You, Me and Other People

My eyebrows stretch upwards.

‘And, of course, your parents would have been different afterwards.’

It’s a question without it sounding like one. I nod in silent agreement. I’m not ready to talk about my parents and the almost disintegration of their marriage after Simon died. I didn’t understand it then and don’t really understand it now. Besides, I’m here to discuss the disintegration of my own.

Caroline senses she has almost lost me. ‘Let’s park that for now if you’d prefer?’

‘I’d prefer,’ I tell her, ‘but I’d also rather get it over with. The truth is my parents were in trouble for years afterwards. A couple living together, but mentally apart … I became their everything and I became their nothing.’

Oh shit, her pen is up. It’s like it’s appeared from nowhere and she’s writing. ‘That’s a powerful statement. “Their everything and their nothing”,’ she repeats. ‘Can you elaborate?’

‘I was quiet, thoughtful, pensive – their only surviving child, yet I was nothing like him, a constant reminder of their loss. Simon had filled the house with laughter and joy, and suddenly it was gone. All of it.’

‘Did you feel guilty?’

I sigh. ‘I think, even as a child, I knew how useless that would be, so no … “guilty” isn’t the right word. But I did feel like they’d been short-changed and that I had too. I’d lost my brother and I knew I could never fill that hole.’

‘You had …’ Caroline taps her pad with the nib of her pen. ‘You had been short-changed, all of you …’

We’re both quiet for a minute, then she is first to speak. ‘Do you see any parallels between your own and your parents’ marriage?’

‘Other than the fact that they both hit the skids at some time, no …’

‘Who was it that mentally left your parents’ marriage, if you had to say? After Simon’s death – your mother or your father?’

Really? Sometimes this woman has a talent for making me wince with her jabbing questions. I don’t reply, not out loud at least, now that I can see where she’s going with this particular train of thought. Yes, my father was the bastard. Yes, Adam is the bastard.

I lean forward. ‘How is any of this relevant, Caroline?’

‘Maybe it’s not.’ She shrugs. ‘But it’s probably worth exploring.’

‘Can we park it for another time?’ I use her expression for ignoring it at the moment.

‘Of course,’ she says, making sure that, as she says that, our eyes lock; making sure she lets me know that she knows I’m merely hiding.

Caroline assured me before I left today that most learned behaviours can be unlearned, most bad habits broken. It’s six p.m. and I’ve just drunk a half-litre bottle of sparkling water, brushed my teeth, popped a chewing gum into my mouth – anything to try and convince myself I don’t want crisps. I can unlearn my salt-and-vinegar crisp habit. I do not need crisps. They are wasted calories. My image looks back at me from the mirror in the hallway, the one that’s wall-mounted above the console table. I tilt my head left and right slowly, releasing the creaking tension. ‘What you looking at, bitch?’ I ask my inner saboteur.

‘Not much,’ she replies in my head.

‘You’re horrible, you know that, don’t you?’

‘You want crisps, you know that, don’t you?’

I run my fingers through my hair like a comb.

‘You want crisps, you want salt-and-vinegar crisps,’ she taunts me again.

The phone rings and I grab the receiver. It’s Mum. She’s brief, since she’s dashing out; just wants to make sure I’m still all right for tomorrow.

I’m not all right for tomorrow. I feel like I lost a layer of skin with Caroline today, like somehow I’ll be painfully susceptible to a mother’s probing. Much as I want to cancel, I confirm our plans.

The next day, as suspected, my mother is no pushover. Having worried myself sick that she will be able to read me like a book when I see her, I insisted we meet for lunch halfway, purely to keep her away from the house. Allowed into the house, she would, like an anteater, sniff out the absence of Adam. Instead, we are lunching and shopping at John Lewis in High Wycombe.

Unusually, Mum is full of chat about herself. Her latest course at the local adult education centre, where she is learning how to manicure nails; her friend Trish who cheats at bridge; the vicar’s wife who’s seeing the guy who runs the off-licence. I listen for ages, smile, and laugh appropriately. I love my mother deeply. Sybil Moir has polar-white hair, having refused to succumb to hair dye like the rest of us. It is styled in flicked curls that curve away from her face. A few facial lines reveal she’s in her sixties, but it’s her grey eyes that light her face. If eyes can make a face smile, my mother’s, fringed with thick silver lashes, do – without ever needing the curve of her lips.

Her staple clothes choice of jeans, a polo-neck sweater and Barbour jacket hasn’t changed in years. Today, a bottle-green sweater hugs her neck. Black jeans ride above black leather ankle boots, Chelsea style – Mum doesn’t do heels – and her black padded jacket hangs on the back of the café chair.

I’m quite tickled at the fact that my phone lies have worked so far and all is going swimmingly until, grey eyes looking down into her latte, she asks me how Adam is. Really is. She just detects that maybe all’s not well. Then she looks up and stares right at me.

I dig deep. Right down into that monkey-nut inner core, match her gaze and tell her that Adam’s fine. Really. He’s really fine. This isn’t even a lie. He is allegedly very fine. He’s having lots of sex with another, younger woman. What man wouldn’t be?

‘And you?’ she asks. ‘I suppose you’re fine too?’

‘I am. And Meg, she’s—’

‘Yes, she’s fine. I know. Meg returns my calls.’

I take the dig.

‘Well, as long as everyone’s fine.’ She smacks her hands lightly on the edge of the table. ‘Let’s see what John Lewis has to offer?’

A few hours of shopping later, she seems satisfied, heading back to the Cotswolds as I wave her off. I climb into the car and chew my cheek. I know I’ve only dodged the ball. She’s like Arnie, my mum. She’ll be back.

After a fairly sleepless night, I wake to the sound of staccato showers and someone singing in my head. I always wake to some random track playing in my brain. Adam used to ask me every morning who was featuring and what they were singing. He believed it used to dictate my mood. Today, it’s someone whose name I can’t remember, but she’s telling me I’ve got to live my life and do what I want to do.

I head to the shower clutching my stomach. Whenever I think of him, of what he’s doing with his day, I feel my insides churn, then coil around themselves so tightly that it physically hurts. I close my eyes, hold my head up to the scalding, pulsing water as I soap my body. I dismiss him from my head, deciding that I will have a proactive work day today and I will start by reading the movie script Josh gave me. Again … I’ve tried and failed before, finding anything love-related too sweet to endure.

Three hours and four cups of coffee later, I’m sitting at the dual computer screens in the loft. The left one shows my petty attempt at a lyric while the right one displays the musical effort. My head is buzzing as I open YouTube and I watch the Twilight song Josh had spoken about. Again, I’m immediately consumed with song-writing envy. How does that woman Christina Whatsit do it? I watch the clip a few more times and then get back to the script. I can do this, I tell myself, my head in my hands. They asked for me. I’m one of three they asked for – I can do this. On the wall, all around my writing area, are the inspirational mantras I’d found weeks ago, printed in purple gothic font. Some I’d copied and some are all my own work. I stare up at ‘I AM A SONGWRITING PHENOMENON!!!’ And I almost believe it, as I set to work.

I work through lunchtime and only move away from the screen when my stomach is doing a hunger dance. Downstairs, I eat a bag of crisps. A voice inside my head tells me that I have to do a food shop, as I tear open today’s mail.

My bank statement shows me that, early last week, Adam paid the same amount that he has paid into my bank account for years, a monthly sum, to run the house, pay for food and bills, etc. I lick the crisps from the end of my fingers as a new fear blindsides me. What if he stops doing that? What if he just decides not to pay it? We have no dependent children any more and it’s all very well me telling him to fuck right off, but what happens practically? We both own the house, it’s not mortgaged, but I want to stay living here. Panic seeps from my brain through my entire system.

The hard fact is that I do not make nearly enough money to run this house alone. Even with my latest increase in royalties, I would have to get a job as well … The thought of getting a job, a real job that pays me a regular wage, terrifies me. I’m forty-two. The country has been in a double-dip recession; thousands of graduates and highly qualified people are out of work. My eyelids droop momentarily. Maybe that termite email was a bit much. Maybe I need to calm down a bit and maybe we do need to talk.

I don’t want to have time to change my mind, so I send Adam a text, asking him to come by the house. I keep it simple and it is only minutes before my phone pings a reply.

‘R u in tonite?’

I feel immediately irritated, angry even. I hate text language, and anyone who knows me respects that and uses proper English words when texting me. I’ve told them for years not to be so bloody lazy.

‘No. I’m not in tonight,’ I lie. ‘I’m out.’

‘Wen then?’ chimes back.

‘You idle bastard. Since when have you forgotten I hate lazy texting? I’m not your stupid bimbo whore. Yes, whore is spelt with a “w”.’

The landline rings and I ignore it. He has such an ability to rile me.

‘Idle?’ The mobile responds instead. ‘You call ME idle! Some of us are WORKING 24/7 for a living!’

My hand goes automatically to my mouth. Shit. My eyes flash to the bank statement and I text him back.

‘Sorry. Come by Friday?’

‘C U Fri at 8.’

I inhale a deep sigh and toss my mobile across the worktop.

I’ve abandoned the idea of writing an Oscar-nominated song for film this afternoon and instead I’m riffling through random papers in Adam’s desk. It struck me, seeing my bank balance, that I haven’t seen a statement in months from Adam’s bank account. He has a habit of leaving paper around, but there’s nothing – no statements anywhere.

I open up the bank’s web page saved on his computer. Keying in what I know to be his default password, ‘BeautifulMeg’, the account opens before me. I make a note of the common standing orders and direct debits on a blank page, just so I’m fully up to speed with what goes out on normal expenses – insurances, cars, etc., etc. On another blank page, I note all the other sundry spends, including the restaurants he’s been visiting with his bimbo whore. Nearly five hundred pounds last month. Then I see it. A transaction for two hundred and ninety pounds in Agent Provocateur … I set my pen down on his desk and stare at it until the letters become jumbled.

Images of Adam shagging a faceless but scantily clad woman swim in my brain like scenes from some Swedish porn movie. I hear the soundtrack in my head. Something shifts in that moment and I’m past angry. Now, I just want to know how long my husband has been lying to me and about what. Scanning the account for the last six months, I send the information to the printer.

Leaning on his desk with both hands, I contemplate how the hell I’m supposed to write about love right now, when all I feel is a furious sense of having been taken for a complete idiot. I head out to the hall table, grab my car keys and walk to the shop at the nearby garage. I need crisps and lots of them.

Sylvia is outside her house with Ted, her Yorkshire terrier, on a lead. ‘Hey,’ she says as I exit the gate.

‘Hi.’ I automatically hug her. ‘I’m sorry it’s been a while, I’ve been busy licking my wounds.’

‘You’re entitled. Where you headed?’

‘The garage, I need crisps.’

She giggles. ‘I’ll walk with you. Just taking Ted out for a stretch.’

‘How’re Nigel and the kids?’

‘They’re great. Now … That’s enough small talk. How are you?’

‘All the better for all the food you bring me.’ I link her arm for a moment. ‘Seriously, I’d probably have fallen down a grate without you.’

‘You look like you probably will anyway. How much weight have you lost? No, don’t tell me. Maybe I can persuade Nige to leave me, just for a while.’ She yanks on Ted’s lead, pulling him closer. ‘Sorry, too soon?’

I shake my head, attempt a smile. We walk for a few minutes; when we reach the main road, the smell of traffic fumes almost overcomes me.

‘Come over for dinner tonight when the kids are in bed,’ she says. ‘Just you, me and Nige. You don’t have to talk about anything to do with Adam. Just eat homemade chicken.’

‘Tempting.’ I can feel myself salivate at the thought. ‘But no, I really have to work and I’m not ready to socialize yet. Soon, I promise. Please don’t stop asking.’

‘I won’t.’ She steers me into the garage shop and again, I breathe deep to combat the smell of fuel outside. ‘Salt-and-vinegar crisps,’ she tells the guy at the till. ‘A big bag. A big bag with lots of little bags, you know the type?’

Seb, as his badge reveals he’s been named, looks at Sylvia like she’s a lunatic. ‘You need a supermarket for multi-bags,’ he says, already bored.

‘Well, just fill a plastic bag with as many little bags as you can.’ She rolls her eyes at me.

I’m not even sure I want crisps any more. I shiver, pray I’m not coming down with something.

‘Have you noticed?’ Sylvia asks.

‘What?’ I remove my purse from my pocket, get it ready for Seb as he’s done exactly what Sylvia asked.

She tugs on my cotton jacket. ‘It’s mid-October. The trees will soon be bare. Evenings will be dark, the sun shielded by dense layers of cloud, not to be seen again until springtime. It’s cold out there.’ She speaks as if she’s in a Shakespearean play; makes the word ‘cold’ sound very long and very loud.

I shudder on cue and nod. ‘Note to self. Summer jackets to be put away.’

‘Warm jackets to be worn on late-afternoon jaunts for crisps …’

Walking back, she makes me laugh with stories of the kids and Nigel; when we stop outside the house, Ted does an enormous circular crap right in the centre of my driveway. Sylvia scoops it up into a plastic bag and asks me if I want her to let it harden a little and send it to Adam. ‘Shit for a shit.’ She shrugs. ‘Seems reasonable …’

I don’t disagree. After hugging her goodbye, I’m soon back in the kitchen, tearing open a bag of crisps. And there, on my own, the dark night drawing in, I turn the thermostat up, throw a cardigan from a pile of washing around me. I flick the tiny kitchen television into life with the remote and scroll through channels until I find a rerun of Game of Thrones. Leaning on the worktop, I lick my salty fingertips, as Catelyn Stark tells me, her face grave, that ‘Winter is Coming.’

Chapter Ten

‘Why are you still wearing your ring?’

I stop twirling it around my finger and look at Matt. ‘I’m a married man until Beth tells me otherwise,’ I say.

‘Do you think she will?’ Matt keeps glancing at the clock on the meeting room wall. I’m sure he’s trying diversionary tactics, rather than discussing the more immediate elephant in the room.

‘Forget my wedding ring, Matt. We need to figure out our response. They’ll be here in forty minutes.’

He’s nodding, biting his bottom lip, and I can tell he’s worried. Matt and I go way back to university days and I first saw him chew his lip when Shelly Lewis dumped him. I stare at him, can practically hear his brain whirring, and Shelly Lewis pales into insignificance as the reality of the Granger brothers, our largest single family account, potentially sacking us, dawns.

‘Look,’ he offers, ‘we directly advised them, yes. They’ve lost a shitload of money, yes. Of course they’re not happy. Shit, I’m not happy.’ He runs a hand over his head of thinning hair. ‘We did our due diligence. The fund seemed right. But, there is something else.’ Matt is now standing and staring out of my office window.

I hear laughter in the corridor outside but, for some reason, I can feel my stomach sink.

He turns slowly. ‘I need you here for the meeting today, obviously, we’ve got to face them together about this latest dip, but they’ve asked for you to be removed from the account. There, I’ve said it – there’s no easy way.’

I know my face is scrunching as I process what he’s just said. The Granger brothers want me off the account. That can’t be right. I brought the Granger brothers to the firm. I discovered the family business, nurtured them and have looked after them for the last God-knows-how-many years. ‘I don’t understand—’

He interrupts. ‘Yes, you do. You’ve had your eye off the ball for months now. I’ve made allowances, everyone has, but this – ’ he raises his hands to the heavens – ‘this midlife crisis, or whatever it is, has made you lose your edge. You just don’t seem to care?’

‘I care.’ I feel my neck redden under my shirt collar and loosen my tie automatically. ‘Of course I care. I can’t believe you’re saying this and saying it now.’ I jab a finger at my watch, indicating we have even less time to figure out what to do about the Grangers. I ignore what he’s said for a minute. ‘Will they sack us?’ I ask.

‘I think so, I don’t know …’

I’m baffled. ‘They’re almost thirty per cent of our business.’ My voice is almost a whisper.

‘I know that.’ Matt removes his glasses, rubs both his eyes with a forefinger and thumb.

‘And what? You blame me? They blame me? The markets aren’t my fault.’

‘I know that too.’ He raises a calming hand. ‘They know that, but they also know you’ve been away with the fairies during meetings, and now with this … They need a scapegoat.’

‘And I’m it. Adam and his midlife crisis, eh? How convenient.’ I stand up and take my jacket from the back of my chair.

‘Where are you going?’ His voice raises a notch when he sees me head for the door.

‘You don’t need me. They want me off the account. I’m sure you’ll handle it from here.’

‘Do not walk out, Adam.’

I slam the door for added effect and Jen, who’s sitting in reception, averts her eyes. I ignore Matt calling my name and press the button for the lift. Taking deep breaths, I process the facts. We’ve probably lost thirty per cent of our business. I’ve played a part in that. I lean a hand on the mirrored wall of the lift, breathe slowly, in and out. Everything is falling apart. Exiting the lift, I do what any man in that position would. I call Emma.

As I drive to Weybridge for what will probably be the second row of the day, I’m calm. After a steak sandwich in the White House, followed by a soothing massage to ‘release the stress knots’ in my shoulders, followed by sex – yes, I’m calm. The wrestling session has left me exhausted but I’m calm. And shallow. Shallow enough to need sexual release when everything is going to rat-shit. Shallow enough to keep going back to Emma since she’s the only one who seems to think I’m incredible.

My phone pings a text from Matt. ‘Call me. Urgent.’

I dial the number via the Bluetooth connection.

‘About time,’ he says almost instantly. ‘Where have you been?’

I decline to answer on the grounds that I would definitely incriminate myself.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘I need to bring you up to speed. Adam?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Well, they didn’t fire us.’ He sighs. ‘But it was a tough meeting. As suspected, you’re off the account.’

I remain silent.

‘Where are you? Can we meet?’

‘No. I’m a few minutes from Weybridge. Meeting Beth tonight to see what happens from here. I won’t get back until late.’

‘Early breakfast meeting? Starbucks? We need to talk.’

‘I think you’ve probably said enough.’

‘Adam, not everything is about you? We need to discuss this mess we’ve been left with and you need to get your arse in gear, get your finger back on the pulse.’

I can’t even speak. Matt telling me off like a child makes my blood boil, even if he’s right – probably because he’s right.

‘Starbucks at seven thirty,’ he continues. ‘Oh, and by the way – it’s not me, it’s you.’

I hear the phone disconnect and can’t help a short-lived smile at his attempt at break-up humour. Moments later, the smile fades as I steer into the driveway of what was my beautiful home and now appears to be Beth’s beautiful home.

She answers the door so quickly, I don’t really have time to gather my thoughts.

‘Hi.’ She stands back and ushers me in. She looks well. She’s wearing a little makeup, eyeliner, lip gloss, blusher. She has on what I know to be jeans from her ‘skinny’ clothes, kept on the left-hand side of the walk-in wardrobe we shared. The blouse, too, I recognize from the same rack of clothes that Beth now fits easily.

‘I never knew,’ I say, as she takes my jacket.

‘Knew what?’

‘That you don’t like horseradish.’ My head nudges to the wall art and she shrugs.

‘I guess you know now,’ she replies. We head to the kitchen. ‘Wine?’

‘No thanks, I’ll just have a coffee.’ I pass a photo of Beth and me taken years ago on a ski trip. We’re smiling and there is such love in our eyes that it rattles me. She flicks the kettle on, takes out two cups and the scene seems so normal. I realize I miss this. This afternoon’s sex, the last few months, all seem to disappear when I see a photo of Beth and me the way we were and she’s making me a cup of coffee in our kitchen.

‘How’ve you been?’ she asks.

‘I’m okay. A tough day at the coalface … You?’

She shrugs, doesn’t reply. She hands me my mug, takes her cup of green tea and sits opposite me at the island in the kitchen. I try to catch her eye. ‘Beth, I …’ I reach across and touch her free hand. She snatches it away.

‘Please, I need to explain.’

‘I forgot you take sugar,’ she says, heading back to the larder, removing the bowl and handing it to me with a teaspoon. ‘Have you heard from Meg this week?’

‘No. I … Look, there’s not much point in saying it just happened, but it did, really. She came on to me. No, I didn’t stop her. I should have stopped her. I wish I’d stopped her, I wish I’d stopped myself. I wish none of it had happened and I was home here with you.’ I banish any thoughts of this afternoon’s antics from my mind. I am here to talk to Beth. I’m here to try and get her to listen. I’m not even sure what I want to say, but I do know that here and now, in this moment, I’ll tell any lie necessary, because I’m not ready for my marriage to end.

Beth is staring downwards at the oak flooring. ‘Meg’s got her exams soon, don’t forget.’

‘Beth? It’s sex, just sex. You and I, we …’

Beth, her head still pointed downwards, looks as though she’s trying to swallow a golf ball. I shrug, helpless. ‘Sex, that’s all … You stopped wanting me.’ I bite my tongue; the last thing I want to do is make her feel like I’m blaming her.

She looks up. ‘We need to sort out the details. What happens, how we actually separate … I don’t want to lose the house.’

Jesus Christ. I sip my coffee. ‘Is that the only reason I’m here, Beth? My wallet, the house?’

‘You left to shack up with your whore,’ she murmurs.

‘I’m not shacked up with her. I’m living in Ben’s place. And you threw me out.’ I don’t bother defending Emma’s honour.

‘I don’t want to do this.’ She’s standing suddenly, one hand on her hip.

I don’t move. ‘What, you don’t want to do it now? Or never? We have to do this. We can’t pretend nothing happened and just talk money!’

‘Why not?’ She finally looks at me.

Suddenly, I’m weary. ‘Don’t you want to talk? We’re broken, Beth. I know it’s all my fault, but please—’