‘And it isn’t just about diet, it’s about the environment. Cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce your carbon footprint by over seventy per cent…’
‘I’m sure you’re right, but it’s a decision Dan and I will make together at some point, and later the kids themselves. It’s not something I want to scare my children with on holiday.’
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Calm down, Clare.’
‘I am calm,’ I said, forcing my voice into calm mode. ‘And I get what you’re saying. In many ways, I agree, Ella, but I don’t want my children to stop drinking cow’s milk or eating meat – yet. If, when she’s older, Violet chooses not to eat meat or dairy, that’s her choice, but as a nine-year-old child, I still believe she needs the nutrients and the protein…’
‘Oh Clare, you’re so wrong…’she said, shaking her head.
‘Look, as their mum, I just want for you to you respect what I ASK,’ I said, far too sharply, and far too loudly, causing Joy to look up, and Jamie to stare over protectively, clearly concerned for his wife.
I was embarrassed, I shouldn’t have been so quick to snap, but I felt under pressure. It was supposed to be a holiday, but there were too many things to worry about, too many people to please, including my kids, one of whom was now battering the other with a plastic bucket over the head. My husband seemed oblivious to this attack because he was far too busy staring at Ella.
‘Alfie, stop that NOW!’ I yelled, climbing off the sunbed inelegantly, and waving my finger. ‘STOP that now!’ I repeated angrily, aware that my aggressiveness was subconsciously aimed at Ella and not my little ones, who were really just playing – if a little fiercely.
‘What’s going on?’ Jamie called across the pool. He got up and was now standing at the far end, bronzed, slim, handsome. Ella was walking back to join him, like she was escaping my wrath. Meanwhile, I’d left my sarong on the floor, and my dimpled hips were on full view as I marched across the tiled floor, barefoot and barking like a bloody sergeant major.
When I got to the boys arguing over the bucket, I swooped down and snatched it from both of them, causing Alfie to burst into desperate sobs, shouting, ‘Spiderman, Mummy’s stolen my bloody Spiderman,’ as I walked away clutching it. Dan, along with everyone else around, was now looking at me like I’d stolen a child’s toy and made him cry for my own sick pleasure. I shouldn’t have responded like that – the mummy bloggers would have reasoned with the children, distracted them, made it all fun, but not me, the frazzled forty-something.
I felt terrible, and as I did the walk of shame back to my sunlounger, I could see Ella and Jamie were now both standing together, watching me, judging me. And even in that moment, when I should have been thinking about Alfie and how I could calm the situation, all I could think was, What are they saying about me?
Chapter Thirteen
‘Jesus, it was a bucket – a tough plastic bucket, Dan. He was hitting him hard with it,’ I shouted, still angry two hours later when Dan complained about my outburst by the pool.
‘But you didn’t have to yell at them.’
‘All hell was breaking loose,’ I said. ‘But you weren’t even aware of that.’
‘I was, and it was nothing, just the usual Alfie and Freddie stuff you deal with every day. It’s not like you to lose it with the kids,’ he said. He was sitting on my bed in the children’s room while they’d gone out walking with Granddad, looking for ‘Italian insects’.
‘I know, but I feel under pressure, after everything.’ This was how it was now. However hard I tried for it not to – it all came back to the affair.
‘I’m sorry. How many times can I apologise?’
‘You and… her… it’s affected my confidence, I feel like I’m a bad wife, a bad mother… a bad daughter-in-law. I worry I’m not giving enough to the kids, and at the hospital I just can’t concentrate, and it’s life and death. I can’t afford not to be on top of that.’
‘Hey, Clare, stop beating yourself up,’ he said gently. ‘If it’s any consolation, I feel the same sometimes, like I’m not a good enough husband…’
I wanted to say ‘You’re not,’ but resisted.
‘And there’s the kids,’ he said. ‘I sometimes feel like I don’t spend enough time with them.’
I wanted to say ‘You don’t,’ but once more I kept it in, because we were talking. Me and Dan were actually talking – we weren’t shouting, or accusing or blaming, we were just talking to each other and it was good.
‘I sometimes feel like I don’t deserve this life,’ I sighed. ‘I have great kids, I have you and the family, lovely holidays like this…’ I gestured towards the window; this one looked down onto the car park, but he got the gist. ‘Your family are good to me… to us.’
He nodded.
‘I used to think I was a good mum,’ I continued, ‘a good wife, but then… you…’
‘Don’t, Clare.’
‘I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, I just need to be honest about how I feel. I’m coming through the other side now, and it’s been painful, but it’s made me think – what didn’t I do? Where did I fail as your wife that you needed to be with someone else and how can we stop it happening again? I mean it isn’t like it was the first… there was the stewardess, she called me at home for heaven’s sake, she knew where we lived, Dan. You compromised the safety of our children…’
‘Clare, you’re being dramatic, she wasn’t dangerous,’ he said, irritated, perhaps a little embarrassed still. Then he spoke more gently. ‘I can’t change what happened, but I can’t keep apologising either. I just hope that one day you can forgive me.’
I felt the bed creak. He stood up and walked away. I’d lost him again. I could have kicked myself – why didn’t I just let the conversation flow, why did we always come back to this, to her, to his infidelity? ‘Because for you those two women are always there,’ is what my friend Jackie would say. ‘For you they sit there like great big gooseberries whenever you’re with Dan, and until you can remove them from your head, nothing will change.’ And I had removed Carmel, I’d moved on, but this Marylin thing had brought her back.
Joy’s way of dealing with it was to sweep her under the carpet, remove her, remove them from our lives and pretend nothing happened. But for me they were like a bloodstain on a white carpet: it didn’t matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn’t get rid of them from my marriage. They were always with him, the smell of their perfume lingered in the air.
Dan paused at the door. ‘Please try not to… dwell on the bad things,’ he said.
I nodded my head slowly, unconvinced I would ever be able to shake them off. I know, I know it takes two, it was his fault as much as theirs, if not more. But I couldn’t hate him, because if I did, I’d have to end my marriage, and, after everything, I still loved him.
‘I’m going to check on the kids,’ he said. ‘They will have run Dad ragged by now.’