Seeing Other People (39 page)

To complicate matters further, regardless of the fact that my separation and divorce from Penny had been nothing more than a dream, the sense of dread that it had left me with felt very real indeed. It was like a warning: go near Bella and this dream will come true. Not that I wanted it to for a second of course, because having lived through the worst year of my life, even in a dream, had left me a completely changed man. The hopelessness and insecurity I’d felt leading up to that night had vanished without trace. I wasn’t the same person any more. I no more felt the need to prop up my ego with the attentions of someone like Bella than I did to get a tattoo or buy a motorcycle. I was cured. Or at least that was what I hoped.

If drug and gambling addicts could relapse after weeks of intensive therapy then surely I could too. How long would the power of the lessons I’d learned in my dream life last? And with Bella’s internship not due to finish for another three months, I was terrified that a moment of weakness would lead me to make as big a mess of things in real life as I had in my dreams. If it wasn’t going to happen again, I needed to do something daring, something drastic: I needed to come clean to Penny.

It was a little after four when Penny arrived to take me home. Despite my protests she refused to let me help pack and so while I sat in the armchair next to the bed feeling completely impotent she emptied get-well cards, toiletries and spare clothes into the holdall she’d brought with her.

‘Right, I think that’s everything.’ She set the bulging bag down on the bed and zipped it up. ‘Are you ready to go?’

I looked at Penny and realised that this was my moment to talk things over with her. Apart from anything it would be virtually impossible to have a proper conversation with her when we were back home with the kids and somehow it seemed right that if I was going home – a home which in my dream world at least hadn’t existed for over a year – we should start this new chapter of our lives together on a clean page. No secrets, no lies, just the truth.

‘Actually, Pen, before we go is there any chance we can talk for a minute?’

‘Of course,’ she said, looking worried as she sat down on the bed. ‘What is it?’

I stood up from the chair and sat next to her. ‘I just need to tell you a few things.’

‘About what?’

‘About that night,’ I replied. ‘The night I got mugged.’

Penny nodded. Her whole body seemed to tense as though she were bracing herself for a blow. ‘OK, go on.’

‘It’s hard to know where to begin,’ I said, taking her hand in mine. ‘I think the truth is for a while I’d felt like I was invisible to everyone around me. You were busy getting back into work, the kids missed you so much that they barely noticed me and as for work, well, it seemed like I’d become part of the furniture there. I just couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I didn’t matter very much any more to anyone.’

‘That’s not true, Joe. Things have been crazy since I went back to work but we always knew it would be hard.’

‘I know we did. I just never really understood quite how hard.’

Penny nodded. ‘I think if I’m honest I knew something was wrong. I haven’t felt like you’ve been yourself for the longest time but between work and the kids there hasn’t been any time to talk to you about it. I should’ve been there for you.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said. ‘It’s just life, isn’t it? It gets busy with kids, with work, with a million and one things that constantly need our attention and before you know it everything else gets drowned out by the noise of family life. Anyway, this is going to sound weird but I was coping with everything until Fiona’s death sort of tipped me over the edge. She was our age, Pen. She was our age and she thought she had her whole life ahead of her and it wasn’t true. It felt like a warning: don’t sleepwalk through the only life you’re ever going to get.’

Penny withdrew her hand from mine and turned to face me. Her gaze seemed to be trying to penetrate my very soul. ‘What is it that you’ve done, Joe?’

‘I didn’t
do
anything,’ I replied. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is . . .’ I stopped and corrected myself. ‘The point
was
that I nearly did.’

‘With who?’

‘An intern at work.’

‘But nothing happened?’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘but it—’

‘Stop,’ she said suddenly. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’ She closed her eyes and drew a long, deep breath. My whole future, our whole future, was riding on whatever came out of Penny’s mouth next.

She opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

‘Do you love me?’ she asked.

‘You’re everything I’ve ever wanted,’ I replied.

‘And you swear that nothing happened.’

‘I swear.’

‘And you promise that whatever this problem is you’ll let me help you get to the bottom of it?’

‘I promise you, it’s dealt with, it’s done. It’ll never happen again.’

‘And what about this intern? Will she still be working with you?’

I nodded. ‘It’s difficult. It’s sort of out of my hands.’

‘But you don’t have feelings for her any more?’

‘I never did,’ I replied.

There was a long silence.

‘So what now?’ I asked, fearful that the answer would mark the beginning of the end.

‘I’m tired, and right now all I want to do is take my husband home and be with the kids who I haven’t seen properly in days and forget that any of this ever happened.’ She took my hand. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s go home.’

The kids had flung themselves at me before I’d even managed to get properly out of the car but as pleased as they were to see me I was infinitely more pleased to see them safe and happy. Every time I kissed or hugged them I was reminded of that day in my dream life where I’d told them I was moving out and the pain that had caused them. If they had been in the market for new toys, clothes or exotic school trips it would have been the perfect moment to make their requests but as it was all they wanted was a kiss and a cuddle followed by a promise that I would make them their favourite tea of eggs, beans and potato waffles.

‘I’m so glad you’re back, Daddy,’ Jack told me that evening as I tucked him into bed after reading him stories. ‘I felt sick yesterday because I missed you so much.’

Rosie was, in her own way, equally effusive. ‘I don’t like it when you’re not here, Dad,’ she said when I poked my head into her room to say goodnight. ‘Nothing felt right without you.’

‘I think that’s a good thing,’ I replied, kissing her on the forehead. ‘It shows that we belong together.’

For the next few days I didn’t do a great deal of anything at all. Penny insisted that I had to rest and so while she busied herself holding the fort I had no choice but to look on helplessly. Eventually however even she had to agree with my GP that I had fully recovered and was ready to resume my normal duties.

‘Are you sure you’re going to be OK?’ she asked anxiously as we stood on the doorstep on my first morning back at work.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I replied. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.’

‘I know,’ said Penny. ‘But to be on the safe side I’ll carry on worrying just the same.’

As I waved my pass in front of the security barrier I was reminded of the fateful day when I’d first met Bella. I recalled all the tasks I’d had on my mind that morning as I’d squeezed into the lift heading for the sixteenth floor: interviews, meetings, last-minute preparations for the shoot, and how I had been completely oblivious to the existence of the woman who if my dream world was to be believed had the power to completely knock my world off its axis. Today, however, I had only one thought as I edged my way on to the lift: where was Bella and how would I deal with her when we finally came face to face?

She wasn’t in the lift and it was all I could do to breathe as I anticipated the doors opening on the
Correspondent
’s floor. Would she be waiting for me? It seemed a crazy thought given that in the real world our relationship so far consisted of an extended coffee break and the exchange of a handful of admittedly flirty text messages. Our affair had never happened. I’d never broken her heart by avoiding her the day we’d slept together. I hadn’t waited in the pouring rain months later to try and rekindle what we had between us and I hadn’t turned down her advances a second time because I’d discovered that I was still in love with my wife. Everything I felt about her, our entire history together, was imagined, a fiction, and yet the remembrance of the dream was so vivid, it was hard to take comfort in this fact.

Thankfully she wasn’t there when the lift doors opened. Neither did she appear at my desk as I fired up my computer and sorted through the mail. Or even when I went to the kitchen to make the first of many cups of coffee. In fact she completely failed to make an appearance during the entire day. It was as though she had gone, or worse still had never actually existed – which really worried me given my tenuous grip on reality of late – but then just as I was about to board the westbound Central Line train at Liverpool Street to take me home I heard someone call out my name and I turned to see Bella standing right in front of me looking undeniably real and as lovely as ever. Before I could say a word she had thrown her arms around my neck and had her body pressed up against mine.

‘Joe,’ she said, ‘it’s so good to have you back.’

40

‘I’ve been at a press event at Media City all day with a couple of people from the arts desk,’ she explained as, coffees in hand, we sat down at a table outside a café on the concourse of Liverpool Street station. ‘I only got into Euston about half an hour ago and Marie, who I’m shadowing at the moment, told me it was OK to go home but of course I’d left a bunch of stuff that I need for tonight on my desk so here I am.’ She laughed and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear which only served to make her look even more attractive than she already was. ‘It’s so good to see you. I’ve been boring everyone in the office to tears asking when you were coming back to work.’

Bella appeared genuinely concerned for my well-being and it seemed churlish in the extreme to be horrible to her on the basis that I’d dreamed we’d slept together after I’d been knocked unconscious. It had proved impossible to find a good reason to turn down her suggestion that she be allowed to buy me a quick coffee so that she could find out how I was. It was, after all, just coffee in one of the busiest stations in the entire world where any one of my colleagues could’ve walked by and seen me. Nothing was going to happen and while obviously there was still the whole issue of the texts we’d exchanged on the night of the mugging, I reasoned that as long as we avoided that conversation – which I couldn’t imagine coming up naturally anyway – everything would be fine.

‘We were all so worried about you, Joe,’ said Bella. ‘And when I heard the news I couldn’t help but blame myself.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, it was only when people at work told me you’d been mugged for your phone that I realised you must have been responding to my texts at the time. I feel terrible. If I hadn’t pestered you that night you wouldn’t have had your phone out and the mugger might not have targeted you.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said quickly. ‘There’s no lasting damage and anyway, I’m pretty sure I texted a few other people too so no need to feel guilty.’

She seemed satisfied with my response and at my lead we continued talking for another quarter of an hour covering topics as diverse as plans for her career after the end of her internship right through to the future of print journalism. In fact I was happy to talk about anything so long as it had nothing at all to do with the night I was mugged.

Finally, feeling assured that I had acquitted myself of any accusation of impoliteness or indeed of deliberately putting myself in harm’s way, I mumbled something about needing to get home and we both stood up to say our goodbyes.

She kissed me lightly on the cheek. ‘I’m so glad I bumped into you, Joe, and I’m glad you’re on the mend.’

‘Thanks again for the coffee,’ I replied, wishing for all the world that she hadn’t come so close to me. ‘And I’ll no doubt see you around the office sometime.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ she said, as I prepared to make my getaway. I turned to go but she called after me.

‘Joe? A friend of mine’s got an exhibition opening tomorrow night and I was just wondering if you’d like to go. It’s nothing flash. In fact it’s just in a bar in Shoreditch but it should be really good fun. Do you fancy it?’

‘I can’t,’ I replied.

She smiled. ‘Galleries not your thing?’

‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘Look, Bella, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression but you do know I’m married, don’t you?’

‘So?’

‘So I can’t be going to gallery openings with you.’

She smiled again. ‘Well maybe we could grab a bite to eat after work one night instead.’

‘It’s not the venue that’s the problem so much as being anywhere alone with you.’

Bella’s face fell and her smile faded. ‘I don’t understand, why are you being like this.’

‘Look, I’m not trying to upset you and I did really enjoy our conversation the other day but whatever this is,’ I gestured to the space between us, ‘I just can’t do it.’