‘I love that for us, hahahaha xxx,’ she has texted. I didn’t know you could feel an emotion that’s a midway point between curiosity and dread, but I have found that rare outpost.
Looking into his inbox, I see that Johnny has also deleted all of his sent messages. Curiouser and curiouser.
I never had any reason to believe that Johnny might have an affair, and the fact that I never suspected, and yet he might be doing it anyway, makes me second guess everything.
I’m still feeling thrown for a loop when he emerges,freshly showered and somehow different and more attractive than when he went in.
‘Who the fuck’s Melanie?’ I ask, hoping I sound smooth as an assassination arrow. Even the taste of her name in my mouth– Melanie, the name of breakfast TV presenters and WAGs– feels metallic.
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Why are you even in my phone?’
‘Well, that’s the wrong response to this line of enquiry, for starters.’
‘Melanie’s someone on the curation team. We’re talking about a project, nothing more.’
‘“I love that for us”? “Kiss kiss kiss”?’
‘So she’s a bit of a flirt!’
‘So you think that’s OK?’
‘Because nothing is going on here, yeah, I do.’ Now it’s his turn to get indignant. ‘But thanks for your trust, Esther, yeah.Trèshelpful.’
I can’t think of anything to say, but I’m damned if he’s getting the last word. ‘Well, ooh la fucking la.’
We get into bed together, and Johnny gives his pillow a too-hard punch and bounces down on his side, facing away from me. I stare at the ceiling, summoning Ted in my mind’s eye as a sort of revenge for this whole scenario. If I think hard enough, I can see Ted look at me with pure desire. I look back at him, acknowledging a loveliness that passes between us.
‘You know nothing can ever happen here between us, I’m a married woman,’ I will tell Ted.
‘I know, and that’s OK. I just needed to express how I feel, even though I understand we can’t be together. I will always love your sense of commitment,’ he will say.
A day later, a phone conversation with Mum starts with promise– much hand-wringing about the fate of Mr McGinley who has recently fallen from a ladder. A healthy dollop of speculation on Your One Four Doors Down and the fact she keeps the curtains closed past 10 a.m. The misfortunes and minor tragedies in our cul-de-sac are the sort of glue that pulls us together, but we fall back into our usual tango all too soon.
‘I’m feeling a lot better about… things. What happened back in June,’ I tell her. I feel duty-bound to tell her this, even if it’s not entirely true. My mother cannot physically handle a situation in which I tell her I am not doing well. Something like a little grenade goes off in her, sending shrapnel this way and that. It’s as though I am putting her deliberately in agony, for fun. I bleed, she bleeds worse, and remains resentful that she is somehow being made do so at all. So it’s easier to say nothing.
‘That’s good to hear, Essie. Onwards and upwards, as they say.’
‘Actually, I’m…’ Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t fucking well say it. ‘This data job is really not my thing. I’m not sure it’s anyone’s thing. It’s just… codes. Half the time I don’t even know what I’m doing them for. I could be setting up nuclear Armageddon over there for all I’m aware.’
‘Esther,’ she wails, truly anguished. ‘What did I tell you before about staying in your lane? You have this lovely job. More money than your dad or I ever made at your age. It’s London! A wonderful life! Fine, you’ve had your ups and downs’– now it’s my turn to let silence do its thing– ‘but why are you hellbent on upending a perfectly nice life? Just… why would you do this to yourself?’
The exhale at the end is fairly theatrical.
‘What now, you think you’re going to get a job you actually like?’ she adds, a vicious edge to her voice.
‘You’re my mother,’ I enunciate slowly. ‘I don’t come to you talking about the things I like. Not when we’ve people breaking their holes on ladders to talk about first.’
She’s not done. ‘And what does Johnny think? I’m sure he’s not got any sort of time for talk like this.’ She spits this last bit and I can somehow feel spittle on my face, even with the Irish Sea between us.
There’s only ever one way out of these conversations and that is to capitulate before things get particularly aggressive and one of us drops to the level of calling the other something really cruel. It’s happened before and the recovery period is, let’s just say, protracted.
‘You’re right, Mum,’ I reply. ‘It’s a good life. It is.’
‘Stay in your lane, Esther,’ is her parting shot. ‘It may not feel like it all the time, but it’s usually the best place to find yourself.’
I hear her taking a drag on her cigarette and exhaling her trademark arrow of smoke. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I need to talk to your father about all of this.’
What the hell does that mean?After she hangs up on me, I stare into the blackness of the screen.
