Any Way You Want Me (35 page)

More knocking, louder this time. Go a-bloody-way. My baby is dead, go away. I pulled the quilt over my head. Nobody is in. Get it?

Then a voice. ‘SADIE! Open up!’

My eyelids jerked up and I yanked the quilt away from me. Was I hallucinating with too many painkillers now? That had sounded like . . .

‘SADIE! Answer the door!’

It was. Mark. Oh, no. Bad timing, Mark. I wasn’t fit for seeing him right now. I was so not up for this.

‘SADIE! I know you’re there!’

I swung my legs out of the bed.
Fuffuxy
, as Molly would have said. I knew he wouldn’t go away if I ignored him. He would bang on that door until his knuckles had been ripped apart to cartilage and blood and bone. Oh, and then cue Alex returning from the shops, of course.
All right, mate? What are you doing here?

And Mark would say . . .

I pulled on my dressing gown and managed to get down the stairs somehow, although my legs were so wobbly they didn’t seem to belong to me any more.

I opened the door, and his mouth literally fell open as he saw me. ‘Jesus Christ. What happened to you?’

I was finding it hard to meet him in the eye. Those blue eyes that the prawn might have inherited. Or not. ‘It’s a bad time, OK? I don’t really want to talk about it.’ I swallowed, feeling out of breath with the effort of speaking to him. I gripped the door frame for support. My baby was dead. ‘Mark, I don’t want to see you any more.’

He took a step towards me and I cringed away from him. ‘But . . . but why?’ he asked. He sounded incredulous. ‘Has Alex found out? Is that why you look so . . .’

I shut my eyes. Go on, check out those swollen eyelids as well, I thought wretchedly. See me at my ugliest and weakest, Mark. That should be enough to put you off having sex with me ever again. ‘Listen, I just . . . I’m not well,’ I said feebly.

‘I saw Alex going off with the kids a few minutes ago,’ he said. ‘And you two were back late last night. What was all that about?’

I pulled my dressing gown tighter around me and frowned as my brain tried to make sense of his words. ‘What do you mean, we were back late last night?’ I asked. ‘How do you know that?’

He was leaning against the door jamb. Somehow he’d managed to get even nearer to the threshold without me noticing. ‘When you didn’t turn up last night, I drove over,’ he said. ‘I was watching the house. I kept phoning and phoning and this woman kept answering. Who was that? A babysitter?’

‘You were watching the house?’ I repeated. My fingers were trembling. I was starting to feel sick. Why had I ever got into this whole mess? This was my punishment now for bad behaviour. First the miscarriage, and now . . .

I didn’t get to think all the way to the end of the sentence, though. Just the word
miscarriage
flashing up in my head again was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Miscarriage. Miscarriage. Miscarriage. My baby had died before it had even had fingers and toes. I was never going to cuddle it, sing to it, pull stupid hats on its head . . .

‘Look, Mark,’ I said, trying not to cry in front of him. I didn’t want him to think I was crying about our relationship when I couldn’t give a stuff about that any more. It was nothing. ‘Please go. If you want, we can meet up when I’m better, and we can talk things through. I owe you that much.’ My teeth were chattering again; I was shivering and light-headed, swaying on my bare feet.

His eyes were savage. ‘You little bitch,’ he said softly.

I reeled as if he’d slapped my face.

‘Do you really think you can end things here and now, on your fucking
doorstep
?’ He spat out the word as if it were poison. ‘I mean so little to you that—

I flinched away from him, half expecting him to slap me for real. ‘Please. Stop.’ I covered my face with my hands; my fingers were shaking. ‘I can’t do this.’ My baby just died, Mark, don’t you realize my baby just—

He grabbed one of my wrists, pulled me roughly over to him. I stumbled on the step, stubbed my toe, fell painfully against him. ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘Don’t fob me off with that.’

I was crying, trying to drag my hand away from him. ‘Get off me,’ I snivelled. There was snot on my face. ‘Please, Mark. I—’

‘What’s going on? Sadie! Are you all right, Sadie?’

Anna. I was faint with relief. Thank God, thank God, oh thank God for Anna. My saviour. She was here at all the right times. And now she was wedged between me and Mark, pulling me inside the house, shutting the front door on him. I leaned against her and sobbed, raw, rasping sobs that hurt my throat. Safe.

For now.

Mark was battering on the door, inches away from us. ‘I mean it, Sadie, you can’t push me away like that,’ he was saying. ‘Wait till I tell Alex what you’ve been doing. Wait till I—’

‘Go and fuck yourself,’ Anna shouted through the letterbox. ‘Before I call the police.’

Over the sound of my sobs and sniffs, we heard his footsteps retreating, and then a car engine start up and drive down the road. He had gone.

Less than a minute later, Alex was back with the kids and bags of shopping. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ he said crossly, when he saw me tear-stained and white-faced in the kitchen.

‘My fault, sorry,’ Anna said easily. ‘Jamie’s looking after the kids this morning so I popped over with some flowers. Just arrived, just leaving, don’t worry.’ She hugged me, and I looked up in surprise. Flowers. I hadn’t even noticed she’d brought them, cellophane-wrapped tulips on the dresser. ‘I won’t stay. I can see you’re wiped out, Sadie.’ She kissed my cheek, and new tears rolled silently down my face. ‘You look after yourself, my love. Give me a call when you’re up to a chat.’

Wonderful Anna. She had saved me again. I nodded and tried to smile at her, and then she had gone.

‘Back to bed at once,’ Alex ordered. ‘No, don’t get up. Let me take you.’

He carried me up the stairs, not making a single joke about enrolling me for WeightWatchers classes, or breaking his back and needing to be in traction for a year. He laid me gently on the bed and pulled the duvet over my body. ‘Now sleep,’ he instructed. ‘And then, when you wake up, I’ll show you the treats I’ve got you.’

When he’d gone, more tears fell at the very thought that I could ever have betrayed him, good, kind Alex.
Wait till I tell Alex what you’ve been doing!

Mark had been right: I was a bitch. A little bitch. I was the most ungrateful bitch alive, and I deserved everything I got. Although if anyone was going to tell Alex just what a bitch I’d been, he should at least hear it from me, straight from the bitch’s mouth.

I was going to have to tell him. I was going to have to break his heart.

That night, when the kids had gone to bed, Alex came up with two dinner trays for us. He switched off the telly, lit a few candles around the room, and got under the duvet with me.

‘There,’ he said. ‘A little sneak preview of what we’ll be doing in thirty years’ time.’

‘What, eating off trays, in bed?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, shovelling in a forkful of pasta. ‘You know, when the kids have packed us off to an old people’s home because they can’t stand us any more.’ He shrugged. ‘Something to look forward to, anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Cheers for that. You really know how to cheer a gal up, Alex.’

‘You wait,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I always tell you I’m right about everything?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Once or twice.’

‘Actually,’ he said, looking shifty all of a sudden, ‘actually, there is something that might cheer you up.’ He coughed. ‘Or, at least, I hope it will. If I don’t balls this up by picking a completely inappropriate time to be asking you, I mean.’

I stared at him. He was fiddling around with his garlic bread and looking acutely embarrassed. Alex just didn’t
do
embarrassed. Which meant that this had to be something really big. Oh, Christ. Was he going to . . .?

‘What I’m trying to say is,’ he started, and then stopped. ‘No. Hang on. I want to do this properly. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. About us. Good times and bad, and how much you mean to me. And what I’m trying to ask you is—’

‘Don’t,’ I said in alarm. His face swung round to mine. Now he looked alarmed, too. ‘Don’t ask me. I mean, obviously I don’t know what you’re going to ask, but perhaps this
is
an inappropriate time.’

Alex’s expression turned from alarm to dismay to something resembling relief. Off the hook for the time being, mate. ‘Right,’ he said.

‘I mean . . .’ Had he really been about to propose to me? I had never seen him look so uncomfortable in his life. Much as I’d longed for him to pop that bloody question for years and years, I could not sit there and listen to him do it, while I was planning to knife him with my betrayal, moments later. ‘I mean, we’ve just been through a really horrible thing. We’re still going through it. And I . . . I . . .’

He put his knife and fork down, and rubbed my back. ‘I know. You’re right.’ He elbowed me in a jokey way. ‘I suppose I’ll have to ask the doctor instead.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, I was just going to ask how long you need to wait after a miscarriage before having sex again, that’s all, but . . .’

I laughed. I really did. I laughed out loud. ‘You tosser,’ I said. Then I started to cry again.

‘Oh, no,’ he said in consternation. ‘Oh God, sorry. That was so insensitive of me. I’m sorry, Sade. I’m such a prick, aren’t I?’

‘No,’ I sobbed. ‘I’m not crying about that. I thought that was f-f-funny. I’m crying because you’re
not
a prick. Or a tosser.’ I snatched up a wedge of tissues and blew my nose. ‘I’m crying because I don’t deserve you. You’re too good for me, Alex.’

He looked utterly gobsmacked, as if I’d just told him I had been a secret Man United fan for years. ‘What?’

‘I don’t deserve you.’ I wiped my eyes, and looked at him. Time to come out with it – bludgeon him with the truth before Mark had a chance to do it for me. Oh God. The moment I’d been dreading.

I took a deep breath. ‘I am so sorry for what I’m about to say. You’re going to hate me and I don’t blame you.’ I flinched under the confused squint of his eyes. Christ, I could hardly bear to say the words to him. How on earth was he going to look when I’d told him? ‘I . . . I had an affair. But it’s over now.’

His body jerked at the words, and his fork went skidding off his plate. ‘You what? You had an affair?’

I nodded. It was so hard to do this to him. If anybody else had caused him to look quite as stricken and battered, I would have hated them for it. ‘Yes,’ I said. My voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘I did. And I really regret it. And I’m so very, very—’

‘An
affair
?’

‘Yes.’

‘You had an affair?’ He had been looking at me, but he suddenly wrenched his head away as if he couldn’t bear the sight of my face any more. He pushed himself away from me and sent his tray of food sliding off the edge of the bed and crashing down to the carpet. ‘When? And who with? And
why?
Why, Sadie?’

It felt like we were acting out a scene from a TV drama. Right, OK, so this is the bit where I tell you about the affair, yeah, and you go mad and . . .

Only we weren’t acting. It was really happening in our bedroom, the room where we slept and made love. The room where our son had been born only six months before. It was happening right now, a moment neither of us would ever be able to forget. I had spoiled both of our lives now.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I had to tell him whatever he wanted to know. ‘For the last month or so,’ I said. ‘With Mark. Julia’s husband, Mark.’

‘With
Mark
? That posh twat we . . .?’ His voice was shaking and he banged his fist down on the bed. ‘Oh God. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that you and Mark . . .’ He looked at me then and his eyes were swimming with tears. ‘Tell me it’s a joke. Please, Sadie, tell me this is a joke.’

I couldn’t bear that I had hurt him so much. I wished I could retract it, tell him yeah, it’s only a joke, don’t worry. As if I’d go off with ‘that posh twat’ anyway!

‘It’s not a joke,’ I said miserably, hating myself.
You little bitch, Sadie. You little bitch.

He was scrambling away from me, out of the bed, backing across the floor. ‘I don’t want to be near you,’ he said. ‘You . . . I don’t want to know. I’m going.’

‘Going?’ I echoed. ‘What do you mean, going? Can’t we talk about this?’

‘No,’ he said. He was at the door. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I need to go and think. I can’t stand to look at you any more.’

I tried to go after him but my head was spinning as I got up. ‘Please,’ I said desperately, one hand at my temple, the other clutching on to the bed for support. ‘Please don’t go, Alex. I’m so sorry. I love you.’

He stared at me, as I swayed there pathetically in my pyjamas. ‘Was it his?’ he said hoarsely. ‘The baby. Was it his?’

‘No!’ I went towards him. ‘Please let’s talk about this. Please. I . . .’

The door banged shut. I heard him thud down the stairs. The front door crashed behind him.

I heaved up one of the sash windows, leaned out over the road. ‘Alex, come back. I’m sorry!’ I wailed.

He ignored me. He was at the car, opening the door, sliding into the seat. Then the engine started, the lights clicked on. He drove away.

I had told him. I had finally told him the truth – and it had wrecked everything. From having a partner, a lover and a new baby inside me, I’d been left empty-handed. The eternal quadrilateral had become me, Sadie, on my own. The joke was on me. What sort of a fool was I to have lost everything?

I stood at the window staring out at the quiet street. Alex had left me. He’d been so devastated, he had left me. The shock and hurt in his eyes had been the worst kind of punishment. I couldn’t see any way this was ever going to work itself out. And what the hell was I going to tell the children in the morning?

I didn’t think I would sleep, but the painkillers the hospital had given me were so full-on, they knocked me into a stream of terrifying dreams. Then, the second I woke up the following day to Nathan’s lusty yells from the next room, I felt the empty space next to me in the bed, and my heart sank. Alex had been out all night. He hadn’t come back or phoned. He must really, really hate me.