I cannot lose my head. I mustn’t. Even though my husband has been led away by the police for questioning, I’m certain he didn’t kill Sophia Ayling. Fact: Mark’s not one to harm others. He’s the sort of man who winces at violence. He closes his eyes at fight sequences in Quentin Tarantino movies (despite what Mark thinks of me, I am good at learning the small random facts I’ve written in my diaries).
But he definitely slept with her.
I stare down at my hands. They look grubby after the gardening I’ve done. They also seem helpless. They are the hands of a woman who has always remained in the dutiful, colorless background while her husband does bold and brash things. Like selling books by the million and running for Parliament.
Having affairs.
So Mark Henry Evans, the man who promised me in the Trinity chapel that he would love and cherish me to the exclusion of all others, has been cheating on me. That’s why he’s been spending those weekends away from Cambridge. Fact: He said he had to attend work-related events in London. He even took me along to a few book signings and charity galas. But he was just using me as window dressing.
I’m not stupid. I’m capable of reading between the lines. If Mark can write, I can read.
The bits between the lines say that Mark is a shameless, conniving cheat. A liar who has no compunction about betraying the woman who has shared his bed for twenty years. A Lothario who takes advantage of the bitches who hang on to his every word. I’ve seen them over the years. I’ve learned the facts about their existence. They flock to his book readings with adoring eyes. They wait in endless queues for his autograph. They giggle around him like gaggles of excitable geese.
If Mark had an affair with Sophia Ayling, he could have easily slept with several other women over the past twenty years. While I stayed at home, clearing dead leaves from the garden path.
I grab the rake propped alongside the shed and fling it into the distance. It hits a nearby flowerpot with a loud, satisfying thud before clanging onto the ground.
The rattle jars my teeth.
I will not cry. Even though I’m tempted to do so. Even though Mark’s unfaithfulness is a figurative slap in the face. A blow to my pride, to my self-worth as a wife and a woman.
But there are no excuses for infidelity. None at all.
How did it ever come to this? I thought that Mark was a faithful husband, despite the flaws and inequalities in our mixed marriage. I’d assumed his political aspirations would prevent him from straying. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what will happen to his MP campaign if the press discovers he has been sleeping around.
I stumble up the garden path and let myself into the conservatory. My prized gardenias perfume the air, mingling with the sweetness of queen of the night. The combination triggers a sudden, nauseating lurch in my stomach. Nettle scampers up, greeting me with a wet lick. I pat his ears before slumping onto a nearby chair, next to a cockleshell orchid with two yellowing flowers that must have wilted overnight.
I wrench them off the plant and scrunch them in my hand.
A little voice pipes up in my head. It says that I should have worked harder to understand the facts about our marriage instead of just learning them by rote. Why our relationship has become more practical than passionate. More functional than fervid. Why Mark and I last had sex more than two years ago. Why he has stayed away from me since. Why there isn’t a child in our lives.
I’m no longer as beautiful as I once was. Twenty years of marriage equals twenty years of aging. Twenty years of cumulative crow’s-feet. Twenty years of aggregated skin sagging. Twenty years of the grievous effects of gravity. I shall not even think about the fact that I’ve put on a whopping three stone and two pounds since my father walked me down the aisle, delirious that his eldest daughter was marrying above her class.
But did Mark ever love me? Was he in love with me when we first met, for instance? Or was it merely a factual illusion on my part? He must have been, otherwise he would not have married me in the autumn of 1995. But perhaps I’ve always deluded myself by interpreting the facts incorrectly.
Irrational as it may be, I’m consumed by a sudden desire to understand. To work out how and when our relationship went wrong. Did we ever get it right in the first place? Or was our marriage merely a sham from the start?
I rise from the chair and hurry down the hallway. Fact: Before the iDiary was invented, in 1998, I’d accumulated a large stack of paper-and-ink diaries. They are now in an enormous safe in the storage room. I flick the light on and walk over to the safe. Fact: The code is 8412. I key in the number. A green light flashes in response.
I yank the door open and peer at the rows of diaries inside. Fact: I used to write a lot when I was younger, especially right after I turned eighteen. Much more than I do these days. Fairly descriptive stuff, too. It could be a result of the comparative verbosity of youth, as I’m now relatively sparing with words. Or it could be caused by my initial desperation to record everything for fear of missing something important. That was before wisdom born of age (and jaded realization) kicked in: I don’t need to put it all down because most everyday experiences are pretty trivial anyway.
Fact: Mark and I first met on 26 May 1995. I pull out the volume marked “May–August 1995” and turn its pages to that date:
17:35: Arrived at Varsity Blues to receive serious ticking-off from Jenkins for being late. Emily threw me sympathetic look afterwards (NTS: Must not arrive late again as could lose job). Survived first ninety minutes of service without major mishaps, though I did bring a customer Coke instead of Diet Coke (NTS: Must grab empty plates on way out each time, as per Emily’s “full hands in, full hands out” advice).