The Friends We Keep
Jane Green
prologue
- 2016 -
BEN
I worry that it’s too late, that I should have done this years ago instead of burying my head in the sand and letting my marriage drift. My sobriety feels different this time, and these past few months I’ve been nostalgic. I’m praying it’s not too late to make amends for the hell I’ve put her through, to start again.
I’ve been thinking about how it used to be, when we were first married, on our honeymoon when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. The hotel staff couldn’t help but smile when they saw us—we were so in love. Those early years were so good. Finding the house in Somerset, trying for a baby, convinced that life would go our way, that we would get everything we ever wanted.
I hope to God it’s not too late for us to get back on track. Let’s face it, I’m not an impulsive man. I’m a scientist. I don’t do anything impulsively, other than the years I was drinking. But I’m sober now. My doctor said one more drink would kill me. For the first time in my life, falling off the wagon isn’t an option. I’ve had nine months without a drink, and this time I feel great. The only thing that’s not working is my marriage, and I can’t blame her. I’ve put my poor wife through hell all these years. The drinking, the blackouts, the disappearing for days at a time. I can’t believe she’s stuck by me, although if I’m honest, it’s in name only. We’ve barely spoken since I started working in London. When I’m home on the weekends, we pass each other like ships in the night. I know she’s still checking the bins for empty bottles of vodka. I thought I had made my amends to her for the years of pain, but it wasn’t enough.
I can feel her slipping away, withdrawing so completely into herself that I don’t know if there’s a way to fix things. I need to do something big to try to win my wife back; I need to surprise her, to remind her of what we used to have, if there’s any hope of making it through the next twenty-five years.
I lean my head against the window of the train, speeding past the London suburbs, racing past the terraced brick houses and weeds climbing over the embankment, but I’m not seeing it. Not today. Every few seconds I pull out my phone and look at the screen, at the two boarding passes for Heathrow Monday morning, British Airways to Nice, where we’ll pick up a Hertz rental and drive up to the Colombe d’Or, the hotel where we spent our honeymoon, almost twenty-five years ago.
I’d never been to the South of France before. My wife had, of course, but not to that hotel; her parents owned a house somewhere nearby, so this was special for both of us. The pair of us were such lovebirds, we barely left the room to explore. We spent our days getting up late and eating fresh croissants on the terrace under the huge Magritte mosaic wall, lounging by the swimming pool all day, our legs entwined, barely able to concentrate on the books we had brought. She teased me for bringing science journals, but she wasn’t any more interested in the novels she had packed. We only had eyes for each other.
Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, and her hair so red it glowed, and hung thick and long, almost touching her waist. We would stand in the pool, my wife wrapped around me like a silky coiled octopus, covering me with kisses, only breaking off to look at the fourth finger of her left hand, laughing, because she said she could not quite believe we were married.
“Evil Ben,” she’d say. “I’m married to Evil Ben!”
I’d laugh along with her, partly at the ridiculous nickname, but also because I couldn’t believe it either. I was married to one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen, a girl who seemed so out of my league when I first saw her at university, I didn’t think I would have a hope of having a conversation with her, let alone being married to her. Married! I couldn’t believe she was mine. I couldn’t believe she had chosen me.
It’s hard to believe we’re the same people as those two lovebirds from all those years ago. It’s almost impossible to believe how happy we once were. Perhaps things wouldn’t have gotten quite so bad if I hadn’t taken this job in London. It’s never good for me to be on my own, but it was too much money to turn down. Ten more years, I thought, and then I can retire. But can we make it through the next ten years? Stupidly—Christ, how stupid I was—I thought that absence might make the heart grow fonder.
But that’s what had happened the last time I commuted. We had just moved to the house in Somerset, and were thinking about trying for a baby soon, but there was no pressure. My wife was thrilled I’d landed a job with such a prestigious pharmaceutical firm. It was a big promotion, and a big salary increase. And honestly? It was the perfect balance, most of the week in London and the weekends in this idyllic manor house with my beautiful wife. She loved it, too, in the beginning. She told anyone who would listen that our relationship was so good because it was part-time. We never took each other for granted, we had time to miss each other, and we looked forward to seeing each other.
But of course, I was on my own too much, and the pub was right next to my flat. Before long, I was rolling out of the pub every night, last man down. The only good thing was that my wife wasn’t around to nag me about it. I’d always phone her at around nine, before I got plastered, and tell her I was going to bed. Not that she had such a problem with me drinking then, but neither of us knew what a problem it would become.