“I’m sorry,” I whisper, guilt all over my face. “I’m so sorry, Charlie. I think you’re lovely, really. If it weren’t so soon, if I were ready…”
“You don’t have to explain.” He takes my hand and holds it in his, stroking my palm gently as we both look down at my small hand in his. “Fran told me it was too soon, which is why I didn’t call you. But then, when you called me, I thought maybe you were ready. You know, I think you’re a fantastic woman.”
“Thank you.” I smile and squeeze his hand.
“My pleasure,” he says, and we sit there in silence for a while. “Do you think you’re going to get back with your husband?” he says eventually.
“I think the future’s still uncertain, but I suppose the only thing I do know, after tonight, is that I’m not ready for anyone else.”
“I know.”
“Do you think we can still be friends?” I say hopefully, as Charlie lets go of my hand and stands up, and I know he’s getting ready to leave. He has no reason to stay. Not anymore. I should be feeling guilty, but all I feel is relieved. He smiles and shrugs, and I smile sadly at him, knowing the answer is no.
Another time, another place, another lifetime, perhaps. But not now, not here. Not with me.
28
I get a phone call from Calden first thing Monday morning. They urgently need the marketing proposal to be faxed over by the end of the day.
It’s not finished. Nearly, but not quite, and thank God for Trish, who picks Tom up and takes him over to her house so I can finish it off.
I spend the afternoon glued to my computer, making phone calls, fueled by strong black coffee, until at 4:00 P.M. I sit back in my chair and punch my arms in the air with a grin. Finished.
Disorganized as it may seem, I have no fax, and Trish has taken the kids to the zoo, so I can’t get into her house.
Lisa’s away for a long weekend—as usual she became coy when I pushed for more information—and she has a fax, and I have a spare key. Of course I could go down to the local copier shop, but how ridiculous to have to queue and pay when one of my best friends lives around the corner and I know she wouldn’t mind in the slightest.
Even more ridiculous, I think, as I pull my coat on, to not have a fax. It was one of the essentials Dan took with him when he left, and it seems I’ll now have to put it at the top of my shopping list.
I ring Trish on her cell phone and tell her I’m off to send a fax and that I’ll meet her at the café in Regent’s Park for tea.
“Your son is an angel,” she tells me, and no matter how many times I hear it from other people, it never fails to warm my heart. “He’s just so good! How do you do it? Why does my son throw tantrums all the time while your son is as good as gold? How do you do it?”
It’s a conversation we have over and over again. I’ve tried explaining my theories, gently urging her to try to introduce more routine, but she’s a lost cause, and there’s only so far I can push. And so today I say what I always say, which is that every child is different and I’m just blessed.
We say good-bye and I grab Lisa’s spare key, then hesitate. I’d better phone her and let her know. After all, I wouldn’t want someone coming into my flat without permission, even if they did have a key.
I call her mobile, which is switched off, so I leave a message. “Lisa, it’s me. Look, I need to borrow your fax machine; I hope you don’t mind. I promise I won’t disturb anything in your house, and I’ll only be a few minutes. Hope you’re having a lovely time wherever you are and whoever you’re with. Call me when you get back. Bye.”
And out I go.
I love days like today. When the sun is shining in London there is no place in the world I’d rather be. You can keep your south of France, your Caribbean island, your Majorcan getaway—Primrose Hill in the sunshine is the place that I love.
Everyone looks happy in the sun, everyone seems to be smiling, everyone is walking with a spring in their step. I feel a burst of energy and happiness that I haven’t experienced for a while, and for the first time in a long time it’s not the result of someone else. I’m not happy because of Dan, or because of Dan’s absence, or because I’m thinking of anyone else.
Walking down Regent’s Park Road, waving at the shopkeepers I’ve come to know as friends since I’ve lived here, I suddenly feel that life is pretty good. I don’t know what’s going to happen with my marriage, but all of a sudden I have a sense that everything’s going to work out, that everything happens for a reason, and that this is all meant to be.
Lisa’s flat is the one I’d love to have if I ever have the money. She’s in one of the tall stucco houses overlooking the park. The houses with the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, original moldings on the ceilings, light flooding into every room.
I love Lisa’s flat, even though her decorating tastes are completely different from mine. I love my flat because it’s cosy, comfortable, eclectic. Lisa’s flat looks as if it’s been cut from the pages of Elle Decor, so incredibly chic, and minimal, and smart.
The only giveaways are Amy’s accoutrements, which have a tendency to litter the floors of the living room and the tiny kitchen, but, Lisa being Lisa, she manages to sweep them up into smart wicker boxes, and once the boxes are stacked up neatly against the wall, you would have no idea that a child had ever set foot in this house, let alone lived here.
For whereas I have a huge Mamas and Papas brightly colored plastic high chair that takes up half the kitchen, Lisa has a minimalist Tripp Trapp chair, a wooden high chair that wouldn’t look out of place in the Conran Shop, may in fact even have come from the Conran Shop.
Whereas I have a nursery that is blue and yellow and green, stuffed with mobiles, and teddy bears, and paintings, Amy’s room is coffee colored, with chocolate-brown linen blinds and a sisal rug, the only hint of childhood being the crib, and even that is a handmade cherry sleigh bed that can, Lisa tells me, be converted into a smart daybed once Amy grows out of it.
I have a mishmash of photographs of Tom all over the flat. Lisa has one wall of photographs along the corridor. They are all beautiful black-and-white, professional shots of Amy, and Amy with Lisa, and some of just Lisa, blown up to larger than life and artfully framed in sleek black.
Everything about Lisa’s flat screams taste, style, chic. In the beginning I found it intimidating, found Lisa intimidating for that matter, but I know there is so much more to her than that, and since Dan left, it is true that I have found myself growing closer to Lisa, that I know she understands what I’m going through in a way that Trish couldn’t possibly know.
Of course Trish supports me; of course she wants to help; but if she hasn’t been through it, she couldn’t possibly know. To look at us you would automatically put Trish and me together, know that we were friends, would think that glamorous, perfect Lisa was the odd one out, and yet Lisa and I are growing closer and closer, with Trish being, if not the odd one out, then certainly the one who doesn’t quite understand.
I’m not comfortable being in Lisa’s flat without her permission, but I’m not going to take long. I head straight to her desk, which is in an alcove next to the kitchen, pull the document out of my bag, and feed it into the machine.
I try not to look at anything. I just stand and gaze out the window as the fax goes through. Then, just as page three goes through, I swear I hear a noise.
I stand still, straining to hear, and yes, I’m sure I can hear footsteps in Lisa’s flat. My heart starts to pound. This I wasn’t prepared for. Intruders. My worst nightmare. I look around quickly for something heavy to grab, and I unplug the desk lamp—nice and heavy. And now, feeling fully armed, I tiptoe through the kitchen to investigate.
Most burglars are opportunistic, I think. Most are terrified of being confronted by someone. I’ll scare them away. They’ll turn and leave. Oh, shit. Why does this have to happen while I’m here?
I creep down the hallway and hear the unmistakable sounds of someone in the flat. A door shutting.
Footsteps. Banging into furniture. My heart is hammering in my chest and, as I stand outside the bedroom door, I realize I’m not equipped to deal with this; I should just run away, run outside and call the police.
And as I stand, about to run, the bedroom door opens suddenly, and I gasp and drop the lamp, for there in front of me, wrapped in only a towel, holding a bedside lamp in his right hand and looking just as scared as I am, is Michael.
My father-in-law.
Neither of us says anything, and I imagine the look on his face is similar to the look on mine. Shock. Confusion. More shock.
“What are you doing here?” He’s the first to speak, and behind him I see Lisa, in a toweling robe, and she looks horrified, and I am horrified, and why didn’t this occur to me, why didn’t I realize?
Lisa and my father-in-law.
Remember how smitten he was with her in France? Remember how we all laughed at how he practically salivated every time he looked at her?
It all comes flooding back to me.
And then our conversation of just the other night. Hadn’t she said it was complicated, that he was married, but unhappily? Oh, God. My father-in-law.
I start to feel very, very angry. How dare she? How could she? He isn’t hers. He’s Linda’s husband. Dan’s father. How dare she?
I look at Michael, then at Lisa, and I can’t find the words. I want to slap him. And as he looks at me, the expression on his face goes from shock, to guilt, and finally, I am sure, to just a hint of remorse.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, as I stare, quite unable to believe that my friend has betrayed me in this way. The only worse betrayal would have been for her to have had an affair with Dan, but this is not much better. Trust me, this is really not much better.
I resist the urge to slap him around the face. I look at Lisa, and there is defiance on her face as she stands next to Michael.
“I’m sorry you had to find out like this, but why are you here? What are you doing in my flat?” she says, and all I feel is disgust.
“I was borrowing your fax,” I say coldly. “If you check your mobile, you’ll find a message from me. I thought you were away, but clearly I didn’t quite realize what a good liar you’ve become.”
I am glad to see that Michael can no longer meet my eyes, but Lisa is looking straight at me, is about to say something in her defense, in their defense, and I will not let her speak, am not interested in anything she might have to say.
“You disgust me,” I say quietly, as Michael looks at the floor and seems to shrink in size by the second. “Both of you disgust me. If Linda knew…” I don’t finish, don’t have to. Michael looks as if he wants to cry, and as Lisa moves him out of the way and stands in front of him, I know that our friendship has disappeared in an instant, that there will never be a way back for us.
“You don’t understand. Michael and Linda have been unhappy for years. We love each other. This isn’t just some cheap affair.”
“So does Linda know you’re leaving her for another woman?” I look at Michael and snort with fake laughter, because of course she doesn’t. Because he’s not going to. He may be under Lisa’s spell, but even I know that Lisa is quite seriously deluded in thinking he’s going to leave Linda.
I don’t want to be here anymore, don’t want to stand here and be dirtied by this association, don’t want to have anything more to do with them. I turn and collect my fax, then walk out the front door, rather childishly slamming it behind me.
Linda said not to trust her, I think, as I walk quickly over to the zoo. She knew; she knew what sort of woman Lisa was, although even Linda would never have guessed that Lisa would target her husband.
Linda. Poor, poor Linda. Whatever remaining animosity I have carried for Linda has gone, and suddenly I see Linda as someone who is unwittingly a victim, a victim of betrayal when she has done nothing wrong. I’ll admit I’m the first to say she can be overbearing, and stubborn, and difficult, and probably impossible to live with at times, but really, does she deserve this? Does anyone deserve this?
What could possibly be worse for a woman in her late fifties than to discover her husband has been sleeping with a woman in her early thirties, and not just any woman, but someone as perfect as Lisa?
Poor Linda.
Even if you managed to keep your marriage together, how could you ever look in the mirror and like what you saw? How could you resist constantly comparing yourself to the younger, better model, and how could you ever be able to accept, or be happy with, your image again?
Poor Linda.
Where does she think her husband was last weekend? Has she had to contend with late nights, mysterious whispered phone conversations that end the minute she comes in the room, unexplained credit card bills?
For Linda may be many things, but stupid she is not. Could she really not know? Or is she one of those women who do know, but figure they are better off not knowing? Is she one of those strong Mary Archer types—someone who probably thinks that she has too much to lose, that she can ignore the indiscretions as long as her life can continue in much the same way as it always has?
And as I reach the zoo I feel something I never thought I would feel for Linda. It is not that I feel sorry for her, but that I want to protect her. I feel—how bizarre this is—almost maternal toward her. I suddenly want to know how she is, want to make sure she’s okay, want to help her get through this, and at the very least be there for her, be her friend.
And I have the same realization that I had with Emma the other day. For better or worse, Linda is family. Whatever happens with Dan, I am the mother of her grandson, and, like it or not, she will always be part of my life. Until death do us part.
I had never understood about blood being thicker than water, but I’m beginning to see what that means. I may not like it, may not, at times, like her, but Linda, and all the Cooper clan, and all that comes with them, are part of me.
Part of my family.
“You look terrible. What’s the matter?”
I wind my way through the mass of mothers feeding their small children in the café, and lean down to give Tom a big kiss.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say, knowing that of course I will tell her, that I have to share this with someone, have to get rid of the burden of carrying such news all by myself. And as I look at Trish I am so grateful for her friendship, and realize that, despite what I recently thought about having so much in common with Lisa, it is Trish who is the better person, Trish who would never do something like that. Trish is still, and will always be, the better friend.
“What?”
And I tell her.
She exhales loudly when I finish speaking, and then puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me in for a hug.
“How do you feel?” she says with concern. “Are you okay?”
“I just feel slightly numb. Can you believe it? Don’t you think it’s horrible? That’s my father-in-law, for God’s sake, not to mention that he’s a married man.”
“Do you want to know the truth?” Trish says, and I nod. “Well, I can believe it, and I’m not that surprised. Look, I think Lisa is in many ways a remarkable woman, but she’s very tough, and she knows what she wants, and I think women like that are always a bit ruthless. They always put men before friendships with other women.”
“But why didn’t you ever say anything before?” I say. “I’ve never heard you say a bad word about Lisa ever. How is it you never told me that?”
Trish shrugs. “A number of reasons. It’s not my style to bitch about friends and I’m always very nervous about triangles. I think that even as adults, when there are friendships between three women there is usually one who is left out, and I didn’t want to be the one to instigate that.”
I don’t say anything, because of course Trish is right, and I realize that Lisa and I, in our single-mother bonding sessions, have left Trish out, and I am so, so sorry now.
“I’ve left you out, haven’t I?
” I say sadly, and she smiles and shakes her head.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I could see that you needed Lisa’s help to get through this, and I understood. I’ve never had to do it on my own; I didn’t know what it was like, and I knew that Lisa could, in some ways, support you in a way that I never could. But Ellie”—and she leans forward and puts a hand on my arm—“I knew that our friendship was never in doubt, okay?”
I nod and gulp. If only I could say the same thing. What a bitch I’ve been.
“And if you must know,” she continues, “I figured she was having an affair because she’s been so secretive lately, and I was terrified it was with Dan. If anything, as awful as this sounds, I’m relieved it’s with Michael.”
“Did you really think that?” I’m shocked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“What could I have said?” Trish asks sadly. “You would have hated me for even thinking it, and I didn’t want to lose you by being the messenger.”
“Thank God you were wrong.”
“I know,” she says. “Thank God there is at least one silver lining to this cloud. So now what? What are you going to do? Do you think it really is serious?”
I sit and think, but I don’t believe this is it, I can’t believe this is it. I can’t believe that Michael would actually leave Linda for Lisa. They may have their problems, but I am sure that deep down Michael loves Linda, that this is, if you like, a middle-aged crisis, something that will pass.
“I don’t think so. I really don’t. Maybe I’m just being naive, but I can’t see him giving up everything for Lisa. God.” I shake my head in admiration. “I can’t believe that Linda knew.”
“What do you mean?”
“Put it this way. You weren’t the only one who thought Lisa was having an affair with Dan. Linda warned me about women like Lisa when she first met her in France.”
“She didn’t!”
“She did! She’s clearly a much wiser woman than either of us.”