I suppose I’m no better when it comes to our love life. We’ve found what works, more or less, so why change it? It’s like once you’ve hit on how to bake a half-decent sponge cake, why bother to scout round for another recipe?
Next time he phones, I could talk to him instead of hanging up. Or I could phone him. That’s what Cassie would do. She’d say I need to decide what I want and start taking control. Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Except I don’t even know what I want.
We could work through this. People do. This happens to thousands of couples, millions probably. I tell myself that it’s no big deal. It happens all the time. I bet that’s what he’s thinking—that everyone does it only he’s just unlucky he got caught.
For the hundredth time today, the thousandth time, I think of last night. I had the weirdest feeling I was watching the whole thing on a cinema screen, like it wasn’t really happening to me at all. Scott kept saying the same ridiculous things over and over again—pretending to be sorry and saying how much he loved me one minute, then trying to offload his guilt by claiming I’d pushed him into it because he’d felt so rejected and unloved. How pathetic can you get? That is so typical of him, he never takes responsibility for anything. Never. My own voice sounded cold and distant, as if I was only speaking a part that had been written for me by someone else. It sounded harsh and bitter, only I kept thinking I should be feeling so much more upset. But I just felt sick and strange and afraid and all I wanted was not to have to look at him any more; I couldn’t bear the thought of looking into his eyes and not knowing whether he was lying.
Maybe I should make him tell Nat and Rosie, see how he feels when he has to tell his own children why he can’t be at home with them any more. It’s his fault, so why should I have to come up with an explanation that they can handle? But, if he tells them, he’s bound to lie. He’d try to twist it all around, make them think I’m being unreasonable and unfair, that he’s being punished for one small mistake. No, I have to do it.
I phone him on his mobile.
“Gail!” His voice is full of relief, I can hear it. He thinks I’ve forgiven him, that I’m going to ask him to come back. You arrogant little shit, I think, feeling real anger stirring inside me, making me come alive again. “I’m so—”
“Save it. I’m not ringing to exchange pleasantries.” My voice stays calm, a model of control.
“But can I—?”
“No, you can’t. I’m going to tell the children. Tonight. I’m just letting you know.”
There is a silence. Scott’s usually a bit of a babbler, so I wonder if his phone’s lost the signal.
“Scott? Hello?”
“Yeah. Still here. Sorry. What are you going to say?”
“I think I should tell them the truth, don’t you? They’re not babies any more.”
“Do you have to?”
Typical Scott, wanting to worm his way out of trouble.
“Well, I realize you may not prize honesty as much as I do, but I don’t see why I should be expected to lie to my own children.”
“No, course not. Not lie exactly. But can’t you just …?” His tone is wheedling, whingeing, like a child wanting its own way.
“Can’t I just phrase it so you come out of it all smelling of roses? And you think that’s a reasonable thing for you to ask, do you?” This is not the way I meant to sound. I was going to be calm, sensible and mature, but it comes out bitter and sneering. I sound like a schoolteacher, telling him off.
“No. I guess not.”
“Fine, that’s agreed then.”
I wonder where he’s sleeping. I wonder if he’s staying with
her.
I bet he is, I bet he went straight there, fell into her bed and—, I’m not going to think about it.
“I’m planning to sort out your things in a day or two. Where are you staying?” “At Jeff’s. But Gail, we really need to—”
“You can pick them up one day next week, once the kids have gone to school.”
“But what about the weekend? Can’t I—?”
“No. I’m taking the kids to my parents this weekend.”
“You can’t stop me seeing them.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t do!” My throat feels dry, dry and sour. I slump down on the stairs and lower my head, feeling sick and faint.
“When can I see them?”
I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t do this. I don’t want this to be happening. I hate him for doing this to us. This isn’t my life. I don’t know how to do this.
“I don’t know.” I take a deep breath and clutch one of the banisters as if it might save me. I feel as if I’ve been thrown overboard and I’m lost, adrift and alone, with no hope of rescue. “Um, maybe next weekend. You know I wouldn’t stop you seeing them. You’re being ridiculous, trying to make out I’m being mean to you and that you’re the victim in all this.”
“I’m not. I just—”
“We need a few days’ breathing space, that’s all I’m saying. Please just leave us alone for a few days.”
“Well, OK then. If that’s what you want. And could you tell the kids—?”
“What?”
“Tell them I said—just tell them I said hi.”
I suppose I ought to mention the event that triggered off my Great Departure. I didn’t exactly leave of my own accord. Not entirely. Gail encouraged me to go. Yup, I guess locking me out on the front step in the middle of the night definitely counts as encouragement. Now, it’s not quite what it sounds like, so bear with me. OK, it is what it sounds like but I know as soon as I confess that I slept with someone else you’ll write me off and be thinking “Cheating slimebag—no wonder she chucked him out” and it really wasn’t like that. I guess I should have filled you in properly before, but I reckon you’re not stupid and it wouldn’t take an Einstein to figure it out. Whatever. Anyway, the fact is that, due to circumstances beyond my control—i.e. being a man—my dick accidentally ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or wrong person, more accurately. And Gail found out.
First of all, let me say I did not have an affair; it was barely even a fling—not so much a one-night stand as a one-hour stand and it’s doubly unfair because I’ve never strayed before, not even once. I realize that doesn’t let me off the hook but I just wanted you to know that I don’t make a habit of this. I know it must sound like I’m trying to get myself off the hook—"Miss, Miss, it didn’t count ‘cause I didn’t enjoy it.” But it’s like soggy chips—you feel you’re wasting your—your sort of wickedness allowance because for the same fat and calories and what have you, you could have had really good chips and enjoyed being bad. But you’ve bought them now so what are you going to do but eat them and feel pissed off that you’ve used up your chips quota? Then you have to have a Diet Coke with them, to cancel them out. And maybe a doughnut after to have something properly bad to make yourself feel better because of the chips and to get rid of the taste of the Diet Coke.
I’ll tell you about Angela later, the one who was the cause of all the trouble, the one who accidentally became over-familiar with the contents of my underpants. Anyway, after our totally insignificant semi-shag, I’d gone back to work to fetch my stuff and then I went home. Now if I’d been more of a devious bastard instead of just a stupid fathead, I’d never have slipped up. But it’s not like I carry a copy of
How to Commit Adultery—And Get Away With It
in my back pocket.
So I got back, kissed Rosie, said how ya doing. Nat was out somewhere, at swimming practice I think. Kissed Gail. This little frown crossed her face but I didn’t think much of it at the time and she didn’t say anything. Maybe it was because Rosie was there, chattering away and telling us things, the way she does. You know, “Did you know that in sixteen-something-or-other, the River Thames froze rock solid and they had a frost fair on it with people skating up and down and they lit fires and everything right on the ice?” That kind of thing.
We had our tea, some sort of chicken thing it was, then Rosie went up to do her homework and Natty came in and Gail went through to give him his food. We all watched a bit of telly then Nat went upstairs, supposedly to do his homework but probably to fool around on the computer as usual. It was all so bloody normal, do you see? An evening like a hundred others, a thousand others. Gail said she was off to have a bath and could I load the dishwasher and I said, “In a minute” and she said, “No, now” over her shoulder as she went up the stairs and I ignored her. I carried on watching this programme; it was one of those docusoaps, you know, where ordinary people suddenly get all famous from being on TV. I was stretched out on the settee wondering what it would be like if they brought TV cameras into work and who’d end up the star, whether it would be me as the manager, or Lee ‘cause he’s a cocky bastard frankly or Harry ‘cause he’s a real salt-of-the-earth type. Then I relived the day—well, mainly the bit with Angela—in my head like watching a video, replaying the good bit which was the anticipation and the moment we started kissing and pulling each other’s clothes off and sort of rewriting the less good bit so that I lasted longer and took her to levels of ecstasy she didn’t even know had been invented yet.
I stacked the plates on the counter, then thought better of it and loaded them properly in the dishwasher and rummaged under the sink for the powder. Why are these things so fiddly? Jeez, by the time you’ve done all that you could have washed them by hand. I locked up and went upstairs.
Gail’s at her dressing-table, taking off her make-up.
“Good day?” she asks, speaking to me in the mirror.
“Yeah, all right.” I start getting undressed. “Just boring, usual stuff, you know.”
“Did you remember to pick up my jacket from the cleaner’s?”
“Oh, bugger. Sorry. I’ll get it tomorrow. Promise.”
She sighs.
“You said that yesterday. It’s not as if I ask you to do much.”
“I said sorry. You weren’t planning to wear it in the middle of the night, were you?” I take off my trousers.
“Scott?”
“Hmm?”
“Why are your pants inside-out?”
“What? They’re not. Are they?”
“Apparently.”
I look down. Oh, fuck. Fuckety-fuck.
I shrug. Stay cool. Don’t get flustered.
“Must have put them on like that this morning. Getting more senile by the day. Soon be time to send me to the Twilight Home, eh?”
Gail’s voice is cold as ice.
“You didn’t. I remember.”
“What—did you carry out an inspection? Course I did. Must’ve done.”
She turns round from the mirror then and stands up.
“I noticed your pants this morning because those are the ones with the hole on the left-hand side which you promised you would throw away.”
“Hole? What hole?” Playing for time. I feel for the hole. Shit. It’s now on the right. Remain calm. Make a joke of it. “What are you, Inspector Morse?”
“Who was she, Scott?” Her voice is calm and low. I can barely hear her, but I figure now’s not the time to ask her to speak up a bit.
“Now come on! You’ve been spoiling for a fight all evening. What’s all this about? If you had a crap day, then fine—just say so, but don’t start taking it out on me. That’s so typical of you. Just because a person’s pants are inside out doesn’t mean—”
“What does it mean then?”
Behind her, the mirror of her dressing-table catches my eye.
“Look, you must have seen me in the mirror this morning. That’s why you thought it was on the other side. But they were already wrong, right?”
“Wrong. You’re the one who’s wrong. Right?”
It would have been better if she’d been shouting at me, crying and hysterical, then I could be the reasonable one concentrating on trying to calm her down. But she was already calm, which was much more scary. And I was running out of ideas.
“I remember now. I—I did take my things off after a job but only because—because I got a splinter of glass in my leg so I had to take my trousers off.”
“And you removed your pants for what reason exactly?”
“Because there was this sharp bit. Look!” I stab at a point on my hip. “I thought I’d got a bit of glass right here, so I took them off in the toilet at work to check, but I couldn’t see anything and I put them right back on. That was it. End of story. Ask anyone. Lee was there. Ask him. Ask Harry.”
She just stands there, her arms folded, eyes cold and shining—like glass.
“
You’re a lying bastard!”
Her voice is suddenly loud, the words snapping out like blows to my belly. “And you smelt of some awful perfume or soap earlier. You slept with someone else, I know you did!”
“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.” I’m going for calm with a touch of outrage. “I can see how you might have got that impression, but you’re just wrong. Honestly.”
“You swear?”
“Yes, I swear. I said so, didn’t I? Now come on, love. You know I’d never do that.”
“What on?”
* * *
Can you believe it? I mean, she’s wasted as a sodding doctor’s receptionist, she should be a lawyer. I was still going for the What—me? approach.
“Come on, Gail. Let’s be sensible now. What do you mean, what on? What, like the Bible? I think you’re getting things all out of proportion. When’s your period due?”
Now, normally of course, I might think that but as I value my life, I don’t say it. Nothing sends Gail into a strop faster than suggesting she has PMT and it’s all down to her hormones. Don’t know why—you think she’d be pleased to have an excuse. When I’m in a mood, it’s just I’m being an awkward bugger and there’s the end of it. But I thought it was a good diversionary tactic, like lobbing a hand grenade out the front while you escape out the back.
She doesn’t rise to it though, just raises one eyebrow at me. Not a good sign.
“Swear you didn’t sleep with someone else …”
“I swear. I didn’t sleep with anyone else. OK?”
She shakes her head.
“Not good enough.”
“I swear—look, I swear on my life. All right? Can we let it drop now? It’s been a long day.”
“No. Swear on Rosie’s life. On Nat’s life.”
“What? You’re being ridiculous now. I don’t know what’s got into you.”
“Swear on our children’s lives. Come on. You can’t do it, can you?”
“Course. I—”