The Guilt Trip

by Sandie Jones

‘Ali was in there,’ says Paige.

  Rachel’s insides contract into a coil, suppressing her airways. ‘And . . .?’

  ‘She was talking to someone . . .’ says Paige, her eyes unable to meet Rachel’s. ‘About you.’

  Rachel puts the wine bottle down on the worktop and stares unwaveringly at Paige. ‘What . . . what did she say?’ she asks, her mouth drying up.

  ‘She was talking about a situation that I didn’t quite catch, and then the other woman said, “does his wife know?”’

  Rachel leans against the fridge, desperate for support. Her heart is hammering through her chest as she takes in short, sharp breaths. She forces herself to look at Paige to gauge what else she might know, but there is nothing more than pity etched across her features.

  ‘She could have been talking about anyone,’ says Rachel, without conviction.

  Paige edges closer. ‘I’d have been inclined to think so, too, if it weren’t for what happened earlier in the evening.’

  Rachel looks at her with wide eyes, urging her to go on.

  ‘Jack and I were dancing,’ starts Paige. ‘Just fooling around. I don’t know where you were – I couldn’t find you.’

  Rachel pictures herself with Noah and battles to stop the flush of colour that is creeping up her cheeks. Yet the harder she tries, the hotter she becomes.

  ‘Anyway, Ali came up to us and whispered something in Jack’s ear that made him stop dancing.’

  Paige looks at Rachel, whose fingertips are tingling with anticipation. She’s holding her breath, wanting Paige to get to the point, but closing her ears off to it at the same time.

  ‘Then she leans into me and says that my time would be better spent looking after my own husband, than messing about with someone else’s.’ Paige’s nostrils flare. ‘I mean, what the actual fuck? Who does she think she is?’

  Rachel wants to ask what time this happened, so she can ascertain whether it was before Ali had seen her with Noah or afterwards. As what Paige may assume is a warning to stay away from Jack, might actually be a helpful heads-up to keep an eye on Noah. With good cause, thinks Rachel.

  ‘If there is something going on between Ali and Jack, I can’t imagine she’d make it so obvious,’ says Rachel, hedging her bets.

  Paige raises her eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘What did you say?’ asks Rachel.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Paige. ‘I was so dumbstruck by her audacity – unusual for me, I admit – that I just stood there, speechless.’

  ‘That is unusual for you,’ says Rachel, attempting to smile, but even she can tell it doesn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘But I’ll bide my time, don’t you worry,’ says Paige. ‘If she thinks she’s going to get away with it . . .’

  ‘Look, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything going on,’ says Rachel.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it to,’ says Paige. ‘Or him, for that matter.’

  ‘Okay, but there’s a big difference between an affair and infatuation,’ says Rachel. ‘And until I’m sure which one it is, I don’t think we should be jumping to conclusions.

  ‘So, you’re happy to wait it out and see what happens?’ asks Paige.

  Rachel doesn’t know what she wants anymore; as frustrated as she is with Ali’s blatant – and somewhat embarrassing – infatuation with Jack, she is yet to be convinced that he’s doing anything wrong. He’s avoiding her, yes, but wouldn’t anyone, whose every move was being followed and every word was being hung on?

  Maybe she’ll try to talk to him about it again when they get back to their room. Though, if he’s going to throw Noah back in her face again, she’d rather avoid the subject altogether, because, until she knows what Ali saw or heard tonight, she doesn’t feel she should be volunteering to put herself in the firing line. Because, if it all goes against her, she won’t have a leg to stand on. He’ll be able to justify whatever he’s done because she’s done worse. The admission that Jack could have an affair, and she have no recourse, shames her.

  But it suddenly occurs to her that although she might not have much to bargain with as far as Jack’s concerned, if Ali’s not yet told him about Noah, she might have some chips to use against her. What price would she pay for Rachel not to tell Will about Rick? Or that she has no intention of having children anytime soon? Rachel guiltily exhales as she sees the shimmering light at the end of the tunnel: her quid pro quo.

  13

  Once Rachel retires to her room, she feels an inexplicable need to speak to Josh; as if somehow the exchange between her and Noah had not only called into question who his father is, but doubted her as his mother too. It’s ridiculous, she knows, but after trying so hard all those years ago to dampen down the one per cent of uncertainty that had snaked around her conscience, it now feels that it’s ninety-nine per cent certain in favour of Noah, throwing everything into question.

  She checks the time on her phone, and weighs up what Josh might be doing at two in the morning. Being a Friday, he’ll most definitely be up, but will he really want to speak to his guilt-ridden mother, who, if she is honest with herself, is only looking for some kind of reassurance?

  ‘Love you,’ she texts instead, as she wipes off her eye make-up. She leans into the bathroom mirror to look at herself as the last traces of eyeshadow vanish. Her mascara, that was advertised as being able to withstand even the longest night, is living up to its promise; the stubborn black paint drawing dark shadows under her eyes.

  She looks old, older than she feels, which on a good day is somewhere around twenty-five. How can you be forty-two? she silently asks her reflection, before sighing. She can remember her own mother being forty and thinking she was so old. Way past being able to go out, get drunk and be attractive to the opposite sex. Yet, incredibly, she seems to have managed all of that in just one night.

  As she flips the top of the bin open with her foot, a flash of colour catches her eye. Peering closer, she can see that it’s the painted rooster, with the vibrant red love hearts on its tail, that Ali gave Jack.

  ‘What is wrong with her?’ Rachel says aloud as she takes it out. Regardless of whether it’s a Portuguese symbol or not, it’s not something you would give to your fiancé’s brother, and that’s without the double entendre that Paige so helpfully observed.

  If there’s one thing Rachel’s sure of, it’s that Ali can’t know Jack very well, because there’s nothing about this he would like. It’s ostentatious, indiscreet and, dare she say, a little tacky. It takes Rachel a few seconds to realize that it has Ali written all over it. If she were ever to be immortalized in a sculpture form, this preening figure – so out there and cocksure of itself – would surely be it.

  Thankfully, Jack is more refined, more discerning; he’d never dream of giving a gift like this. It’s only then, that it occurs to her that if he were to give a gift to someone he cared about, he’d take time to get it right, be sure that he chose it carefully.

  She doesn’t know she’s going to do it until she’s in the closet, checking the pockets of his two jackets that are hanging there. His wallet must be there somewhere as she’s pretty sure he didn’t take it out with him tonight, opting instead to take a bundle of euro notes and a credit card. Though, he hadn’t needed either as his parents had generously paid for everything. She finds it in his shorts pocket; the ones he was wearing earlier in the day, but now that she has it, she’s not sure what she’s looking for. She thumbs through the receipts that make the leather bulge, wondering if she’s got enough time to quickly go through them. She’ll know it when she sees it; an anomaly amongst the petrol-station counterfoils and black cab chits. The glaringly obvious proof that he’s been somewhere he shouldn’t, bought something he shouldn’t or done something he shouldn’t.

  She listens to the noise still emanating from the room below, trying to make out Jack’s voice above the cacophony, which, unsurprisingly, is mainly Ali’s high-pitched squawking.

  ‘I always knew you fancie
d her,’ Ali squeals. ‘You wait until I tell her.’

  Rachel opens the door a little, straining to listen. ‘I didn’t say I fancied her.’ Will laughs. ‘You asked me which of your friends I thought was the most attractive.’

  ‘Yeah, and if you had to spend a night with one of them, who would it be?’

  ‘So, if you’re forcing me, I’d probably opt for Pippa.’

  ‘I’ll have to keep an eye on you two tomorrow,’ Ali says, giggling. ‘So, Jack, what about you?’

  Rachel’s breath catches in her throat as a loaded silence creeps into the air. She wishes she could see the expression on Jack’s face, or maybe Ali’s would give more away as she looks at him, forcing him into a corner.

  ‘What about me?’ says Jack tightly.

  ‘If you had to sleep with a woman you and Rachel know, who would it be?’

  The question hangs there, heavily, as the seconds stretch out. Rachel imagines Jack shifting uncomfortably in his chair, as he contemplates the safest answer. Ali’s clearly only started this to put him on the spot; to see if he’s going to admit that it’s her he’d have sex with over Paige or any of their other friends. What is she trying to achieve? Apart from making herself look foolish.

  Unless, Rachel wonders, it’s all part and parcel of their relationship. Perhaps this is what they do to turn each other on when they’re unable to physically be together: play sick mind games that risk their affair being exposed; the pair of them aroused by the danger of it being put out there under everyone’s noses, all the time thinking they’re in control, or that everyone else is too stupid to notice.

  ‘I think I’ll refrain from answering that,’ says Jack wearily.

  ‘Awwww,’ Ali whines, like a child who’s had her favourite candy taken away. ‘You’re no fun.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just not in the mood to play tonight,’ says Jack tersely, his voice coming closer.

  Rachel realizes she’s still holding his wallet in her hand and rushes to put it back where she found it. There’s a part of her that wishes she had time to get herself into bed and pretend that she’s asleep, so that they don’t have the row that otherwise feels inevitable. Though, it occurs to her that they’d be having two very different arguments; she’d be demanding to know what the hell is going on between him and Ali, and he’d no doubt harp back to her and Noah. She shudders as she realizes he doesn’t yet know the half of it.

  Thankfully, he’s still not up by the time she turns the lights out, and as she lies down on the bed, looking at her phone, she smiles as she sees that Josh has replied.

  ‘Love you too’, he says, alongside a goofy photo of himself, with his head cocked to one side, his tongue poking out and each eye going in opposite directions. Despite smiling as she caresses his face on the screen, Rachel can’t help the tears from pooling in her eyes as she contemplates the enormity of the lie she may have lived.

  She’d told herself twenty years ago that it wasn’t so; convinced herself it couldn’t be so. At the time, the dates had been crystal clear in her head; she’d not seen Jack for two weeks after she’d said ‘goodbye’ to Noah. But over time, the days had become fuzzy and now she couldn’t be sure that her last period had been exactly when she thought it was, which, coupled with Josh’s surprise appearance ten days early, all added to the melting pot she’d tried so desperately to stop boiling over.

  But now she has to face the fact that that million-to-one chance is a very real possibility. Josh does have the same jawline and single dimple that Noah has, and although his eyes are the same colour as Jack’s, there’s just something about the profile of his face that reminds her so much of Noah.

  As she lies there, the more she thinks about the similarities, the more she finds. The way they push their hair back from their face. How they stand with their hands on their hips when they’re frustrated. Their laid-back demeanour . . .

  She runs her hands through her hair and silently screams. What has she done?

  There’s not a morsel of regret attached to spending that one night with Noah. Jack was probably out doing exactly the same, yet, whilst he might not be able to recall the girl’s name if you asked him now, Rachel would be able to describe with a burning intensity how it felt to have Noah make love to her.

  Sleeping with him wasn’t where she’d gone wrong. Falling pregnant wasn’t where she’d gone wrong; just looking at Josh’s kooky face tells her that. No, the only mistake she’d made was passing him off as Jack’s child, without question. That’s where she was at fault.

  Stop! she says to herself, banging her hands on the mattress in frustration. This is crazy. She’d put these doubts from her mind for years and now she’s allowing a passing comment from a stranger to stir it all up again? The invisible barrier that she’s relied on to buffer her emotions for all this time has just had a chip knocked out of it.

  ‘That’s all this is,’ she says aloud.

  But now that Noah has shown his hand, possibly in the presence of Ali, she feels a gut-wrenching fear that, one way or another, her secret is about to be revealed.

  She can’t even begin to imagine the damage that would be caused if either of them voiced their suspicions, even if they were proven to be misplaced. She can’t remember when exactly they’d decided to not tell Jack and Paige that anything had ever happened between them; she couldn’t recall an actual conversation, they’d both just silently decided that it was best kept between themselves if they had any chance of remaining friends. They hadn’t exactly lied; they’d just not told the truth.

  And for the sake of their friendship, it had been the right thing to do. That part of their relationship was over, almost as quickly as it had begun. And there had been no prospect of it ever being rekindled. Until tonight.

  Rachel imagines the shoe being on the other foot and it being Jack and Paige who were best friends before she came along. She knows she would have grilled him incessantly, unable to believe that a man and a woman could ever be truly platonic. Suddenly, seeing it from Jack’s perspective, makes her not only feel guilty, but grateful that he too hasn’t asked the question that she realizes has been buried deep in her psyche all this time; ‘Is Josh mine?’

  The devastation that would be wreaked if Jack discovered that the trust he’d shown her had been abused doesn’t bear thinking about. The possibility, however remote, that Josh is the lasting legacy of her deceit, makes Rachel want to be sick.

  She’s suddenly reminded of everything she stands to lose. She wishes Jack were here, so that she could selfishly check that her rising panic is unnecessary: be reassured that he doesn’t know anything more than he has for all these years about her and Noah; that Ali hasn’t felt the need to impart whatever she may have caught the tail end of. Because that’s all Rachel is convinced she could have witnessed: seeing Noah, drunk and maudlin, fall into her for an unrequited kiss. That’s it. That’s the worst-case scenario she will allow herself to believe because anything more makes her brain explode.

  She huffs as she turns onto her side in an exaggerated motion, hoping that it will reset her frenzied brain and let her drift off to sleep. But just as her head falls into the pillow, she’s sure she hears a splash. She lifts herself up again, listening with both ears, like hunted prey waiting for something to pounce.

  There it is again. Leaving the light of her phone on the bed, she tiptoes towards the terrace doors and silently slides one open before stepping out onto the cold tiled floor. She can hear hushed talking and a quiet giggle before she gets near enough to the glass balustrade to look onto the pool below.

  The azure mosaic tiles sparkle as the underwater lighting casts a luminous glow across the soft ripples that the bodies in there are creating. Rachel can make out the silhouette of two people fused together as one; their heads close together, their shoulders half-submerged. She listens to the drawn-out silence they’re immersed in, waiting for one of them to say something that she can identify with; that she can identify them with. But for the moment it cou
ld be anyone: Will and Ali, Noah and Paige, it might even have been her and Jack if he had had his way earlier. She tries to shake any other combination from her mind, yet all she can see, as the shaft of light between the couple closes in even further, is the darkened outline of Jack and Ali.

  She doesn’t want to watch, but she can’t tear herself away, mesmerized by the motion of the water as it swells and falls over the infinity edge, each undulation bigger than the last as the thrusting action in the pool increases.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she hears a female voice cry.

  Rachel’s gut twists around itself as the sound of Ali’s voice suddenly makes her face clearer. In her mind she can see her so clearly, contorting in ecstasy, as Jack brings her to a climax.

  As Ali cries out, Rachel is unable to stop herself from grabbing her dress from the back of the chair, wrapping it around her waist and tying it in a hasty bow. Rage and fear propel her across the landing and down the stairs. As she crosses the living room, she imagines what she’s going to say when she’s face to face with her husband, who she’s caught red-handed in the act with his brother’s fiancée.

  ‘You fucking bastard!’ she’ll scream, as she attempts to drag him out of the water. ‘How could you? And with her, of all people.’

  He’ll initially deny any wrongdoing as his brain overreacts to the predicament he finds himself in, working a second or two behind the sure-fire reality of what his wife has just witnessed.

  ‘How could you do this to Josh?’ she’ll yell, with arms flailing.

  ‘To Josh?’ he’ll reiterate, his tone cold and unforgiving. ‘Don’t you think you’re the one who has to answer for what you’ve done to our son? For lying to him for all these years; pretending I was his father when you knew damn well that I wasn’t.’

  The confrontation crashes back and forth in her head in the seconds it takes for her to reach the patio doors and throw them open. She knows what’s coming. She knows what to expect. So when she finds Ali and Will standing there, naked and shivering, she’s stumped.