My sordid little affair ‒ and, let’s face it, that’s all it was ‒ came to an end one miserable drizzly morning in January. I’d always hated January, and the one that followed our very own Jeremy Kyle Show style Christmas seemed interminable. Nick, having taken his intended ten days leave from work over the Christmas period, was soon champing at the bit and ready to be off once more. To China this time.
While Nick was at home, in those few days after Christmas, he watched Liberty constantly, almost playing the Victorian father, demanding to know where she was going and with whom. The day after Boxing Day he’d been on the phone to Sebastian and, in no uncertain terms, told him to keep away from Liberty until he’d sorted out his life with Grace.
‘And what then?’ I asked. ‘Are you saying that if he and Grace are no longer together then you’re happy for her to carry on with him? With a man seven years older than her? A man with a baby? Amanda Goodners’s son? Frank Goodners’s grandson?’
‘I don’t know, Harriet, I just don’t know. But you need to keep an eye on her. I’m off for at least two weeks. Make sure you know what she’s up to this time.’
‘This time?’ I snapped. ‘So all this is my fault?’
‘Just be aware of where she is, that’s all I’m saying.’
*
I’d heard nothing whatsoever from Alex since the text on Christmas morning. I’d tried texting him and ringing him, always from the safety of a locked bathroom or from my car on the way to taking India to school, but all I got was his answerphone. By the beginning of the second week in January, when the children were back at school and Nick had left for China, I was going out of my mind with the need to see him. I asked Lilian if she’d take charge of the twins for the day while I went to the sales in Manchester, and hopped on the TransPennine Express to Piccadilly.
I didn’t even kid myself I was heading for House of Fraser and the seventy per cent off treats. Instead, I left the station, walked down through Piccadilly Gardens, on to St Anne’s Square and out through Victoria towards his apartment. I could have jumped on board one of the free shopper buses, but I didn’t have the patience. I just needed to keep walking, to get there without the frustration of queuing and waiting for the next bus to come along. I’d no idea if he was at home, didn’t even know if he was in the country. Such was my need to know his whereabouts, I’d even casually ‒ but with pounding heart ‒ asked Nick what Alex was up to these days. Nick, vaguely, had said Alex was a law unto himself: he was doing a fantastic job for L’uomo, and that’s all he was bothered about. He thought he’d been in Italy over Christmas but was probably back in Manchester at the moment. The euphoria I’d felt on Christmas morning from Alex’s text had long since dissipated in the aftermath of his lack of contact, leaving me flat and anxious and desperate to see him.
His street was quiet, its occupants presumably long since departed for shops and offices and, apart from a black cat intent on weaving its mangy legs through mine, there was little sign of life. This was madness. Of course he wouldn’t be home at ten thirty in the morning. I rang his bell once, twice and then a third time, leaning against it so that it rang continuously and insistently through the dank Manchester morning air.
‘Jesus, Harriet. What the hell are you doing?’
As I turned to leave, Alex’s door opened and he stood there, naked apart from an obviously hurriedly donned black towel that barely covered his nether regions. His hair was wet, slicked back, and droplets of water amassed on his shoulders before forming rivulets down his tanned chest.
He shivered. ‘Fuck, it’s cold. What are you doing here?’
‘I thought you had a present for me.’ It was all I could think of to say.
‘A present?’ He looked genuinely puzzled and then started laughing. ‘Erm, I think you’ll find it’s long since, er, gone the way of all good things.’ He looked downwards and laughed again. ‘Did I actually text you that? Fuck, I must have had more than I thought. When was this?’
I was scarlet with embarrassment, mortified at being there, hating his use of profanity.
I turned to leave, but he pulled at my sleeve. ‘Sorry, Harriet. Look, I am due somewhere, but come up for a quick coffee and then I’ll have to throw you out. Have you come over for the sales?’
Throw me out? What was I? Some mouldy old Stilton left over from Christmas at the back of the fridge?
I should have left then, head held high, preserving any last modicum of pride.
I didn’t.
I was about to go into the kitchen but Alex expertly manoeuvred me towards his bedroom, nuzzling at my neck as he did so. His bed was unmade, the sheets crumpled. They looked grubby, unwashed. He pulled me towards him, expertly divesting himself of his skimpy towel to reveal my anticipated Christmas present.
‘Better late than never,’ he grinned, pushing my head down towards what I’d presumably crossed the Pennines for. I pulled back, seeking his eyes, wanting to see affection and desire. For me.
I didn’t. His beautiful blue eyes were cold, dead, without any of their former warmth or desire. I had a sudden vision of him in his SBS uniform, gun at the ready, calculating and without mercy. Intent on the chase. Intent on winning.
‘I’m going, Alex,’ I said, grabbing my bag and stumbling over a half unpacked valise on the floor.
‘Oh?’ He seemed surprised. ‘I thought this was what you came for.’ His hand rested on his erection, stroking it languidly as he lay back on the pillows.
I shook my head, was about to say something… but thought better of it. I needed air, needed to get home, needed to get back to my babies. To sanity.
I ran down the stairs and back out on to the still deserted street I’d left only ten minutes earlier. Blood was pounding in my ears, my heart thumping uncomfortably in my chest.
Stupid bitch. Stupid, stupid bitch. The words, like a mantra, repeatedly echoed my every step back to the train station, and continued their steady, never deviating beat, a perfect accompaniment to the rhythm of the train, all the way back to Midhope.
*
‘My God, Harriet. That must be the quickest sales shop ever. Was there nothing took your fancy?’ Lilian looked up from folding still warm clothes from the drier and smiled. When I didn’t reply, she frowned. ‘Are you all right, dear? You’re as white as a sheet.’
‘I’ve come back, Lilian. I’ve got a pounding head. Don’t really feel too good.’
‘Go and sit yourself down and I’ll bring you a cup of tea and a couple of paracetamol. The twins are both asleep. Been little monkeys this morning, they have. And Rebecca’s on her way over. She rang ten minutes ago to say she’d pop in on her way back to the airport.’ As she spoke, Rebecca walked past the kitchen window, waved and pushed open the back door.
‘Blimey, Hat, it’s a good job there weren’t any cops about. You must have been doing sixty down the main road. Didn’t you see me pull out behind you? Mind you, I don’t suppose you’d have recognised the hire car I’m driving.’
When I didn’t say anything, she peered at me curiously. ‘Are you OK? Lilian said you were in Manchester? I didn’t expect to see you back.’
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ I said, dashing upstairs to the loo, where I retched and retched, trying to rid myself of the guilt and bile threatening to poison me.
Rebecca was waiting outside with tea and aspirin and followed me into the bedroom. ‘Is it the flu?’ she asked sympathetically, but pointedly keeping her distance.
When I shook my head, great fat tears filling my eyes and rolling uncontrollably down my face, she looked at me in horror.
‘Oh, no, Hat, you’re not pregnant again?’
‘No, no. No, of course not.’
‘What on earth is it then? What’s happened?’
‘Oh, Rebecca, I’m so… I’m so sorry. I can’t believe what I’ve done.’
‘What? What have you done? You haven’t been caught shoplifting in Harvey Nicks, have you?’
‘Oh, Rebecca,’ I was sobbing uncontrollably now. ‘I’ve been, I’ve been…’
‘What? You’ve been what?’
I swallowed, blew my nose on a piece of toilet roll and looked at her. If there was one person I could tell what I’d been up to, it was Rebecca. I knew she wouldn’t judge. I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been having an affair, Rebecca.’
‘An affair? You? An affair?’ She sat down on the bed and just looked at me. ‘Who with?’
‘Alex.’
She frowned. ‘Alex? Alex who? Oh, God, no, Hat. No. Not the Jelly Deal Alex who was at your dinner party?’
I nodded.
‘Well, you stupid bitch,’ she said coldly. ‘You’ve been cheating on the most wonderful husband you could ever find. When you’ve got two tiny babies at home to look after? With that arrogant little tosser?’
I nodded again. ‘I thought you might understand,’ I sobbed. ‘I wouldn’t have told you otherwise…’
‘If you’re looking for sympathy,’ Rebecca snapped, ‘you’ll find it in the dictionary. In between shit and syphilis.’
‘I can’t believe what I’ve done. I even went to Manchester this morning looking for him.’
‘And is it still going on?’
‘No, no. Something happened today at his place. I suddenly realised he only wanted me for sex.’
Rebecca snorted. ‘Well what did you think he wanted you for? Your scintillating wit and conversation? The stretch marks of a thirty-nine year old?’
‘He knows poetry,’ I protested, through my sobs. ‘He can quote Henry Vaughan and Thomas Traherne.’
‘Oh, whoopy do,’ Rebecca snorted again.
‘I saw new worlds beneath the water lie
New people; yea another sky…’
‘So are you going to fuck me now that you know I can spout Traherne too?’
‘Oh, don’t, please don’t,’ I sobbed. ‘I don’t know what happened to me. It’s like this has all happened to someone else ‒ not me.’
Rebecca sighed and looked at her watch. ‘I’m going to have to go or I’ll miss my plane. I envied you so much, Harriet. I said that to you on Christmas Day. Do you really think I want to be traipsing across the world to see my girls? Do you think I want to be single, knowing I’ve been married three times and failed three times? That I’m alone, and no one loves me or really cares where I am?’
‘People love you, Rebecca,’ I protested. ‘We all do. Lilian does. Your girls do.’
‘But not in that deep seated, ‘there’s no one else in this world for me but you’ way that Nick Westmoreland loves you.’
Rebecca stood up and went to the bedroom door. ‘I just hope, for your sake, Harriet, that that lovely man never finds out. It would kill him.’
And without a backward glance at me, she left for the airport and for her girls in Chicago.