10. Amanda
Amanda was scrolling through Instagram, looking enviously at the lives of her former friends. Were they friends, though? Didn’t friends keep in touch? Didn’t friends reach out and ask how you were doing? Wonder why you’d left so suddenly and if you were okay?
All Amanda had received was silence. Tumbleweed.
Since she’d moved back to Dublin, she’d had three texts: one from a mum in Theo’s school saying she’d heard about the ‘incident’ and could Amanda ask Theo if her son had ever taken cocaine.
One from her neighbour, asking if she could take their flower-boxes as they were no longer using them.
And the final one from her ‘friend’ at Pilates, Georgia, asking Amanda to return the Lululemon jacket she had borrowed.
From the rest of the women she had befriended, nothing.
True, she had removed herself from all the school WhatsApp groups without explanation.
She knew all too well that the mums would be gossiping about Theo.
She’d done it herself, when another boy was expelled the year before for watching porn in class.
She had gossiped with all the other mothers about it.
They had done that fake-concern thing – ‘Poor Johnny, he obviously has an addiction. He does seem to spend a lot of time alone. His parents are always travelling’ – judging and pointing fingers.
Amanda shuddered to think what the messages would be saying about Theo.
She knew she would not come out of it well, even though she thought she had been a good mother.
She wasn’t away all the time, she was there, present in Theo’s life.
So how had she missed it? Why had he done it?
She didn’t understand her son or his motives.
He kept saying it was just a bit of fun, no big deal.
Apparently everyone did coke and everyone who had extra sold it to make a few quid.
But why risk and ruin everything for ‘a bit of fun’ and a ‘few quid’? It made no sense.
As for Ross and his sordid affair, he swore that no one apart from her, the woman, Ruby, and Ross knew about it.
He’d had to keep it quiet as it would not have gone down well at work for anyone to know that a senior employee of the publishing house was shagging one of their authors.
Ross would probably have been fired. Somehow he had managed to keep his dirty little secret quiet.
He’d even kept it away from his wife. How blind and stupid she had been.
Ross had used almost the same words as Theo when trying to explain his dalliance: ‘It was just a stupid bit of fun. It meant nothing.’
Well, if it meant nothing, why did you risk your marriage and career for it?
Clearly, it had been more than just a little fun. Clearly, it was more serious and had gone on for longer than he was admitting to, and now – the cherry on the dog-shit cake – Ruby was pregnant.
Amanda knew that Ross would never have come clean if it wasn’t for the small issue of a baby.
His baby. Their baby. Every time Amanda thought about it she felt physically sick.
The baby had been the last straw. She could not stay in London while some perky twenty-nine-year-old waddled around with her husband’s baby inside her.
Ross had paid Ruby handsomely for her silence and promised to pay child maintenance, if she kept it all quiet.
But how long would that last? How long before Ruby started showing and told people who the daddy was?
Amanda reckoned the news would be out soon enough and Ross would be the office gossip for a good while.
He could never have stayed there. He had shat on his own doorstep, as the saying went, which anyone with half a brain knew was a fatal mistake.
Married publishers do not shag their authors, and if they do, they certainly don’t get them pregnant.
Amanda couldn’t look at any more of the London mums’ perfectly curated lives on the screen. She clicked on Ruby’s account.
There were quite a few recent photos of the young woman, her permanent red lipstick on in every one.
Three beautiful photos had been posted that morning of Ruby walking her dog, doing yoga and drinking a healthy green juice – with the caption Gotta be healthy for my baby!
Amanda felt nauseous. Ruby looked very glowy and young, and her bump was still small and neat.
You only noticed it when she stood sideways, which she did a lot in her photos and reels, to show her followers her pregnancy progress.
The comments were all about how amazing she looked and how lucky her baby was to have a mother who wrote children’s books.
Ruby did look well, and Amanda hated her for it. She had been so sick when she was pregnant with Theo – she’d spent most of her pregnancy looking green. Ruby’s skin shone with good health and vitality. It was sickening.
Amanda stopped on a photo of a quote Ruby had posted the day before – The truth will always find its way to the surface, no matter how deep it’s buried .
It was a clear dig at Ross, a public dig.
Amanda felt her blood run cold. They were not ready for everyone to know.
They needed more time. Ross had to establish his position in the agency before all of this came out.
He had to stop Ruby telling everyone. They needed Theo to be more settled before his life was turned upside down by the news that he was going to have a half-sibling.
Anxiety coursed through Amanda’s veins, and she put her phone down.
None of this was helping her already racing mind.
She closed her eyes and remembered the fateful day Ross had confessed to her …
Amanda had been gingerly taking a hot casserole dish out of the oven.
It was Theo’s favourite, beef bourguignon.
She’d got the recipe from a school mum, Tasmin, who happened to be the daughter of a Michelin-starred chef.
It had been an excuse for Amanda to contact her and try to connect with her.
Tasmin was new to the school – they’d just moved back to London from Geneva.
Amanda had spotted her on the first day back, she was über-glamorous and married to a hedge-fund billionaire.
They had their own private jet. Amanda was desperate to befriend her before the other mothers swooped in.
Tasmin had been very warm and sent her a few recipes and they had gone back and forth a bit via text and made a loose arrangement to meet for coffee.
Amanda was feeling good about the year ahead and her potential new friend when Ross walked into the kitchen.
‘You’re home early,’ she said, glancing up at the large kitchen clock that hung over the oven. Ross never got home before eight and often had to attend events in the evenings, book launches and work dinners. It was odd to see him at six o’clock.
He put his leather man-bag down on one of the bar stools that lined the marble island.
‘Ta-dah!’ Amanda lifted the lid from the casserole dish. ‘Can you call Theo for dinner, please?’
Ross didn’t react. He stood perfectly still.
Amanda frowned. ‘Ross?’
She peered at him over the steam from the casserole. He looked odd. Was he sick? ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m sorry.’ His voice shook.
‘Sorry for what? What’s going on?’ Amanda felt her heart begin to race. Something was very wrong.
Ross gulped. ‘I’m so sorry, please believe me.’
Amanda began to tremble. In all the years they had been together, she had never seen her husband like this.
Ross was always Mr Confident, Mr Fake-it-till-you-make-it, Mr I’ve-had-to-fend-for-myself-since-I-was-dumped-in-boarding-school-at-nine-years-old-so-I-can-take-on-anything-and-anyone.
‘What the hell is happening? Talk to me.’
‘She tricked me. She lied to me.’
‘Who? What are you talking about?’ Amanda’s heart was pounding. Was he talking about Nancy? Had his mother let him down again?
Ross blathered on as if in a trance. ‘She swore she was protected.’
‘Who said what?’ Amanda’s brain was beginning to catch up with the words her husband was saying. ‘Are you … is … Did you have sex with someone?’
Ross covered his face and nodded.
‘Who? When … What do you mean she said she was protected?’
Ross uncovered his face. He was pale and sweating. ‘I had a stupid little thing. It meant nothing.’
‘A thing? Can you please define a thing.’
‘A brief fling, it was barely even a –’
‘A fling? How long has this been going on?’
‘A few … like, a short while.’
‘How short? Days? Weeks? Months?’ Amanda’s fear and confusion were now morphing into rage.
‘Over a few months, but only a few times.’
So this wasn’t a one-night stand. It wasn’t a drunken night that he barely remembered. This was an actual affair. Amanda breathed deep against the nausea she could feel rising in her. ‘Who is she?’
‘You don’t know her.’
‘What is her name, Ross?’ she hissed.
‘Ruby Rose.’
‘Is that a joke? Is she a hooker?’
‘No, she’s an author. I think it’s her pen name.’
‘You have been having an affair with one of your firm’s authors?’
He nodded.
‘Why are you suddenly telling me all this? What’s happened? Guilt? Remorse? Or has someone found out?’
Ross shook his head. ‘No one knows, but, she … she’s pregnant.’
Amanda recoiled. This must be what it felt like to be shot. It was as if a bullet had just ripped through her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Her mouth hung open but no words came out.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Ross began to cry.
She’d only ever seen him cry once, after the miscarriage. Ross was a rock. He’d told her when they’d first met that he had been self-sufficient and self-reliant for so long that he hadn’t cried since that first week in boarding school. Tears were pointless in the face of facts, he’d said.
Well, he had just revealed some pretty shocking facts and he was crying now. Amanda’s shock quickly turned into anger. She felt red-hot fury. Her husband had just come through the kitchen door and annihilated her life.
Okay, breathe. Think. Amanda needed to fix this. Some young slut was not going to destroy everything she had worked so hard for. She hardened her voice, and her heart.
‘Book her in for an abortion.’
‘She’s refusing to do that. She wants the baby.’
‘That’s not possible. You have to make her have an abortion.’
Ross threw his hands in the air. ‘Amanda, I promise you I have tried everything to get her to do that. She will not agree to it.’
‘Why in the world would you have unprotected sex with some stupid bloody author?’
‘I was very drunk … it … she said …’
‘How often did you have unprotected sex?’
‘I … we … Only that one time.’
Amanda clapped her hands slowly. ‘The one miraculous time you had unprotected sex she gets pregnant. Wow, go you! Mr Fertile. Do you think I’m a total moron, Ross? Let me repeat my question, how often did you have unprotected sex with her?’
‘Twice, maybe three times. It’s not … I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen.’
‘So when you were sticking your penis inside her, what were you thinking, Ross? My wife will never find out? I can do what I want? I don’t care about Amanda’s feelings?
I can shag who I like? I don’t need protection, I can be reckless, and to hell if my wife contracts a sexually transmitted infection?
Was it any of those thoughts that crossed your mind? ’
He wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand. ‘I know I’ve failed you really badly. I swear to you, I’m so ashamed and sorry. I never meant to hurt you, or for any of this to happen. I don’t know what to do. It’s a total mess.’
‘It’s not a mess, Ross, it’s a cataclysmic shit-show,’ she’d screamed, and flung a cup at his head.
Looking back on it now, Amanda felt sorry for herself – that she had blindly believed things couldn’t get any worse, that her life had been ruined as much as it was possible to be ruined.
She shook her head to think of it. She’d been so na?ve.
A week later, Theo was asked to leave his school and that was it.
Her beautiful, successful London life was blown to smithereens.
And now Ruby was posting thinly veiled threats on social media.
How much time did they have before she revealed who her baby-daddy was?
Then the whole world would know their shame.
Why had the two people Amanda loved most in the world, her husband and son, had to let her down so badly?
All she had ever done was love them, support them and care for them.
Maybe she had done too much. Maybe she had sacrificed too much.
Her whole life had been devoted to their happiness and they had flung that back in her face.
Who was she? Amanda: a failed wife, a failed mother, a failed human.
What was she without her family? Nobody.
Nothing. She did not exist outside her identity as a mother and wife.
She had no other life. Amanda had never felt so acutely alone.