‘We didn’t have sex. I just wanted to sleep in the bed with her and pretend she was you.’
‘How was the sex you did have?’
He hesitates, and before I yell at him again, he says quickly, ‘Terrifying. Different. New.’
‘Say it was great. Because of course it was great.’
‘It was great.’
I thought it was what I wanted to hear but it isn’t.
‘But they weren’t you,’ he says.
‘They!’ I’m racked with jealousy and fury at the thought of all the steps Hugh would have gone through in order to slide his mickey into those other vaginas – the eye-meet on the beach, the smile, the offer of a drink, the grazing of hands against each other, the promise in his eyes, the kissing, the touching, the undressing, the intimacy, all of it. ‘You were meant to be mine!’
And I was meant to be his, but I don’t care about that right now.
‘This is healthy,’ he suggests tentatively. ‘You’ve a right to be angry.’
‘Just shut up with your fucking platitudes! You and Alastair!’ I really can’t bear this. Jerkily, I stand up, stomp to the fridge, pour some wine, head into the living room with the glass and the bottle and thump myself down on to the sofa. A few moments later, Hugh follows, keeping his distance.
We sit in thick silence for a long, long time, me slugging the wine, him staring at his hands.
Eventually I say, ‘Steevie said I should break all your vinyl.’
‘Would it make you feel better?’
‘No.’
‘Is there anything that would make you feel better?’
‘No.’ Then, ‘Except maybe if you died.’ After a moment I say, ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘And maybe you did.’
‘Oh, stop being so fucking reasonable!’
A noise from the hall startles me. It can only be Kiara or Sofie – they weren’t expected back until later. But a quick glance at my phone establishes that it is later – Hugh and I have been locked in this bitter exchange for two and a half hours.
‘Dad! Dad!’ They’re both delighted. ‘We thought you’d be gone.’
‘No, I … ah …’
Sofie’s face changes: she’s picked up on the loaded atmosphere and now so has Kiara. Nervously, they look from Hugh to me, then delicately back out of the room. ‘Just going to …’ Kiara says.
‘Me too.’ Sofie calls, moving up the stairs. ‘See you Saturday.’
When I hear their bedroom doors close, Hugh exhales and says, ‘I’ll go.’
‘Do that. You’ve a real talent for it.’
109
Tuesday, 14 February
Josh asks to meet me in the bar of the hotel, instead of our usual bedroom. I’m guessing he hasn’t actually booked the room, which means he knows what’s coming – he must do. Why would he shell out eighty pounds if there was going to be no sex? So here we are in the little bar in the hotel.
What an irony that today is Valentine’s Day.
We mumble our hellos and I sit down.
‘Go on, then,’ Josh says.
Shite. I have to do it?
‘Go on,’ he repeats.
I settle my elbows on the table and try to form the words.
‘I thought you’d have a speech prepared,’ he says.
Well, I had, several speeches, and now none of them seems right. Instead I surprise myself by asking, ‘Josh, has this happened to you before?’
‘Someone like you breaking up with me?’ He nods. For a moment there’s a suspicious shininess in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ Gently I take his hand. ‘But I’m not your answer.’
‘To what?’
‘You think the hole inside you will be filled if you set up a sparkling new life with me. But it won’t.’
‘And what’s your excuse?’
‘The same – I really fancied you and I wanted to escape from my life.’
‘You used me.’
Now I’m ashamed. ‘I guess we used each other.’
In the last week I’ve come to see our set-up as tawdry and tragic, as two flawed people trying to transcend their disappointing ordinariness. I’d always known there was no future in this but I didn’t think it would be over so abruptly. And it is over.
‘People who do crazy stuff in mid-life,’ I say, ‘and that’s nearly the entire human race, from what I can see, apparently they’re trying to defy death. But for both of us, I think we were mourning youthful promise that was never realized.’
‘If we lived in the same place,’ he says, ‘and there weren’t other people, like, if we weren’t married, do you think we’d …?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You do know.’
I sigh. ‘Okay. I don’t think so, Josh. We’re different kinds of people. I’m not wildly upbeat but after a while my chirpiness would irritate you.’
‘And how would you feel about me?’
‘I think I’d find you too … pessimistic. And that’s not a judgement,’ I add, very quickly. ‘People are the way they are. You don’t have to change. You just have to find someone who’s happy with your pessimism.’
He half smiles at this.
‘Like, you and Marcia. I don’t know the ins and outs of your marriage, but she seems well able for you.’
He nods. ‘Maybe. And you? Getting back with your husband?’
‘No.’
‘Aw, Sackcloth, come on. As soon as he came home, I knew we were done for.’
Trying not to raise my voice, I say, ‘Two weeks ago you said I was cold. Maybe I am. Because it’s never going to happen. I miss him, the way we were, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, but we’re done, me and him.’
‘Okay.’ Is he convinced? Who knows, and does it matter?
‘So what are you going to use next to fill up the hole inside you?’ he asks.
‘Nothing. There’s nothing.’ And that’s a hard truth to face. I’ll just have to live alongside the unfillable hole. ‘Josh, thank you. For everything, all of it.’ More than anything I mean the sex, but I’m not naming it because I want nothing to be misconstrued as flirting. ‘It was … lovely.’
‘It was lovely,’ he says.
And now I want to cry. I get to my feet. ‘I hope you’ll be happy. Bye, Josh.’
Every bubble in the galaxy has burst. The million shards of sparkle suspended in the air have turned to wet ash. All the colour has leached away and the world is just grey, grey, grey.
110
Monday, 27 February
In the days that follow, I feel as if I’ve slammed hard against unforgiving granite. During my time with Josh it was like dancing through a luminous universe where paths of stars formed themselves under my glittering feet. Now the magical music has stopped, and all I’m left with is me and my feelings.
A week passes, without my hearing anything from him – not an email, a text, not even a like on Facebook. Another week commences and still there’s no communication. As I head towards the two-week mark, I begin to relax.
It’s looking like it really is over – my relief is huge. Not entirely unalloyed, though: I’m ashamed about what I did to his wife. I broke my own rules and that’s a fairly shitty feeling. And I’m ashamed about using him. It wasn’t deliberate or cynical but it still happened. Unless all relationships are transactional? Whatever, it’s over and I won’t do it again. Not with a married man and, actually, not with any man. I don’t want one. I don’t need one. I can manage grand on my own.
Admittedly, though, life doesn’t feel in any way pleasurable or joyous.
Work is particularly tough because I’m spending most of my time on the EverDry account – working with my own mother. From someone who didn’t want to be the ambassador in the first place, she’s surprisingly opinionated about her role: she didn’t like the cosy clothes we bundled her into for the photoshoot (‘They make me look ancient’), she doesn’t want any of the bus-shelters in her neighbourhood to feature the ads (‘In case anyone I know sees me’), she won’t do any interviews with the Guardian (‘Badly dressed’) and so on. This, coupled with Mrs EverDry’s conflicting but equally implacable will of iron, has meant that going to work, these days, feels more like going into battle.