‘It was, wonderful, intense, beautiful,’ he interrupted.
‘But absolutely shit every day since!’
Good girl . . . count backwards from ten for me . . .
‘How do you know I had a wife, and ...’ He swallowed, seemingly now, as then, unwilling to bring his children into this.
‘I spoke to Georgina.’ She spoke confidently and hoped he felt as winded as she had on that day so long ago.
‘You ... you did? When?’ She picked up the underlying note of panic and was thrilled by it, knowing it was no less than he deserved.
‘When I realised you’d run away.’
‘I didn’t run away!’
‘Oh, forgive me – I didn’t realise you called, left a note, sent a letter, went out of your way to explain the situation to me, came to say goodbye?’
She heard him exhale and there was a beat before he spoke.
‘What did you tell her?’
‘Nothing. I told her nothing because she sounded nice and she ... she is a mum and I felt like the worst kind of person.’
‘She is nice.’ He sniffed – was he crying? It was hard to tell and harder still for her to picture. ‘You’d like her.’
‘I’dlikeher?’ The words coasted on unnatural laughter; was he for real?
‘Yes, everyone does.’
‘Not you, apparently, Wilkie. At least, you can’t like her enough, because liking someone, loving someone, means not treating them in that way, not lying to them, not hiding things from them, not sleeping with someone else.’
‘You make it sound so straightforward.’
‘Because it is! It really is! It’s so basic, and a prerequisite I would hope, being honest, being open. How could you do that to her? To me?’ She felt winded by the exchange as her adrenaline surged.
‘We met at university, Georgina and I, a long, long time ago.’
‘I don’t know why you think I might be interested.’ How she hated this version of herself, feeling the spark of petty jealousy, when she had no right, not at all.
‘I don’t know what to say that won’t upset you.’ He sighed.
‘Which again begs the question why you called in the first place!’
‘I just wanted to.’
‘Well, if my whole sorry encounter with you taught me one thing, it’s that what we want and what we get are rarely the same thing in life. You put my heart through a meat grinder and abandoned me.’ She had chosen a long, long time ago not to confide in him about the baby, knowing it would serve no purpose other than to ladle more misery on to an already sorrowful tale. ‘It was a horrible thing to do and there is nothing you can say or do that will excuse your shoddy behaviour. Nothing.’ She felt a burst of pride to be standing up to him, to be saying all the things she had wanted to over the years, showing him she was no longer cowed or so easily swayed.
‘Georgina and I had been together for so long, it was like we were friends, good friends, and I loved her, I love her, but then—’
‘But then what, Wilkie?’
‘I met you and I fell in love. Not the sedate, predictable, slow love that Georgina and I shared, but a fast, exciting, intoxicating, euphoria-inducing kind of love!’
It was conflicting.
Her heart flexed and her gut bunched. Here he was, confirming what she had longed to be true: the reciprocal nature of their entanglement. She had not been mad! She had not imagined it! Yet it sickened her, too, to hear that he could so easily pick up something shiny and new while his wife, Georgina, sat at home with their little children. Children Lilly would never get to have.
It was as exquisite as it was tragic.
