I hovered near the top of the stairs.
‘I’m not leaving so you might as well let me in.’
‘How do I know it’s not a trick to get access to the house again?’ I shouted.
‘You’ll just have to trust me.’
‘Trust you? Really? Because it transpires that you’re such a trustworthy person, aren’t you?’
‘Please, Li. I’ll answer your questions.’
I hesitated before slowly limping down the stairs. If he was being honest and this wasn’t a trick, I did want answers, even if those answers were going to hurt. I was already assuming the worst – that he’d been gay when he married me – so what harm could it do having that affirmed?
‘You promise you’ll leave when you’ve said your piece?’ I said, opening the door on the chain.
‘I promise.’
‘Go through to the kitchen,’ I said, fully opening the door. This wasn’t a curl-up-on-the-sofa discussion. It was a hard-wooden-chairs-so-you-won’t-outstay-your-welcome discussion. I exhaled slowly and rubbed my tired eyes as I followed him down the hallway, pulling my dressing gown tightly round me.
‘So, how are you?’ he asked as he sat down in his usual dining chair.
I sat down too. ‘How do you think?’
He nodded. ‘Sorry. Stupid question. Is the ankle okay?’
‘It hasn’t fallen off.’
‘Good.’
I sighed. ‘You didn’t come here to check out my injury. You wanted to talk. So, talk.’
‘You asked me some questions this week and I realise my answers were very non-committal. Rob made me realise—’
I flinched. ‘You’ve been discussing me with Rob?’
‘Well, he just thought—’
‘I don’t give a shit what Rob thinks.’
‘Elise!’ Gary banged his fist down on the table. ‘I’m not here to have an argument. Rob told me I’d been unfair to you when I know the answers to the questions, so he insisted I come here and tell you the truth, which is why I came back.’
I stared at him for a moment. ‘Go on then. Let’s have the truth. Are you gay?’
‘Yes.’ It was barely a whisper.
‘Gay as opposed to bisexual?’
He nodded slowly.
Shit! Worst-case scenario. My heart thumping, I could scarcely form the next question. ‘How long?’
He tugged on his earlobe. ‘I suspected it when I was about fifteen.’
My empty stomach churned and my breathing came fast and hard. So did the tears. I quickly wiped them away, but it was too late.
‘I’m so sorry, Li.’ He reached across to wipe my tears, but I backed away. I didn’t want him touching me. It was too intimate. I swallowed hard a few times, those razor blades slicing in my throat. ‘So everything about us was just a lie. You never loved me…’
‘I did love you. I still do, but—’
‘You’re just not in love with me? That old chestnut.’
‘Li—’
‘It’s Elise! You’ve lost the right to shorten my name. If you knew you were gay, why the hell did you marry me?’
‘Because I loved you. You were my best friend. I thought that would be enough to make it work. And it did work for a long time. We had a great marriage. You know we did. But you were so desperate for a child and… I don’t know… it just felt wrong somehow to bring a child into the world. It felt like a lie.’
I scraped my chair back over the quarry tiles as I leapt up. ‘A lie? A baby would be a lie, but our marriage wasn’t? That’s absolute bullshit.’
Gary screwed up his face. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t explain that very well. Will you sit down?’
I slowly lowered myself on to the chair, but I didn’t pull it back under the table. I needed the distance. ‘Explain it then.’
‘It’s hard to. I suppose it was the thought that you didn’t just want one baby. You’d always wanted three or four. I’d been happy with just you, but the reality of playing happy families felt like a step too far.’
‘A step too far?’ I cried. ‘We talked about kids from day one. This isn’t something I suddenly sprung on you. I adore children. I’m a teacher, for goodness’ sake. Everything I’ve ever done has been about building up to my own family and I thought that’s what you wanted too.’
Gary stared at the table. ‘I thought I did too. Until…’
‘Until you met Rob,’ I suggested when he tailed off.
He nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Is it love?’
He nodded again.
My stomach lurched. ‘Was he the first?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course it does. I know we hardly ever had sex, but I think I have a right to know whether my husband was shagging another bloke at the same time he was hardly ever shagging me.’
Gary’s shoulders sagged and he looked at the table as he muttered, ‘There were two others before Rob.’
I put my hands to my face and shook my head, my stomach twisting and turning. ‘Gary! When?’
He looked up at me. ‘Last summer. It was nothing serious.’
‘Nothing serious? You were having sex with another man… with two other men… and you call that nothing serious?’
‘It wasn’t sex. It never went that far. It still hasn’t.’
I shook my head. ‘You can spare me the details.’
We sat in silence for a while as I tried to digest his revelations.
‘I’ve got one more question,’ I said, ‘because you haven’t given me a proper answer. If you knew you were gay, why did you marry me? Don’t give me that best friends bullshit again.’
‘I thought it was the right thing to do.’
‘For whom?’
Gary tugged on his left earlobe. ‘I can’t… It’s complicated. I’m sorry. It’s… I…’
I stood up. ‘I think you know, but seeing as you’re refusing to tell me now, it’s time for you to go.’
He lowered his eyes, nodded, then stood up. ‘Okay. Sorry.’
I headed down the hallway towards the door and waited for him to follow me.
‘If my mum calls, you won’t tell her about any of this, will you?’ he said.
It was on the tip of my tongue just to say ‘no’ when it struck me that I didn’t need to be diplomatic about his mother anymore. ‘The fewer words I have to utter to your mother, the better. You can have the pleasure of telling her. I don’t imagine she’ll be too devastated that I’m out of your life, and I certainly won’t shed a tear that I never have to cross paths with her again.’
‘Tell me how you really feel about her,’ he said, sounding surprised at my reaction.
I turned round to face him, hands on hips. ‘Oh Gary, you so don’t want to challenge me to do that. That little comment didn’t even represent a fraction of how I feel about your mother, which you’d have known if you’d ever listened to me instead of constantly jumping to her defence any time I opened my mouth.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’