It’s Friday, and he will be trying to decompress from a busy week at the bank where he works as a fund manager. He makes a lot of money, and works very hard, and he thrives on the pressure of it all. I could never afford to live in a place like this on my NHS salary, and it is yet another thing I know I should feel grateful for.
And yet, I realise as I make my way to the front door, I am not. It is a house, not a home, and part of me yearns for our younger days, when we were low on funds but high on love. The Mark and Ella we were back then feel like strangers now, distant memories, versions of ourselves that have been buried by all the layers of years and experience.
I am, I decide, being ridiculous, and I close the door behind me with new resolve to find that version of myself again. I must still be there, somewhere. I just need to send out a search party.
I pause in the hallway, listening out for the expected sounds of the TV but not finding them. I frown, dump my stuff, and stroll through to the kitchen. It is a grand affair, marble surfaces and a barely used six-ring hob for people who live on takeaways, restaurant food and microwaveable ready-meals. I see two wine glasses, half empty, and absent-mindedly I tip out the contents and put them in the dishwasher. He must have gone for a nap, and is probably dreaming dreams of spreadsheets and balances and return on investments.
I sit down on the couch in the perfectly decorated living room, and stare around me. I have the strangest sensation that I have never been here before, that I am a visitor in my own life. I see the framed pictures of the two of us over the years – me and Mark on holiday in Santorini, me and Mark at Wimbledon, me and Mark with his parents at their home in Scotland. The photos are proof that it all happened, but it still feels unreal. Removed. Maybe, I think, I have finally cracked this meditation lark – and I have meditated my way out of existence.
I remember an elderly patient I saw recently, struggling with memory loss. She described to me how she could vividly remember her early years – her childhood, her pregnancies, her wedding – but struggled to recall what she had for tea the day before. I feel a little like that right now – I know I have travelled with Mark, built a life with him, but none of it seems as bright in my mind as the stuff I did before I even knew him.
My childhood, my university years, the wild summer of backpacking my way around Europe with a group of friends I now barely see. They’ve all moved on, become Facebook friends more than real friends. They all have children, husbands, their posts filled with pictures of adorable family scenes and dog walks and nights out with school-gate pals. Their lives are not the same as mine, and yet I still have those memories – four girls gone feral in France, in our early 20s and our futures stretching out before us.
I shake off the melancholy, and decide I need that shower. That I need to wash the sad away. I’ve already messaged work to say I am sick, and it didn’t even feel like a lie. I work for an agency that provides locum doctors, and I know they’ll be able to replace me. I’m not that important.
I walk slowly up the stairs, as quietly as I can so that I don’t wake Mark up. Partly because I don’t want to disturb him, partly because I don’t want to have to talk to him.
As I reach the landing, I hear a low murmur of conversation, no clear words but the distinct sounds of people talking and laughing. I freeze, momentarily scared that we have been broken into. I soon realise that it seems unlikely that burglars would be sitting in the spare room having a chat, and wonder instead if a radio has been left on. Even though, you know, we don’t have a radio in that room.
I pause, hear more giggling, and push the door open. I see Mark, the man who has been my partner for the last 13 years, lying naked on the bed. I see Kim, his PA, in the process of doing some kind of mock-burlesque strip-tease in front of him, teasing off her bra and whirling it around her head. She lets it fly, and a whisper of black lace gets tangled in the dangling light fitting.
I see both of them turn at the sound I make, my gasp of complete disbelief. The looks on their faces would have been comedic if this was a TV show, but it’s not – it’s my actual life. It’s pain and betrayal and hurt and shock, and beneath all of that, perhaps this scene is also not entirely unexpected. It seems to click naturally into place with the rest of my day.
I stare at them both, incapable of forming words, then back away, closing the door behind me. I find that I’m blinking rapidly, that my knees are weak, and I place my hands on the wall as I stagger along, like a mime artist. I am only down a corridor from the master bedroom, but it feels like a million miles away, the space stretching ahead of me, warped into something psychedelic and trippy. My house has turned into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
I finally reach the room, falling inside its temporary refuge. At least I didn’t find them in the bed we share – a small mercy, but a mercy all the same. He may be a cheater, but he’s a considerate cheater at least.
I collapse onto the mattress, puffing in air and staring around me, trying to make sense of it all. I stay upright, my hands grasping my knees to keep myself steady.
I’m not sure how long I sit like that, frozen and broken and veering between fight and flight, but eventually I manage to stand up, my legs weak and my breath coming way too fast, teetering into the en-suite. I splash water onto my face, scrubbing at my eyes and kneading my knuckles hard into my sockets until they are sore.
It doesn’t help. I can’t wash away that scene; I cannot unsee it. Mark, Kim, all of that bare flesh. Even worse, maybe, the laughter, the giggles, the strip-tease – the fun they were having together. That hurts more than the sex, and I think I will remember the giggles for even longer than the boobs.
I lean against the tiled wall and slide unsteadily to the floor. I gaze around, at the signs of our life together – the toothbrushes next to each other in a glass; the little tray filled with his cuff-links and my ear-rings; the laundry basket where our clothes are mingled together more intimately than we are.
None of it feels real. Seeing them together doesn’t feel real, the betrayal doesn’t feel real. This life we apparently lead doesn’t feel real. Only the pain of it feels real – the sting of my eyes, the blood on my lip as I bite it, the cold sense of numbness that is spreading through my body.
I am in shock, I tell myself. I am understandably in shock, and I need to move, or I will freeze here, immobile and forever trapped on a bathroom floor. I will become a statue, like a person from Pompeii trapped in the ashes of my old world.
I hear footsteps on the stairs, the slamming of the front door. I scramble up, make my way back into the bedroom.
Mark walks in, dressed in a slapdash version of his work clothes – trousers on but belt not buckled, shirt on but not buttoned all the way up, his feet bare. His expensive haircut is a disaster zone, dark strands sticking out in distress. He holds his hands out towards me in a gesture that reminds me of someone trying to tame a wild animal, taking hesitant steps in my direction as though scared I might leap up and tear out his jugular with my teeth.
I don’t have the energy for that. I don’t have the energy for anything.
“Babe…” he says, standing tentatively beside me, ready to flee. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to see that.”
“Really?” I say, gazing into the blue eyes I know so well. Or thought I did. “You didn’t want me to see it, so you thought the best place to bring your other woman was our home?”
“You weresupposedto be at work!” he replies, his voice plaintive and almost peeved – as though I’ve somehow messed up here. Somehow failed to stick to his plan. That pushes me over the edge into anger, and I finally find some fury.
“And you’resupposedto be able to keep your dick in your pants, Mark, so I guess we’re both a bit disappointed right now, aren’t we?”
He recoils at my tone, and I see him visibly deflate. I see him turn it all over in his mind, can almost visualise the mental cogs turning, the arguments he is formulating, the plan he is making to explain, to justify, to mollify. As I said, he thrives under pressure.
“Don’t bother,” I say quietly, my anger fizzling out as fast as it came. “Don’t bother with the excuses, or the explanations, or the apologies. Don’t bother because you know what, Mark, I don’t really care.”
I am walking towards the wardrobe, fumbling with the handles. My fingers seem to have become disconnected from my mind.
