Lydia
Lydia
Lydia could hear them talking outside her bedroom.
“What’s up with Mum?” asked Ellie, sounding more irritated than concerned.
“Hormones, probably,” replied Jeremy. Lydia was sure she could hear his eyes swivel up to the ceiling. She wished she could storm out of the room and confront her lying, philandering, patronizing husband with proof of what was actually up with Mum, but how could she detonate her daughters’ lives like that? At Christmas?
And a truth niggled away at her: it wasn’t just altruism that prevented her dealing with the situation, it was also fear. Lydia had been a wife and mother for so long. She’d only just started coming to terms with the fact that her role as mother was no longer so necessary. If she wasn’t a wife anymore, either, then what on earth was she? What was the point of her? She was just a badly paid part-time organizer of a social club which was also on its way out. Both she and Mandel Community Center were about to be replaced by newer, shinier, more attractive models. Both of them surplus to requirements and gradually falling to pieces.
Lydia turned back to the book she’d been trying to distract herself with for hours. She’d bought The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work , thinking it might help her discover where it had all gone wrong, but she’d read the same paragraph over and over, and she still had no idea what it said. Her vision kept being interrupted by snapshots of those awful pictures of Jeremy and that nameless woman, that child , as if the Mandel Community Center slideshow were still running in an endless merry-go-round of humiliation. Kissing. Holding. Groping. Laughing. Again and again and again.
Gradually, Lydia’s anger with Jeremy began to morph into a different, more familiar, set of emotions: guilt and shame. She was beginning to wonder whether she’d actually brought this all on herself. Had she used up all her energies over the past decade trying to be the perfect mother, at the expense of being a good-enough wife? Perhaps if she’d spent more time creating some romance in their marriage—organizing more date nights, buying lacy underwear, having more sex, or, at least, having sex more enthusiastically—Jeremy wouldn’t have felt the need to look elsewhere? There were always two sides to a story like this, weren’t there?
Lydia heard a scratch at the door and opened it to let Maggie Thatcher in.
“You know you’re not allowed in here. It’s against the rules,” she said, her voice feeling unfamiliar and awkward after days of near hibernation. “But I guess it’s OK just this once, so long as you don’t get onto the bed.”
Lydia climbed back under the duvet and picked up her book. Within minutes, she felt a small, warm body snuggle up next to her, and a damp nose against her cheek. She pulled Maggie in closer, buried her head in her wiry curls, and began to cry. Again.
···
“What is that awful dog doing in here?” shouted Jeremy, startling Lydia out of her half doze. “It’s bad enough having her in the house at all, but I am definitely NOT sharing my bed with her.”
It’s a bit rich, you being fussy now about who you share a bed with , said Lydia in her head.
“Sorry,” she said out loud. “She’s going today, in any case.” She didn’t add that she’d be back again in a week’s time.
“Thank God for that,” said Jeremy. “Look, I’m just going out for a quick pint with the lads. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Of course you are , thought Lydia, the slideshow playing in double time onto the back of her retinas.
Lydia watched as Jeremy changed into his favorite shirt, then stood in front of the mirror, slapping his expensive new aftershave onto his neck. The expression on his face was one he only used when looking at his reflection and involved sucking in his cheeks to give him more chiseled cheekbones and lifting his chin to reduce the puffiness around his jawline.
She heard the front door close, and peered out of the bedroom window, watching Jeremy zip down the road on his stupid scooter.
Lydia picked up her phone. Still no response from her message to Art, who was next on Maggie’s rota. Maybe he was ignoring her because her utter humiliation at the nativity made the thought of a conversation with her too awkward. Thank God the social club was closed for a couple of weeks for the holidays. Was it too much to hope that they’d all have forgotten by January? Was it too much to hope that she’d ever forget?
She pulled up Daphne’s number and typed, Can’t get hold of Art. Don’t suppose you could take Maggie instead?
Within seconds there was a reply: No problem.
Thanks. I’ll drop her round now, typed Lydia.
···
Lydia was going to miss Maggie Thatcher. Over the last few days, the need to walk Maggie had at least forced her out of the house, and interactions with other dog owners and random passersby had ensured that she hadn’t completely cut herself off from other people. And it felt so good to be appreciated. Adored, perhaps. Even if only by a geriatric dog.
Lydia was concerned for Maggie, too. As her primary carer, Maggie obviously loved Lydia the best. And, not to be boastful, just realistic, Lydia’s home was probably far larger than Art’s or Daphne’s, with a sizable garden for Maggie to run around in.
This enforced separation was going to be as hard on Maggie as it was on Lydia.
She stared down at the address on the scrap of paper in her hand. It was only when she looked up at the building in front of her that she realized she’d been expecting a small, run-down Victorian terraced house, complete with net curtains and floral-printed interiors. Not this industrial-style warehouse conversion overlooking the Thames, which would have looked more at home in the Meatpacking District of New York than in Hammersmith. Not that Lydia had been to the Meatpacking District or, indeed, anywhere in New York. And now she probably never would, since she was going to be a sad, lonely, and penniless divorcée, saving up for an annual Saga outing for over-fifties, to the seaside at Margate.
There was a row of buzzers by the steel and glass-paneled double doors. She couldn’t see Daphne’s name against any of them. One had been left unhelpfully blank. By process of elimination, she pressed that one.
“Hello?” said a familiar voice through the intercom.
“Daphne, it’s Lydia,” she said. “And Maggie.”
“Come on in, and take the lift to the third floor,” came the reply.
The entrance hall was lined with pigeonholes, presumably to hold post for the various apartments. She could see the local newspaper stuffed into several of them. She knew exactly what the headline on the front page read, since a copy had landed on her own doorstep just yesterday: Drama and Disgrace at Council Nativity , along with a photograph of the crowd staring open-mouthed as they witnessed Gavin Gravely attacking Art, and Maggie attacking Gavin Gravely. If they hadn’t already been doomed, then that article would certainly be the final nail in their coffin.
Lydia pulled all the newspapers out of the pigeonholes and thrust them into her shopping bag. Then she panicked that she might have been caught on some hidden CCTV, so she put them all back again.
“I’m sorry to do this to you,” said Lydia to Maggie as she pressed the button for the third floor. “But you’ll be back with me in a week. It’ll go in a flash.” Maggie wagged her tail, obviously putting a brave face on the situation, for the sake of Lydia. Bless her. Dogs were so empathetic.
The lift door opened, and Lydia could see Daphne standing at the entrance to her apartment. She was dressed in what the magazines would probably call “stylish athleisure.” Nothing at all like the aged, baggy Lycra which Lydia wore to her weekly Zumba class. Had Daphne been doing yoga? Was that even safe at her age?
Maggie pulled so hard at her lead that Lydia dropped it, and she charged toward the open door, without a moment’s hesitation or a backward glance.
Even her dog was in love with someone else, it seemed.
The tears which Lydia had managed to hold back for the last couple of hours erupted again, right in front of a startled Daphne. For several minutes, Lydia just cried, and Daphne just stared.
“I think you’d better come in,” said Daphne, finally.