"Which wouldn"t be hard because no doubt she"s a figment of your imagination,"I snap. d.a.m.n. That"s hardly neutral.
Joe laughs. "I love your sense of humour. We should go out, spend a little more time together. We didn"t get much chance to chat to one another the other night, did we? Too much animal attraction."He laughs to himself. I"m closer to screaming. How deluded is this lunatic? "You want me, don"t you? You just can"t admit as much because you are married."
"How did you get my number?"
"Julia gave it to me."
"If you ever call me again I"ll "
"What, Lucy? Tell your husband that your lover called."
Without notice tears p.r.i.c.kle my eyes and the hairs on my arms stand up as gooseb.u.mps take hold.
"You are not my lover,"I hiss into the phone.
"I was last week."
"I was drunk. You were a mistake."
"My mother says the same thing. She doesn"t mean it either."
I suspect she does. "Don"t call me again, ever."I hang up.
The sound of laughter, clinking gla.s.ses and chatter drifts out of the bar as the door swings open. Outside on the street, where I am standing, everything seems much more depressing.
41.
Wednesday 22 November
Rose
Since Lucy-gate I"ve barely slept or eaten. I struggle to hold a thought in my head, let alone expel a coherent sentence into the big, bad world. I am floored. Literally. Since that Joe Whatshisname (oh, how I wish I"d paid more attention to his introduction) revealed his nasty secret I"ve laboured to keep on my feet. It was with enormous effort that I placed left foot in front of right and managed to walk out of the reception and on to the street, where I was able to hail a cab. Once home I crawled into bed. The children were at Peter"s and he would not be returning them for twenty-four hours. I tried to stay calm. Breathe deeply. Order my thoughts. It was important not to jump to conclusions or make rash judgements.
What was the treacherous, home-wrecking, despicable b.i.t.c.h thinking of?
Sorry, sorry. What was Lucy Hewitt-Jones, aka Mrs Phillips the second, thinking of?
I stayed under the duvet for the twenty-four child-free hours and I pored over the information Joe had given me. I considered the possibility that, quite simply, he was a liar that Lucy was no more having an affair with him than I was. This was possible. He was clearly a low and repulsive sort; maybe he was harbouring some warped s.e.xual fantasy about her that had absolutely no truth at its root. He wasn"t at all funny or particularly good-looking. He wasn"t anywhere near as attractive as Peter. Why would she? For all Lucy"s faults, the one thing I can say about her is that she"s got impeccable taste. If she did...go with Joe, then she was certainly slumming it.
But why would he make it up? What would possess a man to name a co-worker and say that they had a thing going, if they didn"t? It would be too risky to do such a thing, especially in the City where lawsuits for s.e.xual hara.s.sment and defamation are rife.
And she does have form. Even before Peter, Lucy had a record of seducing men who were already in relationships or allowing herself a little extracurricular activity while she was supposed to be seeing someone. She used to insist that monogamy was as unnatural as a polystyrene cup of instant noodles.
But I thought she"d changed.
I feel like a load of washing on a spin cycle. One moment I am delighted, the next distraught. One moment I"m certain and confident, the next I feel I"m wading through an indelible fog. It"s ign.o.ble of me but I am delighted that all is not well between Peter and Lucy, doesn"t that serve them right? Since the day he packed his bags, well-meaning friends and family have a.s.sured me that no good would come of their relationship. It"s generally agreed (although not statistically proven) that relationships which start through adultery will ultimately find themselves back in the same messy gloop sooner or later a different cast to be sure, but in the end it"s the same horrifying lying, cheating and betraying.
But I never wanted it to be so.
The fact of Lucy"s infidelity leaves me distraught and more at sea than I have ever been even when Peter left me. I thought Lucy loved Peter. To say that her loving him, choosing him above all other men, was a horrific inconvenience to me is a laughable understatement. Her love for Peter was a death blow for my marriage. The devastating and shattering effects cannot be exaggerated. I could perhaps have fought off a lesser mortal but Lucy"s love was too great an opponent.
But perversely, the enormity and certainty of their love has always been a peculiar comfort to me.
Yes, it hurt. My G.o.d, the treachery and duplicity that they had practised upon me was life-seizing. I used to wonder if I would ever be able to breathe in a world so dramatically altered after he left. But, as the months pa.s.sed, I began to find solace in their unflinching, selfish certainty. I reasoned that if Lucy and Peter loved one another to the extent that Peter was prepared to leave his children and me and they were prepared to blast apart our happy society, forcing friends to scuttle to opposing trenches, then maybe they knew something I didn"t.
Maybe they knew that "it"existed "The One", a soulmate, call it what you will. Maybe they were privy to a certainty that eluded most of us, most of the time. It seemed to me that Lucy and Peter"s horrible selfishness had a cold beauty, because they believed that they were one another"s "someone". The someone who made life bearable and gave existence meaning. Not such a depressing thought, if you follow it through to its ultimate conclusion. Luke and Connie were meant for one another. They were one another"s "it". Daisy and Simon had "it"too. I took comfort that if this was so, then maybe, just maybe, all my suffering had a reason. Sometimes, on my very best days, I daydreamed and wondered if there was still an "it"out there for me. Last Sat.u.r.day, at the wedding, I began irresponsibly to imagine that Craig might have a bit of "it"about him. Maybe he had potential. Of course Joe"s revelation put paid to that.
Lucy is sleeping with someone else now. Not only is it now impossible to believe in anything beautiful, or permanent, or meaningful, but any potential I had with Craig is well and truly splattered since I ran from the reception without so much as nodding in his direction.
Lucy has robbed me all over again.
I hate her.
I manage to function in a lackl.u.s.tre way. I feed, wash clothes, iron, clean and argue about teeth-brushing as usual but I don"t have the energy to double- and treble-check their homework or music scales. The boys are taking advantage of my distraction and last Tuesday they "forgot"to stay behind for auditions for the school nativity play. They are both delighted to have sunk into the obscurity of being given catch-all roles as villagers. I"ve been preening them for the roles of narrator or kings since reception cla.s.s, but it seems I missed my moment. I took my eye off the ball for a second and that"s all it took. It"s the story of my life. In a way this suits me. Bigger parts might have required after-school rehearsals and the risk of running into Craig, something I dread. When I drop off or pick up the boys from school I don"t walk them right up to the gate any more. The boys interpret this as a response to their bid for independence and are delighted.
Thinking about Craig fills me with disappointment and remorse. What must he think of me? Well, it"s obvious, isn"t it? He must think I"m quite mad, totally insane. We were having such a good time. The memory punches me and leaves me gasping. But what does it matter? How could I trust him or anyone, ever again? This world is soiled and fetid. I"ll probably have to pull the kids out of Holland House. But I can"t think about that right now. I"m dizzy with trying to decide what to think about what.
Paralysed with indecision and shock, I am unsure as to what my next move should be. Do I want to tell Peter what I know of Lucy"s latest torrid affair? There would undoubtedly be some sweet satisfaction as I watched him receive the news, the same news he once so haplessly delivered to me. I could expose her and no one would blame me. The generous would a.s.sume that I had a latent but long-standing loyalty to my ex-husband. The less generous would be delighted in my ugly revenge and insist he had it coming. But do I want to be the one to bring all that woe into his life? Do I want to spill my news on to his living-room floor and watch the poison seep into everything he treasures? He did it to me! But still, I am unsure.
Should I confront Lucy? It would be delightful to see her squirm. To show her that she"s not so clever and that I have the upper hand for once. I could bully and threaten and frighten her. Except it"s not my style to bully and it"s not hers to be frightened. She might even tell me that Peter already knows that she has s.e.x with other men. They might have an arrangement. The thought is hideous and I shy away from involving myself in their business at all.
Connie and Daisy sense that I"m not myself. They a.s.sume I must be coming down with a flu bug and reason that it must be fairly bad as I don"t reject or resist their offers to help out. Connie has done the school run for me on more than one occasion and Daisy keeps me company on Sunday when the boys are at Peter"s. Not that I am much company. I"m maudlin and secretive. We watch re-runs of Little House on the Prairie, as we did when we were kids. If she notices that I"m crying by the time the credits come up on screen, she chooses to believe that I"m moved by the storyline.
My friends are stunned by my ready acceptance of their offers of help, as I rarely agree to the need for support. Even when the twins were very young and Peter first left, I preferred to manage on my own. I liked being self-sufficient. The twins gave me a purpose and I enjoyed their company. And, I suppose, I rather enjoyed being a martyr, but to be a martyr you have to believe in a cause and now I"m not so sure.
I hear Daisy and Connie whispering in the kitchen, asking one another if they know the nature of my ailment or why I seem so listless. I refuse to comment on whether I had fun with Craig at the wedding. I had antic.i.p.ated sharing my exuberance with them but that now seems light years away. I"ve yet to decide if I want to share the revelation of Lucy"s latest infidelity with them. It"s tricky: Daisy will be furious and will insist that I expose Lucy instantly and as nastily as possible. I"m not sure I have the stomach for her anger on top of my own. Connie will be miserably confused. Lucy is her friend.
Oh my G.o.d, that is a.s.suming Connie is ignorant of Lucy"s affair.
It is possible that she is Lucy"s confidante. The thought is horrific but it"s not impossible. Connie has a history of secrecy herself. They say a leopard never changes its spots. I want to trust her but it"s not easy. It"s odd that Lucy"s latest crime has eroded my belief in human nature so thoroughly. Why on earth I should ever have hung any hopes on Lucy is a mystery. But who would have thought she was able to inflict any more damage, more pain? Is there no limit? I start to scrutinize every sentence Connie utters and, as discreetly as possible, I cross-examine her as to whether Lucy is happy at work and with Peter. She is as discreet as she has been for the last five years. Gently, but firmly, she makes it clear that she"s uncomfortable talking about Lucy. Her consistency heartens me. If she"d been more insistent and offered too many a.s.surances of domestic bliss then I would have had reason to suspect that she knows of Lucy"s affair. I conclude she"s probably ignorant of it.
Each night I fall asleep ravaged by the day"s endless churning of facts, rumour and conjecture. The hardest part to swallow is that I would put money on it that Lucy is sleeping soundly. In my experience there is rest for the wicked. It"s those with a conscience who toss and turn.
42.
Thursday 23 November
John
Craig calls me to say that he doesn"t want to meet in a pub. He"s actually stated that he doesn"t want to go to a pub at all tonight.
"Why?"I can"t imagine.
"I want to talk."
Doesn"t everyone? "What?"He hears the panic in my voice and tries to rea.s.sure me.
"Nothing big. I"m just saying that you can"t hear yourself think in some of those pubs we go to. I"ll get some tins in. I"ll do a spag bol."
Craig knows how to get his way with me. I thought Andrea was the only person who knew that the way to my heart is through beer and bolognese. I agree.
Craig lives in a small two-bedroom ex-council flat in Notting Hill. He bought it as soon as he started earning, with the help of an inheritance from his old nan. It was a smart investment. Nationally, house prices have rocketed; teachers can rarely afford to buy anything, anywhere, nowadays and in Notting Hill, in particular, prices have gone cosmic. After the film everyone wanted to live there. I think people believed they"d end up being a neighbour to Julia Roberts.
But his flat, while worth a bob or two, is nothing special. It"s barely distinguishable from just about every other boy flat I"ve ever been in. The walls are blue, there"s lots of IKEA furniture, the kitchen is an 80s horror and the towels in the bathroom smell a bit musty. I feel quite at home, as I used to live in just the same way, well, worse actually, until I married and Andrea brought wood floors, s.h.a.ggy rugs and cushions into my life. While I have regressed back to eating take-aways practically every night, I have hung on to her sartorial influence, not least because having a cool and/or comfortable pad helps when pulling women. Craig"s place is discernibly different from most men"s in one way; there are lots of books, photos and postcards, which, generally speaking, men avoid.
When I arrive at Craig"s a smell of fried onions and mince is drifting on to the communal landing. Good as his word. He opens the door to me and we greet one another in our usual way.
"All right."
"All right."
Both enquiry and reply. No one would guess I"m chuffed to see him or him me. We eat in relative silence. A DVD of Blade Runner is playing in the background. It"s Craig"s favourite movie so it"s usually playing when he"s home. At my house it"s Butch Ca.s.sidy and the Sundance Kid. When the credits roll I take charge of the remote and flick from channel to channel until I settle on Jacka.s.s.
"Nice bol, by the way. Cheers."
"No problem."
I"ve taken the chair and Craig is flopped on to the sofa. We watch Jacka.s.s and laugh our heads off if anyone gets seriously hurt or humiliated, not just me, but Craig too proving that he does have the Y-chromosome.
"What did you think of her?"
I have no idea what Craig is talking about. Johnnie Knoxville is on screen when he asks this so he can"t mean a TV hottie. Craig sees my confusion.
"Rose? What did you think of her? The girl I took to Tom"s wedding she was the one I was telling you about."
Despite the fact that Craig said he wanted to talk tonight, I"d hoped he didn"t mean he wanted to talk talk. We talk talked last month, I"m not sure I"d be comfortable if it became a habit. Still, there is no such thing as a free lunch. I decide to help myself to another tinnie if I"m going to have to do deep and meaningful then I"m going to need a little lubrication.
"Your special someone?"I conclude, quickly getting with the programme.
"Well, hardly. Well, no. Well, yes. But."
"Which is it?"
"I think she"s special,"he says finally.
I"m not into redheads and I thought she was a bit lardy but then lots of men really go for that, they like something to get hold of. Craig looks b.l.o.o.d.y miserable, which is odd. Now he"s found his "special someone"he can have a profound and intense relationship and finally get his leg over conscience fully satiated.
"She ran away,"he says.
"What?"
"At the wedding. We were getting on so well. Or at least I thought we were. No. Yes. We really were. I don"t understand it."
Craig is staring at me in exactly the same way he used to when he was a kid and some hard b.a.s.t.a.r.d off our estate had robbed his dinner money or deliberately run over his bike to bend the front wheel.
I mute the TV volume and say, "Talk me through it, mate."
He doesn"t need to be asked twice. "We were having a great time, chatting, getting to know each other a bit better. She seemed very relaxed and happy. We even danced."
I know this. I watched them through my alcoholic blur and yes, from where I was swaying, they were having a great time. She was definitely into him. She was laughing at his jokes, gazing into his eyes, the full monty. Frankly, I was jealous. Not that the Rose bird is my type, not anywhere near, but anyone could see that whatever they were cooking up between them was pretty special, to use Craig"s word.
It was that honest and straightforward even I saw it.
I remember looking from them to Tom and Jen and back again. Frankly, it was a bit f.u.c.king depressing. It was Craig and this woman"s promising start that led me to drink so much. Not that I begrudge Craig a bit of happiness. Honestly, I want him to be heaped with happiness. And the same for Tom and Jen. If I ever won the lottery I"d buy Craig a new gaff and I"d do the same for Tom too. They are like brothers. I think that"s why seeing them both operate so d.a.m.ned functionally drove me to drink. I"m not a cretin, and I"m the best-looking of the three of us, so the question had to be asked, why was I the one sitting on my own with no one other than Aunt Madge for company?
Look, I"m digressing. My point is that Craig and his girl seemed to be getting on just fine.
"What happened? Step on her toe? Women can be very funny about their shoes."
Craig refuses to let me lighten up the evening.
"You happened, you idiot. Rose noticed that you were catatonic and so I went to try to sober you up, which took a while."
"Sorry."
"And then there were the speeches. I kept looking for her. At first I thought she must be in the loo or at the bar but no, she"d gone, vanished without a trace."
"A regular Cinderella."
"I thought that perhaps she"d got a call from home. She has twin boys. Maybe something was wrong with one of them. So I called her mobile and left messages but she"s never got back to me. I called all the next day, too. It was a relief when the boys turned up to school on Monday as usual but she wasn"t at the gate, a friend of hers had dropped them off. I made casual enquiries. The boys said their mother was fine but because they are seven years old they didn"t offer any details and I could hardly probe."