The Accidental Wife (39 page)

‘Eventually Marc got some casual work in a car dealership, washing the cars, cleaning up, and they let him watch them work, teaching him a few things. Once we got the cash together we rented this little bedsit 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 garage Marc told me that they agreed to apprentice him and help him go 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 realised 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 streets, trying to spot me. Someone at one of the hostels we’d stayed in gave him our address.

‘He and Marc had a fight, a proper fist fight. You should’ve seen me, Cathy. I was on Marc’s back, trying to drag him off 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, 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. 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 me. 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 told 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 nursery 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, now would barely speak a word. I didn’t know what I’d done to upset her. She was only a young girl of 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 my 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 and that maybe I was just being stupid and pregnant but if I had I hoped she’d forgive me. She burst into tears and she told me right there in the reception at the nursery. She told me she’d been seeing Marc and 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, impassive, 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 apologised, said it wouldn’t happen again and that was that. Looking back, I can’t believe how calm I was. How ready I was for the whole incident to be over and for me to not have to think about it again, to go on as before. I think I was more upset about Lou being off with me than about her sleeping with Marc. Probably I had been expecting him to stray sooner or later. I’d prepared myself to accept it. And 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.

‘No.’ Alison shrugged. ‘There were four more that I know of after that. The last time was at Christmas. One of his salesmen’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 PA in the office.’ Alison’s laugh was mirthless. ‘The thing was, his PA was my next-door neighbour, a woman of about my age.
I’d
got her the job with him because she wanted something part time now her children were at school. We used to go to Pilates together on a Thursday morning. 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 along our street, the people at the dealership, even Dominic. It was as if my whole life was
colluding
to keep Marc’s secret for him. For the first time in ages 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 part, the really hilarious bit 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 coming round to pick up where he left off with you.’

‘It’s hard when someone has cheated on you,’ Catherine said, her features still implacable. ‘I know that. I sympathise. 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, making them right, 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, and 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 realise 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 considered, 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 knowing where you are again makes me feel – I don’t know – sort of completed, but at the same time I just can’t get my head round that you and I being friends again should be that easy. It doesn’t seem right.’

‘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?’

‘I remember,’ Catherine 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?’

‘I remember it so clearly, Cathy,’ Alison told her. ‘I remember how awfully sad I felt every single day and how empty. I was so angry with myself for falling out with you but I couldn’t admit that I’d behaved stupidly. I couldn’t bring myself to apologise. I’d see you in the playground hanging around with those other girls and all I wanted to do was to come over and say hi. I knew that all I had to do was to say hi and that we’d be friends again, just like that.’

‘It took you long enough,’ Catherine commented.

‘I was waiting for you to do it first,’ Alison said. ‘But you were stronger than me. You stuck it out because you knew I was in the wrong. It seemed to go on for ever.’

‘It was probably about a week, if that,’ Catherine said.

‘Do you remember how we made up?’ Alison asked.

Catherine nodded, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

‘We were in the gym, getting changed for PE. I sat down next to you on the bench and I said, “Hi, Cathy, I’m sorry.” And you said, “That’s OK”, and that was it. In an instant we were best friends again. It was back to you and me against the world and I can still remember to this second the enormous relief that I felt in that moment. It was as easy as saying “hi” – that’s all it took to make everything all right again. And I think I’ve been living with that sense of loss and panic all these years, waiting to see you and say hi and tell you that I’m sorry.’ Alison paused as she studied Catherine’s profile. ‘What I’m trying to say is that if you want to get to know me again it doesn’t have to be hard or painful. You can just decide to do it.’

Catherine was silent for a long time and then she turned to Alison, the morning sun igniting her hair.

‘I’m going to have to insist that you don’t sleep with my ex-husband,’ she said. ‘I know I don’t have a right to insist it. But if you did, that would be it between us because I … I just wouldn’t like it.’

‘He turned me down pretty conclusively,’ Alison said. ‘I won’t be asking him again.’

Catherine nodded once. ‘One day, when you and I know each other properly, and when I …
if
I feel like I can trust you again I’ll tell you about the abortion. I have to tell you about it, Alison, about everything that happened with my parents after you went and how I got up the courage to leave home and why it’s taken me years to be able to feel good about myself again. I’ll have to tell you about it even though it will be painful and difficult. And I’ll blame you for some of what happened, which I know isn’t fair because you were only a seventeen-year-old girl and you weren’t responsible for me, but I will anyway, and I think you’ll need to accept that.’

‘OK,’ Alison said steadily. ‘I’ll be ready.’

‘I’ve missed you,’ Catherine said, and suddenly tears sprang into her eyes. ‘I’ve missed you a lot.’

‘Me too!’ Alison said, and then briefly, clumsily, the two women reached across the table and hugged each other very hard.

And then both of them laughed, the tension in the room deflating in an instant like a popped balloon, sucking fifteen years of time out with it.

‘Your face, when Kirsty picked up that brick,’ Alison said with a giggle.

‘And your singing,’ Catherine retorted. ‘Thank God those windows were double-glazed otherwise we’d have been arrested for noise pollution.’ They chuckled again.

‘Well, I’d better go. Marc will want to go into the dealership, I expect,’ Alison said. ‘It’s going to wind him up
something
rotten that I was out with you all night. It will make him competitive, you know; he’ll want you to like him more than me.’

Catherine raised her brows, and rubbed the back of her aching neck.

‘Well, if you’re going to promise not to sleep with my husband, I think I can manage to return the favour.’

‘No, don’t,’ Alison said, making Catherine’s head snap up in surprise.

‘Pardon?’ she asked.

‘I’m not saying sleep with him, if you don’t want to. But as much as I hope I could do something with our marriage I know now that I can’t. All I can do is try to find the best way to end it for all of us, the children especially. When Marc brought us back here part of the reason was to try and find that ideal version of himself that he’s never quite been able to pin down since the summer he met you. Maybe that man exists, maybe he doesn’t. But I’d like him to find out if he does and I think maybe he needs you to help him with that. So if you want to sleep with him, then I won’t mind.’