The Mistress's Revenge: A Novel Page 16

  Then we were in another taxi, a different one.

  “Take us to a hotel,” you told the driver, imperiously. “But make sure it doesn’t cost more than £187.75.”

  Do you remember saying that? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite so funny.

  The second hotel had a basement floor with windowless rooms at a discounted rate.

  “Eighty-nine pounds?” you queried. “That’s a bargain.” So we bought a bottle of champagne from the hotel bar with all the money we’d saved.

  And in the room, it was just like we’d never been apart. Your tongue, your mouth, your body (substantially more of it than before I thought, the fleshy evidence of too much celebrating). I was glad I’d waxed my legs, glad I’d put on my best panties. “It’s you, it’s you,” I kept saying. You must have thought I was mad! Crayzeeee Salleeeee, you sometimes used to say.

  Now, you mustn’t mind about that first time, Clive. Really it doesn’t make any difference to me. We were both nervous. How could we not be? And we’d had so much to drink. It was lovely just to lie there holding each other, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter about the bits that went soft when they should have been hard, or stayed dry when they were supposed to be wet. The only thing that counts is that we loved each other, and that we laughed. “I love you,” I said, and your eyes said everything that your lips couldn’t.

  “I’ve missed this,” you told me later, as we lay on the bed, each bit of us entwined together.

  “I’ve missed you too,” I said.

  I’d turned my phone off but yours was set to vibrate. When it seemed as if the whole bed was shaking with the frequency of your vibrations, we peeled ourselves out of the sheets and went to the shower. How many times have we stood that way before in how many different hotel rooms, water dripping into eyes, and from hair, hands soaping under arms, between legs?

  When we got dressed I couldn’t stop smiling. I steered you in front of the mirror and leaned against you. “Look at us,” I said. “We’re perfect.”

  Of course we weren’t at all—you just a little too short, me a little too spiky. But for a second, we blended in together with the moment and it was really perfect.

  You flagged a taxi down for me outside on the main road.

  “Let’s not spoil tonight with heavy good-byes,” you said.

  I think I laughed, didn’t I? How could such a night be spoiled? Anyway, good-byes don’t have to be heavy when they segue straight into anticipation of the next meeting. All the way home, I smiled. The taxi driver must have thought I was bonkers. “Good night?” he asked, rather pointedly.

  When I got your text making sure I was nearly home, the warmth spread through me like Deep Heat rub. I’ve missed that so much, you know? Having you worry about me.

  Right up until the moment I stepped into our cluttered hallway, my mind was wholly and completely occupied by you. Even the piles of shoes and bags and coats on the floor couldn’t dent the bubble of “us” that surrounded me. Does that sound fanciful? For once I don’t care.

  The house was dark (hardly surprising as it was 1.30 A.M. Where did all that time go? Hours swallowed up by the consuming greed of us), but there was something restless about the darkness, something that was pacing the floors and crouching in corners.

  As soon as I silently pushed open the door of our bedroom, I could tell that Daniel was awake. The tension crackled in the air like static—do you know what I mean? I slid into bed pretending not to notice that Daniel’s eyes were wide open and shining in the darkness.

  “Where have you been?”

  His voice was shockingly loud in the stillness of the sleeping house.

  “I told you. Gill’s leaving party. It went on far longer than I expected.”

  There was a silence before Daniel said: “I don’t believe you.”

  Do you know, when he said that, I had an overwhelming urge just to tell him the truth. To say, I’ve been in a hotel room with Clive. We’re in love. We want to be together. Of course I didn’t. I know it’s too soon and we haven’t even discussed a proper exit strategy (that was what you used to call it, do you remember, our ever-changing, convoluted plans to leave our significant others?) that we can both implement together. But I’m so sick of the lies. Now that we’re back together I want it all to be different. Completely open. Don’t you?

  Instead of responding to Daniel, I lay and pretended to go to sleep, but inside I was still buzzing with you. Now don’t take this the wrong way, but after the initial euphoria wore off and I got more used to the idea of us being “reconnected” I even allowed myself the luxury of being a little bit cavalier. I started thinking about the weight you’d put on, and how it made you look a fraction older. Ridiculous how just one evening together can make one secure enough to become critical again. I imagined you lying awake in your huge bed in St. John’s Wood and thinking of me.

  Now it’s 11:35 A.M. and I’ve been up five and a half hours, and I’m starting to flag a little. I’ve sent you a couple of emails but I’m guessing you’ve stayed in bed nursing your own hangover. Hurry up and wake up! I’m desperate to talk to you.

  There’s so much to say, isn’t there?

  Half past four and still no word from you. The kids are home from school but I haven’t even seen them yet, I don’t want to leave my computer. You’ll think it silly, I know, but disquiet is pricking at me like cactus hairs. Of course you could have had back-to-back meetings. Or you could have been called away suddenly. Or Susan could be glued to your side. There could be any number of reasons why you couldn’t get to your emails, and I’ve clutched at them all in turn.

  I’ve been on Susan’s Facebook page (I wish you weren’t quite so set against getting a page yourself) about a hundred times today, trying to gauge what’s happening in your house, but there are no updates. It has crossed my mind that perhaps you’ve already come clean to her and told her you’re leaving and have been in emotional lockdown all day. That would account for the silence. So many things are going through my head. I wish you’d just get in touch. Have you been getting my emails? I was tempted to text you earlier but I didn’t want to take the risk.

  The muscles at the tops of my legs are aching from being wrapped around your back so long last night. Every time they twinge I remember what we did, and how your face was and how we looked when we stood together in front of the mirror.

  I feel you in every part of me.

  It’s quarter to seven and Jamie and Tilly have just come in to say they’re hungry. I don’t know what to make them. Daniel is visiting his brother, Darren, and I can’t think of anything to cook. All I can do is sit at the computer, compulsively checking and rechecking my inbox.

  “I’m sorry having children is so inconvenient for you,” Tilly said when I told her I was too busy with work to make them dinner.

  I googled a local take-away and ordered some pizzas. I know it’s extravagant, but sometimes it’s good to be spontaneous, don’t you think? Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that if we were together. We’d take turns to cook proper meals that we’d eat with the kids (I mean mine, of course. I can’t imagine the Sacred Vessel sitting down at the table with us. Well, definitely not at first). Everything would be so different if we were together, wouldn’t it? Every day would be like an adventure.

  “This is cool,” Jamie said when the pizzas arrived and I told them to eat them in front of the telly in the living room. But Tilly, of course, refused to see the fun in it. She held her cardboard box on her lap in front of her as if it was an unexploded bomb.

  “There’s grease soaking through the bottom,” she said, disgusted. “When did we stop using plates in this house?”

  When the boxes were opened, the pizza toppings looked like they were made of melted plastic, and Jamie had been given American Hot instead of pepperoni. Outraged, he thrust his box under my nose. The oil was pooling, obscenely orange, on the glistening disks of sausage and I almost gagged.

  Where are you, Clive? Where are you,
Clive? Where are you, Clive?

  You were supposed to rescue me from all of this. Surely you remember that?

  I have forgotten how to breathe.

  I open my mouth and gasp for air like a diseased fish. There is a hard rock of pain inside me that I cannot shift, and nothing can get past it. It is cutting off oxygen and blood. It is feeding on me and it is growing.

  I am trying to make sense of what you have written in your email, so eagerly anticipated, sitting here patiently at my desk with my journal open in front of me and the computer inches from my eyes, but the meaning dances around the screen thumbing its nose.

  I have sat here all day trying to think what to say.

  How could you have been there all day? If you’d sat there all day, you’d have watched my emails dribble in one by desperate one. And yet you never replied. It doesn’t make sense.

  Last night should never have happened. Believe me when I say, Sally, I despise myself for it.

  What do you mean “never have happened?” How can you wish something so perfect had never happened? It’s like saying Tilly or Jamie should never have been born.

  Sitting here in the cubbyhole, I pick at an old scab on my arm until it bleeds. You despise yourself because of last night. Being with me makes you despise yourself. I make people think themselves despicable.

  I want you to know I hold myself fully to blame for what happened. I feel I have let everyone down—my family, Susan, even you. The rock of pain becomes a boulder at that “even you” tacked on to the end like a reluctant concession.

  I have no excuses for my behavior and I apologize for any mixed messages it may have sent out. No matter what impression I might have given last night, I can only reiterate what I’ve been saying for months. I love Susan. I intend to spend the rest of my life making up to her for the hurt I’ve caused her. I am fully committed to my marriage.

  No, no, no, no. Am I saying that out loud? The children and Daniel will think I have gone completely crazy, sitting here in my cubbyhole at 1 A.M., shouting in the dark. But I just don’t get it, even though I’ve read it over and over. Why are you saying that about your marriage? Are you deliberately trying to hurt me? Is it a new game you’re playing, a new test?

  I wish you the very best of luck, and hope you’ll concentrate on repairing your own relationship with Daniel before it’s too late.

  With Daniel! Can you really be advising me to repair things with Daniel? Didn’t you used to spend whole days telling me he was holding me back, that his very “niceness” (the word came out of your mouth already in fully formed quotation marks) was impeding my creativity?

  Once again I’m asking you to leave my family and myself alone. It’s the best thing for everyone, especially for you. And believe it or not, I have got your best interests at heart.

  And then, once again, the cruellest mantra of them all.

  We must move on with our lives. Separately.

  I must have reread your message a hundred times, but still I can’t find the meaning I’m looking for. After my experience with the emails being sent from my account, I wonder whether it actually came from you at all. Maybe Susan sent it herself, or maybe she forced you to send it, standing by your desk dictating what you should say, while you sat mute with misery typing her bidding with reluctant fingers.

  I need to speak to you. If I could just speak to you, we could sort this thing out. It’s only distance that keeps you from me. Once we are close to each other, all your resistance melts away. I need to see you. I need to make you see me.

  I’m going to call you. I know it’s 3 A.M., but I have to make you remember who I am, how my voice sounds. I have to find out who has got to you between last night and tonight, because this isn’t you speaking. I know it isn’t. I know you like I know myself, and this isn’t you.

  Your phone is off. I’ve forgotten how to breathe. Breathe in, stomach out; breathe out, stomach in. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never turned your phone off, only ever to silent. Not even in the days when passion blinded you to everything. What if one of the kids needed you? What if there was a crisis at work? What does it mean? Why are you hiding? Please don’t... please don’t... please don’t...

  * * *

  Daniel has just appeared in the doorway of the cubbyhole, bleary-eyed and blinking in the dark.

  “What’s wrong with you, for Christ’s sake?” he asked, and then he crossed the floor and awkwardly held me around the shoulders.

  (Luckily the notebook in which I “journal” was closed, and my screensaver was on. I didn’t do that on purpose, mind, I don’t care what he sees anymore. It just does that after it’s been idle for a while.)

  It was only when Daniel’s arm was wrapped weightily around me like a pet python that I realized, from the sudden sharp silence, that I must have been keening to myself here in the darkness. Rocking back and forth and lowing like a sea lion.

  I’m embarrassed. Really I am.

  “You have to see someone, Sal, I’m really concerned about you.”

  Nobody does concern in such a grudging, pained way as Daniel. Sometimes I think it must really hurt him. Even so, I had a sudden urge—a young child’s comfort-seeking reflex—to turn my head and burrow into his chest and allow myself to be held and rocked like a baby. What stopped me, I wonder? Was it you, Clive, denying me even those paltry scraps of relief? Instead I held myself stiff and unyielding in Daniel’s awkward embrace.

  “I am seeing someone. I’m seeing Helen.” My voice scraped like underwater coral.

  Daniel made a disapproving sound then. He thinks that Helen, like vitamin supplements, isn’t scientifically proven. He wants me to see someone with letters after their name.

  “Come to bed,” he said.

  I told him I would, just as soon as I’d turned off my computer.

  “I wish you’d throw that fucking computer away,” he said, in a rare show of strong feeling.

  “Who’d earn the money to pay the bills then?” I asked him.

  “What money, Sal?”

  He had a point, didn’t he?

  So now he’s gone back to bed, and I’m left here, sitting in my swivel chair, with my legs tucked under me and the snot already crusting under my nose.

  I wonder where you are at 4:12 on this fine May morning. Are you pacing around in your box room study thinking of me, hating yourself, sorry, despising yourself, for what you’ve done?

  I don’t think so somehow.

  What I think is this:

  • You are fast asleep in your huge bed, next to your “wonderful” wife.

  • You sent me that message last thing before you went to bed as a way of clearing your conscience so that you could sleep soundly, knowing you had “tied up all the loose ends.”

  • You think you have “drawn a line” under the whole “affair” (unfortunate term. Sorry).

  • You are so, so wrong.

  The sun is creeping on its belly under the door to the cubbyhole. I am slumped over my desk, my hand barely able to hold the pen, but anger keeps jerking my eyelids open, outrage fizzing through me like tear gas.

  I can hear the next-door neighbors already getting up for work (how I hate them for thinking that this is a normal day. How can they be so obtuse?). This time yesterday my heart was limitless. Now it is a dried-up peach stone (how you’d loathe that clumsy metaphor. Layzeeeee Salleeeee, you’d scold).

  Soon Daniel will be up and Jamie and Tilly and the whole thing will start all over again, the whole big bloody pulpy mess that is my life. Meanwhile you will be getting up feeling like you’ve had a narrow escape, and bursting anew with fresh good intentions to make it up to Susan. You will feel virtuous and reborn and humble (at least in your own mind). You will pledge to yourself that things will be different from now on. You will push me down to the bottom of your mind like you are mulching compost. You will think that you are free of me. You will be wrong. I know about you, Clive. I know the inside of your head. I’ve licked every inch of
it, probed my tongue into all its fleshy crevices. I know you, Clive.

  I know you.

  I am feeling much better.

  I really am. I’ve stopped taking the Citalopram. I think it was impeding my progress. Of course, withdrawing so suddenly has given me some strange reactions but I kind of like the pain. Do you know what I mean? It’s clean and it hurts and for a minute I forget all the other things that hurt. That’s a good thing, wouldn’t you say?

  Another great plus is, I can drink again without blacking out! I haven’t told the young blonde lip-scrunching doctor about stopping the drugs. I feel I’d be letting her down in some way. Isn’t that ridiculous? I worry she might take it as a personal rejection.

  But, you know what, despite the headaches, even after just three days I’m already feeling the benefits. I’ve stopped feeling like I’m disassociated from my life. I’m owning my own feelings again. Helen will be so thrilled.

  Daniel is less delighted, however. He says I have—let me try to remember the exact wording he uses because it’s really quite funny—“emotional Munchausen’s.” (Can you believe he came up with that quite unprompted? I do think Daniel must have been doing some “work on himself” as Helen would say.) Daniel believes I’m deliberately putting the kybosh on anything that might make me feel better out of some perverse desire to suffer and, by implication, to make everyone around me suffer too. I tell him I’ve stopped the pills because my body is my temple and laugh to show him it’s supposed to be a joke, but he looks at me like I’m mad. He has taken to calling my friends up to ask them to “talk sense” into me. I know because sometimes they call me afterward and say “Daniel’s worried about you.” I tell them Daniel approaches worry like a daily workout routine at the gym, something that’s slightly painful but ultimately beneficial, so if not to be embraced at least undertaken without complaint.

  Sian came round yesterday looking very cross.

  “I can’t accept this level of responsibility anymore,” she told me, and when she frowned I was able to see for the first time the full effect of the Botox she’s been having (did you know she’d started that? Or was that something that happened post York Way Friday? That’s how I divide my life now by the way—pre or post that Friday. It’s gratifyingly biblical, don’t you think?). It was a little disconcerting because it was like talking to two different versions of Sian, the middle-aged frowning one below the eyes and the younger untroubled one above. Anyway, neither of them seemed to like me very much.