The Secrets of Married Women (33 page)

I am almost too floored, and disappointed, to speak. ‘Living with her!’

She plucks ears of grass that jut through the stone wall. ‘Neil needs somebody to pander to him. He needs to come home to his comforting pile of ironed underwear.’

‘Well he’s picked the wrong girl there, hasn’t he.’

‘Who knows? She was tired of being the one who wore the pants all the time. Maybe now she’ll be content to wash and iron them.’ She looks at me and smirks and her eyes have colour depths like two dark marbles held up to the sun. ‘Isn’t that what Dennis Thatcher said to a reporter about his relationship with Margaret? That he wore the pants, and he washed and ironed them too. That’s about the only thing I remember about a sizeable era in British politics. Isn’t that sad?’

Her face quickly takes on that distant, dismantled look again. ‘He wants to come home. Came round last night. His words were, “To give it another try.”’

I scrutinize her hair that’s been forced into a cute little ponytail that sticks up like a palm tree in the centre of her crown. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said what do you mean another try? We were never giving it a try in the first place. We’ve been married for eighteen years. We have two sons.’ She looks at me with a harrowed face. ‘He said he can’t bear her, and now he’s living with her, it didn’t make sense. Apparently she wants them to buy a house and have Molly live with them.’ She goes to bite her nails but stops herself. ‘What’s really strange about this is that Neil isn’t a person to just get bobbed along with the tide.’

‘Maybe he just can’t be bothered dealing with her right now. I mean his life has changed radically as well, hasn’t it? Maybe he’s just catching his breath.’

‘Poor him.’ That was a rare feat of sarcasm. ‘He’ll not want Molly. I know how much he didn’t want to have a third child, to start from square one again. Sometimes I think he resented being a father because it took him away from the two things he loved most: his job and himself.’

‘I’d never have thought, Wend. I assumed he was pleased about the baby when you fell pregnant.’

‘I was hardly going to tell you. It doesn’t exactly make him look very good does it? And it’s disrespectful to the memory of my daughter, making it known that her own father didn’t really want her in the first place.’ She straightens up from leaning on the wall. ‘Come on, let’s walk now.’

We take a stony cut down to the riverbank. Fishermen are casting lines into water that looks like a sheet of green opaque glass. On it quivers the reflection of the cathedral. She stops and gazes out across to the other side, to a neat line of moored rowing boats. ‘It’s not the first time he’s cheated you know.’

‘What?’ Peel me off the floor. Her eyes scan my reaction. She almost smiles. She starts walking again leaving me lagging there, mouth ajar. ‘I can’t believe this!’ I pad after her. ‘Wendy! I had no idea! How d’you… How do you know?’

‘You know,’ she says. ‘I mean I never had any concrete evidence if that’s what you mean.’ She pushes up an overhanging bramble and we duck under it, minding our eyes. ‘The thing with Neil is he’s very good. Maybe spending your career around dishonest people you learn the ropes. You’ll never catch him in a lie. None of Neil’s behaviour is typical of the cheat. He never gets too nice all of a sudden. Never has strange hairs on his clothing or lipstick on his boxers. He has never gone off sex—quite the opposite. He doesn’t make excuses to pop out and be gone for hours. He’s not forgetful and I don’t have to tell him everything three times.’

She’s a walking magazine article.

I look at her side-profile, the flush of her cheeks, the half an inch of grey re-growth at the temples where her hair needs colouring again. ‘Well, how do you know then?’

‘D’you want to sit here a minute?’ She points to a bench that’s covered in graffiti and missing its central plank. We sit. She leans forward, hands either side of her knees. I notice she isn’t wearing her wedding ring. When will Rob take his off? When will I take off mine?

‘Something happened. Years ago. We’d gone to Edinburgh for his job. We were in a bar.’ She looks at me briefly, her neck a translucent peach flush. ‘There was hardly anybody in, except this young waitress. She was a cute little thing in a little short tartan skirt, with long, runner’s legs; strawberry blonde hair in two low stubby bunches. She was instantly taken with Neil.’ She shrugs, straightens her legs, looks at her clean white running shoes. ‘I thought nothing of it. Women always look at Neil. It’s par for the course. Anyway, we went and sat down in a corner. It was a nice evening out and it seemed a pity to be in there, but Neil didn’t want to leave given the girl seemed so happy to have customers… We just ordered mineral water. She brought them to us. Neil gave her five pound and told her to keep the change.’

That sounds like Neil. A little bit flash, but not enough to be criticised for it.
 ‘So she gets this good tip and she looks at him. I can still picture her face. Pretty, but a bit hard, like a young Meg Ryan. She stood there chatting with us. Why were we here? Etc. Then Neil told her he was a police detective.’ Her eyes comb my face. ‘Women react to that. Every time.’ She swats a fly that keeps dancing before her eyes. ‘Anyway, a few more people came in. But every time she walked past us she’d look over, not directly at him, but almost as though she was inviting his eyes on her. And Neil… he was talking to me but it was the same thing: they were very much aware of each other.’ She shakes her head. ‘Funny thing is, I don’t think either of them was particularly aware of me, noticing this. We had our drinks then he asked her where the toilet was. I remember the off-hand way he got to his feet, stood tall and buttoned his jacket, like a man does who knows he’s handsome. It was a very assured gesture. Everything about him was confident of himself, I thought, as though he held all the power. The girl said it was downstairs, she’d show him.’ Wendy shifts on the uncomfortable bench, hugs her knees so her black Capri pants ride up her legs that could use a shave—something you’d never see, back in the days of Neil. ‘And I’m sat there thinking, Why does this girl want to show my husband where the toilets are? Isn’t he big enough to find them himself? And I got a really bad feeling. Just,’ she punches a fist to her rib cage, ‘I don’t know, like I was somehow at a disadvantage, helpless. Anyway, she led him down the narrow, dark stairwell. I remember it had prints of jazz musicians on the walls. And just before they were out of sight, I saw her turn and look back at him. And it was all there in her face: that rapt, mischievous, illicit understanding.’

‘No! God. Was he gone a long time?’

Her grip tightens around her knees, pushing pockets of muscle out on her arms. ‘Long enough.’

‘How did he look when he came back up?’

‘Well not like you’d think he’d look if he’d done anything. But I know he had.’

‘How?’

Her pupils drill into mine. ‘I knew.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Well I asked him what had gone on. He said I was being ridiculous. It was my bad mind.’

‘You don’t have a bad mind.’

She smiles. ‘I didn’t think I did either.’

She gets up now and we start walking again. ‘You have to remember, I wasn’t looking for anything to upset my world. I had two boys. I loved him. I was very happy with my life. The last thing I wanted was a reason to leave him.’ Our feet crunch stones. We pass a fisherman who turns and says ‘hello,’ and three young Chinese girls in a rowing boat whose giggles cut an echo across the still, opaque, green water.

‘I never actually saw her come back up again.’ Our walking trails to a stop and she seems breathless. ‘Whether she left… I thought about going down to the ladies’ room, but then I thought, what if she’s down there? You know, cleaning herself up, or putting her clothes back on. What’ll I do? She’d know I knew then. And I’d know Neil was lying. And I’d have to do something. And I didn’t know what I’d do.’ The remaining colour drains out of her face.

‘My God Wendy.’

‘You always think when you hear things like this, that Oh I’d flip out… or I’d kill her… or kill him... But when it does… I tell you, I didn’t know what I’d do. I was intimidated by the situation. It felt bigger than I knew how to handle.’ We start walking again, my eyes on the slow forward-rhythm of our shoes. ‘We got back to the hotel and had a massive fight because of course I wouldn’t let it drop. But it all boiled down to his word against my suspicions. The way I saw it I had two choices. I either had to leave him or believe him. So I believed him.’

‘This is incredible, really… So how did you feel towards him after that then?’

She laughs a little, humourlessly. ‘Alert.’

A picture of Neil floods up in my mind. Neil, who I have always felt was a little bit unknowable, but it added to his appeal. Then I think, hell, he’s not the man Leigh thought he was either, is he? The loyal man who was only cheating with her because she was special. ‘So was that it then? Or did anything else happen?’

‘Oh, the phone calls to the house. Hang ups. There’d be none for ages, then a run of them. A few other things… ‘ She shrugs and I know she’s not going to elaborate. ‘In the beginning I’d be checking his pockets all the time, his credit card statements. But not trusting the person you live with is an exhausting way to live. It’s completely emotionally poisonous. Besides, I didn’t want that sort of unhealthy relationship. That’s not who I am.’ She stares off into the distance. ‘Funny though, when I found out about Leigh and I asked him how many others there’d been, he hesitated, just for a second, before he said None.’

‘So how many do you think there’ve been?’

She shrugs. ‘Lots.’

‘Lots! You’re kidding.’

‘No,’ she almost laughs. ‘I know this is a shock to you. And you must think I’m pathetic. And I am. And I’ll have to live like that. Or change myself, which I’m trying to do now.’

‘Wendy you never let on…’

‘I can’t. I’m good at being happy but I’m not good at being sad.’ She looks at me, sadly. ‘And like I said, there never was real evidence. I wasn’t going to walk out on my marriage and rob my lads of a family on a hunch, was I? Even a very strong one. Or that’s my excuse, anyway. But, I don’t know, I feel so…’ She shakes her head, doesn’t finish.

I think of that day in the restaurant when Wendy said
Not always
to Leigh’s comment about how she only ever wanted to be married to Neil. Leigh took her two-word response to be, how did she put it when we were talking about it afterwards?—humouring, as though Wendy said it to condescend or just to fit in. But I’m sure she was really just being honest, only we refused to believe it. We’ve pigeonholed Wendy into being this poster-child for happily-marriedness. Why? Maybe to give us some ideal that our own lives fell short of. Maybe to justify our gripes. We walk to the end of the path, and then come back up onto the high street again. ‘I did something the other day that I’m quite proud of,’ she eventually says, brighter. ‘There’s a course at Northumbria Uni. It’s basically a conversion course for people who think they might want to be lawyers, who have a non-law degree. I’d have to study for the Common Professional Examination, which takes a year full-time, and I’d not be able to start it until next September, and that’s assuming that I enrol almost this minute to complete my two credits to get my degree. But the CPE would guarantee me a place on the Legal Practice Course, and then after that I’d be working as a trainee solicitor for two years, but I’d be collecting a salary. After that, there’s the Professional Skills Course, but that’s really only twelve days.’ She looks at me, freshly. ‘So Jill, I just about reckon that by the time I’m fifty I could be a fully-fledged solicitor!’ She laughs a little. ‘So I think I’m going to go for it. What do I have to lose?’

‘That’s incredible Wendy.’ And amazing that, as far as life goes, she seems to be back on the horse. ‘I can see you making a brilliant solicitor.’ She analyses the hell out of everything as it is.
‘Would it not just be easier to become a law clerk or something though?’

‘Yes. But I don’t want to be a clerk. I want to be a lawyer. I always did.’

I mourn my own job now. The job I was happy in. Wendy has a path now. What’s mine?

‘My problem is I always tend to need to do things well. So I was a good parent, a good wife. But the whole ultra-domesticated thing has really been something I’ve taken a false pride in. It’s not really me. It never really was, much as I thank God for my lads… I don’t know, I suppose if I’d never had children I could have still been happy. A part of me has always felt I short-changed myself by marrying Neil, even though I’ve always convinced myself that by landing him I’d hit the jackpot.’ She huffs, shakes her head. ‘Neil knew about the law thing but he showed such little interest in the discussion that he even managed to convince me that I wasn’t really interested in it myself. Because Neil has to be top dog. But I think it’s because deep down, if he didn’t trade so much on his good looks, Neil’s not really a confident man. And men who lack confidence in themselves don’t want successful wives; they don’t want wives with brains. Besides, he detests lawyers. Always says they get the bad guys off. So imagine how ironic it’ll be...’ She looks at me, widens her eyes.