The Accidental Wife (12 page)

Cathy had a boyfriend. Alison marvelled at the new-found information and wondered who it could be. Who at school could possibly have fallen for Cathy Parkin? None of the boys fancied Cathy, but not because she wasn’t beautiful, it was easy to see that she was, and Alison had always known it even if she hadn’t realised its full extent before. Still, Cathy’s beauty was too subtle and oblique for any boy at school to appreciate; she didn’t have the yellow hair, obvious breasts or the near-naked thighs that boys in their teens appreciated so much. Alison realised it couldn’t be a boy from school that Catherine was going to meet. For a split second the thought that it might be Jimmy Ashley, the boy who had barely spoken two words to Alison and none at all to Catherine as far as she could remember, flashed across her brain, but she dismissed it. Even if Jimmy fancied Cathy, which he never would because she was about as far away from being a rock chick as a girl could be, then Cathy would never be his secret girlfriend. She’d never betray Alison in that way; it just wasn’t in her nature.

There were only two ways to find out what was going on. She could either follow her or ask her.

Alison, who was always one to take the fun option, pulled her sunglasses down onto her nose and began trailing her best friend. She giggled as she hopped in and out of bus shelters, cowered behind trees, flattened herself against a shop window. Near to laughing out loud, Alison expected Cathy to turn around at any minute and ask her what she thought she was playing at. But then she realised Cathy was in a world of her own, an exclusive little bubble of her own feelings and thoughts that Alison could not even guess at. For the first time in the nine years she had known Cathy she was on the outside of her head and this boy she was going to meet was on the inside. It took a second or two for Alison to understand that
what
she was feeling as she slowed to a walk, now only a few feet behind Cathy, was jealousy.

She had to know that instant what exactly was going on in Cathy’s life.

‘Hi, Cathy, where are you going?’ she said, falling into step alongside her friend, making her jump.

‘I’m … oh, hello!’ Cathy smiled, her cheeks colouring. ‘I thought you were with Aran. Mum’s working so I sneaked out for a walk.’

‘Liar,’ Alison said lightly. ‘Come on, spill. You’re on the way to meet a boy, aren’t you? You might as well know, if it’s Jimmy Ashley then it’s over between you and me for good.’

‘Jimmy Ashley?’ Cathy stopped, wrinkling up her nose. ‘It’s not him!’

‘Aha! So it’s someone, then!’ Alison grabbed hold of Cathy’s wrist and swung it back and forth. ‘Come on, tell me! I’m your best friend, aren’t I? I tell
you
everything.’

‘I was going to tell you,’ Cathy said anxiously. ‘It’s just I wanted to see what would happen. I didn’t think it would last longer than one day. But it has.’ A slow shy smile crept over Cathy’s face. ‘We’ve been seeing each other almost all the holidays.’

‘Have you?’ Alison asked her. ‘That’s amazing. Can I meet him, then? The love of your life?’

Alison watched Cathy’s face as she thought for a moment, unable to believe that she didn’t agree immediately, trying not to take it personally but doing exactly that.

‘OK, OK,’ Cathy said, taking a deep breath and smiling. ‘You can meet him today. He’s amazing, Alison. When you see him you just won’t believe that he likes me. I know I don’t … except …’

‘Except?’ Alison prompted.

‘He keeps telling me that he does,’ Cathy said, her eyes
shining
so brightly that Alison almost wanted to slap her then and there and tell her to pull herself together.

‘It better be one of Take That,’ Alison said as they walked across the high street, down through the canal park and over the railway bridge. ‘I’m only going to forgive you if it’s one of Take That.’

Finally they stopped at a square-shaped detached house with a yellow sign hanging outside, which read ‘Rooms to Let’.

‘He’s staying here for now,’ Cathy said, leading Alison down the overgrown path and through the unkempt garden. A rusted bicycle languished in the seeded grass. ‘He’s on a contract for the railway. It runs out soon. I don’t know what will happen then, but he said he might try and get some more work locally, maybe in a garage or on a building site.’

‘So it’s not Jason Orange then?’ Alison said, wondering just exactly what kind of person Cathy had got herself mixed up with, because if he lived here it wasn’t any boy from school.

Cathy pushed the bell and waited, her fingers knotted behind her back.

And as both girls stood there, neither of them could have known that this was it: the fulcrum, the moment, the very second when suddenly their fates would tangle and turn for ever, and from that point on neither one of them would have the life that was meant for her.

‘Hi.’ Catherine’s voice was small when he opened the door. ‘Um, this is Alison. Remember I told you about her? She wanted to meet you … I thought it would be OK. Do you mind?’

Marc had stopped smiling at Cathy and looked right at Alison and said, ‘I don’t mind.’

Alison remembered staring at Marc, open-mouthed.

Yes, in her memory she was definitely open-mouthed,
awestruck,
as she gawped at him, in his tight black T-shirt and blue jeans, with his skin turned to amber by the sun and his dark eyes taking her in under the sweep of his black brows. The first thing she thought, in the first minute of her new life, was that he was the most beautiful living thing she had ever seen. And the second thing she thought was how on earth did Catherine get him? That couldn’t be right.

And then Marc looked into her eyes and Alison knew that he was seeing her in exactly the same way that the boys at school saw her: her breasts first, her short skirt and bare golden thighs, her smooth blonde hair and her soft full mouth. Last of all he’d noticed her eyes, her pretty blue smiling eyes. And she could tell even as Cathy chatted away, introducing them to each other, that he wanted her. She could feel it in every stroke of his gaze.

‘All right?’ Marc stepped forward and shook her hand lightly, letting his gaze fall from face to her chest and below.

‘So I was thinking maybe the three of us could have a picnic instead of … you know … what we were planning, down in the park. Under our tree?’ Catherine suggested sweetly, her happiness so thick that Alison could almost taste it.

Alison did her best to stop looking at Marc. ‘You have a tree?’ she teased Cathy gently. ‘How romantic.’

‘It’s not really our tree, it’s just a tree … oh, stop it, Ali,’ Cathy said, blushing and laughing all at once.

Alison watched as Marc dropped his arm around Cathy’s pale shoulders and kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘We can call it our tree if you like,’ he said, challenging Alison with a lazy smile.

The tips of Catherine’s ears went pink.

‘We could go to the supermarket and get a few things,’ Cathy offered. ‘Mum won’t see us, she’s at work, so we should be safe.’

‘Good idea,’ Marc said, picking her hand up easily as if it was something he had often done. It was the easy intimacy between them that shocked Alison almost as much as it would have done if she’d come across them having sex. Somehow she found it impossible to imagine Cathy and this creature together. It seemed all wrong that it was Cathy who was the confident one, the knowing one, and that it was Alison who was feeling awkward, uncomfortable and out of things. Alison didn’t like it one little bit.

She didn’t say a single word as she listened to Cathy chatter on the way to the supermarket. She couldn’t say anything. The feelings of jealousy and rage and longing that were churning inside her the whole way kept her mouth firmly shut. She was afraid, not of what she might say but of how her voice would sound when she said anything. All she knew was that this was wrong, it was all wrong. Cathy wasn’t meant to have someone like
him
. Marc wasn’t meant to be with a girl like Cathy.

They had been seeing each other nearly all the summer holidays, Alison thought back. Cathy must have met him that afternoon in the park when she had been waiting for Alison, and Alison had been with Aran Archer. If Alison had shown up that afternoon then there would have been no way that Marc would have looked at Catherine, no
way
. It would be her holding hands with him in the sunshine now, and Catherine walking on her own. And Cathy would have been happy with that, because she would have understood that that was the right thing, that was the way things were.

It must have been about four when Cathy looked at her watch and scrambled to her feet.

‘I’ve got go. Mum’ll be back in half an hour. Are you walking back, Ali?’ Cathy stood, waiting for her friend. Alison guessed she couldn’t wait to hear what she thought of him.

‘Um … no, I can’t. I said I’d drop by Aran’s on the way back. I’ll see you later, though, OK?’

Cathy nodded and smiled. She looked so happy, as if she felt special for the first time in her life. ‘See you at ten,’ she said.

Alison watched as Marc got up and, putting his heavy arms over Cathy’s fragile shoulder, whispered something in her ear that brought the blood to her cheeks. And then he kissed her, a long slow tender kiss.

Alison didn’t know who she hated the most just then, her friend for stealing away her lover, Marc for not seeing he had met the wrong girl, or herself for doing what she knew she was about to do.

After Cathy had gone Marc turned back to Alison and looked at her lying in the sun. He waved a half-hearted hand.

‘See you then,’ he said, as if he was going to leave.

‘Stay and talk to me a bit longer,’ Alison said, dropping her shoulder back so that her chest pushed forwards. She patted a patch of grass next to her.

‘Thanks, but I should get some sleep before my shift starts,’ Marc said, looking at her legs. ‘You don’t want to be too tired, working on a railway line. I saw this lad get cut in half in Manchester.’

‘She was meeting me, you know,’ Alison said. ‘The afternoon you two met here.’

‘Really?’ Marc looked over his shoulder at the tunnel that led under the railway line and back to his bedsit. ‘So?’

‘Well, who do you think you’d have asked out if I’d turned up that afternoon? Who do you think you would have fancied if you met me first?’

Marc looked back at her, his hands on his hips, and he laughed.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I’m interested, that’s all,’ Alison told him, tipping her head to one side, so her hair brushed her bare arm.

‘Well, I’ve never been with anyone like Catherine before,’ Marc said. ‘So if I’d met you both at the same time I’d have probably made a move on you. But then I would have missed out on knowing her. She’s a lovely person.’

‘Lovely?’ Alison laughed.

‘Well,’ Marc put his hands in his pockets and looked awkward as he shrugged. ‘She is.’

Alison had never been able to believe the words that had come out of her mouth next, only ever able to justify them in later years because for so long she was certain that all she was doing was restoring order to the universe.

‘You can make a move on me now if you like,’ she offered.

Marc stood still, a slow smile spreading across his face. ‘I thought you were her best friend. She talks about you all the time.’

‘I am,’ Alison said. ‘But anyone can see you’re not right for her. You two don’t fit together. You’ll just end up hurting her. She deserves better.’

‘And you don’t?’ Marc sounded sceptical. But he still hadn’t walked away.

‘I can handle you,’ Alison said. ‘And anyway, I know that if you’d met me first you’d be with me now. I know it.’

Marc shook his head. ‘You’re very confident.’ He stood still, taking her in.

For what seemed like an age neither of them said anything or moved a muscle. Then suddenly Marc walked decisively over to her and held out a hand.

‘Come on then,’ he challenged her. ‘Come back with me.’

‘What, now?’ Alison said, scrambling to her feet.

‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ Marc asked her.

‘Yes, yes, it is,’ Alison said. And the decision was made.

*

Afterwards she had lain in the tangle of sheets on his single bed and stared at the ceiling.

‘Have you done that with her?’ she asked him. His eyes were shut, his face perfectly still.

‘I’ve never done anything like that with her,’ he said eventually.

Alison found it hard to read the tone of his voice, it was so … closed. This moment was not at all like she had expected it to be. She had expected his arms to be around her, for him to be holding her, kissing her, but he hadn’t touched her since he’d pulled out of her. Quite a feat in a single bed. Alison fought the urge to cry, telling herself that this was just the beginning. She still had a way to go but she’d get him in the end. She’d make him understand.

Making herself smile, she sat up and leaned over him so that her breasts brushed his chest. He opened his eyes.

‘That was my first time,’ she told him, careful to erase any trace of vulnerability from her voice.

‘I know,’ he said, watching her face. ‘I’m sorry if I was a bit … rough.’

‘I liked it,’ Alison said steadily. ‘It was passionate.’

‘You are very sexy,’ Marc told her, his voice still unyielding. ‘You’ve got an amazing body.’

‘Do you feel bad?’ Alison asked him. ‘About Cathy?’

‘I am a bad person,’ he said. ‘I told her that the day I met her. I thought I could be better than I am if I was with her, but I can’t. This is the way I am.’

‘You’re not a bad person, you just don’t fit with her, that’s all,’ Alison said, leaning over him. ‘If you are with the right person then you don’t even have to change.’

Marc didn’t move a muscle.

‘I don’t think anyone can change me,’ he said eventually,
and
Alison got the feeling that he’d only spoken half a sentence out loud.

‘When you finish with her, be kind, OK?’ Alison said, sitting up and putting on her bra. A tiny, tender and bruised part of her was still wishing for the hearts and romance and flowers that she’d always dreamed would accompany this event, but still she told herself this was just the beginning. All of that would come when she really had him. ‘Don’t break her heart. Don’t tell her about us. We’ll stay a secret for now, until she’s over you.’