‘Love you,’ says Nelly at the door, without turning back.
I breathe in sharply. It’s the first time in her life that she’s said that to me, and I break into a smile. She might be breaking up our marriage, but I have one thing to thank Georgie for.
‘Nelly’s here,’ I say to Stephen, pointing at the living room, as he returns frantically from the park.
‘Oh, thank God,’ he says. ‘We looked everywhere for her. How did she get back?’
‘Walked.’
‘God, I’m sorry,’ he says, and puts Nathan down. ‘Go on, go and see if Nelly’s all right.’
‘I didn’t find Nelly, but I found this,’ says Nathan, and he opens his hand to show me a large beetle on a dead leaf. I congratulate him and he runs off shouting to Nelly about his monster find.
‘In here,’ I say to Stephen and point to the living room with the hammer. The last man I entertained in this room met with a sharp and sudden ending, but I don’t mention this. He walks past me like a schoolboy entering the head’s study for a caning.
‘You took them to meet Georgie. What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘It was a mistake... Yeah. A total... Complete...’
‘Fuck up?’
‘Misjudgement. Mum told me that children are much better if you just tell them the truth as early as possible. Nelly just ran off. We were desperately looking for her.’
‘You’re sometimes so stupid it offends me to think that I actually married you.’
‘It wasn’t ideal. Not my best decision.’ He hits his head with his hand and looks genuinely upset.
‘You can have your divorce,’ I say, swinging the hammer loosely. ‘Not that you’ll need one.’
‘What?’ He sits up, clearly confused.
‘I won’t fight it, and I don’t want anything from you.’
He looks at me with a scrunched-up face that denotes suspicion. ‘That’s uncommonly considerate, are you dying?’
‘No. But I’m having the children.’
‘Shouldn’t we share them?’
‘You don’t seem responsible enough. I’ll let you have weekends. But you’ll have to see them alone for the first year. I don’t want Georgie near them, OK?’
‘Well, OK, at least until they’re used to the new situation,’ he says, as expected. It’s always best to negotiate terms when your enemy is weakest.
‘Now, about us. Stephen, you’re not the first man to respond to a debilitating degeneration of his masculinity, and the growing autonomy of his wife, by sleeping with a younger woman.’
‘She’s four months younger than you, Lalla.’
‘Exactly, and you’re not the only man in the world, either. Actually, you’re not the only man in this marriage. Not even the only husband, in fact.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I’ve met someone, recently. A past relationship has reared its head. It presents a good opportunity for me.’
‘Who is it? Someone we know?’
‘Someone I was married to before I met you.’
‘You never told me anything about being married.’
