Got You Back (8 page)

‘But I need your advice, though,’ Stephanie pleaded. ‘I don't know what to do.’

‘Do nothing.’

‘You always say that.’

‘Well, this time I mean it. Do nothing and we'll try to come up with a plan. You think Katie will go along with whatever you suggest?’

‘I think so. Actually, she sounded nice.’

‘OK,’ Natasha said. ‘Now this is getting weird.’

‘She did, though. And I think she feels as bad for me as she does for herself.’

‘I'll see you in the café at Harvey Nichols at two,’ Natasha said, and rang off.

Stephanie ran herself a bath, then lay in it, staring up
at the ceiling, thinking over her conversation with Katie. She had meant it when she'd said Katie sounded nice. There had been genuine shock in her voice when she'd tried to take on board what Stephanie had been saying to her, but once she had absorbed it her concern had been all for Stephanie. From what she had said it was obvious that she loved James and had thought they had a future together, but Stephanie had no doubt that the relationship was over now — at least as far as Katie was concerned. She had said she wasn't the sort of woman to steal another woman's man and Stephanie believed her.

James, meanwhile, pulled into the car park of a pub called the Jolly Boatman in a little village just outside Stevenage, got out and stretched exaggeratedly. It was a beautiful day and he fancied a half of bitter, sitting in the pub's spring-flower-filled garden. He would spend a blissful half-hour taking in the countryside, then get on his way again. He didn't want to be too late getting home, Finn had football club on a Wednesday afternoon and usually got in around five thirty. James liked to be there to meet him but he also wanted to avoid getting back too much before that. Sometimes he didn't know what to do with himself in his own house when his son wasn't there.

The barmaid definitely twinkled at him as she pulled his drink, and ordinarily James would have responded, sitting up at the bar having a harmless flirtation, chatting about his job and the weather. Today, though, he didn't have the heart for it. It felt like an effort and he preferred to sit on his own, everything peaceful around him, just ‘experiencing the moment’, as Katie would have said. He
took his beer out to the large garden at the back, which overlooked the river with its neat little families of ducks, and sat contentedly at a table away from anyone else.

It was unexpectedly warm for March, so he took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves, basking in the sun like a lion smug in the knowledge that it's the undisputed king of the jungle. This is the life, he thought, swatting an insect away from his face. He really could have no complaints. In fact, he thought now, most men would envy him. What full-blooded male hadn't fantasized about having two women on the go? Of course, he couldn't imagine that many of those men were actually dreaming about having two full-time relationships. Two sets of responsibilities and double the squabbling over whether or not to buy a new ironing-board. Sometimes he wondered if, rather than living an enviable life, he was actually living a lot of men's twin-headed nightmare. It was hardly the carefree sex-filled romp one might think. It was two lots of ‘Have you put the rubbish out?’ and ‘Should we have the Martins round? After all, they had us over last time and we don't want it to look like we're not good hosts.’ Double ‘You never talk to me properly any more’ and ‘Which looks better, the blue one with the tan belt, or the stripy one?’

James rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead. He was starting to sweat a little. He downed the last inch of his half-pint and took the empty glass back to the bar on his way out.

‘’Bye, love,’ the barmaid called. She really was quite attractive, he thought, and she was definitely giving him the eye.

He put on his best, most dazzling smile. ‘See you soon,’ he shouted, thinking, I must remember where this place is.

He had no idea, of course, that his life as he knew it was about to take a drastic turn.

13

Something Natasha had said to Stephanie a few days earlier had lodged in her brain and wouldn't go away: ‘You have to make him suffer. The point is you get to feel better while he gets to feel like shit.’ It made a kind of perverse sense. Why should James escape without any punishment for his crime? OK, so losing both of the women he professed to love might hurt him a little but she doubted now that he would care for long. He clearly had no respect, no real feelings for either of them. He'd just find another woman — maybe even two — to fall for his stories. The question was, what form the punishment should take.

Natasha's suggestions all seemed to involve some form of physical violence so, for the first time, Stephanie decided to ignore her friend's advice and work this one out for herself. She dug her phone out of her bag. ‘I think we should meet,’ she said, when Katie answered.

There was a moment's silence as Katie, on the other end of the line, took this in. ‘Really?’ she said, sounding nervous.

‘I just think there are things we need to talk about and we should do that face to face. Besides, I'm curious.’

Stephanie heard Katie's inhalation, could feel her weighing up the idea in her head. She waited.

‘All right,’ Katie said finally. ‘Let's do it. I'm curious too.’
They had arranged to meet in the bar of a hotel near Peterborough, halfway between Lincoln and London. Stephanie's plan was to leave as soon as James had gone to work in the morning, but by the time she had agonized over what to wear (jeans and a figure-hugging T-shirt with heels that would have been too high for her to drive in — even though she knew Katie was blameless she still wanted to show her that she was in good shape, not the stereotype of the little woman left at home) and whether to wear her hair up or down (up, in a low ponytail), she was about an hour late leaving. She rang Katie to tell her, only to discover that Katie had been in the same dilemma and was running late herself.

‘I didn't ask,’ Stephanie said, ‘but what do you look like? You know, so I recognize you.’ She was feeling a bit sick. The reality of what was happening to her was just beginning to sink in. What if the woman her husband had been having an affair with was stunning? She wasn't sure if she could cope with that.

‘Well, I'm wearing a turquoise skirt, sort of a long skirt, and a white vest with a light blue cardigan. And I'm about five foot two,’ Katie said, which wasn't the answer Stephanie had been looking for. Was she thin? Fat? Plain? Gorgeous? Twenty-five? Fifty?

Katie, too, had procrastinated in front of her wardrobe. She wanted to look good but not threatening. She didn't know why but she wanted Stephanie to like her, to forgive her, even though in reality there was nothing to forgive. She had decided to go with pretty but not too much flesh. Flattering, but not too young. She had formed a picture
in her head of what Stephanie might look like based on the photos she had seen of Finn. A good-looking brunette with brown eyes, maybe with the slightly lopsided smile Finn had and his turned-up nose. She imagined she would be… attractive. Why else would James have been — still be — married to her?

Every now and then an image came into her mind of the woman she had conjured up and James wrapped round each other naked under the sheets. As hard as she would try to push it away it would push back, threatening to block out all possibility of ever thinking about anything else. She tried to conjure up positive thoughts but her old standbys — images of herself on a sundrenched beach in Thailand, a memory of a particularly happy Christmas when she was a child — weren't strong enough to overpower the negative ones that had taken root. She reached into her cupboard for the Rescue Remedy.

As the taxi pulled into the hotel car park, she ran her fingers through her hair and checked herself in a small mirror. She felt sick with nerves. She had never been good with confrontation — she always tried to give people what they wanted, to go out of her way to make them happy, and she had a lurking fear that Stephanie might want to pick a fight.

She took a deep breath and walked into the hotel foyer, looking around for the bar. There were a few people in there. She scanned the room for a woman on her own. No one. She must have got there first. She settled at a table near the window and ordered a glass of mineral water. She wasn't really a drinker, but she was dying for
a vodka and tonic. Sipping her drink, Katie stared out of the window. She was beginning to sweat.

No more than a couple of minutes later she heard a small cough and looked round to see a tall, slim woman, with long, dark red hair tied away from her face, standing beside her. She stood up awkwardly. Stephanie in the flesh was quite an imposing prospect. She had somehow bypassed pretty and gone straight for beautiful, and looked nothing like Katie's comforting mental picture. Her skin, which was an iridescent white, was straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Katie's own shiny tanned glow seemed cheap in comparison. She smiled nervously.

Stephanie nearly laughed out loud when she saw Katie. Not because she was relieved to find that Katie wasn't pretty because there was no denying that she was. She was maybe somewhere in her late thirties, Stephanie thought, thankful that at least they were the same age, but that was where the similarities ended. The thing that had struck Stephanie as soon as she had seen her was that they were such complete opposites. It was such a cliché that James had felt the need to seek out everything he didn't have at home. She was tall; Katie was short. She had deep red, poker-straight hair; Katie was all blonde curls. She was slim and athletic; Katie was soft and feminine. Her eyes were brown, Katie's were blue.

‘God, you certainly couldn't say he has a type,’ she said, and Katie laughed, although it seemed a little forced. ‘I'm Stephanie,’ Stephanie said, and held out a hand.

Katie shook it weakly, as if she wasn't used to shaking hands. ‘Katie,’ she said. ‘Obviously.’

They sat down, and the silence seemed to go on for ever before Stephanie thought I really must say something, otherwise she'll think she has to take charge of the situation. Stephanie liked to be in control. In fact, James had once accused her of being a control freak and she had annoyed him by taking it as a compliment. ‘Why wouldn't I want to be in charge of my own life?’ she'd shouted at him. ‘What kind of an idiot lets someone else run their life?’

‘So,’ she said eventually. ‘I just wanted to see you for myself, really. I'm still trying to take all this in.’

‘Me too,’ Katie said, sipping her water.

There was another awkward silence.

‘Did you have a good journey?’ Katie asked.

‘Fine, thanks. I came on the train. You?’ Stephanie could hardly believe they were having such a banal conversation but she didn't know how to turn it round. She was finding it hard to concentrate, looking at Katie's little rosebud mouth and having to fight off pictures in her mind of James transfixed by it, getting closer and closer…

‘Me too. Yes,’ Katie was saying.

Silence. Stephanie fiddled about in her handbag, looking for something. Or pretended to. Now she was here she didn't know what to do. She had no idea why she had suggested this, why she had thought it might be a good idea.

‘Stephanie, you do believe I didn't know, don't you?’ Katie blurted out. Clearly she couldn't stand the quiet any longer.

Stephanie nodded. ‘I think so. Yes… yes, I do. I just
don't understand how he thought he could get away with it.’

‘I never suspected anything. Did you?’

‘Never. Does that make us both stupid?’

‘No. It just means James is a very good actor.’

Stephanie found that hard to believe. She'd once seen him giving his Third Peasant From the Left in an amateur production of
Joseph
and hadn't been convinced. Peasant One and Peasant Two had looked worn out, stooping beneath the weight of the sacks they were carrying. James had strutted along as if he was going for a picnic. ‘Why did he tell you that you couldn't come down to London?’

‘Because he was staying with Peter and Abi. He said it was awkward enough him staying there. It sounded really plausible.’

Stephanie forced out a laugh. ‘Where do Peter and Abi live?’

‘Swiss Cottage. Peter's a teacher and Abi's in IT. They live in a flat and James sleeps on a put-me-up in Peter's study. Abi's a terrible cook.’

‘I hate to break it to you but I don't think Peter and Abi exist. I've never heard of them,’ Stephanie said.

Katie smiled half-heartedly. ‘How about you? How come you never came up to Lincolnshire?’

‘Do you know what? He never told me not to. In fact, when we first moved down to London he used to keep begging me to go up there with him. But I didn't want to. And, after a while, I guess, we just got into a pattern. I didn't want to keep uprooting Finn, you know, and I had my job. And then he stopped asking — because he'd
met you probably…’ she added sadly. ‘And I didn't really even notice.’

‘Don't make it sound like any of this is your fault. It's all him. He's the one who's behaved badly. Not us. Not either of us.’

‘Oh, fuck. What are we going to do?’ Stephanie said.

‘Let's have a drink,’ Katie said, waving at a waitress. ‘Then we'll decide.’

Three vodka and tonics (Katie) and white wines (Stephanie) later they had filled each other in with the details of their relationships with James. They decided that they had to be absolutely candid, that they needed to share everything without worrying whether it might hurt the other's feelings. So Stephanie learned that the sex was good but that James had refused to discuss having children, saying he felt he had already messed up one young life and didn't want to risk doing the same thing again, while Katie discovered that for Stephanie the sex was near non-existent but that James had recently been suggesting that another baby might be a good idea. The more they talked (and, to an extent, the more they drank), the angrier both women became at the way James had treated them. By five past three they were ready to hang him.

‘So,’ Stephanie said finally, ‘I think we should punish him.’

‘Too right we should,’ agreed Katie, who, unused to feeling badly about anyone, had come over slightly heady with the whole experience.