The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,65

body still, trying not to tremble as he fell quickly into sleep.

There were days I thought about confronting him and then, inevitably, of leaving him. He couldn’t change. I saw that now. He thrived on drama. He needed intrigue and risk. It was so much part of who he was.

But, whatever else he’d done, he’d given me Anna. The other love of my life. I wouldn’t alter anything, however hard our marriage had been at times, if changing the past meant missing out on her. And they were short-lived, these other women. Fireworks that flared and sparked across the sky, then burned out. He always came back to us, Anna and me. In the end.

I couldn’t leave him. It wasn’t only for Anna’s sake. And it wasn’t because he paid the bills – although I was grateful he did. It was because, despite everything, I cared about him. And I couldn’t extinguish the hope that eventually, one day, when he finally grew tired of the chase, he’d change. He’d turn those deep brown eyes on me and see me afresh, as if for the first time, and realise just how precious our life together was, right here, at home.

I made a cup of tea and went through to the hall, on my way upstairs, to lock up.

Ralph’s coat hung there on the rack. Watching me. His old shoes sat underneath, worn to the shape of his feet, alongside a pair of ancient wellies he’d rarely worn.

I swept them all up and bundled everything into a plastic bag, then opened the front door and stuffed the lot in the outside bin, replacing the lid with a clatter. I felt better when I turned the lock and put on the chain. Cleaner.

After that start, I took my tea upstairs to his study and closed the door behind me. My heart quickened. I was trespassing. I felt as if I might, at any moment, hear Ralph’s heavy tread on the stairs and see the door-handle turn. That he might catch me standing here, in his space, and say with false jollity, with suspicion in his eyes, ‘What’re you up to in here?’

He never liked me being in here. It was a tacit agreement, formed early in our marriage, about his and hers territory. I’d respected it partly in the hope that, if he had his own space in our home, he mightn’t feel the need to escape it so often in the evening. To grab his jacket and car keys and head out, with some mumbled excuse, leaving me alone.

Now, I looked around. His desk was a mess of poetry books and novels, scraps of paper, scrawled with half-written poems, fragments of ideas. I’d bought him a wooden desk tidy once, for pens and pencils, but he never used it. Pens, missing lids and pencils were strewn everywhere.

A jacket, creased and in need of a wash, hung on the back of the chair. On the mantelpiece, his hairbrush, still holding strands of dark hair.

I stood in the silence, my pulse racing. Ralph. I could almost feel him here. Resisting me. Mocking my love of neatness, of systems, of order.

But he wasn’t here. And for the first time in a long time, I could do as I pleased.

I rolled up my sleeves and set to work.

It took me all evening, working methodically, without pause, until late into the night.

By the time I’d finished, all I wanted to do was have a shower and crawl into bed to sleep alone.

But I’d done it.

I’d gathered together all his poetry, sheets and sheets of sprawling handwriting, and shoved it into the recycling.

I’d taken all his books off the shelves and set them out on the floor, sorted them out and divided them into categories: poetry collections (individual), poetry collections (anthologies), poetry criticism, novels, biographies, humour (mostly presents from friends) and miscellaneous.

I’d picked out a small number of expensive hardbacks – plush anthologies, mostly, and complete works – and set them to one side.

I’d arranged the rest by category and then in alphabetical order, by author or editor, and stowed them all away into boxes, each box carefully labelled. Ready for the charity shop to collect.

I sat back on my heels and looked at the empty shelves, wiped clean now of all trace of Ralph. The boxes were neatly arranged along the wall.

My back and arms ached. My blouse was grimy with dust. But I felt strangely satisfied. Happy. It was a start. I was imposing order, in