The Accidental Wife (44 page)

‘Yes, I remember. I bumped my head about four times and you put your back out for a week! I don’t think it’s quite come
to
that yet.’ Wearily she pushed herself into a sitting position, rubbing the palms of her hands over her face.

‘I’d ask you to stay for a bit but I think I’ve got to go to sleep now, Jim – before I pass out.’

‘OK,’ Jimmy said, covering both his disappointment and relief, because his stomach was churning so violently just at that moment, he wasn’t sure that he could have gone through with it anyway. ‘Whatever you say.’

‘Will you pull me up?’ Catherine held out both of her hands to him and, taking them, Jimmy pulled her to her feet a little more robustly than he planned so that she collided with his chest. For a second they were nose to nose. Jimmy caught his breath as she stood so close to him. On the other hand, he didn’t think he could wake up another morning on that boat without having told her how he felt.

‘I love you,’ he said suddenly, dropping the three words into the room like an anvil. Catherine stared at him for a second, her green eyes as clear as glass, and then laughed.

‘Me too, you idiot,’ she said, and she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. For a moment, for about two seconds, as his arms enclosed her waist and he felt her warmth crushed against his ribcage, Jimmy marvelled that it could be that easy, that to turn his life round completely was as simple as telling her he loved her. And then he felt Catherine tense in his arms and, putting the palms of her hands on his chest, she pushed him away from her a few inches so she could look in his face again.

‘God, Jimmy, your heart is pounding,’ she said, her smile faltering as her hand rested on his chest.

‘Because I love you,’ he said quietly. ‘Like I said, I love you. And standing this close to the woman you love does tend to make a man’s heart pound a little.’

‘Yeah, but you didn’t mean that you
love
me, did you? You
mean
you’re fond of me. You care for me, in the same way that I care for you.’

‘Actually, I fully
love
you,’ Jimmy said, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. ‘I always have. I didn’t want to admit it after we split up. I wanted to forget I loved you because it seemed so bloody pointless. But love is love and there it is. I can’t do anything to stop it. It was the night Marc and Alison came back, and you were so upset and confused I realised I’d do anything to stop you feeling that way, because I still love you. I love you, Cat.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And I wanted to ask you if –’

Catherine broke their embrace, pushing herself away from him, taking three steps backwards and sitting down heavily on the sofa he’d just helped her up from.

‘Jimmy, don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t say it. I’m tired.’

‘I know,’ Jimmy said impulsively, kneeling at her feet. ‘I know you’re tired and I know I probably shouldn’t say any of this now, but I have to because I can’t go on hanging around you all day every day without you knowing how I feel. And if I go now then the cat will only be half out of the bag and you won’t be able to sleep anyway, worrying about whether or not I’ve gone off my rocker. You don’t have to say anything, decide
anything
. Just please let me tell you how I feel.’

Catherine dropped her head in her hands, but she did not say no. Jimmy watched her for a second, her hair flowing over her fingers like water. This was it, he told himself. This was his moment.

‘When I had sex in the loo with Donna Clarke at The Goat I made a mistake,’ Jimmy said, watching Catherine’s fingers tighten in her hair. ‘Not just because I had sex with her, although that was a massive,
massive
mistake. I made that mistake because I thought I didn’t want our marriage any
more
. I thought I was worn out with loving you. I thought I wanted to be young and free and single and alive again. Billy had drunk himself to death and I didn’t want to go the same way as him; I didn’t want to have the hopelessness he had at the end, that sense of losing something he’d never even had.

‘I thought about the gigs the band got, the weddings and parties, and I thought about the tutoring I did and how you and I managed just about from hand to mouth, week to week and month to month, and I thought this isn’t it, this isn’t
my
life. It can’t be, because sooner or later I’m going to end up dead like Billy or Dad, and I won’t have lived
my
life. Touring Japan and bedding groupies, that was the life I was supposed to have. I was angry with Billy for giving up the way he did, I was angry at myself for failing and I blamed that on you for not bloody delivering something you never once promised. For not loving me. And I’ve never told you how sorry I am about that. So now I’m telling you. I’m sorry, Cat, because while I was with you I had the best life I could have ever hoped for. I had everything that a low-achieving bum of a musician like me didn’t deserve, and everything Billy did but couldn’t have. But I couldn’t see it. And I’m asking you to forgive me for what I did, for what I threw away, and to say that you’ll give me another chance because I promise you I won’t let you down ever again.’

Slowly Catherine lifted her head, raking her hair off her face with her fingers. All trace of colour had drained from her cheeks and her expression was taut.

‘I … I don’t know what you want me to do,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why you are saying all of this to me now,
now
, Jimmy, when things are finally at peace between us. Is it because of Marc? Is it because suddenly he’s back on the scene and you’ve decided to get protective of me? Jimmy, this is typical you. You think you love me but you don’t, not really. You care about me, you’re worried about what I might do, and
you
love your children and you’d like them to be happy. You’re thirty-three and the band isn’t taking off, maybe it never will do. You’re feeling low, and maybe all of those things muddled up inside you make you think that you love me, but you don’t. This is just a phase. It will pass.’

‘It won’t pass,’ Jimmy said urgently. ‘Yes, it is all of those things you said, but it’s more than that. I can’t stand to see you unhappy. I can’t stand seeing you and not being able to touch you. When I make you smile I feel like the king of the world, like I am someone important, and when I piss you off I want to punch myself in the face.’

‘Jimmy, stop it,’ Catherine pleaded with him urgently. ‘Don’t say all this, don’t make things difficult between us again. You and me being together that way is in the past. Finally,
finally
I can deal with that. I can accept it. We’ve made peace for us and for the children. I don’t want to rake it up again, Jimmy. I don’t want to –’

‘But don’t you see, you don’t
have
to accept it,’ Jimmy said, grabbing her hands in his. ‘You don’t have to. Because I love you and I think that finally you could love me if only you’d let yourself. We can be together again. After all, we’re still married. I could move back in tomorrow and it would be as if the last two years had never happened.’

Sharply Catherine pulled her hands out of his.

‘The last two years happened, Jimmy,’ she said, an edge of anger flashing on the blade of her voice. ‘Donna Clarke in the ladies’ loos
happened
. Me trying to get used to the idea that the man who
begged
me from one month to the next for almost a whole year to marry him, who
promised
me that he loved me and he would never let me down, and kept on promising until I believed him, just ripped all of those promises and that marriage to shreds and in a matter of minutes,
happened
.’ Catherine stopped, catching the rise in her voice, and closed
her
eyes for a second as she steadied herself. ‘You say you still love me, but I don’t think you do. And even if you did, even if you were as stupid and as arrogant as to think that after everything you’ve put me and your children through, you can just waltz back in here and pick up where you left off, well, I don’t love you. I got over you, Jimmy. It
happened
.’

Jimmy didn’t move, he didn’t breathe. He felt caught in that moment, afraid to break it because the very next second and every second that would ever follow it seemed pointless to him if she didn’t feel the same way.

‘We get on OK, don’t we?’ Catherine asked him, levelling her voice. ‘I like you being around. The girls need you around. So please let’s just both go to bed and forget we ever had this conversation. Let’s wake up in the morning, you on the boat and me here with our daughters, and carry on as if nothing has happened. Please, Jimmy.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Jimmy said, standing slowly. ‘I can’t because I’ve said it now, it’s out there, and I can’t hide it or lie about it any more. I can’t go back to the way things were before tonight.’ He paused, looking around him as if he didn’t recognise where he was any more. ‘Look, I knew you might not feel the same, I knew that maybe I had got it wrong but for a few seconds when I was holding you just then it felt so right, so perfect, Cat. And I thought … I thought I could sense you felt the same way.’

‘But you didn’t sense that,’ Catherine said doggedly. ‘I don’t feel that way about you.’

‘Right.’ Jimmy stood up straight and squared his shoulders, his voice taut and distant when he said, ‘I think I’ll catch the late train up to town. See my mates about that session work, after all. You’ve got the situation covered here. And besides, I could really do with the money and you never know what it might lead to.’

‘Jimmy, don’t,’ Catherine stood up. ‘Don’t go because of this. Please.’

‘You’re not being fair to me, Cat,’ Jimmy said. ‘You don’t want me, but you want me to stay. And I can’t live like that any more. I can’t hang around and be your friend and your babysitter, because I need more. So I have to go for a bit. Tell the girls I’ll call them and I’ll see them soon, but right now I have to go.’ He paused. ‘I can’t be around you now.’

‘Please, Jimmy, don’t go like this –’ Catherine began.

‘Don’t!’ Jimmy raised his voice, making Catherine start a little. ‘Don’t ask me to stay if you don’t feel the same. It’s not fair. You must see that.’

Catherine reached out a hesitant hand and touched his face. ‘Take care up there,’ she said.

‘You know me,’ Jimmy said, with a twist of a smile. ‘It’s London that had better take care.’ He leaned forward and kissed her just barely on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you.’

‘See you,’ Catherine said, standing perfectly still in the middle of the room.

Softly, slowly Jimmy closed the front door behind him so as not to wake the girls. He headed for the boat. He should just about have enough time to pick up his guitar and catch the late train into town.

After that he had no idea what he was going to do.

Alison sat down opposite Marc at the table and waited for him to say something. When he had arrived back with Dominic, the boy had run upstairs and slammed his bedroom door shut, and Marc had gone into the kitchen, opened a bottle of beer, which he had not taken a sip from, and sat at the kitchen table. That was three hours ago.

Alison had stood looking up the stairs towards Dom’s room and then back at the kitchen towards Marc. After a moment’s
thought
she’d started up the stairs and as she reached the top Amy’s door opened, spilling a wedge of rose-tinted lamplight onto the landing.

‘Is he back, Mummy?’ Gemma asked her as she and her sister appeared in the doorway. They must have been in there together, listening, waiting to hear something. Alison had been so frantic phoning all of Dom’s friends that she hadn’t given them a thought until Dom was back. Now she kneeled and held her arms out to them.

‘Yes,’ Alison said, as she gathered up her girls. ‘He’s back and he’s absolutely fine. Hey, listen, I’ll make you some tea soon. What would you like as a Sunday treat? Beans on toast with Marmite, followed by chocolate ice cream?’

‘Can we see him?’ Amy asked her, padding towards Dominic’s bedroom door at the end of the corridor.

‘Of course you can,’ Alison said, a lot less certain about Dominic’s state of mind than she sounded.

The three of them stood outside his door and Alison knocked.

‘Dom? It’s Mum, Gemma and Amy,’ she called out, careful to alert him to the presence of his sisters. ‘Can we come in?’

A moment passed and then Dominic opened the door.

‘I was going to have a shower,’ he said, with a rueful smile. ‘I smell a bit. Of countryside. It’s rank.’

He and Alison looked at each other across the top of the girls’ heads.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Dom said.

‘We missed you!’ Amy said, before Alison could speak, running into him so hard that he staggered back a couple of paces. Dominic was soon engulfed by both sisters.

‘Daddy took us out looking for you in the car in the dark,’ Gemma told him. ‘It was scary, but we didn’t find you.’

‘Daddy said you would be fine, but we were worried. And
I
said you should have had the stranger danger class at school,’ Amy said, ‘like me.’

‘Dad was really worried,’ Gemma told Dom carefully. ‘He stayed up all night waiting for you. We tried to, but we fell asleep.’

‘Lightweights,’ Dom said, ruffling their hair. ‘I’m sorry, Gems. I’m sorry, Muffin, OK?’

‘You do rather stink actually,’ Gemma said, wrinkling up her nose fastidiously.

‘You do. You stink of smelly socks and cow poo!’ Amy said giggling, as Dominic tickled her.

‘Right then,’ Alison said. ‘I think we’d better let your brother have his shower, don’t you?’ She bundled the girls out of the room. ‘Go down and think about what you want for tea. I’ll be down in a minute.’

‘OK, Mummy!’ the girls called as they raced down the stairs.

‘You look like shit,’ Dominic said. ‘Were you up all night too?’

‘Actually,’ Alison started slowly, ‘I stayed with a friend last night. I didn’t know you’d gone until this afternoon because my phone had gone dead. But if I had known I would have been up all night worrying myself sick, just like your father was. What were you thinking, Dom? Were you trying to punish him by putting yourself in danger?’