Getting Rid of Matthew (4 page)

"Amanda'll be getting jealous," she purred, placing her hand over his.

"Maybe we should all have an early night," said Matthew, who had no idea how to handle the situation. He stood up. "What do you say, Jason?"

Jason's eyes were glued to his wife and brother-in-law. Matthew sat back down again, unsure what to do next.

"OK, kids, I think that's bedtime," Matthew tried again. The younger children had already been sent upstairs, but Claudia, who had persuaded Suzanne out of her room with promises of adults misbehaving, was trying to decide how best to use the new word she'd just learned—it sounded like "runt"—and was hoping that Jason might use it again so that she could make sure she'd gotten the pronunciation and context right. Neither of them moved.

Checking that she still had Jason's full focus, Louisa leaned in and stage-whispered loudly in Edwin's ear, "I know you've always fancied me."

Jason, having manfully resisted this far, poured himself a large glass of Merlot.

Finally, Matthew had had enough. He took the phone and shut himself in his and Sophie's French Renaissance bedroom and dialed Helen's number. He heard three rings and then the answerphone clicked in—Helen's voice sounding chirpy and youthful and inviting. He hung up without leaving a message, then a stabbing pain hit him—where was she? Despite the fact that Matthew had a wife that he still, occasionally, had sex with, he went into paroxysms of jealousy if another man went within a few feet of Helen. Now, he started to imagine her in a variety of excruciating scenarios with good-looking younger men, sharing a cozy drink in a pub, a drunken kiss in the street, a bed. Who knows what she was—at this very moment—doing to get back at him? In fact, she was sleeping in a drink-induced near-coma, her mouth open, with just a hint of dribble coming out, and very unattractive noises rattling around her nasal passages, but in Matthew's mind she'd already met, seduced, and all but married someone new.

He tried her mobile. Turned off. Matthew sat on the bed, staring at the duvet. Fuck. He was still sitting like this when Sophie came in, spoiling for a fight. This'd be a similar fight to the one Matthew and Sophie had had last Christmas and the Christmas before. It went along these lines:

"Your fucking family are out of control."

"I didn't invite them."

"Oh, and I did? They invited themselves and what, you expect me to say no, then never hear the last of it all year?"

"No! I'd rather you told them we'd love them all to stay and have them ruin our Christmas. Again."

Somehow, Matthew always managed to gain the high ground in this argument, despite the fact that it was his family behaving badly.

Matthew and Sophie got into bed, turned their backs on each other, and tried to sleep. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. Happy Christmas.

On Christmas Day, Helen killed time by making a list of everything she hated about Matthew:

His lack of commitment

His spinelessness

The way he actually said the word
atchoo
whenever he sneezed

His nose hair

The crinkly skin on his stomach

The ring tone on his mobile

The teddy bear he'd bought her for her birthday once

His taste in music

His taste in films

His taste, full stop

His assistant, Jenny

His ears (there was nothing really wrong with his ears but she was on a roll)

His Prada shoes that she was convinced his wife had bought for him (right)

His TAG watch that she was convinced his wife had bought for him (wrong)

His wife

When she'd finished, it was a quite impressive two pages long. She called her parents to say Happy Christmas and then lay down on the sofa to watch TV and waited for her hangover to shift.

The sound of Alka-Seltzer fizzing in water had punctuated the morning at Matthew and Sophie's house, too. The kids had opened their presents and, now that that was over, the adults were free to drop the pretense of happy families. Sophie and Matthew had prepared lunch in strained silence. Bill and Alice were trying unsuccessfully to jolly up the atmosphere by repeating their favorite "when Sophie was little" stories. Edwin was avoiding eye contact with Louisa, who in turn could not look at Amanda.

Halfway through the trendily retro first course of prawn cocktail, Matthew excused himself from the table, went out into the back garden, and phoned Helen's mobile, believing she was at her parents' because she'd never let on about her sad little Christmas meals for one.

Recognizing the number, Helen answered with practiced nonchalance.

"I just called to say Happy Christmas."

"Mmm-hmm."

"And I'm sorry I've been such an arse. I know it's hard for you and I really…well, I really just wanted to say sorry."

"OK." (She was loving herself for pulling off such a virtuoso performance.)

"Am I forgiven, Helly?"

"Sure." (Matthew was sweating now; this wasn't the gushing make-up he'd been picturing.)

"Are you OK?"

"Yup."

"Having a good time?"

"Fantastic."

Silence. Then…

"Where were you last night?"

She'd won.

"Actually, Matthew, I've got to go. Mum needs some help. Bye."

She put the phone down as Matthew was still trying to get the words "I love you" out.

Ordinarily, Helen would have been beside herself not only that she had handled the call so well, but that he had called her in the first place, but today she felt strangely unbothered. She rummaged around and found her list and added "The way he calls me Helly."

* * *

Matthew replaced the receiver, heart beating fast. Something was going on. Usually, at Christmas, she leaped at his phone calls, answering after only one ring, as if she had been waiting all day to hear from him. He was always the one to break off because his children were calling him or there was a meal on the table or they were all being summoned to play charades. She would get tearful and clingy and ask when he would be able to call again. Today, she couldn't get off the phone quickly enough. For the first time in his life, he felt like he wasn't the one in control.

* * *

By ten in the evening, everyone at Bartholomew Road had sloped off to bed, after a strained evening politely working their way through several board games. Matthew and Sophie were left alone to have the fight Matthew had been looking for all day, ever since his conversation with Helen had somehow made him feel irrationally angry with Sophie for…well, he wasn't quite sure for what.

She gave him the opener he'd been waiting for.

"What happened to you at lunch?"

And somehow—Sophie didn't have the faintest idea why—this led them into the biggest shouting match they'd had in years. Sophie struggled to keep track of the accusations Matthew was throwing at her, which seemed to encompass everything from her not appreciating how much stress he was under at work through their social life having diminished to near nonexistence, to the fact that her mother had asked him how he could stand getting home from work so late so often. ("She was having a go," he ranted. "Trying to say I don't pull my weight or I don't spend enough time with the kids or something." "No she wasn't," Sophie almost shouted back. "She was trying to make conversation. She's just not very good at it, sorry.") Somewhere in there he threw in their dwindling sex life, the pressure on him to succeed, and, bizarrely, her taste in work clothes. ("Frumpy," he'd shouted. "What the fuck's it got to do with you what I wear to work," she'd screamed back. "You hardly look like you've stepped off the cover of
GQ
.")

Sophie had only ever seen him like this once before and that was when she'd first told him she was pregnant with Suzanne, just under thirteen years ago. He'd spluttered and raged about never wanting to go through fatherhood again. He'd been there, done it, fucked it up. He'd told her he didn't want to feel tied down by children and obligations and nappies and parents' evenings. The highlight of the whole episode was when he added that he didn't want to have to go through another pregnancy watching the woman he loved expand like a hot-air balloon. He loved her body, he said, as if that was going to endear him to her; he didn't want to watch it disintegrate.

A few weeks later, completely out of nowhere, he'd suddenly started to throw himself into the pregnancy—a bit too much, to be honest—wanting to discuss what was going on inside of her with anyone who'd listen. He'd helped her plan the birth ("No, Matthew, I don't want to lie naked in a paddling pool with you and the midwife in there in your swimming costumes, I want to go into a hospital and be given lots of drugs") and he'd held her hand throughout the event itself, and breathed with her, and timed her contractions, and generally gotten in the way. Two years later, when she'd told him she was expecting again, he'd whooped and hollered and picked her up and swung her around the kitchen.

This time, though, there were no cups of tea and tearful regrets in the morning, just a silence which remained intact despite Sophie's best efforts to puncture it, and the odd, unsettling, guilty looks he kept throwing her way when he thought she wasn't looking.

* * *

Helen passed the next few days ignoring her phone (missed calls from Matthew, eight; messages left, three) and making more lists. "Reasons to leave Matthew" stretched to three and a half pages. "Reasons to stay with Matthew" was pitifully short, containing as it did just three entries:

1. He says he loves me.

2. He can be funny.

3. Who else am I going to go out with?

After she'd written number three she'd burst into tears, because it was truly one of the most pathetic things she had ever seen.

* * *

On the second night, she went to bed early and woke up listening to her mousy upstairs neighbors having very noisy sex again. The woman (Helen didn't even know her name, this being London) was putting on a particularly spectacular performance. Not many words today, it was all
oohs
and
aahs
, like an appreciative audience at a pantomime. "He's behind you!" Helen wanted to shout. She lay there for a while, trying to decide whether she thought it was genuine or not, and came down on the side of not. It was too depressing to think otherwise.

On the third night, Helen stayed in, had a large glass of wine, and thought about her situation. It was the longest time she had gone without speaking to Matthew for the whole of their relationship, and with distance, the entire thing was starting to look like a bit of a farce. Years of his rigid schedule, her fitting in with him, him canceling, her acquiescing, him panicking, her backing off.

As she poured glass two, she was wondering what the point of the last four and a bit years had been. Four years ago she was thirty-five—young, she now realized—she could have met someone, married them, and had two children by now if she hadn't taken herself out of the running. (Not that she wanted children, although they somehow always crept into her perfect life fantasy with Matthew, more as a means of ensuring his full attention and devotion than anything else. In that fantasy, there was definitely a full-time nanny—old and haggard and nonthreatening, of course—on hand at all times, so she never had to look after them.) As it was, all she had to show for it were some gray hairs she had to keep covering up by having her roots done every six weeks, and some lines around her eyes and mouth. Oh, and the loss of her career, her independence, and her self-esteem. Well, fuck it, she thought, topping up her glass again. Fuck it, fuck him, fuck everything.

The doorbell rang.

Helen caught sight of herself in the hall mirror as she went to answer it. No makeup, unwashed hair, pajamas on. She opened the door and there on her doorstep was Matthew. It took her a minute to notice the two large suitcases at his feet, because she was distracted by his eyes, which were red and puffy as if he'd been crying.

"Hello," she said.

He held his arms out wide.

"I've done it. I've left Sophie. I've told her everything and I've brought all my stuff. Well, not all my stuff, but all the essentials. There's some more in the car, but I'll have to go back and get the rest once she's calmed down a bit. Sorry, I'm rambling. What I'm trying to say is, I'm moving in with you."

5

W
HILE MATTHEW TEARFULLY TOLD HELEN
that he'd spent the whole of the previous day and night thinking about her and figuring out for himself what it was he truly wanted, she found she was thinking about the frozen lasagna she'd left in the oven and how much she was looking forward to it, which can't have been a good sign. She was aware that she was tuning in and out of his monologue, catching bits here and there:

"…once they'd all gone, she made me sit down and talk…

"…tried to pretend it was all OK…

"…asked me point-blank if there was someone else…

"…told her that I love you…

"…blah blah, something something…"

Eh?

"What did you say?" She forced her brain to focus.

"I said, she didn't have any idea. She'd never even suspected, all these years."

"Oh."

Come on, she thought, concentrate, this is serious. But she looked at Matthew, sobbing his heart out on the couch, and found herself struggling to equate this rather broken-down, gray-haired man, who was only a few years away from his bus pass, with the man she had yearned for and fretted over and lusted after for the past four years.

"I've given up everything. A fifteen-year marriage. My house. Oh, God, maybe my children," he was saying. "I was so awful to her, I said things I never should have said. But it's worth it for you, I've realized that now. I have done the right thing, haven't I? Because there's no turning back."

She peeled him off her and stood up. "I just need to turn the oven off."

Out in the kitchen, Helen leaned her head against the cool of the fridge door and tried to make sense of what was going on. This was everything she'd been asking him for. She should be throwing herself into his arms, crying with happiness and gratitude, laughing at the prospect of a shared future—so why wasn't she? And why was this happening now? Why hadn't he rung her beforehand and said, "I'm about to leave Sophie, just checking you're still up for it"? Oh, yes, she thought, because she hadn't been answering her phone to him, that was why. She shut the kitchen door and called Rachel, running the tap loudly so that Matthew couldn't hear.

"Matthew's left Sophie. He's told her everything and walked out on her and the kids. He's here."

"What? I can't hear you."

"Oh, fuck it," Helen said, turning the tap off again. She repeated what she had just told her friend in a stage whisper.

"That's fantastic." Rachel sounded postcoitally sleepy.

"I don't know if it is. Is it?" Helen was irritated. "Haven't you been listening to anything I've been saying for the past couple of weeks? Things have changed. I've changed. I'm not sure what I want anymore."

Truthfully, Rachel had spent so many years listening to Helen go on and on about the complications of her relationship that it now washed over her and she rarely took in the details.

"Oh, shit, yeah. Shit. Well, you'll just have to tell him to go again."

"Rachel, are you listening to me? He's told Sophie and the children. I can't just say, 'Actually, I know I've been asking you to do this for the past four years, but what if it's not the right decision?' I can't just say, 'I know you've done exactly what I've always told you I wanted, what I more or less gave you an ultimatum about less than two weeks ago, but maybe you should think about whether it would be better to go back to your suicidal wife and your two devastated children and tell them it was all a windup.'"

"Why not?"

"Because he's only done it because of me. It's all my fault. What the fuck should I do?"

"I don't know, tell him you need some time. Tell him you've got a terminal illness and you're going to be dead soon, so he might as well stay with his family."

Helen could tell Rachel's heart just wasn't in this conversation and she could hear Neil in the background cajoling her to come back to bed.

"Oh, forget it."

She put the phone down. OK, she thought, the facts are these: I've already potentially ruined three people's lives—Sophie's and the two girls'. She realized, with a wave of guilt, that she could only remember the name of one of Matthew's daughters, Claudia.

What I can't now do is add Matthew to that list. I have to make sure this is really what we want. Both of us.

She fixed a smile on her face and forced herself back out into the living room. Matthew was looking at her like an abandoned puppy on an RSPCA advert. She noticed that he was wearing a rather comfy pullover, a bit like something her dad might like, and realized that she'd never seen him in anything other than his office uniform of a variety of well-fitting suits and hand-finished shirts. His usually immaculately combed hair was standing up in places, like a baby bird's, and she could see his bald spot peeking, pink and vulnerable, like a long-forgotten fontanel, through the strands. He was pitiful. She sat on the sofa next to him and put her arms around him.

* * *

The next morning, Helen got up early because there was a stranger in her bed. Or that's how it seemed. She'd spent most of the night trying to work out why yesterday evening wasn't the happiest of her life and why, in fact, she now felt like crying, while Matthew slept like a baby. Well, a baby with sinus trouble, because Helen had discovered that he snored, a fact which thus far she'd been blissfully unaware of, having never had the pleasure of his company for a whole night before.

The sight of her tiny living room overcome with boxes and suitcases brought her mood down further. For a man who'd upped and left in a hurry, he'd managed to do a lot of packing. She could see things which resembled skis and, God forbid, a guitar. She poked about a bit and came across a shoe-cleaning kit. Surely not? What kind of man owned a shoe-cleaning kit, for fuck's sake, let alone remembered to pack it when he was in the midst of the biggest crisis of his life. She dug a bit deeper and found herself opening a small photo album—always a mistake. Photos of a happy, smiling family looked back at her. There she was—well, Helen could only assume it was her, although the real Sophie didn't even come close to any of the pictures Helen had been carrying around in her head. Helen didn't know if she was more shocked by Sophie being so much younger than she'd thought, so much more beautiful, so happy looking, or just by the fact that she was real. She sank down into an armchair and began to leaf through the book from the beginning.

In a previous life, Helen would have scanned these photographs with the precision of a laser, looking for details to torture herself with. Once she'd gotten over the shock of Sophie's looks, she would have fixated on her and Matthew's body language, looking for telltale signs of affection. Today, all she could see was two children who clearly loved their dad, and a woman who looked open and friendly and confident and who blatantly had no idea that her life was about to fall apart. She had to talk to Matthew. If this wasn't what she truly wanted, then she had no right to take him away from his family.

She sneaked into the bedroom, looked down at him fast asleep, and tried to rationalize how she felt. The nervous energy she had always experienced when she was around him before seemed to have entirely disappeared and been replaced by what?

Pity?

Embarrassment?

Matthew slid a finger into his nostril in his sleep and rooted around a bit.

Distaste?

* * *

He looked like he didn't quite know where he was when she woke him up. Then a brief look of panic crossed his face. She decided to tackle it head-on and sat down on the bed beside him, stroking his shoulder.

"You can still go home, you know, if you think you've done the wrong thing. I'll understand. Tell Sophie you were drunk and you made it all up or something."

"Don't say that. What are you saying? I did this for you. I can never go back now, not after what I've done to them in the last couple of days."

"I'm just saying, if you think you've made a mistake, then it's OK. I'll support you, whatever you want to do. I mean, maybe we've rushed into it a bit."

"Rushed into it? You've been telling me that this was what you wanted for years. I did this for you," he said, not for the first and not for the last time. "Tell me I've done the right thing."

Then he said the saddest sentence known to mankind.

"Don't you want me?"

She couldn't push him any further. He was so desperate and so pathetic, she had to put him out of his misery.

"God…Matthew…you know I do. This is all I've ever wanted. I just want you to be sure it's what you want, too, and you're not just doing it because I've pressured you."

"I want us to be a proper couple," he said. "I want us to live together. I want to meet your friends and you to meet mine. I want to wake up next to you every morning and go to sleep next to you every night."

Helen could have sworn she could feel the walls of her already tiny flat moving in to suffocate her.

"Me, too."

He moved in to kiss her and they had awkward and slightly self-conscious sex. She noticed that his unfreshened morning breath was a little off-putting.