The First Mistake(88)
He’s only gone a couple of miles when he slows down and indicates left, into the Holiday Inn car park. Despite herself, Alice still wants there to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he’s taken time out of his working day to go to a hotel. But the evidence against him is mounting.
Alice pulls into a space a few rows behind Nathan and hopes that the rain will obscure his vision in the same way it’s dulling hers. She keeps the windscreen wipers on full power, yet they still struggle to offer her a clear view through the glass.
Ten minutes slowly pass, with Nathan still in his car. Alice switches off her wipers to try and retain some level of inconspicuousness, which makes it all the harder to stake out the women she sees; squinting through her rain-splattered windscreen as they make their way to or from their cars, waiting for one of them to head towards Nathan.
A dark car reverses into the space beside Nathan’s, but Alice can’t see the make or model. It doesn’t seem to matter, as five minutes passes without movement. Alice is on the verge of leaving when she sees the car’s door open and a woman get out. There’s a flash of long dark hair, but it all happens too fast as the woman quickly gets into the passenger seat of Nathan’s car.
Alice is rooted to the spot in shock and anger, fighting off the overpowering temptation to run over there and pull her out by her hair. Her hand is on the door handle, her pride pushing her out. She wants to kill him, and then her, but just as she’s about to listen to her heart, her head steps in and attempts to take charge. Breathe, it tells her. Stop and breathe.
The two vital organs vie for control, pushing and pulling, like an internal tug of war. She slams her hands on the steering wheel and cries out, ‘You lying bastard.’ It wasn’t as if she hadn’t given him the chance to confess, to get it all out in the open – yet he’d still prevaricated.
But she’s seen it with her own eyes now. She’s not been the paranoid, needy wife Nathan has made her out to be. She’s been right all along, and the overriding emotion is one of relief. Relief that she doesn’t have to keep trying to catch him out. Relief that when he lies to her, she’ll know the truth. And relief that she’s been cast adrift in the ocean, with just her two girls by her side.
Just a few days ago, the thought would have killed her. But she feels differently now that she’s no longer beholden to anyone else. Now, all she has to do is dodge the obstacles that tie her to a marriage that isn’t what she thought it was. The house, the business and Japan suddenly seem superficial compared to the only real hurdle she’s heading towards at a hundred miles per hour: the children. She has to do everything in her power to push through the complications, animosity and bitterness that will no doubt spill over from this ultimate deceit. She has to stay strong and true to her girls in her efforts to protect them from the fallout.
There’s nothing more to see here. It doesn’t even matter who it is anymore – it won’t make Alice stay with a man who would rather be with someone else.
Just as she puts the car into gear, the woman gets out of Nathan’s car, screams something that Alice doesn’t quite catch and slams the door. A couple of people in the vicinity automatically look in their direction, but, fearful of getting involved, put their heads back down and hurry by. Alice winds her window down to get a clearer look through the rain, just as Nathan’s car screeches forward, no doubt leaving rubber on the tarmac. The woman shouts something again and gesticulates with her arms, but Nathan’s car keeps on moving, at speed, out of the car park.
Alice wishes she’d driven away a few seconds ago, before she had seen the woman who has wrecked her marriage. Before she knew who she was.
With her heart hammering through her chest, she gets out of the car and runs across the car park, lifting her jacket over her head to protect her from the lashing rain. She has no idea what she’s going to say, as she wets her lips, desperate for some moisture in her dry mouth.
The woman’s still standing there, with her back to Alice, staring after Nathan’s car. Alice feels sick as she is faced with the gut-wrenching deceit.
‘Beth!’ she croaks, hating her voice for letting her down.
Beth turns around, her wet hair stuck to her face. Alice can’t tell if the drops on her cheek are tears or rainwater. She sees Alice and is instantaneously paralysed. It takes a few seconds for the shock to subside, but it feels like minutes for Alice, her eyes not leaving Beth’s.
‘Al-Alice,’ Beth stutters, seemingly incapable of forming a full sentence. She looks in the direction that Nathan’s car went, as if it will somehow magically tell her whether Alice had seen him or not. ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’
‘I’m not sure I’m the one who needs to answer that question,’ hisses Alice, her stare unmoving.
‘It’s . . . it’s not what you think,’ stutters Beth.
‘I can’t even begin to get my head around this,’ cries Alice. ‘How could you? How could you do this to me, again?’
‘I’m not having an affair with him, Alice,’ says Beth, pulling herself up, suddenly seeming more in control. ‘You’ve got this all wrong.’
‘Have I?’ snaps Alice. ‘What other possible explanation can there be?’
The two women stare at each other through the pouring rain.
‘Get in the car,’ says Beth eventually. ‘We need to talk.’