When her phone rang Stephanie was in the middle of a rant to Natasha about James and the fact that he had seemed blithely happy when he got home last night, blissfully unaware as he was that Stephanie had finally unearthed the scale of his deception.
‘And as for Katie,’ she was saying for, perhaps, the twelfth time in the past two days. She hardly noticed that Natasha rolled her eyes, and was about to launch into another retelling of her bizarre exchange with her husband’s mistress when she checked the caller ID and saw that it was, in fact, that very husband’s mistress who was calling her now.
‘It’s her,’ she said, in a pointless stage-whisper.
‘Well, answer it, then,’ Natasha said impatiently.
Stephanie did as she was told. ‘Hello,’ she said, in as neutral a way as she could manage.
‘Stephanie,’ Katie’s now familiar voice said, ‘it’s Katie.’
‘Mmm-hmm.’ Stephanie couldn’t trust herself with any actual words until she had heard what Katie had to say.
‘I’m … I think we got off on the wrong foot and that maybe it was my fault.’
‘Well, yes, screwing someone’s husband will sometimes do that,’ Stephanie said, before she could stop herself.
She heard Katie inhale sharply as if she was composing herself before she spoke.
‘I know this must have been a shock to you,’ Katie said, ‘but you have to believe it was as much of a shock to me. When James told me you were divorced I had no reason not to believe him. And now … now I don’t know what to believe.’
‘So you thought you’d ring up and accuse me of being a fantasist again?’ Stop it, Stephanie, she thought.
Katie didn’t seem to be responding to Stephanie’s offers of a fight. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wanted to say sorry for not listening to you. And that I know he’s been lying to me now. I think. To be absolutely honest, Stephanie, I don’t know what I think.’ Katie’s voice cracked and Stephanie realized she was trying not to cry.
‘OK,’ she said, more kindly, waving a hand at Natasha, who was leaving. ‘Let’s pretend we’re starting again. I’ve rung you to tell you the man you’re having a relationship with is my husband and you believe me. I accept that you thought he was unattached. What do we do now?’
Nearly an hour later Stephanie and Katie were still talking. Katie, Stephanie had discovered, had been seeing her husband for a year. It wasn’t as if she and James had hidden their relationship from anyone: she had never seen the necessity because she had had no idea that they might be doing anything worthy of being hidden.
Katie, meanwhile, had discovered that her boyfriend still very much lived with his wife, and that although the past few years since the move to London had been fraught sometimes, they were still very definitely married. She had learned that Finn had been happily spared the traumas caused by warring parents, and that rather than just seeing his father for a few hours on Saturdays he spent half of every week with him and the other half looking forward to seeing him again. She had learned that, just as she had trusted that James was buried in his work and sacrificing comfort and home life on the days when he was in London, so Stephanie had believed he was doing the same when he was in Lincolnshire.
Both had had to acknowledge to themselves that he had been living a lie. Stephanie, who had had a few days to get used to the idea, was trying to reprogramme her anger so that its focus was firmly channelled at James rather than at Katie. Try as she might to hate Katie, it was hard to keep it up once she knew that Katie had been duped as much as she had.
‘So, where do we go from here?’ she asked eventually.
‘I’m going to ring him and tell him not to bother coming back,’ said Katie, tearfully. Katie, who had never been hurt before, had taken it badly. ‘I would never go with another woman’s husband. I mean never, Stephanie. You have to believe me. I’m going to kill him, honestly I am. I’ll pack his stuff up and drop it round to the surgery and then I’ll never see him again.’
‘I don’t know,’ Stephanie said. ‘We shouldn’t rush into anything. We shouldn’t tell him what we know yet, not till we’ve decided if that’s the best thing to do. Don’t show your hand too early, my friend Natasha always says. You can always play it later, but once you’ve shown it there’s no taking it back.’
Stephanie didn’t know why she wanted to put off the confrontation with James. Partly, she thought, because she was afraid that if she told him she knew about Katie he would look relieved, throw his hands in the air and say, ‘Hallelujah. At last I don’t have to live a lie. I can leave you and live with the woman I love.’ She didn’t think she could take the humiliation. ‘I know it’s a strange thing to ask,’ she continued, ‘but let’s sleep on it at least. Another twenty-four hours isn’t going to make any difference.’
‘OK,’ Katie said reluctantly. ‘When he calls me tonight I’ll try and pretend that everything’s OK.’
‘Just turn your phone off,’ Stephanie said. ‘Let him worry about what you’re up to.’
Katie wiped her hand across her brow and leaned on the kitchen table for support. Of course she would wait to see what Stephanie wanted to do. After all, Stephanie had a far greater claim on James than she did – even Katie had to acknowledge that now. She might be losing a boyfriend but Stephanie was in danger of losing a husband, the father of her child. Still, the way she felt at the moment it was hard to imagine Stephanie was feeling any worse. Could it really be true? James – nice, funny, loving James? Katie had always believed that people who were treated badly in relationships had somehow brought it on themselves. That wasn’t the same as thinking they deserved it, certainly not, but she trusted that if you behaved well, if you gave someone all your support, allowed them their freedom, they would repay you by being honest and straightforward. It wasn’t as if she had ever asked James to lie. He was the one who had made the move on her in the first place. He could have just left her alone to get on with her life, which she had been enjoying perfectly well, thank you very much.
She barely moved all morning. James still married? She could hardly take it in. It seemed so surreal. And all those things he’d said about Stephanie. How she tried to stop him seeing his son, how she’d bled him dry in the divorce, how they barely even exchanged pleasantries these days. All lies. The whole of him was a lie, everything she had believed about him, everything on which she’d based her love for him. It was all untrue. And poor Stephanie. Stephanie who had believed she was happily married until a couple of days ago …
She finally gave in to the tears that had been threatening to come ever since she had picked up the phone. Big, heaving sobs, which took over her whole body and which made Stanley come and stand beside her, looking at her sadly, unsure of what to do.
As the morning wore on the tears were replaced with angry thoughts – something alien to Katie: she liked to put a positive spin on things, to see the good in every situation. Twice she had begun to dial James’s number. She wanted him to know that she knew. She wanted him to know he wasn’t going to get away with it any more. But she had promised Stephanie she would sit tight for now. And if that was what Stephanie wanted, it was the least Katie could do. She got up and wiped her eyes, then lit some candles – geranium to lift the spirits. She was strong, she would cope.
‘Bastard,’ she said out loud, to no one in particular.