And Meg, she’s—’
‘Yes, she’s fine. I know. Meg returns my calls.’
I take the dig.
‘Well, as long as everyone’s fine.’ She smacks her hands lightly on the edge of the table. ‘Let’s see what John Lewis has to offer?’
A few hours of shopping later, she seems satisfied, heading back to the Cotswolds as I wave her off. I climb into the car and chew my cheek. I know I’ve only dodged the ball. She’s like Arnie, my mum. She’ll be back.
After a fairly sleepless night, I wake to the sound of staccato showers and someone singing in my head. I always wake to some random track playing in my brain. Adam used to ask me every morning who was featuring and what they were singing. He believed it used to dictate my mood. Today, it’s someone whose name I can’t remember, but she’s telling me I’ve got to live my life and do what I want to do.
I head to the shower clutching my stomach. Whenever I think of him, of what he’s doing with his day, I feel my insides churn, then coil around themselves so tightly that it physically hurts. I close my eyes, hold my head up to the scalding, pulsing water as I soap my body. I dismiss him from my head, deciding that I will have a proactive work day today and I will start by reading the movie script Josh gave me. Again … I’ve tried and failed before, finding anything love-related too sweet to endure.
Three hours and four cups of coffee later, I’m sitting at the dual computer screens in the loft. The left one shows my petty attempt at a lyric while the right one displays the musical effort. My head is buzzing as I open YouTube and I watch the Twilight song Josh had spoken about. Again, I’m immediately consumed with song-writing envy. How does that woman Christina Whatsit do it? I watch the clip a few more times and then get back to the script. I can do this, I tell myself, my head in my hands. They asked for me. I’m one of three they asked for – I can do this. On the wall, all around my writing area, are the inspirational mantras I’d found weeks ago, printed in purple gothic font. Some I’d copied and some are all my own work. I stare up at ‘I AM A SONGWRITING PHENOMENON!!!’ And I almost believe it, as I set to work.
I work through lunchtime and only move away from the screen when my stomach is doing a hunger dance. Downstairs, I eat a bag of crisps. A voice inside my head tells me that I have to do a food shop, as I tear open today’s mail.
My bank statement shows me that, early last week, Adam paid the same amount that he has paid into my bank account for years, a monthly sum, to run the house, pay for food and bills, etc. I lick the crisps from the end of my fingers as a new fear blindsides me. What if he stops doing that? What if he just decides not to pay it? We have no dependent children any more and it’s all very well me telling him to fuck right off, but what happens practically? We both own the house, it’s not mortgaged, but I want to stay living here. Panic seeps from my brain through my entire system.
The hard fact is that I do not make nearly enough money to run this house alone. Even with my latest increase in royalties, I would have to get a job as well … The thought of getting a job, a real job that pays me a regular wage, terrifies me. I’m forty-two. The country has been in a double-dip recession; thousands of graduates and highly qualified people are out of work. My eyelids droop momentarily. Maybe that termite email was a bit much. Maybe I need to calm down a bit and maybe we do need to talk.
I don’t want to have time to change my mind, so I send Adam a text, asking him to come by the house. I keep it simple and it is only minutes before my phone pings a reply.
‘R u in tonite?’
I feel immediately irritated, angry even. I hate text language, and anyone who knows me respects that and uses proper English words when texting me. I’ve told them for years not to be so bloody lazy.
‘No. I’m not in tonight,’ I lie. ‘I’m out.’
‘Wen then?’ chimes back.
‘You idle bastard. Since when have you forgotten I hate lazy texting? I’m not your stupid bimbo whore. Yes, whore is spelt with a “w”.’
The landline rings and I ignore it. He has such an ability to rile me.
‘Idle?’ The mobile responds instead. ‘You call ME idle! Some of us are WORKING 24/7 for a living!’
My hand goes automatically to my mouth. Shit. My eyes flash to the bank statement and I text him back.
‘Sorry. Come by Friday?’
‘C U Fri at 8.’
I inhale a deep sigh and toss my mobile across the worktop.
I’ve abandoned the idea of writing an Oscar-nominated song for film this afternoon and instead I’m riffling through random papers in Adam’s desk. It struck me, seeing my bank balance, that I haven’t seen a statement in months from Adam’s bank account. He has a habit of leaving paper around, but there’s nothing – no statements anywhere.
I open up the bank’s web page saved on his computer. Keying in what I know to be his default password, ‘BeautifulMeg’, the account opens before me. I make a note of the common standing orders and direct debits on a blank page, just so I’m fully up to speed with what goes out on normal expenses – insurances, cars, etc., etc. On another blank page, I note all the other sundry spends, including the restaurants he’s been visiting with his bimbo whore. Nearly five hundred pounds last month. Then I see it. A transaction for two hundred and ninety pounds in Agent Provocateur … I set my pen down on his desk and stare at it until the letters become jumbled.
Images of Adam shagging a faceless but scantily clad woman swim in my brain like scenes from some Swedish porn movie. I hear the soundtrack in my head. Something shifts in that moment and I’m past angry. Now, I just want to know how long my husband has been lying to me and about what. Scanning the account for the last six months, I send the information to the printer.
Leaning on his desk with both hands, I contemplate how the hell I’m supposed to write about love right now, when all I feel is a furious sense of having been taken for a complete idiot. I head out to the hall table, grab my car keys and walk to the shop at the nearby garage. I need crisps and lots of them.
Sylvia is outside her house with Ted, her Yorkshire terrier, on a lead. ‘Hey,’ she says as I exit the gate.
‘Hi.’ I automatically hug her. ‘I’m sorry it’s been a while, I’ve been busy licking my wounds.’
‘You’re entitled. Where you headed?’
‘The garage, I need crisps.’
She giggles. ‘I’ll walk with you. Just taking Ted out for a stretch.’
‘How’re Nigel and the kids?’
‘They’re great. Now … That’s enough small talk. How are you?’
‘All the better for all the food you bring me.’ I link her arm for a moment. ‘Seriously, I’d probably have fallen down a grate without you.’
‘You look like you probably will anyway. How much weight have you lost? No, don’t tell me. Maybe I can persuade Nige to leave me, just for a while.’ She yanks on Ted’s lead, pulling him closer. ‘Sorry, too soon?’
I shake my head, attempt a smile. We walk for a few minutes; when we
