I didn’t know. I felt all weak and pathetic, far from the spirited woman who had chucked her wedding ring in the fountain and declared herself ready for flirting and dating again. I started doubting myself again. Thinking it was me. As I checked and double-checked the satellite picture of the cloud patterns over South West London, my brain dumped me back in the past, a place I really didn’t want to visit any more…
I’d been a good wife. An excellent one. I’d been loving and attentive; there was a dinner on the table for Jeff every night, and not just a warmed-up ready meal thrown onto the kitchen table with the cutlery following it, either. I made a real effort. I put a cloth on the table. I’d sometimes do a starter. I’d sometimes even light bloody candles. I was a pretty fabulous wife, which was actually quite a feat for someone as disorganised as me who wasn’t a natural cook. I worked really hard at the whole wife thing.
In my teens I’d been quite scathing about marriage and had openly scoffed at the mention of it. My mum had said things to me like ‘Make sure you get yourself a good career. You don’t want to spend your life washing someone’s pants!’ and I had totally agreed and laughed along with her – I’d worn ra-ra skirts, electric blue eyeliner and attitude in those days. And I did get myself a good career, straight after university, starting as tea girl and runner at Court FM before working my way up to receptionist and, eventually, weather presenter, believing I’d never be swallowed up into the loathsome role of housewife and drudge. Even after Jeff and I had Freya, and were living together, I resisted that role. Yet, somehow in the late nineties and the early noughties I became seduced by the whole thing: a meringue wedding dress; a sleek kitchen diner with a skylight and sliding glass doors to the garden; Jamie Oliver recipes; a bread maker; and domestic bliss peddled by shows such as Location, Location, Location where well-to-do, loved-up couples rejected gorgeous house after gorgeous house in idyllic villages…
Another text pinged onto my phone. It was Sam again.
Can’t WAIT until tonight!
Me too, I replied, but I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t dare look up as I knew she’d be grinning over at me from her desk. I stayed with my head down, at my own desk, wallowing in my horrible history.
Jeff and I got married. At work I was still pretty brilliant, but at home I became everything I’d scoffed at. It was strange how it happened, really. Once we were married we suddenly weren’t equal partners any more. He was husband; I was housewife. He gradually stopped helping me with chores; my job became less of a career and more of an inconvenience, to him. I began doing everything for Jeff. Far too much. I was also too adoring, too grateful – grateful little wifey. I’d thankfully take Jeff’s odd, token attempts at romance – flowers, a bottle of perfume on my birthday, a new bra from Debenhams, which he thought the height of class even though he always bought the wrong size – as a sign of a happy bigger picture which turned out to be totally false. He wasn’t happy at all. He wasn’t happy until he’d dealt me the cruellest blow by going off with my best friend.
Cough. ‘Can you sign this card for Elaine and pass it on?’ Bob was standing in front of my desk. He handed me a pink floral card, tucked inside a red envelope. It was Elaine who did everything for everyone else’s birthdays; when it was her turn for happy returns, Bob always took charge and organised a card and a collection for a present, which was nice.
‘Of course. Just leave it with me.’
‘Thanks, darling.’
As Bob wandered off, pulling a hanky from his pocket, I noticed his shoes were especially shiny today. They instantly made me think of my former best friend and husband-stealer, Gabby. Great. I was plonked back in the past again…
Gabby. It kills me to even think of her name. I don’t think I’ve said her name out loud, since it happened. If I’m referring to her, I call her whatsherface or that cow or, simply, her. She knew all about Bob and his shiny shoes; we’d once spent a whole Saturday afternoon hooting our heads off with laughter in her conservatory, with him as our specialist subject. We’d sat there for hours. I remember she’d kept refilling my glass of rosé, in between shooing children away. It had been so funny. The more Bob stories I’d relayed, the more we’d laughed. We’d laughed until we’d cried, until we’d got into that hysterical state where no sounds come out of your mouth, where you are collapsed and helpless on the floor, with tears running down your cheeks.
I missed that bitch.
Oh lord, I was at work, I shouldn’t start thinking along Gabby. I’d just get depressed and angry. Or compose that same email I’d composed to her over and over again, but had never sent. The one where I tell her she’s ruined my life, she’s betrayed me in the worst possible way, that I hate her guts… and how I wish I could turn back the clock to when we sat on her bedroom windowsill, on summer evenings, and screeched along to George Michael’s ‘Faith’, then drove around Wimbledon Village in her dad’s convertible, trying to pick up randoms. How I wished I’d never met her, but at the same time I just wanted to go back and meet her all over again…
Enough! Stop it! Focus on the weather. A thick band of clouds will move in across the region overnight and heavy rain will continue until the early hours…
Gabby Louise Trench. She was a laugh. Such a good laugh. I’d known her since school. She was in the year above. Gabby was quite glamorous at school. When I was still in Clarks buckle-up shoes and A-line skirts, she was rocking a mini kilt and pointy, tasselled loafers. Grey ones. I admired them long before I became friends with her, and that only happened because she once attempted to bully me. It was a failed attempt. I’d been loitering by the lockers, minding my own business, when she bustled up with Fat Felicia, a known corridor terrorist and possessor of the only lost virginity in the Fourth Year – apparently – and asked me to ‘Move along’ as I was ‘making the place look untidy.’ I remember looking at them both in astonishment. It was so uncalled for, so out-of-nowhere. I was not someone who drew attention. I was so far under the radar I was like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, commando-ing along the floor in a museum full of diamonds.
Before I’d had time to even think about it, I’d retorted with, ‘The only thing that’s making this place look untidy is Felicia’s hair. There must be at least a couple of blackbirds nesting in there, making babies.’
I waited for anger to flash across faces, a possible fist to come flying my way – Fat Felicia was a notorious puncher – but, to my surprise, Gabby had burst out laughing.
‘Funny,’ she’d said. And she’d pushed a surprised-looking Fat Felicia along the corridor and they’d both disappeared in the direction of the Crush Hall.
A week later, they’d tried again. I was coming down the ramp of one of the Portakabins, after RE, when a grey tasselled foot shot out in a clear attempt to trip me up. I wasn’t having it. I stopped dead in my tracks.
‘You are joking?’ I said. Gabby and Fat Felicia were in shadow, the beige plastic side of the Portakabin casting weird stripes on their faces. ‘If you’re trying to make me fall over I suggest stretching skipping-elastic across the playground. I’ve seen more stealth on a nuclear weapon.’ It was the era of the Cold War, Reagan and Gorbachev, ‘Two Tribes’ and the threat of nuclear war hanging over everyone. Kids enjoyed frightening themselves silly over it.
Fat Felicia looked confused. Gabby burst out laughing. Again. And again, Gabby trundled Felicia off – they headed towards the Fourth Form common room. I saw Gabby glance back in my direction a couple of times. She was still grinning.
That