The Other Woman, page 23
By the final door, with no further noises or trapped creatures of any species, I was relaxed. It was the smallest room – one peek would be enough. I swung the door open, already preparing to walk away, only to see Jack, sprawled asleep on the bed. I let out a cry of pure shock and he woke instantly, his eyes wild and blinking. ‘Jack, what the fuck?’
‘Darling, good god, what the hell are you doing here?’ He scrambled into a sitting position, rubbing his face, looking so disoriented, so utterly lost, that I was aware of a terrible pity surging through my astonishment.
‘I might ask the same of you.’ He looked painfully dazed, and there was a faint sheen of sweat on his skin and forehead, as if he was going down with something. ‘I mean, Jack, why on earth are you here?’
‘Stupid, I know, but I wanted to see the Hugh picture in situ.’ He talked very quickly, fumbling to rake some order into his hair with his fingers, too sheepish even to look at me properly. ‘Then I’m afraid I couldn’t resist a snooze. Slept like crap last night, didn’t you? Those fucking foxes…’
I didn’t care about the foxes. Something like anger was infusing my concern now. I glanced at the Madrid picture, hung at my instruction after Hugh had given the go-ahead, agreeing to a handsome price. ‘You gave me such a fright, Jack. I thought there was a bloody squatter or lunatic or something.’
‘I thought you were on a Daphne mission, anyway.’ He was sitting up, arms round his shins, looking about as discombobulated as I had ever seen him.
‘She cancelled, the silly, when I was halfway there. A text. Said she was ill, when she probably just didn’t feel up to it. Extremely annoying – not that I could tell her that. So then I decided to come here instead, check on a window blind Hugh’s been going on about… though it was fine…’ I dried up, the weirdness of finding him here coming at me again.
‘Maybe Daphne really is ill.’
‘I bet she isn’t… but, Jack…how did you get in, anyway? I mean, I’ve got the keys.’
‘Hugh gave me a set too, just in case, remember?’
I nodded absently, because I didn’t remember. But then May had been full of hazy patches – more than I liked to think about – and I had been doing my best to play them down to Jack. ‘So, you came to look at your own picture?’ I repeated carefully. ‘My God, Jack, that’s sort of tragic.
‘Yup. That’s me. Tragic.’ He shook his head ruefully, holding out his arm by way of an indication for me to greet him properly.
‘Well…’ I clambered onto the bed, bemused. ‘You could take me to lunch, I suppose, now that I am here.’ I ruffled his hair with my fingers, and kissed the spots of grey at his temples. He tasted salty, but not unpleasantly so. ‘Unless…’ I stretched myself out. ‘I mean, darling, we do also have other options, seeing as you’ve already messed the place up.’ I laughed, sitting up and kissing him again, on the beard this time, just beside his mouth. ‘Why not, my Jackadoodle? A bit of spontaneity? Like in the old days, when …’ I moved my lips over his, but could tell at once, even though he made a show of responding, that this was not what the extended arm had been hoping for.
‘Sorry, but it doesn’t feel right,’ he protested after a few minutes, pulling away and absently wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, so absently indeed that something inside me bristled. It was impossible not to feel that it was the taste of me he was erasing. Me.
‘Oh, and you coming here to ogle your own work is all right, is it?’ I snapped. ‘And having an afternoon nap while you’re at it?’
‘No. Actually, I couldn’t be more mortified.’ His expression was, it had to be said, the picture of mortification. ‘I feel such an idiot. I just hit a bit of a wall this morning. I needed to see something that had… worked… get some faith back… in myself.’
‘And have you?’
He was off the bed now, swiping the creases out of his trousers and patting again at the ruffles in his hair. ‘I’m not sure… I think so. I guess we’ll see, won’t we.’ He picked up his bag of drawing stuff that had been leaning against the wall behind the door. ‘Shall we get going then?’
‘Aye, aye, Captain.’
‘Helena, I’m just…’
‘I bet you’re pissed off that I had it hung in here, aren’t you? You had imagined it somewhere more central—’
‘No, I hadn’t. I really don’t mind about that. Come on now.’ He had the door open and was waving an arm to usher me through first.
I remained where I was, sitting on the bed, my arms crossed. ‘So, you’ve been hitting a wall with the Rogues Gallery – you never said.’ The term for his new project was one I had come up with, inspired by the sketches from his rambles now queuing for attention round his studio walls. ‘I am interested in your work, remember?’ Out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of the Madrid lake shining from its slot on the wall. It was a gem and did deserve more prominence, but I had felt the decision needed to come from Hugh. When he saw it for real, I was certain he would chastise me for allowing it to be so hidden away; indeed, I had high hopes of it being promoted to the Hampstead mansion.
‘It’s just this past week it’s felt hard… and then a bad hiccough this morning…’
‘Okay, so let’s talk about it over some lunch.’
‘No… I mean, that’s a lovely idea of course, but I already grabbed a sandwich earlier and really ought to—’
‘Well then, we could treat ourselves to the Goya or something.’
‘I’m sorry, Helly, but I’d really rather not today…’
‘Great. And what about what I want today?’
‘Don’t start…’
‘Don’t start? What the hell sort of way is that to talk to me? Like I am some sort of annoyance… when all I am doing is suggesting nice things. In fact, do you know what, Jack?’ I swung myself off the bed and stepped towards him, putting my face right up against his. The being nice was always on his terms, I realised. It was never allowed to come from me. ‘You and your hiccough can just fuck right off.’ I pushed past him and headed off down the corridor, experiencing a stab of gratification to hear him hotfooting it to catch up, like he was running after me for once.
‘Helly, please… Let’s pick another day for doing something nice. We’ve got the theatre tonight anyway.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. I think I’ll tell Maddy and Spence I’ve changed my mind. You go, by all means, I’m sure the three of you will have a smashing time.’
‘Please don’t pull out tonight. And look, I’d have loved the Goya, but I’ve got Brian soon –he has a meeting which might run on, but is going to let me know.’
‘To be turned down for the possibility of Brian,’ I hissed, ‘wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special.’
‘Anyway, haven’t you got your yoga to get back for? At quarter to four?’
‘Ah, yes,’ I sneered. ‘How kind of you to remind me. How wonderful is your command of our respective diaries. Let us continue with our separate lives then, and maybe catch up with each other in a decade or two. Be sure to wear a rose in your lapel, just in case I don’t recognise you.’ We had reached the vestibule. Pleased with my tart remarks, and the look of helplessness they had induced in Jack’s face, I continued my march, on out of the flat towards the lift shaft, not caring that this time he made no move to follow.
In the lift, I glared at my reflection in the mirrored wall, thinking how my anger was invariably laced with other things, like hurt and rejection and incomprehension. Such a swirl, it always made it hard to think straight. I thought too of Jack, curled up like a tramp in the flat’s back bedroom, wondering for a moment whether it was his mental health I should be worrying about more than my own. Artists were a temperamental bunch, as I had learned only too well over the years; but the need to go and see his own painting – the first sale he had made in at least two years admittedly, and only thanks to me – marked quite a low.
My wheels squeaked on the polished concrete floor of the car park as I swung out of the space and up the winding narrow channel towards the exit. There I had to sit and wait, while the giant grid of double doors slid open at their agonisingly slow pace, revealing, like a stage set, the blinding light of the cloudless June afternoon. A part of me half hoped to see Jack standing on the pavement, penitent and sheepish, pretending to thumb a lift by way of an olive branch, or, maybe even hunched and sullen, still nursing his grievance as he liked to, feeding it, hanging on to it like a lifeline. Christ, I might be the famously stormy one, but at least I blew over.
It was ten minutes later, sitting at a set of temporary lights causing another gridlock in this most gridlocked of days, that something in me paused – to breathe, it felt like. A space. And into the space tiptoed something – someone – that made the hairs on my arms tighten. The possibility, again, of her. The other woman. She hadn’t entered my head for weeks, kept at bay by Jack’s and my new, successful efforts at equilibrium; but suddenly here she was, back with a force that felt like certainty, the seed that had quietly germinated all on its own, putting down its little roots while I was busy looking the other way.
I clung onto the steering wheel, letting the events of the last hour reconfigure: Jack with his strange mood and Hugh’s keys, batting me away like a pest on the back of an afternoon of half-baked plans. It wasn’t right. It was off.
Behind me, a raucous blast of car horns drew my attention to the lights having changed. I lurched forwards, turned down a side road and then doubled back the way I had come, sitting in the opposite queue for the same lights, still stunned.
Back in the underground car park, a new, comfortably wide space had become available, right by the lifts. I swerved into it, turned off the engine and took a deep breath. It was important to think straight, to be sensible, not to rush. I got out and opened the boot, sitting on its edge while I swapped my heels for the old converse sneakers that I kept in the car for Cornwall walks. I felt nimbler in them, more capable, as well as much, much quieter.
In the lift going up, I exchanged smiles with a young woman, shorter than me, but lithe and blonde with pretty green eyes. She had sunglasses perched in her straw hair and a wicker basket over her shoulder containing, by the look of it, a book and a mat from a trip to the park. Jack would like her. She was right up his street. I braced myself, trying to prepare for anything now, but she got out at the floor below. Unless she had recognised me and was escaping… would Jack show a lover pictures of his wife?
I knew at once that the flat was empty. So certainly, that I wondered I had not sensed Jack’s occupancy earlier on. I checked all the rooms, needing to be doubly sure. They were exactly as they had been some forty minutes earlier, empty and immaculate, even the back room, where Jack had clearly straightened out the rumples in the bedspread before leaving. I propped the door open with my bag and stood there, sniffing the air like an animal, trying to feel beyond what my eyes were telling me. I slid open the wardrobe door and scoured the empty shelves and hanging space. Then I dropped onto my knees to look under the bed, expecting nothing, but needing to see the nothingness. I lay on the carpet staring, wondering. It was dark, but clean from being recently decorated. There were lots of carpet fluffs, like it had been scuffed up, but new carpets could be like that. A small doughty spider perched on the lip of the skirting board.
‘Do you exist?’ I whispered into the space. ‘Do you exist and were you here?’
I returned to the sitting room and stood by the window with the view of the park before calling Jack.
‘Sorry for getting stroppy.’
‘No, I’m the sorry one, for not being any fun. I was pretty embarrassed too, Helly, to be honest. Not my finest hour by any stretch. Though, do you know, I really think it helped.’
‘Seeing Hugh’s picture?’
‘Yup.’
‘Are you still there?’ I asked brightly, having no clear idea what I would do if I caught him out.
‘At the flat? God, no. I left straight after you. I’m in Spencer Park. Sketchbook to hand. I’ve found a great spot.’
‘And then you’re seeing Brian?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Turns out the meeting isn’t happening, so he’s coming here.’
‘To the park? In the middle of the afternoon?’
‘He said it would be good to get out – enjoy the weather. Look, I was saving this, but he’s apparently got some city contacts who might be keen on buying art for their offices. I’m pretty excited, actually.’
‘Gosh, yes, that does sound promising.’
‘Are you home?’
‘Almost…’
‘Okay, well, enjoy your yoga.’
‘Will do. And I won’t bail on the theatre.’
‘Great. I’ll see you there. When did you say it started?’
‘Seven thirty. Maddy’s got the tickets.’
‘Oh god, the joy of Spence awaits us,’ he joked, by way of reference to Madeleine’s much older partner, a New Yorker with an unerring capacity to kill every conversation by stating the blindingly obvious.
Jack sounded so normal. Everything felt so normal. I stared at my flat shoes, waggling my toes and thinking how alive they felt and yet how one would barely know they were there, hidden under the canvas. ‘See you at seven-ish then.’
‘Yup. See you.’
I glanced down at the park. I would have to be careful, but it wasn’t one of the big ones. It wouldn’t take long. Then at least I would know.
It was almost four thirty by the time I got home. The drive gleamed like black treacle in the sunlight. The roses, heavy with their flowers, brushed my hair as I unlocked the door. I took an apple from the fruit bowl in the kitchen and ate it as I went upstairs, where I rummaged for my stretch capri pants and a T-shirt and dropped them both into the laundry basket. Then I ran a bath with my favourite oil, demolishing the apple, core and pips included, until the foam had bubbled into thick inviting drifts.
I peeled off my clothes and went downstairs, naked, to choose a bottle from the fridge, which I slid into one of the icy sheathes we kept in the freezer, before taking a wine glass from the cabinet and heading back up to the bathroom. I poured some wine, set the bottle down on the broad tiled ledge at the end of the bath, and then took the drink with me upstairs. There had been a few, moderate, lapses since my pledge, but none had felt more warranted.
I waited until I was in the studio before I took a sip, toasting the air first. The place was as messy and cramped as I had ever seen it, two paint tables and all three easels on the go, canvases in all states of semi-completion stacked around the open eaves’ cupboard doors and piles of sketches everywhere, including more than I could count pinned to the big cork noticeboard that for years hadn’t contained much beyond the odd postcard and a calendar. It felt pleasingly wicked to be picking my way around it all, naked, sipping my cold forbidden drink. Everything I saw I liked. Here was a man truly at work. Here was Jack. My Jack.
I went to sit on the little sofa, wanting to prolong the pleasure of the moment, and the wine, which was an Albarino, dry, with a hint of flowers. It had been easy to spot Jack in the park, seated in the corner of a bench with his pencil box open beside him and his pad on his knees. A group of teenagers were kicking a ball around a few yards away and he appeared to be drawing them. As innocent as the day he was born. Spying from my spot among some not-too-near bushes had felt good and then bad, as doubts had crept back in, along with the growing fear of being observed. He fiddled with his phone once or twice, but made no calls. And then suddenly Brian, of all people, appeared, sauntering along the path, eating an ice cream – vanilla in a cone, clearly bought from the van I had passed on my way in.
I had watched them for a further ten minutes or so and then crept away, taking the longest route back to the road to be safe. I felt let off the hook more than anything. The possibility of the other woman remained, a shadow hovering on the periphery of my vision. But a shadow could be ignored, or dismissed as a phantom. I needed to hold my nerve, to keep my wits about me, but for now I had a reprieve, permission to go on in the hope, still, of being wrong.
Ii
‘But to cook on stage…’ Madeleine rubbed absently at the pink crescents her lips had been imprinting on the rim of her champagne glass. ‘I simply do not know how the poor girl is managing without fluffing her lines. Onions, too, for heaven’s sake. My eyes would be streaming. And browning the meat, not to mention the spaghetti. I kept wondering if one of them was going to start doing that thing of flinging bits at the ceiling to see if it stuck, except, of course, they don’t have a ceiling, do they, only that door, which they all keep slamming and which I can’t help worrying about because it looks so flimsy.’
‘Great play though,’ said Spence. ‘The power of love, I guess, in all its gory glory.’
‘The power of the prenup more like,’ quipped Madeleine, shooting an impish look at her husband through the swinging frame of her always lively and very glossy hair, cut with geometric precision round her dainty face and with new gold highlights that were on fire under the bright wall lamps of the theatre bar.
Spence chuckled, looking proud. That they were extravagantly and equally wealthy was a matter of binding importance to them both, as was the existence of their now eight-year-old son, Sebastian, who had come by the gallery with his nanny sometimes during my visits earlier in the year, offering opinions which Madeleine fondly encouraged while I privately fought down the urge to throw up.
Jack glanced at Spence, perhaps in acknowledgement that ‘gory glory’ really wasn’t bad, but then quickly picked up on Maddy’s comments instead, saying he, too, found the cooking distracting, but thought the girl was good, and hadn’t she been on the TV in something recently. Our encounter in Hugh’s flat felt a world away. Jack looked transformed – cool and unflummoxed, his heavy brown hair smooth and tidy, his big easy smile breaking through the beard that could seem so austere and fierce in his more sombre moods. He had got to the theatre well before seven apparently, as had Maddy and Spence. They were deep in conversation at the foyer bar when I arrived – eight minutes before curtain-up – the three of them having embarked on the bottle of champagne which had then been set aside for finishing in the interval. ‘We’ve been hearing all about Jack’s latest projects’, Maddy had reported, handing me a programme as we joined the entry queue. ‘Hugh’s commission and the plans for the portrait series. It all sounds wonderful’. I had agreed it was tremendously exciting, noting the bashful pleasure on Jack’s face and thinking what a needy baby he was and how I knew that really and should just get used to it instead of fighting it.
