The Perfect Girlfriend(71)

‘Please keep my family out of our private fiasco.’

‘Our marriage, Nate. I am your wife, not a fiasco.’

As I jab ‘end call’ my hand shakes. I turn my phone off again and stride along a winding path, through a heather garden, over a small bridge and past several water features, but all the time my mind is racing with murderous thoughts.

By the time I leave an hour later, I am still not calm. Realistically, I have no choice but to come up with some amendments to my plan of action.

At home that evening, I call Nate. ‘Come over. I’ve been thinking things through. We can talk as much as you like.’

He arrives within fifteen minutes, pressing my buzzer for longer than necessary.

I open my door and he strides in.

‘Drink?’ I don’t wait for a reply and pour him a red wine, handing him the glass.

He refuses to accept it. ‘No, thank you.’

He pulls out a spiral notepad and pen, as though trying to persuade me that he really means business.

‘What are you going to do? Write a list of pros and cons?’

‘This isn’t a joke. I want my life back.’

‘I haven’t taken your life.’

‘I want you to stop all this. This scheme of yours – us hanging out like best friends, you sneaking off to my mother’s – it’s not going to change anything. Please just agree to the annulment, then I won’t have to bother you any more. If you play ball, it will all be mostly straightforward and there’s a chance we won’t have to go to court. Otherwise it all becomes a lot more convoluted. And worse, for both you and me. I will have to prove that I didn’t properly consent to the marriage due to intoxication.’

A change of tactics is overdue. ‘OK.’

‘OK what?’

‘OK, I’ll cooperate. I love you and if this is what you need to make you happy, then I’ll do it.’

‘Thank you. One day—’

‘Please don’t say that I’ll thank you one day. Because I won’t.’

He turns to leave. ‘All right, but please can you start answering James’ emails.’

I fill in the required forms – admittedly as slowly as I can get away with, because I have no intention of allowing this to go through to the final stages – and the process of ending our marriage begins.

If it is all as straightforward as it seems, Nate will no longer be my husband by the spring. However, having lulled him into a false sense of security, I have to come up with another, final fail-safe plan to keep him. But I’ll have to be fairly quick. He has asked me not to contact him unless necessary.

Devastated – I realize I love him as much as ever – I turn my attention to Miles. When we next agree to meet, I arrange to pick him up from around the corner, out of sight from his office.

‘I’ve booked somewhere different as a surprise,’ I say, as he settles in the passenger seat.

‘How far away is it?’ he says. ‘I need to be back by five.’

‘We’ll be back by then. Look,’ I say, pointing to a gift bag on the floor. ‘I bought you a present.’

He pulls it out. It is a book – Five Hundred Places to Visit Before You Die – the same one I gave to Nate. I have composed a poem and concealed it in the Japanese section. I know he won’t take it home and will probably hide it away in his office, but I wanted to buy him something to let him know I care for him.

‘Thank you, Juliette. Very thoughtful.’

The bag rustles as he shoves the book back in.

As I pull into the hotel car park, Miles visibly stiffens beside me. ‘Here?’

‘Yes. Being in Tokyo made me realize that we don’t have to slum it when we get the chance to meet. Hence the gift choice too. I thought that we could maybe do some more travelling together in future.’

‘Juliette, it’s a wonderful thought but I’m not comfortable here, at this place. It’s—’ He stops, unwilling to tell me the truth.

It’s one of the hotels on Bella’s venue wish list.

I do my best to look hurt and disappointed. ‘I’ve really been looking forward to seeing you.’

‘Me too. But not here.’

Instead, he directs me to a secluded beachside car park. My life is going downhill whilst Bella’s still soars.

I need to get my act together.

Restless, the next morning I drive to nearby Kingston and wander around an indoor shopping centre. Shops are full of colour and light, with signs everywhere advertising the festive season. Christmas is only six weeks away. Father Christmases grin, reindeer leap, snowmen stare and elves clutch gifts. A band plays carols by a tree smothered with decorations.

I feel even lower than I did last Christmas. This time last year, although heartbroken, I had hope. Now, without any current, undoubting hope that things will soon definitely improve, I am struggling to cope.

I sit in a coffee shop and drink two espressos in quick succession. Tapping in the Wi-Fi code, I intend to look for suitable Christmas presents for Barbara, so that I can go directly to one shop without having to endure too many of the crowded ones. But I can’t help myself getting distracted.

Nate is in Miami, but he and James message each other twice. To them, I am a joke – they call me TOTWGA ‘The One That Won’t Go Away’ – and James also refers to me as mendacious. I torture myself by reading more: Nate wants ‘rid’ of me as swiftly and as effortlessly as possible. He wants to ‘move on’ without the ‘threat’ of me hanging over his life like a ‘black cloud’. James even has the nerve to suggest that Nate puts his place on the market, ‘to do what it takes to keep a distance from her’. And also, according to James, the Knower of All Things, Barnes (where he happens to live) is ‘another good option. It’s not as if you are tied to schools or a fixed work commute.’