‘It’s a given,’ he’d said, not long after we met. ‘Thursday nights are the holy grail. They can’t be moved for life, love or death.’
I’d laughed and thought little of it. I knew that was how the City worked, but had he been sleeping with other women all that time? Was there someone special that he went to on a Thursday, the pair of them happily ensconced, knowing that they had one night a week to be together? He’d often not come in until three o’clock in the morning, but at worst, I’d imagined him spending his heavenly money in a lap-dancing club, not in the arms of someone he cared about. But if that was the case, why hadn’t he just left me? He could have easily walked away before the wedding, before Poppy.
‘What? And not have his cake and eat it?’ Pippa exclaimed, as she patiently listened to me ponder the question. ‘I’m not saying he doesn’t love you, of course he does – why else would he have asked you to marry him? And have Poppy?’
‘Yes, but Poppy wasn’t exactly a life choice, for either of us,’ I said, feeling instantly guilty as the words tumbled out.
‘Sure,’ she acknowledged. ‘But you knew the chances you were taking, and you did have choices – whether or not you took them was up to you.’
I peered over into the moses basket where Poppy slept soundly, her little arms laid casually above her head. I couldn’t imagine ever making the choice not to have her.
‘But what we’re forgetting in all of this,’ I said, ‘is that we’re assuming he wants to come back. What I want might not even come into it.’
‘Oh, believe me, after a few days back out there, he’ll see that the grass isn’t just “not greener”, but it’s covered in moss, weeds, and bald patches too!’
I had to laugh. I was bored of crying. When I thought about it, I’d spent the best part of a year being miserable and sobbing over something or another: the wedding being cancelled, Pammie’s abhorrent behaviour, feeling hormonal with Poppy. ‘Thanks Pip,’ I said, hugging her to me as she left.
‘Love you,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘Don’t let him walk all over you.’
Adam turned up on the doorstep later that night. I could have sworn, slapped him, and slammed the door in his face, but instead, I just stepped aside and let him in. What was the point in all the dramatics? We were parents now, supposedly responsible adults, so it was time to start acting like it.
‘You look like shit,’ I mused. His eyes were sunken into grey-coloured skin, a five o’clock shadow peppered his chin and cheeks.
I sat down opposite him at the dining table. ‘Can I see Poppy?’ he asked.
‘No, she’s sleeping. What do you want?’
‘I want to come home.’
I sat back in the chair and folded my arms. ‘What, that’s it? You’re honestly expecting to turn up here and tell me you want to come back?’
He nodded.
‘So, are we just going to skirt over the tiny issue of you sleeping with someone else?’ I asked. I was aware my voice was rising, and I made an effort to lower it. I didn’t want to wake Poppy.
‘It wasn’t what it looked like,’ he said.
I laughed. ‘Tell me what it looked like, then.’
‘We were just fooling around,’ he said earnestly. ‘We had a kiss, that’s all.’
‘That’s all?’ I exploded.
‘I know, I know it doesn’t make it right, but that’s all that happened. I promise you.’
He must think I’m stupid. ‘And you think that’s okay, do you? You think it’s acceptable to be touching up another woman at your brother’s wedding, within three feet of your fiancée and child? You think that’s acceptable?’
I could hear myself getting louder and louder with every syllable, like a stereo system reverberating in my head, yet there was a faint sound coming from the rear speakers, a word of warning. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
‘How many others have there been?’ I asked. He dropped his head, and stared at the floor.
‘Well?’ I asked, when he didn’t answer.
He looked at me. ‘She’s the only one. I swear to you. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s been so difficult . . .’
I held my hand up to stop him.
‘No, listen,’ he said indignantly. ‘It’s been so difficult for me. I don’t know what’s been going on with us. Things haven’t been right, have they? You know they haven’t.’
I glared at him, daring him to say the next sentence.
‘You’ve not been yourself for quite a while, and it’s made me feel really low. You’ve been pregnant and had a difficult time having Poppy, and then the whole thing with my mum. I don’t know where I am from one day to the next. I don’t seem to figure in your list of priorities anymore.’
I allowed myself a wry smile. ‘Poor you,’ I said snidely. ‘Poor Adam for having a pregnant girlfriend, who then has to nurse and look after a new baby, and deal with your psychotic mother.’
‘Don’t start, Emily,’ he warned.
‘Yet despite all that, it’s not about me, is it?’ I went on, ignoring him. ‘You’ve somehow made it about you. How you’re hard done by. How you’re missing out.’
He looked down at his feet.
‘So, what do you do about it? You go out and screw whoever you can, to make you feel like a man again, to validate yourself as a red-blooded male. Because that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Proving to yourself that you’ve still got it.’
‘I felt rejected, like you didn’t find me attractive anymore.’
I laughed. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be my line? Yet instead of giving me time, or talking about it, you decided the way to solve it was to sleep with somebody else.’
‘You don’t know how you made me feel.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Adam, listen to yourself. What about me? What about my needs? Imagine how I feel, how difficult it is for me. Everything’s changed in my world: my body, my daily life, my priorities . . . everything. What’s changed for you? A little less sex, and a cute baby to come home to, play with for an hour, and then go to bed.’
He went to speak, but I cut him off.
‘But do you see me trawling the streets at night, desperate for a shag? Am I sloping off at a wedding to have a seedy encounter with a man whose name I don’t even know?’
‘It won’t happen again,’ he offered, as if I was supposed to be grateful for the sentiment. ‘I was drunk, I was lonely, and it was a mistake.’
‘Is that it?’ I asked. ‘Are you honestly expecting to just move back in, and then everything will be rosy again?’
‘I never meant to hurt you . . . I promise I’ll never hurt you again.’
His words echoed in my head, but it was as if someone else was saying them. I closed my eyes as a memory of James flashed before me: of him standing in front of me, saying the very same thing. ‘I promise I’ll never hurt you,’ he’d said. I felt sick at the sudden realization that his words were never about him making the promise not to hurt me. It was him warning me that Adam would.
‘What would you do if you were me right now?’ I asked Adam. ‘If you found out that I’d been with someone else?’
His face contorted, and a muscle spasm twitched along his jawline. ‘I’d kill him,’ he said.
44
Adam moved back in two weeks after James and Kate’s wedding. His pleas for me to take him back grew louder the closer it got to them returning from honeymoon, when no doubt he’d be kicked out of their flat.
‘You can always go and stay with your mum,’ I mused.
‘Are you joking? She’s bloody mad,’ he said.
We were getting somewhere. We were finally getting there.
Pammie was at the top of my list when it came to setting down a few ground rules when he came home. She could see Poppy whenever he chose to take her down there, but she was never to be left alone with her, unsupervised.
‘But what about when—?’ he went to say.
‘Under no circumstances,’ I said authoritatively.
He nodded solemnly.