“Am I?” Jez craned over the table, bending over his ketchup- bloodied bacon. “Katy, I don’t
want
to feel like this. I mean . . . God, this is so confusing. I love Stevie. I really do.”
So Jez wasn’t an alley cat like Seb. “Of course you do.”
Jez stared at her, eyes zigzagging as he searched her face, then sighed, as if in resignation. “Yeah, Stevie’s great.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Æ
a soggy flannel of cloud insulated london from
summer. Malodorous damp conducted itself through the soles of Stevie’s shoes. The short walk to the Tube rimmed the legs of her black trousers with filthy wetness. She felt mocked by her non- pregnancy. There was no reason to stay with Jez now. She could ac- cept she’d failed and try to move on. But something in her wasn’t ready to accept failure. Something in her said that she had to “work” at things even when her gut was telling her it was hopeless. She was also too dispirited and too lacking in energy to actually take on such a life-changing decision with any confidence. She doubted herself. If her judgment was so bad that she’d married Jez in the first place, could it be trusted to call “time” on the marriage? So on returning from New York, she’d done the easy thing and thrown herself into work, starting her contract at VIP Magazines the day after she got back. In the offices behind Regent Street, she focused hard, overriding the free-floating distracted feeling that
swam inside her; smiling, heels on, head down.
Careerwise things had taken a better turn. She was working on a
better class of magazine now. The artwork was better. The staff was thinner than those at any other publishing house and they wore bet- ter shoes. There was a pride about the place, a smug satisfaction at the prospect of one’s name being on such a prestigious masthead. And, of course, she got first dibs on sample sales. But still, it was a case of same shit, different shovel, thought Stevie, because when she walked out of the office and on to the heaving mass of Oxford Street, everything was the same as it always was: buses, bumper to bumper, like a line of red bricks; seething, aggressive crowds wield- ing plastic shopping bags. Fights over clothes at Topshop. Cheap, bad sandwiches. She wondered when exactly she’d fallen out of love with London. Since the bombs? The wedding? New York? What- ever, the city no longer enchanted her as it had in her twenties. It pulled her down, made her feel tired and cynical. Moreover, London now symbolized the life she’d chosen, the whole package. Stevie kept reminding herself that she’d chosen it, as if the notion of choice might empower her in some way. It didn’t.
Stevie worked late all that week, later than was necessary. It wasn’t to impress the boss, although she did, but because she didn’t want to return home. Then Friday came. She
had
to go home.
Since returning from the States, the atmosphere in the marital Moscow Road flat was arctic. She and Jez now bit at each other for the smallest of things—leaving the fridge door accidentally open, breathing too loudly—as if there were a welt of anger that needed lancing. Jez was strangely distant. She’d walk into rooms and find him staring out of the window. He’d barely look up to acknowl- edge her. When she’d told him her period had finally arrived, she’d expected something more than a shrug in response. But he had looked almost relieved—and he certainly didn’t want to discuss it. At night, she stared at the ceiling while Jez snored, his back
turned away from her, feet dangling out of the bed as if he couldn’t quite bear to share the same musty space beneath the duvet.
For the week she was back, they’d successfully managed to avoid each other in the flat, one entering a room, the other leaving it; one watching the telly as the other tore through the pages of last Sun- day’s newspapers. They hadn’t made love. This was a relief on one level, vaguely disappointing on another, not because she actually felt any great desire for him but because a small, irrational part of her wanted to make sense of their union. Yesterday morning, she’d even walked in on Jez in the shower, naked, planning to join him and soap him up. But looking at the freckled slab of Jez’s torso, it was as if she were seeing him naked for the first time. She shut the door and left quietly, leaving Jez to wiggle his fingers in his ears, snort the content of his nose into his hands, blissfully unaware she was ever there.
The phone rang. She threw herself at it. “Hello?”
“Darling, it’s Mama.”
Stevie smiled. “I heard the news about Rita. I know, I know. I couldn’t believe she’d actually visit you without Jez. She’s been with you three days already, hasn’t she? You must be making her feel
extremely
welcome. Is it all okay?”
“Hmmm.” Her mother put on her shrill can’t-talk-now code of voice. “She’s just having a little doze, aren’t you Rita?”
“Oh, she’s right there?”
“
Very
much so.” Patti cleared her throat. “But Rita doesn’t feel up to going back home yet, do you, dear? No, no. The memories are ‘too strong’ and the ankle’s been flaring up again, which makes it—
ahem
—difficult for her to get on the train today.”
“Oh, dear.”
“But she’s planning to return to Bayswater on Wednesday.” “Back here again? You are joking.”
Patti coughed. “Darling, I’ve got some bad news.”
“That wasn’t it?” Stevie felt herself anticipate the news greedily, part of her wanting some justification for her sodden spirits. “What?”
“Tommy. He’s had a turn for the worse, darling. He stopped breathing again.”
“Oh, shit. He’s okay?”
“
Just
. I think you should come down, if you can.” “Oh, Mum. I thought he was out of the woods . . .” “I know. We all did.”
“I’ll jump on a train tonight. Tell Poppy I’m coming tonight.”
Stevie hung up the phone and slid down the wall, head in her hands. She didn’t cry. Instead, she was filled with a feeling of fore- boding. Keys rattled in the lock. Jez! Anger prickled. It pissed her off that he hadn’t gone to see Poppy last weekend while she was away, as he’d promised. She slid back up the wall, walked to the living room, sat down on the sofa, and waited, anger stirring inside her like eddies in a pot of boiling water.
When Jez walked into the flat, he looked strange, his pale blue eyes ringed by bruiselike shadows; his normal bulky swagger un- sure, apologetic. He tried to smile, but didn’t seem to have enough energy or conviction. “I need to talk to you, pumpkin.”
“Yes?” She hated the way her voice sounded so clipped. She was no longer a person she liked in his company.
“Aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve been?” “Work, I presume.”
“No, I haven’t. I took the day off.” “Where have you been, then?”
“Katy’s.”
Again? Typical Katy, forging friendships with married men. It pissed her off. But it got Jez out of the house. And, in theory, she approved of platonic friendships. She had Sam, after all. “Overdosed on echinacea this time, has she?”
Jez sat down at the far end of the sofa. Their bodies didn’t touch. He slumped with his head in his hands. “Pumpkin, I’ve done a ter- rible thing.”
Something in his voice alarmed her. It wasn’t like Jez to accept blame for anything. “What’s so terrible?”
“Shit.”
He exhaled loudly, dragged his fingers down his face, pulling down his cheeks in vertical wrinkles. “I don’t know how to say this.”
Stevie started to feel scared. Maybe something had happened.
Was Katy okay? She didn’t want the woman to die or anything. “It’s a fucking mess.” He swallowed.
For a fleeting moment Stevie could almost sense the words hang- ing in the air. Then he spoke them.
“I . . . I . . . I’ve fallen for Katy.”
Stevie swiveled herself around to examine him face-on. Jez’s eyes were screwed shut. A purple vein throbbed in his forehead. Her brain went blank, unable to process the information. This couldn’t be happening. She squeezed her eyes tight. It
was
happening.
“I’m sorry. I’m
so
sorry,” he muttered.
She’d been so deeply stupid. She felt sick. “Are you telling me you’re having an affair?”
“No. I mean nothing’s
happened
.” Jez spoke through his fingers.
Oh. Stevie felt a strange mix of relief and disappointment. What was he talking about?
“I . . . I . . . I don’t even know how she feels. But I can’t pretend.
I can’t do
this
.”
This. The marriage. The sham. “Oh, my God, you’re serious.” Jez was leaving
her
? The irony broke over her head like an icy wave. She clamped her hand over her mouth, pinching her lips white and rolling them with her fingers.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he said quietly.
An image of Katy, nude, standing at the side of the pool, arms arrowed above her wet head. It all came into horrible focus. A hurt, rejected feeling hollowed out her chest. She had to pant to breathe. She was being
dumped
. For Katy Norris. It was like leaving that party on her own all over again. Except this time it was her mar- riage.
“Please
say
something,” he pleaded.
“How long . . . when?” But speaking was pointless. She could read the future by looking at Jez’s flat blue eyes. The softness they used to have when they looked at her had gone. A distance yawned between them, as if in one moment they’d gone from spouses to strangers; as if they no longer recognized each other. Had their marriage been a case of mistaken identity?
Jez started to cry. “I think it... it... started when I first saw her.” “It?”
Jez squirmed on the sofa. “The attraction. This weird connec- tion . . .”
“Please.”
Stevie stood up and walked to the window, her back turned to Jez, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. “I don’t believe it. I can’t believe this . . .” But she knew she should believe it. It was happening. Jez had escaped first. He’d left
her
.
“No.” Jez leapt up, attempted to put an arm around her. She shrugged it off. “No. We’ve just been friends. I swear. Nothing has happened, not sexually. Pumpkin, I know this is so fucked up.”
“
Don’t
call me ‘pumpkin.’ ” Stevie put one hand to her cheek, as if she could shield herself somehow. Would it stop if she walked away? Would she wake up? The whole marriage, its existence, its unraveling, felt beyond her. She pulled up a chair and collapsed into it.
“It’s wrong, because we’re married,” he said, as if reminding himself of the facts, digging his hands in his pockets, unable to meet her eye. “But I can’t help how I feel, I just can’t. The feelings won’t go away. I’ve tried to make them go away. I can’t.”
“Oh.” Why wasn’t she screaming? That was what women were supposed to do—scream and throw pans across the room. Instead she just felt overcome by an almost anesthetic exhaustion. Of course. It all made gruesome sense. How stupid of her to think that she was the only one with doubts, the only one unfulfilled by the relationship. She flattered herself. Darker thoughts nagged her. What the hell would happen to her future? This shouldn’t be the way her life turned out. . . . The tears started streaming again. She wiped them away, angry at her own self- pity.
“And I feel terrible because I don’t want to hurt you . . .”
“Don’t.”
“But
this
has never happened before.” Jez looked up at her and tried to smile, as if attempting to appeal to her better nature. “I had no idea. I thought I was dead inside and I’m not.”
“Don’t dress it up,” she managed, wishing there were a deep, black hole she could throw herself into at this moment. All those
precious years wasted. She should never have married him. She should have had the guts to follow her guts and pull out all those months ago. Oh, the fucking sad irony of it all.
He knelt down, his earnest face centimeters from hers. “It’s not a crush, Stevie.”
“Love, is it?” She didn’t like the scorn in her voice. She didn’t even want to be here, staring at this man who’d opted out of her fu- ture. It was all so irrelevant now. There was no point in extending the charade.
Jez paused, weighed up his answer, and for the first time in his life didn’t take the path of least resistance. “Yes, I love her.”
Whoomp!
That hurt. Stevie didn’t love him. Not enough. Maybe she couldn’t love him. But it still hurt that he loved someone else. It hurt a lot. She looked at Jez, the way his eyes seemed lit from within the bloody flush beneath his pale skin, even his hair seemed to be newly charged with some kind of emotional static. Jez had never spoken like this before, about her or anyone else. To her shock, Stevie started to cry. She wanted to retain some dignity, but it was impossible. “
Love
Katy Norris?” That woman. Of all women. “What the fuck has this marriage been about? A few days ago you were trying to get me to have babies so you could get your grubby hands on your dad’s money . . .”
“No!” shouted Jez, leaping to his own defense. “That’s not true.” “Explain.” Her voice fell to a whisper. For the first time in months, she realized she was actually interested in what Jez had to say, what he was feeling. The first time in months, she’d properly
listened to him. “Just explain.” “I loved you.”
“Past tense,” she scoffed, pride dented. “Nice.”
“No, I still love you. In a...a... different way. When I proposed,
it was for the right reasons. I meant it.” Jez wiped away a tear. “Fuck, this is
hard
.”
“Stop blubbering.” Despite everything, she believed Jez had loved her in his own limited way. But she was still angry. Why should he cry?
“I wanted to settle down.” Jez sniffed. “I wanted to have a fam- ily.”
“And I seemed like a nice girl? And gullible?” Part of Stevie knew this was unfair. She knew that theirs had been a mutual de- ception. Still.
“No. Please don’t be like this, Stevie. It’s hard enough as it is . . .”
“What do you expect?” she was screaming now. It felt better to scream. She needed to blame someone for this mess. She was sick of blaming herself.