The Infidelity Chain (2 page)

‘Christ,’ Dan mutters. ‘Are you
sure
?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I’ve only lived with him, I don’t know,
my whole
life
.’

‘You couldn’t have made a mistake? Maybe he was just giving her a lift—’

‘A lift? From where I was standing, she looked ecstatic.’

‘There’s probably an innocent—’

‘Look, I didn’t like get it wrong or imagine it or anything, all right?’ I snap. ‘Basically, my dad had his tongue down
another woman’s throat, and he wasn’t giving her mouth-to-mouth, OK?’

‘Are you going to tell your mum?’

I watch my mother stagger on stage with Eithne’s stupid bronze statue. She usually hates this sort of thing, but she’d do anything
for Eithne. It’s bizarre, it’s as if that hippy lezzie has some strange hold over her— Yeah. That’ll be the day. My mum do anything blackmail-worth.

‘Course I’m not telling her,’ I retort. ‘You want her to flip out again and try to slash her wrists with the
loofah?’

‘So what are you going to do?’

As if I know. It’s so confusing. I mean, I should be mad at Dad, and I
am
; but at the same time, I
can’t really blame him. Basically, Mum’s a complete basket case most of the time. And she’s so
boring
. She never wants to do anything, she just sits around all the time crying or feeling sorry for
herself. OK, sometimes she gets all manic and paints and stuff, like she has this last week or two, but then she never does anything with it. It never goes anywhere. Eithne says she could be this huge artist if she wanted
to, but she just gets all depressed again and goes back to being helpless and pathetic. I know she’s ill, but couldn’t she make a bit of an
effort
?

She’ll never cope on her own if he leaves. Which means I’ll be the one stuck looking after her.

Up on stage, Mrs Buchanan points to the statue. ‘An Eithne Brompton,’ she says with this fake enthusiasm, ‘surely we have some
takers? At the back there? Come on, ladies and gentlemen, it’s for a good cause! Now, who’ll start me at a thousand pounds?’

‘She’ll be lucky to get a fiver,’ Dan whispers.

‘Whatever.’ I scuff my boot on the grass. ‘Stupid auction. I only came to get her off my back.’

Mrs Buchanan looks beaten. ‘Five hundred, then.’

‘Come on, Dan. This is so gay, I don’t know why you wanted to come. Let’s get out of here,’ I plead.

‘We can’t. I promised your dad I’d give your mum a ride home.’

‘Yeah, well, he’d know all about
rides
.’

‘Come on, everyone,’ Mum urges into the microphone. ‘This is an Eithne Brompton. Do you know how much her artwork is worth on
the open market? There’s a waiting list two years long for commission pieces.’

Behind me, two girls from my class snigger.

‘Great, Mum,’ I mutter, closing my eyes. ‘Just great.
Now
you decide to come out of your
shell.’

‘Cate—’ Dan begins.

Which is when my mother strips off all her clothes and, in front of my entire class, my teachers and my boyfriend, runs naked across the playing fields waving her arms in the air.

Dan whips off his coat and chases after her. I don’t bother to follow him. My eyes are dry and hard as I shoulder my way through the
excited, buzzing crowd towards the exit.

I’m never going to forgive her for this. Never, never,
never
.

I’m so humiliated I want to die, except I’m not going to give her the satisfaction. How could she do this to me?
I’ll never be able to show my face at school again. Thank God it’s the Easter holidays, and I can just shut myself in my room with Cannelle. I don’t want to see anyone, even Dan. I hate her. She’s ruined my entire life. The only
good thing is that I’ve dropped six pounds, but since I’m going to spend the rest of my life hidden from the world, even that doesn’t cheer me up.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had to make allowances for Mum.
She’s sick. She can’t help
it. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
When she sits all day staring out of the window, or doesn’t even bother to get dressed, ‘It’s the pills,’ Dad says. ‘It’s not her fault.’

But he gets to escape to the office. He’s not the one who has to come home and mop up the kitchen floor because she’s left the tap
running for eight hours. He didn’t have to repaint my bedroom after Mum decided on the spur of the moment to paint it orange. He didn’t save his pocket money for three months to buy a journalist’s Billington bag, only to watch her give
it all away to the Salvation Army when she was having one of her highs.

He wasn’t the one to come home and find her That Day.

I wonder what she’s like. His girlfriend. She always seemed OK, but that was before I knew she was shagging my dad. How can she be having
an affair with him when she knows he’s got kids? Doesn’t she care?

What if he leaves us for her? He’ll have a baby with her, a whole new family, and forget about us. Mum’ll go to pieces. Or worse. If
his girlfriend knew how much we need him, she’d have to leave him alone and find someone else. She’s a
baby
doctor. She can’t be that much of a bitch, surely?

Only one way to find out.

She’s not hard to find. Still at the same hospital, though she’s moved offices. Less than an hour from home, door to door. Handy for
Dad.

She’s got
cojones
, that’s for sure. She doesn’t even look surprised to see me when I
turn up outside her office.

‘It’s Caitlin, isn’t it?’ she says.

‘Cate.’

‘Cate.’ She nods. ‘Well, you’d better come in.’

I follow Doctor Ella Slapper Stuart into a bright, cramped room that reminds me of Dad’s new office, but without the amazing view. Her
fancy glass desk is covered with heaps of forms and papers, weighted down with coffee mugs and books; two thin computer screens dovetail neatly in the centre of the desk, like a book that’s been left propped open. The walls are filled with shelves
of thick, boring-looking leather-bound books.

There are no photographs anywhere.

She waves me to a squishy grey chair on my side of the desk, but doesn’t sit down herself, perching on the edge of her desk instead.
‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘Dad,’ I say.

She unclips her long red hair, scrapes it back more firmly from her face, then clips it up again. ‘What exactly did you—’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw the two of you last week in the station car park. You were
kissing
,’ I accuse.

For a long moment, we just look at each other.

‘You were about thirteen the last time I saw you,’ she says finally. ‘You were angry – I think you’d had to miss a
concert or something to come up with your little brother—’

‘Fourteen. Were you sleeping with my dad then?’

‘Still angry,’ she observes.

‘Well? Were you?’

She fiddles with a row of books, straightening their spines. She looks thinner than I remembered, and kind of pale, as if she’s been sick
or something. I shake myself. God, I’ll be feeling sorry for the cow in a minute.

‘How did you get here?’ she asks.

‘Train. Tube. Then I walked. Finding the hospital wasn’t exactly rocket science. I’m not a kid any more. You still
haven’t answered my question.’

‘What exactly do you want me to say?’

I open my mouth:
I want you to say sorry, that you’ll stop, I want you to promise you’re not going to
steal my dad away from me
. Instead, ‘Do you love him?’ I ask.

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she says softly.

‘He’s my dad. He’s married to my mum. I think that makes it my business.’

‘No. That just makes them your parents.’

‘Aren’t you at all sorry?’ I demand hotly.

‘For what?’

‘You’re having an affair with my dad! How can you just sit there and act as if it doesn’t matter? You’re basically a
– a home wrecker!’

She leans back against her desk and folds her arms. She’s wearing the coolest knee boots, kind of chocolate and orange and cinnamon paisley
suede, with little kitten heels. ‘I haven’t wrecked your home. I would never do that.’

‘How do you
know
? What if my mum finds out?’

‘Are you going to tell her?’

Why does everyone keep asking me that? ‘I won’t need to, if you keep snogging Dad all over the place. You were practically doing it
in our back garden! Anyone could’ve seen you!’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she acknowledges. ‘I shouldn’t have gone down there. I’d had a bad— Never mind.
It won’t happen again.’

She twists a ring nervously on her left hand. It takes a moment for the gesture to register.

‘You’re married!’ I exclaim. ‘Does your husband know?’

She hesitates. ‘He died.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘Why should you?’ She digs her fists deep in the pockets of her white coat. ‘He died a month ago today. And no, he didn’t
know.’

‘Was he really old?’

‘No. Though he might seem it to you, I don’t know. He was forty-one. Two,’ she corrects herself. ‘I keep forgetting it
was his birthday.’

‘Did he have an accident?’

‘A virus attacked his heart. It was just one of those things. Chance in a million. No one could have known—’

‘Do you have kids?’

She ducks her head. For a moment, she doesn’t seem any older than me or Clem. ‘No. He wanted them, but I didn’t.’

‘Bet you’re glad now.’

‘Not really.’

I don’t know what else to say. This isn’t going the way I thought it would. I had some hazy idea that she’d be so shocked and
embarrassed when she saw me, she’d break down and promise never to go near Dad again. I suppose I thought she might put up a bit of a fight and argue, maybe even cry a little, but in the end she’d realize the game was up and go quietly.

Her husband’s just died. Shit. And she’s so normal, giving me proper answers and not treating me like a stupid kid. She seems almost
– well,
nice
.

I ask her quickly, before I totally lose my bottle.

‘So are you and Dad going to go off together?’

‘Is that what you’re worried about?’ Her cheeks are flushed. ‘I’m not going to run off with Will – with your
dad. I’m not a home wrecker. I know how it seems, but I loved my husband. I never meant for anyone to get hurt—’

‘Doesn’t it worry you that he’s cheating on my mum?’ I ask curiously. ‘I mean, he could be cheating on you, too. He
might have loads of girlfriends.’

‘You could say the same about me,’ she says, with a strained smile.

God, she looks awful. Her hands are shaking. ‘Are you . . . Dr Stuart, are you OK?’

She sucks in a breath. ‘Could you pass me – some water . . .’

There’s an unopened bottle of mineral water on the desk. I unscrew the top and hand it to her. She’s
panting like she’s been running: she’s starting to freak me out.

‘Dr Stuart? Ella? Would you like me to get someone?’

‘Oh, Cate. I’m so sorry,’ Ella manages.

She collapses like a rubber doll. I try to catch her, but it all happens too fast. There’s a sickening thud as her head hits the corner of
her glass desk.

‘Ella! Ella! Are you OK?’

She doesn’t move. I crouch down and gently turn her head towards me. Oh, God, there’s so much blood! I can’t see if she’s
actually poked out her eye – my stomach turns – or simply hit her head. I call her name again, but she doesn’t respond. She’s so pale. I can’t even tell if she’s breathing.

I open the door to the corridor and scream my head off.