In fact, it feels like that’s all he says to me now.
Are you ok?
There’s no point in answering truthfully, so I just nod.
When I get to the pool entrance, I realise why it is so quiet today. A sign posted to the door says a school has booked the entire pool for a swimming gala, so no adult sessions today, no aqua aerobics. Sandra, Joan and the rest will be disappointed.
I debate going up to the café and having a coffee and a bacon sandwich. The glorious smell of frying bacon wafting down from the mezzanine café must be torturous for the gym-goers after their hard work on the treadmill. My attempts at healthy, plant-based and gluten-free diets ended after Archie and I am fully committed to eating meat again – when I have an appetite.
Life is too short to deny yourself bacon.
Today, though, I’m not really in the mood for it. A swim usually helps me to reach a state of mind where I can get through the day. I don’t often achieve much, but without it I achieve nothing. Today’s disappointment is a setback and I have the overwhelming urge to go straight back home to bed. A voice in my head says I can do that if it’s what I need, while another argues with it, tells me not to give in to the coaxing because that would be a step backwards and I need to think about going forwards.
I spend the whole drive home letting the two voices argue it out.
When I pull up in the driveway, Gemma’s car is parked up next to Greg’s Porsche. I don’t really want to see her – I was hoping Greg would’ve left for the office by now, but he was hanging around longer than usual this morning, faffing over nothing. Overwhelming exhaustion hits me as I contemplate having to pass niceties with her.
While she was friendly to me when she first joined the company, that has worn off and it’s now written all over her face that she considers me to be a drain on the business. Someone who still gets paid, but contributes nothing. An unnecessary expense. That’s a fair assertion, but Greg insists that I remain on the payroll, that the job will still be there for me when I decide I am ready to return to it. More than anything else though, it’s the way she looks at me – like I am germ-riddled and she needs a facemask to be around me in case whatever I have is contagious. I sometimes catch her wrinkling her nose in disgust when she comes over and I’m sitting at the dining room table in sweatpants doing a jigsaw at 11 a.m. But I find the jigsaws as therapeutic as swimming, so she can do one, frankly.
Actually, I’ve started thinking that it would do me good to start getting involved at work again. I mentioned that to Greg over dinner last night. His reaction was muted and I think he is of the opinion that until he sees me sitting at my desk in the office, then he won’t believe it.
That’s ok though. I don’t blame him.
I sit in my car in the driveway, the two voices in my head still debating, but now the sterner voice is saying that instead of swimming, maybe showing my face at work would distract me enough so that I don’t crawl back into hibernation. Just an hour to see how it goes. I can always leave if it gets too much.
It is the sight of Gemma’s car that convinces me in the end. The look on her face if I were to walk in. I bet she’s taken over my lovely office with its big windows looking out over the local junior school. I used to like to throw open the windows and listen to the chaos and frivolity of breaktime. I bet she’s been keeping them closed to the noise. She doesn’t strike me as being child-tolerant. If I returned, she would have to gather up her stationery and move to a desk in the communal area, and the idea of humiliating her like that suddenly becomes irresistible.
I get out of the car with the firm intention of doing just that. I’ll have a shower, get dressed into something a bit more socially acceptable than sweatpants and I’ll go to work, just for an hour, just to see.
The house is quiet. I put my swimming bag by the front door and head towards the kitchen, expecting them to be sitting at the table, paperwork spread out in front of them along with mugs of coffee.
The room is empty. Maybe they’re in Greg’s small home office.
I start to make myself tea, delaying the inevitable now that I’ve decided on it. I hear Greg bustle into the room behind me.
‘What happened to your swim?’ he says.
I turn to face him, saying, ‘The pool is booked for a gala.’ My voice falters. There’s something odd about him. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but as he draws closer to me and pecks me on the cheek, the feeling intensifies. It’s balanced on the edge of my tongue, teetering, niggling.
He is flustered, his cheeks reddened, and a bead of sweat stands out on his forehead.
Then I notice his shirt is on inside out.
‘I see Gemma is here. Where is she?’ I say.
His fly is down.
‘Er, she’s… in the bathroom.’ He smiles manically and turns away from me.
Then the penny drops, loud in my head, and I almost laugh out loud.
I abandon the tea and walk past Greg, out of the kitchen. The downstairs toilet door is ajar. Greg’s office door is open and the room is empty.
I walk up the stairs calmly, no need to hurry. I know what I will see when I reach the top and turn the corner.
Greg is prancing behind me, asking me if I want a biscuit, telling me to go back to the kitchen and he’ll make my tea for me, anything to stop me from getting to the top of the stairs. I ignore him, can’t really process what he is saying anyway.
I reach the top step and turn the corner without pause.
Gemma is in my bedroom, sitting on the corner of my bed. The bed I made this morning when I got out of it, which is now messy, the covers wrangled.
She is buttoning up her blouse, her feet bare and her long, usually sleek hair mussed like the sheets.
I look at her; she looks back. There is no sense of shame or guilt on her face; instead, it looks like victory.
I nod at her. I’m not sure why. Everything seems to have slowed down, the air thickening, until all I can see is this woman sitting on my unmade bed.
I turn around and walk from the room. Greg is poised on the top stair. His face has taken on the colour of ash. He can’t meet my eyes. ‘Mads…’
I walk past him, not giving him the opportunity to lie about this, to try and create a reasonable excuse for why his PA is in my bedroom, why I’m the one getting the wrong end of the stick, that it’s not what it looks like.
I grab my bag from where I left it all of five minutes ago, get back in my car and drive.
I don’t know where I’m going until I get there. I’m at the park, near to the children’s play area and the café where I met Mia all that time ago. So much has happened since then. And yet nothing has changed.
Like a puppet, I go into the café, order a tea to go and a Smarties cookie and head over to the park bench on which I sat that day. I watch the children play, the mothers talking and laughing, the dogs chasing and panting. I can hear my phone ringing in my bag, but I ignore it.
I just sit and drink my tea, not thinking, not feeling. I want to rage, scream, throw something, but I can’t, so I sit and watch.
When my tea is finished, I throw the cup in the bin and walk back to the car park and beyond. I keep walking until I reach the main road. I don’t look at anything around me. All I can see inside my head is Greg’s face as he stands at the top of the stairs, the guilt and admission like a neon sign flashing in his eyes, those eyes that couldn’t meet mine. I think of all those years together, all that hurt, disappointment, sorrow, and I step off the pavement into the road.