Nancy did read the message and it didn’t change anything. She knew he was sorry. But it prompted her to ask herself, Wouldn’t I have done the same thing? She sat in her parked car, making no move to get out and check on her mother. Wouldn’t I have lied just a little if I’d been in his situation with his wife? As he said, I’d have run a mile if he’d told me he was still married, still living with her.
She walked reluctantly up the path to her mother’s door and let herself in. There was a stale, unused smell to the place.
“Mum?”
Frances called back from the sitting room, “In here.”
Nancy, even in her mood of despair, was cheered by her mother’s appearance. Dressed with her usual care, she was wearing makeup for the first time since her turn and was looking surprisingly chipper, her reading glasses perched on her nose, the Daily Telegraph open in front of her, a half-empty mug of coffee on the table beside her.
“You seem much better,” Nancy said, sitting down in the armchair opposite.
Frances smiled almost smugly, peering at her. “More than can be said for you, darling. Are you coming down with something?”
“No, I’m fine, just didn’t sleep very well.”
Her mother studied her some more and seemed about to say something, but she stopped. Then started again. “Were you seeing that man again?”
“I wasn’t, although it’s none of your business if I was.” Tiredness did not allow her to be gentle.
“If he’s making you ill, it is.” Her mother’s reply was equally sharp.
“Well, I’m not seeing him anymore, so you don’t need to worry, Mum.”
Frances frowned, clearly not knowing what to make of her remark. “Has something happened?”
Nancy detected a note of concern in her mother’s question, which surprised her somewhat and she let her guard down, tears welling behind her eyes as she said, “He’s married, Mum, and still living with his wife.”
“No!”
“Not in the way you think. They live in different parts of the house and don’t have sex or anything but, still, he lied to me, implying they were totally separated.”
It felt good to let it out, instead of having the miserable monologue tramping round and round her head.
Frances tutted. “Men, honestly. Why do they find it so hard to be truthful?”
“I don’t think it’s only a male problem, is it?”
“Oh, definitely, darling. Men . . . what’s the word? . . . compartmentalize. But they never work out that mistress will sooner or later meet wife, work colleague will speak to boss, statement in red follows spending too much, heart attack follows bacon sandwiches. They jog happily along until someone comes and joins up the dots.”
Nancy couldn’t help smiling at her mother’s most uncharacteristic philosophizing. “Maybe you’re right. But you were lucky. Dad was never like that.”
Frances raised her eyebrows sardonically. “All men are like that.”
Even though her mind was so preoccupied with Jim, Nancy was just about to ask her mother what she meant, but Frances had already pushed herself up from the sofa, taken her glasses off and folded the paper neatly.
“I’ll get you a cup of coffee, darling,” she said, and the moment was lost.
*
“That’s enough, Hope.” Nancy held out her hand for the spoon that her granddaughter had been licking, previously covered with golden syrup.
“Can I put the oats in now?” Jazzy was holding out the chrome bowl from the scales, piled with the oats, waiting to tip it into the pan.
“Nana said I could do that,” Hope said, trying to snatch at the bowl. “You did it last time.”
“Nooo!” shrieked Jazzy, clutching it to her chest, as Hope pulled at the rim.
“Stop it, you two, or neither of you will do it.”
“But you said, Nana . . .” Hope’s huge brown eyes were turned reproachfully on her grandmother.
Nancy laughed. “Come on, Jazzy, hand it over.”
Jazzy scowled and banged the bowl onto the table. “Let me, I want to stir it,” she said, as soon as the oats were in with the butter and syrup, grabbing at Hope’s wooden spoon. But her sister was too quick for her and pulled away.
Nancy sighed. This was supposed to be fun, not a battleground. “Let Jazzy have a go, Hope,” she said. “I’ll get another spoon.”
“Jim said he’d teach us how to play the guitar,” Jazzy said, as they flattened the oat mixture into the square tin with the back of their spoons.
“And to sing in harmony,” Hope added.
“Did he? Well, we’ll see,” Nancy said.
“Does that mean no?” Hope asked.
“No, it means let’s see if that works out,” she said, her heart heavy.
She was completely exhausted. She had stayed with her mother until it was time to pick the girls up from school. Frances had been in a good mood, kind to Nancy in her triumph at seeing Jim off. But Nancy just wanted to sit in a corner and cry. Or ring Jim. Or see Jim. Or make love to Jim. Did it really matter that he had lied to her?
“Nana?” Hope was staring at her, a slight frown on her face.
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?” she said, but tears were sliding down her cheeks. Shocked, she wiped them quickly away, giving her round-eyed granddaughters the brightest smile she could muster. “I’m just a bit tired today,” she said, by way of an excuse that even she thought lame. But the girls seemed willing to accept what she said and didn’t ask any more as they waited eagerly for the flapjacks to cook.
*
Louise, however, was not so easily fobbed off. When she came to pick up her daughters after tea, she shooed them out, telling them to go home and turn the television on while she “had a quick word with Nana.”
“He’s married?” she said, as soon as the coast was clear. “I spoke to Granny.”
“I can’t believe it, Mum. What a—”
“Please, Lou, can you not go down that route? I’m not in a good way and I can’t deal with you telling me what a bastard he is, or that you never liked him, or that you told me so. Okay?”
Louise pursed her lips in silence.
“Even though all those things may be true,” Nancy added.
Her daughter’s look was of concern—just like Lindy’s—as she said, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, Mum.”
“No, well, it wasn’t likely to, I suppose. Not at my age.”
“Don’t say that. Your age has nothing to do with it. It’s just Jim wasn’t right for you. You’ve had a lucky escape.”
Nancy wished she’d added “lucky escape” to the things she didn’t want her daughter to tell her. Hearing it set her teeth on edge.
“How did you find out?” Louise was asking.
“Lindy told me.” Nancy opened the dishwasher and began loading in the bowls and tins, pans and spoons they’d used to make the flapjacks.
“Wow. Lucky she did when she did. You could have got in much deeper.”
Nancy stood up and faced her daughter. “Please. Can we not talk about it?”
Louise shrugged. “Okay, but you shouldn’t feel too bad. It’s the first time you’ve gone out with somebody since Dad and it wasn’t very likely you’d meet the man of your dreams without kissing a few frogs first.” She smiled encouragingly at her mother. “See it as a trial run.”
Could she be any more insensitive? Nancy wondered. “I really liked Jim,” she said quietly.
And something in her tone must have alerted Louise because she came round the table, laid a hand on Nancy’s shoulder and stroked it up and down, peering into her face. “Sorry, Mum. I’m being tactless. I’m just so relieved.”
“I’m glad somebody is.”
Louise frowned. “Don’t be like that. I—I was worried about you, that’s all. I thought you were moving too fast and that he wasn’t with you for the right reasons.” Her daughter’s blue eyes were painfully honest in their gaze.
“Right reasons?”
“You know,” Louise seemed embarrassed now, “not in it for the long term.”
Nancy couldn’t meet her eye.
“He lied to you, Mum. And it was a big lie. You’d never be able to trust him again.” Louise banged her point home with a relentlessness of which her father would have been proud.
“I think I’ll go up and have a bath now,” Nancy said, to get rid of her daughter. One more comment about Jim’s unsuitability and she would be tempted to slap her.
“Good idea,” Louise said, clearly oblivious to the distress she was causing. “Thanks so much for looking after the little terrors. Hope they behaved themselves.”
“They were perfect. Take the rest of the flapjacks.” Nancy pulled a section of clingfilm from the roll in the drawer by the sink and laid it over the white plate, stretched the sides taut, then handed it to Louise. “I won’t eat them.”
*
That night Nancy slept like the dead, unable to think about Jim for one more minute. But when she woke up the next morning, she found herself trapped again by the conundrum she faced: could she ever trust him?
She dressed in gray tracksuit bottoms and an old T-shirt—she wasn’t planning to go anywhere. After two cups of coffee and a bite of toast—she couldn’t face the rest—she spent the morning at the piano. The smooth touch of the ivory keys and the swirl of sound she created were comforting. The music took her out of herself, stopped all thought as her tired brain began to relax into the deeper vibrational resonance. After a while she found she could breathe again, come back into herself, sense a modicum of calm.
A call from Lindy interrupted the peace. “How are you doing, darling?”
“I’m all right.” Nancy tried to sound normal.
“Listen, I’ve got a couple of things to sort out, but they won’t take long and I’m free after that. Why don’t we meet for a coffee in town?”
“Not sure,” Nancy said. “I’ve got a student at four.”
“Four’s a lifetime away. Shall we make it one-thirty at that crazy place with all the kitsch décor? On Ship Street—it looks like a fifties junk shop.”
“No. Honestly, Lindy, I’ve got stuff to do. Maybe another time.”
But Lindy wouldn’t go away. “Stuff to do, like pining for Jim Bowdry? Not a good plan. Come on, Nance, get your arse into town and I’ll cheer you up. I owe you.”
*
They sat outside against the back of the brick building at a wobbly wooden table, which looked as if it had once been a door, on random chairs—Nancy’s a wicker garden one, with a red flower-patterned cushion on its seat, both badly in need of repair. The early June sun was bright and hot, and both women wore sunglasses. Lindy’s were ostentatiously Chanel with diamanté and pearls on the arms, Nancy’s fifteen pounds from Boots.
When they had coffee in front of them and Lindy a large slice of chocolate cake, Nancy began picking over the Jim saga with her friend, trying to make sense of it. Lindy listened for a while, then cast a sheepish glance at her. “I feel so bad for telling you. It was none of my bloody business. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
Nancy shook her head. “I had to know.”
“Yeah, but Jim’d probably have told you sooner or later and then he’d have had a chance to explain himself.”
“It doesn’t make any difference, Lindy. He still lied to me the whole time we were together.”
Lindy sighed. “Have you talked to him since?”
She nodded.
“But you didn’t believe his story.”
“I did, actually. But that doesn’t help much.”
“Why not?”
“I suppose my worry is that he’s not over his wife, even though he says he is. It’s weird that they’ve gone on living together for so long if they’re completely over each other, don’t you think?”
“How long is it?”
“About three years. Who does that?”
“Hmm. . . What did Jim say about it?”
“Money, and the fact that neither of them was with anyone else.”
“Well, that’s not impossible . . .”
“But why weren’t either of them with someone else?” Nancy sipped her coffee and realized it was probably a mistake: she’d already had too much caffeine for one day and not enough food to soak it up. “Is the real reason that they still love each other?”
Lindy laughed. “I don’t think you can deduce they still love each other just because they haven’t found anyone else. It’s hard out there.”
“No, but . . .”
“Say they do, why on earth would Jim be chasing after you?”
“Maybe they don’t know they still have feelings for each other. People often use affairs, subconsciously, to sort out their marriages, don’t they?”
“I suppose, but you’re not making sense, Nancy. If Jim was using you to get back with Chrissie, why would he care that you’d found out? If that were the case, he’d just walk away, not ring you umpteen times and send texts saying he’s sorry.”
“Christopher was off like a streak of lightning as soon as he’d ’fessed up about Tatjana.”
“Exactly, because he was in love with someone else. But if your relationship had broken down and there wasn’t anyone else, he might have stayed around making you both unhappy.”
Nancy thought back to her marriage. They hadn’t made each other unhappy, precisely, but it had been years since they’d taken real pleasure in each other’s company. However, it had never occurred to her to leave.
“So you don’t think it’s odd, them still being together?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lindy backtracked. “I think it’s unusual, but I don’t think you can read into it that Jim is still in love with his wife.”
“He was obviously very cut up when she cheated on him.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what killed it for him. Men don’t get over infidelity nearly so easily as women.”
Nancy felt too tired to think. “Should I give him the benefit of the doubt?”
Lindy rubbed her nose with the palm of her hand, jangling the multiple silver bracelets on her wrist. “Can’t answer that, Nance. Depends if you feel he’s worth the risk.”
“The risk being that he might run out on me . . .”
Her friend nodded. “A risk every single person in a relationship has to take.”
“I’m too old to be breaking my heart.”
She studied Nancy’s face for a moment. “Are you really telling me you’d rather you’d never met Jim, even if it didn’t work out?”
“No, of course not,” Nancy had no hesitation in replying. The thought of not meeting Jim was almost more painful than the thought that she might never see him again.
*
As she left the cafe, Nancy found herself looking about, wondering if she might bump into him. She hoped she wouldn’t, because she looked like shit and because one glance from those magic blue eyes of his and she’d be lost. And although it would make things much simpler just to fall into his arms and forget about the ex-wife, she also knew that things between them had changed forever. So she hurried along the narrow streets, back to where she’d parked her car, head down, her heart not steadying until she was safely on the road, driving north out of the city.