With or Without You (8 page)

When Martha had first turned up yesterday, Charlie’s heart had sank. Despite her large, dark eyes and long, lustrous hair, she looked breathless and sweaty in the way that, in his
considerable experience, only cokeheads could. And when she immediately excused herself to go to the loo, he had felt sure that his instinct was correct.

But spotting the giant hole in her dress had made him immediately soften towards her. He was unsure whether to say anything, but she had darted into the loo before he’d had the chance to
speak anyway.

She had finally emerged, wearing his massive t-shirt and sweatpants and looking, he thought, spectacularly sexy. Despite her embarrassment, she had met his eye with such a defiant, stoic gaze,
that Charlie had felt something inside him stir that had long been dormant.

During the interview, which had felt to him more like a first date than a grilling by a journalist, he had found himself opening up to Martha more than he ever had to any other interviewer. She
was disarming because she would ask him questions, but she would relate his answers to her own life, which put him at ease and led him to reveal much more than he had intended. She had a son who
was a little older than Felix and her stories about him made Charlie laugh, which helped him to talk about Felix without getting choked the way he usually did.

When the subject of Liv came up, Charlie had tensed, waiting for the inevitable questions about her leaving him for her Hollywood superstar. But to his surprise, Martha wanted to focus on the
early days of their relationship, on the happy times, and he found himself relaxing and enjoying the memories of the woman he had loved so much, instead of clenching with the pain of her loss.

Martha seemed non-judgemental about what Liv had done, which pleased him, although he wasn’t sure why.

After a couple of hours, she had reached over to switch off her recorder and sat back on the sofa, smiling at him through white teeth which were natural rather than veneered. ‘Shall we
leave it there for today?’ she had said.

Charlie had sagged with disappointment. He liked talking to her. Liked her presence. Liked her feet in the ridiculously high gold sandals she was wearing. He loved her deep, throaty laugh, her
brown eyes and full mouth . . .

Charlie slammed the laptop shut. He needed to stop thinking about her because it wasn’t going to happen. Just then his mobile rang, causing him to jump guiltily. He silenced
The
Sopranos’
theme tune quickly. ‘Hello?’ he gulped, wishing he had stopped to look at the caller display first.

‘What the hell?’ said a strangled voice, before lapsing into a coughing fit that lasted several seconds.

‘Hi Louisa . . .’ He sighed, knowing he was in trouble.

When she had finished coughing, Louisa came back on the line. ‘What did I say to you yesterday? Don’t
sleep
with her! And then I open the paper to see you both leaving the
hotel with her wearing your clothes. For Christ’s sake, Charlie! How the hell did that happen?

Charlie took the opportunity of another coughing fit to buy himself some time. ‘It’s not at all what it looks like,’ he said when she eventually stopped spluttering.

‘You know she’s married?’ continued Louisa, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. ‘And she’s got kids?’

‘Yes.’ Charlie tried to sound more patient than he felt. He would have quite liked to have spent the day in bed with Martha, so it was annoying that he was getting blamed for
something that he hadn’t done. ‘I know she’s married. Which is fine because nothing happened. If you must know, her husband had ironed her dress and put a bloody great hole in it,
so I offered her my clothes to change into to save her the embarrassment of travelling home again showing her knickers.’

Louisa burbled with laughter. ‘Seriously? Oh my God! Poor Martha. She must have been
mortified
!’

Charlie grinned to himself at the memory. ‘You could say that. She locked herself in the loo and wouldn’t come out until I came up with the idea of offering her my t-shirt and
sweatpants.’

‘Oh Charlie!’ Louisa cried. ‘What a sweetheart you are! I’m sorry for doubting you. Of course you didn’t sleep with her. As if!’

‘Yeah, as if!’ Charlie replied, feeling uncharacteristically annoyed with Louisa, who he loved and trusted.

‘Well, that’s a relief, I must say,’ she continued, unaware of the effect her words were having on him. ‘It could have got really messy if something had happened between
you—’

‘Well, it didn’t,’ Charlie cut her off sharply.

‘OK, OK! So did you arrange your next meeting?’

‘No, I thought you would have done that.’

‘I would, but I’ve been laid up in bed feeling like crap, thanks for noticing. Why don’t you give her a call? You can apologise for letting her get papped wearing your
clothes.’

‘It wasn’t my fault!’ Charlie protested.

‘No, but you should have known they’d be there. Not that I’m complaining. As long as there’s nothing going on between you, and we don’t have some irate husband
going to the papers, it’s not bad publicity to have you linked with someone mysterious . . .’

‘Makes me sound like less of a loser, you mean?’ But Charlie’s tone was amused rather than cross. He knew Louisa was only doing her job, which was to make him look as good as
possible.

‘Oh, Charlie. No-one would ever think of you as a loser.’

‘Hmm,’ Charlie replied, before bidding Louisa goodbye and hanging up. Louisa was probably right. No-one would think of him as a loser. Except himself. And that was probably the worst
person of all.

He searched through his contacts list until he came to her name. Butterflies began to dance in his stomach as he tried to summon up the nerve to call her. His thumb hovered over the name. It was
just a call to someone who was very much taken; he had no need to be nervous. But he was.

He could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins and his mouth suddenly felt dry. He just needed to press on the name but his hands were trembling and he wasn’t sure he could. He
thought back to yesterday, remembering her throaty laugh and the sexy huskiness of her voice as she talked. Finally, the urge to hear that voice again overtook him and he pressed
‘Call’
.

The first thing Jamie heard was the sound of retching from upstairs. Mimi looked up in alarm from her bowl of cereal. ‘It sounds like Mum’s being sick,’ she
said.

Jamie cocked his head and listened. ‘Oh, poor Mum.’ He turned on the tap so that the water would run ice cold. He took a glass from the cupboard and filled it, before taking it up
the stairs.

‘Jesus, babe,’ he came into the bathroom to find Martha hunched over the toilet bowl. ‘What’s brought this on?’

Martha continued retching. Finally, she finished and reached up feebly to flush, panting with exhaustion and gulping furiously.

‘I brought you some nice cold water,’ Jamie held the glass out towards her.

Before he knew what was happening, Martha had swung around and punched the glass out of his hand, causing it to smash into dozens of pieces against the wall and the water to explode like a bomb
all over the bathroom. ‘Take your fucking water and fuck off out of here!’ she screamed at him, her eyes blazing with fury.

Jamie recoiled in horror. He had rarely seen Martha lose her temper. ‘Martha!’ he yelled back. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

In response, a long, low wail emitted from somewhere deep inside her and she slumped down onto the slate floor, either unaware or unconcerned by the shards of glass that were everywhere. Jamie
went cold inside as fear gripped him. Was she having some kind of breakdown?

‘Why . . .’ she began in a quiet yet malevolent voice, ‘. . . don’t you go and take a look at your filthy fucking computer screen?’

‘Oh my God.’ Jamie knew immediately what he would find as he ran into the study. There on the screen of his laptop was a colour photo of him having sex with Debra. ‘It’s
not what you think,’ he started to say to no-one in particular as he reached for the delete button.

‘I’ve seen them all,’ said Martha in a strange, detached voice, coming into the study behind him. ‘So it’s no use deleting them.’

Jamie closed his eyes to try to block out what was on the screen and continued to press the delete button furiously. How the hell had those photos stayed on the computer? He was sure he had got
rid of them as soon as they were downloaded. He thought for a minute he might be sick himself. ‘Oh God, oh God,’ he muttered, his whole body shaking with shock. ‘Martha, baby,
please believe me, it’s not what you think . . .’

‘Fuck off, Jamie.’ Martha sat down at her own desk with her back to him.

‘Martha! Listen . . .’

‘No,’ she said, in that eerily calm voice that was scaring the hell out of him far more than if she had ranted and railed. ‘I won’t listen to anything you have to say any
more. Let’s get the children off to school. And say a proper goodbye to them because you won’t be here when they get home this afternoon.’

‘No!’ Jamie cried in an agonised voice, dropping to his knees in front of Martha. ‘Oh God, please don’t let this be happening. Please, Martha, please listen to me. It was
nothing. It meant nothing . . . I don’t know, it just . . .’ he clasped his hands together in a pleading gesture. ‘Please, baby, listen, I . . .’

‘You’re a cheating bastard,’ she said coolly, finally turning around to face him and looking at him with eyes that said she despised him. ‘You used the camera I bought
you for Christmas to photograph yourself screwing your whore while I went out to work to support you and the children. Christ, your mother would be so proud,’ she added, causing him to flinch
more than if she had actually stabbed him. His mother had died the previous year and Jamie had been utterly devastated by her loss. Her death had been sudden and unexpected and the shock had left
him reeling for months.

‘Oh my God!’ he whimpered, as the tears began to course down his cheeks. ‘Martha, please, please believe me. I love you so very much . . . I love you and the children . .
.’

‘Yeah, course you do,’ she snarled, still fixing him with a look that chilled him to the core. ‘Devoted husbands and fathers always photograph themselves screwing other women
while their wives are at work and their kids are at school, don’t they? You love us
so
much that you were quite happy to put our happiness, our security at risk for the sake of a
fuck with some sad old whore. And while we’re on the subject, I don’t think much of your taste. You make me sick to my stomach,’ she spat. ‘Quite literally.’

Jamie leaned his head on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. After a few moments, Martha spoke again.

‘Right, I’ll see the kids off to school, shall I? I don’t think you’re in any fit state. I don’t want them seeing you like this.’

‘No!’ Jamie sobbed, trying desperately to recover his emotions. ‘I always see them off, they’ll think it’s odd if I don’t.’

‘Well bloody well pull yourself together then!’ snapped Martha, standing up and heading for the door.

‘Don’t go!’ he cried, gripping her ankle. Her perfect, slender ankle. ‘Don’t leave me!’

Martha looked down at him contemptuously. ‘Oh don’t worry, I won’t leave you,’ she said, causing his heart to jump momentarily with hope. He looked up at her beseechingly
but her expression was set like concrete. ‘
You’re
the one who’ll be leaving.’ She shook her ankle free of his grip and walked out of the room, slamming the study
door shut behind her.

For a few seconds Jamie thought he might pass out. He loved Martha and the children so much. The idea of losing them made him dizzy with fear. What the hell had he done?

With an almighty effort, he lifted himself off the floor and slumped into his desk chair, his head in his shaking hands. He tried to get his thoughts into some kind of coherent order. He had to
get Martha to let him stay. He couldn’t lose her. It would kill him.

When he had finally composed himself, he wiped the last vestiges of tears from his eyes and made his way out of the study. He glanced nervously towards Mimi’s room, where she was getting
dressed, apparently unaware of the turmoil that had erupted into the midst of her safe little world that morning.

‘Hey Dad,’ she grinned. ‘Poor Mum’s been hurling. Did you hear?’

‘I did.’ Jamie tried to smile but his mouth wouldn’t let him. ‘Anyway, gorgeous, get yourself dressed and brush your teeth, eh? And . . . I, er, dropped a glass in the
bathroom, so use the ensuite until I’ve had time to clear it up, OK?’

‘Aw . . . can’t Tom brush his first?’ Mimi whined, as she always did every morning.

‘Look, just bloody well do it, OK?’ Jamie snapped, causing Mimi’s big blue eyes to widen in astonishment.

‘Jeez, Dad, no need to get in such a strop!’ she shot back. She harrumphed a couple more times but finally clomped across the landing and began to brush her teeth.

‘Come on, Tommy boy,’ Jamie tried to keep his emotions from spilling over as he went into Tom’s bedroom, to be met with the sight of his son curled up on the bed, still in his
pyjamas, reading his latest
Horrible Histories
book. How long had he been there? Had he heard any of the awful exchange between him and Martha? Tom looked unconcerned so Jamie decided to
hope for the best. ‘You need to get dressed and brush your teeth too,’ he said, his voice catching.

‘OK, Dad,’ Tom closed his book and smiled up at Jamie in a way that made him want to cry for ever more.

As the children finished getting ready, Jamie made his way downstairs and into the kitchen. Martha was standing at the French doors, clutching a cup of coffee and staring out over the garden
with a closed expression on her face. Jamie eyed her warily as he made his way over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. He took a sip and then replaced the cup on the work surface, all the
time watching Martha, who seemed to be standing as still as a statue.

He moved towards her. ‘Don’t. Touch. Me,’ she hissed, as he was about to put his hand on her shoulder. He whipped his hand away as if he had been stung and stood awkwardly
behind her, unsure what to do next.