I Made a Mistake

by Jane Corry

  In fact, Jock was only partly right. The new rules meant that neither partner had to prove ‘fault’ (like infidelity) in order to end a marriage. However, this didn’t necessarily mean it was going to be ‘more difficult financially for a bloke’, as my fiancé had declared. Yet it was typical that he and his mates had interpreted the change as something that helped women more than men.

  In those days, I didn’t know much about the law. But I did know that I loved Jock. And I couldn’t bear the humiliation of a broken engagement. One of the women who worked in the lingerie department still wore her diamond ring, but on her right hand. ‘He said I could keep it,’ she said one evening when we all went out together. I couldn’t help thinking that if it was me, I’d have given it back. Having it on full view like that was like telling the whole world about being let down.

  ‘But our marriage won’t break up, Jock,’ I cried. ‘It’s going to be wonderful. We’ll have lots of children. A whole football team!’

  He laughed then. ‘That might be rather a lot of bairns to cope with.’

  ‘Why are you even thinking of divorce?’ I pressed him.

  In those days, it wasn’t as common as it is now. I only knew of one girl from school whose mum and dad had split up and they’d always been a ‘bit odd’, as my parents said. Marriages were still meant to last for ever. There was no expiry date. It wasn’t allowed.

  ‘I suppose it will be all right if …’ said Jock. Then he stopped.

  ‘If what?’ I asked.

  ‘If you give up work at the department store.’

  I stopped. My breath seemed to freeze, despite the warm summer air. ‘Why would I do that?’

  I’d heard my mother talking about how, in her day, some husbands didn’t like their wives working because it looked as though they couldn’t afford to ‘keep them’. So old-fashioned!

  ‘But Jock,’ I said quietly, ‘I love my job.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like the way that men look at you,’ said Jock. His voice was colder now.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on. You must have noticed. It all started after that piece about you in the paper after the fashion show. My mates have been ribbing me ever since, telling me that you’d be off to sign up with some fancy agency before I know it and be jet-setting all over the world.’

  What? ‘I’d never even thought of that. You’ve got the wrong idea. Honestly. And it’s nonsense that people are looking at me.’

  ‘Really? The other night when I came to pick you up from work, I saw that old man with the hat and smart suit. He was leering at you.’

  ‘You mean Mr Goddard?’ I burst out laughing. ‘He wasn’t leering. His wife is one of my regular customers. He comes along to tell her which hat he likes best.’

  Jock took another step away from me as if he didn’t want to be close any more. ‘Don’t you laugh at me. He was leering. I saw him. And he’s not the only one. That fashion show really opened my eyes.’

  I could hardly believe he was saying these things. ‘But I thought you’d enjoyed it. You said I looked beautiful.’

  ‘You did. But all the other men in the audience clearly thought so too. And I don’t like the idea of my wife being ogled by other blokes.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ I asked. My head was beginning to throb with confusion and anxiety.

  ‘If you resign from your job, I’ll still marry you.’

  He said it as though he was doing me a favour. I thought of the beautiful silk wedding dress I’d finished, which was now hanging in the wardrobe. Of the bridesmaids’ outfits for my cousins (all three of them!), which I was making now. Of the hot buffet with mushroom vol-au-vents, which had been paid for in advance, and the hotel, which had been booked along with a band after all that scrimping and saving. The silver-and-white invitations that had been sent out. The landlord’s deposit for our future home, which was due soon.

  ‘But how will we manage without the money?’ I asked. ‘We need it for the flat.’

  ‘I’m not agin you working,’ said Jock as though I was being stupid. ‘I just said you’d have to resign from the department store. My boss said he can find you a job at the factory instead.’

  He spoke quickly, as if he had it all sorted. ‘You’ll like the girls on the line. They’re a friendly crowd. Not stuck up like that lot in the store. And we’ll be able to meet up at lunchtime. We can go to work together and come back together.’ He cupped my face in his hands again. ‘Won’t that be nice?’

  I’m aware that this might sound controlling to you, Poppy. But in those days, most women wanted a man to be in charge. It made us feel safe and loved. Of course, I didn’t want to change jobs. But a dutiful wife did what her husband told her. Or so I’d been brought up to believe.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, swallowing back my doubts. ‘It would be nice.’

  ‘Good.’ Jock slid his hand up my jumper. ‘I can’t wait for us to get married.’

  But that feeling of lightness and excitement had gone from my heart. It didn’t return for a few more years. And when it did, it turned my life upside down.

  Now, as I read though this letter to you, I want to laugh at my old self. How stupid I was! How naive. Yet at the same time it taught me three lessons that I’m determined to pass down to you, Poppy, as well as to my precious granddaughters. The first is to value yourself. The second is to follow your gut. And the third is to understand right from wrong.

  But I know what you’re thinking. It’s too late for that. For all of us.

  5

  Poppy

  I wake bolt upright the next morning, sensing that something isn’t quite right but not knowing what. Then I take in the peacock-blue brocade curtains, so different from our creamy plantation shutters at home, and the modern dressing table at the foot of the bed instead of my old Victorian bureau in front of our lovely bay window with the view out to the park. And it all comes flooding back to me.

  I’m in a hotel. I was here for the Association of Supporting Artistes and Agents’ Christmas party. And I saw Matthew Gordon. More than that, I spent hours talking to him about things I shouldn’t have done. I’d told him that Stuart probably wouldn’t notice I’d been gone for the night and that we led pretty separate lives. My skin crawls with embarrassment. Maybe the taste of last night’s booze – still in my mouth – is a clue, but that’s no real excuse. What if he tells someone that my marriage is shaky? A casting director, perhaps? Gossip is rife in this business. It’s unlikely it would get back to Stuart. Isn’t it? But any suggestion that someone is going through a rocky personal time can affect other people’s confidence in you. I saw it happen a few years ago to a rival who had a breakdown after her divorce. Her clients left in droves and she closed her agency.

  But no. Why would Matthew do that? He’d said he’d forget it, hadn’t he? Besides, he’d divulged confidences too. Sandra had MS and was in a wheelchair. He’d actually cried. And then there was that whole conversation about children …

  Enough, I tell myself firmly. This is why it’s not a good idea to go backwards in life. The past should stay in the past. Betty is always saying that and she’s right. You have to work your way forward. And right now that means getting back to my family. I have a sudden strong yearning to race home and slip into bed beside my husband, snuggle up to his back (Stuart rarely sleeps facing me), and then, when the alarm goes, get up to make breakfast for the girls. They’ll no doubt squabble and tease each other; Betty will be meditating upstairs, with incense wafting out of her room; Stuart will talk about cross-bites and how he needs to take the rubbish to the tip. Right now I yearn for the safe mundanity of it all. Even though the man I used to love more than my own husband is, right now, sleeping just across the corridor.

  Stop right there. I glance at the neon hotel clock next to the bed: 5.30 a.m. Worry must have made me wake up early. If I’m quick, I can be out of here without bumping into Matthew outside the door. It’ll mean skipping breakfast, despite the fact that it’s
included in the extortionate price I paid for the room. But so what?

  The shower helps. The water gushes over my head, washing away all those confused thoughts. That’s all they are, I tell myself. Thoughts about what might have been. Not actual deeds. I haven’t done anything wrong. OK, so I was a bit indiscreet about my personal life, but if it does come out, I’ll just deny it. Even though, after Mum, I’ve always prided myself on telling the truth. But I feel uneasy. For some reason, it takes me back to the fact that I’d never told Stuart about Matthew when we met, because it still hurt. Then again, omitting information doesn’t count as a lie. Does it?

  I blast my hair with the hotel dryer. It looks a bit of a mess without my air brush, which curls the ends and gives a good impression of a blow dry. I don’t have my usual foundation and blusher either. I wasn’t expecting to stay the night. What will my old love think if I do bump into him and he sees me looking like this? Not that you care, I tell myself. I just feel odd because Matthew had once played a big role in my life. It doesn’t mean anything now.

  Slipping into yesterday’s clothes (turning the knickers inside out to make up for the lack of a spare pair), I grab my phone, glance at Matthew’s closed door and scuttle towards the lift so I can drop off the borrowed phone charger at reception. Then I remember. The weather! It’s still too dark to see properly through the window. What if I can’t drive back or get a taxi? I’d have to have breakfast here and I’d probably see Matthew. We might even share a table. Or would he be as embarrassed as me about those late-night confidences and pretend he hadn’t seen me in the cold light of day?

  ‘Looks like the snow didn’t settle for long after all,’ says the receptionist chattily.

  A quick flash of disappointment zips through me followed by relief. This is a good thing, I tell myself. OK. I’m unsettled by bumping into Matthew after all these years, but that was just because he’d played such a big role in my life. My old life. Not this one.

  ‘Am I the first to check out?’ I ask, handing over my key.

  As I speak, I know I shouldn’t ask. It probably contravenes some confidentiality law. But the girl shakes her head. ‘There’ve been a couple of others before you.’

  My heart skips a beat. ‘Any good-looking middle-aged men with dark hair swept back from the forehead and a nose that isn’t afraid to stand out?’ I want to ask. But, of course, I can’t. Instead, I settle my bill before venturing out into the car park, bracing myself against the cold, which seems to pierce right through to my bones. Then I try to clear the ice off my windscreen with my credit card because that de-icing scraper I bought the other month appears to have vanished from the boot. Why does that always happen?

  I’m a summer person, but Stuart loves the winter. Matthew and I had once splashed out on a cheap package holiday to Corfu during our second year. We’d made love on the beach at night. Stuart would never do that. He’d go on about the sand getting into our ‘crevices’. Dentists can be very fussy.

  Stop, I tell myself again, starting the engine and carefully making my way out of the car park and onto the main road. OK, our sex life isn’t perfect. It’s non-existent at the moment actually. But there’s more to marriage than that, isn’t there? Stuart is a good man. The father of my children. Yes, it would help if he was at home more, but he’s only trying to provide for us all, just as I am. Of course, he’s ambitious too. But then again so am I!

  I turn right at the end of the road, following the satnav directions, but my mind isn’t keeping up. I’m not just being mentally disloyal to my husband; I’m doing the same to the girls. If I hadn’t married their father, Melissa and Daisy wouldn’t be here. The very idea is impossible. What would I do without them? And then the same question that keeps coming up in my mind, even after all this time, emerges once more. Had my mother had any regrets about leaving me? Clearly, she’d decided that, in the end, I wasn’t worth the pain of staying.

  Suddenly the car in front of me stops dead. Talk about not giving me any notice! I slam on my brakes but it’s too late. The roads are still icy and I slide into the back of a black BMW.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ I say, getting out. Only then do I see there are traffic lights, which I should have spotted if I hadn’t been thinking about the what-might-have-beens in my life.

  Luckily, no one is hurt. The other car has a small scratch but mine has a substantial dent in the front. We swap numbers and insurance details. All the time, I keep saying, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ which isn’t what you’re meant to do. But I mean it. I should have been concentrating. I shouldn’t have been letting my imagination play games.

  ‘It’s not just the cost – it’s the inconvenience,’ snaps the driver, a sharp-looking woman who (judging from the flash of pink silk I see between the buttons) is wearing an evening dress under her coat. I wonder from her distress if she’d been somewhere she shouldn’t. Maybe I’m just projecting my guilt about being in a bar with Matthew. Not that I should have any. It wasn’t as if I’d actually done anything. But you could have done, suggests a small voice in my head. Nonsense. I’m not that kind of woman.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, examining my car more carefully. The damage is even worse than I’d thought. The front is all buckled. In the old days, when I was just starting up my business and Stuart was growing his practice, the cost of the insurance excess would have been a real problem. At least we can afford little annoyances like this now. The main thing is that no one was injured. But someone might have been. And it would have been all my fault. I’ve also got to explain this to Stuart. I’m a careful driver. If I admit I was distracted and made a mistake, he might wonder why …

  Sombrely, I drive back, taking extra care on the treacherous roads, which are now beginning to thaw. Amazingly, there is a parking space outside our house. Even though the average price in our road is around the £1 million mark, none of us (in common with many London homeowners in a similar price bracket) has a designated spot for a car unless you choose to pave the front garden – something I refuse to do because I love the magnolia tree too much. Stuart thinks I’m being sentimental but luckily Betty agrees with me. ‘You can’t cut down a living thing,’ she’d said, appalled, when the subject was raised. ‘It’s no better than murder.’

  Quietly I slip my key in the lock. Our beautiful hall with the dawn light streaming in through the pink-and-green stained-glass panel above the front door, stretches out before me. When I think of the small bungalow I’d grown up in and then all the poky student bedsits followed by the tiny apartment that Stuart and I had started off in, I can still hardly believe that we live in such a stunning house. But when Betty had moved in with us, she’d insisted on putting in the savings she and Jock had accumulated – a surprising amount, thanks to some canny investing by my father-in-law – and we’d then bought this house cheaply. The couple who owned it at the time were divorcing and needed to liquidate their assets fast.

  ‘We’ll have to get rid of the negative vibes,’ Betty had said. ‘Houses retain good and bad experiences. Don’t worry. I’ll sort it out with some blessings. I’ve got a book on it.’

  Now, as I tiptoe past her bedroom – it’s only just gone 7 a.m. and everyone is still asleep because it’s a Saturday – the thought occurs to me that I could confide in my mother-in-law. ‘I met someone last night who I used to love,’ I might say. That’s ridiculous. It might sound like regret that I’d married her son instead. And, of course, I don’t wish that. It’s just that seeing Matthew after all these years has stirred up feelings I’d long put to rest. Or so I’d thought.

  I open our bedroom door, preparing to slide into bed next to Stuart. But the curtains are open. The bed is empty. Where is he? There’s a note on the dressing table. Gone to conference. Hope you had a good time.

  I’d forgotten! Stuart had mentioned some meeting a few weeks ago but it had slipped my mind. Where was it again? Leicester or somewhere like that. Is he driving or taking the train? He must have only just left because his pyjam
as, neatly folded on his side of the bed, are still warm. I hold them to me, breathing in their familiarity. Matthew used to sleep naked. Does he still do that, I wonder.

  Stop!

  I lie down on my side of the bed, exhausted from the shock of it all. Matthew. The car. Before I know it, I’ve dozed off only to find that someone is leaping onto the empty side next to me.

  ‘Gran said we shouldn’t bother you and that you need to rest after the party.’ Daisy is shaking me awake. ‘But tell me about it. Was it fun?’

  My youngest daughter might be fourteen but I still see her as my baby. She has that youthful exuberance that Melissa, borne down by the weight of impending A levels, is already beginning to lose. ‘Sort of,’ I say sleepily. ‘But I was really there to make contacts.’

  ‘What kind of contacts?’ she asks, twirling a strand of my hair.

  Matthew’s face comes into my head.

  ‘Just people who can help my business.’

  ‘Remember I’ve got to get new shoes today,’ says Daisy excitedly. ‘I know just the kind I want.’

  My heart sinks. How I dread shoe shopping! Melissa now buys her own with the allowance we give her, thank goodness, but I still have to go through the ‘I know you want them but they’re not sensible/don’t fit’ routine with her younger sister.

  ‘And don’t forget you promised us all a lift to the party tonight,’ says my eldest from the doorway.

  ‘Did I?’ I ask, taking in Melissa’s tousled hair and smudged mascara, which she hadn’t taken off last night. I’ve told her how important that is – and how she’ll regret it when she’s older – yet she doesn’t take any notice. But who am I to talk? Unremoved make-up comes very low down the ‘fault’ list of life right now.

  ‘I need to get the car looked at first,’ I continue, trying to sound normal. I can feel Melissa’s eyes X-raying me as if she knows what I’ve done. Or haven’t done. ‘I had a bit of a bump on the way home.’