Moving On

Again

Again

IT WAS AFTER SIX THE FOLLOWING DAY WHEN SHE got back. The ten-minute walk from the Tube station had been difficult, with sleeting showers and an icy wind. She let herself in with her key, damp and shivering. Hot chocolate, as soon as she’d said hello to everyone and given the girls the presents she’d bought in the airport, and a hot shower directly afterwards – or maybe the other way around.

‘I’m home!’ she called, and heard only silence. She pulled off her gloves and hung her coat – and turned to see Leo standing at the kitchen door.

‘You’re back,’ he said, making no move towards her.

‘I’m back. Where are the girls?’

‘They’re at Angela’s, they’re fine.’ Angela, mother of Juliet’s friend Sally, lived two doors away.

‘Grace is there too?’ Grace never went to Sally’s house.

‘Just for a bit.’

Ellen went to him and put her arms around him. ‘Missed you. I’m frozen.’

‘Ellen,’ he said – and something in his voice made her draw away to look at his face.

‘What’s wrong?’ He hadn’t returned her hug. His arms hung by his side. She felt a clutch of fear. ‘Are the girls OK?’

‘The girls are fine,’ he repeated. ‘Come into the kitchen. We have to talk.’

She didn’t move. She flashed back to her return from America, and felt an unpleasant heave in her gut. ‘What is it? Tell me here. Tell me now.’

He opened his mouth, and said nothing.

The world stopped.

Time stopped.

She didn’t want to hear, because whatever it was, it was bad.

She had to hear. ‘Quickly,’ she said.

‘Ellen,’ he repeated, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve . . . been having an affair.’

She stood rooted, frozen, staring at him.

What?

What?

Then, without thinking, she stepped towards him and slapped his face hard, so hard it made her palm sting. ‘You fucker !’ she shouted. She never used the F-word, never. She raised her hand to hit him again; he caught her wrist and held it.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please don’t do that.’ His cheek reddened as she watched. Her breathing was harsh, ugly. Out of nowhere, she heard Marguerite’s words. It will happen again. I am sure of it.

Fuck Marguerite.

‘You swore!’ she cried, yanking her wrist free. ‘You swore on your children’s lives! You bastard !’ She swung at him again – he ducked, and avoided the blow.

‘Who?’ she said, her voice not hers. Too loud, too guttural to be hers. ‘Who is it?’ She made fists of her hands and punched him as hard as she could, wherever she could – face, chest, stomach, arms. ‘Was she here, in this house?’ She wanted to hurt him, hurt him. ‘Did you bring her to this house?’ She lashed out with a foot, connecting hard with his calf. ‘Tell me! Fuck you, tell me who she is!’

He shrank from her, curled and twisted to avoid her, raised his arms to protect his head. And when she stopped, breathless, blood racing, nothing left in her, he straightened and stepped away, and folded his arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving. I have to leave.’

Every part of her was shaking. She leant against the banister, needing its support.

‘Who is it?’ she demanded again. ‘Tell me!’ And when he made no response, she repeated it. Roared it in his face, bellowed it with every ounce of her remaining energy. ‘Tell me who it is! Tell me, you fucker!’

‘It’s Claire,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Oh Jesus!’ she shouted. ‘What’s wrong with you? You know that’s not true! Why are you lying? Why would you say such a stupid thing?’ She swiped at him again, but now he batted her arm easily away and stepped further from her.

‘I’m sorry, Ellen.’

‘Tell me the truth! Be a man, for Christ’s sake!’

‘I am telling you the truth,’ he said in the same quiet tone. ‘I never meant for it to happen, and neither did she. We both tried—’

We both. No. No! She shook her head violently. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? I know it’s not Claire – it couldn’t be Claire!’

‘I’m sorry.’

Claire? No. Not Claire. Never Claire.

Claire?

I prefer them more rough and ready – but he’s perfect for you.

Claire, her friend.

Juliet’s godmother.

She slumped onto the stairs, her brain still refusing to accept what he was saying. How could it be true? How could it? It made no sense.

But . . .

What had Claire told her once, when Juliet was a baby? Something about meeting a man she could have settled down with, but he was married. No, she hadn’t said married, she’d said taken. And then she’d laughed and said she was joking.

What if it hadn’t been a joke?

She never came to the house. One time she’d visited, when he’d brought the girls to Brighton.

I’m happy for you. Perfect home, perfect children, perfect job. Perfect life, really.

No. Not Claire. Not her friend Claire.

She raised her head and looked at him. She thought of Claire telling her she was being taken to Hampshire for the weekend, when Ellen had phoned to invite her to lunch to meet Iris. The same weekend that Leo was supposed to be at a conference in Leeds. Did conferences even happen at weekends?

Claire. Could it be Claire? It could. She realised that it could. Of all the women in the world, it could be the last one Ellen had thought would betray her.

‘How long?’ Her voice empty, her throat hurting from her earlier shouting.

‘. . . A few years.’

She stared at him. ‘A few years ? How many years?’

‘It started when you went to Danny’s wedding.’

‘Danny’s wedding ? Six years ago? Jesus Christ!’

Another realisation dropped. It hadn’t been some random woman last time, someone Ellen had never met, as Leo had claimed. It had been Claire who’d been in bed with him that morning. Claire, who could have virtually any man she wanted, had taken the one man Ellen had made a life with.

She’d probably helped Leo to put Juliet to bed on Sunday night, and then she’d stayed. When they’d heard Ellen returning the next morning, she’d run downstairs and fled while Ellen had been in the loo. If Ellen hadn’t needed the loo, she’d have discovered her there.

And when Ellen had rushed to her closest friend after finding out that Leo had been unfaithful, the girls in the deli had told her that Claire would be late in that morning. Errands to run, they’d said.

For six years they’d been having an affair. For six years Claire had done that to her, and Ellen hadn’t had a clue. She thought of the gifts that had arrived from Claire while Ellen was in Ireland. She thought of Claire coming to stay a week after Ellen’s mother’s funeral.

Salving her conscience, while she’d been sleeping with Leo. I want nothing more to do with him , she’d said when Ellen had told her of her plan to return to him. Not after what he did to you.

But she had no conscience, had she? Pretending to be Ellen’s friend, pretending to be on her side. How cold-blooded did you have to be to treat anyone, let alone a friend, like that?

She found her voice. ‘Why did you want me to come back? Why didn’t you just leave me in Ireland?’

‘I wanted us to work,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to be that man. I wanted the girls, and I wanted you. I told her—’

‘You wanted both of us,’ she said dully. ‘You wanted me and Claire,’ and he didn’t deny it. ‘So why are you telling me now? What’s changed?’

‘She wants me to end it. She said I had to choose.’

Claire had made him choose, and he’d chosen her over the mother of his children. Of course he had. Ellen had never stood a chance when it was Claire she was up against. All the times they’d gone out as teens, and in London too, no boy or man had ever given Ellen a second look once they’d clapped eyes on Claire.

‘Your mother said you’d do it again, and I didn’t believe her,’ she shot at him. ‘She said she knew what you were like.’ Launching it like a grenade, because it didn’t matter any more. ‘I said you weren’t like that, you’d made one mistake and you were sorry. I defended you, like a fool.’

‘Ellen—’ He took a step towards her; she darted back.

‘Don’t you dare touch me! Don’t you touch me ever again!’

He put his hands up in surrender. ‘I’ll move out,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure you and the girls are provided for. I’ll want to see them, Ellen. I’m entitled to see them.’

‘I know that,’ she snapped, even as something pinged in her, some echo, some parallel. Her father telling her, on that day in Finchley, that her mother had forbidden him to see Ellen and Joan. He’d had entitlements too. He could have insisted on seeing his daughters, taken her to court if he’d had to, but he’d done nothing.

She shook the thought away – this was not the time for it, and Ellen was not her mother. However much she wanted to kill Leo this minute, however much she itched to take a kitchen knife and ram it into his heart, his cheating, soulless heart, she would not attempt to fight him on this.

‘Just go.’

‘Angela will—’

‘Get out!’ she shouted, and without another word he lifted his coat from the hallstand and left the house. She listened to the diminshing tap of his footsteps, and when she could no longer hear them she lowered her head into her hands and sobbed, unable to believe what had happened. Unable still to comprehend that it was Claire who’d come between them. Now he was gone, and they were finished as partners, connected only through their children.

When her tears were spent she dragged herself upstairs to their room, woozy with tiredness. She opened his wardrobe and saw only empty hangers.

He’d already moved out. That was why he’d dropped the girls to Angela, so he could move his things to Claire’s apartment, or wherever they were planning to live.

He and Claire were going to live together.

She felt a wave of nausea, a heaving in her gut. She raced to the bathroom and threw up the insipid egg sandwich she’d eaten on the plane. She eyed the defeated woman in the mirror. Twice betrayed by the man she loved, and the friend she’d trusted. How had she not seen, not guessed? How had they fooled her for so long?

She had to get the girls. She rinsed and spat, and dabbed foundation under her puffy eyes, and went to reclaim her daughters. Angela gave no sign that she saw anything amiss. Back in the house Ellen phoned for a pizza and got the girls washed and changed for bed, and they ate it in front of the television.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Grace asked after Ellen had tucked them up in their twin beds. ‘I want Daddy to read the story.’

‘He had to go away for a while, but he’ll see you soon.’

‘When?’

‘Soon.’

She read Goodnight Moon too brightly. She turned off the main light and left on the little lamp in the shape of a toadstool that Juliet’s godmother had given her for her first birthday. She tiptoed from the room and entered her and Leo’s bedroom – no, her room – and as soon as she closed the door she broke down again.

She stripped and remade the bed, swiping tears away. She undressed and climbed in without brushing her teeth. She desperately needed sleep, but her mind refused to stop spinning. She lay in the darkness, trying to figure out what to do, where to go from here.

She’d had it with London. London was tainted now. It would mean saying goodbye to Maggie, which was awful, and handing in her notice at Creative Ways, horrible too, but she couldn’t stay.

She would have to bide her time until the girls got their school holidays in July, nearly five months away; she couldn’t subject them to more disruption – and then what? Would she be able to move back to Ireland? Would Leo agree to her taking his daughters out of the country?

He hadn’t stood in her way when she’d gone there with Juliet the last time, but this was different. Now there was no dying mother who needed looking after, and no possibility of Ellen ever returning to him.

She hated the thought of having to get his consent, but the law was the law, and she wanted to keep things civil for the girls’ sake. They would need to discuss it, a prospect she dreaded. She thought of the scene they’d had in the kitchen, the ugly language she’d used, and she felt ashamed.

But even assuming he agreed to the move, where could they live in Ireland, with the family home sold? She would have to rent, with all its uncertainties and limitations – and they’d also need a stop-gap place while she settled on a location and found a suitable property.

What about Frances? She’d take them in, Ellen was sure, and the UCG student who rented a room there now, Marie or Maria from Roscommon, would be gone home in the summer – but then she dismissed the idea. Frances wasn’t able for two young children in her house any more, even for just a few weeks. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her.

The other possibility was one she was reluctant to consider. Her father lived alone in his Dublin house, and she knew he’d help if she approached him, but could she live under the same roof as him again? She might have to, in the short term.

She turned her damp pillow over and pressed her face to its welcome coolness. This would be the end of her and Creative Ways: she couldn’t expect them to go on using her remotely like they’d done before, not indefinitely. She would look for other freelance work in advertising, or failing that, she would find a job in a bookshop again, or in any kind of shop.

She stretched out a hand and felt his side of the bed, cold and empty.

Never again. Never again. Tears again.

The thought of him with Claire was unbearable. She imagined the girls meeting her with him, and her pain turned to cold fury. She was not to have contact with them; under no circumstance could that be allowed to happen. Ellen would demand it, would be as intransigent as her mother on this point. There was little danger of the girls asking about Claire – Juliet scarcely remembered her godmother, so long it was since they’d met, and Grace didn’t know her at all.

Leo’s mother had been right, and Ellen hadn’t believed her. She would never see Marguerite again, never endure another stay in her chilly house. She was sorry that Henri and Louis were out of the picture too – she would have liked the girls to have some kind of contact with them growing up.

Of course, in years to come, if Leo stayed around for his daughters, he would be the link to their lovely uncles – but she couldn’t think that far ahead, with the immediate future bleak enough to need all her energy.

She’d see more of Frances in Ireland, even if they didn’t end up in Galway. That was one good thing. Ellen would take driving lessons, and buy a secondhand car when the money from the family-home sale came in, and make her way to Galway as often as she could from wherever they lived.

The night passed, cruelly slowly. She cried some more, wishing for Frances, craving her aunt’s reassurance.

And finally, towards dawn, she slept.