You, Me and Other People (5 page)

I’m sipping my first coffee of the day, sitting at the tiny wrought-iron bistro table on Ben’s balcony. Though the noise of the street below is sometimes intrusive, today I find it a positive distraction from the noise in my head. I have to go to work, but I want to crawl back into bed.

Though, if I do, the nightmares will be back. Dreams of my parents when they were alive, dreams of Beth and I when we were young … It seems my brain simply doesn’t want to sleep. It seems my brain is in frightening overdrive as soon as my head nears a pillow. Last night, my mother was shouting at me about Ben’s broken guitar, telling me that I was responsible. Then she burst into song. It was like something from
The Sound of Music.
Then Beth called her a termite. I asked her if she meant me. Isn’t it me who’s the termite? Just before I woke, Beth morphed into an enormous insect and bit my mother’s head off. Completely screwed. My head is completely screwed.

In the kitchen, I munch on a week-old croissant that I find in the bread bin. It tastes stale but the cupboards are bare. I’ve never really had to consider food shopping before. Beth always took care of it and the cooking. Briefly I wonder how she is, if she’s ready to talk.

The email from her telling me she wants nothing to do with me, the one that is probably the root cause of my nightmares, is now a week old. I was tempted, so tempted to tell her to sod off and pay for everything if she’s so goddamned independent, but I didn’t. I slam the plate and coffee cup into the sink, head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. My head is banging. I touch the back of it, run my fingers over the scar Harold gave me. It still feels bruised and sore. I root through the tiny medicine box that Beth brought up from the house; there are plasters, antiseptic lotion, some loose gauze but no paracetamol. In need of some form of analgesic, I stare at my mirror image and am horrified to see it start to cry.

Sitting on the edge of the bath, my tears fall. I’m painfully aware that the last time I cried was twenty-two years earlier when my parents died together. I held onto Ben at the graveside and knew our lives would never be the same.

‘
Big boys don’t cry, Adam.
’

My head hurts more when I shake the memory of one of my mother’s favourite mantras from my head. I don’t know what Beth would do now – possibly magic up some pain relief from a pocket somewhere – but I do know she’d fix this, just like she fixed me then, when she walked into my life a year later. And I can’t ask her because she’s not talking to me, has told me to stay away from her and would probably rather I curled up and died. A fate I possibly deserve.

I peer around the door of the office opposite mine and smile my brightest smile.

‘Jen!’

Jen, who has been both Matt and my shared PA for many years, looks up from the floor where she is sitting amongst three archive boxes full of files.

‘Ooh,’ she says, scrunching her face on seeing me. ‘Still not sleeping?’

‘Not great. As the authorized first-aider on site, please tell me you have a bucketfull of paracetamol. The Grangers are due in and my head’s lifting.’

She stands up, stretches her back out. ‘You should see your doctor, get something to help you sleep.’

I watch her open the meds cabinet; my eyes are wide like a junkie waiting for a fix.

‘Did you hear me?’

‘I did. It’ll pass. I’ve got a lot on my mind.’

‘You look exhausted.’

‘I am exhausted.’ I manage a smile. ‘I’ll be fine. Matt in yet?’

‘Already on his second coffee. Can I get you one?’ She hands me six paracetamol.

I smile again. ‘Thanks, Jen. I’ll be down with him doing prep.’

She grabs my hand as she passes the tablets. ‘We’ve known each other a while, yeah?’

Smile disappeared, I’m immediately concerned. An image of her resigning and somehow Matt blaming me pops up.

‘Well, you need to look after yourself. Ever since you and Beth split, you’ve been heading straight down the shitter.’

My eyebrows rise. ‘Succinctly put, Moneypenny. I’ll take that under advisement.’

She laughs.

And I head down to Matt’s office to prepare for a meeting with our biggest client.

For the second time in a month, my car is headed towards Weybridge, apparently driving of its own accord. Somehow, I got through the working day, but now, I need to try and sort this mess with Beth out; plus, I desperately need some fresh clothes. I haven’t called ahead. If she’s in, she’s in. If not, I have a cunning plan.

It was during the Granger meeting I noticed. It was a difficult meeting, with the clients more antsy than usual, the markets having given us a thrashing these last months. I made the right noises but, as I moved my keys around in my pocket, I felt it. The back door key … She can’t lock me out of the house! My cunning plan – talk to her if she’s in, but enter my own home if she’s not. Get some clothes, have a wander around, just because I can … Maybe wait for her to come home, lounging on the oversized sofa in the living room, a glass of rioja in my hand. I hold my breath for most of the A3. When I reach Weybridge, I see that Beth’s car isn’t there and I park around the corner from the house.

From the car, I phone the house. Answerphone … I approach slowly, quietly, ring the doorbell. She’s definitely out. I’m careful not to make too much noise. I don’t want snoopy Sylvia peering over the hedge again. I head around the side entrance and place the key in the backdoor lock, turning it quickly. Smiling, I enter, feeling like a thief in the night. I lean on the back door, praying that as usual she won’t have set the alarm. Beth forgetting to set the alarm when she leaves the house was a constant battle for us. Not looking forward to the telltale siren and mad dash to the box by the front door, my heart is racing in my chest. Nothing, she has left it off. I’m thrilled yet irritated.

Slowly, my heartbeat returns to something close to normal and I move around the house. It’s October and really I could do with the lights on, but I dare not; instead I use my phone light to navigate my way. In the kitchen I run my hand along the granite worktop. Everything looks just the same as it did all those weeks ago. If anything it’s tidier because I’m not here.

I climb the stairs slowly towards our bedroom. In the en-suite, I open the wall cabinet. My things are still there: aftershave, moisturizer, razor, toenail clippers. On the back of the door, my navy striped robe hangs on the hook next to Beth’s. I walk towards the bed, feeling a Goldilocks moment. I sit down on her side, then lie down, inhaling her scent. I stare at the ceiling. This was my home. This was the home we made and shared together. It still feels like home. The only thing that’s different is I’m not in it any more. I sit up, overwhelmed by a feeling of guilt.

As I exit the bedroom and walk downstairs, I look at my watch and can’t believe I’ve already been here for over an hour. And it’s at that moment that I hear the front door opening.

I dart into the living room, towards the back door. It’s locked. Shit! Did I lock it again when I came in? Where are my keys? I hear Beth humming to herself, pottering about in the kitchen. I can tell by the opening of the fridge and the slamming of a cupboard door, she’s getting a glass of wine. Shit. She’ll come in here to drink it. I hear the glug sound of the wine pouring, search my jeans pockets.
Shit!
As I hear Beth’s steps pace across the marble hallway, I do the only thing possible and hide behind the curtains. When Beth ordered them about five years ago, I was horrified by their sheer floor-to-ceiling size and the cost. Cost aside, I’m now grateful for their mass. Racking my brain, I come across an image. My keys. I left them by the bathroom sink while I was handling my toiletries.
Shit!

From behind the curtain, after an entire episode of
The Apprentice
, I pray she’ll get another drink. C’mon, Beth, you always have two, why not tonight? Or have a pee? Your bladder is like a sieve, surely you need a pee? As if on cue, she heads to the kitchen. I listen for the swish of the fridge door opening but hear the sound of the kettle being filled instead. It is quickly followed by the closing click of the cloakroom door.

I race out of the living room and up the stairs. I grab the keys, listen from the top of the stairs and take my chance. I’m in the hallway, just short of the front door, when she emerges. Leaning against the door to the coats cupboard, I catch my breath. She can’t see me from inside. She’d need to actually come out into the hall. Once she settles down to the TV again, I can open the door and slip out quietly. Passing by, she stops and turns the lamps in the hallway on, from a switch just inside. The room is now bright; if she moves just a half metre to her right I am screwed with a capital ‘S’.

She doesn’t. Instead she takes her place on the sofa by the laptop again and drinks her cup of tea. I can tell all of this by sound alone. The irony is, I haven’t seen her. I can’t tell if she looks well, or drawn. I take a deep breath and then I see it, a floodlit message written on the hallway wall in paint:

I am Beth. I am strong. I am middle aged. I like champagne, chocolate, the ocean, lacy stockings, Ikea meatballs, flip-flops, Touche Éclat, music and lyrics. I don’t like politicians, call centres, size zero women, snobs, punk rock, horseradish, dastards and women who sleep with dastards

I can’t help but smile as, without even one item of fresh clothing, I slip silently out through the front door. Horseradish … Who knew?

Her office is cold today. I shiver visibly as soon as I take my seat, rub my hands together. Without moving from her chair, Caroline leans back and tweaks a thermostat on the wall behind her.

We chat a bit about the minutiae of my life and then it’s as if she goes straight for my solar plexus. ‘Tell me about Simon?’ she says. ‘How he died, if you remember how you felt at the time?’

I’m suddenly mute, assaulted by memories of the little boy who was my brother. His dark curly hair, his tiny, ticklish feet, his laugh … I realize I haven’t thought about Simon for a very long time.

‘He was,’ I finally speak, ‘the sweetest child, a cherub, always laughing. He chatted all the time, such a little chatterbox and … he loved me. It was meningitis …’ I hesitate a moment. ‘Meningitis killed him.’

Caroline is listening, not a poised pen in sight. Briefly, I wonder if this is some new tactic of hers.

‘What do you remember of the time around his death?’

I nibble along the width of my top lip. ‘I just remember him being gone. The house emptied. That’s how it felt, like a vacuum. Hollow …’

‘What did your parents tell you?’

‘That he’d been sick, that he’d gone to heaven. My dad described it and it sounded such a beautiful place that I just didn’t understand why we couldn’t all go there. Together …’

I clamp my teeth together, take a deep breath through my nose, and release it slowly through my mouth. ‘I haven’t thought about this for years,’ I confess.

‘It’s painful, obviously; an incredible loss for you at such a young age. For someone you loved, someone who was there for half of your life up to that point, for them just not to be there ever again. It leaves a big hole.’

My eyebrows stretch upwards.

‘And, of course, your parents would have been different afterwards.’

It’s a question without it sounding like one. I nod in silent agreement. I’m not ready to talk about my parents and the almost disintegration of their marriage after Simon died. I didn’t understand it then and don’t really understand it now. Besides, I’m here to discuss the disintegration of my own.

Caroline senses she has almost lost me. ‘Let’s park that for now if you’d prefer?’

‘I’d prefer,’ I tell her, ‘but I’d also rather get it over with. The truth is my parents were in trouble for years afterwards. A couple living together, but mentally apart … I became their everything and I became their nothing.’

Oh shit, her pen is up. It’s like it’s appeared from nowhere and she’s writing. ‘That’s a powerful statement. “Their everything and their nothing”,’ she repeats. ‘Can you elaborate?’

‘I was quiet, thoughtful, pensive – their only surviving child, yet I was nothing like him, a constant reminder of their loss. Simon had filled the house with laughter and joy, and suddenly it was gone. All of it.’

‘Did you feel guilty?’

I sigh. ‘I think, even as a child, I knew how useless that would be, so no … “guilty” isn’t the right word. But I did feel like they’d been short-changed and that I had too. I’d lost my brother and I knew I could never fill that hole.’

‘You had …’ Caroline taps her pad with the nib of her pen. ‘You had been short-changed, all of you …’

We’re both quiet for a minute, then she is first to speak. ‘Do you see any parallels between your own and your parents’ marriage?’

‘Other than the fact that they both hit the skids at some time, no …’

‘Who was it that mentally left your parents’ marriage, if you had to say? After Simon’s death – your mother or your father?’

Really? Sometimes this woman has a talent for making me wince with her jabbing questions. I don’t reply, not out loud at least, now that I can see where she’s going with this particular train of thought. Yes, my father was the bastard. Yes, Adam is the bastard.

I lean forward. ‘How is any of this relevant, Caroline?’

‘Maybe it’s not.’ She shrugs. ‘But it’s probably worth exploring.’

‘Can we park it for another time?’ I use her expression for ignoring it at the moment.

‘Of course,’ she says, making sure that, as she says that, our eyes lock; making sure she lets me know that she knows I’m merely hiding.

Caroline assured me before I left today that most learned behaviours can be unlearned, most bad habits broken. It’s six p.m. and I’ve just drunk a half-litre bottle of sparkling water, brushed my teeth, popped a chewing gum into my mouth – anything to try and convince myself I don’t want crisps. I can unlearn my salt-and-vinegar crisp habit. I do not need crisps. They are wasted calories. My image looks back at me from the mirror in the hallway, the one that’s wall-mounted above the console table. I tilt my head left and right slowly, releasing the creaking tension. ‘What you looking at, bitch?’ I ask my inner saboteur.

‘Not much,’ she replies in my head.

‘You’re horrible, you know that, don’t you?’

‘You want crisps, you know that, don’t you?’

I run my fingers through my hair like a comb.

‘You want crisps, you want salt-and-vinegar crisps,’ she taunts me again.

The phone rings and I grab the receiver. It’s Mum. She’s brief, since she’s dashing out; just wants to make sure I’m still all right for tomorrow.

I’m not all right for tomorrow. I feel like I lost a layer of skin with Caroline today, like somehow I’ll be painfully susceptible to a mother’s probing. Much as I want to cancel, I confirm our plans.

The next day, as suspected, my mother is no pushover. Having worried myself sick that she will be able to read me like a book when I see her, I insisted we meet for lunch halfway, purely to keep her away from the house. Allowed into the house, she would, like an anteater, sniff out the absence of Adam. Instead, we are lunching and shopping at John Lewis in High Wycombe.

Unusually, Mum is full of chat about herself. Her latest course at the local adult education centre, where she is learning how to manicure nails; her friend Trish who cheats at bridge; the vicar’s wife who’s seeing the guy who runs the off-licence. I listen for ages, smile, and laugh appropriately. I love my mother deeply. Sybil Moir has polar-white hair, having refused to succumb to hair dye like the rest of us. It is styled in flicked curls that curve away from her face. A few facial lines reveal she’s in her sixties, but it’s her grey eyes that light her face. If eyes can make a face smile, my mother’s, fringed with thick silver lashes, do – without ever needing the curve of her lips.

Her staple clothes choice of jeans, a polo-neck sweater and Barbour jacket hasn’t changed in years. Today, a bottle-green sweater hugs her neck. Black jeans ride above black leather ankle boots, Chelsea style – Mum doesn’t do heels – and her black padded jacket hangs on the back of the café chair.

I’m quite tickled at the fact that my phone lies have worked so far and all is going swimmingly until, grey eyes looking down into her latte, she asks me how Adam is. Really is. She just detects that maybe all’s not well. Then she looks up and stares right at me.

I dig deep. Right down into that monkey-nut inner core, match her gaze and tell her that Adam’s fine. Really. He’s really fine. This isn’t even a lie. He is allegedly very fine. He’s having lots of sex with another, younger woman. What man wouldn’t be?

‘And you?’ she asks. ‘I suppose you’re fine too?’

‘I am. And Meg, she’s—’

‘Yes, she’s fine. I know. Meg returns my calls.’

I take the dig.

‘Well, as long as everyone’s fine.’ She smacks her hands lightly on the edge of the table. ‘Let’s see what John Lewis has to offer?’

A few hours of shopping later, she seems satisfied, heading back to the Cotswolds as I wave her off. I climb into the car and chew my cheek. I know I’ve only dodged the ball. She’s like Arnie, my mum. She’ll be back.

After a fairly sleepless night, I wake to the sound of staccato showers and someone singing in my head. I always wake to some random track playing in my brain. Adam used to ask me every morning who was featuring and what they were singing. He believed it used to dictate my mood. Today, it’s someone whose name I can’t remember, but she’s telling me I’ve got to live my life and do what I want to do.

I head to the shower clutching my stomach. Whenever I think of him, of what he’s doing with his day, I feel my insides churn, then coil around themselves so tightly that it physically hurts. I close my eyes, hold my head up to the scalding, pulsing water as I soap my body. I dismiss him from my head, deciding that I will have a proactive work day today and I will start by reading the movie script Josh gave me. Again … I’ve tried and failed before, finding anything love-related too sweet to endure.

Three hours and four cups of coffee later, I’m sitting at the dual computer screens in the loft. The left one shows my petty attempt at a lyric while the right one displays the musical effort. My head is buzzing as I open YouTube and I watch the Twilight song Josh had spoken about. Again, I’m immediately consumed with song-writing envy. How does that woman Christina Whatsit do it? I watch the clip a few more times and then get back to the script. I can do this, I tell myself, my head in my hands. They asked for me. I’m one of three they asked for – I can do this. On the wall, all around my writing area, are the inspirational mantras I’d found weeks ago, printed in purple gothic font. Some I’d copied and some are all my own work. I stare up at ‘I AM A SONGWRITING PHENOMENON!!!’ And I almost believe it, as I set to work.

I work through lunchtime and only move away from the screen when my stomach is doing a hunger dance. Downstairs, I eat a bag of crisps. A voice inside my head tells me that I have to do a food shop, as I tear open today’s mail.

My bank statement shows me that, early last week, Adam paid the same amount that he has paid into my bank account for years, a monthly sum, to run the house, pay for food and bills, etc. I lick the crisps from the end of my fingers as a new fear blindsides me. What if he stops doing that? What if he just decides not to pay it? We have no dependent children any more and it’s all very well me telling him to fuck right off, but what happens practically? We both own the house, it’s not mortgaged, but I want to stay living here. Panic seeps from my brain through my entire system.

The hard fact is that I do not make nearly enough money to run this house alone. Even with my latest increase in royalties, I would have to get a job as well … The thought of getting a job, a real job that pays me a regular wage, terrifies me. I’m forty-two. The country has been in a double-dip recession; thousands of graduates and highly qualified people are out of work. My eyelids droop momentarily. Maybe that termite email was a bit much. Maybe I need to calm down a bit and maybe we do need to talk.

I don’t want to have time to change my mind, so I send Adam a text, asking him to come by the house. I keep it simple and it is only minutes before my phone pings a reply.

‘R u in tonite?’

I feel immediately irritated, angry even. I hate text language, and anyone who knows me respects that and uses proper English words when texting me. I’ve told them for years not to be so bloody lazy.

‘No. I’m not in tonight,’ I lie. ‘I’m out.’

‘Wen then?’ chimes back.

‘You idle bastard. Since when have you forgotten I hate lazy texting? I’m not your stupid bimbo whore. Yes, whore is spelt with a “w”.’

The landline rings and I ignore it. He has such an ability to rile me.

‘Idle?’ The mobile responds instead. ‘You call ME idle! Some of us are WORKING 24/7 for a living!’

My hand goes automatically to my mouth. Shit. My eyes flash to the bank statement and I text him back.

‘Sorry. Come by Friday?’

‘C U Fri at 8.’

I inhale a deep sigh and toss my mobile across the worktop.

I’ve abandoned the idea of writing an Oscar-nominated song for film this afternoon and instead I’m riffling through random papers in Adam’s desk. It struck me, seeing my bank balance, that I haven’t seen a statement in months from Adam’s bank account. He has a habit of leaving paper around, but there’s nothing – no statements anywhere.

I open up the bank’s web page saved on his computer. Keying in what I know to be his default password, ‘BeautifulMeg’, the account opens before me. I make a note of the common standing orders and direct debits on a blank page, just so I’m fully up to speed with what goes out on normal expenses – insurances, cars, etc., etc. On another blank page, I note all the other sundry spends, including the restaurants he’s been visiting with his bimbo whore. Nearly five hundred pounds last month. Then I see it. A transaction for two hundred and ninety pounds in Agent Provocateur … I set my pen down on his desk and stare at it until the letters become jumbled.

Images of Adam shagging a faceless but scantily clad woman swim in my brain like scenes from some Swedish porn movie. I hear the soundtrack in my head. Something shifts in that moment and I’m past angry. Now, I just want to know how long my husband has been lying to me and about what. Scanning the account for the last six months, I send the information to the printer.

Leaning on his desk with both hands, I contemplate how the hell I’m supposed to write about love right now, when all I feel is a furious sense of having been taken for a complete idiot. I head out to the hall table, grab my car keys and walk to the shop at the nearby garage. I need crisps and lots of them.

Sylvia is outside her house with Ted, her Yorkshire terrier, on a lead. ‘Hey,’ she says as I exit the gate.

‘Hi.’ I automatically hug her. ‘I’m sorry it’s been a while, I’ve been busy licking my wounds.’

‘You’re entitled. Where you headed?’

‘The garage, I need crisps.’

She giggles. ‘I’ll walk with you. Just taking Ted out for a stretch.’

‘How’re Nigel and the kids?’

‘They’re great. Now … That’s enough small talk. How are you?’

‘All the better for all the food you bring me.’ I link her arm for a moment. ‘Seriously, I’d probably have fallen down a grate without you.’

‘You look like you probably will anyway. How much weight have you lost? No, don’t tell me. Maybe I can persuade Nige to leave me, just for a while.’ She yanks on Ted’s lead, pulling him closer. ‘Sorry, too soon?’