‘Her name’s Denise.’
I didn’t know any Denise.
‘Where did you meet her, who is she?’ My face felt odd, as though I couldn’t control my muscles, little tremors flickering through my cheeks, plucking at my lips.
‘At physio, she works there.’ Tony had hurt his shoulder lifting stuff at work. When it didn’t heal, I pestered him until he went to the GP, who referred him on.
I laughed, feeling sick.
‘She was looking for a fireplace.’
And got a lover into the bargain.
He exhaled slowly and pulled a face.
‘Look, if this is just some fling-’ I was ready to forgive, to forget, to retreat. Something was breaking inside me at the prospect that he might leave.
‘It’s not,’ he interrupted. ‘I can’t stop seeing her, I don’t want to stop.’
I turned to look out of the window. I couldn’t bear to witness it, what he was saying, the strength of his feeling. ‘You bastard,’ I said.
‘Ruth-’
‘Fuck off!’ I threw the glass across the room, relishing the sound as it smashed against the wall and water splashed on to the shelves and the floor. ‘Get out,’ I screeched at him.
He tried to speak, something about sorting things out and Lizzie, but I was incandescent.
That day I called in sick, and I was. Heartsick, wounded. Retreating to my bed, I wept and cursed, all but tore my hair out. What had happened? Obviously he didn’t love me as I still did him, but where had it gone? Nineteen years we’d been together. Nineteen.
Lizzie shared my hurt and outrage when Tony and I finally told her what was going on. It would have been easy to form a little cabal, the two of us, to ostracize him, close ranks and sit together picking over his betrayal for our entertainment. Or to force him to choose between Denise and his daughter. But I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to be the stereotype of the cuckolded wife, cold and acerbic and unforgiving. Nor did I want Lizzie to be damaged in the fallout from the split.
Yes, I was hurt, and it took me a long time to feel at peace again in my life. To be comfortable in my solitude. Fourteen years since the parting, and to be honest, there is still a residue there. The scars, perhaps, still niggle and ache.
I’ve drunk at least a bottle of wine but I am stone-cold sober. I feel bruised everywhere, my muscles aching, my back sore when I stretch or breathe deeply. As if I’ve been in an accident.
Milky slips up the stairs with me, finds my door shut and yowls and I tell him to hush. He slinks away. When I come into the spare room from the bathroom, he nearly trips me up.
