Chapter 44
44
Connor had pulled the tie from the neck of his shirt to look slightly less conspicuous in the witchy, atmospherically lit hubbub of the pub and there was no getting round the fact, Bel thought as she watched him at the bar, he looked Old Hollywood heartbreaking.
She indulged a surprising moment of perving on him, letting herself pretend he was her date. On pure aesthetics, Connor was impressive, but more than that, his swooping in to save the day with Anthony was downright spectacular.
He was attired like James Bond but she’d not expected Connor to act like him too.
In turn, Bel hadn’t expected to behave the way she had: she’d been paralysed. She’d ordered herself not to be intimidated by Ant, reasoning he couldn’t make a scene in a crowded room. Yet she’d hidden from herself that she had been playing a game of odds in her head. A ‘Surely He Won’t Go That Far’ game, and every time he proved that he would. She couldn’t lose again.
Once he had appeared, she didn’t know how to handle it. Losing her shit with him both risked attracting attention and sustained his delusions that they were sexy pyrotechnics. Being calm and courteous wasn’t sufficient deterrent– he used that as a welcome, to insinuate himself. Simply removing herself from his presence was all Bel was left with, and even that failed as he haunted her every step.
Then Connor was simply there, calmly cutting Anthony down to size and extracting Bel, as if he was her paid protection officer. Connor made Anthony insanely angry but Connor, with no stakes here, wasn’t riled in the slightest, so the power balance shifted with ease.
How Connor had figured it out, she had no idea. No doubt she’d pay for his help with Anthony’s antagonism worsening, but it was worth it for Connor taking Ant’s hand off her arm as though he was an autograph hunter with Lady Gaga.
When she told Shilpa, her ovaries would explode.
‘Do you mind me asking who that was?’ Connor said, as he put a gin and tonic in front of her, a red wine for himself.
Bel didn’t mind. She wasn’t at all sure of the wisdom of Connor as her audience, for various reasons, but one strong factor in his favour was that he soon wouldn’t be here. Connor had seen what he’d seen. What the hell.
‘Anthony, who you met there, was on the news desk and then a section editor at my last paper in Yorkshire … it’s a long story, you’re sure?’
Connor saluted her with his glass.
‘OK. Not long after I was hired, he took me for a drink to talk about how I was getting on, he was a cheerleader for my work. He persuaded the big editor to accept me doing a podcast in my spare time. It was all very mentor and student. We’d keep going for lunchtime pints. Inevitably, of course we got to talking about our private lives. I told him about my long-term boyfriend Tim– the wheels were coming off at the time. I didn’t say anything too disloyal, but it became obvious I was at a crossroads, and unhappy.’
‘You lived with Tim?’ Connor said.
Bel nodded, took a deep breath.
‘Yeah we’d been together since our late twenties. Oh God, I am so disgusted by myself even telling you this …’ Bel said.
‘You don’t have to,’ Connor said.
‘I know, but I want to, I’ve got a compulsion to spare no detail, if you can stomach it. It’s better if I own it … Eventually, Anthony’s “agony uncle” routine turns into more. I’m starting to fall for him and he’s sending email love letters, persuading me we have this huge, star-crossed …’ Bel waved her hand, ‘meeting of hearts and minds going on. I wanted to believe I was in love. I wanted a reason to leave Tim. “The next person is here, it must be time to go”, you know? It was so hard to finish it when Tim was desperate to stay together. He begged me to go to couples counselling. Ant’s married with a teenage kid, but he says that his marriage is over and he’s been looking for the courage to get out of his situation too. I’d never, ever, have interfered with a marriage, but he told me it was functionally over in every respect.’
‘Of course he did,’ Connor said.
Bel took a breath.
‘With hindsight, it was a technique. If my problem had been that Tim liked partying too much, Anthony would’ve positioned himself as Mr Steady. He found out what I wanted and he became what I wanted. A getaway car driver.’
Bel played with a beer mat and dropped eye contact.
‘It builds and builds and I let myself be persuaded into going to a hotel bar for an evening together to “talk about the future”– and Connor, if that wasn’t unfaithful enough, of course I know what else is going to happen. He’s giving me enough deniability to go along with it. Anthony waits until it’s all hand-gripping and intense and we could make this work to reveal he’s booked a room for “privacy”.’
Bel took a sip of her drink to steel herself.
‘I’m not a cheater by nature, though maybe everyone thinks that. Ant was like this big hit of dopamine in misery. Tim and I were arguing bitterly and I wanted to force things to a decision one way or another by doing something decisive. I started to believe I could follow Ant’s lead. That he knew what should happen next, and that he’d fix everything. It was total cowardice and karma has rightly been kicking my arse black-and-blue ever since. I tell Anthony he can’t touch me until I’ve told Tim it’s over– how arbitrary is that? Then my “red line” ends in a Superior Double room, giving my boss– who’s wearing his wedding ring– a blow job.’
She cast an ashamed look up at Connor and shook her head in a way that said: ‘judge me.’ He gave her a steady look in return that said he wasn’t going to.
‘Anthony leaves at 1.00 a.m. so he’s not spent the night away to alert his wife, which should’ve been a huge tell …The next day, taking the hotel bar promises seriously, I believe we’re both telling our other halves that we’ve met someone else. I mean, we have to? Because as far as I’m concerned that shouldn’t have happened and that can never happen again while Ant is with his wife. I’m na?ve enough to text Ant and ask: “when is it going to be OK for us to call each other?”, you know. The admin of both of us turning the keys on the submarine. Ant calls me straight back and it’s lots of shifty mumbling about how now’s not quite the right time. But he’s super keen to “meet and talk” again. And I know, in a second … it all fucking hits me …’
Bel’s voice cracked and she deftly wiped tears away from carefully applied make-up.
‘Ah shit! Sorry, sorry …’ she said.
‘No need whatsoever to apologise to me,’ Connor said, kindly, putting his hand on her arm.
‘Absolutely loathe being a weeper,’ Bel said thickly, with a smile, as Connor murmured don’t be silly. She cleared her throat.
‘I found out the Never Leaving His Wife men must all start like this: promising you the earth and then you realise the earth is in fact a Pyramid Scheme, a scam. Make this initial upfront payment to secure the deal. My damaged intellect finally woke up– this is an older guy who wanted a belt notch, he told you what you wanted to hear, no one’s leaving anyone. Except I was honestly intending to leave Tim. So having seen through Ant, I still have to face what it tells me about my relationship. I go home and tell Tim it’s over. He’s devastated. He’s sensed the Anthony complication. Tim points out I’ve been on my phone constantly, jumpy, distant. He asks, “are you sure there isn’t anyone else? Swear on your mum’s life”, again and again, and I say no and no and no because there isn’t– but what a shitty person that makes me. There hasn’t been a day since when I’ve not wanted to slap myself if I’ve thought about it.’
Bel’s tears threatened to make a return and she swigged her drink as an antidote.
‘I deserved it, though. I deserved to have to tell Tim we were done, not with someone else lined up and waiting for me, but with flashbacks to deeply regrettable oral sex in Hotel Du Vin with a man who declared it “super”.’