Behind Her Eyes(29)

When he comes into the kitchen, he’s dressed and he can’t quite meet my eyes. I feel cheap. I deserve to. He’s showered without getting his hair wet, the condom flushed down my toilet, all evidence of infidelity washed away.

‘I should go,’ he says. I nod and try to smile, but it’s more of a grimace.

‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’ I expect him to open the door and rush out, and for a moment it looks like he will, and then he turns back and kisses me.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I know this is shit.’

I think of Adele’s sweet smile and I want to tell him I’m as guilty as he is of betraying her, but I can’t.

‘Forget about it. It’s done. We can’t undo it.’

‘I don’t want to undo it. But things are …’ He hesitates. ‘Difficult. I can’t explain.’

It’s not that difficult, I want to say. People cheat all the time. The reasons are always selfish and base, it’s the excuses we make that are complicated. I stay quiet though. My head is throbbing and my feelings are all over the place.

‘You need to go,’ I say, giving him a shove towards the door. I don’t want him to say anything else that’s going to make me feel worse than I already do. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t bring this to work.’

He looks relieved. ‘Good. Sometimes she … I don’t know how …’ He’s not making any sense, but I let him carry on. ‘I don’t like to … things should stay out of the office.’

He compartmentalises. That’s what Adele had said. If only she knew how much.

‘Go,’ I repeat, and this time he does.

Well, I think as the door closes leaving me suddenly alone and terribly lonely, that’s that then. A new low reached. Even Sophie wouldn’t have done this. After all my concerns for how he treats Adele I’ve still had sex with him the first chance I’ve had.

I pour a glass of water and get some ibuprofen and shuffle back to my bed. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about them. I don’t want to think about me. I just want to sleep it away.

I wake up in the kitchen with the tap running and my arms waving around my face, beating my dreams away. I’m gasping, my head full of heat. It’s light already, and I blink and pant rapidly, for a moment thinking the stream of early sunlight is flames around me, and then I slowly settle back into the world, but the dream is still clear. The same one as ever. Adam lost. The darkness coming alive to trap me. This time was slightly different though. Every time I got close to Adam’s voice and opened a door in the abandoned building, I found Adele or David in a burning room, both shouting something at me that I couldn’t hear.

It’s 6a.m. and I feel like shit and my stomach is churning with hangover and guilt and the embers of the dream, and I’m exhausted. It’s too late to go back to sleep, and for a brief second I think about calling in sick for a second day, but I’m not going to be that person. Sue will already have noticed that I’m not getting in as early every day as I used to, and another sick day will make her worry. Also, I want to get things back to normal. To pretend last night never happened. I am such a shitty person, but even as I think that, I’m tingling a little with the memory of the sex. I didn’t come – I never do first time – but he woke my body up, and it’s going to take a while before it settles back into my sexless life.

I make coffee and go into the sitting room and see the notebook lying on the floor. It makes me feel guilty all over again. Adele’s been trying to help me, and I’ve slept with her husband. How have I let this happen?

I need to put what happened with David in a box in my head, separate from Adele, because otherwise I might do something stupid like tell her just to make myself feel better. And I won’t feel better, but she’ll feel worse. I think about Sophie and her affairs, and how no one ever tells the wife and how everyone’s life is probably a mess of secrets and lies when you boil them right down. We can never see who someone really is underneath the skin. In some kind of solidarity with Adele I pinch myself.

‘I am awake,’ I say and feel stupid hearing my words aloud in an empty flat. This whole thing is stupid, but I persevere. I look at my hands and count my fingers. I can’t be arsed to get up and look at the clock in the kitchen. I figure I can do that bit at work. This is no real penance though. Not for what I’ve done. Being a good student hardly makes up for this betrayal. God, my head hurts. David and Adele – I don’t really know what they each are to me. A lover now? A new friend? Neither? I am fascinated by them – individually and as a pair, but maybe that’s all it is really. Other than a mess waiting to happen. I can’t keep both of them. I can’t. I need to choose.

My phone, still in the bedroom, starts ringing, and my heart races.

‘Bonjour Maman,’ Adam says and then giggles. ‘Hello Mummy! I’m in France and I haven’t eaten snails yet but Daddy said I should call you before you go to work …’

In that moment, listening to his excited, breathless morning babble that makes my tired eyes well up a bit, I could kiss Ian. He knows, deep down, how much this has cost me, to let my baby go away with them, especially now, especially now the pregnancy is amongst us. He knows how important it is for me to hear from him without having to be the one to call. He knows I don’t want to feel needy, even though Adam is my baby and always will be. He knows I’m proud and capable of biting off my nose to spite my face when I’m hurt. He knows me. I might hate how he treated me, and I might hate that he’s happy, but he knows me. After last night with David, it’s a strange comfort.