The Mistress's Revenge (25 page)

Susan’s blue eyes looked a little stricken when I said that.

“Of course we’re friends, dear. We’ve known you and Daniel for years and the four of us have always gotten along very well, haven’t we? Clive and I can’t wait to have you over for the party. It’s only because I care that I can’t help worrying about you both, and feeling like you should be focusing a little more on your family.”

She didn’t actually add “and less on mine,” but she didn’t need to. The unspoken phrase hovered tauntingly in the air.

“Anyway,” she went on. “Clive and I are flying over to Maui for a week immediately after the ceremony, just to get a bit of down time, a sort of second honeymoon. One of our friends is lending us a ridiculously over-the-top villa there as a second wedding present. But when we get back we’ll have tons more time, and maybe we could all get together then. We don’t see enough of Daniel these days.”

Can ever a speech have been more barbed? At the mention of the second honeymoon, my guts had started doing something very unpleasant—since coming off the happy pills, they’ve been playing up rather a lot. Something ugly came up into my mouth and I swallowed it back down with a mouthful of tepid coffee.

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’m not feeling too well.”

Susan was immediately concerned, feeling my forehead with a motherly hand.

“I hope it isn’t because of anything I said. I’ve only got your best interests at heart.”

If it hadn’t been for the fear that if I opened my mouth, I’d vomit all over the Starbucks shabby-chic battered leather sofa, I’d have smiled at that one. Well, you couldn’t not smile, could you? You and Susan, both with my best interests at heart. I’m a lucky woman, I really am. Between the two of you, you’ve wrecked my life, pulling at it in a tug-of-war until it ripped right down the middle like a cheap, worn sheet. But you have only my best interests at heart. Forgive me if I don’t altogether believe you. Forgive me if I don’t fall on my knees in gratitude at your largesse. Forgive me if I say I want to take my best interests and cram them down your throats until you choke on them. You and Susan and Emily and Liam—the elite club I’m not allowed to join, just to watch from the outside with my nose pressed up against the glass.

You promised me something else. You promised me another life. I’m not after anything I’m not entitled to. I just want what was promised to me.

Is there something wrong with that?

S
o I missed the parents’ evening. I know it’s not a great thing to have done, but it happens to lots of busy parents. I don’t think there’s any need for everyone to make quite such a big thing about it.

Tilly is definitely hormonal. Everything is a crisis with her at the moment. I wonder if I should arrange for her to see Helen for some coping strategies. She might really find it useful.

It’s not as if I set out to miss the fucking parents’ evening. I was just a little bit upset about seeing Susan earlier in the day, and it went clean out of my mind. I’d been wandering around the West End, buying random things in Top Shop, even though all the clothes in there were clearly meant for people thirty years younger. To be honest, I presumed Daniel would have gone to the school anyway. I keep forgetting about this “training” which seems to absolve him of responsibility for any kind of parenting these days.

“We agreed, you’d take over that sort of stuff,” he raged at me after he’d arrived home at 7 to find a tearful Tilly, sobbing in her bedroom, writing “I hate my mum” updates on Facebook.

“It’s not like you have anything better to do, is it? When was the last time you did any paid work?”

“I’m working all the time,” I lied. “I never leave my computer.”

Daniel looked unimpressed.

“Then how come we never seem to have any money? How much is left in the joint account after you paid the mortgage this month?”

I have to confess I was a bit vague. Not because I was fudging the issue, but because it’s been so long since I actually checked the balance. And of course Daniel wouldn’t have checked it himself; he has always been more than happy to leave that side of things to me.

“If you’re so worried about money, why don’t you contribute a bit,” I threw at him.

Daniel looked furious, and to be fair, I could see why. We did actually go through all this when he decided to retrain as a teacher; it’s just that I hadn’t really taken in all the implications then. I’d been so wrapped up in the fantasy of you and me that nothing else had actually seemed real. And in the back of my mind, I’d assumed that by the time the training was under way, I’d be gone, whisked off to my new life where paying the mortgage didn’t feature.

“I suggest you go and talk to your daughter.” He had a weird expression on his face when he said that, as if I was someone he didn’t completely recognize, but instinctively knew he didn’t like.

Tilly was unforgiving, of course, hermetically sealed off in her hormonal airtight bag. She’s going through that unfortunate phase kids reach at thirteen or fourteen where their hitherto dainty features broaden out and coarsen, noses becoming bulbous, skin spotty. She wears her slightly greasy hair across her face like a burka.

Her self-righteous fury rendered her momentarily dumb when I walked into her room. Looking around the walls at all the new posters she’d put up, it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually been in Tilly’s room for quite some time. When did she stop liking boy singers who looked like babies and start liking bands with leather jackets and scowls?

“Who’s that?” I asked her, pointing at one of the posters on the wall.

She turned the full force of her withering gaze onto me. “Like you care!” she said at last.

I told her I was sorry about the parents’ evening. I told her I had a lot of things on my mind. To be honest, I was hoping that by taking her into my confidence a bit I might get a little bit of sympathy. I’d forgotten that teenagers don’t develop the sympathy gene until much later on, if at all.

“Why don’t you just admit it. You don’t care about me. You don’t care what happens to me. Me and Jamie are just an irritation to you.”

“That’s not true.” I was quite indignant. “I love you both.” It sounded weak and unconvincing, so I expanded. “I adore you both.
But you have to understand that sometimes adults have their own problems. You don’t have a monopoly on shitty things happening, you know.”

I’d intended it to sound informal and intimate, but Tilly looked startled by the word “shitty.” I had to quickly reassure her that I’d call the school first thing tomorrow to fix up a special appointment with her main teachers.

“If you’re sure you can fit it into your busy schedule,” Tilly sneered.

Sometimes, you know, I feel like I just can’t do any more than I’m doing. I know it’s not perfect but it’s all I can give at the moment. I wish the children were just a little bit more, well, empathetic. It really would be such a relief.

When I went out of Tilly’s room, leaving her staring stony faced ahead with her iPod headphones stuffed into her ears, I noticed Jamie’s bedroom door was slightly open, and there was a slightly muffled breathing coming from inside that made me think he’d been listening to me and Tilly arguing. For a moment, I hesitated on the landing, wondering if I should go in and chat to him and explain things. But, you know, my head was pounding and I was still upset about what had happened with Susan, and the scene with Tilly hadn’t helped, and all the way home I’d been picturing the large glass of wine I was going to pour myself from the fridge. So I carried on down the stairs.

The thing about kids, as I’m sure you know, is they’re very resilient.

I
had half expected your email of course. The moment I’d made that arrangement with Susan to meet at Starbucks, I’d known you wouldn’t like it and realized there was a fairly good chance you’d be getting in touch. I didn’t know you’d feel quite so strongly about it, though, I confess. I mean “campaign of harrassment.” What’s that all about? I make a perfectly reasonable arrangement to meet an old friend for a coffee and suddenly I’m mounting a campaign of harassment. Really, Clive, you need to work on your perspective issues. You really do.

As for that part about things being about to turn “nasty,” I do sometimes think you must be plundering your hairdresser’s stories for dialogue. That isn’t you speaking, Clive. I know you, remember? (Suddenly an image of the ferret-faced squeegee man pops into my head, dirty water slopping out of his bucket as he hurried away.)

I do take your point about you giving me every opportunity for withdrawing voluntarily from your life. The problem has always been that I don’t really want to withdraw from your life. Nice of you to give me the opportunities though. Was that what you were doing when you fucked me on that bed in the windowless hotel room? Giving me an opportunity to withdraw?

It’s a good thing I didn’t have time to sit and analyze that message properly, or I might have gotten quite depressed. Instead, I had to hurry out of the door to a meeting at Tilly’s school. I was quite taken aback when I rang first thing this morning (well, okay, maybe not completely first thing, but definitely before my morning nap. Oh, and maybe it was they who called me and not the other way around, now I come to think about it) and was told that the head teacher and Tilly’s form teacher would like to see me at my “earliest convenience.” I didn’t tell them that no appointment was really convenient for me, or that my packed timetable of compulsive email checking left little in the way of free time.

When I arrived at the school, Tilly was slouched in a plastic chair outside the head teacher’s office, chewing on a piece of her hair.

“Everything okay, darling?” I asked her brightly, principally for the benefit of the head teacher’s secretary who was sitting at an adjacent desk.

Tilly gave me a scornful look, scrutinizing what I was wearing. Did your kids do that? Vet everything you and Susan wore to their school in case it somehow reflected badly on them? I imagine it’s not so pronounced in the kind of private schools they went to. I expect there’s more of a prevailing bohemian liberalism there, as opposed to Tilly’s school, where the wrong kind of jeans can permanently brand a parent and bring lasting shame on their offspring. I have to say that, under her critical glare, I suddenly wished I’d made a bit more of an
effort. There’s nothing quite like being judged by a thirteen-year-old to make one feel wanting. Your email this morning unsettled me so much that I just threw on whatever was closest to hand from the pile on the floor by my bed. Looking down I noticed that the black jumper I was wearing had drips of toothpaste all the way down it, which I tried to scrape off with my fingernail.

The head teacher, Mrs. Sutherland, and Tilly’s form teacher, a boyman called Mr. Meyer, who didn’t look old enough to shave, sat side by side on a sofa in Mrs. Sutherland’s office. Much to Tilly’s obvious annoyance, they wanted to see me first on my own.

“We’re a little concerned about Tilly,” was Mrs. Sutherland’s opening gambit. Well, you can imagine I was a little bit nonplussed. I’d gone in there thinking I was going to get a quick appraisal of Tilly’s academic progress, not to listen to any concerns (and to be quite frank, after my coffee with Susan yesterday, I’ve had just about enough of other people’s concerns).

She went on to say that Tilly’s attitude had changed markedly over the past few weeks. That was the exact word. Markedly. Apparently she’s gone from being a conscientious A student to neglecting her homework and looking blatantly bored, and on occasion, being rude in lessons.

“Is there anything happening at home that might be able to explain the change in Tilly’s behavior?” asked the quasi-adolescent Mr. Meyer.

Naturally, my first reaction was to tell them to mind their own fucking business. As if I’d tell them what was happening at home. If indeed anything were ever to happen at home, which of course it doesn’t (ours being the house where nothing ever happens).

I pointed out that Tilly was at that age where hormones start kicking in and kids start acting completely out of character. I was annoyed to find my voice wavering as I spoke and to realize that I was on the verge of tears.

“Usually the hormonal problems tend to manifest themselves at home rather than at school,” Mrs. Sutherland said doubtfully. “It’s unusual for a girl like Tilly to lose her way so noticeably and so suddenly.”

When Tilly was called in to join us, Mrs. Sutherland repeated much of what she’d just told me.

“Have you got any explanations, Tilly?” she asked her. “Is there anything troubling you? You’re such a talented girl. We just want to help.”

Tilly sat sullenly, still chewing on her hair, and shook her head. The teachers turned their eyes to me then, but I found I didn’t have anything to add. My mind was still caught up in that phrase Mrs. Sutherland had used, about Tilly having “lost her way.”

My daughter had lost her way. And suddenly I wondered whether that’s what has happened to me too. Have I lost my way, and Daniel also? The three of us wandering blindfold around our lives, bumping into walls.

Have I done that to us? Have I made us like that? Or was it you, Clive? Is it your fault my daughter can’t find her way back? Have you ripped up the map that we were all reading from?

Is this because of you?

O
n the way back from school a very odd thing happened.

I was crossing the main road past the library when I saw a man in a familiar jacket sitting on a bench farther along. Black leather with stripes down the sleeves. When I got the other side, I turned the opposite way and hurried along the road, but I knew without looking that he was following me.

Of course I knew you had sent him. I kept trying to draw comfort from that. I kept trying to make myself see him as a present from you to me, but my stupid heavy basketball of a heart was bouncing around uncontrollably in my chest, bruising my insides, and waves of dizziness were passing through me.

Then all of a sudden, he wasn’t there anymore. The insistent padding of his too-white sneakers was no longer echoing the sound of my own footsteps. I slowed down, my pulse still painfully hyperactive, my nerves still stretched tight as catgut. I decided to cut back home through the park, but guess who was waiting by the park entrance?