again. Have I been married for so long that it is impossible to think of myself as one single individual person anymore?
Charles and I had always said we’d explore South East Asia together in our retirement, which we intended to take early, while we were still young and healthy and able-bodied.
It was a retirement for which we had saved meticulously and planned relentlessly.
Suddenly, I find it amusing that I’m in Bangkok with no prior planning whatsoever.
I slug back what’s left in my glass and start to laugh. Hysterically.
Then I crawl into bed, pull the sheet over my head, and cry long shuddering sobs.
How could he do it? How long had it been going on?
What a fool I’d been, thinking we were happily married.
Thinking people actually admired our long successful marriage.
When in fact, it had all been a lie. A joke. A joke on me.
Not only had I been betrayed, I’d been totally humiliated.
I’m suddenly convinced that everyone except stupid, gullible and trusting me had known that my marriage was a sham – that my husband was an adulterous cheat and my best friend was a lying whore. I hadn’t had a freaking clue.
My mind is in a loop replaying the events of yesterday over and over again, in slow motion.
Was it only yesterday?
In hindsight, I realise now that her silver BMW had been parked outside my house.
For heaven’s sake – that was a freaking big clue!
I felt so angry, so betrayed. I’d wanted to kill them both violently. But rather than a knife, for some reason I’d grabbed my passport from the kitchen drawer and saved myself all the hacking and bloodshed by calling an Uber to take me straight to the airport.
And at the airport, a strangely calm and rational part of me had stepped up to take control, logged into our savings account via the banking app on my phone and transferred half the money into my account. Then I’d bought a ticket to the furthest away destination listed on the flight departures board. Normally, in planning for such a trip, I’d have certainly travelled economy and I’d have packed meticulously, choosing at leisure which lightweight stylish outfits to pack in my shiny hard-shell suitcase, that came with TSA approved locks and a lifetime guarantee.
But the little voice of calm and rational thought in my head told me I had no choice but to pay for a business class seat because economy was already full, and that buying a rucksack, a couple of sundresses and a sarong in the duty-free while waiting for my gate to be announced would easily suffice on this occasion.
It’s November and, just like me, London was cold and dark and miserable. Yet at the other side of the airport, in the departures terminal building at Gatwick, it was like being in a parallel universe of blindingly hot tropical colours and ultra-light fabrics and high-factor sunscreen and designer sunglasses. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the champagne and oyster bar was pulling in the revellers. Wine and cocktails and beers were being knocked back in the faux oldie English pub and people were partying in the premium lounges like they were already at their destinations. I felt like a gate-crasher to the party.
I bought a few items of clothing and a squishy travel pillow and a small carry-on size backpack, as I’d come through check-in and security with nothing other than my phone and my handbag.
Then, seeing my gate had already been announced and my plane was boarding, I ran for what must have been half a mile to the gate in such a panic that I hadn’t time for reticent thoughts or last-minute misgivings.
On boarding the plane, I’d planned to have just one glass of wine and then, in my extra-large, extra-comfortable, extra-reclining, extra-expensive seat, to sleep for the whole journey. Then I wouldn’t have to think about what I was doing, where I was going, and what on earth I would do when I got there. But instead, I drank my welcome glass of champagne with gusto and then continued drinking wine while watching back-to-back movies for twelve hours instead, until it felt like my eyes were falling out my head and we were descending into Bangkok.
Early this morning, I was woken by the light of a brand-new day scorching through a gap in the floor-to-ceiling curtains and across the king-sized bed towards me like a hot laser beam.
I was covered in sweat from a nightmare. It was every married woman’s worst nightmare.
In it, I was standing in my bedroom doorway at home with my mouth open but mute and with open eyes that couldn’t blink, watching my husband thrusting himself ecstatically into the naked, voluptuous and pendulous flesh of someone I’d previously called my best friend.
It was horrifying. It was disgusting. It was sickening.
On waking, realising where I was and that it had been real and not just a nightmare, I leapt from the bed to rush to the bathroom to throw up. But I could only dry-retch, as I’d eaten nothing since I could remember. Reeling back into the bedroom, I checked my mobile phone and saw that I had lots of ‘call me back’ messages from my two worried sons.
I also saw my phone was almost out of charge, but I didn’t have a two-pin charger.
Instead of calling my sons back, I texted instead.
I’m fine. I’m at the Holiday Inn in Bangkok. Don’t worry.
I’d already spoken to my mum and my sons from Gatwick. I’d been in a bit of a state.
Well, that’s an understatement, I’d been in a hell of a state.
My mum had been just as distraught and as angry as I was when I told her what Charles had done to me. Josh and Lucas aren’t children anymore, they’re grown men in their twenties – so although they, too, were upset, they’d also understood my reasons for leaving their father.
‘Mum, stay right where you are. I’m coming to get you!’ Josh, my eldest, had insisted.
‘No. darling, please, I need to get away. I’ll call you when I get there.’
‘Where is there? Where are you going, Mum?’
‘As far away from your father and his whore as I can possibly get!’ I’d yelled into my phone.
Now, feeling faint with hunger, I brush my teeth and shower, before slipping into one of the lightweight dresses I’d bought at Gatwick and deciding I’ll be brave and go down for breakfast.
I seem to be operating on autopilot. Not so much thinking but functioning. My head hurts from crying, jetlag and dehydration. Downstairs, I manage to buy painkillers, a two-pin plug adapter in the hotel shop, and order coffee and a chocolate chip muffin at the lobby café. It’s 1 p.m. local time and so breakfast has apparently been over for quite some time.
The café is busy. I sit at a table next to a couple of middle-aged American ladies who are chatting to each other enthusiastically over a tourist map and planning their afternoon sightseeing. ‘I say we go to the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha,’ says the blonde one.
‘Or,
