The Guilt Trip(51)

As much as she tries, Rachel can’t for the life of her remember how she’d ended up at the pub that night. She so rarely mixed with Jack’s work colleagues or attended any functions, so there must have been a reason. Perhaps she’d surprised him, thinking it would be a treat, but it had resulted in him having to explain to his uninformed mistress that he had a wife in the wings.

“Do you know, it’s three years to the day?” says Ali, interrupting her thoughts.

Rachel raises her eyebrows questioningly.

“That Will and I met,” offers Ali in answer.

“Today?” asks Rachel.

Ali smiles and nods.

Of course, thinks Rachel. Three years ago next week would have been Jack’s fortieth birthday. The night she went to the pub, she’d been in London shopping for his present, and had called to ask if he wanted to meet for dinner before going home. He’d said Will had just got back from Vietnam and he was going to have a quick drink with him.

“Great,” she can remember saying. “Can I tag along?” So, she had invited herself.

“So, what happened to the married man?” asks Rachel, unable to stop herself from needing to know more. She hadn’t realized she was such a glutton for punishment.

“Oh, I broke it off as soon as I found out,” says Ali, seemingly surprised that Rachel would even need to ask. “But even after you’ve ended things, it doesn’t mean that your feelings automatically stop, does it?”

If it’s Jack she’s talking about, Rachel wonders if he feels the same. Whether he’s still holding a torch for her, even though its burning embers ought to have been extinguished by the arrival of Will.

Is that what’s happening here? Are they both still reeling from an unfinished love affair, and choosing different ways to deal with it? Is Ali’s incessant flirting and Jack’s non-compliance their way of navigating their way through the debris of a relationship that has left them both broken?

“I don’t know how you can cheat on someone you promised to love and cherish,” says Ali. “And I don’t know why a wife would put up with it.”

Rachel feels like she’s being sucked into a vortex, spinning out of control, not knowing which way is up. Her hands tremble as she picks up another section of Ali’s hair, unable to believe that she has the audacity to point the finger at her for Jack’s indiscretions. She should just yank her head back and scream that it takes a strong woman to stand by an unfaithful husband, or one who didn’t have a clue anything was going on until twenty-four hours ago.

“Did the wife ever find out?” asks Rachel, her voice shaking as much as her hands. Were they really going to conduct this conversation here, like this, referring to her in the third person?

Ali’s eyes never leave Rachel’s reflection. “I’m not sure,” she says. “But you always have an inkling if something’s going on, don’t you?”

Is it Rachel’s imagination or was the “you” emphasized? She looks at Ali smiling sweetly in the mirror and tightens her grip on the hair coiled around her hand. She imagines slamming Ali’s head into the dressing table, demanding to know what she’s doing with Jack. When she admits to cheating on Will, Rachel will promise to keep her secret, just so long as Ali doesn’t divulge what she saw and heard last night. They both have a hold over each other, and if Rachel has to make a deal with the devil to release herself from Ali’s grasp, so be it.

“Ow,” cries Ali, pulling away from her.

“Sorry,” says Rachel, coming to her senses and loosening her grip.

“So, you don’t think you’d know if something was going on?” says Ali, rephrasing the question.

“It’s not always that clear cut,” she says, trying desperately hard to keep her voice measured. “I’m sure that there are lots of factors, that on their own don’t add up to much, but when they form a much bigger picture…”

“So, whether you’re the naturally suspicious type, you mean?” asks Ali.

Rachel had never considered herself to be mistrusting, of anyone or anything, least of all Jack.

“I guess that’s part of it,” she says, playing along to see where this takes her. “Though, I would also imagine that sometimes, it’s about whether you want to know.” That, perhaps, is the category she could be accused of falling into. But is that really a crime? Wanting to hold onto the husband you love by living in staunch denial of what’s really going on?

“Wouldn’t you want to know?” asks Ali, definitely emphasizing the “you” this time.

Rachel fixes her with a steely glare. “If there was something worth knowing,” she says. “But if it was just a one-sided infatuation that a woman had allowed to get out of all perspective, then no.”

“Do you know many women like that, then?” asks Ali, smiling, as if goading her.

“I’ve come across one or two in my time,” says Rachel, refusing to rise to the bait. She will not allow Ali to get the better of her; she’s not smart enough.

“Is that how you choose to see them?” asks Ali. “Because it’s easier than blaming your husband?”

Rachel is winded by her unabashed nerve, but refuses to show it on her face. How dare she imply it’s all Jack’s doing? From her standpoint, all she can see is Ali throwing herself at him, though she’s not naive enough to believe that Jack wouldn’t have been persuaded to sample the wares. The way Ali displays them, she doubts few men could resist.