His Other Lover (13 page)

Frustratingly, I miss a train by minutes and there isn’t another one for three-quarters of an hour. With such an unhealthy amount of adrenaline running around my system, I’m anxious and agitated, and although I pace around Jigsaw while I’m waiting, to try and take my mind off what I’ve just done, I don’t notice a single thing; I could be looking at hammers and keyrings. Lottie unnerves me horribly by ringing and I have to leave it,
earning myself dirty looks from other shoppers who don’t understand why I’m not answering my own phone.

So I step out into the crisp air of Trafalgar Square and the hum of the traffic. There is a female tourist who is actually letting the pigeons sit on her head, her hands and shoulders. They flap around her face as her boyfriend films it all in delight. She is squealing excitedly but nervously, her shoulders have gone rigid and she’s closing her eyes tightly. It makes me shudder to see them beating their wings so close to her that her hair is lifting. How can she? Suppose one shits on her head or scratches her hand? Has she never watched them hobbling around with one stub where a foot used to be, beady little eyes glinting and heads bobbing?

Revolted, I pull my coat around me tightly and jump guiltily as my phone rings again. This time it’s Clare. I let it go to answer phone but she immediately starts to ring again. This is our code for “pick up—it’s urgent.”

I don’t want to talk to her now, I’m too stressed out…but she’s ringing back to back…Shit. What if it’s an emergency to do with Mum? I have no choice but to pick up.

“Ah. Bonjour!” she says delightedly.

“What’s up?” I say quickly. “Urgh!” A pigeon flies too close to me and I have to duck out of the way, almost dropping the phone.

“Where the hell are you?” she says instantly. “What just happened?”

“A pigeon,” I say faintly. “Right in my face.”

“That’s gross.” I can hear her shudder down the phone. “And I already feel sick. Amy’s grandparents got her a chocolate tool kit for her birthday and I’ve eaten the pliers and the screwdriver
today, plus I drank so much vodka last night my face nearly fell off and now I think I’m going into renal failure.”

I hear a laugh in the background and she says to someone else, “I am actually, Amy! What? No—I’m telling you—she was right next to the heater…sorry, Mi, I was halfway through telling Amy about this still-life class I did where this model had underarm hair so long you could plait it and the smell kicking out from her—”

“Clare!” I interrupt. “I’m at work. Do you actually have something urgent to tell me or not?”

“All right,” she says, needled. “Although since when did you have actual real-life pigeons in your office? Fine, I’ll be
quick
since you’re obviously up to something. I’ve been invited to go to Barcelona in a couple of weeks but I can’t go unless you lend me the money and everyone wants to book it today. This bloke Adam’s going. He’s a sexual being, Mi—I’m going to get him drunk on ouzo.”

“That’s Greece,” I say automatically, checking my watch. I’m going to miss my second train if I’m not careful. I start walking.

“What? Barcelona’s in Spain, you tit.”

“No…” I close my eyes tiredly for a moment and discover I can’t be bothered. I want to get home. “Look…I’ll lend you the money.” Anything to get her off the phone, I don’t want to talk. I just need to get back.

“Also,” she pauses dramatically, playing her trump card, “Jack and I are no more.”

Immediately I feel dreadful for hurrying her. “Oh, Clare—I’m so sorry. He’s a stupid little twat to let you go. Are you okay?”

“No—I’ve been sitting in my room listening to Daniel Bed-dingfield, crying and stroking a picture of him,” she scoffs. “Of course I am. I did it.
I
dumped
him.
”

Oh.

“The little shit has already got another girlfriend, which is just bloody rude.”

How does she do it? How can she be so strong? So blasé?

“Do you want him back then?” I say faintly; this is all too close to home. I can’t do this now.

She snorts. “No—he’s got the smallest knob in the world.”

“Okay,” I say hastily. “Well, there you go. Just pity this new girl—doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a whole lot of fun for her.”

“She’s a dick anyway,” she says. “She gave this bloke a blow job in a club—not even in the toilets—in a booth under a table. And she drinks pints. I just would have rather I met someone first before him, but…enter Adam in Barcelona.
Hola!
”

It takes another three minutes of listening to her overexcited plans before I can get her off the phone without arousing any more suspicion on her part as to why I’m not at work. Finally I’m hurrying back on to the station concourse toward the ticket barriers. Once I’m actually on the train, however, the journey goes so slowly I feel like I’m being dragged backward or dream running and, perversely, I almost want to phone Clare back to help kill the horribly slow journey. By quarter to six I’m practically galloping up our garden path.

I find Pete in the kitchen, as if he’s been there all day, boiling the kettle. When I walk in, he smiles and then yawns. Keeping his arms up in the air he says, “Hello, sick note. Come and give me a hug.”

I don’t need to be asked twice.

Later, we’re eating our tea on our laps in silence, staring at the TV, Gloria at our feet.

Although he’s been perfectly pleasant, asking me if I’m okay and making tea, Pete is being a little vague, as if there is something on his mind. I don’t push it, I don’t ask what is wrong.

We watch more TV, and then the phone goes.

“Darling? It’s me.”

“Mum!” In contrast to Clare earlier, I am immediately happy to hear her and yet my throat goes tight with tears. For God’s sake—I’ve got to get a grip! “Where are you?” My voice wobbles.

“We’ve been to St. Lucia today. Honestly, it’s so beautiful. I swam with turtles. How are you? Have you…over the weekend…Clare…” The line starts to break up.

“Mum? Can you hear me? Mum?” I say desperately.

“Hello? Oooh. I’m back again. Anyway—yes. It’s all lovely here. I can’t tell you how relaxed I feel. It’s amazing, isn’t it? You just don’t realize until you get away how much you needed some time off. I just tried Clare but it’s on answer phone. Will you tell her I rang? And you’re okay?”

Pete’s sitting right there, looking at the TV and scratching his foot. I can’t say anything even if I wanted to—and I wouldn’t anyway, she’d worry herself sick. She needs this break so much.

“I’m fine.” I close my eyes briefly. “Fine.”

“Are you sure? You don’t sound like you.”

I do a strange barklike laugh and Pete glances at me in surprise. “I don’t feel like me.” I smile sadly and tears well up. “Just ignore me.” I reach for a tissue from my sleeve and wipe my eyes. “I haven’t been very well. That’s all.”

“Poor little bunny,” she says kindly. “Try to get a good
night’s sleep and drink plenty of water. Get Pete to give you a big hug from me. I’d better go, darling, this’ll be costing a fortune. Love you billions.”

“Love you too,” I say, and then she’s gone.

“You all right?” Pete looks at me curiously.

“Just miss her.” I blow my nose noisily. “I would have liked to have told her about the break-in…but I don’t want to worry her.” He reaches out and pats my arm.

“She’s only gone for three weeks! She’ll be back before you know it, and I’m sure she’s having a rare old time. Knowing your mum, it won’t be long before she’s in charge of the ship. Come on, you’re just tired and ill. Time for bed for you, I think.”

I nod wordlessly, still clutching my tissue like a bloody five-year-old.

“Go on. Shoo,” he says gently. “I’ll be right up.”

I brush my teeth, clamber into bed, pick up my book and wait for him.

Ten minutes later he pads into our room, pulls his jumper off over his head and lets it drop to the floor.

“Did you put the dog out?” I look like I’ve been reading for hours, but in fact I have been on page eight the whole time. I don’t think I’ve taken in a single word.

“Yeah, I put her out
and
locked the door, which
wasn’t
unlocked earlier—nutter.” He leans over as he gets under the duvet and ruffles my hair affectionately. “Seriously, Mi, you’ve got to chill. I know the robbery was horrible, but there’s nothing to worry about. It’s not like you to be so stressed out and teary just because your mum rang. Don’t give it any more thought, okay?”

I nod, and satisfied, he turns over, having given my leg a friendly squeeze.

Half an hour later, when his breathing has slowed down and
he’s started to snore, I roll away from him and slip out of bed and nip downstairs.

His phone is in his jacket pocket, which is hanging on the banister post. It’s still on and is showing one new message: Liz.

Is he getting sloppy, or do I now just know to look?

I open it and read:

This makes me thrill all over—like I’ve got four lottery numbers and just need one more. And as I know that she will be out there waiting for him to text her back with an apology once he reads what I’ve just read, I delete the text, so he can’t.

Then I click on his inbox. There is one message from her, sent at 5:15 p.m.:

He tackled her about it! He actually did it! She’s out there all upset and he’s up in our bed asleep…

I carefully place the phone back where I found it, then I go back upstairs to bed and fall asleep surprisingly quickly.

I
can’t come out,” I say carefully into the phone, aware that Pete might be able to hear me. “I’ve been off work ill for the last two days and I just don’t feel like it.” Sure enough, Pete wanders into the room seconds later and sits down heavily on the sofa. He’s been in an inexplicably vile mood all day.

“Well, your boss isn’t likely to be in a bar in our local high street having a drink, is he?” Patrick says reasonably.

“No,” I sigh. “He isn’t.”

“Who is it?” Pete mouths to me, and when I mouth “Patrick” back, he rolls his eyes and disappears behind a glossy magazine called
Best Barns.

“Look, you’re not trailing a limb or anything. It’s Friday night, you’ve already said you and Pete have no plans, I haven’t seen you in ages and I’m talking about one drink. I’ll come and get you in an hour—no,” his voice becomes insistent as I try and protest, “decision made. No further discussion required.”

And then he hangs up.

I genuinely am tired, it’s been a knackering couple of days. As far as Pete is concerned I’ve had a relapse of illness—so I can
be at home and be around him. He’s got a really big quote coming up and so although he’s been in his office a lot of the time, I do know he hasn’t been to see her. Which is good. I think. I am, however, very stressed about next week. Although Pete thinks I was at work on Tuesday and Wednesday, I now haven’t been in for a full week. Lottie texted me again today to ask when I’m coming back—I can’t just keep delaying things.

I feel suspended in mid-air, permanently twisting. One minute I’m fixated with his phone and unable to think about anything else but getting rid of her, then the next I’m appalled and horrified that I was in her flat and thinking that there has to be some other way for this to turn out right. When I’m at home with him, it doesn’t feel like it’s real anyway, that he can have another woman out there. But then I stand in our bedroom holding her earrings in my hand—proof that I haven’t imagined the whole thing—and I know I can’t pretend she doesn’t exist. Last night I sat in the bath until it went cold and just cried, not knowing which way to turn or what to do.

I even thought about purposefully stopping taking the pill, but the very idea scared me rigid. I love Pete very much and I don’t want to lose him, but I want more than anything for that to happen with him the right way, through love, not desperation. How could I ever look my child in the eye otherwise?

“Mia. Woo-hoo!” I look up and Pete is smiling at me. “You’re a million miles away.”

“Sorry. What’s up?”

“What did Patrick want?” he says with the slight edge to his voice that he always has when he says Patrick’s name, but it gives me a cheap idea as I sit there on the sofa. It’s the equivalent of a carton of long-life milk or a tiny white loaf that has all the nutritional value of cardboard and couldn’t satisfy anyone—but
I bite in anyway. After all, it’s not deliberately not taking the pill or ramming my car into the back of another one, forcing Pete to realize how much he loves me as he hangs over my bedside where I’m rigged up to tubes and beeping machines.

Because I’ve been there too over the last few days. When I’m calmer and sitting on my sofa, I know it’s an utterly sick thing to think. I can’t defend it and it’s very far from all right and normal, but when I heard the answer-phone message in her flat announcing smugly that she was meeting him and I heard her say it again in my head when I was stuck in traffic this morning coming back from Sainsbury’s, I stared dully at the back of the car in front through the windscreen and wondered what would happen if I slammed into it…I thought about him dashing to my bedside, clasping my hand in anguish, saying, “She’s going to be all right, isn’t she, Doctor? Promise me?”

And so somehow, what I decide to do next doesn’t, in the grand scheme of things, seem so bad. In comparison with where my mind
has
been, it feels positively rational.

“I’m going out for a drink. You don’t mind, do you?” I say decisively and stand up, stretching.

Pete looks up in surprise. “But you’re ill!”

I shrug. “I feel a bit better tonight. I managed a food shop earlier. I’ll be back by nine-ish.”

I know there is every possibility that the second I’m out of the door he’ll be on the phone to her. And…making your boyfriend jealous? Am I really resorting to the tactics of a fifteen-year-old? But he doesn’t look thrilled at the prospect, and that’s better than nothing.

He looks even less thrilled when I come back downstairs three-quarters of an hour later in a short shift dress showing a lot of leg.

“Shouldn’t you wrap up warm?” he says, and in spite of myself I laugh a little at his prudish tone.

“Would you rather I wore dungarees?” I tease.

“Seriously, Mia. You know why I want you to change.” He shifts irritably. “I don’t want him perving over you all night then going home for a wank.”

His gaze drops back to his magazine and I’m slightly stunned at such an unnecessarily graphic remark. The doorbell rings again. “That’ll be him. I don’t have time to change.”

He says nothing.

“I’ll be home later,” I say softly.

He nods without looking up and I let myself out.