The Man Who Forgot His Wife (34 page)

‘This is so cool. Can we go to the Ritz for lunch?’

‘Too expensive. We could buy you some Ritz for lunch?’

But for Jamie and Dillie’s benefit, the Rolls-Royce took a scenic route home, passing along the banks of the River Thames, over Chelsea Bridge, and taking in the drive-thru McDonald’s, where the uniformed chauffeur leaned out of the window to order the kids a Happy Meal and chocolate shake. By the time we pulled up at our home, most of the guests had arrived for the reception and were already sipping champagne in the large marquee which took up most of the garden.

Our friends had happily dressed up in their best wedding outfits to mark the occasion. Only Madeleine’s mother struggled to process the irony of the thing and was circulating among relatives, explaining that they weren’t really going to be divorced because they were actually back together now and would probably get remarried again like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Except, she added as an afterthought, without the second divorce and battles with alcoholism.

Most of our social circle had been delighted to learn that one of their favourite couples were back together, although some of Maddy’s women friends found themselves regretting having agreed quite so emphatically with her when she had said how
terrible
her husband was. ‘When I said “I’d always thought you were too good for him”, I, er, meant you were too good for how Vaughan was behaving when you were getting divorced, um, as it were. But apart from that I always thought he was just the right man for you, lovely bloke, the perfect husband. Or ex-husband, whatever you’re going to call him …’

Now that they’d all had a couple of weeks to get used to the idea, there was a sense of real euphoria amongst the friends gathered here on this special day. Jokes were funnier, food was tastier, the sun was sunnier; this was the perfect party because everyone present was resolved that it should be so. ‘Oh, this is so romantic!’ said the heavily pregnant Linda. ‘Why can’t we get divorced?’

Today Gary was taking the role of best man, or ‘worst man’, as he enjoyed telling everyone, even claiming he’d had the idea that Maddy and I should get back together. In his waistcoat pocket he checked he still had the original wedding rings that we had not worn for months but would later place on one another’s finger in front of everyone we knew and loved.

Dillie was officially the world’s most charming and delightful twelve-year-old girl, seemingly genuinely interested and surprised as a succession of adults informed her that she had grown. Jamie would have blushed when he was asked if he had a girlfriend, had he not already been asked the same question eleven times already that day. ‘No, I’m saving myself for Miss Right’ got an appreciative chuckle from elderly relatives; the follow-up, less so: ‘Or
Mr
Right, depending on how I turn out.’ The family dog actually did come out of the closet, having been given the confidence by our cravat-wearing neighbour, who brazenly fed him endless chicken goujons and sausage rolls. Woody had never felt so liberated: ‘At last – this is the real me! Yes, I adore food! Is that so bad? Must I always feel such shame for the love that dare not speak its name? Finally, I’m coming out! I am a gourmand! A foodie! A glutton! I am greedy and I am proud – get used to it!’

Ron danced an old-fashioned dance with his beautiful daughter and Jean looked on with brimming pride at the two of them. With the champagne flowing through her veins, she suddenly erupted into tears of joy to see the uncomplicated love between the two most important people in her life. ‘He always was a splendid dancer,’ she slurred. ‘He’s always been such a wonderful husband. I’m so lucky to have him, I really am …’ I nearly choked on my chicken drumstick.

Eventually it was time for the mock ceremony; and Gary guided people towards the raised decking in preparation for the service. A decade and a half before, Maddy and I had given a set of vows before the council registrar and elderly relations in hats. We had promised ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.’ On reflection, we had to accept that we had fallen a little short of these demanding promises, and perhaps should have aimed a little lower first time round. ‘With this ring, I thee wed for a bit. With my body, I thee worship, even if I thee repel with my habit of leaving toenail clippings in the bidet. With all my worldly goods I thee endow, except my big book on the history of nude photography, which I naively imagine you haven’t spotted in that box in the loft.’

For this special ‘second time around’ ceremony we had resolved that we should still publicly commit to one another, but this time with a completely new set of revised, more realistic vows. These pledges were designed for the more mature couple under no illusions about the compromises and occasional disappointments of a lifelong partnership. ‘I promise to sometimes pretend to listen to you going on about stuff, when really I’m thinking about something completely different’; ‘I promise to love you in an everyday, familiar, best-friend sort of way, but not expect gushing declarations of devotion, with flowers, chocolates and love sonnets every bloody five minutes.’ And ‘I promise to tolerate your imperfections and varying moods as you tolerate mine, and not to use these
as
private justification for entering my old girlfriends’ names on Google.’

There was a big cheer as the stars of the show stepped out on to the decking from the kitchen doors. Gary, now dressed for some reason as a bishop, or perhaps the Pope, calmed the crowd and reminded the guests once again what a special occasion this was. ‘For earlier today, Vaughan and Maddy finally took the big step that so many of us have often thought about but never quite had the courage to do, and finally got themselves divorced.’ A big drunken cheer went up from the crowd. I looked out at the swarm of benevolent faces and, swaying there in the blazing sun, felt myself sweating under my stiff hired suit.

‘Now, Maddy and Vaughan appreciate that some of you came to their original wedding fifteen years ago, and brought them some lovely gifts, which they now feel morally obliged to return to you …’

There were a few shouts of ‘Shame!’ and one lone voice heckled, ‘They’ve bought them back off eBay?’

‘… particularly,’ he continued, ‘the unopened tin of pink trout roe caviar which passed its sell-by date at some point during the last millennium. Mark and Erena, it is with a heavy heart they are returning the twenty-two-piece dining set you gave them, which after one particularly fierce argument is now a ninety-two-piece dining set.’ Slightly nervous laughter greeted this joke; the audience were unsure whether it was acceptable to refer to past marital difficulties at a divorce party.

‘Pete and Kate – to you they are returning the set of six crystal wine glasses, which is now a set of eleven crystal wine glasses, as Maddy and Vaughan buy their petrol from the same garage as you.’ This joke was enjoyed by all the people old enough to remember the cliché of petrol stations giving out free glasses, though Dillie laughed her head off along with everyone else, even if she didn’t have the faintest idea what Gary was on about.

He was milking this chance to perform to a generous crowd for
everything
it was worth. But after a while, though I could hear the sound of his voice, I ceased to hear the actual words. Of course I smiled and chuckled along in all the right places, but my mind was taking in a hundred other things at once: the detached interest with which Jamie was observing these curious adults, the knot in one of the guy ropes holding up the marquee, the vapour stream from a jet plane heading thousands of miles away from all of this. I saw friends I had got to know all over again, other teachers from my department at school, and the next-door neighbour with the cravat whose name I feared I might never find out. And I saw Madeleine, smiling and laughing with her bouquet of roses held before her, nodding in agreement at Gary’s jokes or feigning outrage at some of his humorous suggestions. And then I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on my face, the brightness burning through my eyelids, the spirals and the swirling sunspots floating me somewhere else. When suddenly it happened – a major piece of my past gatecrashed the party; an entire sequence of memories arrived in my head uninvited, as I blinked at the piercing sun, feeling dizzy and distant and now utterly distraught.

I had had an affair.

While Maddy and I were still married, I had been unfaithful to her. I had lied to her about my late nights and a weekend away in Paris. It returned to me now in every detail.

Her name was Yolande; a short, dark-haired, twenty-something French language assistant at school, who had eventually returned to France, with both of us agreeing the affair should end there. But for a month or so I had seen her secretly after work, going back to her flat and lying to Maddy about school plays or department meetings; and eventually I had been bold enough to muscle in to a school trip to Paris with Yolande, creeping into her hotel bedroom long after the other staff and students were all asleep.

And now, after everything that had happened, and standing up here with the woman I loved, I felt appalled with myself that I
could
have deceived and betrayed Madeleine in this way. I remembered that the affair had come at a point in our dying marriage when normal communication had utterly broken down; months after Maddy and I had ceased to have sex, when we no longer behaved as husband and wife. But if I’d felt that there had been any moral justification, why had I never told her, why had I kept this secret locked up so tightly that it was one of the very last memories to re-emerge?

I looked at Gary concluding his comic turn, explaining to the congregation the nature of these new vows that Maddy and I were about to take. I glanced across at my wife and she caught my eye and gave me a mock long-suffering smile. I looked at my daughter, clasping her hands together in delight at the hilarity and romance of her parents’ party. Jamie was watching me sweating up on the impromptu stage of the decking, and gave his father a little thumbs-up.

Other details of my affair were churning over in my brain. I could recall the potent illegality of that first time. There were so many good reasons why I should not proceed to have sex with this French-language assistant, I remembered thinking. However, ranged against all the very valid and persuasive arguments was the incontrovertible fact that she was lying naked right in front of me at that very moment. In the complex balance of power within the male psyche, there are times when the collective judgement of mind, heart and soul are all overruled by penis.

I remembered the first time I had come home after having had sex with another woman, wondering if Maddy would be able to tell; whether she would see it instantly in my eyes or hear me confess in my sleep. But eye contact between us had been lost months earlier; there was too much brittle hostility in the air for Maddy’s antennae to detect any suppressed contrition. Nor could I possibly tell her. She was already furious with me on so many counts and I was angry in return. If she knew, it would only make everything much worse. Whether we split up or somehow
resolved
to try to save the marriage, either way my actions ruined everything. But not if she didn’t know.

But that was then. Standing here now in our own home, surely she had to know the truth before the two of us began our new life together? If not now, then when? Tonight when we’d said goodbye to the last of the guests and were loading up the dishwasher? ‘Well, that was a lovely day, wasn’t it? Oh, by the way, I had sex with a woman from school a while back.’ Tomorrow morning over a cup of tea in bed? When is the best time to tell your wife you’ve had an affair? There really ought to be some official guidance on this. Before or after you make a set of vows in front of friends and family? ‘If you immediately confessed I might just forgive you …’ That was what she had said.

Gary had finished his speech, but before the climax of the afternoon’s entertainment Maddy just wanted to say a few words. She wanted to thank all the people who had helped make today’s party possible: she thanked her mother and father, Dillie and Jamie. She thanked Gary for being so entertaining and for agreeing to be today’s MC. She thanked Dillie’s best friend for cueing up the music. She thanked everyone who had brought some food. In fact, she was thanking so many people there was a chance the marriage would run its natural course and one of us would die before I ever had the chance to come clean.

‘Gary!’ I whispered, gesturing him to step back inside the kitchen. ‘Gary!’

‘It’s all right, mate – rings are in my pocket. Just checked …’

‘No, listen – I just remembered something.’

‘How to play football?’

‘Listen, this is serious. I …’ I lowered my voice to almost inaudible. ‘… I had an affair.’

Gary grinned at me. ‘Yeah, right! And it was you who smashed up the
Blue Peter
garden … You won’t get me on a wind-up, mate – that’s my specialist subject.’

‘No, I swear I did. Really – a couple of years ago. It was only a month or so, but I was unfaithful to Maddy.’

Now he did step back from the decking into the relative privacy of the kitchen.

‘Bloody hell, Vaughan. What the fuck are you telling me this now for?’

‘I only just remembered it. I have to tell Madeleine! I have to tell her the truth before the vows!’

The two of us looked at Maddy out on the makeshift stage as she effusively thanked the neighbour who had provided one of the trestle tables for the buffet.

‘Are you insane? Don’t tell her now. Don’t tell her ever, but especially not now. You’ve come so far, don’t throw it all away, you idiot.’

‘But it has to be before we commit. Withholding it is deception.’

‘Deception is fine! Deception is normal. You should never, ever be completely open and honest with your wife. That’s the worst thing you can possibly do.’

This was a decisive moment in my life and somehow I felt cheated that the only person I could turn to for advice was a pissed bloke dressed as the Pope.