‘That makes it worse,’ I say in my head. ‘You loving me and still being capable of all those things, all those deceits and lies, it makes it worse. It shows that love is meaningless to you. How can you do that to someone you love? How?’
My tears are too much for me to speak through. And what is there to say? But why am I crying anyway? It’s not as if he could ever come back, as if I could ever live with him again anyway. This is simply confirmation of information – that we’re over – that I already knew. Why am I crying? Did part of me hope that it would work out? That he could somehow undo his addiction, his behaviour, his arrogance, his crime?
Or is it that there is more of my marriage to be rewritten, more of the thread of my life to be unpicked and rewoven? Is it because I thought I knew it all, and in the end, it was only the tip of the iceberg of his betrayal?
I pick up my bag, my fingers closing around the cotton handle and finding an odd comfort in its familiarity. I stand and look directly at my husband. He meets my gaze with tears in his eyes.
I cannot speak right now. I cannot speak at all.
Without a word to anyone, I turn and leave the room. There are no second chances to be given here. Maybe a part of me came for that, maybe a part of me hoped that if he had done all the right things – even though I had no real idea what those right things were – I could learn to forgive, learn to forget.
That’s not going to happen.
Beatrix
Hi Scott. I know you might not reply to this. But I’m going to say it anyway. I need closure. I need to speak to you and to see you to say the things I didn’t get the chance to say before she found out about us. I think it’s only fair. You don’t get to walk away from this just like that. I feel like such a bitch doing this after all she’s done for me, but I need to speak to you. I need to know if I meant anything to you. I know I didn’t, but I’d like to hear you say it. Because I feel used. And, yes, I probably used you too to make myself feel better. To make myself feel like the years aren’t advancing as quickly, to feel like I’m more desirable and sexy than a woman who seems to have it all. But, please, talk to me. With all that’s going on in my life I need to make sense of these things. I need to stop assuming I know what was going through your head and find out for certain. I fell in love with you. You said you loved me too. Please, just talk to me. Please. Bea x
Tami
‘Are you happy now Scott?’ I say, returning to the room.
My whole body is aflame. I reached the bottom of the stairs, my hand on the doorknob to let myself out, when my whole body ignited and the slow, burning rage of the past few weeks became a rampant inferno of anger. I could barely contain myself and took the stairs two at a time to get back here.
‘Are you pleased with yourself now that you’ve unloaded all that stuff onto me? What am I supposed to do with all this information? How am I supposed to cope knowing that you’ve basically shat all over the last five or six years of my life?’
The nice man in the corner does nothing, does not speak, does not protest, does not try to mediate.
‘I’ve now got to go back and put on a happy face for your children because it’s not their fault their father is sexually incontinent and their mother was too stupid to dump him the second she found him looking at porn and basically starting a sex life away from her. I don’t know how I’ve been able to look my daughters in the face knowing I’ve still talked to you when you regularly orgasm to women being raped and abused on film.
‘Oh and let’s not forget I’ve got to cook and care for your mistress because after what you did to Mirabelle and what happened to her, I’m too scared to be angry at another person in case they die on me, too.’
I throw my bag on the floor in frustration, pleased that it causes Scott and the nice man in the corner to jump in alarm.
‘Are you happy now?’ I ask again. ‘While you get to fart about talking to your little mate here, and going on counselling courses to try to address your behaviour, I’ve got to carry on with everyday life. And who do I talk to, huh? Mirabelle? She’s dead. Beatrix? She’s dying and the last time I spoke to her she was manipulating me to try to split us up. My family? They already hate you, I won’t get a word out before they start plotting to have you killed. That’s it. My support network of one. Me. Because I was so busy all these years raising our family, looking after our home so you didn’t have to worry about it, earning a wage so all the financial responsibility didn’t fall upon you but fitting it in around you and your wonderful career, there is nothing left for me. It’s all been all about you for years.
‘All of that was bad enough, hard enough, and now, you’ve unloaded the contents of your head onto me so you feel better. What am I supposed to do with it? How am I supposed to feel? Tell me that, how am I supposed to cope and feel and carry on when my life has been a lie?’
‘It’s not been a lie,’ he says.
‘SHUT UP!’ I scream at him. ‘Just shut up. I can’t even get angry without you butting in and telling me how it is from your point of view!’ Anger is not attractive, it is not feminine, it is not what women like me are meant to feel or show. But my God it feels good. I’m liberated, free of the shackles of expectation that have been binding me since all of this began. I’m not supposed to get this angry. I’m supposed to have a mini-meltdown, supposed to shout a bit, maybe cut up his suits, drink a little too much, eat ice cream, gather my girlfriends around me for emotional support and then I’m supposed to step back and be dignified. I’m supposed to inhabit the higher ground and not react. But, the reality is, I have so much rage inside me I could smash things, I could punch Scott into the middle of next week, I could commit murder.
‘If you weren’t the father of my children I would never see you again. I would be happy for you to rot in hell. I HATE YOU!’ All the veins in my face and neck stand out as I scream that at him, and he shrinks back.
‘If you were so unhappy, so unfulfilled with our life, why didn’t you leave?’ I have reined myself in again enough to speak at a shout. ‘Why didn’t you walk away? The girls? You were hardly there anyway, you’d probably see them more if you left. The house? You could have had the stupid place, the girls and I would have been fine elsewhere – even though it was my money that made it possible for us to buy it. What, you stayed for the image of a family? You could have found someone else who didn’t mind the porn sex and having to go out of her way to look good all the time, and the constant, low-level disrespect. If everything was so horrible that you had to behave so badly, why didn’t you just leave? Huh? Why?’
‘Because it wasn’t horrible,’ he mumbles. ‘It wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t terrible, you did nothing wrong.’ He stares down at the carpet. ‘I just wasn’t satisfied with what I had. I didn’t want to leave but wanted the excitement of sex with someone new … And … I wanted to have what you call porn sex. It wasn’t you, it wasn’t awful. I wanted an adventure and I thought I could get away with it.’
‘Is that what you think I deserved? To be treated like that?’
His head moves slowly back and forth. ‘No. I suppose I expected you to put up with it because my mum put up with all the stuff my dad did for the good of the family. She was never going to leave, no matter what he did. I never wanted to be like him but I think I sort of expected you to be like her.’
‘Oh, yes, that’s right, I forgot, you had a hard time growing up so you get to treat the whole world like shit.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, fuck off, just fuck right off.’ I turn to the nice man in the corner. I want to tell him to fuck off too. He’s probably the reason that Scott has managed to connect the dots enough to be honest and to open up but he’s still the one that Scott talks to; his mate who knows all his secrets. He hasn’t done anything to me, though, so I hold my tongue. I snatch up my bag, grateful that nothing has come out, and spin towards the door. My hand grasps the brass doorknob and throws it open, not caring that it slams against the wall, and I r
ace out into the blue-carpeted corridor, then down the rickety staircase again. I slam the door onto the street behind me, not caring that I’m probably disturbing the other people getting therapy in other parts of the building.
I run down the street, away from this stupid place where more of my life has been erased and rewritten, not bothering to stop and check before I cross the road. That’s always been my problem, following the rules, doing what’s right, caring how what I do will affect others. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Scott’s book, out of Beatrix’s book, out of Mirabelle’s book and please myself first. Then sit back and expect everyone else to fall in line.
‘Tami!’ I hear Scott’s voice somewhere behind me. I can’t speak to him right now. If ever. I run a bit faster, away from the direction my car is parked. I’ve probably got a ticket by now because I only put an hour on the meter. I thought I’d hear what Scott had to say then would leave and be back in my car within the hour.
I tear into the little patch of green surrounded by fencing that sits among the old regency buildings of this area, my bag flying wildly on my shoulder as I round the corner. I’m hoping the shrubs will hide me. I turn back to see if Scott has seen me, if he’ll follow and will try to talk to me. Just as I turn back, I collide with the solid form of a body.
A pair of hands grab me and hold me firm. I look up at this latest obstacle in my path. The rage pumping through me halts, then goes into overdrive. If there is anyone I do not want to see right now apart from Scott, it is him.
‘Mrs Challey?’ His voice is rich and deep, like hot coffee on a cold, bleary-eyed morning. ‘What are you doing here?’
Beatrix
Scott. Please. I would really like to talk to you. I’m not going to try to start things up again, I just honestly need closure on what went on between us.
Tami
I tear myself from Wade’s grip and back away a few steps.
‘What are you doing here, Mrs Challey?’ he repeats.
‘It’s a free country, I can be anywhere I like,’ I reply. I’m cheeking the police and I don’t even care.
‘True,’ he says.
‘What are you doing here?’ I reply.
‘I live around here,’ he tells me. Straightforward. I’d expected, after my reply, for him to cheek me back.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘See you then.’ There is a bench and I want to sit on it, but I think once I do, all the anger and rage will pool around my feet and I will lose the impetus to do anything including walk back to my car. But I have to sit, anyway, since the adrenalin dissipating in my veins is making my legs jittery. I make my way to the bench, grateful that Scott obviously didn’t see me – if he did he’d probably be here now. Talking, explaining, using that stupid, meaningless word.
Cradling my bag on my lap, I inhale. I’m not that far from the sea, I can hear it in my mind’s ear, I can definitely smell the salt in the air. I lean my head back, close my eyes and think of a bench on a beach, the sea behind it. Calm, rippling steel-blue water, orange sunlight dancing upon the tiny peaks of ripples. I hear the gentle, crooning swish of the waves on the beach, the languid bobbing motion of moving water.
This is my perfect fantasy beach, no bloodied footsteps turning to rose petals, no searching for a lost love. On my beach there is nothing but serenity and peace.
‘You seem upset,’ Wade says, sitting down beside me.
I open my eyes, force myself to sit up. ‘Do I?’ I reply.
‘Yes, Mrs Challey.’
‘Well, I can see why you’re in the plain-clothes division, you’re pretty sharp.’
‘That I am,’ he says.
I give him the side-eye, wondering if he is really clueless or if he is taking the piss.
He continues to stare straight ahead, idly swinging the plastic carrier bag with the name of a local convenience store on it between his hands. Taking the piss, of course.
‘I’ve just seen my husband,’ I say. ‘It didn’t exactly go well.’
‘Want to talk about it?’ he asks.
‘That depends, are you going to use whatever I say against me in a court of law?’ I reply.
‘If I had to I would,’ he states.
‘Well then I don’t want to talk about it,’ I respond.
‘I saw your husband the other day, as it happens,’ he says, swinging and swinging his half-full bag. I wonder what’s inside, what a man like him would be buying from a local grocery shop in the middle of the day.
‘Yes, he told me,’ I say.
‘It’s not often a person will come in and confess to a crime when they’ve got away with it.’
‘You sound like you think he deserves some kind of medal. How about not doing it in the first place, or is that too radical a concept nowadays?’
‘I’m not saying that your husband is a good guy or that he doesn’t deserve to be punished for what he did, I’m merely saying in my experience in dealing with these matters, very, very few people confess when they don’t have to.’
‘OK.’ It’s gone; the adrenalin from my anger has leaked away and I feel deflated, like someone has let all the air in me out and I am a flaccid shell of a woman, sitting on a bench in the middle of Brighton, feeling sorry for myself.
‘After Harvan had left the room, your husband was also asking what I thought about those perpetrator courses,’ he continues. ‘He wanted to know if I thought they were worth doing and if they worked because he’s doing one at the moment.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘I said I was cynical. I’ve known a lot of men go on those courses in my time – a lot. Most of them are there because the Court ordered them there. Others are there because their wives or girlfriends make it a condition of their relationship continuing. Like I say, I’ve seen a lot of men go on those courses – well over a thousand – and have met maybe two or three who were “cured”, by which I mean they don’t go on to reoffend in the time I continued to know them.’
Alarmed, I turn to look at him. ‘That’s shocking.’
‘Not if you think about it. Few of the men who go on those courses want to change. They don’t think there’s anything wrong with them. It’s the world and the woman who “drove” them to it that’s at fault. They only go to fulfil a condition of their sentencing or to get their wives to shut the hell up. They don’t need to change. Why would they when it’s the world’s fault and not theirs?’
‘So that’s it then, no hope for Scott,’ I say in despair. No hope for me trusting him to put the girls first, to be the parent they’re going to need in the coming weeks if I’m forced to do what I think I’m going to have to do.
‘Now I didn’t say that, did I?’ he corrects. ‘I said I was cynical. The men I know who didn’t reoffend are the ones who went there voluntarily as well as having personal therapy. They wanted to change. They followed the programme to the letter, they didn’t think they knew best or try to trick anyone. They made the effort to learn what was being taught. Those are the men who do well. It’s a point in his favour that he’s signed up for it off his own back. It’s another point that he came and confessed.’
‘Things must be bad if you’re trying to give me hope about my husband,’ I say. ‘That maybe he is capable of redemption.’
‘We’re all capable of redemption, Mrs Challey, whether we take the opportunity when it’s offered is what shapes our lives and our character.’ I can feel his gaze on me: fixed, sharp, knowing. ‘But that also means we need to recognise the chance of redemption when it’s offered.’
‘I didn’t kill her,’ I want to say to him. ‘ I don’t remember properly what happened that night, I know I had scratches and bruises but I know I wouldn’t kill her. I might have felt enough rage to possibly do it, but I don’t think I could do it. The way I miss her, the way I ache for her, tells me everything I need to know. I may have been there that night, but I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have done that to her. I couldn’t have left her lying in a bath of bloodied water with her fing
ernails ripped off, her heels bruised, her face slack, her body lifeless.’
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Wade says, standing up.
‘Yes, thanks. I feel a lot better now,’ I reply.
‘Good. But you think about what I said about redemption.’
‘I will,’ I reply, offering him a tight smile. ‘I definitely will.’
Beatrix
You’re not being fair. Just call me or text me. Anything. I just need to know what you were thinking. Is that too much to ask? I think you owe me that at least.
Tami
Scott is waiting by my car by the time I return to it.
Under my windscreen wiper sits a plastic envelope with a green and white form inside. A parking ticket. In the grand scheme of things, it is pretty insignificant, but if Scott wasn’t standing here I’m pretty sure I would be curled up in a ball on the ground, ticket in hand, howling at the injustice of all of this.
‘Your house keys,’ he says, holding out the slender Tiffany keyring fob that holds five different keys. ‘They fell out of your bag. Normally Dr Bruwood would have called you to return them instead of inflicting me upon you, but he’s absolutely terrified of you now.’
Unbidden, a vision of Dr Bruwood cowering behind his clipboard, quaking in his brown clothes while I rant and rave, comes into my mind and brings a small, vague smile to my face.
‘He said he’s seem some partners get angry before, but he’s never seen anyone lose it like that.’
Our fingers brush together, briefly exchanging heat as I take the keys from him. I used to love those little, inconsequential, accidental touches we shared. They were the tiny but necessary connections we reserved for each other, that reminded us of how together we were. Another thing stolen from me.
‘Are you going to divorce me?’ Scott asks as I return my keys to my bag. I have to bin that keyring now, of course. He bought it for me when he went to New York for work. No doubt shagging that American woman. That is what is so complicated about all of this: there are so many little, minuscule things that connect us that will be reminders of the relationship I thought we had. The keyring, his favourite mug, my slippers he helped the children to choose last Mother’s Day, even the wooden Bienvenue (welcome) mat that lives outside the front door that we picked up in France the weekend of our fifth anniversary. Our house is crammed with tokens of our life together.