The Last Resort (20 page)

I wanted to hide my face, but where? I wanted to cry with rage and humiliation, but how could I do that without making the situation a hundred times more excruciating? My eyes were fixed on my bloody plate. The smell of the meat made me feel sick.

It occurred to me that it was more than a passing feeling. I was actually going to be sick. I knocked my chair over as I ran for the ladies. My vision blurred and darkened as I fell onto my knees in the stall, and involuntary tears ran down my nose as I heaved. When it was finished, I cried.

I stayed in the stall for ages. Half an hour at least. Eventually, the waitress came in and started knocking nervously on the stall door. I told her I was fine. She told me that my dinner guest had paid the bill and left. Did I want the steak to go?

“No thanks,” I said, feeling queasy again.

I was relieved that he’d gone. Half the reason I couldn’t bring myself to return to the table was that I couldn’t bear to face him.

The restaurant manager must have called me a cab, because I don’t remember doing it.

~

“Bastard,” Sharon spluttered, “I can’t believe this. Leaving you in the restaurant like that. You’re right. He’s a
bastard
!” She took a deep swig out of a bottle and passed it to me.

After toying with the idea of pretending nothing at all was wrong, happily packing my bag, going back to England, and crying in my room at Mum’s for the next six months, I’d decided to throw in the towel and tell them the whole sorry story. Predictably, the evening had collapsed into a miasma of alcoholic lemonade (something gentle after a hard night), enraged tears, and angry recriminations. And that was just Sharon.

“Shaz,” I said patiently, “surely that’s not the most important element to the story right now.”

“I know,” she slurred, “but he’s still a bastard.”

“Well,” Peter reasoned as he accepted the bottle, “at least he’s told her the truth.”

“Which is more than we can say for that Jack bloke,” added Michelle, who’d been filled in on the background details during my absence. My heart was warmed by how quickly she and Sairi had learnt the names of all the players in my sordid little life story. Such commitment to the cause of me feeling sorry for myself. The bottle made a full circle, and was now back in the hands of Sharon. “D’you think Tam’s right when he says you’ve got the upper hand?”

“Well,” I said, “I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, I wouldn’t feel this shitty if I really had the upper hand. The most I’ll say is that I have certain guarantees. I mean, I can safely say that if I go back, he’ll never try to divorce me.”

Despite her swaying visibly, Sharon managed to look pensive for a moment. “What made you think he was cheating on you, Ava? Because he must have been, if this was true. Or if he wasn’t doing it yet, he would have eventually.”

“Did you think he was two-timing you?” Declan yelped, shocked. Uncomfortable with these outpourings of feminine emotion, he’d been hovering behind the bar, trying to be helpful by refilling glasses when he could.

I sighed, wishing I didn’t have to go into it. But what was the need for reluctance? I didn’t need to protect him anymore. It was out of my hands. “There was a time that I thought he was sleeping with this girl—this woman called Jemima. But it was just a feeling I had. Nothing concrete.”

We stared glumly at the darkened garden.

“So are you going to go back to him?” asked Peter.

“Oi!” shouted the three girls as they punched him on the arm simultaneously.

“Ow,” said Peter sulkily, rubbing his bruised limb. “I was just asking.”

“OF COURSE SHE’S NOT GOING BACK TO HIM,” shouted Shaz, the picture of outrage. “HE’S A MERCENARY LITTLE BITCH!”

But this time Michelle was looking straight at me. She read my face as if it were a newspaper. “Ava—you wouldn’t. Would you?”

I ached with embarrassment. “I don’t know,” I said thinly, wishing the ground would swallow me up. “It’s not as black-and-white as you might think.”

Shaz was nonplussed. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. What reason could you possibly have for going back?”

I sighed, staring out onto the patio. The night was empty and silent. “You don’t understand. Before I married Jack, I didn’t have anything to look forward to. At least now, if I go back, I’ll have something to
do.
Even if it’s just to take care of him, like I did before.” I made a dry sob. “That sounds pathetic even to me.”

Michelle tutted and put her arm around me.

“I get it,” said Shaz suddenly. “It’s the money.”

“What are you trying to say?” I said. Tam’s constant insinuations that I was a gold-digger had made me all the more paranoid that others thought the same. And hearing myself talking like this, I was beginning to think that he was right.

“Keep your hair on,” she said, “I’m just saying I can understand that you want security, stability. A path to walk. That makes perfect sense.”

“It does?” I said, horrified to hear myself talking in a little-girl voice. Suddenly I felt four years old, very alone and very vulnerable. And very relieved that someone was taking my part.

“Of course it does,” said Sharon, quietly.

“Of course,” Peter agreed.

We all sat in a sober silence for another minute, staring out onto the patio. We hadn’t switched the lights on in the bar; the sun had gone down and it had got dark without us realising. It was close to midnight now, and the Hideaway was quiet for once. Last night had been a scene out of Dante’s Inferno, and for once, every soul had crashed into bed (or not got up in the first place). The stillness was eerie.

Then Peter said, “You’ve got to make a choice, really.”

I sniffed. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “at the end of the day, you’ve got two options. Go along with Jack, and enjoy the stability. Or decide to take care of yourself from now on, no matter how scary it is.”

I laughed bitterly. “That sounds like an easy choice.”

“Does it?” he asked. “I think it’s much more difficult than you think. One day, when you’ve felt safe for long enough, you’ll be ready for an adventure. By then you’ll be forty-five and in a loveless marriage. What’ll you do then?”

“I don’t know,” I said, truthfully.

“Well, you’d probably end up back living with your mother, the same as you would if you did it now. Only you’d be older and sadder.”

He was right, of course.

“My dad explained it to me once. When he was married to my mom, and found out she was having an affair, he had a breakdown, pretty much. But there were signs long before—years before. He didn’t want to see them, never wanted to rock the boat or cause a scene, so he didn’t.

“All it got him was a divorce when he was forty-three. He could have got out when he was
thirty
-three, only he wanted to pretend it was OK. He’s made the best of it,” he sighed, “and of course he got my brother and me out of the bargain . . .”

“He’s right, Ava,” said Michelle. “You could really make a go of things if you could put all this behind you. You’re young. And you
know
he doesn’t love you the way that you love him.”

That stung me. “But Tam said Jack is—is fond of me,” I protested weakly. “I could make it work.”

Shaz took my hand. “You don’t want to be the only one trying.”

I nodded, the tears thick in my eyes. “I know. I know I’m being silly by even thinking about it. But it seems like the only thing to do, sometimes.”

We finished the lemonade and decided it was long past our bedtimes. After we went to bed, I cried for a long time. I cried for all the memories now tarnished, for all the effort and love and embarrassment and sadness and loneliness and
time
I’d sacrificed in the quest to make Jack love me. For all the painful moments of rejection that I’d thought were worth the good times. Now I could see I’d been wrong. It had all been for nothing.

I raged at myself for being so stupid. I even raged at Tam for telling me that truth. It would have been nice, in a way, to have never known; or at least, that’s how I felt at the time.

I slept in fits and starts, dreaming of my whole life with Jack in an endless ream of scenes. Each day from the time we married, his attention on me less and less. Now it made sense. Now I understood.

It was as if my mind wanted to retrace ever little step it had ever taken, searching for the clues it had missed the first time around.

“Come on,” Sharon said, firmly. “We’re going down to the beach.”

“But I don’t
want
to,” I whined pathetically, clinging to the bedclothes that she was pulling purposefully off me. “It’s so
early
.”

“You’ve been in bed for eight and a half hours. That’s enough. You’re not to mope while you’re on holiday. Anyway, if we don’t get down there now we’ll have missed all the good spots.”

“Since when is it unheard of to sleep in while you’re on holiday?” I answered sulkily.

She gave me her taking-no-shit look. “You know that’s not what you’re doing. You’re moping.”

“Why can’t I—”

“Because you’re just prolonging the agony.” She was speaking gently now, not meeting my eye. “You’ve got to keep your chin up, love. You’ve got to get back on the horse.”

I was outraged. “You expect me to pick someone up? What, on the beach?”

“That’s not how I meant it, and you know it, so you can drop the hysterical tone if you don’t mind.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. She did it back to me. “Here’s a present,” she said, chucking a red bikini at me. “It’s the right size,” she sighed, exasperated, spotting me interrogating the tags. “I’d swear you thought I was thick or something.”

“I—” I began to protest. It was small. My arse had the consistency of week-old porridge. Those things didn’t work well together.

“There’s a matching sarong. Now you’ve no excuse,” she smirked, and flounced out of the room before I could answer.

Bitch
, I thought, but it was easier to do as I was told. At least I’d had a wax recently. I sighed, resigned to my fate, trying not to feel like the tragic heroine of an unpublished Emily Brontë novel and more like the snappy, self-assured, best-selling chick lit protagonist I hoped to resemble one day. One day when I’d got my life back together. And got rid of Jack.

I was surprised to find that I had apparently moved from gut-wrenching sorrow to some kind of tenuous serenity. The tumultuous emotions of the day before had smoothed out into a calm sea.

Hmmm,
I thought, cautiously.
Maybe this is the acceptance bit.

You don’t mean to say you think you’re at the end of all this, do you? The five stages of grieving and all that?
asked an incredulous voice.

It’s not that unbelievable, surely? It’s not unheard-of for people to get over things quickly.

We’ll see about that,
said the voice.

Fuck off,
I replied, irritated.

I stood in front of the mirror, staring at the solitaire that still hung around my neck like a white-hot coal. Then I took it off, slowly. I wasn’t ready to throw it down the drain—maybe I never would be.

Half an hour later (and twenty minutes after I was supposed to be ready), I mooched into the main house to find Sharon. As I turned the corner out of the kitchen towards the sitting room, I stiffened against the wall.

I knew that voice. I sniffed the air like a frightened animal.
Tam.

Tam, laughing along with Sharon.

I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to see him. I can’t believe she’s let him in. What is he doing here?

The once-incredulous voice took its cue.
Told you you weren’t over it yet,
it said, smarmy.

“I’ll just go and see where Ava’s got to,” I heard Sharon say, and panic shot through my veins anew. I had to get away. Where could I hide?

I looked around. Unless I thought I could squeeze into the laundry hamper, I was done for. Half-heartedly, I lifted the lid. It was full.

Fuck,
I thought, instantaneously losing all hope.

Just then Sharon bounced into the kitchen, all smiles. “You won’t
believe
who’s just dropped in,” she said loudly, clearly wanting to announce to Tam that I was present and accounted for. “It’s your friend Tam, and he’s coming along to the beach! Isn’t that lovely?”

She grabbed me by the top of my arm and hissed into my ear. “Let him cheer you up. He’s almost as upset as you are and it’ll make him feel better.”

Before I could protest, she thrust me into the sitting room. There was Tam, sitting politely on the settee, sipping a cup of tea and nibbling on one of Peter’s homemade breakfast bars, in deep conversation with Declan. Turned out that he and Tam had played field hockey in the same league back at school, and although they didn’t know each other, they were in the same circle of acquaintances.

I noted, annoyed, that Tam was looking as handsome as he had the day before. Why was I noticing that?
Please let me not develop a rebound crush on Tam. Please, God, just spare me that one humiliation.