Chapter 31
SJ came slowly into wakefulness and wished she hadn’t. She felt like death – in fact death would have been preferable. Her whole body hurt. Her stomach felt like an empty churning cement mixer. It rumbled and gurgled and there was a very unpleasant stink in the room.
She was lying on the sofa in their lounge.
There was a red plastic bucket by her side – that was the source of the stink.
Ash was curled up on the rug by the fireplace.
And Tom was sitting in an armchair watching her.
Not speaking, not moving, just looking at her with an expression she’d never before seen on his face. Disgust.
She smiled uncertainly. He didn’t smile back. He just carried on looking at her. SJ began to feel unnerved.
‘What?’ she said at last, moving her head a fraction and wishing she hadn’t because several demons with pickaxes were hammering away inside her skull.
‘I could ask you the same question.’ Tom spoke in a flat grey monotone. ‘What? Yeah, what, SJ? What the fuck did you think you were doing? Have you any idea of the hurt you’ve caused?’
SJ hadn’t, but the fact he’d said ‘fuck’ – which he never said – in the same flat grey voice he’d used to say ‘what?’ gave her a pretty good clue she’d upset him.
‘What did I do?’ She spoke very quietly and slowly to cause the least possible movement.
‘Do you really not remember?’
‘No,’ she whispered, wanting very much to cry. She must have done something really bad for him to be looking at her – speaking to her – like that.
‘Did it involve taking off my clothes?’
He shook his head, and SJ felt about under the duvet and discovered she still had them on. Well, that was something. She’d have hated to hear she’d performed a striptease for her parents and their guests.
Her mind flicked back over the previous evening: the bench with Alison; the marquee with the darts players; the bedroom with Sophie – that had been quite bad, but surely not unforgivable; the conversation with Aunt Edie; the kitchen at the end.
The scenes rolled over in her mind, but there was nothing that struck her as being particularly awful.
Not awful enough to make Tom look at her like this.
Hang on a minute – hadn’t she knocked over a dresser in the bedroom?
That had caused one hell of a disturbance.
‘I know I had too much to drink. I’m sorry. But it was a party – you’re supposed to have too much to drink at parties. You said so yourself.’
‘There’s a difference between having one too many and drinking the whole place dry.’ There was contempt in his voice. SJ flinched.
‘I’ll give Mum a ring and apologise later. Don’t worry. She’ll understand.’
‘She already understands. You told her you were an alcoholic, SJ. You told a whole roomful of people – including most of the darts club – you were an alcoholic.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes, “Oh”.’ Tom’s voice still hadn’t risen from flat grey. It was disconcerting and she was beginning to feel sick again. The proximity of the bucket wasn’t helping.
‘You also told them why you were an alcoholic.’
Unease rose alongside the sickness. ‘What do you mean? What did I say, exactly?’
‘You said it was my fault you’d started drinking.
You said you’d never loved me. That you’d only married me because you didn’t want to get hurt again.
You said the love of your life had been Jacob, but after what Alison did, you’d realised you couldn’t carry on being married to him, so you settled for me.
You said you had to drink to blot out the pain of settling for second best.’
SJ didn’t say anything. Now she understood why he was speaking in grey. If he let any emotion into his voice he would break. She could see the deep raw pain in his face. His arms rested along the arms of the chair, his hands apparently relaxed, but his fingers were trembling.
SJ had never seen Tom in such pain before. She had never seen anyone in such pain. And it was down to her. It was all down to her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, knowing it wasn’t enough. Nothing she could say would ever be enough.
By the fireplace, Ash had put one paw over his nose.
It was a position he often lay in, like a bird with its head tucked under its wing, but at this moment it seemed to SJ as though he was trying to blot out the sounds of their voices.
Blot out the pain that was filling the room like a great black shroud.
A shroud gently placed by unseen hands over the death of their marriage.
‘It’s not true,’ she said, hating herself for it, but wanting to say something – anything – to take away the pain she’d caused.
‘Isn’t it? I’m not so sure, SJ. You haven’t wanted me much lately, have you? Physically, I mean. I may be na?ve, but I’m not completely stupid.’
There was no denying this. SJ groaned. She was going to be sick.
Stumbling to her feet, she just made it to the bucket and, heedless now of her husband’s presence, she emptied a little more of the poison from her body.
Retching into the bucket, heaping more foulness over what it already contained.
When, gasping and beaten, and still with the taste of bile in her nostrils and throat, she’d finally finished, she rose weakly and, without looking at Tom, carried the bucket through to the toilet where she disposed of the contents and bleached it.
Oh, that she could bleach out her body and mouth in the same way.
Feeling marginally better, SJ gulped down a handful of Nurofen, found a re-hydration sachet she kept for hangover emergencies in the cupboard and forced herself to drink a pint of water. The effort of so much activity drained her and she went slowly back into the lounge.
Tom was sitting where she’d left him. Wary of approaching him because she knew he would shrug her away – and she wouldn’t have blamed him – she sat on the settee again, tucking her knees beneath her like a child.
‘I’m really sorry, Tom. I was way out of order. I always talk rubbish when I’m drunk. I know some people tell the truth when they’re drunk, but I don’t, I never have.’
‘So none of what you said last night was true? It was all drivel, was it? Just because you’d poured half a brewery down your neck?’
She nodded vehemently. She had no memory of saying the things Tom had just told her, which terrified her.
How could she have caused such devastation without even knowing she had done it?
The only saving grace was that she doubted her drunken ramblings about her marriage could be proved as facts.
All that mattered now was to take the pain off his face.
She would spend the rest of her life making up for his pain. She would have to.
What? Even though you know in your heart of hearts that what you said is true? whispered a voice in her mind. Not Alco this time – he’d been conspicuous by his absence during yesterday’s spree – but the voice of her conscience. The voice of her conscience continued relentlessly.
Even though you know you did marry him because you didn’t want to be hurt again? Do you really think it’s better to continue with this lie than tell him the truth?
SJ became aware Tom was speaking again. ‘So, are you trying to tell me it’s not true about your brother-in-law having affairs like they’re going out of fashion either then?
He looked pretty pissed off when you announced that to all the guests.
But he didn’t even try and deny it. I thought your father was going to thump him.
And your mum and sister were clearly mortified to hear you spilling the beans in public. ’
Shit. SJ tried to interrupt but he wasn’t done. ‘And I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s not true about our friend, Michael, being a cross-dresser either, then? That he likes to dress up as a woman and have people call him Lizzie?’
SJ stared at him in horror.
Before she could deny any of this, Tom went on softly, ‘Where did that come from, SJ? Is it some warped little fantasy you’ve got? Perhaps, deep down, it turns you on thinking of men dressing up in women’s clothes. Does it make us more vulnerable or something? More easy to manipulate, maybe?’
SJ closed her eyes, knowing she had to stop him.
Stop this before it got any further. She had to convince Tom he was right – that her ramblings about Lizzie and about everything else were the product of an unbalanced mind.
Even if he thought he’d married some kind of compulsive liar.
That was preferable – anything was preferable to him knowing it was true.
‘Of course it’s not true about Michael. That’s ridiculous. My God, I really was drunk, wasn’t I…?’ She tried a casual little giggle, which came out as a sob.
Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more. But I am going to find out.’ He glanced at his watch and stood up, a slight frown on his face.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m playing squash with Michael at eleven thirty. Had you forgotten? I’m not surprised. You never did think of anyone but yourself.’
‘Please don’t say anything, Tom. He’ll be embarrassed – it’s such a mad idea. Please just forget I ever mentioned it.’ She was gabbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
Tom jangled his car keys thoughtfully. ‘Michael won’t be embarrassed.
I know him better than that. It’ll probably give him a good laugh.
’ He paused in the doorway. ‘Unless, of course, it’s true!
In which case I’ll assume the same of the rest. I’ll assume that far from spouting rubbish when you’re drunk, you actually tell the truth. ’
SJ caught up with him at the front door, her head spinning with sickness and shame. ‘Please, Tom, don’t say anything to Michael. It’s stupid, you know it is.’
She held onto his arm, partly to stop herself falling and partly to stop him from going. But he brushed away her hand, his eyes cold.