Young Wives' Tales (41 page)

There is an upside to my new approach to mothering. The overwhelming positive outcome, which far outweighs the slights at work and the battles with Auriol and Eva, is that Peter has noticed I’m trying. He sees me hold my temper when Auriol won’t hold my hand and he sees me bite my lip when she bites my leg. I think I am slowly forging new connections between us and I hope to weave enough strands of common ground and understanding to patch up the holes in our relationship. I see now that Joe Whitehead was indeed a
wake-up call. Not a threat. Not a problem. I like to think of him as a relationship aid.

If I have to think of him at all.

My mobile starts to ring.

‘I bet that’s him now,’I say, smiling at Connie. ‘Do you mind if I take it?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Hello Lucy, it’s Joe here.’Fuck. My insides turn to liquid.

‘Who?’I ask, to buy time.

I signal to Connie that it’s too noisy to take the call in the bar and I walk outside and out of earshot. All the while I’m praying that the call is business related.

‘I was wondering if you wanted to meet up some time soon. We could do Thursday night all over again,’says Joe. In my mind’s eye I can see his grey skin and feel his damp palms. I shudder.

‘I’m sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about.’I hope my voice sounds calm. I don’t want to be drawn. There must be no discussion about that night. To admit that it happened would give it a dignity that it is miles below.

‘Come on, Lucy. It’s a bit late to play hard to get.’

‘I’m not playing anything.’I shiver. I’ve left my coat inside the bar, although even if I was wearing a ski-suit I think I’d be chilled.

‘I’m going on a date tomorrow. How do you feel about that?’

‘I have no feelings on the matter.’

‘Lucy, baby, I know you are jealous. Why don’t you
just say so? One word from you and I’d blow her out.’

‘Which wouldn’t be hard because no doubt she’s a figment of your imagination,’I snap. Damn. That’s hardly neutral.

Joe laughs. ‘I love your sense of humour. We should go out, spend a little more time together. We didn’t get much chance to chat to one another the other night, did we? Too much animal attraction.’He laughs to himself. I’m closer to screaming. How deluded is this lunatic? ‘You want me, don’t you? You just can’t admit as much because you are married.’

‘How did you get my number?’

‘Julia gave it to me.’

‘If you ever call me again I’ll –’

‘What, Lucy? Tell your husband that your lover called.’

Without notice tears prickle my eyes and the hairs on my arms stand up as goosebumps take hold.

‘You are not my lover,’I hiss into the phone.

‘I was last week.’

‘I was drunk. You were a mistake.’

‘My mother says the same thing. She doesn’t mean it either.’

I suspect she does. ‘Don’t call me again, ever.’I hang up.

The sound of laughter, clinking glasses and chatter drifts out of the bar as the door swings open. Outside on the street, where I am standing, everything seems much more depressing.

Since Lucy-gate I’ve barely slept or eaten. I struggle to hold a thought in my head, let alone expel a coherent sentence into the big, bad world. I am floored. Literally. Since that Joe Whatshisname (oh, how I wish I’d paid more attention to his introduction) revealed his nasty secret I’ve laboured to keep on my feet. It was with enormous effort that I placed left foot in front of right and managed to walk out of the reception and on to the street, where I was able to hail a cab. Once home I crawled into bed. The children were at Peter’s and he would not be returning them for twenty-four hours. I tried to stay calm. Breathe deeply. Order my thoughts. It was important not to jump to conclusions or make rash judgements.

What was the treacherous, home-wrecking, despicable bitch thinking of?

Sorry, sorry. What was Lucy Hewitt-Jones, aka Mrs Phillips the second, thinking of?

I stayed under the duvet for the twenty-four child-free hours and I pored over the information Joe had
given me. I considered the possibility that, quite simply, he was a liar – that Lucy was no more having an affair with him than I was. This was possible. He was clearly a low and repulsive sort; maybe he was harbouring some warped sexual fantasy about her that had absolutely no truth at its root. He wasn’t at all funny or particularly good-looking. He wasn’t anywhere near as attractive as Peter. Why would she? For all Lucy’s faults, the one thing I can say about her is that she’s got impeccable taste. If she did…go with Joe, then she was certainly slumming it.

But why would he make it up? What would possess a man to name a co-worker and say that they had a thing going, if they didn’t? It would be too risky to do such a thing, especially in the City where lawsuits for sexual harassment and defamation are rife.

And she does have form. Even before Peter, Lucy had a record of seducing men who were already in relationships or allowing herself a little extracurricular activity while she was supposed to be seeing someone. She used to insist that monogamy was as unnatural as a polystyrene cup of instant noodles.

But I thought she’d changed.

I feel like a load of washing on a spin cycle. One moment I am delighted, the next distraught. One moment I’m certain and confident, the next I feel I’m wading through an indelible fog. It’s ignoble of me but I am delighted that all is not well between Peter and Lucy, doesn’t that serve them right? Since the day he packed his bags, well-meaning friends and family have
assured me that no good would come of their relationship. It’s generally agreed (although not statistically proven) that relationships which start through adultery will ultimately find themselves back in the same messy gloop sooner or later – a different cast to be sure, but in the end it’s the same horrifying lying, cheating and betraying.

But I never wanted it to be so.

The fact of Lucy’s infidelity leaves me distraught and more at sea than I have ever been – even when Peter left me. I thought Lucy loved Peter. To say that her loving him, choosing him above all other men, was a horrific inconvenience to me is a laughable understatement. Her love for Peter was a death blow for my marriage. The devastating and shattering effects cannot be exaggerated. I could perhaps have fought off a lesser mortal but Lucy’s love was too great an opponent.

But perversely, the enormity and certainty of their love has always been a peculiar comfort to me.

Yes, it hurt. My God, the treachery and duplicity that they had practised upon me was life-seizing. I used to wonder if I would ever be able to breathe in a world so dramatically altered after he left. But, as the months passed, I began to find solace in their unflinching, selfish certainty. I reasoned that if Lucy and Peter loved one another to the extent that Peter was prepared to leave his children and me and they were prepared to blast apart our happy society, forcing friends to scuttle to opposing trenches, then maybe they knew something I didn’t.

Maybe they knew that ‘it’existed – ‘The One’, a soulmate, call it what you will. Maybe they were privy to a certainty that eluded most of us, most of the time. It seemed to me that Lucy and Peter’s horrible selfishness had a cold beauty, because they believed that they were one another’s ‘someone’. The someone who made life bearable and gave existence meaning. Not such a depressing thought, if you follow it through to its ultimate conclusion. Luke and Connie were meant for one another. They were one another’s ‘it’. Daisy and Simon had ‘it’too. I took comfort that if this was so, then maybe, just maybe, all my suffering had a reason. Sometimes, on my very best days, I daydreamed and wondered if there was still an ‘it’out there for me. Last Saturday, at the wedding, I began irresponsibly to imagine that Craig might have a bit of ‘it’about him. Maybe he had potential. Of course Joe’s revelation put paid to that.

Lucy is sleeping with
someone else
now. Not only is it now impossible to believe in anything beautiful, or permanent, or meaningful, but any potential I had with Craig is well and truly splattered since I ran from the reception without so much as nodding in his direction.

Lucy has robbed me all over again.

I hate her.

I manage to function in a lacklustre way. I feed, wash clothes, iron, clean and argue about teeth-brushing as usual but I don’t have the energy to double- and treble-check their homework or music scales. The boys are taking advantage of my distraction and last Tuesday
they ‘forgot’to stay behind for auditions for the school nativity play. They are both delighted to have sunk into the obscurity of being given catch-all roles as villagers. I’ve been preening them for the roles of narrator or kings since reception class, but it seems I missed my moment. I took my eye off the ball for a second and that’s all it took. It’s the story of my life. In a way this suits me. Bigger parts might have required after-school rehearsals and the risk of running into Craig, something I dread. When I drop off or pick up the boys from school I don’t walk them right up to the gate any more. The boys interpret this as a response to their bid for independence and are delighted.

Thinking about Craig fills me with disappointment and remorse. What must he think of me? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He must think I’m quite mad, totally insane. We were having such a good time. The memory punches me and leaves me gasping. But what does it matter? How could I trust him or anyone, ever again? This world is soiled and fetid. I’ll probably have to pull the kids out of Holland House. But I can’t think about that right now. I’m dizzy with trying to decide what to think about what.

Paralysed with indecision and shock, I am unsure as to what my next move should be. Do I want to tell Peter what I know of Lucy’s latest torrid affair? There would undoubtedly be some sweet satisfaction as I watched him receive the news, the same news he once so haplessly delivered to me. I could expose her and no one would blame me. The generous would assume
that I had a latent but long-standing loyalty to my ex-husband. The less generous would be delighted in my ugly revenge and insist he had it coming. But do I want to be the one to bring all that woe into his life? Do I want to spill my news on to his living-room floor and watch the poison seep into everything he treasures? He did it to me! But still, I am unsure.

Should I confront Lucy? It would be delightful to see her squirm. To show her that she’s not so clever and that I have the upper hand for once. I could bully and threaten and frighten her. Except it’s not my style to bully and it’s not hers to be frightened. She might even tell me that Peter already knows that she has sex with other men. They might have an
arrangement
. The thought is hideous and I shy away from involving myself in their business at all.

Connie and Daisy sense that I’m not myself. They assume I must be coming down with a flu bug and reason that it must be fairly bad as I don’t reject or resist their offers to help out. Connie has done the school run for me on more than one occasion and Daisy keeps me company on Sunday when the boys are at Peter’s. Not that I am much company. I’m maudlin and secretive. We watch re-runs of
Little House on the Prairie
, as we did when we were kids. If she notices that I’m crying by the time the credits come up on screen, she chooses to believe that I’m moved by the storyline.

My friends are stunned by my ready acceptance of their offers of help, as I rarely agree to the need for support. Even when the twins were very young and
Peter first left, I preferred to manage on my own. I liked being self-sufficient. The twins gave me a purpose and I enjoyed their company. And, I suppose, I rather enjoyed being a martyr, but to be a martyr you have to believe in a cause and now I’m not so sure.

I hear Daisy and Connie whispering in the kitchen, asking one another if they know the nature of my ailment or why I seem so listless. I refuse to comment on whether I had fun with Craig at the wedding. I had anticipated sharing my exuberance with them but that now seems light years away. I’ve yet to decide if I want to share the revelation of Lucy’s latest infidelity with them. It’s tricky: Daisy will be furious and will insist that I expose Lucy instantly and as nastily as possible. I’m not sure I have the stomach for her anger on top of my own. Connie will be miserably confused. Lucy is her friend.

Oh my God, that is assuming Connie is ignorant of Lucy’s affair.

It is possible that she is Lucy’s confidante. The thought is horrific but it’s not impossible. Connie has a history of secrecy herself. They say a leopard never changes its spots. I want to trust her but it’s not easy. It’s odd that Lucy’s latest crime has eroded my belief in human nature so thoroughly. Why on earth I should ever have hung any hopes on Lucy is a mystery. But who would have thought she was able to inflict any more damage, more pain? Is there no limit? I start to scrutinize every sentence Connie utters and, as discreetly as possible, I cross-examine her as to whether
Lucy is happy at work and with Peter. She is as discreet as she has been for the last five years. Gently, but firmly, she makes it clear that she’s uncomfortable talking about Lucy. Her consistency heartens me. If she’d been more insistent and offered too many assurances of domestic bliss then I would have had reason to suspect that she knows of Lucy’s affair. I conclude she’s probably ignorant of it.

Each night I fall asleep ravaged by the day’s endless churning of facts, rumour and conjecture. The hardest part to swallow is that I would put money on it that Lucy is sleeping soundly. In my experience there is rest for the wicked. It’s those with a conscience who toss and turn.

Craig calls me to say that he doesn’t want to meet in a pub. He’s actually stated that he doesn’t want to go to a pub
at all
tonight.

‘Why?’I can’t imagine.

‘I want to talk.’

Doesn’t everyone? ‘What?’He hears the panic in my voice and tries to reassure me.

‘Nothing big. I’m just saying that you can’t hear yourself think in some of those pubs we go to. I’ll get some tins in. I’ll do a spag bol.’