I’m sitting barefoot at Corina’s kitchen table. I’m not sure what to expect from this meeting with my husband on this otherwise seemingly innocent Saturday afternoon. This Saturday that could mark the end of my life as I know it. I push myself up and walk to the fridge, open it and take out a can of Coke. I never drink Coke, never allow the kids to drink it but I’m so nervous it’s a distraction. The ring pull comes away with a hiss. I take a long fizzy drink and I belch loudly.
He’s on his way to see me. What is he going to say to me? What am I going to do?
Corina walks in.
‘Before he arrives, I want to talk to you.’
She pulls out a chair and sits and I take my Coke can off the countertop and join her.
‘Like I said in the car on the way home: that advice Anita gave was all really beneficial. I know you are saying that you feel this is all your fault, but the marriage was in trouble, Ali, wasn’t it? Worse than I think I wanted to believe before all this.’
Was it really that bad? I question myself now.
Didn’t I only question myself last Sunday in front of my mirrors and come to the conclusion that I wasn’t really that unhappy?
‘Honestly, I don’t know what to think any more,’ I say, running my finger in the groove of the metal opening on the can.
‘I have to ask, and it’s not me being nosy, but have you spoken to or texted Owen since you got back?’
‘Oh God, no!’ I’m horrified she has even asked me that.
‘This isn’t about Owen.’ I stare at her.
‘Oh, but it is, I think he was the catalyst.’
‘He was my excuse, my fantasy card, my escape: I used him to compare Colin to and that was really unfair.’
‘So you aren’t in love with Owen?’ She shakes her head as she speaks.
‘No. I fancied him, that’s all,’ I say.
‘Well, it seemed a hell of a lot more than that to me,’ she says.
‘I was intoxicated by the fact he got me.’ I drink the fizz and swallow the belch this time.
‘And Colin doesn’t get you any more, right?’ Corina extends her hand and I pass her the can.
‘Oh, Colin knows me all right, but he doesn’t get who I’ve become. More, he doesn’t want me to know this version of me. He doesn’t want me to change, ever. I suppose I forced myself to admit, that night I wore the sexy underwear we were in an awful gridlock. If we could just stop picking at one another. You see, Corina, I can’t actually physically fancy Colin when he’s being a dick to me and without a sex life our marriage is in trouble. It’s a no-win situation. Owen was a welcome distraction.’ I speak the truth.
‘So what are you going to say when he comes over?’ she asks after she swallows her drink.
‘Doesn’t it depend on what he says?’ I answer her question and take my can back.
‘Oh, come on, Ali, of course not! Listen to yourself: speak up, love, say what’s on your mind, get it all out in the open. This is the point where it matters what you want! All this cannot be in vain! You weren’t happy. Your marriage has been damaged, badly damaged, and if you really want to fix it you need to work out the best way to go about it for you!’ Corina is angry.
I don’t know if I do want a separation. But I say this in my head.
‘Why are you getting so cross?’ I say.
‘Because I need you to take responsibility for yourself, for your own happiness, if you aren’t happy. Ali, he can’t make you happy unless he’s willing to change. Owen was just a diversion, agreed. I never thought you were in love with him, you just loved the fact he was so like you. You used the comparison to back you up on how different you and Colin have become. This point in time has arisen for a reason.’ She turns to the window. ‘Now it’s the time to make up your mind but I want you to know, whatever you decide to do, you have my complete and utter support. I will always have your back.’
She winks at me as we both look out the window; the day is so dark his automatic headlights light up her warm little kitchen.
The sight of his car pulling into the small driveway is familiar and unexpectedly comforting. I take a long slow breath. The car stops. He gets out. Black jeans, black runners and a high-necked green hoody. He beeps the alarm on and his wing mirrors turn in. I rise and go to open the front door.
‘Come in,’ I say and he follows me through. Corina doesn’t look up from her upside down magazine on the couch where she is now sitting, and he doesn’t acknowledge her. We go through into the kitchen. I close the door as I hear Corina turning on the TV, volume louder than it needs to be.
‘Tea?’ I ask. He shakes his head.
He leans his hands against the back of the high kitchen chair. Supporting himself.
‘OK.’ I nod.
His nose is black and blue with specks of dried blood still visible. I have to ask.
‘Is your nose not broken?’
He doesn’t answer my question.
‘What were you thinking?’ he whispers loudly.
‘About which part?’ I say.
‘When you sent him that picture of you in your knickers?’ he snarls.
‘I wasn’t thinking, clearly—’ I stop myself and start again: ‘OK, I was thinking about how unhappy I was and how … and how I desired him.’ I swallow.
Silently I thank God for Corina’s presence next door.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
‘How long was this going on for?’ His voice is steady.
‘Honestly, Colin, nothing ever went on. This last week I’ve been so miserable with how we were – the constant fighting, the effect it was having on the kids – and he was there. He’s … he was only ever a good friend but then I started developing feelings for him.’
‘Did you tell him this?’
‘I did in Amsterdam after I’d eaten a hash cake,’ I say.
He looks like I just told him I drowned a litter of newly born kittens.
‘I’m not proud of myself, Colin.’
I feel strong suddenly and I have no idea why.
‘I bet you’re not,’ he pants out the words. He is struggling to hold it together, the white of his knuckles tells me.
‘Not ideal, Ali, for a married mother of two to be sending half-naked pictures to the object of her fantasy, is it really?’ His face contorts with sarcasm.
‘It’s not. It’s definitely not,’ I agree.
‘And now?’
I realise that he now knows I’m not afraid any more. Without the children in the same house I’m not afraid of a row. In fact, I’m going to say every damn thing I have ever wanted. I part my fingers and slide them through my side fringe.
‘And now I don’t know,’ I say.
‘Do you want to be with him?’
‘No.’ I am definite about that.
And I don’t.
God, I know that sounds insane. I knew it the instant I got into the car with Corina at Dublin airport. I can’t explain it – it just wasn’t there any more. That feeling. Those emotions. They were gone. Owen had been my waking thought for months. He had made my blood rush and my feelings seemed so true, so real. What I thought I felt for him was an illusion, a fantasy, an escape from my suffocating marriage. None of it was real. It was all make-believe, my invention. And also Owen was never going to settle down and be part of the life of a woman with two children. I get that. It was always only going to be an affair. A dirty affair.
‘So what is it you do want here?’ he asks now, straight to the point.
‘I want a separation … for a while … some space, Colin.’
Didn’t realise I wanted that till this moment.
He rests his hand on his chin covering his dimple.
‘Is that what you really want?’ I can actually hear him swallow.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘You want me to move out of my own house?’ His tongue sits between his teeth.
‘Probably for the best, just until we see where we go from here.’
‘You’re an unfit mother, Ali.’ His eyes are dark.
‘That’s not true,’ I tell him.
He scoffs, ‘I think the facts speak for themselves; oh, and the picture evidence.’ He snorts.
‘I made a mistake.’
‘Why was he in your hotel room then?’ he hisses at me.
I sigh. How can I say this to my husband?
‘Why was he in your room, Ali?’ he probes again, teeth slightly clenched.
‘Because I thought I was going to have sex with him and I very nearly did.’
He throws the chair he has been clutching across the room and it bashes into a shelf and topples plant pots shattering to the floor.
‘All OK?’ Corina stands at the door, her face flushed, mobile phone in her hand.
‘What’s it to do with you?’ Colin turns on poor Corina.
‘Well, actually, now that you ask, this is my home you’re wrecking, Colin Devlin, and I’d be very happy to press charges against you: you smashed my phone and intimated me.’ She stands tall and waves the phone in the air.
‘What are you?’ He looks her up and down with disgust. She is wearing her funny pink onesie with smiley emoticons, her lounge wear.
‘What am I?’ She moves in. ‘I’m a woman, Colin, a woman whose home you are standing in. I’m a friend of Ali’s, now you show me some respect.’ Corina’s face is thunderous.
‘Just because you can’t get a bloke you don’t want anyone else’s relationships to work out. I know your sort, I have had you pegged from the very beginning!’
‘As a matter of fact, Colin, I have stood up for you. I understand how hard and hurtful this all must be for you, so I’m to ignore your insults and accusations for now.’
He turns to me. ‘I can’t talk with her here. I’ll text you later.’ He turns and leaves.
‘Colin! I want to see my kids!’ I scream after him.
‘They are in town. We’ll arrange that later.’ He strides away through the front room, opens the front door, beeps his car, gets in and skids out of Corina’s driveway.
I sit slowly. ‘If he shows Jade that picture of me, I … I just know she’ll never speak to me again.’ Tears roll down my face again now.
‘He won’t,’ Corina says. ‘He’s really angry, Ali, really angry. Even though I know he knows nothing happened, he’s angry you don’t seem to love him any more. Did you see the way he looked at me when I said I’d stood up for him, a flicker of hope? As much as it pains me to say this after the way he’s treated you, after the way he just spoke to me, I think you need to kill that anger with kindness.’
I can’t believe I just said all that to him. But more than that I can’t believe how OK I feel about it. It feels like a lead weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I never once thought I wanted to end my marriage, I’m still not sure, but those words just flooded out of me. My phone beeps.
I’m not moving out of my house. I will move into the spare boxroom tomorrow. Please don’t come back until Monday evening. I need to think. I will drop the kids to school and see you back here at teatime.
‘He wants to move into the box room and for me to come home Monday after work,’ I tell Corina.
‘Baby steps.’ Corina sounds more confident than she looks but she has said her piece.
‘Baby steps …’ I say and I tap back the words:
OK, see you then.
‘I think it is wine o’clock, my friend?’ Corina says stretching.
‘Wine o’clock,’ I agree.
I wholeheartedly agree.