Got You Back

by Fallon, Jane

  ‘It's a lovely idea,’ James said, cutting her off, ‘but by the time I've spent Saturday running round the zoo or the aquarium or whatever I just want to go to bed and sleep. I wouldn't be very good company. Sorry, love. Another time, maybe. And, you know, one of these days Stephanie will say it's OK for me to introduce you to Finn and then you can come down every weekend.’

  ‘OK,’ she said quietly. ‘Whatever you want.’

  Katie put the phone down. She felt sick. She knew what she had to do.

  11

  When her phone rang Stephanie was in the middle of a rant to Natasha about James and the fact that he had seemed blithely happy when he got home last night, blissfully unaware as he was that Stephanie had finally unearthed the scale of his deception.

  ‘And as for Katie,’ she was saying for, perhaps, the twelfth time in the past two days. She hardly noticed that Natasha rolled her eyes, and was about to launch into another retelling of her bizarre exchange with her husband's mistress when she checked the caller ID and saw that it was, in fact, that very husband's mistress who was calling her now.

  ‘It's her,’ she said, in a pointless stage-whisper.

  ‘Well, answer it, then,’ Natasha said impatiently.

  Stephanie did as she was told. ‘Hello,’ she said, in as neutral a way as she could manage.

  ‘Stephanie,’ Katie's now familiar voice said, ‘it's Katie.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm.’ Stephanie couldn't trust herself with any actual words until she had heard what Katie had to say.

  ‘I'm… I think we got off on the wrong foot and that maybe it was my fault.’

  ‘Well, yes, screwing someone's husband will sometimes do that,’ Stephanie said, before she could stop herself.

  She heard Katie inhale sharply as if she was composing herself before she spoke.

  ‘I know this must have been a shock to you,’ Katie said, ‘but you have to believe it was as much of a shock to me. When James told me you were divorced I had no reason not to believe him. And now… now I don't know what to believe.’

  ‘So you thought you'd ring up and accuse me of being a fantasist again?’ Stop it, Stephanie, she thought.

  Katie didn't seem to be responding to Stephanie's offers of a fight. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wanted to say sorry for not listening to you. And that I know he's been lying to me now. I think. To be absolutely honest, Stephanie, I don't know what I think.’ Katie's voice cracked and Stephanie realized she was trying not to cry.

  ‘OK,’ she said, more kindly, waving a hand at Natasha, who was leaving. ‘Let's pretend we're starting again. I've rung you to tell you the man you're having a relationship with is my husband and you believe me. I accept that you thought he was unattached. What do we do now?’

  Nearly an hour later Stephanie and Katie were still talking. Katie, Stephanie had discovered, had been seeing her husband for a year. It wasn't as if she and James had hidden their relationship from anyone: she had never seen the necessity because she had had no idea that they might be doing anything worthy of being hidden.

  Katie, meanwhile, had discovered that her boyfriend still very much lived with his wife, and that although the past few years since the move to London had been fraught sometimes, they were still very definitely married. She had learned that Finn had been happily spared the traumas caused by warring parents, and that rather than just seeing his father for a few hours on Saturdays he spent half of every week with him and the other half looking forward to seeing him again. She had learned that, just as she had trusted that James was buried in his work and sacrificing comfort and home life on the days when he was in London, so Stephanie had believed he was doing the same when he was in Lincolnshire.

  Both had had to acknowledge to themselves that he had been living a lie. Stephanie, who had had a few days to get used to the idea, was trying to reprogramme her anger so that its focus was firmly channelled at James rather than at Katie. Try as she might to hate Katie, it was hard to keep it up once she knew that Katie had been duped as much as she had.

  ‘So, where do we go from here?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘I'm going to ring him and tell him not to bother coming back,’ said Katie, tearfully. Katie, who had never been hurt before, had taken it badly. ‘I would never go with another woman's husband. I mean never, Stephanie. You have to believe me. I'm going to kill him, honestly I am. I'll pack his stuff up and drop it round to the surgery and then I'll never see him again.’

  ‘I don't know,’ Stephanie said. ‘We shouldn't rush into anything. We shouldn't tell him what we know yet, not till we've decided if that's the best thing to do. Don't show your hand too early, my friend Natasha always says. You can always play it later, but once you've shown it there's no taking it back.’

  Stephanie didn't know why she wanted to put off the confrontation with James. Partly, she thought, because she was afraid that if she told him she knew about Katie he would look relieved, throw his hands in the air and say, ‘Hallelujah. At last I don't have to live a lie. I can leave you and live with the woman I love.’ She didn't think she could take the humiliation. ‘I know it's a strange thing to ask,’ she continued, ‘but let's sleep on it at least. Another twenty-four hours isn't going to make any difference.’

  ‘OK,’ Katie said reluctantly. ‘When he calls me tonight I'll try and pretend that everything's OK.’

  ‘Just turn your phone off,’ Stephanie said. ‘Let him worry about what you're up to.’

  Katie wiped her hand across her brow and leaned on the kitchen table for support. Of course she would wait to see what Stephanie wanted to do. After all, Stephanie had a far greater claim on James than she did — even Katie had to acknowledge that now. She might be losing a boyfriend but Stephanie was in danger of losing a husband, the father of her child. Still, the way she felt at the moment it was hard to imagine Stephanie was feeling any worse. Could it really be true? James — nice, funny, loving James? Katie had always believed that people who were treated badly in relationships had somehow brought it on themselves. That wasn't the same as thinking they deserved it, certainly not, but she trusted that if you behaved well, if you gave someone all your support, allowed them their freedom, they would repay you by being honest and straightforward. It wasn't as if she had ever asked James to lie. He was the one who had made the move on her in the first place. He could have just left her alone to get on with her life, which she had been enjoying perfectly well, thank you very much.

  She barely moved all morning. James still married? She could hardly take it in. It seemed so surreal. And all those things he'd said about Stephanie. How she tried to stop him seeing his son, how she'd bled him dry in the divorce, how they barely even exchanged pleasantries these days. All lies. The whole of him was a lie, everything she had believed about him, everything on which she'd based her love for him. It was all untrue. And poor Stephanie. Stephanie who had believed she was happily married until a couple of days ago…

  She finally gave in to the tears that had been threatening to come ever since she had picked up the phone. Big, heaving sobs, which took over her whole body and which made Stanley come and stand beside her, looking at her sadly, unsure of what to do.

  As the morning wore on the tears were replaced with angry thoughts — something alien to Katie: she liked to put a positive spin on things, to see the good in every situation. Twice she had begun to dial James's number. She wanted him to know that she knew. She wanted him to know he wasn't going to get away with it any more. But she had promised Stephanie she would sit tight for now. And if that was what Stephanie wanted, it was the least Katie could do. She got up and wiped her eyes, then lit some candles — geranium to lift the spirits. She was strong, she would cope.

  ‘Bastard,’ she said out loud, to no one in particular.

  12

  They had agreed to speak again the following morning. Meanwhile Stephanie called Natasha to fill her in on what had happened and to ask her what she thought they should do next.

  ‘You
need to think it through carefully. Don't show your hand too early,’ Natasha said, when Stephanie had finished.

  ‘I know, I know. Haven't you got any new sayings?’

  ‘Funnily enough, I've never discovered that my best friend's husband is a bigamist before, or as good as, so forgive me if I don't immediately know what to say.’

  ‘But I need your advice, though,’ Stephanie pleaded. ‘I don't know what to do.’

  ‘Do nothing.’

  ‘You always say that.’

  ‘Well, this time I mean it. Do nothing and we'll try to come up with a plan. You think Katie will go along with whatever you suggest?’

  ‘I think so. Actually, she sounded nice.’

  ‘OK,’ Natasha said. ‘Now this is getting weird.’

  ‘She did, though. And I think she feels as bad for me as she does for herself.’

  ‘I'll see you in the café at Harvey Nichols at two,’ Natasha said, and rang off.

  Stephanie ran herself a bath, then lay in it, staring up at the ceiling, thinking over her conversation with Katie. She had meant it when she'd said Katie sounded nice. There had been genuine shock in her voice when she'd tried to take on board what Stephanie had been saying to her, but once she had absorbed it her concern had been all for Stephanie. From what she had said it was obvious that she loved James and had thought they had a future together, but Stephanie had no doubt that the relationship was over now — at least as far as Katie was concerned. She had said she wasn't the sort of woman to steal another woman's man and Stephanie believed her.

  James, meanwhile, pulled into the car park of a pub called the Jolly Boatman in a little village just outside Stevenage, got out and stretched exaggeratedly. It was a beautiful day and he fancied a half of bitter, sitting in the pub's spring-flower-filled garden. He would spend a blissful half-hour taking in the countryside, then get on his way again. He didn't want to be too late getting home, Finn had football club on a Wednesday afternoon and usually got in around five thirty. James liked to be there to meet him but he also wanted to avoid getting back too much before that. Sometimes he didn't know what to do with himself in his own house when his son wasn't there.

  The barmaid definitely twinkled at him as she pulled his drink, and ordinarily James would have responded, sitting up at the bar having a harmless flirtation, chatting about his job and the weather. Today, though, he didn't have the heart for it. It felt like an effort and he preferred to sit on his own, everything peaceful around him, just ‘experiencing the moment’, as Katie would have said. He took his beer out to the large garden at the back, which overlooked the river with its neat little families of ducks, and sat contentedly at a table away from anyone else.

  It was unexpectedly warm for March, so he took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves, basking in the sun like a lion smug in the knowledge that it's the undisputed king of the jungle. This is the life, he thought, swatting an insect away from his face. He really could have no complaints. In fact, he thought now, most men would envy him. What full-blooded male hadn't fantasized about having two women on the go? Of course, he couldn't imagine that many of those men were actually dreaming about having two full-time relationships. Two sets of responsibilities and double the squabbling over whether or not to buy a new ironing-board. Sometimes he wondered if, rather than living an enviable life, he was actually living a lot of men's twin-headed nightmare. It was hardly the carefree sex-filled romp one might think. It was two lots of ‘Have you put the rubbish out?’ and ‘Should we have the Martins round? After all, they had us over last time and we don't want it to look like we're not good hosts.’ Double ‘You never talk to me properly any more’ and ‘Which looks better, the blue one with the tan belt, or the stripy one?’

  James rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead. He was starting to sweat a little. He downed the last inch of his half-pint and took the empty glass back to the bar on his way out.

  ‘’Bye, love,’ the barmaid called. She really was quite attractive, he thought, and she was definitely giving him the eye.

  He put on his best, most dazzling smile. ‘See you soon,’ he shouted, thinking, I must remember where this place is.

  He had no idea, of course, that his life as he knew it was about to take a drastic turn.

  13

  Something Natasha had said to Stephanie a few days earlier had lodged in her brain and wouldn't go away: ‘You have to make him suffer. The point is you get to feel better while he gets to feel like shit.’ It made a kind of perverse sense. Why should James escape without any punishment for his crime? OK, so losing both of the women he professed to love might hurt him a little but she doubted now that he would care for long. He clearly had no respect, no real feelings for either of them. He'd just find another woman — maybe even two — to fall for his stories. The question was, what form the punishment should take.

  Natasha's suggestions all seemed to involve some form of physical violence so, for the first time, Stephanie decided to ignore her friend's advice and work this one out for herself. She dug her phone out of her bag. ‘I think we should meet,’ she said, when Katie answered.

  There was a moment's silence as Katie, on the other end of the line, took this in. ‘Really?’ she said, sounding nervous.

  ‘I just think there are things we need to talk about and we should do that face to face. Besides, I'm curious.’

  Stephanie heard Katie's inhalation, could feel her weighing up the idea in her head. She waited.

  ‘All right,’ Katie said finally. ‘Let's do it. I'm curious too.’ They had arranged to meet in the bar of a hotel near Peterborough, halfway between Lincoln and London. Stephanie's plan was to leave as soon as James had gone to work in the morning, but by the time she had agonized over what to wear (jeans and a figure-hugging T-shirt with heels that would have been too high for her to drive in — even though she knew Katie was blameless she still wanted to show her that she was in good shape, not the stereotype of the little woman left at home) and whether to wear her hair up or down (up, in a low ponytail), she was about an hour late leaving. She rang Katie to tell her, only to discover that Katie had been in the same dilemma and was running late herself.

  ‘I didn't ask,’ Stephanie said, ‘but what do you look like? You know, so I recognize you.’ She was feeling a bit sick. The reality of what was happening to her was just beginning to sink in. What if the woman her husband had been having an affair with was stunning? She wasn't sure if she could cope with that.

  ‘Well, I'm wearing a turquoise skirt, sort of a long skirt, and a white vest with a light blue cardigan. And I'm about five foot two,’ Katie said, which wasn't the answer Stephanie had been looking for. Was she thin? Fat? Plain? Gorgeous? Twenty-five? Fifty?

  Katie, too, had procrastinated in front of her wardrobe. She wanted to look good but not threatening. She didn't know why but she wanted Stephanie to like her, to forgive her, even though in reality there was nothing to forgive. She had decided to go with pretty but not too much flesh. Flattering, but not too young. She had formed a picture in her head of what Stephanie might look like based on the photos she had seen of Finn. A good-looking brunette with brown eyes, maybe with the slightly lopsided smile Finn had and his turned-up nose. She imagined she would be… attractive. Why else would James have been — still be — married to her?

  Every now and then an image came into her mind of the woman she had conjured up and James wrapped round each other naked under the sheets. As hard as she would try to push it away it would push back, threatening to block out all possibility of ever thinking about anything else. She tried to conjure up positive thoughts but her old standbys — images of herself on a sundrenched beach in Thailand, a memory of a particularly happy Christmas when she was a child — weren't strong enough to overpower the negative ones that had taken root. She reached into her cupboard for the Rescue Remedy.

  As the taxi pulled into the hotel car park, she ran her fingers through her hair and checked herself in a small
mirror. She felt sick with nerves. She had never been good with confrontation — she always tried to give people what they wanted, to go out of her way to make them happy, and she had a lurking fear that Stephanie might want to pick a fight.

  She took a deep breath and walked into the hotel foyer, looking around for the bar. There were a few people in there. She scanned the room for a woman on her own. No one. She must have got there first. She settled at a table near the window and ordered a glass of mineral water. She wasn't really a drinker, but she was dying for a vodka and tonic. Sipping her drink, Katie stared out of the window. She was beginning to sweat.

  No more than a couple of minutes later she heard a small cough and looked round to see a tall, slim woman, with long, dark red hair tied away from her face, standing beside her. She stood up awkwardly. Stephanie in the flesh was quite an imposing prospect. She had somehow bypassed pretty and gone straight for beautiful, and looked nothing like Katie's comforting mental picture. Her skin, which was an iridescent white, was straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Katie's own shiny tanned glow seemed cheap in comparison. She smiled nervously.

  Stephanie nearly laughed out loud when she saw Katie. Not because she was relieved to find that Katie wasn't pretty because there was no denying that she was. She was maybe somewhere in her late thirties, Stephanie thought, thankful that at least they were the same age, but that was where the similarities ended. The thing that had struck Stephanie as soon as she had seen her was that they were such complete opposites. It was such a cliché that James had felt the need to seek out everything he didn't have at home. She was tall; Katie was short. She had deep red, poker-straight hair; Katie was all blonde curls. She was slim and athletic; Katie was soft and feminine. Her eyes were brown, Katie's were blue.

  ‘God, you certainly couldn't say he has a type,’ she said, and Katie laughed, although it seemed a little forced. ‘I'm Stephanie,’ Stephanie said, and held out a hand.