The Good Divorce Guide

Chapter 2

Jonathan blinks at me, mouth open. ‘Wh-wh-wh-what…?’

‘You heard.’ I stare at him across the table where we have shared meals, card games and late-night discussions about us, the children, our friends, the world.

‘You’ve been spying on me!’

‘You’ve been cheating on me!’

I wonder if the children can hear us upstairs. But Kat is bound to be glued to her mobile, and I can hear the rhythmic thud of Freddy’s computer game. So I let rip: ‘You thought you had it all worked out, didn’t you? Me here, her there—you would have kept the whole thing going for years if I hadn’t caught you out!’ My voice breaks, but I go on: ‘How could you? Sex with someone in the office—it’s so…squalid!’

Jonathan looks as if he’s about to shout back, but then he breathes in deeply and issues a slow sigh. ‘It’s not squalid. She’s not squalid. She’s beautiful, she’s kind, she’s…clever.’

The word hits me and I jump back, as if it had been a splatter of grease from a frying pan.

Jonathan sees my reaction and looks pained. He draws nearer, and starts to put his hand out towards mine, before letting it fall. ‘I’m sorry. I know this hurts. You deserve better.’ He shakes his head. ‘We’ve been working side by side for a year. She’s been involved in the hair follicle regeneration project. It was bound to happen.’

‘Bound to happen? You’re shameless!’

‘Stop it, Rosie.’ Jonathan speaks quietly, patiently, the embarrassed husband of a fishwife from the backstreets of Naples.

‘How long has it been going on for?’

‘I…’ Jonathan looks sheepish. ‘I realised she was interested in everything I was interested in back in January. But’—here he looks proud of himself—‘it didn’t start until three months ago.’

‘You’ve lied to me!’

‘I was going to tell you,’ Jonathan replies quietly as he sits on the bar stool at the counter.

‘What? That you’ve been cheating on me?’ I’m standing, hands on hips. ‘That you don’t love me any more?’

‘Don’t pretend you love me any more,’ he snaps back.

I gasp. ‘How can you say that?!’

My husband looks at me unblinking: ‘It’s true.’

I swallow hard. I look away from the man in front of me. Do I love him? Of course I do. Don’t I? What else has kept me by his side for twelve years? I’ve given him two children and given up a job. I’ve put up with his parents’ dislike and his colleagues’ condescension. I’ve put up with his constant sharing of such riveting facts as an elephant defecates twenty kilos a day and the longest river in China is the Yangtze. I’ve reassured him when he thought his colleagues were being promoted above him, supported him when he had to work 24/7, cheered him on when he was ready to give up on his great invention, or buying this house, or building Freddy’s Lego castle. For twelve years I’ve worn pastel blue because it’s his favourite colour and Diorella because it’s his favourite scent. If that’s not love, what is?

‘Look,’ Jonathan brings his hands up to cover his face, ‘I don’t want a row.’ His voice is quiet, convinced. ‘We were both growing bored and giving less.’

Growing bored? Well, yes, it can be a bore to be shush!-ed when we’re driving back from a party, while my husband yells ‘The Congo!’ and ‘Elizabeth I!’ and ‘Tin!’ in answer to Brain of Britain. And yes, Jonathan gets on my nerves when he turns our friends’ incipient baldness into an opportunity to plug his invention—‘I think Ted’s coming along nicely. He’ll soon be asking me about Zelkin’; or ‘Sam’s grown incredibly thin on top, have you noticed? I wonder if I might not tell him about Zelkin…’ And I remember how boring he gets when he insists on updating his files with newspaper clippings on everything from ‘Chinese restaurants’ to ‘children’s museums’. But it doesn’t amount to grounds for divorce. At least, not in my book.

‘We both deserve better,’ Jonathan continues.

Do we? It’s true that when I spot our lovey-dovey neighbours, the Vincents, patting one another on the bottom or cooing at one another over a barbecue in the garden, I feel that I too deserve someone with whom I can be in tune, rather than in denial.

Our marriage, then, could be better. Yes, I do sometimes think that the elastic has given way, and what was once a support that made us the best we could be, now hangs loose, feels uncomfortable and risks dropping altogether, making us look ridiculous and shoddy.

I look down, to see whether my marriage is round my ankles.

‘You’re only cross,’ my husband is telling me, ‘because I beat you to finding the Right One.’

I know when I’m beaten. I draw up the second bar stool and perch on it, across from my husband. ‘I trusted you.’

‘You still can.’ Jonathan looks earnest. ‘I’ll look after you and the children, no matter what.’

‘What does “no matter what” mean?’ My voice trembles: I’m scared now, as well as angry. ‘You can’t seriously be saying that you’re going to risk upsetting our family for a bit of nookie with some…some…slut!’

Jonathan draws himself up, and a familiar expression, but not one I have seen him wear for years now, comes over him: ‘Take it out on me, Rosie. I understand. You’re angry and hurt. But don’t call Linda a slut.’ I breathe in sharply: Linda! The ‘L’! But Jonathan ignores my reaction and goes on: ‘She tried to fight this for months. She was ready to get out of hair and get into skin. She almost took a job in California to get away.’ He shakes his head. ‘She has been worried about you and the children from the start. She wants to meet you, you know, she wants to explain herself…Will you?’

‘Oh please, Jonathan!’ I cry. ‘You can’t expect me to be ready for a tête-à-tête with your lover.’

‘No, no, of course not.’ Jonathan looks sheepish. ‘Not yet.’ He shoots me a look. ‘But you will, won’t you, at some point? It will make everything so much easier.’

I’ve suddenly recognised the expression that has altered Jonathan’s features: love.

‘What happens now?’ I ask, defeated.

Jonathan doesn’t answer.

I bite my lip. The only way I can see him putting this behind him is if the children and I are not on tap. Once he starts missing us, I doubt Linda stands a chance. I study my husband’s dazed, faraway expression. I remember it from sunny afternoons when we lay, exhausted after lovemaking, on our bed. Jonathan doesn’t stir. I’m damned if I’m going to sit here waiting passively for him to dictate the terms of my life.

‘I think a period of separation would be sensible, don’t you?’ I don’t want a divorce. My husband may be a habit, not a soul mate; and my marriage may be tired, not thrilling: but I won’t be pushed out of either.

‘Yes, if that’s what you want.’ Jonathan doesn’t meet my eyes.

‘It’s what I need.’ I cross my arms resolutely. ‘At least this way I’ll have time to sort things out in my own mind.’

Jonathan looks up and finally meets my gaze. ‘You’ve got a lot to offer, Rosie. You’re a good-looking woman, kind, and a great mum and…and you’re still the easiest person to talk to.’

A lot to offer—but not enough for him.

The thing to remember about a separation: there is your separation, his separation, and everyone else’s view of your separation.

Jill rushes over the next day: ‘That rat! God, I want to kill him!…look, don’t worry, I’ve been there. I’ll help you.’ She stands in the doorway, a bottle of wine in hand. Beneath her glossy black fringe, green eyes shine wide with sympathy.

‘I’m actually fine,’ I try to say, but she hugs me so tight the words are crushed against her yellow shirt dress.

‘Don’t breathe in, whatever you do. I’ve sweated my own body weight. I’ve just come from my Bikram yoga session.’ Since marrying a man five years younger, Jill has been trying out anything that promises to restore her youth. She smiles: ‘Brought some vino. God knows, we both need it. Though I shouldn’t be drinking.’ Jill shakes her head disconsolately, sending the short glossy black hair swinging, left to right. ‘The latest research says three units of alcohol a day are more ageing than a week in the sun without SPF.’

Looking slim and tanned in her short dress, Jill strides past, pulling me in her wake, as if I were the visitor rather than the hostess. ‘Let’s stick two fingers up at that pig. He was chippy, an intellectual snob, and had no sense of humour.’

‘Jill, do you mind!’ I stop my ears, looking cross. But I always listen to Jill: she’s been my protector since the first day we met at University College, when a trendy third year in a black patent leather miniskirt was teasing me about my old-fashioned Laura Ashley dress. ‘At least Rosie doesn’t look like one of Nature’s little jokes,’ Jill had snarled, giving my critic a withering look.

‘You need a drink.’ Jill beckons me to follow her into the kitchen where she slides off her Prada rucksack and places it on the back of a chair. ‘Glasses,’ she murmurs and rummages through the cupboard to find two. ‘When Ross left me, wine became like a saline drip to a comatose patient.’

I watch her, a little dazed, as she twists the wine open and pours it. Jonathan used to call her terrifying: my best friend effortlessly takes over most gatherings, and most situations. ‘She makes a man feel redundant,’ my husband had complained when they’d first met. Only men like your friends, I’d felt like answering. There was Tim, capable of amazing work in the lab but only of locker-room banter outside it; and Perry, who’d left pharmacology for the City and only thought of money. Jonathan kept assuring me they were clever and kind, and when Jill and I shared a flat in Islington after uni, he’d encouraged them to chat her up. But Tim’s idea of breaking the ice had been to let out a wolf-whistle as Jill swivelled her legs out of her Mini; while Perry had spent most of their dinner at an Italian restaurant calculating on the back of his napkin what he reckoned the takings were. ‘I really appreciate your looking out for me,’ Jill had told us, ‘but Tim’s only interested in getting it on and Perry’s only interested in raking it in. There might just be more to life, don’t you agree?’

‘Now’—Jill sits at the table and motions me to sit in front of her—‘tell me all about it.’ She crosses her arms on the tabletop and looks me straight in the eyes: ‘Who is she?’

‘A colleague. But actually it’s my decision…’

‘Bastard.’ Jill kicks off her high-heeled mules, stretches her legs out. With her long, lean frame and sharp haircut my best friend always makes me feel small and floppy in comparison. ‘It’s an open-and-shut case. He’s dumped his loyal, loving wife of twelve years.’ She beams a big grin: ‘He’s cheated on you and he’s gotta pay for your heartbreak.’

‘Actually, I’m not heartbroken.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ Jill’s red-nailed hand pats mine. ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down.’

‘I mean’—I shake my head—‘it’s not how you see it. Jonathan has found another woman, but I’m not devastated. The separation is my idea.’

‘Hmmm.’ Jill shoots me a look that shows she’s not convinced. ‘A bad marriage is like two drunks fighting: it doesn’t get any better, and someone’s got to break it up.’ She pours more wine. ‘Let me give you a few tips. First: you can see a shrink, a marriage counsellor, a clairvoyant—anyone—but you MUST get yourself the best divorce lawyer in town. Mine was known as the husband beater.’ Jill winks. ‘She left Ross battered and bruised.’

I have a fleeting image of Ross Warren, the dopey and dope-smoking younger son of a wealthy Gloucestershire farmer. He was a potter, charmingly hopeless and totally unsuited to Jill. They were married for three years, until he left her for a Latvian waitress. Or was she a dog-walker?

‘This is a separation, not a divorce.’

‘Second tip’—Jill ignores my protest—‘only ring your ex during office hours.’ Here she gives a sharp mirthless laugh. ‘I can’t tell you how many nights I spent snivelling on the phone to Ross. I told him I loved him, I’d forgive him, I’d take him back and never complain about a thing again…all kinds of stuff that at three p.m. would never have crossed my lips but by midnight sounded fine. Soooooo embarrassing. Third tip: don’t, whatever you do, find out the other woman’s address, email, telephone numbers…’ Jill pauses and for a nano-second looks embarrassed. ‘Unfortunately, I had gone through Ross’s computer and had every possible contact detail for Inga.’

‘You didn’t…’

‘I did.’ Jill nods her head and can’t hide a smile. ‘She got quite a few calls from Immigration requesting she show up at their offices. Then her name and mobile number somehow ended up in the Time Out personal ads—in a box that said something along the lines of “Busty Inga is just the thinga when you’re hot to trot”.’

‘Jill, how could you?!’ For the first time in days, I’m laughing.

‘I know, I know—wicked, isn’t it?’ Jill laughs too, then grows serious. ‘What do the children know?’

‘That their father and I need a break from each other. Just for a while.’ I swallow hard. ‘I can’t bear the thought of anything hurting them.’

‘No. Of course not.’ Jill’s eyes grow dark with longing: my best friend is thirty-eight and on her third cycle of IVF. Then she shakes her head. ‘You’ve got to move quickly, and club him before he can collect his wits.’

‘I don’t want to club him. I don’t wish him ill.’

Jill’s eyes widen into round Os. ‘That’s the shock talking. When you come to, you’ll want to milk him dry.’

‘He’s my children’s father…’

‘She’s your husband’s lover.’ Jill takes a long sip, then twirls her flute pensively: ‘You should get your revenge. Leave them penniless.’

‘Jill, I don’t want a nasty, messy break-up. Neither does Jonathan.’ I finish my glass. ‘I believe we can separate in a really civilised, non-traumatic way.’

‘And I bet’—Jill leans over, up close—‘that you believe in Father Christmas too.’

Mealtimes, I discover over the next few days, are tricky. Even though I’ve moved his chair into the garden shed, and leap in to fill every conversational gap with some innocuous comment about their school or my work, nothing can disguise the Jonathan-shaped hole at our table. I’ve taught myself to check the table setting before calling the children: if I’m not careful, I’m on automatic pilot to set for four, which then means I hurriedly whisk plate, fork, and knife away while Kat and Freddy look on, sad but silent.

But mealtimes could be tricky with Jonathan around, too. There was hair: ‘I’d be very interested to see if Louis Vincent keeps that head of hair,’ Jonathan would say, raking a hand through his own thick dark curls. ‘He’s what—forty? Forty-one? It really is phenomenally full. Unusual in a fair, Nordic type. Far more common in a dark-haired Latin. Which is why Zelkin sales are not very good in France or Italy.’

There was food: ‘Hmmmm…’ Jonathan would savour the mouthful of risotto, then cast me a suspicious look. ‘Did you make it with proper stock or is this a stock cube? I’m getting a slight aftertaste of monosodium glutamate…’ And I’d own up, feeling criminal for having failed to spend two hours boiling a chicken carcass with onion (four cloves stuck into it), bay leaf, carrot and two stalks of celery, as my gourmand husband insisted gave the best flavour.

Then there was the ‘Quiz’: ‘Let’s see, children, who can tell me how many wives Henry VIII sent to the block?’ Or, ‘Can anyone remember what a coniferous tree is?’ While I’d roll my eyes at supper being turned into quiz night at the local church hall, the children enjoyed their father’s inquisition, giggling openly about their ignorance and looking admiringly as Jonathan answered his own questions.

Without Jonathan, suppers were quieter but less testing.

‘Freddy, elbows off the table,’ I warn, ladling gravy over each plate. ‘Kat, put that phone away.’

I watch the children eat. Freddy’s round cheeks fill as he slowly chews the chicken. His expression is serious, brows gathered in thought. Freddy hasn’t shed a tear over our separation, but he’s coming to my room every morning at five, a toddler’s habit he’d shaken off six years ago. Your son needs you, Jonathan, I mentally address my husband, it’s no good pretending a part-time dad will do. I turn to Kat as she pours herself a glass of water. She has my mum’s colouring, darker than mine, but the shape of her mouth, her profile, even some of her mannerisms are reminiscent of a younger, fresher version of me. As she sits now, head to one side, a faraway look in her eyes, I am reminded of my twelve-year-old self, sitting between Dad and Tom at supper, eager to join in the grown-up conversation. I took our family’s wholeness for granted; it was a given that Mum and Dad were together, and would stay that way for ever. No such givens in Kat’s life. And without them, can she grow up confident and happy and independent?

A bleep brings me back to the supper table; under the table, I see Kat’s fingers busily tap-tapping away on her mobile.

‘Kat! The phone! It’s rude.’

‘OK, OK, it’s off !’ Kat sulkily switches off her mobile. ‘What’s the big deal?’

‘It makes us think we don’t mean anything to you.’

‘Mum…’ Freddy sets down his fork and turns to me, suddenly serious; ‘do you think that’s why Dad left?’

‘Apparently one in two marriages end in divorce.’ My mother sets down her weekend bag. ‘We’re getting worse than the Scandinavians.’

‘It’s not divorce, Mum,’ I explain patiently. ‘It’s a trial separation. We need some time to think.’

‘I don’t think he’ll be using the time to think.’ My mum extracts her flowery toiletries bag.

We’re in the guest bedroom, once taken up by a succession of Latvian, Polish, and Hungarian au pairs. Now Otilya, our cleaner for the past ten years, has stemmed the flow of au pairs by offering to watch the children until I get home from work.

‘I never thought’—my mother shakes her head mournfully—‘it would happen in our family.’ She sighs. ‘It’s horrible. What am I going to tell your Aunt Lillian? And Cousin Margaret? Oh, it’s so…so embarrassing.’

Embarrassing? I give my mother a look: ever since I was this high, my mother has managed to embarrass me. Other mums accompanied the class responsibly on school trips; mine got caught smoking with the sixth formers and led the back of the bus in rousing renditions of ‘The Good Ship Venus’. Other mums might gently query their child’s mark with the relevant teacher; mine would write them five-page letters warning them not to be so provincial in their thinking. Other mums would put off any talk of the birds and the bees; mine was drawing diagrams and labelling them with rude words and inviting my friends to have a look ‘and see what’s what’.

Embarrassing, indeed.

With a huge effort I swallow my reproaches. She’s here and the summer holidays have not got off to a great start, as Jonathan has just announced that he thinks our usual fortnight in Devon would be ‘inappropriate’ this year.

‘Cup of tea?’ I volunteer.

‘I’ll come down with you, let me just organise my things,’ my mum says as she starts unpacking. Quickly and methodically, she hangs up her summer dresses and places her shirts and underwear in neat rows in the chest of drawers (I must have been looking for my mum when I married a neatness freak). She is always organising things: her house in the little village in Somerset she and Dad retired to; the members of her local Ladies’ Lawn Tennis Club; my dad’s life as a GP; mine and Tom’s as their none-too-ambitious children. She didn’t organise Dad’s untimely death, though, or my brother’s marriage to an Australian, who insists on Tom staying in Oz. And these failures spur her on to be even more in control of what is left.