Another Love (22 page)

‘Mum!’ The sweet, angelic voice rang out from the kitchen, where breakfast was in full swing, the
Today
programme burbled in the background and the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the air.

Romilly stood rooted to the spot, running her hand through her hair and smiling, powerfully aware of the pungent scent of sex, sweat and booze that lingered around her. Her lip trembled as she rallied her thoughts.
No time for tears. Keep it together.

Celeste was in her school uniform. She raced out of the kitchen and skidded to a stop on the Italian floor tiles, placing her small hand on the wall. ‘Is Aunty Sara still in the hospital?’

‘The hospital?’ Romilly coughed. Her voice was creaky, unused.

‘Yes.’ David’s voice boomed from the doorway. He blotted his mouth with a white cotton napkin. His eyes were blazing, gleaming chips of flint in their centres. His face was grey with fatigue and there were two high spots of colour on his cheeks. ‘Where you have been all night,’ he spat. ‘Sitting with her after her fall.’ His stare never left her face, angry but imploring.

‘Oh, yes.’ She nodded.

‘What happened to your neck, Mummy?’ Celeste touched her own as if to add clarity to the question.

Turning, Romilly lifted her fingers to her neck and faced the oversized gilt mirror. Her legs threatened to fold beneath her and a sob left her throat as she stared at her reflection. The right side of her neck was a mass of ugly, raised, purple and red love bites.

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. This was the horrible truth.

‘Did
you
fall over when Aunty Sara did?’ Celeste whispered too.

She couldn’t stop the hot tears that ran from her eyes, snaking rivers that left clear tracks as they cut across her grimy skin. Her daughter pushed forward and buried her face in her mother’s jeans. Romilly placed her hand over her little girl’s mousey-brown hair, unable to meet her husband’s gaze. There was only one thought that reverberated inside her head, the fact that only millimetres of cotton separated her darling girl’s face from the stain of sex left by a nameless stranger.

I came down the stairs one day just before lunch and the front door was open. I popped my head out to see if Mum had gone to the car or was putting the bin out; she didn’t know I was there. I gripped the side of the door and peeked with one eye. She was still in her pyjamas and her head was hanging forward, she looked a little floppy and still half asleep. I saw her crouch down by the recycling bins and lift out the empty bottles. She picked up a red wine bottle and held it up to her mouth, tipping it higher and higher until maybe a drop or two found their way into her mouth. She threw it onto the grass and kept rummaging, sorting and didn’t seem to care that the bottles were wet with rain and the odd twig. I was fascinated and frightened at the same time. I watched her dive forward as if she’d struck gold and I guess she had, an old gin bottle. She couldn’t get the lid off quick enough and clutched at the green glass, like it was the most precious thing. This too she tipped until it was vertical, her mouth hanging open, hoping for a trickle, a drip, anything, I watched her shake it up and down, not willing to admit that it was empty. She then stared at the lid and brought that to her mouth. I saw her tongue dart out and work around the inside. It was horrible. I have never seen anyone so desperate, so unaware of what else was going on around them than my mum at that moment when all she wanted, actually no, all she needed, was a whiff of booze because even that was better than no booze at all. And then she caught my eye and I heard her mutter ‘
fucking nuisance’
under her breath. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes. Guilt, shame, and something like anger. It was the first time I remember her swearing at me.

With her hair still damp from her bath and a foul hangover dulling her senses, she pulled her jersey sleeves down over her shaking hands and rested them on the kitchen table to try and steady them a little. A strategically knotted pale pink pashmina covered her neck. The house was very quiet.

‘Where’s Celeste?’ she whispered.

‘She’s staying at Amelia’s house. Amelia’s mum took her home with her straight from school, she seems very nice.’

Romilly nodded. Even that small movement hurt her head. She had spent over an hour in a hot bath, trying to scrub away the dirty feeling that clung to her like a new skin, scratching at her scalp until it hurt and lathering herself until a layer of grey scum floated on the water. She lay there long after the bath had turned tepid and could have stayed there all day, locked away with her shame and her distress, trying to make sense of what had happened and how. The hardest part was that she had no one to blame but herself. It had been a relapse of the worst possible kind. She had no memory, none after leaving the house to go and meet Sara and then waking up that morning…
Oh God! Oh no!
Every time she pictured the second she’d opened her eyes she wanted to vomit and her body shuddered involuntarily.

‘I don’t know if you’re hungry?’ she asked, softly.

He shook his head, his tongue resting on his top lip as though he was deep in thought.

‘I think there might be some cheese and crackers if you—’

David spun round and yanked open the kitchen cupboard with such force that it slammed back shut. The second time he pulled at the handle, he elbowed it open to make sure as his hands plunged inside. Romilly shrank back in her seat as he started grabbing at the plates, flinging them with gusto onto the ceramic floor tiles. They shattered, instantly and loudly. Fragments and shards flew up around him.

Romilly was shocked; she pulled her bare feet up onto the chair and knotted her arms around her shins, watching wide eyed and with sagging shoulders as he went back for more. His face bore an expression that was new to her. His mouth was set in a snarl. When all the plates were smashed, he started on the cups and saucers. When the cupboard was empty, he collected the two glass tumblers that languished on the drainer with remnants of orange juice lurking at the bottom and hurled these too onto the floor. He then leant on the sink and took deep breaths through his nose, exhausted by his efforts. His fingers were coiled into fists and his arm muscles corded with tension.

‘Have you looked in the mirror?’ His voice had an edge to it that she hadn’t ever heard before.

She didn’t know whether to answer, so instead she just shook her head slightly.

Without saying anything else, he sidestepped the broken mass on the floor and grabbed the top of her arm, pulling her from the seat. She managed to find her footing just in time, as he half lifted, half dragged her to the large mirror in the hallway. He pulled the pashmina from her neck and let it fall to the floor. Holding her shoulders, he thrust her close to the glass.

‘Look,’ he hissed. ‘Look at yourself!’

Romilly squinted and took in her hair, limp and plastered to her head where she hadn’t washed out the shampoo and conditioner properly. Her skin had a pale, almost bluish tinge and the side of her neck bulged with numerous bloodied, plumped crescents the colour of blackberries, the sight of which made her feel sick all over again.

‘D… David, I—’

‘No!’ he shouted. ‘You don’t get to speak. You only get to listen.’

He dragged her by the arm back into the kitchen and pushed her towards the table. The broken china cracked under his brogues, making a sickening crunch that sounded like bones.

‘It’s only ever been you, Romilly, despite what you think and despite what you’ve worried about. Only ever you. My friends thought I was nuts, did I ever tell you that?’

She stared at him, again unsure if he wanted an answer, afraid of doing the wrong thing.

He continued, facing her with his chest heaving and his arms folded across his torso, as though he was holding himself together. ‘Do you remember the first time I took you to meet them?’ His bottom lip shook, as he and Romilly both pictured that evening when they’d been first-year university students and the world was their oyster.

‘So, Rom, let me introduce you to everyone.’ David had grabbed her by the hand and pulled her over to the table in the pub garden. Channings was a popular haunt; they usually had at least one drink there, either on the way out or on the way home.

Romilly had stood and stared at the benches crammed with unfamiliar faces: four boys and two girls who all seemed to know each other. The girls were sitting together and wore matching floral headbands, indicating that they were mates, in a special club whose members coordinated if not their outfits then at least their accessories. She’d felt her cheeks flame and knew it wouldn’t take much to make her cry; her nervous tears fluttered in her chest like an anxious bird, one she wished would take flight.

The evening passed in a bit of a blur. She was conscious of David’s friends asking politely about her course and her plans for the coming year, but with every round of drinks that arrived at their table, her concentration strayed further and her posture became more slumped. If the anxious bird in her chest hadn’t flown from its cage, it was certainly asleep. It was Romilly who suggested they start the drinking games, banging her glass on the table and shouting over the others, ‘Fuzzy Duck! Come on! Don’t be so boring. Fuzzy Duck! Fuzzy Duck!’

As David had taken her by the hand to lead her from the table at closing time, she had duly waved and blown kisses to everyone, apart from the two girls, whom she christened, loudly, ‘the groovy headband twins!’ before laughing raucously. David had turned to his mates and mouthed ‘Sorry!’ as he tipped an imaginary glass up to his mouth to show she’d had one over the eight, not that any of them needed to be told.

He took another step and the crockery made a sickening crack.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ He cocked his head to one side.

‘I… I said I’m sorry,’ she whispered again.

‘I’m not sure if you’re apologising for that night, or for every fucking night since when you’ve made a fool out of me and embarrassed yourself! Or maybe you’re sorry about last night, when you effectively put the final nail in the coffin of our marriage? Because that’s what you did. How do we come back from that? How do we? You tell me, cos I don’t fucking know. I don’t…’

He turned and kicked at the smashed crockery. Swivelling back to face her with eyes bright, he drew breath. He wasn’t finished. ‘I know, let me throw a few names at you and let’s see if you can tell me what they all have in common. Okay?’

She gave a small nod, too nervous not to play his game.

‘Right, here we go.’ He coughed to clear his throat and poked out his thumb. ‘Marnie and Jack.’ And then his index finger. ‘Mikey and Anna.’ Then his middle finger. ‘Jo and Liam.’ And then his next. ‘Adam and Fi.’ And the next. ‘Charlotte and Jay, Simon and Bridey, Jerry, Fiona M… Are these names ringing any bells for you, Rom?’ He leant forward. ‘Tyler and Rowena. Mags. I nearly forgot about Mags!’ He held up his outstretched fingers as if they had puppets on them and walked forward with tears glinting in his eyes. ‘I could go on, but I’ve run out of fingers!’ He gave an unnatural chuckle. ‘Go on, have a guess.’

‘They… they’re our friends.’ Her voice quivered.

‘Wrong!’ he shouted loudly, then slapped the table, hard. It made her jump. ‘They
used
to be our friends. Big difference. And do you know why they aren’t our friends any more? Do you?’

She shook her head.

‘Come on, Rom, have a guess.’ His fake smiley tone was just as unnerving as when he shouted.

She shook her head again.

‘No? Well then, let me help you. It’s because of you. Because of you and your drinking. Still don’t know what I’m talking about? I know, here’s a new game, it’s called match the event with the couple. Are you ready?’

She stared at him, as nerves rendered her silent.

‘So, whose wedding did you wet yourself at and tell the groom’s mother to fuck off? Want another? Whose birthday did you ruin by getting so hammered that you screamed and shouted songs in the restaurant so loudly and out of control that they asked the whole party to leave? Whose child did you fall on during their summer picnic? Whose wife did you inform that you’d seen him shagging her friend at university, four years before they met? At whose toddler’s birthday party did you use the C-word, making the boy’s ninety-four-year-old grandma cry, actually cry? Shall I go on?’ His voice broke away in sobs as he folded forward, the strength finally leaving him.

‘All these people…’ He swallowed. ‘All these people that made up our life. Our friends! One by one, you’ve driven them all away because you drink too much. You drink too much!’ he shouted, wiping his nose and his tears. ‘And I should have said it a long time ago, but I’ve covered for you, made excuses for you, lied for you! Because I loved you.’ He shook his head and leant forward on the table. ‘But I can’t do it any more. I can’t. I won’t.’

David stood up straight, took a deep breath and looked at his wife. ‘It ends now. It ends. I haven’t wanted to see the truth; I’ve chosen you over everyone, over every person who has told me that you are toxic, that you have a problem. I’ve dropped them and stuck by your side, for your sake and for the sake of our little girl. But enough is enough. This morning it was as if the filter fell from my eyes and I saw what everyone else sees. And I am done.’ He raised his palms and let them fall by his sides.

‘Please! David! I—’

‘Stop, just stop.’ He shook his head, disgusted. ‘It’s too late for that. There is nothing that you can say and there is nothing I want to hear. It’s done.’

Turning on his heel, he scrunched his way over the broken china, walked out into the hallway and closed the front door behind him.

Romilly shivered as she stared at the pile on the floor. She remembered sitting in John Lewis holding a side plate in each hand, trying to choose between two patterns, one edged with a delicate double silver line and the other with a tiny bird and leaf pattern in relief. ‘You really don’t care, do you?’ he’d observed and she’d shaken her head. ‘Plates is plates.’