Through the Wall

by Caroline Corcoran

  He disappeared then though, into a tiny Italian bar. The kind that serves coffee and pastries and five signature house cocktails, and if you want anything else, tough. London loves one of those. So now, apparently, does Luke.

  Then I was free to look at every woman on this busy street and wonder if they were Naomi.

  The woman with the dyed pink hair in adidas trainers. Was that her? The tiny, pretty Spanish girl marching through the crowd speaking loudly with earphones in? It could be the blonde giggling on the phone or that girl, no more than twenty-two, nervously checking out the signs to find the bar that she was looking for.

  In the end, though, I knew. It was the woman who walked into the bar five minutes after Luke, looking like someone I ached to be. Petite, blonder than me, in jeans and black biker boots. She had found her look; she didn’t have visible trainer socks.

  Instead, she looked like one of those women I always thought Luke should go out with, more than I have ever believed deep down that I did. A confidence in her walk and in her head, held high, that said she would never take Luke speaking to her, treating her, demeaning her like he did me. Meanwhile, I knew that if he would come back to me, I would take it over and over again. I found the nearest old man’s pub and got steadily but quickly drunk.

  45

  Lexie

  March

  After our appointment, things spiral quickly. In the next three weeks, with little work to keep me busy and the added stress of wondering if Tom is sending pictures to other women, I put on half a stone sadly and easily. The drugs make me nauseous and give me headaches, and I avoid Anais and in fact everybody – except Tom, who is working in London; I suspect he has made sure of that because he is worried about me.

  It doesn’t work well, though. Alone at home with our thoughts and our worst fears, and with my suspicions crawling around the insides of my brain, we trip over each other, snapping and biting. Should I say something? I wonder constantly. Should I, should I? But I think about how he laughed about the knickers. I think about what would happen if he admitted cheating. I think about my womb and I know: I don’t have room for this.

  ‘What happened to all your running?’ says Tom, faux-lightly one night, and I scream at him that he is being cruel at a time when the last thing I need is cruelty.

  How dare you! I think. How dare you criticise me when you are doing what I think you might be doing when we are in the midst of this? But I don’t believe it really. He couldn’t be, could he?

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be cruel,’ Tom says, chastised, and I notice bags under his eyes that I haven’t seen before. ‘I just thought running might make you feel better.’

  But I know he’s been building up to it, rolling the phrasing around in his head and debating saying it for hours. I realised when he went to the gym a few days ago that he was making a point to me then, too, and it’s a horrible thing to know. Especially when. If.

  I rage-eat a family-sized chocolate bar and read Zadie Smith in bed until he comes up after a late night working at his laptop.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispers in the dark, but I am too suspicious of him now to be able to go to him and seek solace. I pretend to be asleep.

  The next day I stay in bed until ten thirty and it’s only when Tom sticks his head in that I’m shamed into getting up. I don’t have much clarity but even I can see that I am lacking a purpose and that makes me sadder. A baby would be my purpose.

  When I open my Zadie Smith I can feel her clever, feminist eyes on me, ashamed. Women: discard me.

  But this is how I feel at my grimiest, deepest core.

  A text pings in from Anais.

  I’m worried about you, she says. You’re so quiet. Have I done something? Is something going on?

  I put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ and throw it across the room.

  Tom comes in and glances at it.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ he asks, echoing Anais.

  ‘I’m just over everyone being so attached to their phones,’ I mutter. ‘I think I might bin it so they all go away and leave me alone.’

  And then I skulk past, animal, tying up my greying dressing gown and heading for the bathroom.

  The worst thing is that I know I am pushing Tom away. Even before the message from Rachel. We’re strong enough to handle Bad Me for a while, I had reasoned. But is that the thought that gets people and screws them over from the inside? Is that thought why he is sending these kinds of messages to strange women?

  This is the pitiful and honest truth: I haven’t looked any more into what this woman said, because if I did and Tom finally did admit that something happened, I would have to make a decision about whether or not to cut him out of my life and most likely to press stop on fertility treatment. And I am full of hormones and not strong enough for that.

  Instead I shelve it, like one of those photo albums from the past with the funny cards shoved inside, and I shut the door on it, vowing to revisit it later at a time when I am feeling stronger. And hoping that that time does come.

  46

  Harriet

  After that, things rolled out of control. Naomi became a regular fixture in Luke’s life. Still friends with him on social media, I could see her there, even if she predominantly stayed in the background. She was being cool and it was becoming obvious – even to me in my fog – that cool wasn’t what I was being.

  Even worse was Naomi’s own social media, which was a hotbed of nights at pop-up cinemas, cocktail bars and picnics in the park. Luke barely appeared. He didn’t need to. I saw it through his eyes.

  If for some people, seeing the new girl helps them close the door, then for me it did the opposite. It felt like the biggest betrayal of my life – the equivalent of my parents trading me in for another daughter – and I couldn’t believe Luke could do it, after everything I had done. I had moved, I had left behind Frances, and I had drifted from my family. I had risked my career, worked fewer hours, ignored my own needs and done whatever I could to make him happy.

  I questioned his sanity, wondering how a human being was capable of moving on this fast. It wasn’t just upsetting – it was genuinely unfathomable to me.

  I stayed away for a while and kept my interest online only, but then I saw him mention a gig on social media that was only a five-minute walk from my flat. It was too tempting, especially after I’d drunk three rum and Cokes for dinner that evening (a now regular occurrence). At 9 p.m., I pulled my trainers on and headed out. I sat in a bar opposite the gig venue and kept a Kindle in front of my face for half an hour before I saw Luke and Naomi join the queue.

  I took in every detail: the way they held hands, the way she rested comfortably on her block heels, her smile.

  Him, smoothing his eyebrows down, pushing his hair double-handed out of his eyes. Her, passing him a ticket. Him, passing her a tissue. They were comfortable together and seeing that was at first surreal. How had that happened? I had taken my eye off the ball, not stayed close enough. I’d have to remedy that; at that moment, that genuinely felt like my only option.

  ‘Do you know about me?’ I wondered out loud. No one heard – busy bar – and so I got louder, daring myself. ‘Do you even know I exist? Or after everything I did, am I not important enough?’

  A guy looked up from the table next to me and frowned.

  I settled my bill – three more double rum and Cokes, still no dinner – and headed home. And I had to keep drinking, because otherwise there was consciousness, which meant all those images in my head, of this woman who had arrived in my life and stolen it, were still there.

  After that it was a few days before I saw Luke again. I’d stopped taking on work – take your pick between being too drunk or too broken, but I was constantly too something – and had been stewing on my best move all day when I remembered that he played football every Thursday.

  It made perfect sense, because it was a place Naomi definitely wouldn’t be, and I had to speak to him. The longer it was going on, the more it was unbearabl
e to me that there had never been an answer or reason why our engagement no longer existed. It was one of the reasons I still hadn’t told my family; it all seemed ridiculous. I’d followed all the rules, played his game, for so long. It had to have been good enough.

  At the far end of the park from the football pitches, I set myself up. Picnic blanket, book, phone, then as I saw the game finishing, I texted him.

  Just in the park and remembered you play soccer here on Thursdays. Let me know if you’re about – thought might be nice to have a drink as mates and get things a bit more chilled out again xx.

  He pinged back straight away.

  Where are you? he said – keen! – and I told him.

  He was in front of me five minutes later, a sweaty shadow over my picnic blanket with its fake set-up hummus, and I looked up and did what I hoped was a laid-back grin. His face was not doing the same.

  ‘Harriet, this has to fucking stop,’ he said, shifting his bag onto his other shoulder and breathing heavily.

  I pulled a bottle of wine and two plastic cups out of my bag.

  ‘Drink?’ I said hopefully. ‘It’s such a beautiful evening.’

  He took a second, silently, and then he sat down.

  I poured the drinks and he actually did take one, which was brilliant, because it meant that today we had hung out together, in the park, drinking wine. I’d tell my mom, I’d post on my social media and everything would be normal.

  He gulped down his wine and I took my phone out, leaned in and snapped.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said, sounding truly horrified, and I laughed.

  I don’t think I had ever scared Luke before. That wasn’t how our relationship worked.

  ‘No need to go so mad,’ I smiled. ‘We’re millennials, Luke, we always take a selfie.’

  He put his drink down and looked up.

  ‘Harriet, you do understand, don’t you, that we have broken up? That we’re not getting married? That we’re not in a relationship? That we are single?’

  I pushed his arm.

  ‘Of course I understand,’ I said with a fake laugh. ‘What are you on about?’

  Again he took his time.

  ‘Your brother texted me yesterday,’ he said, grimacing. ‘Asking if I had started making plans for the stag do.’

  My fake smile got switched off at the mains and I faltered for a good few seconds before I could reply, and even then it was weak.

  ‘I haven’t spoken to my family much lately,’ I said, picking at a thread on the picnic blanket and staring at the checks until they went blurry. ‘I just … haven’t got round to telling them.’

  ‘It’s been three months!’ said Luke, incredulous.

  ‘Did you tell him?’ I asked. My stomach lurched at the idea of David hearing this news, passing it on to my parents.

  ‘No, I just ignored the message. You know I can’t stand David anyway. And it’s not my fucking job. But you need to tell them and stop hanging around. We both need to get on with being single.’

  Because it was the second time he’d said that word, I bristled and blurted out what I hadn’t intended to.

  Actually I didn’t, I just raised my eyebrow, but that was enough.

  ‘What? What now?’

  ‘Dating three months after you break off your engagement isn’t my definition of being single,’ I said, suddenly cold because it was only early May and the sun had gone in. I was in a summer dress in a field where everyone else was being warmed by barbecues and dates and friendship.

  ‘What?’ he said, looking me right in the eye.

  I had an adrenaline rush: when had I ever stood up to Luke? This felt terrifying.

  ‘Three months later,’ I said, regretting it already. My heart pounding.

  I’ve seen an unsettlingly calm rage cross Luke’s face many times. This was different.

  ‘No, not the three months part,’ he said. ‘How do you know I’ve been dating?’

  I had my answer ready to this one – I’d come up with it about thirty seconds ago, sensing danger ahead. This was how life worked with Luke. I’d forgotten how mentally exhausting it was, working to be one step in front always so that you didn’t mess up.

  ‘Oh, come on, Luke,’ I said, straightening my neck and trying for a morally superior stance. ‘Like I said, we’re millennials. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have a quick look on social media to see what I was up to, if you gave a shit.’

  He took a second and looked at me intently.

  ‘There is nothing on social media that says I’ve been dating, Harriet,’ he said.

  ‘You have really hurt me,’ I said, about to stand up, pack up my things and storm off, except that I wanted him to be with me, even if this was how. ‘I don’t know how it’s possible that you’re dating her when we were engaged only three months ago, and that you suddenly think it’s cool to go to gigs and pretentious bars and wear trainers I’ve never seen you in – and all just because Naomi says it’s okay. You used to know who you were.’

  He was staring at me with another expression I didn’t know. Genuine shock. It must be a terrible shock, when you have controlled and steered someone constantly for four years, to see them take back any amount of power. I even thought, for a second, that I saw fear in his eyes. The moment passed quickly, though. He reset his jaw, found his footing.

  ‘There is certainly no mention of her name on social media, Harriet, and to be honest, you’re now freaking me out a bit. Which, bloody hell, isn’t something I ever thought I would get from you.’

  And it was then, trapped, that I gathered the blanket, discarded the wine and tried to run. But he caught me. He always caught me.

  ‘What are you doing here tonight, Harriet?’ he asked, grabbing hold of my shoulder. ‘I dump you, I make it obvious that we’re not getting back together, and you turn up at my football game. What are you doing here? Are you insane?’ He moved his hand to my chin, clasped it. ‘Actually, don’t answer that, everyone knows you are.’

  His face hated me so much it made me take a gulping gasp of air as though his hand hadn’t been on my chin but across my nose and mouth, pushing hard and meaning it.

  ‘You know what’s funny?’ he asked, and I shook my head the millimetres that his grip would allow.

  I wondered if anyone was looking at us, taking this in. Wondering whether to intercept. But they were preoccupied. They had their Prosecco, their ice creams, their evening in the sun.

  ‘That you honestly think that I am not only crazy enough to go out with you once but that I would give you a second chance. Do you know what my friends thought about you, Harriet? They thought you weren’t pretty enough to make up for how weird you are and you weren’t funny or smart enough to make up for how plain you are.’

  A frisbee flew past us and I jumped. Luke didn’t flinch.

  He moved his face closer to mine, peered at me, touched my forehead where the lines were.

  ‘And now you’re getting older, you look even worse.’

  Familiar shamed tears started in my eyes. Did I mention that Luke used to do this to me, often?

  ‘But you know why I stayed, don’t you?’

  I nodded. Because he had told me this before, too.

  ‘Because I always knew that you were too pitiful to be without me. You were obsessed, it would have been cruel to walk away.’

  ‘But we were engaged,’ I whispered, because I needed to hear him confirm it. ‘You wanted to have children with me.’

  He nodded, serious.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This was before I met Naomi. I thought that what we had was okay. That the best thing I could have in life was someone who did what I wanted, followed me anywhere. I thought we could make a life together because it was so easy.

  ‘I’d sleep with anyone else I wanted, do whatever I wanted but you would accept it all. If I wanted to move to Australia, you’d pack a bag. If I wanted to eat Korean food, you’d swallow it even though you hate the taste.’

  I can
’t accept that that was it.

  ‘But still,’ I pushed, because now I needed to know. ‘Why would you want to make a life with someone who you didn’t love?’

  He shrugged then, like we were chatting about what pasta sauce we should make for dinner.

  ‘Different things matter to different people. For me, that wasn’t the most important thing.’

  The power, I thought, having a sudden epiphany. The power was the important thing. Anything else was secondary. And what he always had with me was the power.

  Did I mention that I took whatever Luke threw at me, because I was so grateful to have him?

  Did I mention that after we spent a night dancing with his friends – who saw none of this, only his charm, his charisma – he would be silent with me for twenty-four hours and I would have no idea why? That he told me that he wanted to have five children with me and travel with them all over the world but then an hour later shouted at me so angrily for looking at a man in the hotel lobby in Copenhagen. Or that someone from reception was dispatched to check everything was okay? That all this happened even though I knew, but never mentioned, that he slept with tens of other women while we were together?

  There were the whispered words of rage while we smiled through dinners. If his friends thought I seemed tense, they were right. I often was. That’s what happens when you’re working your whole life to criteria that move and change.

  Luke liked playing with me, toying. Flirting with other women then being outraged at such an accusation. Blowing hot, blowing the coldest gale you had ever felt on an exposed beach in January. Keeping me there, hoping for this idyllic future that would never materialise.

  There were the times that I tried to alter my style and he would tell me I looked stupid, that I was trying too hard. I thought of my ex-boyfriend, Ray, sometimes at those moments and had a pang of regret. But how could I compare the two? Look at him! Luke was so out of my league that I would have taken anything if I got the validation of spending my life with a popular, handsome man like that.