My eyes stray to the window. It’s still early. By the thin blue light filtering through the blind, I judge that it’s approaching dawn. There’s no birdsong to greet it; just the distant rumble of traffic on the dual carriageway. But then, there’s been no birdsong in my life since my marriage began to crumble; no sunshine. Just this cold, empty bleakness that surrounds me and seems to reside inside me.
My gaze travels to the bland, cream-coloured walls. The room is still spinning, though not with the nauseating merry-go-round momentum it did last night. More like a slowly turning roundabout in some sad, forgotten park. I can almost hear the haunting laughter of the children who’ve abandoned it.
Gulping back the acrid taste in my throat, I twist my head to the side. He’s lying on his back, his face turned towards me, one arm crooked under his head. His hair is dark, military-cut, with just a sprinkling of grey. His eyelashes are long, luxuriant, sweeping his high cheekbones as he sleeps. He’s obviously well groomed. I try to take some small comfort from that. He reminds me of Jason. I feel my insides knot. The same sharp spasm I feel every time I realise I’ve almost certainly lost him: my husband, the person who is fundamentally part of me. This man is not Jason. Jason doesn’t have tattoos. Jason doesn’t like rough sex. I know this person intimately – my body, sore and raw, tells me I do – but I don’t know him at all.
Did I have sex with him at the nightclub?My heart thumps in my chest; broken thoughts leap around in my head. I see the overly made-up face of the woman looking back at me in the mirror and my stomach recoils, rebelling against the memory, as well as the wine I poured into it, so easily, so carelessly. God, what am I doing?
Who am I?I don’t know any more. This person lying here with a stranger is not me. Not the me I used to be: a mother, a wife. A good mother, I’d thought. A good wife. But not good enough. Inhaling, I hold my breath, try to stop a silent tear sliding from my eye.
Did Jason miss me last night? My heart stalls at that thought. Jason doesn’t try to stop me going out. He knows that, in choosing to throw away what we had, he forfeited the right to interfere. He asked me not to go one night. I told him he could stop me by telling me he wouldn’t leave me. He didn’t. I bite back a low moan. He doesn’t want me. He’s not jealous. Why did I imagine he would be, when emotionally he’s already left me? He’s staying for the children. He doesn’t want to rock their worlds. He will miss them if he goes, that much I do know: Josh, his scrawny ten-year-old son, who’s already decided he wants to do computer science, to grow up to be clever and big and strong, just like his father. Poor Josh. How badly will his illusions be shattered? Holly, the baby I refused to abort, despite my father pressurising me to. His granddaughter. Even now, knowing the truth about the kind of man my father is, I struggle to believe he would have had me snuff out her life.
Jason worships her. He has loved her ferociously since the first time he glimpsed her tiny form on the monitor. He swore he would die to protect her when he first cradled her gently in his arms; that he would kill anyone who dared hurt her. Would he die for her now? Would he stay if he realised that, by leaving, he would be killing part of his daughter, crushing her childhood innocence and showing her how cruel life can be? How cruel love can be? Does he realise that he,herfather, would be the man who would hurt her most of all?
Just like my father, he will destroy the child he created. I never imagined Jason capable of that. There’s part of me that still hopes he won’t, that somehow I can make him believe that our love for each other is strong enough to endure. He has been sidetracked by an illusion of his perfect woman, that’s all. I have to make him see that the person he wants to be with is me. But it’s not me, is it? I reach to wipe away another slow tear. What would he think if he could see me now: this sad morning-after creature, lying under sheets that smell of sex, next to a complete stranger?
Is he still in bed, I wonder? I picture him, his arm thrown across his forehead, lying next to the ghost of me, dreaming of a new life without his wife.
He stirs, my military-haired stranger, grunting slightly as he does, reaching for me in his drowsiness. He probably doesn’t know who it is he’s reaching for – soft flesh, female flesh, that’s all. Wriggling away from him, I ease myself woozily to a sitting position and realise dawn has turned to day. And then it occurs to me: I don’t knowwhatday. Is it a school day? Frantically, I sift through my alcohol-induced haze. I can’t remember. Panic engulfs me, and I wonder again whether I might be losing my grip on reality. I’m drinking too much, thinking too much, struggling to keep track.Friday.I seize on it. It’s Friday. Breathing a slow breath, I feel calmer for anchoring this piece of knowledge in the sea of madness my life has become.
God, what time is it?I fumble for my phone on the bedside locker. Eight a.m.? Buthow? I would have sworn it was only six o’clock a moment ago. And then I hear the unmistakable spatter of rain outside, which explains the drab blue-grey start to the day. Instantly, I am transported back to the dark, defining days of my childhood – the rain lashing the windows, the cloying air of the steamy kitchen.
My dad is circulating, shaking hands with the funeral guests, sombre black-clad figures with pitying faces. He is stoic, despite the cross he bears. And my eight-year-old self watches him. And she knows. She knows the secret that will stay forever hidden within the walls of that grand house, the house my sister should have grown up in. His cross to bear is that the small body in the ground lies there because of him.
My mind fast-forwards, jerking through the images I try to keep stored away. I’m at Mum’s sixtieth birthday party. My father’s talking to Jason as I watch from the dance floor, belittling him, humiliating him. Always doing that.Ihumiliated him that night, not once, not twice, but three times: dancing with the toy boy, bringing up the subject of the loan, finally turning him down in bed. I see Jason’s frustration. Ifeelit: a sharp painful knot right at the core of me. That was when I realised the foundations of my marriage had truly been rocked. One final push from my father ensured it would topple. He’d known it. He set Jason up, and then sat back and watched while we fell apart.
I have to go.I pull myself to my feet. I have to try to reassure my sweet little girl, who’s not much older than that lonely little girl at the funeral. But Holly’s not me. She’s extroverted, confident, bright and sassy. Innocent. Blinking away the tears, I head shakily to the bathroom, pee quickly, gulp tap water into my mouth, spit it out. I think of Josh: the constant reminders to brush his teeth, his confusion, his palpable anger. I have to go. I collect up my scattered clothes, my cheeks burning with shame. They will be missing me. I’m not the same mummy I used to be. I have seen the bewilderment in their little faces. Things are not running as smoothly as they were when I was organised – smiling and caring, not ranting and raving, slightly insane. But my children still love me. This is my one certainty in a life that’s unravelling around me.
I should be there. I hastily tug on my underwear.
My mum, she was always there. And now… I so wish she would call. There are many words unspoken between us, secrets we’ve both chosen to bury, but she must realise I need her. Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I grab my phone. My thumb hovers over her number, but I hesitate. What if it goes to voicemail again. What will I do then?
I’m about to call Jason when my phone pings:Hope you had a good night. Taking the kids to school, he’s sent. There’s no sign-off, no ‘see you soon’. The three kisses he would normally send are obvious by their absence. They’re an expression of love, after all, and he no longer loves me.
But hedoes– if only he would believe it. I have to make him. I have to make him realise he wantsme. I reach to smooth back my hair before I remember it’s no longer there. Short is easier to keep while I live my double life: mother when I’m home, a bad mother now, no longer a wife; and someone the complete opposite of me when I’m not. Will the fragmented sides ever come together, I wonder? Would Jason find that person enticing, exciting?’
‘Hey.’ I feel an arm snake around my waist as I pick up my holdall. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry? It wasn’t that bad, was it?’
I clamp my mind down on the memories – jagged memories, incomplete and broken: a woman’s body going through the motions, somewhere else in her head. ‘Home,’ I say. I unfurl his arm and step away from him, then drag my change of clothes from my bag – clothing more suitable than the ridiculous outfit I was wearing last night. ‘I have to get back to my children.’
‘Children?’ I hear the surprise in his voice.
‘Two,’ I tell him, tugging on my jeans. ‘A girl and a boy, aged eleven and ten.’
‘Blimey, you must have had them young,’ he says. ‘You’re married then?’
‘Yes.’ Pulling my jumper over my head, I turn to face him.
‘Right.’ He smiles ac’est la viesmile and shrugs. And I thank God he appears to be quite reasonable. It could have ended differently. Badly. I didn’t care last night. I truly believed it wouldn’t matter if I ceased to exist.Howcould I have thought that? However unbearable my life has become, how could I have been so selfish I hadn’t considered my children?
Guilt twisting my stomach, I retrieve my pumps from my bag and push my feet into them. ‘See you around.’ I give him a small smile before I leave. I don’t owe him anything. The room was already paid for. And he owes me nothing; I think he’s aware of that.
He nods and then cocks his head to one side. ‘You look different without the make-up and stuff,’ he observes.
‘Better or worse?’ I ask, curious as to how other men perceive me.
‘Just different,’ he answers.
Yes, I am.Giving him another smile for his tactfulness, I collect my bag and turn for the door.I’m not the woman my husband imagines I am.
