With or Without You (31 page)

Felix wiped the remnants of his tears with the backs of his hands and looked up at Charlie. ‘Hospital?’ he said, and Charlie could see the cogs of his brain starting to whir.
‘I didn’t know she was in hospital.’

Charlie nodded emphatically, frustrated with himself that he hadn’t thought of saying it sooner. It would have made so much more sense to Felix if he had been told that his mum had had to
go into hospital because she was sick. All he knew was that she had ‘gone away’. It was no wonder he was so distressed.

‘Your mum is a bit poorly at the moment but she is definitely going to get better and before you know it she’ll be home again,’ he said, managing what he hoped was an
encouraging smile. ‘So you see?’ he continued. ‘It’s nobody’s fault when someone gets sick. It’s not your fault, it’s not my fault, and most of all,
it’s not Mummy’s fault.’

A tiny glint of light appeared in Felix’s eyes as he digested Charlie’s words. ‘OK,’ he said, and gave a tentative gap-toothed smile that almost broke Charlie’s
composure. ‘But I’m still really sad without her.’ His eyes widened earnestly, as if he was trying to apologise for his earlier outburst.

‘Of course you are!’ Charlie soothed, hugging him tightly. ‘It’s completely normal to feel that way. You love your mum and she loves you.’

Felix nodded slowly, his lip drooping dangerously again.

‘But hey!’ Charlie said, keen to distract him. ‘We just have to think of the best thing we can do to make the time go as quickly as possible until she’s back home again.
And I have had an idea . . .’

Felix’s brow crinkled as he gave Charlie a puzzled look. ‘Really? What’s your idea?’

Charlie smiled as relief flooded through him. The thought had flashed into his head as he was speaking – just in the nick of time. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘how would you feel
about a trip to Britain? We could go and visit Granny and Grandpa in Wales and I could take you to where we used to live and show you where you were born?’

As he was talking, Charlie began to feel more and more excited by the idea. His parents hardly ever saw Felix and they would be thrilled if he were to visit. And Charlie had never taken Felix
away on his own for any long period of time. It would give them the chance to bond the way they had when he was little. ‘What do you think?’ he finished, biting his lip to try to
curtail his obvious eagerness. It was a big deal for a small child and Felix might not want to go, he reminded himself, while giving his son his most beseeching look.

Felix raised one eyebrow in a way that made him look older than his six years. ‘When would we go?’ he asked.

Charlie shrugged. ‘We can go anytime you want. How about tomorrow?’ he said, winking.

Felix’s face split into a wide grin and he reached up and wrapped his arms around Charlie’s neck in a hug. ‘That would be cool,’ he said.

Charlie held him at arm’s length. ‘Seriously?’

Felix smiled again and nodded. ‘Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun!’

‘It really will!’ Charlie agreed, as the excitement bubbled up inside him. He felt energised and happy at the thought of taking his son back to where he was born and to see
Charlie’s parents. ‘Come on then!’ he beamed, lifting Felix off his lap and standing up. ‘What are we waiting for? We’ve got a trip to plan!’

Four thousand miles away and three weeks after returning from LA, Martha and Jamie were sitting opposite a counsellor, waiting expectantly for her to tell them how to salvage
their broken marriage.

They sat beside each other on low wooden chairs in a small, purpose-built summer-house in the therapist’s garden. Through the open windows summer sweltered on, but inside it was cool and
shaded from the heat. Between them sat a small table with a jug of water, two glasses and, rather ominously, thought Jamie, a box of tissues.

He was nervous about this session because he had found the relationship therapist himself, after Martha told him that she wanted to go to counselling but didn’t want to have anything to do
with organising it. She had also insisted that he go through the utter humiliation of a visit to a sexual health clinic, which Jamie decided was something that all men thinking of having an affair
should do, because it would put them off straying for life. All of it he agreed to willingly, hopeful that it would help prove to Martha that he would do anything to win her back.

The counsellor was a slim woman in her fifties called Karen, with a friendly face and a gentle way of speaking that seemed to put them both at ease. She sat opposite them on a slightly higher
chair, with her back straight and her legs crossed in a position that suggested that she did a lot of yoga. Jamie threw Martha an anxious sideways glance to gauge her reaction. Normally by now they
would be communicating with knowing smirks at each other, but today Martha kept her eyes firmly forward.

He knew this would be difficult for Martha. Although it was essentially what she did for a living, ironically she wasn’t comfortable talking about her personal problems with a
stranger.

Jamie started to breathe a little more easily, though, as he saw Martha visibly start to relax as Karen talked. Her face, which had been taut with strain since that first, dreadful morning,
looked softer and more alive and her shoulders seemed to have dropped from their permanently hunched position.

He looked back towards Karen, hoping his desperation didn’t show too much. He wondered if this was what people meant when they talked about the ‘last chance saloon’. That was
certainly how it felt to him.

‘So,’ Karen began, after she had written down all their details. ‘Can you each start by telling me what you think the other wants to get out of this? It will help to determine
if this is the right path for you to be taking.’

Jamie and Martha looked at each other in surprise. They had discussed what they thought the therapist might ask, but neither of them had anticipated that particular question.

‘You go first, Martha,’ Karen prompted, nodding encouragingly.

Martha thought for a few moments before speaking. ‘I think,’ she began, glancing at Jamie again, ‘that he wants you to tell me how to deal with this, so that I’ll forgive
him and forget about it and we can all move on.’

Jamie’s eyes widened. That was exactly what he was hoping the therapy would achieve.

Karen wrote something down in her book but maintained a neutral expression. ‘Jamie?’ she said, turning her gaze on him.

‘Well,’ Jamie stuttered, completely at a loss for what to say. What
did
Martha want to get out of counselling? He thought hard. ‘I think she wants to be one hundred
per cent sure that it’ll never happen again . . .’ he said finally, not entirely certain if what he was saying was true. ‘And to know that she can trust me.’

Karen nodded as she again wrote something down. Then she looked up and smiled at them one after the other. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Well I can tell you now that neither of those things
is going to happen.’

The wideness of her smile contrasted so starkly with the bluntness of her words that Jamie and Martha were momentarily baffled. Was Karen saying she couldn’t help them? They looked at each
other with mirroring frowns.

‘
But
. . .’ Karen continued, ‘if you’re prepared to work at this and be completely honest with me and with yourselves, then hopefully we’ll be able to find
a way through it. But I have to warn you that it’s not going to be easy and you will probably find some of the things we discuss upsetting. So, the decision is yours. Do you want to
continue?’

Jamie took a deep breath and looked shyly at Martha. He was banking on this counselling to save their relationship, and if she refused to carry on he had absolutely no idea where to go next.
‘I do,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at Martha questioningly.
Please
, he begged her silently.
Please don’t give up now.

Martha held his gaze for a few moments, as if she was weighing up what to say. As he watched her he could see in her eyes the history of their relationship playing out as clearly as if it was on
a big screen in front of him.

He saw the day she finally agreed to go out with him, when he thought he must be the happiest man on earth. Then he discovered what the happiest man on earth really feels like when she gave
birth to Mimi, her dark eyes shining up at him as she held their precious first-born baby. He saw his own loss reflected in her eyes the day they got the news that his mum had died, and finally he
saw the bleak devastation of her discovering that he wasn’t the man she had always thought he was.

When Martha opened her mouth to speak, Jamie felt as if he had been holding his breath for hours as her lips moved in slow motion to form the words he was so desperate to hear.

‘I do,’ she said.

The summer that year seemed never-ending, though not in a good way. Martha felt as if the blue skies, the warmth and the sunshine were taunting her somehow, as she dragged
herself through the weeks, yearning to put as much time as possible between her and the worst day of her life.

Jamie was trying so hard. He was loving and attentive towards her in a way that he had never been before, as if the shock of almost losing her had opened his eyes for the first time. He applied
for and got a job on a trade magazine that he could do from home, and in his free time he was working furiously to finally finish the children’s book he had started many years ago.

A part of Martha could understand why some couples claimed that an affair actually helped their marriage, because on the surface it had definitely given theirs a shot in the arm.

But lying awake in the middle of the night, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling because every time she closed her eyes she saw the images of Jamie having sex with a stranger, Martha wondered if she
would ever feel the same way about him again. Too often, she would find herself staring at him, consumed by a venom and hatred that was almost overwhelming.

She had insisted that they sleep in the same bed when they got back from LA because she didn’t want to give the children any cause for alarm, but it had been several weeks before she felt
able to have sex with him again. When it happened, it was surprisingly fine. Good, even. But it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t enjoy the moment without thinking about him doing those
things with
her
. Worse, because she had seen it with her own eyes, she could actually picture it and it left her feeling sick and miserable afterwards, instead of basking in a post-coital
glow the way she used to.

‘Isn’t the counselling helping?’ Lindsay asked, when they were out one evening walking along the beach together.

Martha pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her long cardigan. The sun was just beginning to set and the sky was already turning pink, promising another scorching hot day tomorrow, but for
now there was a slight chill coming off the teal-coloured sea. ‘Yes, it’s helping. But the trouble is, those pictures are indelibly etched on my brain, Linds, and even the best
counsellor in the world can’t change that.’

Lindsay glanced at her with a look of concern and exhaled loudly. ‘No, I guess not. It’s still so shocking, even now, to think that Jamie of all people could have done
that.’

Martha shrugged. She found it less shocking now that they had spent several sessions discussing why it had happened. The counsellor seemed to think that his mum’s death had hit Jamie much
harder than anyone realised, causing him to behave in a way that he wouldn’t normally. She also suggested that because Jamie was feeling increasingly bored and lonely at home all day, while
Martha was going from strength to strength in her career, his affair was a subconscious way for him to hit back at her. Jamie had furiously denied this, insisting that he was pleased and proud of
Martha’s success, but Martha suspected that the counsellor was right.

‘Anyway,’ she said to Lindsay, looking out towards the horizon and thinking, as she seemed to do every time she looked at the sea, of Charlie, ‘I’m sure it’ll sort
itself out. It’s not surprising that things are still a bit difficult. It was only a matter of weeks ago that it happened.’

They walked along in silence for a while, listening to the sand and shells crunching beneath their feet, before Lindsay spoke. ‘What went on with Charlie, Martha? You’ve never really
talked about it.’

Martha’s heart skipped at the mention of Charlie’s name. ‘Nothing.’ She glanced sideways at Lindsay with a sheepish expression.

Lindsay smiled slightly. ‘OK, I get it. You’re not going to tell me . . .’

‘No!’ Martha insisted quickly. ‘It’s not that at all. It’s just that there’s nothing really to tell.’

‘So why do your eyes light up at the mere mention of his name and you get this funny look on your face when you’re talking about him?’

Martha flushed furiously. ‘I don’t!’

Lindsay didn’t reply but raised her eyebrows knowingly instead.

Martha wanted to tell Lindsay what she was feeling, but she couldn’t put it into words because she was frightened of revealing too much. She wanted to tell her that she thought about
Charlie almost every minute of every day. That she felt an ache and a longing to see him that was so strong it caused a physical pain in her chest. She wanted to tell her that whenever Jamie kissed
her now, all she could think about were Charlie’s lips on hers, and how the lightest of his touches had made her almost melt with desire.

But there was no point in saying any of it because she had made the decision to try to forgive Jamie and make a go of her marriage and she couldn’t go back on it. If she were to leave
Jamie now, he would get custody and the children would be devastated. They wouldn’t understand, and worse, they would blame her. One thing Martha was proud of was the way she had protected
the children from the fallout from Jamie’s affair. They were as happy and balanced as they had ever been and seemed blissfully unaware of any undercurrents in their parents’
relationship.

‘That’s because of you,’ Jamie had told her earnestly as they discussed the children over dinner one night. ‘If you’d reacted differently . . . if you’d
thrown me out,’ he said, closing his eyes and shaking his head at the thought, ‘they would have been so damaged. You’ve been amazing,’ he had added, reaching across and
taking her hand in his.