Another Mother's Life (38 page)

Catherine paused, and Alison watched the muscles in her jaw tighten and her face tense. “But
you
… since we were six years old you’d spent almost every day telling me to trust you, to follow your lead, that I could rely on you because you were my best friend, my family, my hero. And then in one second?” Catherine snapped her
fingers, making Alison start. “All of that went up in smoke and you sacrificed our friendship, you sacrificed me to get what you wanted and I don’t care if you were only seventeen and that we were both foolish girls caught up in a moment. What I
care
about is that after everything you left me. You left me all alone, too weak to be able to stand up for myself, because I’d never had to before. You always did it for me. I didn’t know how to cope without you. I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to my parents about the abortion. And if you’d have been there with me I would have been. So at the end of the day it’s not that you slept with Marc behind my back. It’s that you chose him over me. That’s why I’m angry at you—and at me—and I know that it’s not fair, but it’s how I feel, even now after all of this time.”

Gradually the morning sunlight seeped into the room, illuminating the condensation on the window and creeping across the carpet, briefly turning it into a field of shimmering gold. Catherine stretched out her palms facedown on the table and let the sun warm them.

“For a while,” Alison began hesitantly, “for years, actually, I was so convinced that I’d done the right thing, for me
and
for you. I honestly believed that I’d rescued you from Marc and him from his life and had won myself the only man I could ever love in the process.” Alison glanced tentatively at Catherine’s face, trying to read her expression. But her features were locked. So she took a breath and went on.

“It was horrible being away from home for those few weeks, truly awful. We stayed in hostel after hostel because we couldn’t afford anything better, places that stank, were crawling with vermin, and where you couldn’t leave anything lying around because the second you turned your back it would be gone. Every night I’d cry, but when Marc was asleep, because I didn’t want him to know. I wanted to come back home so badly, have a bath, sleep in a clean
bed, have my mum cook for me. Those first couple of weeks were hard, but even though I wanted to go home and I missed Mum, I never once considered actually going because I was so convinced that I’d done the right thing. I thought I loved him.

“But it was more than that. I was jealous of you, Catherine, and angry that a plain quiet mouse like you had gotten to him, when it should have been me. I didn’t want you to have him so I took him, without realizing what I was getting myself into. And then when I found out I was pregnant and I realized it was real life and not some little girl’s game, I was terrified. I knew I couldn’t let him go. I knew I had to say anything, do anything to make him come with me. I knew he felt lonely, that he missed having a proper family. I knew that not because he told me, but because you had. Because you were the one who really knew him. So I used that to make him choose me. I told him I’d be his family, I’d look after him. But what I really meant was that I needed him to look after me. I didn’t tell him about the baby until after he left with me. I tricked him into going with me and I manipulated him into staying. Or at least I thought I did. Looking back now, I don’t think he would have stayed with me if it hadn’t suited him, no matter what I said.”

“Eventually Marc got some casual work in a car dealership, washing the cars, cleaning up, and they let him watch them work so he could learn a few things. Once we got the cash together we rented this little studio apartment in Camden. This one room, with a shitty little electric hob that didn’t get hot and a fridge that didn’t get cold. After about a month at the dealership Marc told me that they agreed to apprentice him and help him go back to college. He was so pleased with himself, so proud. And I looked at him and I thought he feels like that because of me, because he’s doing all of that for me, and I think that’s when the jealousy and fear began to drain away and I realized that if I could hang on to
him now, even though I’d won him so unfairly, then I would be able to love him and he would be able to love me. After about six weeks, Dad found us. He’d been looking all that time, apparently. Poor Dad, every day and all night walking the street trying to spot me. One of the hostels we’d stayed in gave him our address.

“He and Marc had a fight—a proper fistfight. You should have seen me, Cathy, I was on Marc’s back trying to drag him off of my dad, begging him not to hurt him. But when I finally got in between them I told Dad to go home alone. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done because I missed him and Mum so much and I’d have given anything for a hug from him. But I couldn’t go home because by then I loved Marc and I was crazy about him, I just couldn’t get enough of him, I was always thirsty and hungry for him, always starving for his attention. And he never left my side during those first couple of months, except when he was working. He never once suggested that I go back home or get off his back but he
was
distant, just a little bit removed from us. He was thinking of you, I expect, but I didn’t know that then, or want to know it.

“He worked, and worked and worked until finally he and I and our lives began to knit together. We felt close,
I
felt close to
him
. The years after Dominic was born were the happiest years with him. When we didn’t have much but we had enough and he was proud of himself, felt good about himself because he was improving our lives day by day, taking care of his son and then after a few years his daughter too. If he was seeing other women back then, I didn’t know about it. Or I didn’t want to know about it. I was so happy.”

Alison paused. “I didn’t think about you much then, I blocked you out of my memory, cut you out of my life. And if you did ever cross my mind, I’d tell myself I’d done what was best and I’d look around at our flat, at Dom and Gemma and at how happy Marc
and I were, and I’d tell myself there’s the proof, there is the proof that I was right to do what I did.

“It was while I was pregnant with Amy that I found out about the first woman, the first one I was aware of, anyway.” Alison took a breath and rubbed her hands over her face. Catherine noticed that her fingers were trembling as she rested them back on the table.

“It was a nurse, from Gemma’s nursery. I couldn’t believe it when I found out because Marc never picked Gemma up from nursery except for this one time when I’d been so tired with the pregnancy that I’d begged him to leave work early and do it for me. And then a few days after that I began to notice that this girl, Lou her name was, who’d always been so polite and friendly, began acting all off with me, and while once she would happily chat about Gemma with me, she would barely speak a word to me now. I didn’t know what I’d done to upset her. She was only a young girl about nineteen but you know, when you’re pregnant you become sensitive about everything. I was really worried about it. I even mentioned it to Marc and he told me it was hormones playing up again. We even laughed about it.

“Then one day after dropping Gemma off I asked Lou if everything was all right. I told her I was sorry if I’d offended her in some way. She burst into tears and told me she’d been seeing Marc, and that she hated herself because she knew he had two kids and another on the way but she couldn’t help it, she loved him …” Alison trailed off into silence and Catherine waited impassively for her to go on. Perhaps almost a minute passed before Catherine prompted her.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I took Gemma out of nursery. I hadn’t wanted her to go in the first place. It was Marc’s idea. He thought I’d need a break from both the kids during my pregnancy. And I waited until Marc came
home that night and I said to him very politely that if he didn’t stop seeing Lou at the nursery I would be leaving with both of his children. He wasn’t shocked or horrified that I’d discovered him, just … regretful. He apologized, said it wouldn’t happen again, and that was that. At first I screamed and shouted and there were tears, things broken. I threatened to leave him but I didn’t mean it and he knew that. Looking back, I can’t believe how calm I was after the first outburst. All I wanted was for the whole incident to be over and for me to not have to think about it again, to go on as before and pretend it never happened. I think I was more upset about Lou being uncomfortable with me than about her sleeping with Marc. I think that I had been expecting him to stray sooner or later. I’d prepared myself to accept it without even realizing. All I could think was that I had a baby on the way. I was in my twenties with three kids and I’d never had a job. I couldn’t think of a job I could do. Being on my own just wasn’t an option.”

“But that wasn’t the last time?” Catherine asked her.

“No.” Alison shrugged. “There were four more that I know of after that. The last time was at Christmas. One of his salesman’s wives came up to me at the Christmas party and said, ‘Look, Alison, I don’t want to do this to you, but it’s not right. Everyone knows what he’s doing except you. He’s with her right now.’ And she told me he was with his personal assistant in the office.” Alison’s laugh was mirthless. “The thing was his PA was my next-door neighbor, a woman of about my age.
I’d
got her the job with him because she wanted something part-time now that her children were at school. We used to go to pilates together on Thursday mornings. And the salesman’s wife was right, this time Marc had been extra careful that
I
shouldn’t find out. But everybody else knew. All the mums at school, the families on our street, the people at the dealership, even Dominic. It was as if my whole life was colluding to keep Marc’s secret from me. For the first time in a
long time I hadn’t seen it coming and that’s why I think it hit me, hit us so hard. The love and passion I had for him had begun ebbing away long before that night. But I think I used up the last little bit I had right then.” Alison turned her face to the window, her features fading in the glare of the sun. She closed her eyes briefly and then turned back to Catherine. “I look at him now and really try to feel something, but I don’t, not a thing. And the funny thing is, the really hilarious thing is, that one minute he’s crying his eyes out over me telling him I don’t love him and the very next … he’s come round to pick up where he left off with you.”

“It’s hard when someone has cheated on you,” Catherine said, her expression still implacable. “I know that. I sympathize. But if I’m honest there’s a bit of me right now that’s saying, ‘Serves you right.’ It’s not a bit of me I like very much but it’s there. And there’s no point in me pretending not to feel how I do. Otherwise we’d never get anywhere.”

“Fair enough,” Alison said, pausing for a second. “It was just after Christmas that I started wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake. I started to think that instead of fixing things, I’d run off with your life and you’d accidentally ended up with mine. I began to think that that was why Marc and I never really fitted properly, not even when we were happy. When Marc moved us back here and I found out that you were married to Jimmy Ashley,
my
Jimmy Ashley, it seemed even more possible. I let myself think that the reason you and Jimmy weren’t together was for the same reason that Marc and I couldn’t be happy. Because we had each other’s lives.”

“Really,” Catherine said without emotion.

“I know, it sounds deluded and I was, a bit. I was looking for meaning and symbols where there weren’t any. The truth is when I left with Marc I was too young to know what I was doing to me, to my parents, and most of all to you. I thought I was in love,
and I was if being in love means being jealous and obsessed and competitive.” Impulsively she picked up Catherine’s sun-warmed hand, holding on to it when Catherine tried to pull it away.

“Please, listen,” Alison pleaded. She felt Catherine’s hand relax in hers.

“I did the wrong thing. I should never have slept with him behind your back or run away with him. But I realize now, it wasn’t your life I stole. It was mine. It was the ten more years I could have had with you of messing around like we did last night, having fun, being free, being young. I should have grown up with you. Instead I tried to grow up alone, overnight, and I failed.

“I’m sorry, Catherine, I’m sorry for everything I did, and if I thought there was any way that you and I could be even just polite to each other in the playground, I’d feel so much better. I’d feel so much stronger. Even if that’s all that we can manage—what do you think?”

Catherine paused, pursing her lips.

“I don’t know, Alison,” she said, slowly withdrawing her hand from Alison’s. “You sitting here in front of me and my knowing where you are again makes me feel, I don’t know, sort of completed, but at the same time I can’t just accept that our being friends again should be that easy. It doesn’t seem right.”

Alison sighed. “Do you remember that time when we were about nine that we fell out and the whole of our class fell out along with us? I mean you were either on Cathy’s side or you were on Alison’s, you got all the nerds and I got all the cool kids, remember?”

Catherine nodded. “I remember,” she said. “It was horrible. I used to dread going to school. I can’t even remember why we fell out.”

“Heather Hargreves invited you to her party and not me. I got jealous and uppity and I took it out on you because Heather Hargreves
was too scary, that’s why we fell out,” Alison said. “I could be a little cow even then.”

Catherine shrugged. “How is this relevant?”