Page 2 of The Stranger in Room Six
I try to distract myself, letting my mind wander back over the years, as it has been doing more and more recently. If it hadn’t been for my mother nagging and nagging about settling down with someone who had ‘prospects’, I would have waited until I’d found someone who had set fireworks off in my heart. Just as …
No, I won’t think about him. Not now. Not ever. Not even after the letter, which has been pulsing a secret excitement through my body ever since it fluttered unexpectedly onto the hall mat.
Sometimes I can’t believe that Gerald and I are actually coming up to our silver wedding anniversary. Twenty-five years of utter boredom and loneliness. If it hadn’t been for our daughters, I’d have left long ago. Maybe when they’re both at university I’ll finally do it. Take the plunge and go.
I know, deep down, that I don’t mean this. It’s just something I say to reassure myself that things might get better one day. I’ve seen enough from my small circle of not-very-close friends to know how divorce shatters a family. One has a son who dropped out of college; another whose daughter chose to live with her father and his new girlfriend. It broke my friend’s heart.
I’d die without my girls. So, instead, I just stay here and pretend everything is fine until Gerald finally –
‘I’m there!’ he explodes. ‘I’ve got it! Nine down is “antipathy”!’ He glances at his gold watch with a gleam of satisfaction. ‘Done it! In only nine minutes and forty seconds.’
‘Well done, dear,’ I say quietly, watching my husband as he folds up hisTimesneatly before rising from the breakfast table.
‘Thank you,’ he says, as if taking a bow. ‘See you tonight – 6.30 p.m.’
Of course, that’s when he’s always home from his job as an accountant: 6.30 p.m. on the dot, every day apart from ‘high days and holidays’, as he puts it.
How bloody boring can you get? I’m not a swearer but sometimes the situation calls for it.
I wait, heart in mouth, for him to close the front door behind him (‘I’ll do it, Belinda. You’ll damage the catch again’). Then I go up to my drawer and retrieve the letter that has dominated my thoughts since it arrived last week. I absorb the hue of the dark blue ink again, allowing myself to savour the delicious pleasure of his distinctive writing.
I hear the words in my head as if Imran is here to say them himself.
‘Please ring me. I can’t wait to hear your voice.’
‘No,’ screams the sensible voice inside me; the one that wants to hang on to the safety of the table for four; the casserole I’ll prepare later this afternoon for family supper at 7 p.m. sharp.
But why not?Whycan’t he be allowed to hear my voice?Whycan’t I give myself permission to hear his? Whatisit about first love that just won’t go away?
I reach for my mobile.
Nine down has done it for me.
Antipathy. What supreme irony! Isn’t that what I’ve been feeling for Gerald for twenty-five long, uneventful years?
Enough is enough.
If I don’t dosomething, I might just murder my husband.
2
Of course, I tell myself as I dial the number at the bottom of Imran’s letter, I don’t mean it. I wouldn’t dream of hurting Gerald; it’s just a turn of phrase. Nor, as I’ve already said, would I ever leave him.
One ring.
It’s not ‘just’ that I’m terrified of wrecking my children’s lives, although that is a major part of it. It’s because I’m scared. How would I manage on my own? Apart from university, I’ve never lived on my own. Crazy as it sounds nowadays, I’d gone straight from my mother’s house to my husband’s.
Besides, I couldn’t hurt him. Gerald might be boring; pedantic even. But there’s something inside me that flinches at the thought of his face crumbling if I told him I wanted out. Even though we are totally incompatible.
Two rings.
Mind you, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one to feel like this, judging by the conversation at book club. It’s become part of our language.
‘Oh Alan/Douglas/Clive …’ one of the ‘girls’ will say with a sigh. Then there’ll be some story about how the offending husband hadn’t put the car in the garage so it needed de-icing or had left his muddy shoes on, leaving footprints on the new expensive carpet or had failed to book the usual family trip to the Dordogne on time and now the ferry was full.
That’s when we all roll our eyes in sympathy, knowing that the complainant is just like the rest of us, and it isn’ta big deal. Not really. Not compared with the thought of being a ‘single mother’: a phrase our own mothers used to whisper in hushed voices, as if this was the worst – the very worst – thing that could happen.
We might criticize our men, our marriages. But in the end we go along with them because it’s so much safer and kinder than the alternative.
