1986 – aged 31 #4
She hated the bloom of tears now, his voice a reminder of what it had felt like to live in that addictive bubble of love and sex and how he had, in so many ways, spoiled her for good.
It was also like stepping back through that portal to a time when she had indeed trusted him implicitly.
Her faith restored, because despite her mother’s best efforts, he had made her believe that love was possible, he had let her dream of a future .
. . Guileless, riven with the exuberance of youth that was a magic elixir!
And of course, at a time when her beloved dad was at home or playing in the orchestra, or working, but around, alive.
There for her with his music playing and the scent of his tobacco surrounding him and his cups of tea and moments of quiet, the man who, according to her mum, had had a bad war.
The man for whom she had a thousand questions that she had left too late to ask.
‘You should have told me.’
‘Told you what?’
Whether his words were grounded in ignorance or flippancy, it was hard to tell. Either way, his question made her teeth clamp together and her jaw flex.
‘Oh, I don’t know, that you preferred your tea weaker, that you can’t swim, maybe given me a good book recommendation?
What do you think? That you had a wife and children at home.
A wife and children!’ She raised her voice and all the toxic hurt she had tamped down over the years came bubbling to the top, leaving her throat feeling like it burned.
‘I didn’t know how.’ His voice was now no more than a hoarse whisper.
‘Yes, because that’s the issue here, that you didn’t know how to tell me, not the fact that you kept them secret at all!
The absolute galling deceit that I unwittingly played a part in.
You turned me into the kind of woman I have always despised.
You’ve heard the names – homewrecker, slut, bit on the side – none of them complimentary!
You said I was na?ve, and it irked me at the time, and it’s done so ever since, unaware I was na?ve to be trusting you, to be giving myself to you!
You had the full set of rules, Wilkie, I didn’t.
I was playing a game without the first clue as to the consequences of losing. ’
‘It was wonderful. Don’t forget that, how wonderful it was.’
‘How dare you!’ She wiped the tears that spilled on to her cheeks, in pain to be reminded of just how wonderful it had been and also how easily he could pull her in with that velvet voice of intent and his charm. It was as upsetting as it was infuriating.
‘It might have been wonderful for those few weeks—’
‘It was, wonderful, intense, beautiful,’ he interrupted.
‘But absolutely shit every day since!’
Good girl . . . count backwards from ten for me . . .
‘How do you know I had a wife, and . . .’ He swallowed, seemingly now, as then, unwilling to bring his children into this.
‘I spoke to Georgina.’ She spoke confidently and hoped he felt as winded as she had on that day so long ago.
‘You . . . you did? When?’ She picked up the underlying note of panic and was thrilled by it, knowing it was no less than he deserved.
‘When I realised you’d run away.’
‘I didn’t run away!’
‘Oh, forgive me – I didn’t realise you called, left a note, sent a letter, went out of your way to explain the situation to me, came to say goodbye?’
She heard him exhale and there was a beat before he spoke.
‘What did you tell her?’
‘Nothing. I told her nothing because she sounded nice and she . . . she is a mum and I felt like the worst kind of person.’
‘She is nice.’ He sniffed – was he crying? It was hard to tell and harder still for her to picture. ‘You’d like her.’
‘I’d like her?’ The words coasted on unnatural laughter; was he for real?
‘Yes, everyone does.’
‘Not you, apparently, Wilkie. At least, you can’t like her enough, because liking someone, loving someone, means not treating them in that way, not lying to them, not hiding things from them, not sleeping with someone else.’
‘You make it sound so straightforward.’
‘Because it is! It really is! It’s so basic, and a prerequisite I would hope, being honest, being open. How could you do that to her? To me?’ She felt winded by the exchange as her adrenaline surged.
‘We met at university, Georgina and I, a long, long time ago.’
‘I don’t know why you think I might be interested.’ How she hated this version of herself, feeling the spark of petty jealousy, when she had no right, not at all.
‘I don’t know what to say that won’t upset you.’ He sighed.
‘Which again begs the question why you called in the first place!’
‘I just wanted to.’
‘Well, if my whole sorry encounter with you taught me one thing, it’s that what we want and what we get are rarely the same thing in life.
You put my heart through a meat grinder and abandoned me.
’ She had chosen a long, long time ago not to confide in him about the baby, knowing it would serve no purpose other than to ladle more misery on to an already sorrowful tale.
‘It was a horrible thing to do and there is nothing you can say or do that will excuse your shoddy behaviour. Nothing.’ She felt a burst of pride to be standing up to him, to be saying all the things she had wanted to over the years, showing him she was no longer cowed or so easily swayed.
‘Georgina and I had been together for so long, it was like we were friends, good friends, and I loved her, I love her, but then—’
‘But then what, Wilkie?’
‘I met you and I fell in love. Not the sedate, predictable, slow love that Georgina and I shared, but a fast, exciting, intoxicating, euphoria-inducing kind of love!’
It was conflicting.
Her heart flexed and her gut bunched. Here he was, confirming what she had longed to be true: the reciprocal nature of their entanglement.
She had not been mad! She had not imagined it!
Yet it sickened her, too, to hear that he could so easily pick up something shiny and new while his wife, Georgina, sat at home with their little children. Children Lilly would never get to have.
It was as exquisite as it was tragic.
‘It was a funny way to show your love, by abandoning me in the way you did, making me think I was crazy.’
‘I can picture it, you and I in the bedroom at Royal Avenue when you said it. You said I love you and I wanted so badly to say it back, to tell you how I felt, to tell you all about my life and to make a plan to abandon it. And it was the most wretched thing in the whole wide world. Knowing I was falling for you and that I had to choose, to hurt you or hurt Georgina and my kids. In the end it was a simple numbers game. Hurt one person or hurt three.’
‘A numbers game?’ She could barely get the words out.
Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . ‘Well, as a mathematician, it must have been an easy equation for you. You were right when you said that I didn’t know you.
What I did know of you was a ruse, a mask, make-believe.
And having had a lot of time to think about everything you did and said, I can confidently state that what I know, I do not like. ’
‘You loved me!’ he pressed.
‘But it wasn’t real. You can’t love someone if you don’t know them, don’t know all of them.’
‘You knew enough.’ He sniffed again. ‘I told you my truth, as far as I was able.’
‘Ah, yes, your truth, I remember those chats. And for years I struggled to make out the difference between the truth and your truth and it turns out the difference is that one is a lie. You’re a liar. You lied to me in all you didn’t say.’
‘I honestly told you my thoughts, my voice, my feelings in the moment. That was all real . . .’
‘Maybe.’
‘I bought you a copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, because I remembered that you’d told me about a previous boyfriend called Rumpelstiltskin.’ She hated the flicker of joy in her chest at being reminded of that moment. ‘I wanted to send it to you but didn’t know what to write in it, wasn’t sure how to—’
‘I have to go,’ she interjected, looking across the street to where Glenda waited to cross.
It spurred her to end the call. ‘You were right about one thing; you are winter, a cold, bleak blanket of darkness that covers all things bright and colourful. For the longest time I struggled under that blanket, could barely take a breath. But not any more. Don’t call me again, Wilkie, not ever. ’
She put the phone back in the cradle and found a smile as her friend walked through the door, two brown paper lunch bags in her hands.
‘Well, all set for tomorrow. They’ll deliver the canapés about five thirty and all we have to do is whip off the clingfilm at the last minute.’ Glenda looked at her. ‘You all right, Lil?’
‘Yes. Just got off the phone with Wilkie.’
‘Wilkie? You’re kidding me!’
‘Nope.’ It was then she cried in earnest, great, gulping tears that tasted a lot like relief. It was done, it was done. No more loose ends, no more wondering.
‘Do you want me to get Norm to beat him up?’
This made her tears turn to laughter, partly at the thought of Norm beating anyone up and that this was Glenda’s first and best suggestion.
‘I don’t think that’s necessary, not now. A lot of water has flowed under a lot of bridges.’ She stole his phrase.
‘Is he still a knob?’ Glenda made her way to the kitchenette and filled the kettle, knowing it was time for a tea.
‘Yep.’ Lilly wiped her eyes, took a breath, and restored her earring. ‘Still a knob.’