Page 73 of Things We Never Said
The third time he came, he touched my arm very gently and asked if he could buy me a drink. And it took truly every bit of energy and determination I could muster to say no.
But I kept bumping into him, that was the thing. I bumped into him in Sainsbury’s and I bumped into him at the petrol station. I bumped into him walking back from school, and I came upon him when I was walking across Midsummer Common one morning. That was the first time I had ever seen him dressed casually, in a polo shirt and chinos. And I realised that the reason his suit hung so well was because he was incredibly fit beneath it. He later told me that he had been a competition swimmer in his youth, and the least that I can say is that it still showed. Anyway, we were both heading the same way – towards the town centre – so we had to walk side by side for a bit, which felt awkward.
We made polite chit-chat. I asked him how the kitten was doing; he asked after Miaow, the kitten’s mother, and I told him the truth, that the mothers were often un-adoptable and that many of them spent the rest of their days in the shelter.
Jake was shocked about that and he asked me whether she would still get on with her kitten if he adopted her as well, to which I replied that, yes, she almost certainly would. And he said he couldn’t bear the idea of Miaow spending her life kitten-less at the shelter. That glimpse of kindness softened the heart I’d been trying so hard to harden. It provided Jake with an opening; it gave him a way in, if you see what I mean.
It also meant, of course, that he had to come back to the shelter again and that I knew he was coming back in advance. And though I promise you I tried incredibly hard not to do so, I started to fantasise about him. I used to try to balance these fantasies out by overwriting them with another one about you, but the new is always so much brighter than the familiar ... It never worked that well.
I was scared, in advance, about what I might do, and a couple of times it was on the tip of my tongue to tell you about him. I thought that perhaps the shame might cool things down; I thought your anger might save me. But I never did manage to tell you because I could never quite put the words together to express something so complex and sordid and exciting and stupid. I still wonder how that conversation might have gone.
He turned up the following Thursday night just as I was locking up. He had come straight from work, but his train had been late, so by the time he had driven from the station it was almost seven. He was wearing a silky, sharkskin three-piece suit. He looked stunning.
I gave him some tips about reintroducing the two cats, and then – and I’m sure you’ve seen this coming, because I did too – he said that it all sounded terribly complicated and asked me if I had time to come back with him.
And I heard my mouth say, ‘Sure. Why not?’
That will sound like me shirking my responsibility for the whole thing, and perhaps that’s what it is. But I really was thinking,No, no, no!even as I heard my mouth say, ‘Sure. Why not?’
We filled out the paperwork for Miaow and he paid the fee and added on a generous donation, and all the time I was thinking,You have to say no. You have to remind him you’re married and sayno.It’s that easy.But I didn’t seem to be able to speak.
He asked me which was my car, and I explained that I took the bus on Thursdays. He offered to drive me home afterwards, and I remember thinking,After what?
We caged up the cat and went outside to the car park.
He took his jacket off and threw it on the back seat – he had this lovely old racing-green MG – and as he drove I kept glancing across at his white shirt and his waistcoat and his tie, which jutted out from his collar, and it was as if my mind had split in two. One half was saying,What are you doing, girl? Stop!And the other half was lost in the fantasy of kissing him, thinking about what it would feel like to put my arms around his stiff, starched collar. And I thought that, one day, I’d be dead, and it would be a shame to miss the opportunity, because, somehow, surely everyone deserved the chance, once in their lives, to live out their fantasies. I told myself that we’d married so young and that if we’d met later on then perhaps I would have got the pretty, arrogant Jakes of this world out of my system. I told myself that you’d had your fling with Maggie, so it was my turn now. I told myself so many things in an attempt to make it all OK, Sean, but the sad truth is that his aura, his confidence – the confidence that meant he at leastwasn’tembarrassed to dress like that – these things were like a magnet to me, and I didn’t seem to have the power to resist. Sitting beside him, my heart was racing and every part of my body seemed to be waiting for his touch. But even then, I was promising myself that nothing was going to happen. I don’t know who I thought I was kidding.
When we got to his flat it was a huge, modern place out in Trumpington and I wondered if you’d perhaps helped to design it. We put Miaow in one room and Mitsi (his daughter had named the kitten Mitsi) in another, and fixed the door so that there was an inch through which they could peep at each other. But Mitsi went crazy, in a good way. She hadn’t forgotten who her mother was yet, and so, within a minute, we opened the door and they were all over each other in a big love-in. It was so cute watching their reunion, it made me well up.
Jake offered me a drink, and I said no, and then changed my mind and said yes, so he mixed me a gin and tonic.
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ he said, gently stroking his chin. ‘And I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t.’
I asked him what that was.
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’d mind terribly if I kissed you,’ he said.
‘Best not,’ I croaked. ‘You know ... married and all that.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Jake said. He seemed quite cool about it.
I stayed and sipped at my drink, and all the while I was imagining my body pressed against the formal crispness of his clothes, imagining the feel of them against me, imagining how it would feel to kiss his lips. And it was as much as I could do to stop myself launching myself at him, right there, right then. Does that make any sense to you? I bet it does. I bet you’ve felt that too, at least once in your life.
But it was all getting to be too much for me. I put my gin and tonic down, stood and walked to the door. ‘I’d like you to take me home, please,’ I said. And Jake, bless him, did exactly that.
The weekend after that, I tried to get you to buy a suit. Do you remember? We were in the town centre and I attempted to drag you into Moss Bros.
I was thinking, praying, that perhaps, just perhaps, dressing you like Jake could save me from this madness, because even as it was happening, I knew it was a kind of insanity. But you just laughed at me and said something like, ‘What the fuck would I do with a suit? When would I even wear it?’
And because you’re right, because there are always things that we never can say to our partners, I did not reply, ‘Well, you could wear it in the bedroom, for starters,’ and I didn’t say, either, ‘Because otherwise, I’m going to have an affair with a stunningly well-dressed lawyer called Jake.’
The following Thursday when I got out of work, Jake was there again, waiting in his MG in the car park. ‘I wondered if I could drive you home,’ he said. ‘You said you take the bus on Thursdays, so I just thought ...’
I agreed. We needed, I had decided, to talk. I needed to tell him that there was no hope for us, once and for all.
He drove to that big roundabout at the end of the road, then said, ‘Do you have to be back quickly?’
I told him that I didn’t, and it was true. April was staying at Stacy’s and you’d texted to say you were working till at least ten.
