Julia Gets a Life (4 page)

            ‘I can.’ All of a sudden I really could, too. I could see Rhiannon witch face bitch features standing in her cream lounge by her cream sofa swaying very slightly to the low volume twanging of her insipid CD collection, saying, ‘c’mon, Richard, let’s have a quick smooch to this’. And I could see Richard’s willy going
ping!
- could actually
see
it - and saying ‘yeah, c’mon, Richard, go for it, mate. Where’s the harm?’

            ‘I know,’ he said. ‘What can I say? I can’t believe...’

            Then I got cross. Bang! Just like that.

            ‘Believe it! You’ve done it! You’ve had sex with Rhiannon De Laney! You’ve ruined everything. I hate you. I really hate you. And d’you know what? Mainly I can’t stand the thought of you anywhere near me because you’ve put your (I flapped a hand in the general direction)...your...ugh!..inside that bitch. It’s disgusting, and I...’

            And then I had to stop speaking because I started crying properly. Richard now leapt up and crossed the kitchen in two strides. He put his arms around me, tight enough so that I couldn’t push him away without kneeing him in the groin first.

            Strangely, I didn’t mind him holding me like this. I was upset and it seemed quite natural for him to do it. I felt safe cocooned within his bristly embrace. And I guess at that point I had every intention of holding things together. We were a family. We would sort everything out. But then he put a sledgehammer through all the cracks I’d planned to paper over. He said,

            ‘Julia, I
have
to tell you something else. Something important.’ And he held me tighter.

            I held my breath.

            ‘This is..this isn’t...I mean....look. I’m so sorry..’ That again. ‘Julia, I’ve had sex with Rhiannon before.’

            I inserted my knee into the ensuing silence and Richard exploded backwards across the room.

            ‘You bastard!’  Richard couldn’t answer for groaning. ‘You absolute
bastard.
How many times before?’

            ‘Only once,’ he squeaked finally, from the safety of the other end of the kitchen. ‘Honestly, only the once. It was...’

            ‘Don’t even bother to tell me. I know exactly when it was.’

            I lunged for the teapot and started making tea, vigorously, while Richard, still clutching himself, sat back on his chair.

            ‘The Christmas fancy dress party,’ he continued, ignoring me. You remember - I had to walk her home then. She came on to me, Julia. Really came on to me...’

            So I’d been right. Two months back. I’d known something was up. I’d thought - how ridiculously naive can you be? - that he was behaving sheepishly because he’d kissed her. Just that. The whole hog, obviously. Full on the lips, with tongues. Which was certainly out of order, but I’d decided to forget it. Rhiannon fancied him. But then I fancied Caitlin Goodrich’s Husband. Everyone was being out of order that night.

            ‘Nothing to do with you feeling her behind every ten minutes for most of the evening, then?’ I grabbed two mugs from the mug tree and they banged together, hard. When I looked, one was chipped. One of my favourite ones, too.

            ‘You know what it’s like. It was just harmless fun. I had no idea that she was going to...’

            I slapped at the kettle switch. ‘Oh, I see. So it wasn’t your fault at all then. She raped you, did she? Locked you in her prissy little starter home and pulled your pants off, did she?’

            He exhaled. ‘Now you’re being stupid...’

            ‘Don’t you dare call me that!’

            ‘I’m sorry..look, I’m just trying to explain what happened.’ He stood up again. ‘It was a mistake. I felt awful about it. Look, I don’t even like her much..’

            ‘Oh, that’s even better! So you just thought you’d utilise her equipment, did you?’

            ‘Look, you know she’s always had a bit of a thing for me. It’s hard being a man. It’s..’

            ‘Oh! You’re so gross! I can’t believe you are actually standing there and saying all this with a straight face.’

            He sat down again. ‘I just want to...’

            ‘Do you want tea?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Too bad, then.’

            I slammed down a mug on the table beside him. A little sploshed out on the back of his hand. He winced, and, at that point, so pleased with his reaction, I almost tipped the whole lot over his head. Which was scary, in retrospect.

            I moved back to the sink and took several deep breaths.

            ‘So how many times?’

            ‘Just two. I told you.’

            ‘But how many would it have been if...’

            ‘For Christ’s sake, Julia. I just told you, didn’t I? I confessed. I owned up because I couldn’t stand what I’d done. I had to tell you. This wasn’t some sort of sordid affair...’

            ‘Sordid sounds just about right to me.’

            I sipped at my tea and listened to the pulse in my temples. I noted the past tense he was using, which was good. And also that I believed him when he told me he had only had sex with her twice. But then the enormity of him lying to me for the past two months sank in. And then he’d done it again.

            ‘Why did you do it again, Richard?’

            My voice held that particular note of icy calm so beloved of thriller movies and usually attributed to the psychopathic counter espionage bad guy. It wasn’t lost on Richard. He stopped and thought before answering.

            ‘It happened because I let it happen. But I didn’t want to walk Rhiannon home in the first place.
You
know that. I told you I didn’t. When everyone started to leave, I said ‘can anyone drop Rhiannon off?’ And she said ‘don’t worry, I’ll stay and help you clear up. I can get home on my own. I’m not a baby.’ And
you
said, ‘good, we could do with some help’. And I said ‘no, go on. You go.’ And you both said no. And I thought ‘shit’ because I knew I would have to walk her home. How could I not? How could I let a woman walk home on her own at one in the morning? You even said so yourself. I knew she’d start doing...you know.. I nearly told you then, but I...’

            I had to break into this heart-sinking catalogue of disasters. I’d be feeling sorry for him next.

            ‘Doing what? Getting her breasts out?’

            He nodded vigorously. ‘Almost. Yes, almost.’

            ‘Oh, come on. No-one’s that blatant.’

            ‘She is! She started saying about last time, and how she hadn’t had such great sex in years and all that sort of thing, and how she kept remembering...’

            ‘Don’t tell me. How much she...No! This is making me want to be sick! You did it once, which was bad enough. And then you lied to me for two months. And then you did it again.
You did it again,
Richard.
You
did it. You make me sick.’

            The words seemed to swirl in the air between us, my anger and distress now a palpable thing. Our gazes cut through it for several long seconds. Then Richard put his head in his hands, just like they do in films. And his shoulders moved very slightly. He was crying.

            I stood and watched him cry for a good minute. Strangely, I no longer wanted to. Then I said, ‘I’d like you to go upstairs and get some stuff . Then I think you should leave.’

            ‘But Julia...’

            ‘You wanted to know where we were going? Well you can go where you like. I don’t want you any more.’

Chapter
4

            It was just like being pregnant again. Night after night of horrible, fearful, gut-churning indecision. Hour upon hour in a chasm of dread. What about the children? What about money? What about the holiday in France we had planned? What about the house? What about the
mortgage
? And what about Richard? Where would he live? What
about
the children? Why on earth did he
do
this? And what was
I
doing? What about
us
?

            Richard had decamped to a place called Malachite Street; a flat in a house near the centre of Cardiff, which, by the sound of it, had long since been stripped of its dignity, through years, probably decades, of student excesses and Anaglypta abuse. He had (after requesting his mail be re-directed) pointedly made mention of its temporary nature. I wasn’t sure if by temporary he meant him or it. My four a.m. horrors would often be visited by visions of him, curled against a flea-ridden bolster, while freight trains from the valleys thundered thoughtfully by.

            What to do? What to
do
?

            The first list I made, post the crisis, was this;

            Reasons to have Richard back 

            He’s said he won’t do it again              

            He still loves me (huh?)            

            The children

            Utter financial apocalypse

            Like being married (consider)               

            Still love him (probably, once cooled off)

            Reasons to leave Richard

            He might do it again

            Infidelity symptom of big flaw in marriage

            Always said I would if unfaithful

            Hate him

            But, eleven weeks into our ‘estrangement’, as Richard’s Mother, had she still been alive, would have put it, I’ve made some changes to my lists. Under ‘Reasons to have Richard back’, I now have;

            He said he won’t do it again (not sure I believe)

            He said he still loves me (do believe)

            The children (though adapting - getting lots of cash/presents from Father)

           
Complete
and utter financial apocalypse

            Love him (query)

            Conversely, under reasons
not
to have him back, as well as drawer space and freedom to re-decorate in orange if I so wish (which
is
a factor) I now have;

            He might do it again:

            Infidelity symptom of big flaw in male willpower

            Always said I wouldn’t (though not relevant - have read book that says so)

            Like being single