The Secrets of Married Women (17 page)

I lied the other day and told her it was. I didn’t think she believed me for a second, given that it came about two minutes after the Comet episode. But if this thing that Rob and I are going through turns out to be just a blip on an otherwise happy landscape, I don’t want my marriage remembered by the bad things I’ve said about it, because they have a way of obliterating the good.

‘Well, I’m not sure it’s exactly back on track,’ I say, knowing the only reason I can’t tell her how un-back on track it is, is that she’ll then know I lied. Then she’ll think things are worse than they even are. ‘Besides, he’s not exactly said come on let’s do it. He knows I’m married.’

‘Boring,’ she sings.

‘No, actually, I like that. If he were all over me it’d put me off. At least he’s got class.’

‘A classy lifeguard.’

‘Don’t take the piss.’

‘Well you initiate it then!’

‘I can’t.’ My eyes suddenly brim with tears. ‘Oh God, Leigh, I don’t know what I’m coming to.’ I plonk down on the bench. She stops drying her legs, looks at me, shocked. ‘I thought all I wanted was to fix my marriage. But now… I don’t know what I want. I’m scared I want something I don’t want to want… Another problem, instead of a solution. Maybe I’m just fed up with the whole concept of being only thirty-five and married all this time. Maybe—like you once told me—a part of me is just burning to go out and make up for all the fun I should have had in my twenties.’
When I was taking life too seriously, and settled down too ahead of my time
. ‘I’m scared that I’m starting to doubt not just my future with Rob, but my past too.’

‘Look Jill,’ she plonks down beside me. ‘I know you love Rob. He’s a great lad. And I’m certainly not going to encourage you to be unfaithful. But you’re my friend. You’re the one I care most about. And you’ve not judged me. So I’m certainly not judging you, no matter what you do. And I can tell you’re unhappy. You’re starting to wear it like bad weather. So if there’s something you badly need to do, do it. Do it, and to hell with guilt. Guilt is only something invented by people who are too scared to do what they really want.’ She looks at me directly. ‘You’re not going to get your life back once it’s over. I’m convinced you don’t have some burning desire to shag around and make up for lost time—because believe me that’s not the fun it sounds. But maybe you were destined to meet this man for a bit of fun to get you through a very hard time in your marriage. Maybe he’s come along to somehow save you.’ She stands up, starts putting things in her bag. ‘But if you’re not going to go for it, then forget about him or you’re just tormenting yourself. Basically,’ she rolls up her leggings. ‘Piss or get off the pot.’

My very ladylike mother used to use that expression all the time.

At home, I lie in the bath and contemplate my menstruating body. My breasts, which always seem bigger this time of the month, spread and float on the water. Little pieces of my endometrium unfurl into the water like sea anemones, which reminds me what the root cause of all this is. Why couldn’t we have been able to have a baby? Weren’t we allowed to change our minds? Maybe it was wrong of us not to actively want children from the moment we were married. But is this some sort of divine punishment—our marriage biting the dust? I will not let it happen.

So why am I swinging? Why does Leigh’s ‘Elastoplast’ solution sound a little appealing? Why do I wrack my brains to make a mental list of all Rob’s flaws and try to make them add up to enough reason for me to cheat? Why does part of me wish I could find out that he were having an affair, so I could have my own in revenge? It’s terrible and it’s shameful and I hate that I feel this but I do and I just can’t help it. If only I were like Wendy: happy and still in love. Or if I can’t be her, why can’t I be Leigh, and just not give a damn? Good girls, they can’t be true to themselves.

In bed I lie awake next to a mound of snoring husband, thinking about marriage and fidelity, temptation and honest friends. But what was it Leigh said? That being with Nick makes her realise she’ll never enjoy sex with Lawrence again. So she did answer my question. The one thing bad about her affair: when the party’s over she’ll feel like she’s going home with the consolation prize.

I smile to myself in some sort of smug satisfaction about my righteous commitment to my flailing marriage. I glance across at Rob’s back, his heaving barrier of shoulders. Then I shut my eyes, slip my hand under my nightie and take the only course of action I’m left with.

‘Something very odd’s happened.’ Wendy’s voice is missing its bubble. I sit on my bed, stuff the phone under my chin while I try to put my socks on. Rob has just come out of the shower with a bath-towel around his waist. ‘You know how Leigh wanted ideas for opening the flagship store at the Metro Centre? Well she’s decided she wants to give away five hundred pound’s worth of merchandise to the first person who comes in the door naked. She thinks half of Newcastle is going to be lined up outside in the buff.’

‘She’s probably right.’

‘Well she wants to invite the national media. She thinks it’s brilliant publicity for the brand. And Clifford happened to ask me my opinion of it.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘So I said well I can certainly see it attracting attention. But I actually have a problem with that on two levels. One: it’s wrong to ridicule people even if they do very stupid things. But two: if this gets on the telly, well, I just don’t think it sends the right signal to the rest of the country about the North East. I mean, I hate it how the few times this region ever gets on the national news they’ll always manage to interview the most toothless, illiterate moron who punctuates everything with ‘man’, ‘why aye’ and ‘like’, and that’s supposed to be representative of people who live up here! It just keeps fuelling those old Andy Cap stereotypes and I get fed up of it. So having a load of silly girls embarrass themselves for a bag of free clothing… I don’t know. I think it’s wrong. And if it were my company, my brand, I’d want to associate it with something with a bit more class than that.’

‘And you told him this?’

‘Well I was a bit less vehement, but yes.’

‘Good God!’ Rob’s doing that thing of dressing where he’ll put his T-shirt on before his underpants so his dangly bits hang there. I used to find it comical. Today it annoys me. ‘So what did he say?’

‘He completely agreed. He really latched onto the point about class.’

‘Well that’s good then!’

‘No it’s not. Because five minutes before that he thought Leigh’s idea was the best one since sliced bread. In fact he thought it was so good that he actually thought it was his idea. And now that he loathes it, he’s coming down very hard on Leigh for ‘leading the brand astray’. And she’s mad and seems to think it’s all my fault.’

Tits up. I tell you I predicted it. Never work for friends. ‘Well what did she say?’

‘She just looked at me like she actually might kill me. Then she said, “Well just because ONE PERSON has no sense of humour…” So I suppose that meant me. Then they had this massive fight. The production manager was on his way in the door and just rolled his eyes and crept away.’ She takes another deep breath. ‘Jill, what do I do?’

‘Nothing, I’m sure it’s over with now. Leigh doesn’t hold grudges.’

‘Doesn’t she? Yesterday morning when I went in, there was a note on my desk. It said, Please phone the Metro Centre and find out the fire hazard policy for crowds outside of stores. FOR MY IDEA YOU TRIED TO SABOTAGE.’

‘Sabotage? She used that word?’

‘She did. She didn’t spell it right but she did. She even put it in blocked capitals.’

‘Well go and tell her that was completely uncalled for!’ As I say this, Rob, who is listening in on the conversation, gives me a curious scowl.

‘I can’t. I’ve mulled this over half the night. There’s going to be a very strange atmosphere if we end up having a big row. I mean, she’s my friend. I can’t just switch her off at five o’clock. And I don’t want her thinking that just because I’ve never worked all these years that I’m too sensitive…’ There’s a pause. ‘Jill I did something really cowardly.’

‘No you didn’t. You gave your opinion. So she didn’t like it. Too bad.’ Rob, who has his underpants on now, gives me the thumbs up.

‘No. I don’t mean that. I mean, when I saw that note. For some reason I just thought, Oh, I can’t face this. I just couldn’t be bothered with the silliness of it. So, as she hadn’t come in, I went in to see Clifford clutching my cheek saying how I had a really bad toothache and I’d just got an emergency appointment at the dentist. So now I’m sat at home nursing a toothache I don’t have, trying to work out how I’m going to go back to a job I’m not even sure I want anymore, and all this feels… beyond childish and ridiculous to say the least.’

‘It is childish. She’s being childish.’

‘I thought about telling her I changed my mind, that the more I think about it, it’s actually a good idea. But why should I do that? Why should I pander like that and take back what I believe in?’

‘I don’t know, Wend. Maybe for an easy life! But what’s Neil say about all this?’

‘Oh he thinks I’m overanalysing. Mind you, I didn’t tell him the toothache part. But he did say I should be on my guard about her—she’s obviously not the person I thought she was. But I thought he was being a little hard on her. I mean, she’s not
that
bad!’

‘Well I think you should go back in, say your tooth’s fine now, and act like none of this has ever happened. And if it ever happens again, you’ll take her to task then.’

‘But that’s a bit cowardly too, isn’t it? Isn’t she probably testing my mettle here a bit?’

‘Oh I’m sure she’s got better things to do. Who knows, maybe she meant it as a joke.’

‘But when I told you what she wrote you didn’t think it was any joke did you? SABOTAGE is a strong word Jill. It’s not like she just said
for my idea you don’t like…
.’

‘Wendy, you know, maybe Neil’s right. Maybe you are making a bit too much of this.’

She sighs. ‘Maybe I am. But lately I just wonder what I’m doing Jill. Marketing. Exercise pants. I don’t know… all my life I’ve fantasized about standing for something. Just… if I could get into a company where the work is a bit more relevant to something I’m interested in or has some bigger meaning… I wouldn’t mind just being the receptionist. I’d gladly be it.’ She sighs again. ‘Sometimes I think I should go and finish my degree, go get more degrees even, until I’m so degreed that somebody finally takes me seriously. I mean, I have a job that I’m supposed to be grateful for because I can’t find a job anywhere else, yet in many ways I feel too good for this job. So where this leaves me, I’m not quite sure.’

‘Well go do it. Go back and finish your degree.’ I can’t count the number of times we’ve had this conversation.

She pauses. ‘Neil doesn’t think it’s a great idea. But then again, Neil has no respect for education.’

‘Neither does Leigh.’

‘No. Because they did fine without it. But they’re the exception not the rule. And that was then and this is now. Today at the very least you need a degree.’ She sounds all fluffed up. ‘And if you’re my age and trying to get your first job you need a degree and a miracle.’

‘Well nothing’s stopping you. I’m sure if you decided to do it, Neil would support you.’

‘I know. I just don’t know what it is with me. I seem to have this mental block where this topic is concerned. I mean, I am able to finish it. I want to. Yet, for some reason, I’m not. There’s always been Neil or the lads stopping me. Way back it was my A-level grades that prevented me going to read law, which is what I always really, really fancied, when all I had to do was re-sit them instead of taking a job at the Civic Centre. Then it was the job that prevented me from going back to school. Then it was my parents dying, then Nina dying. And now that nothing’s stopping me…. I’m stopping me. I know I’m not afraid of failing, but I don’t know… maybe I’m afraid of succeeding.’

‘Well, personally, I’m very glad I was a complete ambitionless no-hoper because this ambition business just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.’

She laughs finally.

~ * * * ~

Sunday is Lawrence’s fortieth birthday. We’re all invited to a barbeque at Leigh’s. ‘Oh Christ, do we have to?’ Rob groans. It’s funny how after all these years our husbands have nothing to say to each other.

‘I’ve got this really bad toothache…’ Wendy says, when I ring to make sure she’s coming. I laugh. ‘Oh come on now you’re playing silly beggars. She said she put it in capitals for a joke!’

‘Oh.’ She flattens. ‘You talked to her about it?’