Same Time Next Week

Chapter 49

Oh shit, thought Mel listening to Steve snuffling around on the pillows, on the sheets like a pig hunting for truffles. Could a man-dog smell another man-dog’s presence, using some deep primal perception? She could still smell Pat’s strong Tom Ford scent but her olfactory senses were pretty highly tuned. Maybe if she’d not been put on the spot she might have been able to think of a believable excuse, but she couldn’t for the life of her drum one up at a moment’s notice.

Steve scrambled out of bed and flicked on the big light. The fact that Mel hadn’t said, ‘Don’t be silly, what are you talking about?’ was telling, in fact her silence was screaming the answer.

‘Who’s been in this bed? Our bed?’ he asked, each word enunciated, squeezing the juice out of every letter. ‘Is it a man? Have you had someone in here? Who? WHO?’

There was a freeze-frame moment, she was at an important crossroads. Saying she’d gone mad in Boots and had sprayed loads of testers on herself, or was using a new fabric conditioner that smelt like an aftershave would have sounded like the lies they were. But, telling him the truth was an extreme measure. Then again, if he wanted answers, she should give him answers, seeing as here he was, Mr ‘Don’t ask me any questions’ flinging questions at her like Jeremy bleeding Paxman. How come it was okay for him to do that and not her?

‘Well, to be fair, you’d left me for someone else and that made me single.’

Which was not saying, No one, Steve. I’ve had no one in here.

His mouth dropped open.

‘You’ve slept with someone else – is that what you’re saying?’

Oh my god, the look on his face poked her anger muscle so hard it started to bleed. The nerve of him. Maybe he deserved to feel some of what she’d been through.

‘There wasn’t a lot of sleeping going on, to be fair,’ she replied.

‘Whaaa… Who was it?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Mel replied, as cockily as she could. ‘I thought you said that whatever’s happened has happened. Tomorrow’s a new day, right?’

‘Don’t you throw my own words back at me.’

He was turning redder by the nanosecond. She shouldn’t enjoy the sight, but she couldn’t help herself.

‘Who was it?’ he asked again.

‘No one you know, so there’s not much point in telling you.’

‘You had sex. In our bed. How many times?’

‘I can’t remember. I stopped counting after five.’

Steve pushed his hand into his hair and started pacing about. It looked as if his brain was torturing him. Yep, she could recognise that. Horrible, isn’t it, Steve ?

‘I can’t believe you had sex with someone else!’ Each word punched out and occupying a space of its own.

More pacing. A thought hit him hard, by the expression on his face.

‘That sex tin thing. You used that, didn’t you?’

She couldn’t resist. ‘Yes, we did actually. I was walking around for days with the word SLUT in raised lettering on my arse.’

His face registered disgust.

‘How could you, Mel?’

‘You didn’t want me. You’d left me,’ she matched him in volume.

‘Not for ever .’

‘And I knew that exactly how?’

‘Well, you should have known that, for god’s sake. It was a stupid blip, a mistake and I said I’m sorry.’

‘Well, what I did wasn’t a mistake, it was fantastic and I’m not sorry in the slightest.’

Steve’s head pulled back into his neck. ‘I beg your pardon, what?’

‘I’m not sorry – and I don’t want you back.’ Mel heard the words come out of her mouth and she saw them written in the air as surely if they were encased in a speech balloon. She said them a moment before she realised they were true.

‘Eh?’

‘No, I really don’t. Thirty-one years together and I wasn’t even worth a Dear John note. You had absolutely no thought for how upset and worried I’d be when I found out you’d upped and left. What did you think I’d be like, Steve?’

‘I said I’m sorry and I am—’

‘Oh well, that’s okay then.’ Mel huffed. ‘Not really, of course. You either can’t or won’t understand what I went through and now you can’t or won’t try to do anything to make me feel okay again because you don’t want to talk about things. You smashed up the trust, but it looks as if you expect me to be the only one that puts the work in to rebuild it. Well, I won’t. Why should I? Especially when I know that she dumped you and that’s the reason why you’ve come back.’

It was a guess, a bluff and he fell for it.

‘It was not. We both decided.’

She knew it was a lie. Chloe had chewed him up and spat him out and he’d gone home to Plan B. Mel saw in front of her months of suffering, sifting through whatever he said for the real truths, worrying when he went out of the front door if he’d be back, wondering how much Chloe was on his mind. Wondering if she’d click her fingers and he’d go running.

‘But you had sex with someone else, Mel. Doesn’t that even it up?’

He was looking for anything to shift the blame. He wasn’t strong enough to accept it, to carry it on his shoulders. Not even at this important time which should have been the peak period of penitence.

‘I think we’re done, Steve.’ She was calm and in control, more so than she thought she could be, at least on the surface.

He stood there as if waiting for her face to crack and announce it was a joke. When a long enough time passed, he picked up his pants from the floor, stuffed his legs into them and his joggers, pulled his top on.

‘I’ll sleep at my mother’s,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She didn’t try to stop him. She traced the sound of him taking the stairs, going outside, opening the garage and driving out.

She felt numb but she knew that would change and loads of emotions would come flying at her and probably overwhelm her. She got out of bed and went down for a cup of tea because she was wide awake, adrenaline coursing through her body like Usain Bolt around a track. She wondered if Chloe was now back at home telling all the same lies to Pat, lies that he just might choose to believe.