Authors: Charlotte Oliver
Well, he was
going
to apologise to me.
Or at least he seemed to
want
to apologise to me. I wasn’t going to push too hard; we’d both made mistakes. I’d be gentle, a little sad, but not forceful about it. We’d deal with it in our own way. No expectations. No pressure!
“At least you could try to conceal your glee,” Tam said drily, pulling me out of my reverie once again.
I knew that later that night, I would wake up with a retort on my lips, something perfect that would have shut him up forever. But I knew that I’d never think of it just then, so I didn’t try. After all, the news was good, and I would soon forget his nastiness. Soon it would all seem like a bad dream. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said sniffily.
“Is this why you did it?” he said, faintly menacing. “Just as a test? To see if you were worth running after?”
“O-of course not,” I stammered. The joy was draining away and shock was beginning to take hold. I didn’t know if I could take it all in. It struck me that I may not want to know why he wanted me to come back.
Tam stood up abruptly, pulling his chequebook out of his pocket as he did so. “You’re to take the next plane out of here. Here’s a blank cheque. Since we both know you’re motivated by money, I suppose it’ll be your best incentive to do as you’re told, eh?”
There was a moment, just then, before I had the urge to kill him, where I was lucid. During that moment, I wondered what was wrong with Tam. What did he resent so deeply that he would be so horrible? What did he believe about me that made him think I deserved to be spoken to like that?
“You should know better than to talk to me like that,” I said, my throat quivering. Soon, I knew, I was going to want to climb over the table and punch him. My heartbeat slowed to nearly nothing and I felt the blood draining from my face.
He was looking at me with cool interest.
Fucker,
I thought, trying to steady my breathing. I wasn’t going to let him get the best of me; he wanted a rise, and there was no way I’d let him have the satisfaction.
“It’s my turn to talk now, Tam,” I said quietly, as I felt the flush race back into my cheeks and venom begin to spill out into my veins. “I didn’t seek Jack out. It wasn’t
my
idea for us to get married in Paris.
He
thought up the whole thing, on his own.”
I tried to stop there, but I couldn’t. “What makes you think you’re qualified to judge me, anyway? You—leeching off your brother for a living? Following me around while I’m on holiday? You’re pathetic.”
It was plain to me now—if Tam had just accepted me in the beginning, supported our marriage, it was more than likely that none of this would have ever happened. Jack and I would have had time to settle in together, to get to know each other, to work our differences out; instead, Tam had forced the issue. And why? Just for fun? For kicks?
And now he was trying to pin some kind of moral judgement onto
me
?
I was infuriated by the look of amusement on his face. He was still holding the cheque out to me; I wouldn’t take it.
Anyway,
I thought guiltily,
I’ve still got my credit cards.
“You don’t have to play games with me, darling,” he snarled by way of reply. “I’m in on it too.”
“Games?” I demanded, exasperated. What was he on about
now
? I couldn’t find it in myself to care. “Look. Just leave. You’re insane and I’m wasting my time trying to talk to you.”
“Indeed,” he said, bemused. Finally, he tucked the cheque back into his chequebook and put his sunglasses back on. “I won’t be leaving Cape Town until you do. Which will hopefully be soon? Here’s the number of the hotel I’m at; please ring if you need help in getting to the airport.”
“I won’t be needing your help,” I snapped. “I got here on my own, I’ll leave on my own. When I’m good and ready.” The earth was starting to move under my feet. I wasn’t sure what all this meant just yet; I was so distracted by Tam and his ridiculousness that I couldn’t focus on the real issues. Was I really going to pack up and go back to Jack? Did I want to do that?
And why did I feel like I was missing something? The joy was ebbing away alarmingly quickly. Too quickly. Something was wrong.
I needed time to think.
“Well, I’ll be here anyway,” he said, and with that he was gone.
I hated him. I hated that he had such power over me. Why was it that he could move me from elation, to fury, to terror, to emptiness, all in a matter of seconds?
I heard the sound of his footfalls, crunching across the gravel walkway and out the front gate.
~
Peter was clamouring to know what had happened but I just couldn’t speak. I walked past him, through the garden, and straight to the room, closing the door behind me before climbing back into my cool white bed.
I was hoping Sharon’d be around. Where had she gotten to?
I lay quietly for what felt like hours. It must have been a long time, because the sun moved through the sky and soon the room cooled in the afternoon shade. Emotions came and went; scenes of me and Jack washed over me like a tide. My hangover pounded painfully in my ears, but I was feeling too masochistic to get an aspirin. Maybe the pain would give me some clarity.
I was happy again. I got up and packed my bags.
I was struck down with fear. With shaking hands, I stuffed my half-full suitcases under the bed again, irrationally afraid that I was going to curse my own good fortune.
Questions gnawed at my brain while my heart begged, helplessly, to be allowed some peace to enjoy what should have been good news.
Why must you question everything? Why can’t you just go home and forget about all this?
Because I just can’t,
I replied, trying to
be firm. Trying to be resolute.
I can’t keep jumping blindly into things. I left him. There was a reason for me leaving; it’s not like I did it for fun.
I remembered the time I spent with him in Paris. Surely he had loved me; and if he did then, why wouldn’t he love me a few months later?
Then I thought of London. Nothing had been the same since Jack’s altercation with Tam. Or maybe it had? Maybe I was the one whose perception had changed.
Things had been bad. Really bad. Any other girl, any girl with any sense, would have left long ago. Why was I so stuck to Jack?
Did I really believe that going back to him now was going to restore what we had in Paris? And if I believed that, what would I do if I was proved wrong?
Turned out Sharon had had a very good reason for disappearing: Declan.
Apparently, things had got very confused at some point yesterday evening, possibly because Sharon had got up on the bar counter and started doing a strip-tease of some kind. It may have been for a bet—no-one seemed certain when it came to so fine a detail.
Declan, at first an enthusiastic supporter of such showmanship, became indignant when some freshly-arrived Kiwis (late from their inaugural fishbowl session) had started catcalling in a “fucking disrespectful” fashion.
“It wasn’t really,” said Shaz behind her hand. “I think he was only looking for an excuse.”
An excuse for a fight, in case you were wondering. Little Declan, all five-feet-seven of him, had climbed into a burly New-Worlder with much zeal.
Now he was proudly displaying a broken nose at the bar counter, as he happily insisted on buying pints for everyone in a two-metre radius. “All you need is LOVE,” he was singing loudly and tunelessly at the barman, “
Da-da-da-da-da,
all you need is LOVE—“
“Shush,” said Sharon, bopping him gently with her fist as she blushed with pleasure.
“Barman!” he shouted, mock-outraged, “BARMAN! Can ye not see I’m the victim of domestic ABUSE? That I am bein’ systematically BEATEN into a puddle of submissive JELLY?”
“You wish you were,” said Sharon, smiling slyly at him, batting her long black eyelashes at him. She looked beautiful when she was happy. And they looked so happy. Blissful.
I was sick with jealousy.
“He’s got a gorgeous bum,” she whispered, “only you’ll never see it when he wears those bloody trousers.”
He was wearing an ancient pair of jeans, the seat worn out nearly to the skin, and they hung baggily around his sinewy little legs. I had to admit he was appealing, in his own ragamuffin sort of way, but that wouldn’t last long. Sharon liked to make her blokes over and Declan was to be no exception; I wondered what her first port of call would be after getting him into some designer jeans. Haircut? Eyebrow shaping?
She seemed to have forgotten entirely about the events of the day before, her mood lifted by her new conquest. But no matter how buoyant she seemed, it must have been plain that I wasn’t feeling the same.
“So your Tam turned up this morning,” she murmured after we’d sat side by side for a while. Peter and Randy were playing an enthusiastic game of Marco Polo in the plunge pool with Sairi and Michelle, two backpacker girls we’d met during last night’s party. I was watching them, miserably, thinking how short and tragic life was, and wondering whether I should start drinking again.
“He’s not ‘my Tam’, but yeah, he turned up.”
“What did he say?”
“That Jack wants me to come home,” I said, feeling warm inside despite my confusion. It was good news, even if I didn’t know what to do with it yet.
My heart broke a little more when she snorted with laughter. “That’s a bit presumptuous of him, isn’t it?”
“Shazza,” I pleaded, “you don’t understand.”
“Yes,” she muttered. “I obviously don’t.”
Michelle, the Amazonian Australian, had Randy in a headlock and was dunking him mercilessly. Sairi the little Finnish woodsprite was laughing, hanging languidly off Peter’s arm as they lounged together on the edge of the pool.
“I think he may have been cheating on me,” I blurted.
“You what?” Sharon said, trying to dig the maraschino cherry out from the bottom of her Singapore Sling.
“Never mind,” I mumbled, losing my nerve. I wasn’t going to tell her about that. It must have been a sign that she hadn’t heard the first time. It was just a suspicion, anyway. A small, hysterical suspicion with no basis in fact. No evidence.
“Did you say Jack was cheating on you?”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“He was cheating on you.”
“No!”
“Then what? Unless you tell me, I’m going to assume that’s what you said. Which would make him a cheating bastard, and I’m not going to let you leave here to go back to a cheating bastard.”
“Sharon!” I hated when she pretended she was the mother hen. “I didn’t say he cheated on me! I said I’d
thought
he had cheated on me. And I was wrong about it, and I don’t think that anymore, anyway.”
“Did you say all of that the first time?”
“Oh, just shut it.”
“You’re not to go back to him.” She popped the newly-retrieved cherry into her mouth, crushing it nonchalantly between her teeth and then chewing on the sugary stalk.
I ignored her. It was pointless trying to explain it; she’d decided she knew better and there was nothing I could do to convince her otherwise. And it didn’t matter what she thought anyway, I decided, feeling daring and rebellious.
Screams came from the pool; Randy, perhaps because of Michelle’s attentions, had had a narcoleptic episode mid-dunk, and Peter was trying to drag him out into the air before he drowned himself.
I had to talk to Jack.
It was time to break the rules of engagement.
I dialled the office number numbly. I thought back to the time of The Great Monday Morning Phone Call, back when I was still working at the dealership, and my insides lurched. Sharon had waved me away with such confidence that morning (well, not literally, because Victor would have seen and there’d have been hell to pay, but you know what I mean); things seemed so full of promise. Those memories still played out in Technicolor when I recalled them.
It rang and rang. No answer. Anxiously, I checked and rechecked the time zone; I was only an hour ahead, so why wouldn’t he answer? Then it occurred to me that it was a Sunday. He was probably out. Or away for the weekend, enjoying himself at someone’s country house or something.
Jemima’s uncle had a country house. Jack took me there a few weeks after we got married. Can you believe I bought two outfits from Burberry and one from Pringle? As if
that’s
what spoilt upper-class people wear in the country? As if I thought I was going to blend right in? Jack didn’t say anything. Maybe he didn’t have the heart to; I don’t know.
Of course they drank from morning to night and took Ecstasy every afternoon, and gambled on the gigantic dining-room table, and snorted cocaine from a little mirror they kept passing around, and snogged each other. And they swam naked in the indoor pool, so I couldn’t very well put on the demure full-piece I’d assumed would be suitable.