but the image of them together always escaped and crawled back to me.

  As I lay there, watching the rise and fall of his chest I tried to force myself to feel love again and I did feel the swell of love in my chest but I couldn’t attach it to James, it was for the baby inside me.