Chapter 21
Aida
“All is not lost—the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.”
—Milton, Paradise Lost
When you’re CNN’s royal correspondent, and you’ve only actually been in London for a year, and most of your corresponding has been done standing outside the railings of Buckingham Palace or in the huge press pits they shove you into for royal appearances, you’re going to be pretty desperate for some insider access.
Even if you know that, as an American, any chance of insider access is very limited.
So when you get invited to a fancy birthday party at the RAC Club for a royal, you don’t just jump at the chance. You pretty much hyperventilate, and read Debrett’s in the restroom, and bother all of your British coworkers for etiquette advice.
The party was for Peter Phillips, Princess Anne’s son.
The invitation was kind of a date, and that’s the part I felt bad about.
A nice-looking researcher in the newsroom who’d attended Gordonstoun with Peter asked me along as his plus-one, and I delightedly accepted, mainly because I was hoping to rub shoulders with Prince William and his then-girlfriend, Catherine.
I did not meet Wills and Kate.
I did, however, meet a very posh, very articulate, very charming guy named John who proceeded to get me drunk on Old Fashioneds as he whispered filthy insider gossip—off the record, naturally—about the great and good of the British aristocracy surrounding us.
He was handsome in that sleek, thoroughbred English way. Older than my twenty-nine years—early forties at least. Super smart. Sarcastic and witty in that drawling, devastating manner that Stephen Fry and Hugh Grant share.
It wasn’t until the end of the night, when he asked if he could call me and we swapped cards before he bundled me into a cab, that I discovered his more formal moniker was Lord John Russell.
But by then I was already gone.
* * *
Ours has not been a change-the-locks type of divorce. It makes my life a lot easier, in fact, if John still has a set of keys to his family home. But he would never dream of using the keys outside of an emergency, so I’m not surprised when the doorbell rings.
‘Hey,’ I say tiredly, leaning against the doorjamb to let him pass through.
‘Hi,’ he says in that serious manner that used to get me so hot, bending down to kiss me on the cheek. He’ll be sixty next year, but he’s still a good-looking guy. And he absolutely still has that gravitas that women seem to love. ‘You’re looking well. How are things?’
‘Good. Busy. You?’
I shut the front door and head down the hall to the kitchen as John stands back and waits for me to pass. He would never walk in front of a lady. Those superficial manners of his are far too deeply engrained.
‘Yeah, it’s a little frantic at the moment,’ he agrees, and I mentally ratchet that feedback up to understand that things are pretty crazy for him, too. My ex-husband is the master of understatement.
‘The boys are grabbing their cricket whites,’ I tell him as we enter the kitchen. ‘They were so pumped when I told them to bring them. It was adorable.’
‘It’s perfect weather for it,’ John observes. ‘And there should be a good gang up there. The Kingsmill-Browns are coming along, and the Spencers. And I think some of the locals will join if we have a match.’
‘Oh, fun,’ I say absently. ‘They’ll love that.’
By locals, he almost certainly means the landed families in his vicinity rather than any of the regular people in North Norfolk who would have served John’s family a couple centuries ago.
Nevertheless, I’m equally thrilled that the boys have a busy weekend ahead with their friends and that I no longer have to be a part of it.
I always felt on the outskirts of John’s social circle.
The guys were charming, of course, but most of their wives were older than me and, though nice, firmly in their own bubble in the vaguely self-satisfied way most members of his class are.
It’s a relief to be out of it, to be honest. Even if it means a weekend alone, catching up on research for my day job and admin for Paradise.
Speaking of:
‘I need to update you on something while I have you here,’ I say as I pour him a glass of water and slide it across the island. ‘Just as a courtesy, really.’
‘Of course,’ he says smoothly, pulling out a bar stool and taking a seat.
He prides himself on having the perfect, polite response to every situation.
I think it mortified him even more than me when his exploits were splashed across every front page in the country.
I still can’t tell if he’s a genuinely decent guy who made a few spectacular errors of judgement or a total dick whose facade got shattered.
I think it’s the former, but I’m not one hundred percent sure.
‘I’m producing a new documentary,’ I tell him. I stay standing. I feel more in control this way.
‘Good for you.’
‘Thanks. I’m excited about it. The thing you should know is, it’s about me. And sex.’
He frowns. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand.’
‘I’m exploring the relationship women my age and older have with their sexuality. It’s still an area that doesn’t receive enough profile, and I want to use my platform to bring in experts and shine a light on the whole topic, from desires to menopause to divorce.’
He flinches almost imperceptibly then, and I know what his question will be.
‘It’s not about our marriage,’ I say quickly. ‘Not overtly. I intend to mention it as little as possible.’
‘Right,’ he says in a tone that tells me he’s reserving judgement until he’s heard more.
‘But there will be a… practical aspect. I’m the conduit for this entire discussion. I embody many of the challenges we’ll raise. Divorced, perimenopausal, sexually conservative.’
He looks down at his glass of water and runs his thumb over the condensation.
‘And I’m partnering with a very high-end sex club,’ I continue before I lose my nerve.
John doesn’t have a leg to stand on here, but that doesn’t make it easier.
That said, discussing this with the man who used to share my bed should be a drop in the ocean compared to the kind of confrontations I’ll find myself in when this thing goes public.
He wrinkles his nose. ‘A sex club?’
‘Yeah. I’m being mentored by a guy there. He’ll be putting me through my paces so I can gain some new experiences. It’s the only real way for me to explore what my sexuality should and can look like now, in my forties.’
I pause so I can get a read on his reaction, because John is nothing if not circumspect.
‘He’s “putting you through your paces”.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘So you’re fucking some guy on camera to provide content for a documentary about sex.’
‘No. I’m not fucking him on camera. I’ll fuck him in private and discuss it on camera.’
His jaw twists. ‘A bit vulgar for you, isn’t it?’
‘I’d argue not. To me, vulgar is having your whores kiss and tell in the Daily Mirror.’
‘Look, Aida. I get that you’re still angry, and you have every right to be. But if you’re so disgusted by my behaviour, why on earth you’d want to stoop to my level is beyond my comprehension.’
He’s unwittingly hit on the very crux of our problems, and that crux, surprisingly enough, is not the fact that he slept around while we were married.
Not even close.
Our true dirty little secret is that, in our marriage, sex and shame were far too closely intertwined. More closely than certainly I realised. So closely that those toxic intertwined tendrils wound their way more and more tightly around our relationship, not content until they suffocated us both.
And, while I maintain that John bears the brunt of the blame for that, I had my part to play, too.
I allowed him to sit in that shame.
I allowed it to fester.
I allowed it to isolate him to the extent that he felt compelled to look outside our relationship for the validation and release he needed.
I can’t condone his methods, but I can sympathise with the cracks in our relationship, with the absence of support, dialogue, that made him a man desperate for an outlet.
Even if that outlet was unethical and ill-judged.
‘It’s precisely the opposite, actually. It’s not about stooping at all. It’s about normalising. I plan on standing in front of a camera and shining a spotlight on myself—on my desires, but also on what about me causes those desires. And that’s fucking terrifying, but I’m gonna do it anyway.
‘Because when you don’t normalise things that are, in fact, normal, you’re really opening them up to shame and fear and hiding, which is basically what you—we—fell victim to.’
He raises his eyebrows, seemingly unconvinced, and opens his mouth to speak, but I keep going before he can get a word out.
‘Your needs never disgusted me, John, and it’s my bad that I ever let you think they did.
I sincerely regret that I didn’t hold more space for us to be fully honest with each other.
The way you went behind my back and made me a national laughingstock disgusted me far more.
But, honestly, it’s a good life lesson. Get this shit out in the open.
Tell people it’s okay to feel what they feel and want what they want. ’
He shakes his head. ‘I just can’t imagine this is what you really want, Aida. I worry it’s a knee-jerk reaction. You told me you wanted to, and I quote, “go live in the Sahara and never see another human being again”.’
He’s right.
I did.
I felt like that for weeks afterward.
‘That was the knee-jerk reaction,’ I explain.
‘Not this. I know you don’t get this, but I promise you I’m doing this for noble reasons.
This feels like a healthy, positive outcome for what was a pretty shitty episode.
I know it’ll be positive for me and for other women my age.
It’s something I have to do. But I wanted to do you the courtesy of making you aware that, over the coming weeks, it’ll be my sex life plastered all over the front pages.
Even if I’m setting the agenda to a far greater extent this time. ’
My reserved British husband is far less advanced on his journey than I am, which is ironic given he’s the one who’s been outed as a serial philanderer.
But the way he’s been vilified and shamed and ridiculed by the press has only underscored in his head that airing your sexual laundry in public is tawdry and distasteful and to be avoided at all costs.
I get that. I really do.
But, right or wrong, he didn’t get a chance to control his narrative. I have a pretty full understanding of his story these days, and it’s not what the press or the British public would imagine it being.
But I get a chance to control my narrative.
And I damn well plan on using it.