The Reading Group Part 27

Gavin took a stool beside her. He raised a finger imperiously at the barman and ordered a beer for himself, another gin and tonic for her.

'Just tonic, thanks.'

'Not drinking?'

'I've got the car on a meter.'

Gavin exhaled slowly. She wasn't melting. He took a long swig of his beer.

'I don't want you back, Gavin.' She held up her hand as he opened his mouth to speak. 'Let me finish.' He stayed silent, his hands up in a humorous gesture of surrender. 'I need you to understand why. And I need you to understand how much I mean it. It isn't because you slept with that woman in Spain. This isn't a punishment. I just don't want to be married to you any more, that's all. I've had enough. It's over.'

'You still love me.' His arrogance made her want to hit him.

'I'm learning not to.'

'But you still do.'

'I loved you for a long time, Gavin. I spent a lot of years believing I was lucky to have you. I don't think that any more. You don't deserve my love, and I'm withdrawing it. Whatever I feel inside myself is for me to deal with. And, believe me, it's under way.'

'This isn't you talking. You don't talk this way. This is Harriet, or those other women you've been hanging around with. Putting words in your mouth.'

'Oh, it's me. If you don't believe it now, you will. It's not the me you kept in a trance all that time. The me who didn't want anyone to know what was going on, who was paralysed by pride and fear. It's the me I was before I loved you, and the one I'm going to be after I'm done.'

She saw that he was deflated, a little. When he spoke again, after another deep drink, his voice was softer, more conciliatory. 'We're a family. You, me, the kids.'

Thank G.o.d. Now she could be angry. 'How dare you try to use our children to get round me? They weren't important to you when you were f.u.c.king that woman in our villa. They weren't important to you all those other times. I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't. I don't suppose for one second you were thinking of them when you were s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around. You never think of anyone but yourself. So don't you dare use my kids.'

'I love them.'

'Yeah, I know that. You love them in some egocentric, uninterested way because they make you look good they're good for your image. Tell me something, Gav. Which is Martha's favourite teddy? What colour's her ballet uniform? Who's her best friend? Who are any of her friends, apart from Chloe? What's William's best subject at school? Which football team is George playing for this term?'

His face was blank.

'You don't know, do you?' He didn't answer. 'So don't tell me I can't do this because of the kids.' Rage was boiling up inside her. She felt like she was vomiting her words, retching to get them out.

'You didn't even know there was another one, did you?' She hadn't known until this moment that she was going to tell him. Suddenly she wanted to hurt him hurt him like he'd hurt her. It made her afraid, knowing she had the power to do that. She almost liked seeing his face like this, bewildered, not understanding. Gavin, who was always in control, always on top.

'What do you mean, another one?'

'I was pregnant this summer, when you were f.u.c.king someone else in our bed.'

'I don't understand.' Their voices were still quiet. 'What do you mean?'

'Pregnant. With your child. Conceived in Venice. I was stupid enough to think another baby might make you faithful. G.o.d, how stupid could I be? I was going to tell you on holiday.'

'What, how...' He was floundering now. He'd lost all his colour. 'But you're not...?'

'I'm not now.' She looked down at her hands. The courage that had carried her this far had failed. It had fled as soon as the baby had flooded back into her mind. She didn't know what to say.

He was shaking his head, thinking fast. He reached his own conclusion. She must have lost the baby. The stress of finding him with that woman. He'd caused her to miscarry his baby: it was his fault. The loss, of something he hadn't known he had, impacted on his face, which crumpled in shock and genuine sadness. 'You lost the baby. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.'

And she didn't correct him. Afterwards she didn't know if it was because that had been the first time he had ever apologised and she felt that he meant it, or because she was afraid of his reaction if he found out the truth, or because she just couldn't bear to say it aloud.

Maybe he didn't deserve the lie. She wouldn't even tell Harriet that she had let him go believing that of himself, although she knew Harriet would tell her that Gavin was responsible, whichever way the baby was lost to them. She didn't want that comforting salve. Like Briony, in the book they had read, she would atone for both sins, alone, silently, eternally. Maybe that was enough.

Harriet Josh was playing with his computer and Harriet marvelled at his ability. Seven years old and he could do things with it that were way beyond his mother. So could Chloe, and she was only four. That was private nursery education for you. You paid thousands of pounds for your children to be educated to the point where at eight they thought you were an idiot. Harriet's understanding of the family computer extended no further than switching it on and going to e-mail, which she loved. You could gossip through the night with no one b.u.t.ting in. But any problems and she was kicking the desk, hitting all the b.u.t.tons, and calling for Tim.

'Josh, switch the computer off now it's breakfast time.' No response.

A few weeks ago she would have shouted at him. All mothers had unlimited fishwife licence where the school-run was concerned even the gentle, pearl-wearing ones, who barely spoke at the mothers' coffee mornings, and always called their child sweetheart in public went at it like crazed banshees between seven and eight fifteen on week-days. She hadn't been able to be cross with him since the accident. She had cut him so much slack, and Chloe, too, that he was pretty much in charge of the morning schedule. They'd been late for school every morning this week.

Tim was late too, today. That didn't help. He was normally gone long before the kids woke but this morning he was still thumping around upstairs. It had been hard for him, too, she knew. Life had been different since the accident. It felt like the Bible BC and AD. Harriet had come to believe that parents who had never sat beside a high-dependency bed willing their child to live were looking at life with blinkers on, taking the ongoing health and safety of their children for granted because they hadn't glimpsed the other possibility. The thoughts that ran through your head while you sat with all that time to kill and nothing to do were mad, disloyal, nasty, hysterical and sometimes almost funny. Why my child? and not that one, who isn't as clever, or cute, or careful or loved? There were random practical thoughts about cars and bedrooms, holidays and next weekend, and all the permutations and implications of a life without them. And although the moment when Josh had opened his eyes, known her and smiled had been the best she had ever lived, nothing could ever be as it was before. The shadow of his mortality had pa.s.sed across her life, and with it the knowledge that his death would have destroyed her, Tim and probably Chloe. It would never go away. She hadn't talked about it, that presence that was here and hadn't been before, not to anyone. She couldn't say so to Nicole; the timing was all wrong; she had her own ghost now. She didn't want to with Tim. It was easy enough not to; people wanted to listen to the story of Josh's accident, and to celebrate his recovery, but they didn't want to know about the shadow. The ones who knew already just knew, and the ones that didn't; well, they couldn't understand.

Alongside, in Harriet's tired brain, ran the knowledge that she had relinquished control, the cardinal sin of mother hood. These last weeks when she had looked at him and Chloe, she had felt only vulnerable, ma.s.sive love. She would have to do something about it soon.

They were late again. Josh had forgotten his football boots, and Chloe her show-and-tell. Double maternal failure. Chloe whimpered, and Josh railed. Harriet promised to come straight back to school with the missing articles. And they had sloped off, belligerently, into their cla.s.srooms.

The car park of mothers heaved a collective sigh of relief, all except those who still had babes in arms, or strollers, to take back home. The others all made for their houses, with coffee, the Daily Mail and House Invaders, or offices, dry-clean only clothing and adult conversations at the water cooler to look forward to, their step a little lighter, without the weight of the sports kit, lunch boxes, sundry hats and gloves, and nagging-without-breathing that had accompanied them in to school.

When she got home Tim was still there. d.a.m.n.

She had had her own plans after she'd been back to school with their things, and they had involved going back to bed, alone, for a couple of hours. The kind of missing time in a day that often translated itself into a strenuous gym visit when you recounted the day, fingers crossed behind the back, metaphorically, to your husband at night.

He was strange he had been for a few days. She knew that she had needed him, in the hospital, in the days after Josh had come back. It had united them no one loved a child as much as its mother and father. It was not so much a tie that bound, as a b.l.o.o.d.y great rope, when that child was lying in a hospital. She knew, too, that things had gone back to normal between them almost as soon as Josh was better. The accident hadn't really changed anything. Not between them. Silly to expect it might have done, probably.

He was sitting, fully dressed, at the kitchen table. The television, which Harriet had on constantly in the morning, listening to the time checks and travel news, was switched off.

'What are you doing? I thought you'd be gone by now.'

'I will be in a few minutes. I'll catch the nine fifty-two.' He always knew the train times. He never said 'ten to ten'. He said every minute counted, if you were a slave to South West trains.

'What's up?' She sat in a chair on the other side of the table.

'I need some time on my own, Harriet. I'm going to stay at the club for a while.' He was watching her face intently.

'How long? What do you mean?'

'I don't know. I just know that something has got to change.'

She hadn't been expecting this. She felt a bit sick. 'I don't understand.'

'I know. That's the point, really.' His voice was low, sad.

Harriet's was louder, frightened. 'Make me understand, then. Tell me what's going on. You can't just come in here and say you're leaving. Not without explaining why.'

He looked as if he were thinking of how to say something major. He was trembling, just a little. Harriet felt an un familiar stab of cold fear. 'Is there somebody else? Are you leaving me for somebody else?' When he didn't deny it straight away she almost screeched at him. 'Are you?'

He put out a hand. 'No. I'm not. There has never been anyone else for me. Not since I met you. You are the only woman I've ever loved, I mean really loved. That's been my downfall, really. I suppose I've always believed I could make you love me as much as I love you. Or maybe I thought I had enough for both of us and it didn't matter. But I find, now, that it does matter, after all. Things haven't been right for ages, longer than I want to admit, I expect. You don't love me like I need to be loved, want to be loved. For Christ's sake, like I deserve to be loved, Harry. I know something went on earlier this year. I don't know what or with who I don't want to.' He looked almost sick at the thought. 'But I do know that while it was going on you were different. You were alive. Someone else was doing that for you. And I held my breath for weeks, months, praying you wouldn't leave me. And when you didn't I thought things might be okay, that they might get better. I believed that maybe you'd chosen to stay with me. That seemed like a good start. But nothing changed. Not really. You make me feel like you don't want me here. Like I'm just an irritant, a complication. If I'm honest with myself, I never feel really loved by you.

'When Josh had his accident, and you needed me so badly? Then I thought you might see. But you didn't. I know I can't make you. And I can't spend the next ten years waiting for you to leave me. I know you love me, I just don't think you're in love with me. And if you're not in love with me, then there's s.p.a.ce, isn't there, in you, in your heart, and sooner or later you will be, with someone else, and then you'll leave me. I can't hold my breath every day of my life and wait for that to happen. I'd rather let you go. Get it over with. I'm between a rock and a f.u.c.king hard place, Harry. I don't want to live this way any more. I feel so bad about myself, and I can't imagine a life without you in it. I'm in a state here. I'm drowning. That's why I'm going. I need some s.p.a.ce. I can't think straight around you I never b.l.o.o.d.y well could. That's why.'

He hadn't watched her face while he spoke. He hadn't seen what pa.s.sed across it. He was dying for her to come round the table to him. He wanted more than anything to feel her arms round him, hear her voice telling him he was an idiot, that she was in love with him, that a world without him in it would be unbearable.

It was shock that kept her quiet. She couldn't believe that he had been suffering like this and that she could have been so oblivious of it. She felt numb. She felt self-loathing.

He pushed a piece of paper across the table to her. It had an address and a telephone number. 'This is where I'll be, if you need me. Tell the kids I love them. Don't tell them...' He couldn't finish. She would have to decide what to tell them. He didn't know how to read her silence. He badly needed to be gone. As he pa.s.sed her chair he touched the top of her head.

When he reached the front door, she said his name, once, quietly. He didn't hear.

As he got into the car to drive to the station he thought she hadn't spoken, and his greatest fear was that silence was the most eloquent answer she could give him.

Susan Susan was surprised that Margaret didn't want to come with her to the solicitor. She didn't think her sister trusted her. She couldn't face it, she had said, when Susan rang, but she would like to meet up, afterwards, for a coffee or something, just to hear what had been said.

Roger had said he wanted to be there; since the funeral he had been terribly protective of her where Margaret was concerned. Polly had said she should choose a neutral public place, so that Margaret would have to behave herself. Susan knew they both thought she was crazy for giving her sister houseroom, with everything that had gone on this year, but she couldn't bring herself to write her off.

She was curious, mostly. Alice was dead, and the two of them were estranged. She was afraid Margaret would go back to Australia and that she would never see her again. That mattered: Susan had a happy family; she didn't have broken relations.h.i.+ps.

Now a quiet, thin Margaret was sitting on the sofa with a mug of tea. 'I just wanted to say... I'm sorry for how I was at the funeral.'

'That's okay. They're always difficult.'

'It's not okay, not at all. I had no right.'

'It hasn't been easy, any of it, for either of us.'

'No. But it's been harder for you. I know that. And I shouldn't have taken it out on you.'

'Forget it. It's fine, Maggie.'

She looked abjectly miserable, and Susan was moved. In her experience unhappy people were the ones who made the trouble. Happy people were too busy living their happy lives.

Margaret didn't seem to know where to go with the conversation once her apology had been accepted. How strange that we grew up together, Susan thought, came from the same womb into the same home and lived there together for years. And now we've nothing to say. 'Had you thought when you might go home?'

'No plans, really. It's an open ticket. There's not a great deal to rush back for.'

'But I thought you had work, and your friend what's her name? Lindy?'

'I gave up my job when I heard about Mum. It wasn't much of a job, not going anywhere. Gave notice on my flat I only rented. Lindy's great, a real mate. She's got some of my stuff stored at her place. I'll stay there when I go back, while I get myself sorted out. But she's got family of her own five kids.'

'Sounds like a handful.'

'It is.'

'You don't sound like you miss much?' Susan's question was light. She was afraid that Margaret would bolt if she pushed her.

When she answered, her sister didn't look at her. Her hands were clasped in her lap and she turned her hands over to look at the palms, then back again, while she spoke. 'It's been weird, coming back here. I didn't expect it to feel like coming home, and it doesn't.' She was struggling to articulate her feelings. It was clearly not something she did very often. 'I feel displaced, I suppose, like I don't belong either here or there.' She'd found a thread, and she sat forward. As if she had heard Susan's silent question, she said, 'I'm middle-aged and I've got nothing, Susan. My parents are dead they both died without me there, not really understanding me, I know that; I've stuffed up my relations.h.i.+p with my sister and her family. I screwed up my marriage. I've got no kids of my own, no career. I haven't even got my own home, for G.o.d's sake, or even my own country.'

'Mum and Dad loved you.'

'That's the easy part, though isn't it? I loved them too. But I would have liked them to understand me, to like me. Love, mother for child, is unconditional and involuntary. Liking has to be earned.'

'They told themselves you'd be happier in Australia.'

Margaret laughed. 'I told myself that, too. Twelve thousand miles seemed like far enough away. Trouble is, I took myself with me, didn't I?'

Now Susan was laughing. 'Why do you give yourself such a hard time?'

'Because I'm a s.h.i.+tty person, Suze.'

'Don't be daft.'

'It's not daft. I have the Midas touch of s.h.i.+ttiness. Everything I touch goes wrong.'

'What happened with Greg do you mind me asking?'

'No, I don't mind. I used him, I think. Ticket to Australia.'

'That's not true. You loved him. I remember. It was the first time I'd ever seen you like that with a man.'

'Did I?' Margaret seemed surprised. 'Yeah, well, maybe I did. I don't think he loved me, though, not once he got me over there and saw me against the backdrop of his own life.'

'Weren't you happy at all?'

'Oh, sure, it was easy enough to be happy to start with. We had a house of our own. I remember the day we moved in. We made love in every room.'

'On one day?'

Margaret giggled. 'It wasn't very big.' She gazed into the middle distance, remembering. 'It must have started going wrong pretty soon. I was homesick can you believe that? we didn't have much money, and I couldn't get a decent job. Then I got pregnant, even though we thought we were being so careful.'

'You had a baby?' Susan couldn't believe that was possible.

'No. I lost it early on, it wasn't too bad.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Suze, it's years ago.'

'Still.'

'Well, anyway, having gone crazy at me for being so stupid when I first found out, Greg went all nuts when I lost the baby. He was desperate for us to try again. He sort of hated me for not being as upset as he was. Said I was selfish.'

'What?'

'Maybe I was. I just didn't see the hurry, that was all. I'd have loved to have kids, but I wanted a bit of time for myself after I lost the first one.'

'That's understandable.'

'Yes, well. I think Greg thought it was understandable that he should seek solace in the arms of the receptionist at his work.'