Chapter 37
Benedict
My wife is particularly ghostlike today, wandering about the house like a wan little wraith. Her skin is pale, and no wonder: she’s barely eating.
As long as she refuses to go into work, so do I.
There’s no way I’m leaving her by herself all day so she can spiral to her heart’s content.
She’s ostensibly working out of the study I’ve had set up for her next to the library, but I’m only an hour into answering emails in the breakfast room when she appears in the doorway, looking frail in her now-standard leggings and a baggy cardigan.
‘Can we go for a walk outside? I’d like to talk to you.’
I practically leap out of my seat. Talking is good. It’s very good. ‘Of course, sweetheart. Let’s go get some air.’
This is definitely my favourite time of year.
The rhododendrons may have flared and faded, but the grounds of Belvedere are still fucking fabulous in all their greenery.
The pale pink rambling roses have exploded across the aviary, and the air smells like crack.
This was definitely a good idea. Surely it’s impossible for anyone to feel dejected out here?
I take Slinky’s cold little hand as we stroll and brush my thumb back and forth over her knuckles.
There’s something so vulnerable about the dark smudges under her eyes that it breaks my heart in two.
We may be the same age, but she looks so young, and the usual guilt threatens to engulf me that all of us have crushed her indomitable spirit so revoltingly.
‘What did you want to talk about?’ I say as gently as I can as we walk down the path that leads to the orangery, because she’s been silent since we headed outside.
‘Can we go in?’ she asks. ‘I’m a bit cold.’
It’s a beautiful May day, mild and sunny, but she’s shivering.
‘Sounds good to me,’ I say easily. When we reach the orangery, I pull open the door and usher her through.
It’s far warmer in here. I lead her over to the stone ledge that runs the length of the building and pop her up on a section that’s free from potted geraniums so I can step between her legs and slide my hands along her jaw, tilting her face up.
Her beautiful eyes are darting everywhere except at me. ‘Hey.’
‘Hey.’
‘How’re you doing?’
‘A little better.’ It sounds to me like she’s trying to convince herself, and not very well. ‘I think I’ve gained some clarity over the situation.’
‘Good. That’s great. Are you going to look at me?’ She drags her gaze to meet mine, and the pain I see in her eyes kills me. ‘Jesus Christ, sweetheart, what’s wrong?’
She visibly pulls herself together. ‘Ben,’ she whispers.
‘I’m right here.’
‘I’ve assessed the situation’—she clears her throat—‘and the only feasible conclusion is to let you off the hook.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’ People have been letting me off the hook all my life, if I’m honest, but I don’t want Slinks doing it.
I want her to get angry, properly angry—with me, with Xav, with Ma, with her parents—for treating her like a pawn in this sick, medieval game we’ve all played with her life.
She gives me a tight little smile. ‘I think we should call time on this, don’t you?’
I’m genuinely baffled. ‘Call time on what?’ My first thought is that she means the press cycle. Does she want to speak out? Make a statement? Put an end to all the bullshit speculation, once and for all?
My hands are still cradling her jaw, and she jerks her head away from my touch. ‘On this marriage,’ she practically snaps. ‘So please don’t touch me, or I won’t be able to get this off my chest.’
I stagger back a step, stunned beyond belief. ‘What?’
She tilts her chin up. ‘You heard me.’ It’s the first glimpse I’ve seen of Old Selena in weeks, but I don’t like it. I don’t like it one little bit. And I don’t know what the fuck is going on with her, but I’m feeling blindsided here, and I won’t stand for it.
‘Nobody is calling time on this marriage. What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Don’t look at me like that, Ben. I swear.’ Her chin, still in its determined little lift, quivers. ‘My intention is to make this easy for you. You don’t have to stay.’
‘Slinks, where the utter hell is this coming from?’ I blow out an exasperated breath. ‘I know I don’t have to stay. I want to stay. You’re my wife.’
‘I know, but I’m giving you an out,’ she explains patiently.
‘An out. And why is that, exactly?’
For a moment, she doesn’t say anything, just stares up at me, her hazel eyes doing all the talking for her as they fill with their burden of unshed tears. And then she speaks. ‘Because I’ve got nothing to offer you. Why would you stay when I have nothing to offer you?’
My wife is talking. I understand that much.
She’s talking about all sorts of things, like ledgers and KPIs and asset value, with great intensity.
She’s speaking the language of logic and business and cold, hard facts, but all I care about is that she seems to be using all this jargon to argue two main points: that she has no ‘value’, and that she should therefore ‘set me free’.
Both are equally chilling. Not chilling—deluded. Downright horrifying.
She appears to be arguing the case for me—me—having been the victim of some sort of ‘fraudulent takeover’, where I was enticed by a carefully constructed ‘package’ that, it turns out, is ‘pretty worthless’.
Please note that all terms in inverted commas are the actual terms that Slinky is bandying about.
The terrifying thing is that she actually sounds half rational.
I’m sure it’s all rational if you believe the underlying assumptions, but the underlying assumptions are, of course, absolute fucking bullshit, and I could cheerfully wring her parents’ necks for imbuing her with these insane beliefs about her lack of intrinsic value.
My beautiful wife, with tears now cascading freely down her cheeks, is treating me to an MBA-type rundown of our marriage, where she’s basically tallied up her assets and has, apparently, found the ‘balance sheet’ (her, if you will) to be empty.
That’s right.
She is conflating her self-worth with a stripped fucking balance sheet.
I press my lips together grimly as I give her a few more moments to get whatever the hell this is off her chest, to rattle through this pitch, where divorce is the matrimonial equivalent to dissolving a bad transaction made in good faith.
I mean, it’s probably not a bad analogy for some couples, but she and I are not some couples. And I can’t take this crap anymore.
When she pauses for breath, I step back in closer to her. ‘Slinks. Slinks. Stop it.’ I grip her shoulders, not aggressively, but in an attempt to ground her or at least snap her out of it.
‘I’m sorry to say this pitch of yours has two massive flaws,’ I tell her.
I’ve been trying to give her space, trying to pussyfoot around her and not come on too strong, but that stops now.
I need to talk some sense into her, and quick.
I need to supplant whatever fucked-up narrative this is with some actual truth.
‘What flaws?’ she asks, curling both her hands into fists and attempting to wipe away her tears. It’s a piteous, childlike gesture, and it slays me.
‘One,’ I say, ‘not one of those factors you’ve just thrown at me is a measure of your actual value to me.
Not one.’ I pause to let that sink in. ‘And two, I love you, sweetheart. I’m madly in love with you, and I know I should have said it before now, but Jesus Christ. Can’t you tell I’m fucking crazy about you? ’
For a moment, her brows knit together with something that looks like wonder, as if she genuinely wants to believe my words, before her expression darkens.
‘I think you were into the version of me that you couldn’t have, yes, but not the real me.
It’s not like I ever let you see her until I fell apart in spectacular style, so—’
Nope. Not having that at all. ‘Bollocks. Yes, I always thought you were hot. I always wanted to bone you. That’s not love.
This is love. I love you. Slinks, Jesus.
’ I scramble to my knees in a panic and look up at her.
I need to fucking make her understand. I’m terrified that she’s turning what is basically a PR crisis into a crisis of our marriage, and I’m kicking myself that I’ve let her spiral this far, that I haven’t been whispering these words in her ear every second of the day for as long as she’s needed to hear them.
Because it’s very clear she’s needed to hear them, and I’ve failed her. And in the absence of my reassurance, she’s constructed this delusional conspiracy theory, and it’s taken root in the most menacing way.
‘You’re very persuasive,’ she says eventually, her voice so low I can barely hear it.
‘You issued that press release, and the whole world bought it. You stood in that wedding marquee and told hundreds of people that you loved me, and everyone ate it up. You were so convincing, and so bloody charming, and I always told myself not to be fooled. How do I know you’re not just saying the right thing now? ’
Shit. I’ve always been a hell of a bullshitter. I pride myself on charming the pants off anyone, and it’s served me equally well with teachers and women and business associates—and now it’s well and truly come to bite me on the arse.