The First Mistake(17)
Stop, I remonstrate with myself. I think the world of Lottie, and anyway, that’s just not my style. But then I remember the look she gave Nathan, the look he gave her – as if they shared a secret.
I scream into my pillow in exasperation. How has my brain turned something I know to be totally innocent into a guilt-riddled love pact, just because I’ve found an earring in my husband’s car? This is ridiculous – what’s the point in lying here in the dark, with every scenario tearing around my brain, growing more and more exaggerated with every passing minute?
I turn on the bedside lamp and feel for the earring in my drawer, bringing it up to the light to examine it even more closely than I already have. Who would wear something like this? It isn’t real, I’m sure of that, so it must have been worn as dress jewellery. A little glimpse of bling to brighten up a dull outfit, perhaps? Or the pièce de résistance with a simple evening gown, elegant and understated? I picture two very different women, from either end of the social spectrum. This isn’t helping. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and go to pick up my dressing gown from the chair beside me. Perhaps a cup of tea is what’s needed.
I find myself wondering, as I wait for the kettle to boil, if there is a tablet that can temporarily rid the brain of its thoughts. Not the cherished memories or excited optimism for the future, but the toxic type, the ones that poison our minds and turn us into temperamental, untrusting versions of ourselves. But then I remember I’m already taking that very medicine – the two tiny pills that I pop every night, just before bed, are designed to take the sharp edges off my thoughts and feelings, protect me from the darkness. So why aren’t they working now?
I used to rely on them to get me through the day, so that I could wake up every morning without that weight on my chest, pinning me down on the bed. Over the years, what felt like a boulder had gradually been replaced by a rock, and the rock eventually felt more like a stone. It had been a great cause for celebration when I declared myself free of medical intervention eighteen months ago.
It had been liberating to be free of the blurry haze I’d been living in, after years of feeling lethargic with a brain full of cotton wool. Because that’s what it was like on antidepressants; I may not have felt the lows, but my nerve endings were so dulled that I didn’t experience the highs either – I’d just existed in the middle of a long road, with no colour either side, just grey all around.
‘I remember a time when you couldn’t have done this,’ Nathan had whispered to me at a party a few weeks back. ‘I can’t tell you how proud I am of you – of how far you’ve come.’
Which is probably why I haven’t yet had the heart to tell him that I’m back on the tablets. I don’t think I could bear the look of disappointment in his eyes. I’m only on a minute dosage – they may as well be placebos. But I need that little lift, a crutch to lean on. It’s coming up to ten years that Tom’s been gone and what with Japan and Sophia’s exams, everything feels like it’s getting on top of me again.
I sit in bed with a cup of tea, made too milky, in the hope that it will kickstart my snooze button. My laptop is perched on my lap, forever ready to hijack my thoughts and make me superficially alert. The contradiction is not lost on me. But still, I can’t stop myself. I stare at the blank screen. I don’t even know where to start, and wonder if there’s an online manual on how to find out if your husband is cheating. I laugh hollowly to myself – I bet there is. My fingers linger over the keys. How do I know if my husband is having an affair? I feel stupid even typing it in and I shield my eyes from the screen, as if doing so will mean that I’m not really interested in the answer.
This is what other wives do. Suspicious wives, who have every reason not to trust their husbands. I don’t want to be like them. I know Nathan and I know that our marriage is strong, immune from the problems that blight couples weaker than us.
I open one eye to see a quiz with the same heading as my search, run by a national newspaper. I shamefully read the first question, if only for a laugh, I tell myself.
Does your husband go to the gym:
a) Every day
b) Every other day
c) Once a week
d) Never
C, I say to myself. If I answer in my head, I’m not really doing it.
Does your husband want to have sex:
a) Every day
b) Four times a week
c) Once a week
d) Hardly ever
I feel like my teenage self, who truly believed that my love life could be accurately predicted by one of these preposterous quizzes, which was no doubt devised by an office assistant not much older than myself. I can’t quite believe that adults are still relying on them. Despite myself, I casually cast an eye over the Mostly Cs category and feel mildly satisfied to be told that my marriage is healthy, and my husband is definitely not having an affair.
I’m about to close my laptop when I see another page, a forum for women who believe they’re being wronged.
I can’t blame him. I was always too tired for sex, one says.
I’d let myself go and now he’s with a woman who looks like I did ten years ago. I should have made more of an effort, says another.
I’m incredulous that of the hundreds of posts from women who think their husbands are having affairs, barely any are blaming him. I read a message from a woman named Sylvia who, like me, has found an errant piece of jewellery that isn’t hers. I feel a sense of camaraderie with her as she attempts to justify how a silver chain with half a love heart hanging from it could have found its way into her husband’s suit pocket: