With or Without You (10 page)

‘Hi, er, Martha, Charlie here, Charlie Simmons,’ he stuttered nervously. ‘So, it appears we were snapped leaving the hotel yesterday . . . Really sorry about that. It happens
so often that I forget about them, but I should have warned you . . . I, er, I hope it hasn’t proved problematic for you in any way . . .’

Martha snorted as she listened. ‘It’s not
that
that’s problematic!’ she growled.

‘Anyway,’ Charlie continued, his cheery tone so at odds with how she was feeling right now. ‘Give me a call. We need to arrange the next interview, don’t we? And, er,
I’ve got something to give you . . .’ He paused while he laughed. ‘Something I think you might like. In fact, maybe we could do a swap and you could return my sweatpants?’
He paused. ‘So, listen . . . call me. Bye.’

Martha stared at her phone for a long while, trying to recover her composure. She hummed slightly, to see how her voice sounded. Although it seemed as though it was coming from a long way away,
the shudders that had convulsed through her body had now slowed and at least it was steady.

She went into the ensuite shower room and blew her nose. In the mirror above the sink, her eyes were small in her head, while her face was puffy. Or maybe it was because her face was puffy that
her eyes looked small, she thought distractedly. Either way, she looked bloody terrible. Still, Charlie wouldn’t be able to see her over the phone, and she was grateful for that as she
pressed his contact number.

‘Hi!’ he said cheerfully as he answered.

‘How did you know it was me?’

‘Well, there’s this really clever device on mobile phones these days, so that when someone calls you can—’

‘OK! OK!’ she interrupted him, smiling for the first time that morning, despite herself. She felt strange knowing that he had put her name and number into his phone. Pleased, but
strange.

‘So . . .’ he began, slightly nervously, ‘sorry about the picture . . . I didn’t even think of how it might look. Louisa’s been on, having a massive go at me
already.’

Martha knew Louisa Thomas, Charlie’s publicist, well. She had interviewed many of her clients over the years. ‘Yes, I can just imagine. Was she cross with
me
?’ she
said suddenly.

‘No, of course not. I think she felt more sorry for you when I told her the story of how you came to be wearing my clothes . . . I hope you gave that husband of yours a telling off when
you got home, letting you go out like that!’

At the mention of her husband, and taking her entirely by surprise, Martha burst into furious, uncontrollable sobs.

‘Oh God!’ Charlie said on the other end of the line. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you . . . you didn’t look that bad. You looked good, actually. Oh
crap. Why are you crying?’ His words were tumbling over each other as he spoke, while Martha’s sobs grew louder and louder.

‘No!’ she managed to gulp. ‘Nothing to do with you.’

‘No. Quite,’ Charlie sounded embarrassed. ‘None of my business. Sorry. Look, shall I call back later?’

‘No!’ Martha shook her head and tried desperately to calm herself. ‘Something’s happened. Something really bad. I didn’t mean it’s none of your business, I
just meant it’s nothing
you’ve
done wrong.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Charlie said, before lapsing into a silence that meant he didn’t see at all.

‘Sorry,’ Martha gulped, finally gaining control of herself. ‘I’ve . . . well, I’ve had a bit of a personal trauma.’

There was a long pause. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Charlie said eventually.

Martha shook her head wearily. ‘It’s a long and awful story,’ she began. ‘And it’s too personal for a phone conversation. But thanks anyway.’

There was another pause. ‘Why don’t you come to the hotel today? You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but it might help to get away? I could go out and
you could just sit in the apartment and read or watch TV or something?’

‘I couldn’t . . .’ Martha started to say automatically, before stopping. Getting out of the house was
exactly
what she needed to do, and talking to someone like
Charlie, who didn’t know her or Jamie and wouldn’t make judgements might help. ‘But you must have lots on?’ she protested.

‘Day off. I’m completely free. As I said in my message, I’ve got something to give you anyway. Get on a train and come.’

Something about his voice soothed Martha so much that, without giving it any more thought, she found herself agreeing to go and meet him. She bundled his t-shirt and sweatpants into a bag
– she had intended to wash them but there was no time, and she figured he would have ‘people’ to do that sort of thing for him anyway – and threw on her own t-shirt, jeans
and Converse trainers.

She splashed her face with cold water, cleaned her teeth and put on some mascara, before heading down the stairs. Jamie was in the kitchen, slumped over the table. He looked up as she came in
and his eyebrows shot up in surprise when he saw that she was dressed and apparently about to go out somewhere. ‘Where are you g—?’ he began, standing up.

‘None of your business,’ she snapped, picking up the car keys and walking out of the kitchen towards the front door.

‘Martha!’ he begged, as he followed her. ‘Please don’t go like this. We need to talk.’

Martha ignored him and headed out of the house. Jamie stood on the doorstep, watching her. Just as she was about to get into the car, she looked up and met his eye. He looked so confused and
anguished that for a split second she felt sorry for him. Then an image of him doing unspeakable things with that revolting woman flashed into her mind and her lip curled in disgust. She got into
the car and drove off without looking back, knowing that he was still standing on the doorstep.

As she drove to the station, she started to have second thoughts, wondering what the hell she was doing. Charlie Simmons was one of the most famous actors in Britain and she was heading off to
meet him so that she could pour out the story of her marriage breakdown.

She pulled over and stopped the car in a lay-by overlooking a wide green field bordered with poppies. On any other day she would have enjoyed the beauty of the view, but today she was blind to
it. Should she just go home and discuss things properly with Jamie in a grown-up fashion? But, she reasoned, Charlie Simmons, for all his fame and money, would know exactly how she was feeling
today. He had been through it too, and it must have been so much worse for him because it had played out on the front pages of the tabloid newspapers. And he had asked her to come, so it
wasn’t as if she was turning up uninvited. She started the car again. She would go. Jamie could spend the day stewing in agony over what she might do next.

Jamie stood on the doorstep long after Martha had driven off, staring with blank eyes at the space on the drive where her car had been. The look she had given him before
getting into the car would stay with him forever. In one small glance, she had managed to say so much. He could cope with her contempt, even her disgust; what he couldn’t cope with was the
hurt and pain in her eyes.

Martha was such a sunny person. The way she had reacted that morning had scared him because it wasn’t something he had ever seen before. He didn’t know how to deal with it or how to
help her. And knowing that he was the cause of such pain compounded his guilt a million times over.

Finally, he closed the front door and stood in the hallway, listening to the sounds of the house; normally so familiar and comforting, today they felt threatening and reproachful. He slouched
into the kitchen and looked around at the usual chaos and detritus of family life. Only this morning everything had changed. What he had done might mean that family life as he knew it was over.

He didn’t know if Martha was serious about wanting him to leave but he knew he should be prepared to go. As he looked around him, the thought of leaving their happy home, of never having
ridiculous, meaningless debates with the children over meals, or putting them to bed, suddenly hit him and a tsunami of misery washed over him. He slumped down onto the cold tiles of the kitchen
floor as the emotion overwhelmed him.

After a while, his tears subsided and he looked up, almost in surprise, as he heard a voice inside his head telling him clearly what he needed to do. He frowned, wondering if the voice was real.
Of course it wasn’t real
, he told himself crossly,
there’s no-one else here
. But he had heard a voice, quite clearly.

He stood up, feeling shaky and stunned. It was as if he had had an out-of-body experience. As if his mum had been with him, stroking his back like she used to when he was small. His yearning to
speak to her just then was so intense, as if all his grief had been distilled into that one moment. She would have given him hell, but she would have been there for him, just as she always had been
in the past.

Tears poured down his face as he moved, almost on autopilot, towards the table. He carefully collected up the cups and bowls left over from the children’s breakfast and put them into the
dishwasher. Then he took the dried washing that had been in the tumble dryer for two days and put it onto the worktop, ready for ironing, before he put the washing that had been in the washing
machine for two days into the dryer.

For the next three hours he worked meticulously through the house, tidying and cleaning, putting away things that had needed putting away for months, ironing and clearing out cupboards that
no-one had seen the back of for years. He felt as if he was cleansing himself as well as the house as he worked, vacuuming, dusting and scrubbing until the sweat was pouring off him with the
effort.

As if to inflict as much pain on himself as possible, he put his headphones on while he worked and listened to the playlist of their favourite songs that Martha had made for them to take on
their honeymoon. As each track started, it brought with it a fresh stab of shame at how he could have wrecked something so precious.

When the house was clean, he mended the bookshelves in the study that had been broken for two years, wishing as he did so that he could mend his marriage as easily. Then he went through the
piles of paperwork that had been gathering dust on the desks for months, sorting and filing until each surface was clear.

By the time he had finished he felt slightly better. At least he had done something useful instead of lying around feeling sorry for himself. He stripped off his jeans and t-shirt and stepped
into the shower where he stood for a long time, letting the jets of water pummel his skin and wash away the sweat and grime from his exertions. He lathered up some shower gel and rubbed his skin
furiously, pleased when it reddened under the pressure. The welts on his cheek where Martha had scratched him were stinging like hell and, again, this pleased him. He deserved to suffer.

‘Win her back,’ his mum’s voice had told him, and that was exactly what he intended to do. He had made the worst, most catastrophic mistake he could ever have made, but he was
going to put it right. If it took him the rest of his life, he was going to prove to Martha that he loved her and that it would never happen again. He had to win her back because losing her would
destroy him and everything they had built together.

As he stepped out of the shower, he caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. He looked awful. His eyes were sunken, he badly needed a shave and the scratches on his face were vivid and angry.
He peered at them closely. It was almost as if he had been branded an adulterer.

It had never even occurred to Jamie that every time he had had sex with Debra he was committing adultery and betraying his marriage vows. After the first time, when he had felt horribly guilty
and dirty, it had got easier. He had put all his clothes into the wash to remove any trace of Debra’s cloying scent, but when it became clear that he had got away with it, that Martha had
absolutely no idea what he had done, he felt the urge to do it again. And again. And the more he did it, the less guilty he felt. It seemed so meaningless, and because he felt absolutely nothing
for Debra, he convinced himself that what Martha didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Except that now, of course, she did know. And worse, she had discovered his treachery in the most shocking and upsetting way possible. While other wives might torture themselves imagining their
husband having sex with his mistress, Martha had actually seen it with her own eyes. The thought of it was nauseating to him, so he could only imagine how it felt for Martha. The images would be
burned indelibly into her memory and nothing could ever erase them.

He dried himself, shaved, brushed his teeth and put on a clean t-shirt and jeans. A new feeling of determination had replaced the helplessness he had felt that morning. He went back into the
study where Martha’s awful discovery had taken place earlier. He swallowed hard and stared at his computer, suddenly scared to look at it again.

But he knew he had to. Had to get rid of those awful photos for good. He thought he had deleted them but something must have gone wrong. He sat down and looked at the dock along the bottom of
his screen. The icon Martha had clicked on was one that kept duplicate copies of his main photographic folders and wasn’t one he ever used. Why on earth hadn’t he thought about
that?

His hand shaking, he clicked on the icon again and immediately the screen filled with a shocking picture of him and Debra, naked on her bed, his head between her legs. Jamie closed his eyes as
his head swam with the shame and horror of what he had done. Why the hell had he taken the pictures? He tried to think back to the day in question. He had told Debra that he had got a camera for
Christmas and she had leeringly suggested that he use it to photograph her the next time they had sex.

‘Oh God!’ he moaned, putting his head in his hands and trying not to cry again. Forcing himself to look up, he began to go through the folder, systematically deleting each horrific
image. Debra looked grotesque. Her body was flabby and her empty eyes were cold in her hard face. Over and over again, he shook his head, trying to understand why the hell he had been stupid enough
to wreck his marriage.