Chapter 25 Freya
FREYA
Sorry, I’m not feeling well, messages Tess, as I wait for her to join me for a predinner drink in the drawing room. I’ve just had the most awful migraine come on.
Oh no, I text back. Is there anything I can do?
I just need to lie down, she says. Do you mind if we take a rain check and I’ll see you in the morning?
Of course, I type. Hope you feel better.
I can’t pretend I’m not secretly pleased to have the chance of an early night, although the prospect of sleeping without Charlie isn’t quite so appealing anymore. That’s probably because there’s a part of me that can’t help but fear that my side of the bed will be occupied by someone else.
I look at my watch, knowing he’s about to start service.
Unless, of course, he’s taken himself down to London, as excited as me to take advantage of the newfound freedom, albeit for an entirely different reason.
I want to trust that he wouldn’t be so desperate.
But now that the thought has found its way into my psyche, I need to make sure.
I call him as soon as I’m back in my room, needing to hear his voice …
needing to know that he’s not anywhere he shouldn’t be.
His phone goes unanswered, so I call again.
When he picks up on the third attempt, he sounds a little out of breath, and I convince myself that he’s just rolled off of Coco and is hastily putting his trousers back on.
Surely only a sadist would conjure up such a warped and twisted scenario.
“Hi, how’s it going?” he says.
“Yeah, fine, I’m just calling to see how you’re doing.”
“Yeah, fine.” He sounds as if he’s talking to a stranger.
“You okay? Is the restaurant busy?”
“We’ve only got two bookings at seven-thirty,” he says despondently. “So I might leave them to it.”
My chest immediately tightens. “But it’s Saturday,” I say, unable to remember a weekend night he hadn’t worked, despite my protestations that they could do without him every once in a while.
“Well, I figure they can manage,” he says.
Funny that he chooses the one weekend that I’m away to finally come to that conclusion.
“So what are you going to do with yourself?” I ask, as thoughts of what he has planned burrow their way under my skin.
He fakes an audible yawn. “I’m pretty tired, so I’ll probably stay in, catch up on some paperwork.”
I will myself to believe him.
“What about you?” he asks, highlighting the double standards I’m living by. “What are you up to tonight?”
“Oh, I think I’ll just have a wander along the seafront, maybe get some fish and chips.”
“On your own?” he asks. There’s a loaded pause. “Can Tess not go with you?”
A rush of blood fills my head, blurring my vision. Is he testing me? Does he know more than I think he does?
“Tess?” I murmur, desperately trying to keep my voice steady.
“Isn’t that who you’re with?” It’s a statement more than a question.
Should I just come clean and tell him where I am? Let him know that he’s wrong about Tess. That despite his misgivings, she just might be our saving grace. But if I was going to do that, I would have done it a week ago.
“Jane, you mean?”
“Ah, that’s it,” he says. “Where did I get Tess from?”
Every question lands as if he’s trying to catch me out. “Er, that’s the woman we met at the meeting.” I can hear my unease echoing back at me.
“Oh, yeah, I remember.”
I don’t say anymore for fear that it’ll expose my lie, and the awkward silence draws out between us as we both doubt one another. When had our marriage become so exhausting?
“So what’s the respite center like?”
It takes a beat for me to remember why he would ask. “So beautiful,” I gush. “They’ve created a really peaceful sanctuary, and the children love it.”
“Right,” he says tightly.
“Well, I’m going to have an early night,” I say. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”
“Okay, well, have fun, won’t you?” An odd thing to say when he thinks I’m spending time with terminally ill children. Though not as odd as me pretending that I am, perhaps?
“I love you,” I say, because I need to hear it back.
“Yeah, me too,” he says, though it doesn’t quite mean the same thing.
I fall asleep with the TV on mute, its flickering pictures lighting up the ceiling. The last thing I remember is imagining the perfect murder of the man I love after he announces he’s leaving me for someone else. What I wake up to are his hands around my neck, squeezing the last breath from me.
My eyes pop as I try to call out, clawing at his fingers, desperate for breath.
He has a demonic smile, as if he’s taking pleasure from my fear, and I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out.
How had he got in? I’d padlocked the door.
But then I see Tess, standing behind him, with the key in her hand.
“No!” I roar, bringing myself out of the nightmare and sitting bolt upright in bed.
My heart’s thumping as I look around the room, my chest heaving as I pull air down deep into my lungs. There’s no one here, other than Julia Roberts on the TV, standing in front of a floppy-haired Hugh Grant, asking him to love her.
I fall back onto the pillows, the sweat on the nape of my neck cold against my skin. I should never have had that coffee—it always gives me bad dreams.
I lie there for what feels like a long time, counting down the minutes until I know I’m going to get up.
It’s just after midnight, and knowing I won’t be able to sleep, I get dressed and brush my hair.
I need to get away from the tedious internal monologue that’s on a loop inside my head, a distraction from the oppressive weight of panic and guilt that’s crushing me.
I hear her before I see her. Her throaty laugh traveling up the grand staircase from the bar. My first thought is that I’m pleased to have company. My second is that I thought she wasn’t feeling very well.
“Oh” is all I can think to say, as I turn the corner to see Tess sitting beside the fireplace, nursing what looks to be a glass of red wine.
“Freya!” she says, jumping up out of her seat, looking like she’s been well and truly caught out.
I stand there, open-mouthed, for far longer than is polite. “But I thought…”
She gestures to the empty armchair beside her, as if an imaginary friend is somehow responsible. It takes me a moment to realize that she wants me to sit down.
“You’re drinking,” I say, confused.
“It’s not what you think.…”
I can’t help but laugh, though where I get off on being so judgmental, I don’t know.
“It’s not a problem,” she says. “It’s all under control.”
“You don’t have to hold yourself accountable to me. You can do whatever you like.”
“I don’t want you to think badly of me,” she says.
“How long’s it been going on?” I ask, wondering if it ever really stopped.
“I … er…,” mumbles Tess.
I lean in, struggling to hear her over the crackle of the flames dancing on the logs in the fire. She looks around the decadent room, which suddenly seems too intimate to be having this kind of conversation.
A tear falls onto her cheek and she hastily wipes it away. “I … I’ve been having a few problems … and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t been dealing with them very well.”
Seeing her cry and feeling her torment brings a lump to my throat. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure you’re the best person.” She looks at me with a smile and soft eyes.
I don’t take offense. I know what she means.
“I feel ashamed and embarrassed.” She wipes away another tear. “And I know you’d understand, more than most, but you’re the last person I want to admit it to.”
I put a hand over hers on her lap.
“You can always talk to me.”
“I just don’t want to bog you down. You’ve got enough on your plate.”
“Everybody’s problems are problems,” I say, remembering a passage from a self-help book Charlie had brought home. “It’s how you deal with them that makes the difference.”
“And I seem to deal with them by numbing myself.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “And it’s got its claws in deep this time.”
I swallow away the vivid image of the faceless beast, still unable to understand how its tentacles are able to reach as far and wide, taking prisoners indiscriminately, regardless of their morals, social standing, intellect, or principles.
All the while parading itself under the guise of showing everyone a good time.
Pete, my ex, once told me that nobody trusted a nondrinker. What kind of messed up society do we live in?
“You know what it’s like,” Tess goes on. “To live alongside this demon.”
Funny, that’s what Charlie used to call it, too.
He said there were three people in our marriage: him, me, and the demon.
He promised he would see the interloper off.
That he’d make it his life’s work to beat it down into the ground, where it belonged.
But the more he flogged it, the angrier the monster became.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
She sighs. “It started as a nighttime only thing, then it got earlier and earlier, as I convinced myself I deserved it. I’d finish work early, claiming it was a job well done that deserved a drink.
I’d go to the gym when I really didn’t feel like it and reward myself with a glass of wine.
I’ve even taken to having a drink as a prelude to sex, my mind tricking my body into believing that it could do with the extra confidence. ”
Tess picks up her glass and looks at me, as if silently apologizing.
I can savor the taste as she takes a sip.
Can imagine the acidic sharpness as it hits the back of my throat.
What would it mean to anybody other than me if I joined her for just one?
It would be of little consequence to Tess, who couldn’t be any more disappointed in me than she is herself.
And it’s not as if she’d tell anyone. Although it would be another reason to keep her away from Charlie, who would be beyond devastated that I’d broken the pact we’d made to each other.
But the pull is so great, the unexpectedness of the situation making my fingertips tingle. What would it matter? Who would know? I question myself again, as if asking enough times will eventually garner the answer I want to hear.
“Is it worth it?” I ask.
Tess looks at me over the top of her glass, her eyes alight.
“You don’t want to know” is all she says.
But I do. I want to feel it for myself.
I call the bartender over to our cozy nook, where everyone who has gone before has thought nothing of ordering a little something to wet their whistle. And I wonder why I should be any different, just to please Charlie.
“What can I get you ladies?” asks the mustached man in his jaunty little waistcoat.
“I’ll have another one of these,” says Tess, without a second’s hesitation.
He turns to me. “And for you, madam?”
So many options rush at me, but the simple words are hard to form after being told how dirty they are for the past six months. It’s as if I’ve been brainwashed into not being able to say them out loud, at least not in public, for fear of being vilified.
“Madam?” asks the bartender, wondering what’s taking me so long.
I snatch a glance at Tess, who gives the most imperceptible of nods.