The Woman Who Stole My Life (22 page)

All hell broke loose. A deputation showed up at the house to shout at me – Ryan, Mum, Dad, Karen and – of course – Jeffrey. Even Betsy turned on me. The gist of their complaint was that Ryan had stood by me during a lengthy illness and I had repaid his loyalty by starting a thing with my neurologist.

It was no good trying to remind anyone – including Ryan – that Ryan no longer loved me. He was the one who had done the ‘Standing By’. A very visible thing, ‘Standing By’. They’d all seen him – juggling everything, working himself into the ground, grey in the face from exhaustion and worry. And don’t forget he’d bought tampons for Betsy. Imagine! A man! Buying tampons! For his daughter!

‘You lied to me.’ Ryan had high patches of colour on his cheeks. ‘You tried to make out that we just don’t love each other.’

‘We don’t.’

‘But, all along, you had someone else.’

‘I didn’t. I haven’t.’

‘Jeffrey told us what he saw.’

I checked that the kids weren’t in earshot and I muttered, ‘Nothing has happened.’

‘Yet!’ Karen exclaimed. ‘Nothing has happened
yet
!’

I was distracted by thumping noises coming from upstairs.
Jeffrey and Betsy were up there – what the hell were they doing?

‘We couldn’t cope with this Taylor chap in our lives,’ Mum said.

‘You don’t have to!’

‘We like to laugh at people,’ Dad said. ‘We’re well able to mock Ryan here – no offence, son, but we make fun of you all the time. And Karen’s Enda, even though he’s a copper, he’s comical, in his way. But this Taylor chap is a different prospect. He has … 
gravitas
.’

‘Is that the same as “cojones”?’ Mum asked, in a quiet aside.

‘It’s not.’ Dad sounded exasperated. ‘Cojones is different.’

‘Although he has them too,’ Ryan said. ‘Putting the moves on my sick wife. On my
paralysed
wife.’

‘He
didn’t
!’

‘The thing is,’ Mum explained, anxiously. ‘We’d have to invite him into our house. And it’s too small!’

‘For what?’ I asked. ‘What are you planning to do? Hold a dance for him?’

‘Your mother and I have discussed this,’ Dad said. ‘The only way we could avoid inviting him over is to burn the house down.’

‘You live in a terrace,’ Jeffrey said, walking past them, trundling a suitcase. ‘You couldn’t do it to your neighbours. Is the car open, Dad?’

‘Here, take the remote.’ Ryan handed Jeffrey the key fob.

Betsy appeared. She too was rolling a suitcase.

‘What’s going on?’ I cried out.

‘We’re going to live with Dad,’ Betsy said. ‘We’re leaving you.’

And off they went, every single one of them, leaving me all alone.

All alone, and upset and confused and ashamed and defiant.

… All alone with smooth, callous-free feet. And a bald bikini area. And a gleaming golden tan.

I’d done nothing wrong, and yet everyone was judging me – damned if I do; damned if I don’t.

So I might as well ‘do’.

‘Mannix, I want to see you.’

‘… Okay. Where? Do you want to go for a drink?’

‘No.’ I was rooting through my underwear drawer. ‘I’ve had enough of this bullshit.’

‘What bullshit is that?’

‘Come on, Mannix.’

‘Okay. I’ve had enough of this bullshit too.’

I dressed in the underwear I’d bought for my date night with Ryan. No point in being sentimental, they were the only sexy things I had. I covered myself in gleamy body lotion and shoved my feet into a pair of very high shoes, then took a quick glance in the full-length mirror. Right. I’d had two children, I’d been with Ryan for a long time and I’d let things slip. I was thirty-nine and even at my best I’d never have passed for a model.

I was seized with knuckle-gnawing regret that I hadn’t done daily Pilates for the past twenty years. Christ, how hard would it have been? A mere thirty minutes a day would have kept the wolf from the door. And yet I hadn’t bothered, and now I was paying the price.

I forced myself to stop agonizing about my stomach and my age and all the chances I’d wasted to be Elle Macpherson. Mannix had seen me with tubes coming out of most of my orifices so anything I offered him tonight had to be an improvement.

I put on my blue Vivienne Westwood dress that covered my knees and that draped flatteringly across my stomach – I knew Karen thought I was a fool, but that dress had been worth every penny.

The decision between stockings or tights threatened to trigger another head-melt, so I decided to dispense with both. Quickly, like it was no big deal, I slipped off my wedding ring and engagement ring and let them fall into a drawer, then, before I could talk myself out of it, I ran down the stairs and into the cold night.

Mrs Next-Door-Who-Has-Never-Liked-Me was standing in her front garden, in the dark. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. She must have seen the drama earlier, with Betsy and Jeffrey leaving with their suitcases. ‘I should tell you, Stella, that your clothes are completely unsuitable for this weather.’

‘It’s okay,’ I said, opening my car door. ‘I don’t plan on wearing them for very long.’

Mannix’s flat was on the second floor in a massive new development. I had to walk down a cruelly bright, undecorated corridor, in my crippling shoes, for what seemed like miles.

Finally I got to 228. I knocked on the bland MDF door and he opened it immediately. He wore a loose shirt and faded jeans and his hair was messy.

‘I feel like a prostitute,’ I said. ‘And not in a good way.’

‘Is there a good way?’ He handed me a glass of wine and shut the door behind me.

I glanced anxiously over my shoulder. ‘Make me feel trapped, why don’t you?’

‘… I …’

‘Karen says there
is
a good way, about the prostitute thing.’ I couldn’t stop talking. ‘Role play, you know?’

‘How about we just be ourselves for tonight?’ He took me by the hand and tried to lead me forward. ‘I didn’t have time to get the rose petals. I wasn’t expecting this –’

‘Never mind the rose petals.’ I choked down a massive slug of wine. ‘Where’s the bedroom?’

‘You’re keen.’

‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘What I am is scared. I’m scared out of my wits.’ My voice was getting faster. ‘It’s twenty years since I’ve been with someone else. This is a big deal for me. I’m this close to losing my nerve.’

I stood in the hall and glanced into the kitchen, the bathroom and the front room, all furnished in nothing-y neutrals. There was a bare, unfinished look about them, as if he’d never bothered to fully move in.

‘Is this the bedroom?’ Tentatively, I pushed open a door.

Mannix glanced in at the bed, an anonymous affair covered with a white duvet. ‘Yes.’

‘It’s too bright in there. What’s the story with the lights? Is there a dimmer switch?’

‘… No … Look, Stella, please, come in, sit down in the front room. Take a few breaths.’

‘We’ll have to do it in the dark.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not doing it in the dark.’

‘Have you a lamp? Get a lamp. There must be a lamp.’ I’d noticed one in the front room. ‘There’s one. Go on. Get it.’

While he unplugged the table lamp and moved it into the bedroom, I stood in the hall, drinking my wine and tapping my foot. When Mannix switched on the lamp and turned off the overhead bulb, the bedroom hummed with rosy, forgiving light.

‘That’s better.’ I handed him my empty glass. ‘Any more?’

‘… Yes, of course. I’ll just …’ He went into the kitchen and when he came out again, I was in the bedroom, perched anxiously on the bed.

He gave me my glass and asked, ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then let’s go.’ I took a massive mouthful of wine. ‘By the way,’ I said, lying myself on the bed, still wearing my shoes, ‘I’m not a big drinker. Don’t let me get too drunk.’

‘Okay.’ He removed the glass from my hand and set it on the floor. Quickly, I reached down and took another swig,
then handed the glass to him and lay down again. ‘The first time is bound to be the worst.’ I looked up at him for reassurance. ‘Right?’

‘It’s not meant to be unpleasant,’ he said.

‘I know, I know. That’s not what I meant. Just, I need you to be the way you were in the hospital.’

‘And you’re the one who’s worried that I’ll only fancy you if you’re mute and paralysed?’

‘I just mean, I need you to take control.’

After a beat, he asked, softly, ‘You want me to take control?’

I nodded.

Slowly he began to unbutton his shirt. ‘You mean like this?’

Jesus. Mannix Taylor was unbuttoning his shirt in front of me. I was about to have sex with Mannix Taylor.

He shrugged off the shirt in a rustle of cotton and I reached up and touched his skin, stroking my hand from his neck to his collar bone. ‘You have shoulders,’ I said in wonderment. And he had hard pecs and an enviably flat stomach.

I wanted to lighten the mood by saying, ‘Not bad for a forty-something.’ But I couldn’t speak.

‘Now you.’ He was removing my shoes.

‘No,’ I said anxiously. ‘They need to stay on. To create the illusion of elongating my legs.’

‘Shhh.’ He took my right foot in his hands and placed it in his lap and pressed both thumbs into the arch. He held them still for a moment, the pressure a strangely pleasurable sort of pain, then he began to slide his hands along the length of my foot, stretching the tendons beneath the skin. I closed my eyes as thrills moved through me.

‘Remember this?’ I heard him say.

I did remember – the one and only time he’d worked on my feet when he’d been my doctor. Something powerful had happened between us on that day long ago and he’d never done it again.

As he pressed and kneaded, my lips began to tingle and my nipples tightened and hardened.

With his thumbnail, he made little nips of bliss along the top of my big toe. The movements were tiny bites of delight. He placed his middle finger between my big toe and my second toe, wiggling until they began to spread, then he slid his finger into the space and a pulse of desire zipped straight to my lady-centre.

My eyes flew open and he was staring right at me. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘You felt it too? Back then?’

I nodded. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I whispered. I was absolutely on fire and we hadn’t even kissed.

And then we did. I bent my right leg and reached up to him and pulled him down and we kissed for a long time.
My foot was still in his lap and it was pressed up against something very hard. I pushed my foot even harder against it and he took a sharp breath.

‘Is that …?’ I asked.

He nodded.

‘Show me,’ I said.

He stood up. He opened the top button of his jeans and slowly unzipped himself until his erection burst out.

Naked, he stood before me, not a bit shy. ‘Now you show
me
,’ he said.

I began moving my dress up my thighs. ‘Are you sure we can’t turn the light off?’

‘Oh, I’ve never been more sure of anything.’ His eyes were a-gleam. ‘I have waited so long for this.’

As I wriggled out of my dress he watched me like a hawk.
The look on his face was so brazen and appreciative, and his lopsided smile so hot, that by the time I took off my bra I’d lost all self-consciousness.

He’d told me that he wanted to cover me with kisses and he did. Every part of me – my neck, my nipples, the backs of my knees, the insides of my wrists and where it mattered most. Every nerve in my body was lit up. A thought floated into my head – I was like the switchboard in
Jerry Maguire
– then floated away again.

‘It’s time for the condom,’ I whispered.

‘Okay,’ he said, his breath hot against my ear.

Efficiently he snapped one on, and as soon as he entered me, I orgasmed. I clutched his buttocks and pressed his weight into me, almost unable for the intensity of the pleasure. I’d forgotten how fabulous sex could be.

‘Oh God,’ I choked. ‘Oh my God.’

‘This is only the beginning,’ he said.

He slowed things down to a delicious agony. He was supporting himself on his arms, carefully moving in and out of me, watching me with those grey eyes of his.

I was in awe of his control. This was not a man who’d been deprived of sex for several months. But I wasn’t going to think about that now.

Without taking his eyes from mine, he moved in and out of me until he’d brought me to another peak, even more powerful than the previous. Then again, and again.

‘I can’t take any more.’ I was drenched with sweat. ‘I think I’ll die.’

He picked up speed, moving faster and faster, until finally, thrashing and moaning, he came.

He lay on top of me, until his gasps had slowed down to regular breaths, then he rolled off and gathered me in his arms, my head on his chest. Immediately, he fell asleep. I lay
still, stunned by wonder. Me and Mannix Taylor, in bed together. Who would have thought it?

After about half an hour he woke, still adorably sleepy. ‘Stella.’ He sounded amazed. ‘Stella Sweeney?’ He yawned. ‘What time is it?’

There was an alarm clock on the floor. ‘Just gone midnight,’ I said.

‘Would you like me to call you a taxi?’

‘What?’ I hopped out of bed.

‘I thought … you might like to go home.’

I picked up my shoe and threw it at him.

‘Jesus!’ he said.

Jerkily I retrieved my shoe, then the other one and, mortified, I stepped into my knickers and dress. I shoved my bra in my handbag.

‘I thought, with your kids and all,’ he said.

‘Grand.’ I opened the front door, carrying my shoes in my hand. I wasn’t going to wear those crippling fucking things.

I was still waiting for him to stop me, but he didn’t, and as I made my way down the anonymous, sodium-lit corridor towards the lifts, I really
did
feel like a prostitute.

I fumbled in my bag for my phone and, almost in tears, I rang Zoe. ‘Are you awake?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. The kids are with Brendan and his bitch and I’m sitting here with my box set and my bottle of wine.’

Twenty minutes later I was with her.

She took me in her arms. ‘Stella, your marriage has broken up, you’re bound to feel lost and –’

I broke free of her embrace. ‘Zoe, can I ask you what the rules on dating are these days?’

‘Same as they ever were. They fuck you once, then they never ring you again.’

Shit.

‘But it’s a bit early to be worrying about that, yourself and Ryan have only just decided. I mean, you might even get back together …’

I was shaking my head. ‘No. No, Zoe. You know Mannix Taylor?’

‘The doctor?’

‘He came to see me in work on Monday.’

‘Monday just gone? Monday less than five days ago? And you didn’t tell me?’

‘Sorry, Zoe, it’s all been a bit weird –’

She was quickly putting the pieces together in her head. ‘And you let him fuck you? Tonight? Oh my God.’

‘And then, after … he asked if he should call me a taxi.’

Her face was a picture of compassion. ‘I’m sorry, Stella, that’s how men are. You’ve been out of the game too long. You weren’t to know.’

My phone rang and I looked at the screen. ‘It’s him.’

‘Don’t answer it,’ she said. ‘He’s just looking for another fuck.’

‘So soon?’

‘He’s the sort who’d be able to get it up four times a night. Mr High Achiever. Mr Alpha. Switch your phone off. Please, Stella.’

‘Okay.’

Zoe did her best but she couldn’t provide much comfort so I went home to my empty house and faced the facts: my marriage was gone, my kids were traumatized and everyone hated me. This was
exactly
my worst-case scenario. I hadn’t even got three weeks out of it; I’d got one night.

I’d known in my heart that Mannix Taylor would humiliate me. Everyone had known it, that’s why they’d all objected to him.

Wearily I wondered about myself and Ryan. Could we patch things up and carry on? It hadn’t been a bad life; he wasn’t a bad man, just selfish and, well, self-obsessed. But there was the small fact that I didn’t remotely fancy him any more. Even if I’d been able to fool myself up till now, my night with Mannix had ruined sex with Ryan for ever.

Then again there was more to a marriage than sex. And maybe, if I got Ryan to wear a latex mask to look like Mannix …

It took me most of the night to fall asleep. It was probably gone six before I finally shifted into a strange, uneasy dreamland, and I was awake again by nine. Immediately I switched my phone on, because I couldn’t not. Anyway, I had a legitimate reason: the kids needed to be able to contact me.

There were no calls from either of them, however there were eight missed calls from Mannix. Zoe would have deleted the messages without letting me listen to them, but Zoe wasn’t there.

‘Stella.’ In his first message, Mannix sounded touchingly contrite. ‘I called it wrong. You have kids and I was trying to let you know that I’m okay with it. Please get in touch.’

His second message said, ‘I’m really sorry. Can we talk about it? Will you call me?’

His third message said, ‘I messed up. I’m very sorry. Please call.’

Then, ‘It’s me again. I’m starting to feel like your stalker.’

And, ‘I’m sorry for getting things so wrong. You know where I am.’

The final three were hang-ups with no message. The most recent had been seven hours ago and I knew in my heart he wouldn’t ring again. He wasn’t the sort to prostrate himself; he’d done his bit, he’d decided. Then my phone rang and my heart nearly jumped out of my mouth.

It was Karen. ‘I was talking to Zoe,’ she said. ‘She told me what happened.’

‘Are you calling to gloat?’

‘Not gloat exactly. But, Stella, get a grip. He’s not for you. This is the man who was married to Georgie Dawson.
Georgie Dawson.
Do you hear me? Compared to her, you’re just … you know.’ Earnestly she said, ‘I’m not putting you down, Stella, but she’d know about art and that stuff. She can probably speak Italian. She can probably stuff quails. What can you do? Apart from waxing growlers?’

‘I read books,’ I said, hotly.

‘Only because Dad makes you. You’re not a natural. Georgie Dawson is a natural.’

She sighed.

‘Here’s how it is, Stella: you’ve fecked things up royally. I was talking to Ryan and he won’t take you back –’

The cheek of her!

‘But you’ve got Zoe, right? The pair of you can hang out together. Let yourselves go. Wear flat shoes. Give up on your stomachs. Think of all the cake you can eat …’ For a moment she sounded wistful. ‘And hear me on this, Stella.’ She was utterly sincere. ‘I know your kids hate you now but they
will
forgive you. Come on,’ she cajoled, ‘no one could take Ryan full-time. Okay?’

She hung up and I called Betsy. The phone rang twice, then went abruptly to message – she’d rejected my call. Then I rang Jeffrey and the same thing happened. It cut like a knife.

I forced myself to ring them both again and I left faltering, abject messages. ‘I’m sorry for all the upheaval I’ve caused. But I’m here for you, day or night, no matter what.’

After I finished speaking I decided to put a wash on, but when I went to the laundry basket I found it almost empty – only my clothes were in it. The kids and Ryan had taken their
dirty clothes with them. With a pulse of shock, I realized that now there was nothing for me to do. I
never
had nothing to do. But there was no washing and ironing to be done and no chauffeuring Betsy and Jeffrey around to their various weekend commitments. Under normal circumstances, it was a constant battle to keep on top of the massive mountain of jobs that had to be done in a day. Without Ryan and the kids, my life seemed to have no scaffolding.