‘You could go as Celestine Babayaro,’ I suggest. Max supports Chelsea and this is one of the names I have registered. I have no idea what he looks like. The name sounds French or Italian.
‘I can’t,’ Max says. ‘I’m allergic to facepaint!’
‘Oh.’ It dawns on me that the player is black. ‘You don’t have to take the dressing up too far, Max.’
‘I could be John Terry,’ he says.
‘Good idea,’ I reply, distracted by not having heard from Abe. I check my emails, too often, all evening.
‘Is there a problem at work?’ Richard asks.
‘No,’ I say, and begin to worry that my behaviour is making him suspicious.
I switch off my computer and don’t switch it on again until the morning, when Richard’s gone to work and the children are at school.
There is an email from Abe in my inbox. It was sent very late at night. He must have known I wouldn’t open it until he was out of the office. There is no subject heading.
I read it, hoping for an explanation of the coolness, the way he has been behaving towards me, other than the one I fear. He doesn’t even afford me the consideration of being unambiguous. He’s clearly trying to end things but without actually saying so, as if he wants to make out the decision is mine, when it isn’t. It’s his. The email itself is a muddle of ‘will always care for you’, ‘knew the first moment I saw you there was something special about you’, ‘I can never give you what you want so it is better for me to remove myself from the picture’ and ‘I need to spend more time at home.’
He is ending the relationship without having the guts to say so clearly. And, as if to make himself feel better about it, he behaves as if the whole affair was something I instigated and found easy.
I never should have allowed myself to be sucked into something that threatened to hurt the people closest to me. I have found it increasingly difficult to deal with the guilt and wonder that you find it all so easy …
I’m upset and furious in equal measure. How dare he brush me off in an email that doesn’t even make sense, when he’d had a chance to say it all to my face? How dare he do it just before he takes time off, knowing I cannot contact him at home? How dare he make such smug assumptions about how I feel? In doing so he has revealed he has absolutely no idea how I’ve felt about any of it.
I break one of our cardinal rules: don’t text me when I’m at home. Sorry to disturb you but your email is ambiguous and unclear, I tap into my phone. I press send.
I hear nothing for at least half an hour, in which I fret and pace and look at my watch, willing him to reply before I have to pick up the kids from school. Then I think about trying to pull myself together before I see them. I cannot be this agitated. I have to be normal. And I have to behave normally when Richard gets back from work.
My phone bleeps and I open the message from Abe: I can’t talk. I’m with Lynn x
Then you should have talked to me when you were with me I reply, regardless.
I tried. He pings back.
Then, before I have time to reply, another: I’m going to switch my phone off. If you want to reply to my email I’ll check mine later.
I don’t know what to say because what can I say? I always knew it would have to end one day. But not like this. Did he really care for me so little that he could end a relationship I thought was important like this?
I’d thought Abe was my soul-mate. I’d really thought there was something special between us. I’d risked my marriage to be with him because I’d believed him when he said he was glad he found me and that ‘we should be together’.
I do email him but it’s curt and to the point.
‘I think, at the very least you owe me an explanation.’
I want this much. I feel I deserve this much, but when his reply arrives in my inbox, I feel cold with the shock of the reality of what we have been doing.
‘Dear Ivy,’ he replies.
I know I should have said this to your face but I found it too hard. I knew I was going to hurt you and I didn’t want to hurt you. So I am taking the cowardly way out. We always knew things would have to end one day. Perhaps I allowed them to go on longer than they should but they cannot go on any longer now.
Lynn’s pregnant. Not quite three months so we have not told anyone and she’s been very sick so I’m taking time off to look after her and Ruby. When they were involved in that accident, I had a taste of what it might feel like if I lost them and I knew then that I couldn’t keep doing something that made that a real possibility. My future is with Lynn, with my own, about to get bigger, family and that yours is with yours.
I’m sorry not to have dealt with this better.
But I must stop all contact with you now.
Love
Abe x
I am stunned, shocked, saddened, and sorry for myself but mostly brought up short by my own behavior, by how selfish Abe and I were being, by how close we came to destroying the lives of the people we care for.
I miss him. I miss him so much it hurts but I also begin to resent him for that and for causing the black moods to which I find myself increasingly susceptible. I’ve never felt depressed before. Desolate, yes. Grief-stricken, after my mother died, but not this feeling down all the time. He has done this to me.
Richard notices. He hadn’t spotted anything before. ‘You’re probably having some sort of delayed reaction,’ he says gently. ‘It was bound to happen. A reaction to Jon’s test result and then Cathy’s. You’ve been so optimistic and brave but you’re bound to have times when it’s more difficult.’
‘It’s not that,’ I say, because I feel so bad that he’s being so nice to me. He should hate me.
‘I knew you’d been finding things difficult,’ Richard continues. ‘I spoke to the doctor and he said it would probably hit you at some point. I didn’t like to say anything because I know it’s bad enough for you without having to worry about other people worrying about you.’
‘Oh, God,’ I say, because I can’t believe his generosity of spirit.
‘I’m not pressuring you to have the test,’ he says.
‘I didn’t think you were.’
All this time I’ve been sloping off to another man, justifying my behaviour because I thought Richard hadn’t noticed, he’s been worrying about me. All this time, instead of urging me to talk, he’s kept quiet, not because he didn’t notice that anything was wrong but because he did and thought something else was bothering me.
What was it Abe said about Niels Bohr when we met? What cannot be observed does not exist? No doubt I’m completely misinterpreting this facet of quantum physics and applying it wrongly to my own life. But because Richard couldn’t see that I was having an affair, for him it was never real. I pray that it stays that way. ‘I’m so sorry, Richard,’ I say.
I almost want to tell him, in the hope that he’ll forgive me, but if I do, I’ll only hurt him and I know what it’s like to be hurt. This wasn’t some casual fling with someone in the office. I had real feelings for the person involved.
‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,’ Richard says.
If only he knew. If he did, he wouldn’t be as kind to me as he is.
‘Whatever happens, I’ll be here for you.’ He’s determined to do everything in his power to make me feel better. He does everything he can to show me that he loves me and I know he does, more than I ever did before, which makes me feel worse.
I can’t let myself off that lightly.
I don’t want to feel the way I do but I can’t stop. I can’t talk to anyone so I swim endless lengths of the local pool, hoping the repetitiveness of counting strokes and laps will take my mind off Abe. I can no longer enjoy it as I normally do. And I can’t get away from the feeling that I was duped, that nothing Abe ever said was heartfelt or true.
I can’t quite believe how naive I was to think that Destiny had brought us together. Now I see that all I was, all I ever was, was a bit on the side. It floors me,
in a way that other blows in life never have.
Two years of my life. Two years of feelings for someone, so intense that he was rarely out of my head, have been reduced to nothing.
I read somewhere two sentences that stay with me: ‘One day it will seem as if it never happened. You will be surprised how much it never happened.’
London, 1996
According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves. And when one meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment …
Plato, The Symposium
It’s just before eleven when I decide to phone Tessa. I know it will worry her, make her wonder who’s calling at that time of night. But I hope she’ll still be up, watching the news discussed on Newsnight, as I have been. Perhaps she’s even thinking about calling us, just to make sure Abe is okay. If anyone is likely to be worried about him, it’s his sister.
‘Tessa, it’s Ivy. I’m sorry to call so late.’
The phone rang for a long time before she answered. I was aware that I might be waking Harry and the children too.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, and all the feelings I’ve been trying to suppress over the past months begin to crowd in on me.
The part of me that is still clinging to there being a rational explanation tries to hang on in there. The part of me that fears the worst is pushing to the forefront. But there’s still another part that thinks it’s not the worst, it may simply be something else, something bad, but not the worst.
‘You’ve heard the news?’ I ask.
‘Not this evening,’ Tessa sounds concerned now. ‘Why? Has something happened?’
‘Yes.’
I’d thought Tessa and Harry would have watched it or caught it on the radio. When Abe’s at home in the evening, which has become increasingly infrequent, we sit and watch the news together before bed. I imagine others doing the same.
Perhaps, even if they had, it wouldn’t have registered as a cause for concern. Perhaps they aren’t aware that Abe’s office is in Canary Wharf. I have no idea of the exact location of Jon’s office, even though it’s in the place I grew up. Why should Tessa be any more aware of where her brother’s office is? Why should she and her husband have any idea that he takes the Docklands Light Railway from South Quay station at around seven o’clock every evening?
Perhaps they’ve heard about the bomb on the news but it hasn’t crossed their minds to wonder if Abe is safe.
‘There’s been a bomb. It’s the IRA.’ I focus on the details rather than the thing I fear most. ‘They’ve broken the ceasefire.’ I start to gabble. ‘Part of the South Quay Plaza has been destroyed and a lot of the station. There’ve been lots of injuries and –’
‘Ivy,’ Tessa interrupts. ‘Is it in the Docklands?’
‘Yes.’ I look towards the television screen where more images of the rubble are flashing across it.
‘Is Abe okay?’
‘I don’t know.’ My words are practically inaudible.
‘Ivy?’ Tessa raises her voice, as if it’s the line and not me.
‘He’s not home from work.’
‘When did it happen? How long ago?’
‘Just after seven. They say there was a warning beforehand and the area was evacuated but lots of people have been injured and that’s usually about the time Abe gets the train home when …’ I pause. Now is not the time to let my other concerns cloud what I am trying to tell Tessa.
‘And he hasn’t called?’
‘No. I wasn’t worried until I switched on the news. I wasn’t sure if he was coming home late or not.’
‘So he might be at a meeting?’ Tessa is going through exactly the same thought process that I have already been through. ‘Perhaps he’s somewhere else and doesn’t even know there’s been a bomb.’
‘It’s possible.’ I try not to acknowledge, even to myself, how distinct a possibility I fear that may be.
‘Have you called his office or …’ The alternative hangs in the air.
‘There was no reply from the office but there never is, not at that time. I’ve tried the police and the hospitals. They say they have no record of Abe among the injured but it’s still confused …’
‘Well, that’s good,’ Tessa says, but I can tell she’s as worried as I am.
‘They’re still in the midst of dealing with it all. People are still being brought in. He might not have been taken to one of the hospitals I tried … And perhaps he wasn’t even caught up in it. Perhaps he had a meeting after work and he’s oblivious to everything that’s going on.’
‘Wouldn’t he have told you?’ Tessa asks.
‘He might have and I may not have taken it in.’ I cover for him, even though for the past few months Abe has been increasingly vague about his whereabouts and angry if I ask him.
I suspect the worst. Or, rather, what I have been suspecting was the worst, before this new spectre appeared.
‘Are the kids okay?’ Tessa asks.
‘They’re asleep.’
I had got Minnie off to sleep just before nine, when I sat down to watch the news.
‘I wanted Daddy to read me a story,’ she’d said, wide-awake and a little petulant, when I had finished reading her a second Alfie and Annie Rose story. ‘Daddy does better voices.’
When he’s at home, Abe throws himself into bedtime stories. He gives all the different characters in Minnie’s favourite Shirley Hughes compendium different voices.
‘Och, aye, let’s have a look at this, then.’ He gives Mr McNally a thick, guttural Scottish accent, the accent he says he had when he lived there but is much softer after the years he’s spent in London.
‘But I read you two stories,’ I reasoned with Minnie, tired and desperate to go downstairs.
‘But you sounded cross and no one in the stories is supposed to be cross.’
‘I’m sorry, Mins,’ I said, putting the book on the shelf.
I’m worried that Minnie is picking up on the atmosphere. She hasn’t got the right words to articulate what she feels but clearly there’s something. I don’t think I sounded cross but I admit I was distracted when I was reading to her. I was too busy wondering where Abe was, even before I’d switched on the news, to give the story my full attention. I thought I’d read it fine. But kids are harsh critics and acute observers.
‘Daddy can read to you tomorrow.’ I tucked the duvet around her chin.
‘Promise?’
‘If he’s home in time.’
‘That’s not a promise.’
‘Well, you can’t make promises that other people have to keep.’ I switched off her bedside lamp. ‘But I promise that I love you more than anything in the whole wide world. Now go to sleep, gorgeous.’
I hope neither of the kids wakes up. If they pick up on my anxiety they’ll never go back to bed.
‘Oh, Jesus! I just switched the news on,’ I hear Tessa saying. ‘It’s a mess.’
‘I know.’ My voice catches.
‘Shall I come up? I could drive up and be with you in an hour or so.’
Tessa lives in East Sussex, in a village not far from Hastings.
‘I can’t ask you do to that,’ I say, although I’d like some company. ‘As you said, he might be fine. He might walk through the door any minute.’
‘But what will you do?’ she asks.
‘I’ll keep calling,’ I say, unable to think what else to do. ‘And I’ll wait up until he gets back.’
‘Let me know when he does, won’t you?’ Tessa says, and I can hear that she’s trying not to let me hear her yawning.
‘Of course.’
&nb
sp; ‘I was on my way to bed. But I’ll wait up. Call me again, if you hear anything. Or just … anyway.’
‘I will.’
There was a point earlier in my marriage when Abe’s incessant watching of the news infuriated me. When the children were younger, and I hardly ever got to sit and watch anything myself, he still somehow managed to claim his divine right to give it his undivided attention. You’d have thought he won the Gulf War single-handed, simply by sitting on the sofa, blotting out the noise made by tiny Minnie and infant Charlie and watching hours of wall-to-wall coverage.
This evening, though, the extended news is a godsend. It gives me something to do while I decide whether to phone the hospitals again or wait a little longer. I search for clues in the images of rubble and the snippets of information.
‘Two people are feared dead,’ the reporter is saying, and I go cold. ‘They are believed to be the owners of a newsagent …’ I relax again.
Not Abe, then, unless he was in the newsagent buying something. How is anyone to know who was where doing what minutes before that vast crater appeared in the newest part of London? But surely if he were among the dead or injured someone would have contacted me by now.
The phone rings and I have to steel myself to answer it. It’s probably Tessa, I tell myself. After all, she’d said she would call. ‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Hello.’ The voice is a woman’s but not Tessa’s. I don’t recognize it.
‘Hello,’ I repeat.
The onus is on whoever it is to say something.
‘Is that Ivy McFadden?’
That’s not a good thing to say. It’s going to be bad news. I never changed my name when we married. I’d been thinking about it recently, because it feels odd not having the same name as the children but I haven’t done anything about it. I’m still Ivy Trent. Only someone connected to Abe would call me that, presuming I have taken his name. Only someone who is looking after him in hospital or … Or worse, whichever form worse takes. I’ve been trying to stop myself worrying about the other, because right now it doesn’t feel important. Correction. Shouldn’t feel important but still does.
Ivy and Abe Page 15
