The Mistress's Revenge: A Novel Read online

  “You have to wake up. I know you’re not really asleep.”

  He wasn’t right, of course. I was asleep. I love the Zopiclone mornings when I can turn sleep off and on at will.

  “It’s not fair of you waking me up. You know I have problems getting to sleep.”

  Daniel wasn’t budging.

  “For fuck’s sake, it is half past fucking four in the afternoon. The kids are home from school already. How do you think it fucking feels for them to see their mother comatose in her fucking bed?”

  I’m probably exaggerating the number of fucks in that sentence for dramatic effect, but I expect you get the general idea.

  To be honest, I was a bit shocked to find out it was that late. I could have sworn I hadn’t been asleep long. But then I probably needed it, wouldn’t you think? Daniel can be so puritanical when he wants to be.

  When I finally forced my eyes open, he was still proffering the letter, shaking it impatiently in the direction of my nose.

  “This is from the building society. Apparently we owe them six months’ mortgage payments. They want £4,590 by the end of next week or they’re repossessing the house.”

  “They can’t do that. They have to send us warning letters first.”

  Daniel was ready for that. He’s very quick, I must admit. He’d already gone through the filing cabinet next to my desk and discovered all the unopened letters, which he fanned out in front of me like a magician’s card trick.

  “Here are your warning letters. Months and months of them, along with utilities bills and credit card bills. All in all we owe nearly £35,000. What the fuck have you done, Sally?”

  Well, put like that it did sound a bit ominous. And when I tried to come up with an explanation, it sounded a bit weak and unconvincing. I mean, I couldn’t very well say that for the last five years I’ve been having an affair with Clive Gooding and he promised me we would have a future together, so when the work started drying up, I didn’t really try too hard to get more. Even Daniel, who is so willfully blinkered, wouldn’t go for that. On the basis that the best form of defense is attack, I decided to remind Daniel of his own dismal past record of financial mismanagement—the fancy kitchen shop that had eaten all our savings, the years working for his brother’s company that was always “about to take off” but never did, and now this sudden decision to retrain as a teacher, with the financial burden that placed on my shoulders.

  “You’ve always been so glad to let me look after all that sort of stuff. Well, maybe you should have taken a bit more of an interest.” I was working myself up into an outrage. “Maybe I’m sick of having to deal with everything.”

  Daniel shook his head in faux incredulity.

  “You haven’t dealt with anything in months,” he spat.

  When I dragged myself downstairs to say hello to the children, like a Good Mummy, I was irritated to find Tilly wasn’t there. She’d gone out to one of her friend’s houses, according to Jamie. She could at least have let me know, don’t you think? I wouldn’t have rushed down if I’d known she was gone.

  “Will you play Wii with me?” Jamie wanted to know.

  I said I would, still in Good Mummy mode, and we played a couple of rounds of Wii tennis but I was finding it a real strain to swing the controller, and I kept forgetting which player was me. My head was still all over the place. “Am I the pink one?” “Am I the one with the glasses?”

  “Never mind, Mum,” Jamie told me as I flopped back down onto the sofa and closed my eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He’s very intuitive when he wants to be.

  The longer Tilly was out, the crosser I became. I didn’t know why she hadn’t just said she was going, and she’d left her mobile behind so we couldn’t call her. I lay on the sofa and tried to ease myself back into the welcome oblivion of sleep, but I could hear Daniel crashing about in the kitchen, slamming down pots. Every now and then he’d come in and stand in the doorway of the living room glaring at me, but I refused to open my eyes, and eventually he’d go away.

  By the time Tilly came home, I was ready to have a real go at her, but when she appeared in the living room, my newly reawakened Good Mummy antennae sensed that there was clearly something up.

  “A strange man came up to me on the corner of our road,” she said, and while her body language was full of bravado, her voice was that of a small child.

  The man had apparently told her he was a friend of mine, and asked her to pass on his best wishes, but there was something about him that she hadn’t liked, something she described as “creepy.”

  What did he look like? I wanted to know. But of course I knew already. Shortish and thickset with closely cropped hair and a leather jacket with stripes on the sleeves.

  “Who was that then?” Daniel glared at me accusingly.

  “Just someone I met through work who lives around here,” I replied.

  “Nice friends you have nowadays.”

  So now it becomes no longer a game (was it ever? I’m starting to wonder). Now my children are involved, and it’s beyond a doubt that the man in the leather jacket exists outside of my own head.

  You think you can scare me, Clive. You think I’m a Romanian squeegee man who’ll run away with his bucket slopping. You think I’m a star-struck singer you can intimidate with your platinum discs and great big faux-gold award. You think you have it all in your favor. But you are wrong.

  I only want what’s mine.

  And if I can’t have what’s mine, I’ll take what’s yours.

  Thank God Daniel has gone to bed now. I can hear him snoring upstairs. Even his snores sound angry.

  “You have ruined us,” was his tiresome refrain after the kids had finally gone to bed. So melodramatic. If he didn’t have anything constructive to say, I’d rather he didn’t say anything at all. My mum used to say that, I seem to remember. My mum is dead though. And the dead don’t talk.

  He seems to think it is my fault we’ve gotten into such a financial mess. He’s right in a sense, of course, in that I should have opened the letters, and I should have told him when the work started drying up. But I thought it would all be sorted out, you see? I thought I would be rescued. I thought you would rescue me (interestingly, Helen once accused me of harboring Rescue Fantasies. Isn’t it funny that she should pick up on that? She’s quite intuitive, Helen, although of course I strenuously denied it at the time).

  And Daniel shouldn’t have left it all to me. He knows that really. He said as much this evening.

  “I suppose I must take some of the blame for sticking my head in the sand,” he admitted.

  That was big of him, wasn’t it? But then in the next breath he was laying into me again. Why hadn’t I told him I was having problems? I’ve always been happy to look after the joint account before. He’s not a mind reader (just as well!).

  And so it went on, and on and on. And when he wasn’t talking about money, he was talking about the man who “accosted” Tilly. He wanted to call the police, if you can believe it. I pointed out he was being ridiculous, that it was just someone I once met.

  “I don’t know you anymore, Sally,” he said (don’t forget Daniel doesn’t work with words, he doesn’t recognize clichés as you or I would).

  And then guess what he said? Go on, guess. It’s amusing, really it is. He said: “You need to get some help.”

  I’m not making it up! Hand on heart that’s what he said. Word for word the same as you.

  I laughed so hard my face was wet with tears.

  Daniel looked at me for a while, convulsing on the sofa, just staring, without saying anything, and then he went to bed.

  I’m still laughing now.

  I’ve been checking Facebook again. Well, when I say again that makes it sound like I’ve made several separate checks, whereas I suppose it’s more like one continuous one. I usually have my screen set to Susan’s page, although since you’ve been away, there hasn’t been so much going on so I tend to flit between hers and Emily
’s.

  I see Liam has put the photos from the party up on Facebook already. I can’t say I was particularly looking forward to seeing them but there aren’t any where I’m doing anything particularly embarrassing. Perhaps he took those ones out. He comes across as quite a sensitive sort. I wonder where he gets that from. Or perhaps I wasn’t so embarrassing after all. Sometimes I do think Daniel might be exaggerating it. I’d know, wouldn’t I, if I’d been that bad?

  There are lots of pictures of people I don’t remember at all, which I suppose isn’t that surprising, and a whole series taken at the church earlier which are just divine.

  You do take a good photo, don’t you, Clive. And it’s lovely the way poor Susan’s so natural in front of the camera. She really doesn’t care, does she? It’s so refreshing. And really what is the big deal about an extra chin—it’s personality that counts, isn’t it?

  I simply adore that photo of the four of you—you, Susan, Liam, and Emily, standing outside the church, white confetti scattered like dandruff on your shoulders and at your feet. You are standing between Susan and Emily, an arm around both of them, with Liam on the far end, and you’re all leaning slightly toward Emily, who as usual has her hand on her bump, obviously saying something about the baby. There’s such energy in that photo, four adults so intent on one unborn child. Liam and Susan are laughing, their smiles betraying a strong family resemblance, but you have a slightly different expression as if you’re surveying the scene from one step back and though you’re smiling, it’s a much smugger, more contained smile, as if quietly taking credit for all of it—the wonderful wife, the handsome son, the fecund daughter about to produce the beloved grandchild. All of it your doing, your unmerited reward.

  With all eyes in the photograph fixed on Emily’s neat bump, my attention also keeps returning there, to this unformed being that will be the icing on your cake—the cake that you managed to both have and eat (clever, clever Clive).

  I know you, Clive, I know what is going through your head. I know the bargains you will have made with God, that you will turn over a new leaf, make your family proud, be a shining example for this blob of ever-dividing cells that calls itself a baby. Who knows, you might even believe some of them.

  The new baby is a new beginning for you, the trapdoor into a future fizzing with promise. I like to imagine the type of modern grandparents you and Susan will make—flying in early from important work assignments in Florida and Spain and South Africa so as not to miss the baby’s birthday and juggling recording schedules and lucrative catering accounts in order to babysit for the day while the Sacred Vessel goes out. You’ll probably turn one of the rooms in your lovely St. John’s Wood home into a nursery and the baby will quickly get into the habit of staying with you one night a week to give Emily and the bland barrister some time to themselves. You’ll hate being called Grandad I know, so you’ll insist on “Clive” or some cute customized title like “Pappy.”

  You’ve always told me how much you regret the time you spent building up your career while the children were young, missing out on most of their proudest milestones in pursuit of the next big break. “You must make the most of this time you have with your kids,” you’d tell me, your eyes the color of rotting algae, burning with benevolent conviction. “It’s such a cliché to say it, but you’ll never get this chance again.”

  The new baby will give you an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. You’ll smother it in attention and baby talc, gasping gratifyingly at every tiny step forward, every new food tasted, every inch grown. You and Susan will set up a savings account for it from birth and add generously at birthdays and Christmases. You’ll hold a christening party in your garden and take it on holidays to your new beach house in Croatia. You’ll shock yourself with how much you love that child, channeling into it all that redundant passion you used to have for me.

  You want to know something silly? I’m jealous of that blob, with its jelly fingers and free-floating toes. I’m jealous of the way it’s so protected and shielded from everything that could go wrong. I’m jealous of the way you’re all waiting so impatiently for it to arrive. I’m jealous of the unconditional love that awaits it. Is it wrong to be jealous of an unborn child? I don’t really think so. I don’t see how it’s possible not to be jealous of the unborn. Especially this unborn. Especially your unborn.

  Who wouldn’t want to be born into a family like yours? Who wouldn’t want cool Uncle Liam and straight-talking Grandma Susan (not for her the vanity about titles)? Who wouldn’t want a mum who’ll pass seamlessly from being the World’s First Pregnant Woman to the World’s First New Mother, making restaurant owners clear a table in the quietest corner for her sleeping offspring and affixing one of those ridiculous BABY ON BOARD notices to the back window of her MINI Cooper (is it only me who entertains an irrational urge to press down on the accelerator and slam into the backs of cars bearing that arrogant yellow diamond? Do people really imagine the driver behind will think “Well, I was considering rear-ending that MINI Cooper, but that sign has given me second thoughts”?).

  Once I thought I might be part of your family, your wonderful, high-achieving, post-theater-drinks-and-a-bite-to-eat-at-Joe Allen’s-style family. Now that blobby, unformed, floating mass that calls itself a baby will be taking my place, sliming its jelly-and-blood-streaked way into your honeyed, moneyed lives. Is that crazy?

  I don’t think so.

  I’m not feeling so good today.

  I’ve popped a couple of pills, but I’m not getting that surge of energy I’ve come to rely on. My hands have started shaking again. I’m holding my left hand in front of my face right now and it’s as if it’s vibrating. I can’t stop staring at it.

  It’s not really surprising I’m in a state though. After crawling into bed when it was getting light this morning, I was shaken roughly awake by Tilly.

  “Mum. Wake UP!”

  You know, Tilly has to work on her people skills. She really does.

  “Where’s the thing for Jamie?”

  I’m not my best first thing in the morning these days. I just blinked at Tilly, not having the faintest clue what she was talking about, or why she was using that horrible hissing tone.

  “Jamie’s birthday present. Where is it?”

  Well, you can imagine I was a little bit taken aback, particularly with the Xanax still coursing around my system, rendering me partially paralyzed.

  “You’ve got the wrong day,” I told her. “It’s tomorrow.”

  But even as I was speaking, I was wondering whether tomorrow might not actually be today, if you see what I mean. I have been losing track of the time rather a lot recently. The days seem to be bleeding into each other like wet paint and I’m finding it hard to tell one from the other.

  “You idiot!” Tilly’s face was a tight purple knot, straining against itself.

  Then she disappeared and almost instantaneously her face was replaced by Daniel’s, also purple, and also not at all pleased.

  “What the fuck is going on in your head, Sally?” A big splat of his spit landed on my lip and I had to literally hold my hand down under the duvet to stop myself from wiping it away. I had a feeling he might find that offensive. It might be construed as what Helen calls an incendiary gesture.

  “There’s a ten-year-old boy downstairs quivering with excitement because it’s his birthday, waiting for his mum to come downstairs with his birthday present—the one he told her all about last week. How am I supposed to tell him she has forgotten all about it? Tell me that!”

  Of course I felt really bad, then. I didn’t want to think about the way Jamie’s bottom lip would wobble when he realized there wasn’t any present. He’s just at that age where he’s realized it’s not “manly” to cry so he suppresses tears until his whole body resonates with them.

  “I didn’t forget. I just lost track of the days.”

  I have to admit it sounded pretty pathetic even as I was saying it. I will make it up to him. I rea
lly will.

  When I stumbled downstairs (I’m thinking I might start sleeping in the cubbyhole. I find the stairs quite treacherous some mornings. It’s a balance thing, I think. Something blocked in my ear maybe) (blocked again. Is there a theme emerging?) I made a big fuss of Jamie and told him his present was too special to open in a rush before school and it would be waiting for him when he came home. He seemed cheered up by that, although he didn’t seem to want me to give him a birthday hug.

  “It’s because your breath smells like yesterday’s dinner,” was how Tilly explained it.

  Was Emily ever like that with you, I wonder? Any opportunity for a personal slight? I’m trying to empathize. I keep reminding myself about the hormones coursing around her system like migrating salmon, but that vicious streak is something I’m having trouble with.

  My daughter has lost her way, that’s what the teachers said.

  I wish to God she would find it again.

  When Jamie had left for school with Daniel, I tried to remember what had been on the list of presents he’d told me he wanted, but nothing came into my mind. I think there might have been a bike of some sort, but I’m not completely sure and that would be a pretty expensive mistake to make, wouldn’t it? Particularly for people who are about to lose their house (I’m saying that, but you know I still don’t really believe it. Something will come up. Something always does, doesn’t it?). I wish I’d written down what Jamie said, but I thought it would just stick in my memory. I’m going to have to go out to the shops and hope something is jogged. I’m determined to make this a good birthday for him. When he comes home from school I’ll have cake and maybe a bit of decoration, and a present he’ll really love. I just have to work out what that is. I’m going to ignore the pain in my head and get dressed. I’m going to make it up to him.

  I really am.

  * * *

  Now you’re not to panic.

  Everything is going to be okay. I’ll deal with it all. As soon as I saw the entries on Emily’s Facebook page a few minutes ago, I knew something had to be done.