Chapter 23 Freya
FREYA
I always feel conspicuous walking through the corridors of a hotel in a robe and slippers, the informality making me feel as if strangers are in my bedroom.
But I shake off the apprehension, put the tasseled room key in my pocket, and stride down the Downton Abbey–style stairs pretending that I own the place.
A couple come toward me wrapped in fluffy gowns, him with wet hair and her with a dewy glow. They give me a knowing nod—the kind that binds us into a special club of people who are confident enough to walk around a public place in attire we wouldn’t open the door to the postman in.
“It’s all yours,” says the woman, with a playful smile. “There’s no one else in there.”
The distinctive warmth of chlorine and essential oils wraps itself around me as I pull the spa door open, the tension dissipating as I stretch my neck from side to side, reveling in the solitude.
In another lifetime, Charlie and I would no doubt have taken advantage of having the place to ourselves, back in the days when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
I smile as I remember our weekend away to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.
He’d surprised me on the Friday night, picking me up from work with a bag packed with all the essentials: my lotions and potions he knew I’d need, my favorite pajamas, my new swimsuit, even though it wasn’t on very long.
As I dive into the deep end of the swimming pool, the water feels like silk on my skin.
My arm breaks the surface before my head does, the sweeping motion propelling me forward.
The more I think about Charlie, the faster I go, as if every stroke has the power to cut through each and every problem we have.
The next time I look up, I see Tess in the Jacuzzi, with her eyes closed, shutting herself off to the demands of the daily grind. She smiles as I lower myself into the bubbling bath.
“Isn’t this just…” Her words peter out into a satisfied sigh.
“I feel better already,” I say, not knowing how much I needed this.
“You can never underestimate the power of being on your own, with no one to answer to, and no one else to worry about.”
I couldn’t agree more. Just the idea of sleeping alone tonight excites me.
And after dinner I might take a long soak in the bath, without being interrupted.
And tomorrow I might go for a ride, without anyone telling me it’s too dangerous.
Who knows, I might even have a drink, seeing as Charlie’s not here to tell me I’m letting him down.
It’s the simple pleasures I crave and my fingertips tingle at all the possibilities the next forty-eight hours may hold.
“I can see why you’re single,” I say, laughing as I lean my head back and let the jets work their way into my knotted muscles.
“There are certainly upsides,” says Tess. “Though that’s not to say I don’t have a little dalliance every once in a while, but when I do, it’s solely on my terms.”
Is that possible? My brow furrows, wondering what magical elixir she’s discovered.
“He knows my rules,” she says, smiling. “And he’s very accommodating.”
I side-eye her, immediately intrigued. “So there is someone?”
She looks at me coyly. “There is, but it’ll never go anywhere.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want someone who’s going to take up space in my life. Expecting dinner on the table when he gets in from work. Cluttering up my bathroom with his toiletries. I want to be taken out for dinner once every two weeks, have great sex, and send him on his way.”
“Wouldn’t we all?” I say, laughing.
“Well, then, maybe you shouldn’t have got married,” she says.
“But it’s unrealistic to think you can keep up the same level of excitement for years to come. Every relationship has to settle into a comfortable groove at some point.” It sounds as if I’m trying to convince myself that where Charlie and I have ended up is normal.
“Ah, see, that’s where you’re wrong,” says Tess. “We don’t all have to end up lazy and complacent. That spark can be upheld.…”
My eyes narrow. “Go on, then,” I say, intrigued. “What’s the secret?”
“Well, you see, there’s one big fundamental difference, and it’s where most people are going wrong.” She looks at me. “The mistake you made—and the reason so many relationships are unfulfilling—is because your man’s your husband.”
I laugh. “Well, that’s generally what nature intended.”
She smiles before lifting herself up and out of the Jacuzzi. “Whereas my man’s someone else’s husband.”
Tess walks toward the sauna, knowing all too well that I’ll follow.
“You’re seeing a married man?” I ask incredulously, as I trail in her wet footsteps.
She opens the sauna door and the woody heat wraps itself around me as I step inside.
“You seem surprised,” she says, pouring water onto the coals.
I don’t know whether telling her she doesn’t seem the type is a compliment or not.
While I’ll hold my hands up to having crossed the moral boundary on many occasion, I’ve never slept with a married man, at least not knowingly. And I think it takes a certain type of woman to do so without conscience. Even more so if it’s a meaningful affair, rather than a one-off liaison.
“I just don’t understand how that works,” I say. “I mean, I get how it’s beneficial to him; he gets to have his cake and eat it. But why would you want that for yourself? Isn’t that a lot of sitting around waiting for him to show up, all the while knowing he’s with someone else?”
“But I don’t want what she has,” says Tess, smiling.
“But you like him?”
“Yes! I enjoy his company and he gives me what I need, but I’m not in love with him and I don’t want to be with him 24/7. I certainly don’t want to have to answer to him—or anyone else, for that matter.”
Despite myself, I can’t help but find the idea appealing, but knowing me, I’d most likely fall head over heels in love and resent the times we’re apart. Least not knowing he was playing happy families elsewhere, while I’m watching TV on my own on a Saturday night.
“As idealistic as that sounds, I don’t think that would suit me. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl, and I fear that I could become slightly psychotic if I knew he was going home to someone else.”
“Well, then, it sounds like you’re the perfect wife,” she says, laughing. “Marriage obviously works for you.”
I pull a face I don’t mean to pull.
“Or not?” She laughs.
I sigh and lean my head back on the timber panels, feeling the sweat spring to my pores, ridding me of the toxins that have become trapped beneath my skin and mind.
“It’s hard” is all I trust myself to say, although I so want to say more.
“Any marriage is hard, but a marriage where one of you is in recovery must be particularly difficult to navigate.”
I can hear Charlie warning me not to give any more, can feel his presence as I weigh up whether I’m really going to spend the rest of my life holding everything in, hiding behind the facade that we’ve built around us, or take this opportunity to be open and honest with someone who might truly understand.
“Especially when we’ve only ever known each other when drinking.
” I pull myself up, wondering if I should just stop there, but if Tess isn’t a safe port, then I don’t know who is.
She’s probably got more crosses to bear than me and Charlie put together.
So I press on, dipping my toe in the potentially infested waters.
“I guess we’re still trying to figure who we are without it and whether it was the glue that kept us together. ”
“Do you still love him?” she asks, looking at me.
“God, yes,” I exclaim, without hesitation. “I knew he was my soulmate when I met him, and he’s still my soulmate, but it’s just different now. The lens that we’re looking at each other through has shifted and it’s taking time to refocus.”
Tess nods, as if every word makes sense. “And does he still love you?”
I was hoping she wasn’t going to ask me that.
I shrug my shoulders. “He’s going through the motions, talking a good talk—saying that nothing’s changed—but how can it not?
He looks at me with such indifference sometimes that I question if he ever loved me at all.
We used to be so tuned into one another—desperate to breathe each other’s air.
It was an effort to tear ourselves away to go to work and go about our everyday life. That’s how intense it was.”
I battle against the pull at the back of my throat. “But now I barely recognize him as being the same person.”
A beat passes. “But maybe it’s you who’s changed,” chances Tess, throwing me a sympathetic look in the low amber glow.
I flinch at the observation, having spent the last six months kidding myself that I’m still the same person, despite everything that’s gone on.
“But I still want to be with him,” I say, hoping she understands, without me having to spell it out. “But he makes me feel as if he’s doing me a favor.…”
“I don’t want to speak out of turn,” Tess starts, biting down on her lip as if to stop herself from saying anything more. “But…”
“… do I think there’s someone else?” I say, finishing the sentence for her.
Tess raises her eyebrows questioningly.
I want to tell her about Coco, knowing that any woman in her right mind would put two and two together and assume the worst.
You need to be more careful, I can hear Coco saying. If she finds out, it could ruin everything.…
I’m finding this really hard.…
Just a few more weeks, and it’ll all be over.…
I want to know if Tess would have allowed herself to be taken in by Charlie’s insistence that I’d got it all wrong. Because that’s what I’d chosen to do, even though every alarm bell was sounding, so desperate was I to believe that what he was telling me was true.
“I don’t think he’d be brave enough to cheat,” I say.
“Ooh, fighting talk,” muses Tess with a wry smile. “Would you be prepared to fight for him if it turned out he was?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I say. “Because I won’t let another woman take him away from me.”