‘Sure.’
He stands up and whips off the rest of his clothes. I throw the cushions on to the rug and pull him down to me. With fumbling hands we unbutton my dress and take off my pants.
It’s been years since we’ve done it anywhere except a bed, but since Sunday night we’ve been doing it all over the house – in the shower, in the bath, even on the draining board by the kitchen sink because I keep seeing people doing it there in Danish TV series. (And I have to tell you it’s nothing like as sexy as it looks on the telly – the aluminium was cold against my bum and it buckled and made a womp-womp noise with each thrust. It was so loud and bouncy that I was actually afraid there would be a permanent dent. It’s only three years since we got the kitchen done. It’s been such a pleasure to have one room in the house that isn’t gone to shit that as I womp-womped up and down on the draining board my biggest emotion was anxiety.)
Taking charge, I lay Hugh on the cushions and insist on changing positions every minute or so. It’s like a showcase – see all that Amy can offer! I even – clearly with Alastair fresh in my mind – try the reverse cowgirl but can’t get the angle right. I practically bend Hugh’s erection in half and it still won’t go in. ‘Stop,’ he says gently. ‘You’re going to break it.’
Grimly I keep trying.
‘Come here.’ He takes me in his arms and we fall into one of our tried-and-tested routines. We’ve already had sex today – this morning before work. (And last night. And yesterday morning. And the night before.)
But depression overtakes me. This is joyless. Hugh tries a couple of things that usually work but I speed things up because now I just want it to be over. Eventually he comes, and in the silence that follows, he pushes himself up on his elbow and looks into my eyes. ‘I love you,’ he says. ‘I will come back.’
‘Will you always love me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Say it.’
‘I’ll always love you.’
‘Again.’
‘I’ll always love you.’
But, no matter how often he says it, I can’t feel safe.
7
Twenty-two years ago
I pressed my back against the door, to stop him leaving. ‘Please!’ I was crying so hard I could barely see. ‘Don’t.’
He took my shoulders, trying to move me from his path. I put my hands on his chest and shoved hard. ‘You can’t go! You can’t. You have to stay.’
He made another attempt to move me. He didn’t want to use force, but he was determined, and he managed to shift me a couple of inches. I fought back, determined to keep barricading the door.
‘No.’ I was hoarse from crying. ‘Please.’
He was much stronger than me, but I was much stronger than me too. We grappled for a few horrible seconds, he pushed and I pushed back, but somehow there was a gap, he’d turned the lock and the door was open. ‘You’ll be okay,’ he muttered, and slipped out.
I ran after him into the corridor and to the stairwell. He raced down the stairs and I would have followed him, except back in the flat baby Neeve was wailing. I hesitated for a moment, torn between the two people I loved most in the world, and I made my choice.
Simply remembering it, nearly twenty-two years later, still distresses me. It was the worst night of my life.
It had started at Leeds-Bradford airport. Myself and four-month-old Neeve were flying to Dublin for Christmas. Richie had a party with the club’s sponsors; he’d be travelling a day later.
It was 23 December and the airport was, unsurprisingly, utter mayhem. Everything was delayed, including my flight. The time for boarding came and went, and eventually there was an announcement offering a voucher to anyone who’d fly tomorrow morning instead. Clearly the flight was madly overbooked, but because Neeve was so little I’d thought we’d get priority. But Frequent Flyers got first dibs and there were an awful lot of them.
‘I have a baby.’ I was on the verge of tears.
It did me no good and I was told to come back the following day.
Lugging Neeve in her chair into the flat, I heard noises from the bedroom – Richie must have left the television on before he went out. I put Neeve on the living-room floor and prepared to go back down four flights of stairs to haul up our suitcase, then decided to go to the bedroom instead – because I was naive but not stupid.
She looks really confident. That was my first thought. She was on top, moving up and down. Her hair was long and synthetic-looking – extensions – and there was something weird going on with her boobs: the outside part was bobbing up and down in time with the rest of her but the inside was moving at a slower pace. Implants, I thought. My first time to see them in real life.
Richie’s face was caught up in the throes and it’s something I wish I’d never seen. It stayed with me for years.
Then he noticed me and he went pale. The girl – I didn’t know her – continued her rhythmic bouncing. It took her a few extra seconds to realize something was wrong. She paused mid-move and followed Richie’s stare.
‘Fuck!’ she exclaimed, clambering off him.
Unfamiliar clothes were strewn about the floor – a black bra, a lace thong that wasn’t mine, a shiny copper-coloured dress. ‘Get dressed.’ I gathered them up and flung them at her. ‘And get out.’
She was gone in under a minute – in the short shiny dress and platform shoes, she couldn’t have looked more different from me if she’d tried – and I waited for Richie to launch into the usual things people say in these situations: ‘It was nothing, she was nothing, I was drunk, it was just sex.’ Already I was apologizing to myself for forgiving him.
As a teenager, whenever news broke of a famous woman staying with her cheating husband, Steevie and I were blisteringly scornful – no way would we hang around! No, we were strong girls with self-respect, we would never be so pathetic. But it’s different when it actually happens. When you’re young and vulnerable. When you have a baby with the man. And when you love him as much as I loved Richie Aldin.
Richie began to get dressed. Without meeting my eye he said, ‘Look, Amy, we should never have got married. We’re too young.’
‘N-no, we’re not,’ I stammered.
‘You’re twenty-two, I’m twenty-three,’ he said. ‘That’s too young. This isn’t working. I’m leaving.’
He hauled the soft suitcase out from under the bed and I cried, ‘No! You can’t.’ Adrenalin flooded me and my brain was flicking through all available inducements to make him stay.
‘Neeve,’ I said. ‘Your baby. You can’t leave her.’
‘I don’t want to be a dad.’
‘I know it’s hard.’ I was pleading. ‘But it won’t always be.’
He dumped three pairs of trainers in the bottom of the suitcase and I flung myself at him, trying to stop him from packing anything else. Effortlessly, he blocked me – he was short but strong and fit – and began pulling stuff from the wardrobe. In the tussle to stop him, something tore and he looked pissed off. His clothes had become more expensive recently, even though we were skint.
‘Is it that girl? Do you think you love her?’ Maybe I could beg her to back off.
‘The one who was here?’ Richie was irritated. ‘She’s nothing.’
‘But if she’s nothing …’
‘Amy,’ he said, almost gently, ‘I do it all the time.’
He was a professional footballer – not Premier League: he played for a club in the Third Division but, even so, football groupies were in plentiful supply.
‘But …’ I was stunned into silence. He’d always sworn he loved me way too much to be tempted and I’d believed him.
‘I’ve been cheating since you were pregnant.’
‘No.’ I began to choke with tears.
‘I wish none of this had happened,’ he said. ‘You, me, getting married, the baby.’