January 31 – Saturday
It was almost one o’clock in the morning when Richard arrived home from the office. He walked through the front door like a man who had just run a marathon. He might have been doing the work of three men, such was his jadedness. Expertly, he fingered in the alarm code and flipped off his shoes as he came into the kitchen. The light from the open fridge door did not alert him to the presence of his wife sitting in the corner of their designer kitchen on the old-fashioned rocking chair she had picked up earlier in the day. Gone was the designer Nordic number that encouraged great posture and, Amanda suspected, skin sores from its unforgiving beach seat.
‘Hello Richard,’ Amanda said softly once he had the milk jug raised to pour.
‘Arghh,’ Richard shouted and, in a spectacularly slow-motion move, turned, slipped, grabbed the countertop before him, crashed the jug to the floor and sent his discarded shoes flying across the kitchen. ‘Oh, my God, Amanda, you could have given me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, but she sank further into her chair and observed him dispassionately. This time, Richard could do his own mopping up. There was quite a bit of glass there too, she noticed, but she made no move to help. She watched him, impassively, as he scuttled around this family kitchen, checking various drawers and cupboards for cloths and a mop to help with the clean-up. She noticed that it seemed completely unfamiliar to him. Eventually, he swept up the glass and wiped the milk from the floor and units. His suit too, was sploshed, and while the milk no longer sat in white splats, Amanda could see the wet patches flecked across his legs and jacket front. ‘So,’ she said once he had done, ‘I thought we should have a little chat.’ Her heart was thumping in her chest. She smiled with a lot more confidence than she felt, but the fact that he was already rattled made her feel as if she already had the upper hand.
‘It’s a bit late, isn’t it?’ He couldn’t meet her eyes.
‘No, I think it’s the perfect time for what I want to discuss. You see, Richard, I’ve been waiting here for hours for you.’ She patted the table across from her, indicating that he could sit while they spoke. He appeared to have lost his appetite now.
‘Well, yes, well, I should have called, but work, you know, last-minute emergency, quite a few of us had to stay back…’ He kept his eyes lowered, thinking up his excuse as he went along.
‘Oh, right,’ she said and then let the silence hang between them for a moment. ‘What kind of emergency was it, Richard?’
‘It was…’ then he looked at her, perhaps he caught something in her voice. He suddenly became even more guarded, she could see it in the way he pulled himself up, folded his arms, knotted his brows.
‘Go on, Richard, do tell, I’m interested,’ she said, enjoying his discomfort now.
‘Well, it was… just the foreign offices, they had a bit of a moment and it seemed the perfect opportunity to pick up some stocks at rock-bottom prices, so…’
‘I see,’ Amanda said, and when she caught his eye, they both had a feeling that this was just a game. He was the fly to her spider. Now he’d taken the first steps onto her web, they both knew there was no going back. On the table before her, she played with the envelope, running her fingers along its edges, knowing that it held the power to crack their marriage wide open if she was brave enough.
‘What’s that?’ Richard’s voice sounded more pathetic than she’d ever heard him before.
‘This, oh, Richard, this is something very special. Would you believe me, if I said to you that this could be the passport to our happy ever after?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ he laughed, but it was a high-pitched nervous sound that cut across the emptiness of their home. ‘What is it?’
‘Would you like to see?’ Amanda pushed the envelope towards him, slowly, she was trembling with fear at what might happen next, but she hoped that Richard’s nerves might make him blind to it.
‘I… I’m not sure.’ He looked at her for a moment, until he could not hold her gaze. ‘Where are the kids?’ His eyes flitted nervously around the kitchen as though they should be here now.
‘They’re in bed, Richard. In bed, it’s where we should be too, but I had to talk to you.’ That was true, they were in bed… on the other side of the country, but it seemed to her that if they acted as if the children were here, it might just keep them on the right side of civilised. Her voice sounded very far away even to herself, and when Richard looked at her again, she knew he knew that the game was up.
‘Okay, I’ll look in the envelope,’ he said. ‘Let’s play this game you’re so intent on playing.’ His voice sounded harsher now. Richard played to win; he did not like to lose in anything. He opened out the envelope with a show of confidence that she had a feeling wasn’t real. She could see his hands shaking as the 10 x 8s skidded across the table. They were face down. He gathered them like a deck of oversized cards, she almost expected him to shuffle them. ‘Okay,’ he said and then he turned them over.
He looked at each snap, lingered on them for a few seconds, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He laid each one face down on top of the last. The silence in the kitchen seemed to stretch out into eternity, as though fate was hanging on each passing second. As though their lives hung suspended in this unreal bubble and, for Amanda at least, it was a bubble filled with fear. She was not sure what the next second would bring.
Richard exhaled loudly when he placed the last photograph down. He closed his eyes then and it seemed to Amanda that he shrank lower into himself. Never a tall man, she watched as his frame crumpled, so even his arms seemed shorter, his head sunk deeper into his shoulders. Was this shame, she wondered, or was it anger that he’d been caught out? She really wasn’t sure as she sat silently opposite him for what seemed like forever.
When he cleared his throat, his voice sounded thick with emotion. He did not open his eyes; instead, he spoke soft and low, his eyes fastened tight shut as though he might keep the horror of this situation from being real if he didn’t look at her.
‘I’ll go,’ he said and then he shuddered. Two words and there was nothing else between them for an age. Amanda kept her eyes glued to him. He made no move to get up. He made no attempt to speak or to look at her; his ragged breath might have been anger as much as remorse, she really couldn’t tell either way.
After minutes of sitting in this silence, Amanda knew she had to speak.
‘I’m not asking you to leave, Richard. But this has to end, if you want to stay,’ she said looking across at him. ‘You have to see that; you can’t stay here and be with her.’
‘Yes of course, I can see that,’ he said then, and when he opened his eyes to look at her, she could see they were filled with tears. He bent forward towards the table and put his face into his hands. ‘God, I’m so…’ he started to sob. ‘I’ve been so stupid.’
‘Yes. You have.’
‘And you’d forgive me?’ he looked up at her sharply now. ‘If I end it, you think we have a future together?’
‘I…’ Amanda wasn’t sure if she could forgive him. At this moment, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted him here, if she told the truth. The only thing she was sure about was that she didn’t want him anywhere near Arial Wade.
‘You’re taking it all very well,’ he said then and his voice had returned to that weakened croak of earlier as though something worse was yet to come.
‘Do you think so?’ Amanda shook her head, wanted to be cool and laugh at him. She wanted to be as aloof as Nicola, but she was treading a fine line now between rushing to him and screaming at him as if she was a fishwife and having a complete meltdown. The last thing she wanted was for him to see how she really felt. She was still numb and hurt, but that was nowhere near forgiveness. More than that, she was raging, but thankfully, common sense was holding for now and, anyway, it was buried too deeply beneath her fears to really penetrate into the present moment. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure how I’m taking it.’
‘When did you find out?’ He nodded towards the photos, perhaps assessing an opportunity around how much he could get away with.
‘They are only from this week, Richard, I’ve known longer than that,’ she said, shaking her head, thinking of that condom and his unenthusiastic response when she insisted on going to the Christmas party, so many things added up in her brain over the last four weeks. She wondered just how long it had been going on for, but Richard had already lied, there was no reason to believe she’d get an honest answer.
‘So, what next?’ he asked.
‘Next, I think we get to bed. I’ve set up the spare room for you. The kids know that things aren’t right, so it’s not as if it’s going to come as any great surprise. Tomorrow, Richard, we talk.’
‘Right. Of course, we’ll sleep on it, that’s best.’
‘And Arial?’ she asked, couldn’t help it.
‘Arial…’ he said softy and something lingered in his eyes when he looked at her and Amanda felt the most terrible fear grip her. What if this wasn’t just a fling? What if he loved this woman? What then? ‘Tomorrow,’ he sighed a deep resonating sound that made them both shudder. ‘We’ll know better by then.’
Amanda watched him as he walked from the kitchen and she thought he looked for all the world like a broken man and then she stopped herself, because she knew she could not feel hatred for him in her heart, was it worse to feel pity?
The terrible fear that had gripped Amanda up to a week ago rose within her once more. What had she expected? That once she got through this, things would return to what they’d been before? She had been thinking that it would be down to her to forgive her erring husband, but now Richard was holding all the aces. He walked out as though there was a decision to make and it was not as clear-cut as Amanda had hoped it would be.
Amanda sat in her darkened kitchen for almost an hour digesting the words that her husband never uttered. He didn’t need to say them, she could tell. Richard was in love with Arial Wade. What would she do if he chose to leave her? She knew it was a possibility. All the same, she hadn’t seriously considered it until now and the sickening churn in her stomach told her that at this moment it was as likely as any other outcome.
Eventually, she looked at the clock, three o’clock, and she would have to get up and start a new day in a few hours’ time. She hadn’t cried in the time she was sitting here, perhaps she was too numbed by it all. She dragged herself up to bed, lay beneath her expensive goose down quilt; she didn’t change into her lovely soft pyjamas, she didn’t even take her shoes off. What was the point?
She lay for the next three hours, frozen by fear; her heart beating with the kind of trepidation that ancient man lived or died by. Far from feeling better, having ‘gotten it all out in the open’, Amanda felt much worse. As though she’d opened a Pandora’s box of misery and she’d never manage to get the lid back on it again so her life could return to some kind of normality.
*
At six o’clock, Amanda heard Richard move about the house. He was always first out, there was nothing new in that. It sounded as if he was bustling about, making a greater effort to be silent, but still managing to make more noise. She heard him curse as he trod on the stairs; he didn’t make himself his normal cup of tea. Amanda turned over and faced his empty pillow beside her.
It was only later when she decided to check the spare room for laundry that she realised, he was gone. Richard had packed up a weekend bag. He had left that morning without saying a word, it was why he had grunted and cursed as he made his way down the stairs. He had made his choice and Amanda knew she had lost in her gamble to save her marriage.
Too cowardly to have it out with her, he’d left a note. I am in love with Arial. There was no sorry. I don’t expect you to understand. There was no remorse. For months, fighting a passion so much more than… Amanda felt herself retch, but held the note more tightly. Once in a lifetime… too strong to walk away. There was no goodbye. We are meant to be together.
She steadied herself; he was leaving her. He was leaving her with more cruelty than if he’d just managed to lie to her one more time. Amanda slid down off the bed he’d slept in last night. She curled up on the floor and cried until, eventually, her body could take no more and she fell into a wracking, sobbing sleep.
When she woke, she knew that there was nothing else for it. Her only recourse now was alcohol. The kids were gone and, God knows, there were enough decent bottles to inebriate the crews of several submarines. Instead of sailors, she would make do with Tess who had promised to check on her when the coast was clear. There really was no one else. By the time she arrived, Amanda had already almost finished a bottle of wine.
So, she ended up with the mother of all hangovers, true, but with Tess, she ended up laughing as much as she cried. Maybe she’d done her crying. After all, four weeks is a long time to spend your nights lying awake dreading what might happen.
Now it had happened and, Amanda realised, the world had not fallen apart. Her world was much the same as before, only now she had one less thing to worry about.
They drank three bottles of wine between them that Saturday evening. The truth was, it turned out that Tess had been just like her. She was lonely. They each needed company and friendship; luckily, it looked as if they had finally found it in spades in each other.
‘You’re better off,’ Tess said, her words slightly slurring, but the intention was genuine. Tess really believed that Amanda could have a better life without Richard and all the crap he brought with him.
‘Well, there are things I won’t miss, that’s for sure,’ Amanda was sipping her wine now, the gulping desperateness of earlier subsided once she had calmed down. ‘I won’t miss my weekly coffee mornings, or the pressure of having to be the perfect hostess for all of his clients.’ That was true, and it was only the start of it.
It dawned on her, as she looked around her untidy kitchen; she was in no rush to clean up. It didn’t matter if she left a cup on the draining board, or if she burned rice so it stuck to the bottom of one of her expensive saucepans. Richard wasn’t here to look at her as though she had failed. It didn’t matter if she chose to dab on a dollop of Nivea cold cream to her overly preened skin and spend her day lounging with a magazine, Richard could not make her feel slovenly any more. She could donate every piece of uncomfortable designer furniture and surround herself with pretty Laura Ashley or Cath Kidston or vintage finds if she felt like it. It didn’t matter if her hair went grey, or if she didn’t wear the most up-to-date labels. It didn’t matter if she never had another filler or facial. It didn’t matter if she bought her groceries in Tesco or served up fish and chips in front of the telly occasionally. None of it mattered anymore and it took Tess to put it into words.
‘You’re your own woman; from now on you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’ And that was when the resentment set in, because very quickly it angered Amanda that she had become someone she hardly recognised. No one had made her change. Richard may have expected that they live a certain way, but he did not make her into what she had become. No, Amanda realised that it had been all her own doing and the worst part was she hardly knew where she began and ended.
In her youth, Amanda had been the girl who sketched everything she saw. Four years of Art college and she hardly owned a painting that she vaguely liked. Richard chose the art as investment pieces. She looked at the two prints that hung above their dining room table. They had come from a little gallery on Batchelor’s Walk that was having a ‘moment’. They were truly hideous, splotches of all the worst colours, overwritten with faux suicide-inducing lines of ‘poetry’. Good taste had long deserted her when she allowed those to overlook her dining table.
‘What are you doing?’ Tess asked in a voice that wobbled as much with alcohol as it did with amusement.
‘I’m getting rid of these,’ Amanda said, pulling the vast kitchen table closer to the offending pieces. She climbed up, a little shakily and lifted them from the wall. They weren’t large, but they were big enough to dominate the room with their dark themes. She laid them on the table at her feet. She would bring them back to the gallery; see if she could sell them on. She could donate the proceeds, if anyone was stupid enough to buy them. ‘The emperor’s new clothes,’ she grumbled as she moved them to the hall. She tucked them out of sight in the antique sideboard that stood to attention beneath the stairs. By the time she came back into the kitchen, she had made a decision. ‘I’m going to paint something for there. I’m going to paint something that is magical and hopeful and every time I look at it I’m going to remind myself that I’ve had a second chance.’ And that was it, she mightn’t be like Richard, off to start a new relationship with someone else, but she was going to make the most of life, starting right now. She smiled and mentally added it to her to do list.
‘What else are you going to do?’ Tess asked, her eyes full of hope for a future that looked bright through the lens of a bottle and a half of the most expensive plonk she’d ever drank.
‘I don’t know, but I’m not going to wallow, I’ve done enough of that.’
‘Well, good for you,’ Tess said and Amanda had a feeling that she believed her and maybe that was enough.
*
Of course, Richard had only taken half of his belongings with him. Somehow, having them around kept her grounded in a kind of limbo. She moved everything she came across into the spare room, but Amanda knew she had to get them out the door. She thought it would be easy, compared to telling Casper and Robyn. When they returned on Sunday evening, she sat them down around the kitchen table and over hot chocolates; she explained that Richard had moved out. They took it quite well, but then, she’d given them the sanitised version. She told them that they’d grown apart. No big drama, just the love for each other had changed and they were both happy to be friends and be parents to their children. There had been no great rush to the phone, no outpouring of grief. The truth was, they hardly saw their father anyway. He’d always been working – especially since Arial Wade arrived on the scene. Amanda wondered if Richard would perhaps see more of them now than he had before, because there would have to be actual time put aside in his life for them. Perhaps they knew that too.
*
‘Your belongings, Richard. There’s quite a lot of stuff here and really, I’d prefer if they were out of the house,’ Amanda kept her voice neutral, she had decided that she would not become emotional with him. At this point, she’d cried and worried enough to last a lifetime, there was no point in recriminations. He had chosen Arial over her. Amanda reasoned that, in some ways, she had stopped being Amanda a long time ago. She had come to the point, where she wasn’t at all keen on who she had become either. All the same, it hurt as if it was a physical pain in her gut that he had chosen someone else over her. It was the ultimate betrayal; a public humiliation that shouted out to the world that she was not good enough. She put all those thoughts aside when she telephoned him at the office on Monday morning.
‘Yes. Well…’
‘Can I send them to Arial’s place?’
‘Well, no. I mean, I’m not staying with Arial at the moment, her place is quite small and…’ he was whispering, trying not to be heard. ‘Have you told Nicola anything about… us?’
‘No, why?’
‘Well, it’s just… nothing is set in stone, you know. We still might…’ Richard’s voice broke off.
‘What are you saying? That we might give our marriage another try?’ Amanda was incredulous. One minute he was flying into the arms of the love of his life and making her feel as if she wasn’t good enough and now this? ‘I don’t understand, I thought you loved Arial?’
‘Well, I do, but…’ Richard cleared his throat. ‘Look, we have things we need to sort out, you and I. This, our separation, is bigger than just the two of us, you know?’
‘Have you spoken to the kids?’
‘Em, no. I thought, you, I mean, we might…’
‘I’ve told them that we’ve separated, Richard. You can’t have thought they wouldn’t notice.’ Amanda sighed and, in that moment, all of the things she’d talked about over those bottles of wine with Tess seemed to come full circle. Richard was the expert on how they lived their lives, but Amanda was the one who had to do all the work around it.
‘Did you tell them why we separated, I mean, about me and Arial?’
‘What do you think, Richard? No. I didn’t tell them that you’re having an affair. I think it’s enough for one person in this family to feel betrayed, don’t you?’
‘I…’ he faltered, he still hadn’t said he was sorry. Of course, Amanda realised, he wasn’t at all sorry. ‘We should meet up, you know, make a plan, so we can do this with as little…’ his sentence hung in mid-air, other wives might have thought the missing word was upheaval, pain, hassle, but Amanda thought, he might just mean cost. All the same, she had a feeling that she was missing something. Could he possibly be playing her again?
‘Yes. We should.’ She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. She had wrapped up the two paintings from the kitchen and was about to drop them off at the gallery. She ran her finger along the bubble wrap, a longing to burst each bubble surged through her. She could never resist bursting each air pocket when she was a child. ‘How’s next Friday?’ She knew, he could hardly say no. After all, it was their anniversary. Twenty-two years of marriage and they’d be spending it figuring out how to pull it all apart with as little fuss as possible. ‘And I can bring along some of your things,’ she said flatly.