by Fallon, Jane
Stephanie still hadn't told Michael the whole truth about her situation with James. She had been as honest as she could, telling him she was still married, that she had discovered her husband's double life and that she was in the process of extricating herself from her marriage, but she had been vague about the reasons why she was still there, why she hadn't just ended it there and then when she had found out. And she knew why: it was because she had sensed that he would disapprove.
He was an adult, she was worried that it would seem like game-playing to him, making light of the fact that her marriage was over. Despite the fact that his wife had apparently been very vocal about his shortcomings with his friends, he was demonstrably proud of the fact that he had handled the situation with dignity. Retaining the moral high ground was high on Michael's list of priorities. Holding a party with the specific intention of unmasking your unfaithful spouse in front of all his friends and colleagues wouldn't have been an idea that would have entered his thought process, let alone one he would put into practice. Michael was big on doing the right thing.
It was because of this that Stephanie knew he would be feeling bad about what had happened on Sunday. They had agreed not to get too involved before Stephanie had sorted out herself and her marriage, and getting carried away in the heat of the moment, like a pair of adolescents, had never been part of the plan. Let alone getting caught doing so. He had left so quickly after Natasha had gone, as if he couldn't bear to be with her a moment longer. It had completely killed the moment. What had happened between them suddenly felt furtive and a bit tacky. A bit behind-the-bike-sheds.
Anyway, he had phoned, eventually, to confirm that they were still meeting up this evening. It had been a brief conversation, quite business-like, as if they were organizing a conference. Now she was waiting for him in the bar of the Soho Hotel, sitting up on a stool at the counter, self-consciously sipping a cocktail.
Michael, when he arrived, five minutes late and apologizing breathlessly for a hold-up on the tube, was looking good, Stephanie thought. She was feeling stupidly nervous. He put an arm round her and kissed her warmly. Her nervousness dissipated. It was going to be fine. Luckily he seemed to be doing his best to act as if nothing awkward had ever happened. He suggested trying to get tickets for the new Joe Penhall at the Royal Court and she agreed happily. Relaxed now, she suddenly let out an involuntary laugh.
‘What?’ Michael said.
‘Sorry,’ Stephanie said, colouring up a bit. ‘I was just thinking what it must have looked like to Natasha.’
‘Don't,’ he said, grimacing.
Stephanie laughed again — she couldn't help it, it was funny. ‘I've just remembered her saying, “Oh, whoops,” like she was a member of the WI dropping some of her jam on the floor.’
Michael only managed to crack half a smile. ‘I'm trying to forget about it,’ he said, and changed the subject. Maybe an evening sitting in close proximity in the theatre but not actually being able to talk about what had happened was exactly what they needed.
33
The kitchen had almost disappeared under a sea of paper chains and streamers. Stephanie had told Finn he could decorate the hall for the night of his father's fortieth birthday party and he was taking his job very seriously. He had spent the last two nights making a banner with Cassie, which said, ‘Happy Birthday Dad (James)’ and which was decorated with a picture of James with a stethoscope round his neck, surrounded by animals that were all dying in one gory and painful way or another. There was a lot of blood and legs hanging off and even a panda impaled on a fence, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. Finn had heard Cassie telling his mum it reminded her of a painting of World War One that she had seen at the National once. He was enormously proud of it.
He was a bit fed up at having had to spend so many evenings with Cassie recently, to be honest. Not that he didn't like her. As babysitters went, she was a good one. She was funny for a start and sometimes when she leaned over his bed to kiss him goodnight he could see down her top, which he found fascinating although he didn't quite know why. Plus she always let him stay up past his bedtime and she helped him out with things like the banner and his homework. It wasn't the same as being with his mum, though. But, then, she always seemed to be working late, these days.
He had been saving his pocket money (seventy-five p a week) for weeks now to get something nice for Dad for his birthday and he had decided on a drink-holder for his car, because Dad had to do all those long drives every week and Finn thought it would be nice for him to be able to drink a hot coffee on the way. He had seen one in the garage shop down the road where Dad sometimes went to fill up the car on a Sunday morning, and his mum had promised she would take him down there after school one day to get it. The last two nights, though, she hadn't had time because she'd had to get ready to go out again. He was hoping she would take him there this afternoon before Dad got home from the country. He'd reminded her twice already.
Stephanie lay in bed, knowing she should get up and make Finn's breakfast but she was exhausted. She wasn't used to going out in the evenings. On Monday night, after the theatre, she and Michael had shared a cab home and a chaste kiss on the way. Last night they had gone for a meal at The Oxo Tower, then walked along the South Bank for a while before they realized that maybe that wasn't such a great idea after all as they ran the gauntlet of dodgy-looking boys in hoodies and homeless beggars. They had jumped into a taxi, laughing at their lucky escape, and Michael had sat with his arm around her all the way back to his place, and they'd kissed with more urgency, oblivious to the driver, who was glancing at them every now and again in his rear-view mirror.
‘I wish I could ask you to stay,’ Michael had said, as he'd got out.
‘Next time you see me I'll be officially single,’ Stephanie had said, and for the first time the whole thing had seemed real. She and James were going to split up. This weekend. In her head their relationship was so dead it almost felt like an anticlimax. As far as she was concerned it had been over weeks ago. Now she and Katie just had to go through the motions and then that was that. The start of her new life.
Ridiculously she had been agonizing over whether or not to get James a birthday present. His party was on Saturday, he would expect a gift, but she was going to need every penny she could muster once they had separated. It felt wrong to spend hundreds of pounds on him one day just to tell him she was leaving him the next. In the end she had decided to tell him she had booked them a holiday. She could make it sound as extravagant as she liked, it was never going to happen.
She forced herself to get out of bed. She could hear Finn moving around downstairs and her heart flipped as she thought about having to tell him that his dad was going to be moving out. ‘It's not my fault,’ she said to herself. ‘None of this is my fault.’
Finn was bent over the kitchen table, working on his banner.
‘It's brilliant,’ Stephanie said to him, hugging him a bit too tightly so that he squirmed in her arms. ‘Dad'll love it.’
It seemed impossible to grasp that James would be coming home for the last time today. Stephanie had decided that the fair thing to do after the split would be for her to remain in the house with Finn until everything was sorted out. She was sure that, however unreasonable James had been in all sorts of other ways, he would see the sense in causing as little disruption for his son as possible. She just wanted it all to be over. The whole plan seemed ridiculous now, she thought. She had even considered backing out of Sunday, letting Katie go ahead and tell him he'd been found out on her own. But Katie had called her last night — the first time they had spoken in what seemed like ages — and she had been so positive that they were doing the right thing and she'd sounded so… well… so much happier, really, than Stephanie had ever known her to be, so much more confident, that she had found herself mirroring Katie's mood and agreeing the last-minute details, like where she was going to stay and precisely what time she was going to turn up.
The exact p
lan was this: Stephanie would travel up to Lincoln by train on Sunday afternoon, leaving a couple of hours after James had left in his car, flushed with pride and happiness after his party the night before at which his family and close friends had made him feel important and loved. She would check into the same hotel where James's parents had stayed only a few weeks before, where she would spend time in her room, making herself look as glamorous and desirable as possible.
At exactly nine thirty she would take a taxi to the village hall in Lower Shippingham. Katie was planning on presenting James with his cake at about ten o'clock and had arranged to text Stephanie — who would be waiting in the pub next door to the hall — to let her know when it was about to happen. As Katie made a speech about how marvellous James was and what a great partner and friend, Stephanie would enter the hall. As soon as Katie saw her, the plan was that she would announce a special guest, someone who occupied a unique place in James's heart. She would look at Stephanie, James, excited, would look at Stephanie, the gathered crowd — some of whom knew her — would look at Stephanie. ‘Yes,’ Katie would say, ‘it's his wife. No, you didn't hear me incorrectly, I said his wife, not his ex-wife.’ James would be in shock. ‘He still lives with her, you see, down in London for half the week,’ Katie would go on. ‘Here she is, my friend and still James's wife, Stephanie.’ Stephanie would walk over, smiling at Katie, they would embrace. Cue mayhem all round and James having some kind of a heart-attack. Quite how it would go after that they couldn't be sure. But the damage would be done, James would be unmasked as a cheat and a liar, and Stephanie and Katie could go on with their lives.
It all sounded so simple.
Stephanie came out in a cold sweat. Could she really go through with this? She picked up the phone and dialled Katie's number, walking through to the living room so that Finn couldn't hear.
‘We're definitely doing the right thing, aren't we?’ she said, when Katie answered.
‘Of course we are,’ Katie said confidently. ‘Stop worrying.’
James was on the motorway by twelve forty-five. He wanted to get down to London, to Stephanie and Finn. He wanted to get back to what he now thought of as his real life. He had had a meeting with the tax people first thing where he had been made to feel more like a naughty schoolboy than a criminal, but it had still been humiliating, and the fact that they were now trying to calculate the back tax he owed meant that he would soon get a pretty hefty bill, plus interest. Neither Simon nor Malcolm had been at the surgery this morning because they were out looking at their new premises — a huge barn conversion, which they were apparently buying for a pittance from Sally's cousin Kieron, a local dairy farmer. Sally, so Judy the practice nurse had told James this morning, would be working for them as their receptionist and, in fact, she, Judy, had just accepted their offer of a job too.
James had left the surgery in the incompetent hands of a temp, asking her to tell any would-be customers to come in this afternoon when there was a hope in hell that one of the vets would actually be there. He knew he should stay, that the only way to save the sinking ship that his beloved practice had become was to put all his energy into it, and simultaneously go on a charm offensive round the local area, trying to drum up custom, but he couldn't be bothered. At least, not at the moment, anyway. He wanted to get home.
He only stopped once on the way, at a service station where he used the toilets and bought himself a bottle of water. By five to four he was turning into Belsize Avenue and singing along with some banal song on the radio. He checked his phone before he got out of the car. No messages from Katie. He'd noticed she no longer sent him the barrage of miss-you-already texts that she always had done on Wednesdays until a few weeks ago. He put the phone back in his pocket, got his case from the back seat and walked up the front path.
Stephanie and Finn both jumped when he came into the kitchen, and then they scrabbled around laughing and trying to hide something — it looked like a large piece of paper — under the table. James smiled. He knew they were making some kind of a surprise for his birthday. He pretended to try and look at what it was they were doing and Finn squealed hysterically and ran to try and stop him. James looked over Finn's shoulder, laughing, and noticed that Stephanie was looking pensive, sad, even.
‘Are you OK?’ he said.
Stephanie smiled at him. ‘Absolutely,’ she said.
34
The big day had arrived. Well, the first — and slightly smaller — of the two big days, that was. Pauline and John had travelled up from Cheltenham and got to work immediately, helping to tidy and to unpack the glasses Stephanie had borrowed from the local off-licence. Finn had unveiled his banner to great applause although, privately, they all agreed it was a little disturbing and worried about whether he was harbouring psychopathic tendencies. It was now hanging proudly in the hall along with his homemade paper chains and a few bunches of balloons. In the rest of the house the decoration was much more grown-up, consisting mostly of scented red candles and red tablecloths with a few exotic floral arrangements thrown in here and there. The Japanese caterers were due to arrive at five thirty to start their preparation, and Finn was under strict instructions to keep Sebastian locked in one of the bedrooms, away from the temptations of a kitchen full of raw fish. The guests would, hopefully, start arriving at about seven thirty.
Stephanie was trying to maintain an air of excitement when, underneath it all, she actually felt sick. James was being annoyingly affectionate and kept moving in for a cuddle whenever he got the chance. She could feel herself standing limp in his embrace and it took all her willpower not to push him away. He didn't seem to notice. In fact, he seemed to be on a curious high, singing around the place and generally getting on her nerves. It was strange the way she felt now, not really angry any more, just irritated, wanting him out of the way so she could get on with her life. Wondering how she could ever have found him attractive.
At around a quarter past six she went off for a bath, deliberately leaving it late so that she had no time to lie there and think about what she was about to do. She pulled on a fitted dark red shift dress, which ought to have clashed with her hair but somehow didn't, and a pair of strappy sandals with three-and-a-half-inch heels. She could always take them off later if her feet started to ache too much. By the time she had done her makeup and come back downstairs again, there were only a few minutes left to rush around doing a last-minute check that everything was perfect.
‘Wow, you look amazing,’ James said, as she went back into the kitchen and she forced out a smile. Pauline, who already looked like she'd had a few, held out a glass of champagne for her. She knew she shouldn't, it was important that she keep her head clear, but she really felt like she needed it. She thanked her mother-in-law and drank it back in one go.
The doorbell rang. Stephanie looked at her watch: twenty-five past seven. It would be Natasha and her husband Martin, who had reluctantly agreed to arrive early as moral support — not that Martin was aware of Stephanie and Natasha's plan, or even James's double life for that matter. He would probably have refused to come if he'd known.
James came over and kissed Natasha on the cheek. Stephanie was sure her friend recoiled visibly. She thrust a glass of champagne into Martin's hand and grabbed Natasha's hand, pulling her out of the room. ‘Sorry, Martin, I just need to borrow her for a minute.’
‘So, how are you feeling?’ Natasha said, in a stage-whisper, once they were in the bedroom.
‘Sick, scared… excited, I suppose. I just want it over with.’
‘He looks so relaxed, so happy,’ Natasha said, with venom.
‘Actually,’ Stephanie said, ‘he's been in a bit of a funny mood lately.’
‘Maybe Katie's giving him a hard time. Whatever, he's about to get what he deserves. You have to keep remembering why you're doing this.’
‘Why am I doing this again?’ Stephanie said, and Natasha rolled her eyes.
‘For your self-esteem, to make him suffer, to end thin
gs on your terms. I could go on…’
‘Go on, then.’
Natasha thought for a moment. ‘OK, so I couldn't, but aren't those reasons enough?’
Stephanie put her head in her hands. ‘I know, I know. It just all seems a bit… pointless now.’
‘Since you met Michael? How is he, by the way?’
Stephanie could feel herself blushing. ‘He's fine. Let's not talk about him.’
‘Nice arse,’ Natasha said. ‘And I should know. It was the first thing I saw when I walked into the room.’
‘OK. I'm going now.’ Stephanie stood up.
Natasha laughed. ‘The point is, Steph, it's great about you and Michael but you mustn't lose sight of the bigger picture. It's fun and it makes you feel better and it's taken your mind off what James has been doing, which is great. It's in the exciting phase where you still feel flattered and desirable and all those things. But once it's run its course you'll need to feel confident on your own, about yourself. Not like you're someone whose husband cheated on them for a year and got away with it. Not like you're the kind of person men walk all over and you just take it.’
Stephanie smiled sadly. ‘I wish you would write a self-help book. I'd buy it.’
‘You know I'm right.’
‘I do. It just feels hard to get up the energy to hate him at the moment.’
‘And how does Katie feel?’ Natasha had never quite got used to the fact that Stephanie bore no ill-feeling towards Katie.
‘She definitely doesn't have the same problem. In fact, she thinks we're not going far enough.’
Natasha draped an arm round Stephanie's shoulders. ‘Two more days, not even that, it'll all be over.’
