Here, she didn’t even have to do her own laundry. Carmel simply had to put her washing outside her door in a little cloth bag and it would be returned to her, laundered and ironed, within twenty-four hours. She’d literally cried with happiness when she read that.
She had set herself a goal of fifty laps of freestyle, faster and faster with each lap. She was going to get so, so fit here! She could almost feel that excess weight falling off her. All she’d ever needed was time to exercise and a pantry free of treats. As she swam, she silently chanted in time with her strokes: I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, breathe, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, breathe.
But then that tiny voice beneath the exultant chanting, just the faintest whisper, had begun: I wonder what they’re doing now.
She’d tried to ignore it, chanting louder: I’m so HAPPY, I’m so HAPPY.
The voice got louder until it became a shout: No, but seriously, what do you think they’re doing RIGHT NOW?
That’s when she’d felt her sanity come loose. The feeling of panic reminded her of one of those recurring dreams in which she’d lost all four of her daughters in some bizarrely negligent way, such as leaving them on the side of the road, or just forgetting they existed and going out dancing.
She’d tried to calm herself with rational thoughts. Her children were not lost on the side of the road; they were with their father and Sonia, his perfectly lovely new girlfriend, soon to be wife. Carmel knew from the itinerary that today they were in Paris, staying in a ‘wonderful’ Airbnb flat. Sonia, who ‘just loved to travel’, had stayed there before. It would be cold, of course, in January, but the kids had new jackets. They were on the trip of a lifetime. They were having a wonderful educational experience while their mother had a wonderful break to ‘recharge’.
Their father loved them. Their father’s new girlfriend loved them. ‘Sonia said she loves us more than life itself,’ Rosie told Carmel after only the third time she met the woman, and Carmel said, ‘Well, she sounds like a total nutcase!’ but only in her head. Out loud she said, ‘That’s so nice!’
It was an amicable divorce. Amicable on Joel’s part, anyway. On Carmel’s part, it felt like a death no-one acknowledged. He just fell out of love with her, that’s all. It must have been so hard for him, living with a woman he no longer loved. He really struggled with it, poor man, but he had to be true to himself.
It happens. It happens a lot. It’s essential that the discarded wife remains dignified. She must not wail and weep, except in the shower, when the kids are at school and preschool, and she’s alone in the suburbs with all the other weeping, wailing wives. The discarded wife must not be bitchy or unkind about the new and improved wife. She must suck it up but without developing a sour face. It is better for all concerned if she is thin.
Carmel had touched the side and turned to do another lap when she saw that someone had joined her in the pool. The friendly-looking older woman. Carmel almost said, ‘Hi,’ before remembering the silence and ignoring her.
She kept swimming and thought about how that woman’s hair was a similar shade to Sonia’s hair. No doubt they both paid handsomely for it.
Carmel’s daughter Lulu was fair-haired. Lulu looked entirely unrelated to Carmel, which had never mattered until the day Lulu told her that when Daddy and Sonia took them out to dinner a lady stopped by the table and said to Lulu, ‘You’ve got beautiful hair just like your mummy, haven’t you?’
Carmel said, in a high, strained voice, ‘Huh, that’s funny. Did you tell her that Sonia wasn’t your mummy?’
Lulu said that Daddy had said it wasn’t necessary to always point out that Sonia wasn’t her real mother, and Carmel had said, ‘Of course it’s necessary, darling, you should point it out every single time in your loudest voice,’ but only in her head. Out loud she said, ‘It’s time to clean your teeth, Lulu.’
Remembering this, she’d picked up speed, her arms and legs chopping through the water, harder and harder, faster and faster, but she couldn’t sustain it, she wasn’t fit enough, she was so unfit, and fat, and lazy, and disgusting. And she thought of her four girls on the other side of the world, in Paris, where Carmel had never been, having their hair done by Sonia, and probably sitting still for her, and suddenly she swallowed a giant mouthful of water.
She hopped out of the pool, without making eye contact with the friendly blonde lady, as per the rules, fortunately, because she was crying like a fool, and she cried all the way to her room. There was no way the big man coming down the pathway to the pool hadn’t noticed.
‘Get a grip,’ she said now to her reflection in the mirror.
She wrapped her arms around her body.
She missed her children. It hit her like a sudden fever. She longed for the comfort of their four beautiful little-girl bodies and their heedless, proprietorial use of her body: the way they plonked themselves on her lap as if she were a chair, the way they burrowed their hot little heads into her stomach, her breasts. She was always yelping at someone, ‘Get off me!’ When she was with her children, she was needed – essential, in fact: everything relied on her. Someone was always saying, ‘Where’s Mummy?’ ‘I’m telling Mum what you just said.’ ‘Mummmmmy!’
Now she was untethered by obligations, as loose and free as a balloon.
She undid the tie of her swimsuit and let it fall in a heap on the bathroom floor while she studied her naked body in the mirror.
‘I’m so sorry. I still care very deeply for you, but we’ve always valued honesty in our relationship, haven’t we?’ Joel had said to her a year ago, while he poured her a glass of wine. ‘It really hurts me to say this but, the thing is, I’m just not attracted to you anymore.’
He truly thought he was being kind and ethical. He believed himself to be a man who did the right thing. He would never have cheated on her. He simply left her, went straight onto a dating website and replaced her. His conscience was perfectly clear. He’d always liked to keep his possessions well maintained, and if they couldn’t be repaired to ‘as new’ then he updated them.
Carmel lifted her breasts in both hands to where they used to be, when they were ‘as new’. She looked at the stretch marks on her wobbly stomach and thought of some sappy Facebook post she’d read about how stretch marks were beautiful because of what they represented, creating new life, blah blah blah. Maybe stretch marks could be considered beautiful if the father of your babies still loved your body.
When Joel asked if he and Sonia could please take the girls on a trip to Europe over the January school holidays – Disneyland in Paris! Skiing in Austria! Ice skating in Rome! – Carmel had said, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re going on the trip we used to talk about doing? But you’re doing it without me?’ but only in her head. Out loud she said, ‘That sounds like so much fun!’ And then she arranged all their passports.
She’d told her sister that she was going to spend the time they were away eating paleo and doing cardio and weights and yoga. The plan was to transform her body.
She didn’t want Joel back. All she wanted was for his mouth to drop open when he saw her. She didn’t need him to gape, although that would be nice. She simply wanted her body to look as good as it was physically possible for her to look, and then maybe, possibly, probably not, but possibly, she herself might check out one of those dating websites where you went to replace your spouse.