stalks.
The mobile sounds and this time I laugh aloud at the sight of his number. He genuinely thinks that if he keeps calling, one day I’ll just stop being angry. Another part of me hopes he’s right, because this anger is eating me up from the inside out. I can feel it coil itself around my very being, munching away; as if a sound effect is required, my stomach grumbles loudly. I head back downstairs, passing the photo-lined walls on the way.
Rogues’ gallery … The fingers of my right hand hover above them, yearning to touch the baby shots of Meg, to tap into those younger grinning images of Adam and me. An old wedding shot, so full of hope and love. One of him taken at a barbecue next door – Adam posing like a catalogue model, his face looking at the camera, his chin tilted upwards; his long legs, tanned in Bermuda shorts, his dirty blond, close-cropped hair flashing in the summer sun. I take the stairs slowly, lost in years of memories. By the last step, I try to comprehend that if someone had asked me only weeks ago if we were happy, I’d have given them a rather smug, ‘Yes, of course.’ That’s how good a liar my husband is.
In the kitchen, I grab a wine glass and fill it to the rim with cold sauvignon. Rummaging through one of the shopping bags, I remove the chicken wrap and chew it slowly, obediently listening to the voice in my head that tells me I have to eat. I don’t want to eat. I just want to drink. Taking a large swallow of wine, I feel the alcohol slide down, immediately hitting the spot it needs to.
Late-afternoon September sun slices through the bi-fold doors that back onto the rear garden. I walk in and out of its shadows, chicken wrap in one hand and glass in the other. One mouthful of food for each gulp of wine … In between, I hum the words of a song I wrote yesterday and feel the faint curve of a smile on my face. Thesaurus had obliged with a rhyme for bastard. ‘Dastard’ – a sneaky malicious coward. Adam the ‘dastard’. The grin on my face makes it even harder to chew.
Needing to immerse myself in work, I start back upstairs, only to turn around and sit, motionless, on the fourth step. I stare into the living room opposite, unable to move. The cognitive part of my brain has switched off. My legs refuse to stand, my hands seem glued to my knees. Assailed by snapshot memories of places we’ve been, songs we’ve sung, moments we’ve shared, I’m numb with the fear of starting again. Where do I begin? If I just breathe in and out, will time just pass? I nod. Yes, that’s what will happen. I just have to wait this out and suddenly it will be next month and this new beginning will already have happened without me even having to register it.
I only stir when darkness surrounds me. I step downstairs, switch on a light and carry the bottle of wine from the fridge to the living room. Thirty minutes later, I’m watching Adam’s oversized, penile-extension plasma screen when the landline rings.
‘You’re fired!’ Lord Alan Sugar fills the screen as he points an index finger at some underperforming female.
‘Yeah, mate, I know how you feel,’ I sympathize. ‘Beth, you’re fired!’ I point my glass at Lord Sugar’s evictee and pick up the phone, sure that it will be Meg at this hour.
‘Meg?’
‘Beth, it’s me …’
It’s not Meg, my precious girl. It’s him, the bastard that provided half of her DNA, the dastard who, as soon as I hear his voice, I miss with every fibre of my being. My heart pulses loudly behind my ribcage.
‘How are you?’ he asks. ‘Beth, don’t hang up. Please, we need to talk?’
‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
He is silent.
‘Are you with her?’ I ask.
He remains guiltily silent.
‘Do you know you’re a dastard?’ The wine speaks.
He sighs. ‘Yes, you’ve told me many times.’
‘No, I’ve told you many times you’re a “bastard”, now I’m telling you you’re a “dastard” too.’ No reply.
I can hear kitchen sounds in the background, like a dishwasher being unloaded. I picture the scene. How domestic. How very Jamie and Nigella. He speaks in a hushed voice, as if he doesn’t want to be heard on the phone.
‘Oh just fuck off, Adam.’ I slam the phone down. I look at the bottle and my father’s genes beckon.
I stare at the small screen. Call ended. She hung up on me. Again … And she swore at me. Beth knows how much I hate her potty mouth. Two weeks since I left and she still won’t talk without swearing.
Through the open door to the kitchen, I see Emma bend down to reach the lower shelf of the dishwasher. Clad in a figure-hugging black dress, the sight makes my head reel; images of Emma naked, Beth naked, cloud my fuzzy brain. I breathe deeply, filling my anxious lungs as quietly as I can.
‘I know you’re staring.’ Emma looks over her left shoulder and catches my eye. In one swift movement, she crosses her hands, grabs the hem of her dress and pulls it over her head. She’s wearing stockings. No knickers, just hold-ups, a tiny bra, and I feel immediate stirrings as she walks towards me. Some instinct tells me to back away from her, raise my palms in the air, say, ‘No, Emma, no,’ but it’s way too late for that. If I’d been a better man, I’d have said that months ago. So, I let my more primal instincts rule, the ones that make me want to take her here on her white Amtico kitchen floor. Before I know it, she’s on her knees, unzipping me. I squeeze my eyes shut. With one hand, I steady myself on the doorway, with the other I hold her head, just at the nape of her neck, my fingers lacing her long blonde hair.
I knew I was in trouble the moment I met her. It had started out a simple evening with a group from work in the restaurant where she works. She flirted with me. Private winks, smiles. At first I thought I was imagining it, until Matt, my business partner, cornered me outside the loo.
‘Don’t do it, mate,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Don’t go there. You’re so flattered some blonde totty fancies you, you’ve been twirling your wedding ring under the table all night.’
‘I have not.’
‘Don’t be such a tosser, Adam. You and Beth have a good thing.’
But by the time I shared a taxi home with Emma, my ring was in my pocket, my choice made. I thought of Beth, my gorgeous, loyal, talented wife; the woman who made me laugh at least once a day; the woman I loved, the woman I would have died for, still would. I did think of her, but only briefly.
Emma was the most forward woman I’d ever met, launching herself on me in the back of the taxi, cupping my balls with long manicured fingers. I was weak, powerless. And months later, I’m still a weak forty-three-year-old man who has hurt his wife so much he doesn’t know how to fix it, so chooses to ignore it and indulge in copious amounts of fantastic, life-affirming sex with a new and younger woman.
I leave the office early, exit the underground car park to a beautiful September evening, the sun still quite high in the sky. Just across the river to my right, I see the shape of the London Eye, its capsules laden with carefree tourists. It’s Friday and normally
