about to be drawn into conversation.
‘See you then Lucy.’ He gives me that very brief smile and there’s a jiggle of keys then he stops and ruffles Daisy's hair. Everyone does that, those gorgeous ringlets have everyone reaching out and Daisy gets a proper smile from him, a real smile. It’s stupid but I feel like I'm going to start crying, my throat is dry and tight and I’m scared to sniff, because then he might see, then he might know that I'm close to tears.
I want him gone, I want him gone now.
‘Bye then,’ I say brightly, except he doesn't move. I want to close the door on him, I want to have nothing to regret, I want to be able to look my friend in the eye.
Luke doesn’t even like me.
Scratch that.
Luke actively dislikes me, even if he tries not to let it show.
But it terrifies me that one move from him and I’d be getting carpet burn again in the hallway.
I love Jess.
I want to be a woman who'd never.
Who might have in the past.
But isn't like that now.
He’s looking at Daisy, who’s in my arms silent and I don’t want him to look at me but he does.
I see his grey eyes but I can’t look into them so I look at his mouth.
I want to walk over and rest my head on him.
I want him to wrap his arms around me.
I want his mouth.
I want him to kiss me.
I want to forget consequence.
I know now why I told Jess about Noel.
I'm the kid from the film that looks up at the camera and says, “I see dead people” - except my head spins full circle and the words that I hiss are “I sleep with husbands.” I was warning her, telling her perhaps and warning him too.
I'm not like that now.
‘Bye then,’ I say and he turns.
‘Bye,’ he says and walks out.
‘And, thank you,’ I say as I remember Miss Manners.
He leaves and I close the door and I feel Daisy’s little hands on my tears and nothing has happened.
Nothing ever would.
Luke can’t stand me.
But it’s actually not about Luke and whether or not he might have tried; it’s my reaction to the hypothetical that terrifies me. I stop crying and I look now to Daisy and tell her my answer.
‘No.’ I tell her. ‘I would never.’
And you know why?
Because, I'm better than that now.
I’m getting better.
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
Gloria
‘Why did you stay, Gloria?’
We’re lying in bed and there’s no-one but us in the house and I’ve told Paul all about the affairs, not just the affair with Lucy, no, it wasn’t just her.
He cheated from day one.
‘Why?’ Paul says to the silence. ‘If you knew that he was cheating, did you stay?’
‘That’s what you did then.’
He nods because it was the same for his wife - you just stayed in a marriage that didn’t work.
I tell him my theory, the one about Charles and Diana, that once they got divorced it seemed okay for everyone else.
I mean the world didn’t stop did it?
If they could do it, why couldn’t we?
And so he did.
I’d have stayed.
I lie there and close my eyes as Paul chats on and I admit the truth to myself.
I am lazy.
I’d have carried on turning a blind eye. That’s why I hated Lucy so much, not so much what she did, but that she insisted that he leave.
‘You think the whole world’s at it.’ Paul’s talking about sex as I go deep into my mind. ‘I used to get it on my birthday and at Christmas and in the end I gave up.’ He doesn’t sound bitter. ‘I didn’t want charity.’
‘You never had an affair?’
‘Only with food.’ Paul says. ‘You know, I thought that was the problem, that it was my size that put her off.’ He looks over to me. ‘It turns out that I could have been twelve stone and ripped and she still wouldn’t have wanted me.’
I lie there and think of Lucy who was eight stone and gorgeous and still he cheated on her, for the first time in decades I am almost free.
It wasn’t actually about me.
I wasn’t the one with the problem.
I wasn’t the crap wife that pushed him away, that made him do what he did.
It wasn’t even about Lucy.
The problem lay with him.
‘Did you never think about having an affair, Gloria?’ He looks over.
‘God, no.’
I didn’t.
But I’m being lazy again. I am heading for the peanut butter jar that lives in my mind. I’m