After You Left(69)

I get to that shocking one where Eddy says he can’t go on like this any more. Then Evelyn’s, saying she’s leaving Mark.

The next letters contain their plan. I practically ingest them. The correspondence ends here.

As does my breath. I am seized by What next? But no. I have missed one. Perhaps in my re-reading of them I have reorganised them in the process. This one I haven’t seen yet. On the envelope, Eddy has written Return to Sender.

Dear Eddy,

I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can’t do it, for everyone’s sake. I am so sorry.

I read it once, twice. I tingle with an eerie déjà vu.

I thought I could go through with it. I meant it when I promised you; I meant it with my whole heart. But when it came down to it, I just found myself in an impossible position. It takes a brave person to radically change their life, and someone else’s, and I suppose that person isn’t me.

I wish I had stayed all those years ago, then there would never have been a Mark to hurt. You would never have had a family to leave. And while I am a firm believer that we have to seize the day, and it’s never too late to follow our hearts and do what we must do, I do believe it is too late for us. We have loved others – perhaps in different ways to how we love one another – but who is to say that one kind of love is worth more than another? That our love devalues another? Love finds its own level where it can exist most true to itself. But I need to be true to myself, too. Even though I am distraught right now, and thoroughly and utterly broken-hearted, my decision to stay with Mark sits more comfortably on my conscience, as does knowing that if you do end up leaving your marriage one day, it will not be because of me.

All I know is that we have to make the most of the life we’ve made for ourselves, and try to focus on all the ways we are happy, rather than unhappy, with it. You have a wife who loves you, and a treasured child you never thought you would have, and I am married to a kind man who has given me a good life, and because of that I feel protective toward him; I can’t cause him pain. We have both been blessed in ways we have underappreciated. We should cherish what we shared, and carry it quietly and close, always. But if you can’t do that, then it’s best that you forget about me.

I do love you. I always will. But when it comes down to it, I can’t change who I am. I can’t break Mark’s heart, and I can’t live my life knowing I broke up your family.

I hope you will eventually forgive me.

Yours, in my memory and in my heart, always,

Evelyn

Through a veil of tears, I hurry back over words, over sentences, full of anguish for both of them. Evelyn didn’t do it. I just picture the older Eddy in his red shirt. Eddy talking about wanting Christina to choose. Eddy all those years ago, who would have been waiting for her, thinking she had chosen him, only to learn she had chosen someone else.

I go into the bathroom and fill the tub. I top up my wine glass, and light a group of three candles Justin and I always used to light when we bathed together. I strip off my clothes, and gingerly lower myself into the water. And as I sink deeper until I’m almost fully submerged, I play their story over, drawing out my favourite parts, and thinking about them. The sentiment, and the eerie familiarity of Evelyn’s words about the ways in which we love, send a chill down my spine. Hadn’t Justin said something similar?

I stare at the white-tiled wall. My feet propped against it. The nail polish I put on for Hawaii. No, I think. From the first time I heard about Evelyn and Eddy’s story, I realised Justin and I didn’t love one another as deeply and as definitely as that. Though I’m not sure many people do.

After I’ve lain there until the water has turned cool, a thought suddenly comes to me. So if she didn’t leave Mark, why is she here now? What terrible wrong did she allude to that day in the gallery? I should have things to worry about that are closer to home, but I am not going to rest until I know.

I look at my watch sitting on top of the toilet lid. Ten p.m. Too late to call her?





THIRTY


Evelyn’s is a ground-floor, period apartment in a former terraced house just a short walk from the Metro stop and shops. Its communal entrance serves all three units, with its black-and-white chequerboard floors, gilt mirrors and a vase of white lilies on a small reception table.

I sit in her lounge as she runs water in the kitchen for the flowers I brought her. ‘I thought this might be nicer than talking on the phone,’ she said when she let me in. The room is spacious, with high ceilings, decorative coving and sash windows. White carpets, white walls and minimal furniture make a stunning focal point of an ornate, brown-marble fireplace that has a beautiful oil painting of a garden above it.

‘I’ve never had it on,’ Evelyn says, coming back into the room carrying a tray of tea and biscuits, and catching me running a hand over the stonework. ‘I rarely feel the cold! And real fires look lovely, but they’re so messy to clean.’

‘I want to know the rest of your story, Evelyn,’ I say, once she’s poured tea.

Evelyn holds the teapot still and studies me like I’m under a microscope. ‘But first . . . you,’ she says.

‘Me?’

‘You’re not yourself. I’d like you to tell me why. In fact, I insist.’

Distantly, I hear the rumble of a train pulling into the station. I reach for a biscuit, noting the slight tremble of my hand. Something about that sound always haunts me. Trains are either arriving or they’re leaving. Lately, I can’t get the sight of Justin leaving out of my mind. I can’t imagine this emptiness is ever going to go. Whenever I arrive at the door to my flat, all I see is Justin turning and looking over his shoulder, meeting my eyes that last time, right after he’d moved the last of his bags out into the hallway. The face of there will never be any going back.