Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers (17 page)

She returned with a tray and put it down on the coffee table before sitting down herself. She poured the tea and handed me a cup.

Smiling at me she said, ‘I know about your writing. I read the first two and I must say I really enjoyed them.'

Thanking her, I suppressed the urge to ask why, if she had enjoyed the first two so much, she had not read the others, saying instead, ‘Bridget didn't tell me much about what you were doing other than that you were blissfully happy, which sounds pretty satisfactory.' My voice trailed off as Leonora's smiling face assumed a peculiar look. Had I said something wrong? Should I know what she did? Maybe Bridget had told me or maybe she was well known in her field. ‘I mean what better achievement than a happy marriage,' I said. ‘I might have done OK professionally, but my personal life …'

At this point Leonora burst into tears.

‘Is this some cruel joke? You were always a little different but never cruel.' She fished out a tissue from a pocket and
dabbed at her eyes. ‘I know I shouldn't have told Lance Cooper that you were too intense for him but goodness, Rebecca, it was a long time ago.'

‘What are you talking about?'

Leonora had stopped sobbing and now she cleared her throat and poured herself some more tea.

‘Coming here after all these years, tormenting me about my “happy marriage”.'

‘What do you mean I'm tormenting you? It seemed like such a good idea: seeing you again after all this time
and
getting another recipe for Zoe's book. Didn't Bridget tell you?'

‘Bridget left a message on my answerphone saying you were doing research for your book and would call, that was all. She didn't say anything about a cookery book.'

I leant forward and took Leonora's hands in mine. The right one still clutched the damp tissue.

‘We'd better start again. What's going on?'

‘I'll make a fresh pot,' Leonora got to her feet.

Left on my own I looked around the room. I should have noticed right away how it bore obvious signs of upheaval. The large Chinese vase in the window alcove had been one of a pair; I remembered them from her childhood home. Above the upright piano a small watercolour landscape was trying in vain to fill the space left by a much larger frame, the outline of which could be clearly seen picked out in a paler shade of cream untouched by London grime. There were other such virgin spaces where only an empty picture hook was left in the pale expanse. Leonora had been sitting in what was, in fact, a desk chair, and the chair opposite looked like an upmarket deckchair. At first I had thought it simply a fashionable piece
of furniture, I had seen something very like it at Liberty's the other day, but on closer inspection I saw it really was just a garden chair.

Leonora returned to see me studying the room.

‘Division of the spoils,' she said. ‘It's what happens at the end of a war and as in all wars everyone ends up the poorer.'

The worst thing, the thing I mind the most, is that I've lost my best friend. God, I feel so
unoriginal;
I mean my husband running off with his assistant. Trust Matthew and me to be conventional right until the bitter end.

I think I realised something was seriously wrong when he used the sat nav to drive back home from my mother's. I was talking to him, and he put his finger out – I noticed how, well,
sausagey
his fingers had become lately – and he pressed the button and punched in the route. That ridiculous computer voice came on: ‘Your route of twelve miles will take you on main roads and local roads. Turn left …'

‘Why do you need that thing?' I asked him. ‘You know where you're going. You've done this route a thousand times, at least.'

And he turned to me and I'll never forget the expression in his eyes; he looked like that vile little boy Giles Hardy when he dangled my gerbil over the balcony rail.

‘Because she is more interesting than you,' he said. ‘She can navigate
and
she shuts up when she's got nothing to say.'

Mercifully the children were plugged into their iPods. Matthew and I had always prided ourselves on keeping a civil tone between us at all times. We had our disagreements
of course, but we didn't ever see the need to descend into insults and rudeness. Well, not until then anyway.

Supper was awful. I felt a real sense of doom as I went through the motions of serving up, telling the children off for squabbling and making normal-seeming conversation. Once they were in bed I confronted him. I told him, in a calm and grown-up way, how hurt I was by his behaviour and that, now we were talking about it, I felt he had been rather off with me for some time. I reminded him of how much value we both placed on respect and good manners. I even told him, which I had sworn I wouldn't, that two of my girlfriends had said that they felt he'd been picking on me lately.

While I spoke he just sat there, leaning back in his chair looking at me as if I were a snail about to attack his hostas.

‘Have you nothing to say to me?'

‘No.'

‘But we're talking.'

‘You're talking. I'm waiting for you to finish so I can go and watch the news.'

I felt as if I were dreaming: you know, one of those quiet nightmares; no blood and guts, no being chased or beheaded, but the kind where at first everything is quite normal and then slowly your world begins to shift and change until friends have turned into enemies, your dog bites and the plants on your kitchen windowsill have all withered and died.

That's when I started to cry and the pathetic thing was that I still expected him to come over to me and put his arms round me. But he just sat there looking bored, glancing sideways at the newspaper next to him on the sofa. By now I knew I was getting hysterical; I was crying so hard I couldn't see. Then, at last, I heard him get up. I
covered my face with my hands, embarrassed by what I knew I must be looking like, all puffy and snotty, with make-up running down my cheeks. Some women manage to cry prettily but I was never one of them. I waited for his touch on my shoulders, his voice saying something kind but there was nothing. He'd got up to fetch the remote. Next I heard the television being switched on for the ten o'clock news.

That was too much for me. I ran up to him, screaming I don't know what, until my throat hurt. And he just sat there looking bored and then turned the sound up. If you had looked in from outside you would have thought you'd caught us in different time zones. There I was, crying, yelling, waving my arms around. And there he was, reclining on the sofa watching the news.

I felt like a wasp in a jar.

‘Get out, do you hear?' I screamed. ‘Go. Leave.'

He stood up in this really leisurely way and switched off the TV.

‘Fine,' he said. ‘I shall.'

I followed him up to the bedroom and, when he pulled his duffel bag down from the top of the wardrobe, I started to beg. I said I was sorry and that I didn't want him to leave. He just got on with his packing, getting out his boxers and socks, things I had picked out for him, things I had washed and put away neatly in his drawers, and then he paused in front of the wardrobe as if pondering which shirts to pack. I stopped begging and crying then. Instead I sat down on the bed, quite calm all of a sudden, thinking, how can I get this runaway train to stop? No more games, I told myself. This is deadly serious.

‘You can't go,' I said finally, as he zipped up his bag, the sound like the very fabric of my life ripping.

‘Yes, I can.' He picked up the bag, slinging it over his shoulders like a boy off on an adventure.

‘Wait.'

He paused in the doorway.

‘Yes?'

‘What about the children? What shall I tell them?'

He thought for a moment before saying, ‘Tell them I've had to go away for a few days. That'll do until we've had a chance to work out the arrangements.'

‘What do you mean
arrangements
?' I followed him down the stairs and into the hallway, pushing past him and barring his way to the front door. ‘Why are you doing this?'

‘You told me to.'

I couldn't help it but I raised my voice again.

‘You never bloody do what I tell you so why do you have to now?'

He put his bag down and I closed my eyes with relief.

‘I've been wanting out for some time.'

I snapped my eyes open.

‘What did you say?'

He sighed.

‘I said I've been wanting out for some time.' He glanced at his watch.

‘My God, you're bored.' And I sank down on the floor.

How had this happened? The man who had once stood with me in front of the altar – in a morning suit that was slightly too large as if his mother had got it for him to grow into – swearing eternal love, the man who had looked at me as if I were a Ferrari gift-wrapped in a
Playboy
magazine was
now watching me as I whimpered at his feet and he was
bored
.

‘I've met someone,' he said. Then he smiled,
smiled
. ‘I'm in love.'

I laboured to my feet like an old woman with arthritic knees.

‘You've met someone? You're in love?'

‘Mandy is fun.' He said her name as if it tasted of honey.

‘Mandy.' To me it tasted of charcoal.

He looked down at me and his smile was almost kind.

‘Do you remember fun, Leonora?'

‘I remember fun.' I grabbed hold of his lapels. ‘I thought we were having fun.'

He looked down at my hands still holding on to his jacket and his gaze held a hint of distaste.

I dropped my hands.

‘I thought
we
had fun,' I repeated, but my voice barely carried.

‘It might have been fun for you, Leonora, but not for me. In fact, it hasn't been fun for a long time. Mandy' – there was that faint pause again while he tasted each letter of her name – ‘she's interested in everything. She's interested in
me
. Think about it, Leonora, when was the last time you actually asked me about me?' His voice had assumed a whiney note. ‘With you it's either the kids or the hot-water tank or your mother or the bloody cats.'

I looked up.

‘The kids? Of course I talk about the kids. They're ours. They're the most important thing we have. Don't you like talking about them? Don't you like coming home and being filled in on all the stuff that's been happening in their lives?'

‘Of course I do. But not to the exclusion of everything else. When we first met you were a really interesting person to talk to. You were full of plans and enthusiasm for life, life outside our own tiny little world. But these days – God forbid I should suggest we go off on holiday, just the two of us. Even when I try to do something really nice, like for your fortieth, you manage to turn everything into a problem. You would have thought that a safari in Tanzania would be considered quite a treat but not for you, oh no. For weeks before we left you talked, not about what we might do and see on our trip but whether or not your mother really was capable of judging whether the twins were actually unwell or just faking it before double maths. And were we being mean not taking them, especially as Andrew was so keen on animals. God, you never bloody stopped.' He arranged his face in a look I think he felt was mine and made his voice all mimsy: ‘“Maybe we should have booked separate flights? I mean if there's an accident they've lost us both.” “Do you think Mother will remember to double-lock at night? What if we have an accident out there? What if we need a blood transfusion? We could get infected.” Jesus, Leonora, what happened to you?'

Suddenly I felt angry and as I got angry I grew calmer.

‘What happened? Well, let me see. We decided to have children. We had Andrew and two years later we had the twins.
You
suggested I give up work as we were paying the nanny almost half our combined earnings. And I, silly trusting fool that I was, agreed although I was actually further on in my career than you were. I pushed prams and put plasters on scraped knees. I sewed in nametapes and grew increasingly proficient at maths as I helped them with their homework. I cooked and I cleaned and I cheered on the sidelines and put
ribbons in glossy ponytails. I wrapped parcels and booked magicians, I walked in the park. I listened and I admonished and I praised. Yes, that's what happened: I gave birth to your children and I looked after them.'

Never confront a man with the truth; it makes him run for cover,

‘I don't need to listen to this,' he said, picking up his bag and pushing past me to the door. ‘I'll come round at the weekend to get some more stuff.'

My husband walked out on me and on the way he trampled our past underfoot. I stood there wondering how I could have got it so wrong. All those years I had believed that we were pulling in the same direction: building a home, creating a family. Of course we had had our bad patches, what married couples don't? But mostly it had been good, had it not? And fun. But the fun he was talking about was not the same. He meant free-and-easy fun. Nappy-free fun. The kind of fun you can have when you don't have to express milk every time you go out together for more than two hours, the kind that does not involve being back in time to take the babysitter home. The kind when you can get pissed on Saturday night and lie in on Sunday and then make hangover love. The kind of fun you had when you did not give a damn about anyone or anything but yourselves.

How could he? How could he ignore the happy times? The twins' first day of school, the two of them in their uniforms. They were so filled with the importance of the occasion they might have been taking mass. Christmas morning being woken by excited voices shout-whispering, telling each other to be quiet. Teaching them all to ski. Taking them to dinner
in a proper restaurant for the first time. Had that not been fun? The greatest fun. Apparently not, not for him.