With or Without You (35 page)

‘So,’ she said, as the waiter brought them both coffee. ‘What’s on the horizon work-wise at the moment? Anything I could help you with?’

Louisa took a sip of her black coffee and tilted her head to one side as she looked at Martha. ‘Well it’s funny you should ask . . .’ she said with a sly smile.

‘Really?’ Martha replied, her heart beginning to flutter with anticipation. ‘Tell me more.’ She could sense from Louisa’s expression that it had something to do
with Charlie.

‘Based on what you’ve said today, I think it might be something you’d like.’

‘Is it . . .’ Martha began, aware that her voice had risen an octave. ‘Is it to do with Charlie?’

‘Yes and no,’ Louisa replied, again tilting her head.

Martha felt like she might explode. ‘Oh stop being so cryptic!’ she cried. ‘Tell me!’

Louisa laughed. ‘Sorry. It’s a profile interview with Liv. It’ll be the first one she’s done since getting out of rehab, so her agent wants to make sure it’s
someone good whom she can trust.’

Martha almost squealed with excitement. ‘Wow! That would be amazing.’ She tried to sound measured but failed. Instantly, she felt a little of her old enthusiasm and fire returning.
She already knew that she could make an amazing job of this profile and she couldn’t wait to see Liv again. She had thought about her so much over the past months and had wanted to get in
touch but could never really think of a good enough reason. She didn’t know her well enough to just phone out of the blue for a chat, even if she had her number. This was perfect.

‘So you’d be interested then?’

‘Yes, definitely!’ Martha shot back eagerly, before hesitating, already thinking about how she might feel returning to LA, and about how Jamie might react when she told him she was
going.

‘Charlie’s moved out of Liv’s house,’ Louisa said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘So I don’t think you have to worry about bumping into him.’

Martha nodded distractedly. ‘That’s probably for the best.’ Bumping into Charlie wasn’t something that worried her – far from it – but she knew that it would
worry Jamie and cause problems when it came to her going. Jamie would definitely ask if he’d be there and she wouldn’t have been able to lie.

Then again, she thought mutinously, what right did Jamie have to dictate what she did? She had already turned down the opportunity to do Charlie’s memoirs to appease him. No, she decided,
this time she was taking the assignment. If Jamie didn’t like it, that was his problem.

Jamie watched Martha drive off with a sense of foreboding. He closed the front door and trudged listlessly into the kitchen where Mimi and Tom were sitting at the table eating
their breakfast.

‘Dad?’ Mimi said, through a mouthful of Cheerios. ‘How do you think different types of fruit got their name?’

Jamie made himself a coffee and sat at the head of the table, in between them. ‘Clarify what you mean,’ he said, trying to focus but feeling distracted.

Mimi put her elbows on the table and steepled her fingers together, like an eminent professor. ‘Well, an orange is called an orange for fairly obvious reasons. But then why isn’t a
lemon called “a yellow”? Or an apple called “a green”?’

‘Well you couldn’t call an apple “a green” because there are lots of fruits that are green. How would you distinguish between them?’ Jamie countered with a
sigh.

Tom put his spoon down and clapped his hands together as he had an idea. ‘You could call an apple “green number one”! And grapes could be “green number two” and a
melon “green number three” and a—’

‘Yes, we get the idea, thank you!’ Mimi interrupted her younger brother briskly. ‘But frankly, who’s going to want to eat a fruit that’s called a “green
number two”,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in an exaggerated fashion and sniggering to herself as she did so.

Tom looked puzzled for a few seconds as his brain caught up, then he too started to giggle. ‘Ha ha! “Green number two”!’ he laughed. ‘Do you get it, Dad?’

Jamie nodded and took a sip of his coffee. ‘Yes, I get it,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘Anyway, you guys, it’s about time you were getting ready for school. Come on,
finish up and then go and brush your teeth.’

Both children looked at him in surprise. It wasn’t like Jamie not to throw himself into their morning discussions, but he just didn’t have the heart this morning. Not when Martha was
heading off to LA.

He was still reeling from the terrible row they had had last night, when Jamie had asked her if she would be seeing Charlie while she was there. Martha had reacted with the fury of a snarling
animal, screaming that he had no right to question her since
he
was the only one who had screwed around in this relationship. That it was no longer any of his business.

Jamie had been shocked by the fresh venom that she had thrown at him, as forceful as the day she had discovered his betrayal. He had never really appreciated how resentful she was about the fact
that she had missed out on doing Charlie’s memoirs because of him, but it was clear that she wasn’t prepared to put him before her career any more.

He was trying so hard to make things right between them but whatever he did, it just wasn’t enough. He could see for himself that Martha’s spark had been extinguished, and the raw
guilt he felt, knowing that he was the cause, gnawed at him from the inside, making him feel like he was mentally and physically half the man he used to be.

Forever more, he would be the weaker half of the couple, prepared to do whatever it took to prove to Martha how sorry he was. He felt a bit like her slave and it made him feel even more
inadequate than he had before he had embarked on his stupid affair. He could never again win an argument because each time it would end with Martha playing her trump card: everything that was wrong
was his fault and could be traced back to what he had done.

Before, Jamie had had such a lust for life and had always been an outgoing, sociable person, but he certainly wasn’t that person now. He felt weak and useless and instead of looking
forward to the future, he dreaded what it might hold instead. He knew that Martha would never leave him while the children were young, which bought him a certain amount of time. But he also knew
that the rest of his life was going to be spent on tenterhooks, in case she woke up one morning many years from now and decided that she was going to leave anyway. The prospect made him feel
bleak.

He still loved her so much and every single day he wished he could turn back the clock and change what he had done. But he no longer felt as if he knew what was going on inside her head the way
he used to. They had been so in tune with one another, each knowing exactly what the other one was thinking. Now it seemed as though they circled each other warily, both scared of saying how they
really felt.

And although they had resumed having sex again, Jamie could sense that Martha no longer gave herself up to the experience completely. That she was holding something back. He understood why
– it was her way of protecting herself in case he did it again – but it saddened him that yet another part of their relationship had been tarnished.

Martha had leapt at the chance to go to LA again, and although it was Liv she was interviewing, not Charlie, he still felt threatened. Jamie was desperate to forget about that awful time but
Martha seemed intent on revisiting it.

He was worried that she would arrive in LA and it would bring all the memories of that terrible week flooding back. That she would return home to him with a renewed sense of injustice. But he
had no choice. He just had to sit tight and wait.

‘Dad,’ said a gentle voice, as Jamie sat with his head in his hands at the kitchen table. He looked up into Mimi’s large blue eyes, which at that moment were flooded with
concern. ‘Are you OK?’

He nodded, unable to find his voice.

Mimi sat back down in the chair she had been using earlier. ‘OK, I’ll rephrase that,’ she said in a clear, strong voice that reminded him of how Martha used to be. Before he
had reduced her to a shell of her former self. ‘I know you’re not OK,’ Mimi continued. ‘So, what’s wrong?’

Still Jamie couldn’t speak and he shook his head.

‘Is it to do with Mum going off to LA again?’ Mimi persisted. ‘Are you worried about her seeing that guy again? The film star.’

Jamie gazed back at her in admiration. She was so perceptive for such a young girl. Finally, he felt able to answer. ‘No, it’s not that I’m worried about Mum seeing him again.
It’s just that . . . I wish she hadn’t gone, that’s all. I miss her,’ he finished feebly.

Mimi reached out and took his hand. ‘Are you and Mum splitting up?’ she asked in a small voice that instantly reminded Jamie of just how young she still was.

‘I hope not.’

Mimi’s eyes flashed with tears but she fought to hold them back, swallowing hard. ‘I think you are,’ she croaked.

He squeezed her hand in what he hoped was a reassuring way, while a mounting sense of panic swept over him. ‘What makes you think that, darling?’ he said in as even a voice as he
could manage.

She shrugged, still fighting against the threat of tears. ‘You don’t seem very happy any more.’ She looked down at her lap as she finished speaking.

Jamie’s stomach dropped. Both he and Martha had congratulated themselves on protecting the children from the fallout from their problems. Neither of them had even considered that they
might have picked up on the atmosphere in the house.

‘Everything’s fine!’ Jamie lied, sounding unconvincing to his own ears, let alone Mimi’s.

She took a deep breath, as if she was steeling herself to say something. ‘OK. The truth is, I heard you arguing last night,’ she said, the tears finally spilling over her long black
lashes and splattering onto her cheeks like little fat raindrops. ‘I got up this morning and pretended that it must have been a bad dream because I didn’t want it to be true. But it
wasn’t a dream, was it? It was real.’

‘Oh God,’ Jamie groaned, reaching over to hug her awkwardly across the corner of the table. He stroked her hair while she cried, frantically wracking his brains about what might have
been said during their row. What did she hear? Gradually, with a dawning sense of horror, he remembered Martha yelling about his affair. ‘Oh God,’ he said again, this time with a
resigned acceptance that he had been well and truly found out.

‘I heard every word,’ Mimi sobbed, as if to hammer home the point.

Jamie had no answer. Instead, he clung to her as a feeling of loss washed over him.

Mimi pulled back from him and pushed his chest, so as to completely extricate herself from his embrace. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her school jumper, then pulled herself up to her
full height and met his eye defiantly. ‘Poor Mum,’ she murmured, giving Jamie the full benefit of her steely expression of pure disgust.

Mimi had never, ever looked at Jamie like that. He was her friend. Her hero. The first man she had ever loved. Now she despised him, just like her mother. Jamie shook his head helplessly. What
could he possibly say that would make this right? ‘Look,’ he said at last, ‘I made a terrible, terrible mistake, Mimi . . .’

‘You had an affair!’ Mimi snapped back, attempting to look defiant, but Jamie could see that her chin was still wobbling. ‘How could you do that?’

‘But, darling, this all happened a long time ago and Mum and I . . . well, we’re working our way through it. She’s forgiven me,’ he added, hoping that she would believe
him.

‘She didn’t sound like she’d forgiven you,’ Mimi said, shaking her head as her mouth formed into a sneer. ‘And I don’t blame her.’

‘Oh, Mimi . . .’ Jamie felt desperate. He adored this child too much to cope with her despising him. ‘Please don’t say that. I love your mum and I’m doing
everything I can to show her how sorry I am.’ He reached out to try to take Mimi’s hand but she snatched it away as if she had been burnt.

‘I hope she never forgives you!’ she cried, pushing back her chair so that it scraped angrily against the slate floor and standing up. ‘Because I know I never will!’ She
burst into noisy sobs again and ran from the room. Jamie got up and watched her helplessly, as she grabbed her school bag and flung open the front door. ‘I hate you!’ she screamed,
shooting him a look of pure, cold venom before slamming the door shut behind her.

Jamie could feel his whole body start to shake uncontrollably and he put his hand to his mouth in shock. He had always thought that Martha finding out was the worst thing that could possibly
have happened. Now he knew that your child discovering that you were a cheat and a fraud was much, much worse.

Travelling to LA economy class made Martha wish she had been in the right frame of mind to enjoy first class when she had had the chance. She was sat beside an American whose
fat spilled over not just the top of his jeans but also his seat, meaning Martha had to lean to one side for almost eleven hours to avoid accidentally resting her arm on his flab.

Last time, she vaguely remembered that travelling with Charlie meant they were chaperoned through security and immigration by a special VIP greeter, who deftly propelled them to the front of the
queues. Now she found herself waiting in a seemingly endless line to be rudely interrogated by one of the expertly miserable immigration officers.

Not that she was in any mood to enjoy anything after the terrible row she had had with Jamie. She really had begun to feel that she was getting better. That she had started to move forward. But
the emotions that had swept over her like an unstoppable wave last night didn’t feel very much different to how she had felt when she first found out, except that perhaps they were less
raw.

The worst thing of all, she thought, as she inched her way along the queue at an agonisingly slow speed, was that she couldn’t shake the sense that she was trapped. She still loved Jamie
but the fissure in their marriage had turned into a huge, permanent crack that no amount of counselling or talking could mend. Yet she had made her decision and she couldn’t go back on it.
She couldn’t risk losing the children and she owed it to them to stay. And although it pained her to acknowledge it, she owed it to Jamie too.