Page 24

Natalie

Natalie blinks, her face blotchy and stiff with dried tears as she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the vanity table.

Glancing down, a wave of nausea hits her as Vanessa’s face pouts up at her from the photographs where they lie scattered on the carpet.

Sliding off the bed, Natalie scoops them up, shoving them back inside the file and locking it back in the drawer, before sliding her fingers over her dress.

She feels dirty, tainted, as if there isn’t enough soap in the world to make her feel clean again.

‘Where’s Natalie?’ The words drift up through the open window from the garden below, and Natalie realises she’s been gone for too long.

Regardless of the fact that she’s just found out her husband has been sleeping with his ex-girlfriend ( who is slimmer than you, prettier than you, and probably more enthusiastic in the sack than you , a spiteful voice whispers in her ear), it doesn’t change the fact that she still has a house full of guests and at least another two or three hours to get through before she is alone.

I can’t do it , she thinks.

I can’t go out there and pretend like nothing’s happened.

All Natalie wants to do is curl up into a ball and sob her heart out, right after she’s punched Pete hard in the face.

Her limbs feel watery, her head spacy and disconnected, and she realises she’s felt this way before, as a child.

After a full day of crying and accusing Natalie and her father of all kinds of things, her mother had self-medicated a little too hard, and it was at two o’clock in the morning that Natalie had watched the paramedics load her unconscious mother into an ambulance.

A few hours later, her father had knocked on her door and told her to get ready for school.

Natalie had felt this way then – weirdly disconnected, her arms and legs wobbly, sure she would fall as she tried to stand.

But she hadn’t. She’d been twelve years old, and it had taken everything she had to put on her uniform and pack her school bag, all the while knowing the neighbours had seen her mother being taken to hospital in the middle of night, knowing the other children would surround her, wanting to know what had happened.

Now she thinks about it, there have been so many times that she’s felt this way – none of them as bad as the hospital incident – after endless rows with her mother, a hard ball of hurt and anger in her chest as she forced herself out of the door, forced herself to carry on.

I can do this , she thinks, as she smooths her hair in the mirror and fans at her hot cheeks.

Just treat it like all the other times, one foot in front of the other.

All I need to do is avoid Pete until the party is over.

Stepping out onto the landing, she peeps in on Zadie, relieved to see a huddled mass in her bed, the covers pulled up high and the curtains drawn.

Maybe she did feel sick after all, Natalie thinks, a pinch of guilt nipping at her.

Hurrying down the stairs, hoping that not too many guests comment on her absence, Natalie halts abruptly on the bottom stair as Pete turns away from the front door, his face drawn.

He looks up, an expression she can’t read crossing his face.

‘Natalie.’

At the sound of her name, all plans to avoid him evaporate as Natalie is buffeted by a tsunami of rage, so burning and fierce that for a moment her vision blurs.

‘Pete. Have you got something you want to tell me?’ She watches as a range of emotions flit over his features – annoyance, anger, and something that looks a little bit like fear.

‘I could ask you the same thing.’

Natalie steps down so she is face to face with him, although her face is more in line with his chest. ‘How could you, Pete?’

‘How—’

‘Not only did you sleep with that … that whore , but to invite her to our party? To the party we’re throwing to celebrate our daughter’s success ?

What kind of monster are you?

’ She watches as the colour runs from his cheeks, leaving him looking bleached out and pale.

‘Yes, Pete, I know all about your girlfriend. I know it’s been going on since Easter.

I know you’ve told her I’m a shit wife and you’re so unhappy.

Perhaps you could have given me a bit of a heads-up on how you were feeling.

’

Pete runs a hand through his hair and blows out a long breath.

He looks oddly fragile, a cracked hourglass with the sand running out of it.

‘Nat, it wasn’t like that.

I don’t know what she’s told you—’

‘Enough, Pete. She’s told me enough—’ Natalie breaks off as one of the guests – she thinks it’s Dave the foreman’s wife – heads towards the cloakroom, giving them a quick smile.

‘Hi. Yes, the loo is just there.’ Natalie smiles, afraid her face might crack as the woman knocks on the door, only to find it occupied, and then stands waiting outside.

Natalie grabs Pete’s arm and drags him halfway up the stairs, out of sight.

‘Vanessa couldn’t wait to divulge all the juicy details, but let’s be honest, Pete, she didn’t really have to tell me much, did she?

The proof was all there, right in front of my nose.

’

Pete says nothing as Natalie hisses the words at him, aware that anyone in the hallway could potentially overhear their conversation.

‘The file, Pete.’ Natalie sighs, suddenly weary to her bones.

What has she done to deserve this?

Is she really that much of an awful person that she deserves to have her whole life ripped away from her?

‘It was all in the file. Remember that day? When your mistress came to our house to deliver disgusting photos of herself to you, right in front of me? Did it give you some sort of kick, to see me there making a fucking cup of tea while she handed you naked photos of herself?’ Natalie shudders, the images burnt on to her retinas.

‘Of course not—’

‘Did you have a good laugh at my expense when you were alone together? At poor, sad Natalie who has no idea what’s going on in front of her eyes?

’

‘Natalie, please just listen—’

‘And then the speech! Oh God, Pete, that cringey, maudlin speech.’ Natalie lets out a laugh, looking up at the ceiling to disguise the fact that her eyes are smarting again.

‘All a bunch of lies. Everything you said, about how much you loved us, how proud you were – it was all just a load of rubbish. All the time you’ve been shagging that woman behind my back.

’

Pete swallows and reaches out a hand as if to pull Natalie towards him, but she raises her hands and takes a step back.

‘Natalie, please, I swear it wasn’t the way you think it was.

I do love you, and I am so—’

‘You love me?’ Natalie shakes her head, the words bitter on her tongue.

She can barely look at him, at the face she’s loved for over twenty years.

She’d seen him first, long before she’d knocked him flying with her books.

He’d been at the bar with his arm around a girl with long, dark hair trailing halfway down her back, but Natalie knew what she was doing, that day when she crossed the quad and knocked him over.

Natalie hadn’t thought about the dark-haired girl again after that day, and neither, it seemed, had Pete.

( Had that girl been Vanessa?

Had she come to visit Pete on campus?

Natalie doesn’t know; she hadn’t even looked at the girl’s face.) Now it looks as though it’s come back to bite her.

Once a cheater, always a cheater .

‘If you loved me,’ she says, her voice rancid with spite, a toxic anger lacing every word like belladonna, ‘you wouldn’t have been spending all those evenings having sex with your ex-girlfriend , while I was here alone, taking care of your children.

Up half the night with your baby, exhausted and lonely, wondering why my husband would rather be at work than with me.

If you loved me, you would have been here.

You would never have lied to me.

’

Pete stares at Natalie, his face thunderous.

‘Let’s talk about that, shall we?

’ he says, as a chill runs down Natalie’s spine at his icy tone.

‘You’re not exactly innocent in all this.

’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘When did you find out you were pregnant with Erin?’ His eyes never leave her face, and she feels as if she’s just stepped into a lift, her stomach dropping away.

‘I told you when.’

Pete laughs, a sneering snicker of a laugh.

‘When, though, Natalie? How many weeks were you?’

He can’t know .

She licks her lips, worrying at the tingly dry patch on the corner of her mouth that she just knows is going to turn into a cold sore.

‘I told you. Twelve weeks.’

‘Fuck’s sake, Nat.

I might not have been honest with you about Vanessa, but you’re standing here lying to my face.

’ Pete shakes his head and for a moment she thinks he’s going to walk away.

‘Eve told me. She told me you found out you were pregnant weeks before you said anything to me – you told her before you told me! You took her to a scan, for fuck’s sake.

’

Natalie’s chest feels tight, and for a moment her breathing falters as she takes in the betrayal.

Eve told him . Pete is still talking, but she can’t hear him over the roar of her pulse, the crashing of blood in her ears.

‘What?’

‘You left it so long to tell me because you had already made the decision,’ Pete says.

‘You knew if you left it long enough, it would be too late for us to have any other option.’

‘No,’ Natalie says, her head still spinning from the fact that Eve – Eve!

– has betrayed her confidence to Pete.

The two people she loves best in the world have shattered her trust in a matter of minutes.

‘That wasn’t the reason, Pete.

’ She faces him, stares at him long and hard.

‘I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t know if you would have my back.

’

‘That’s ridiculous.

I’ve always had your back.

’

‘Except for when you had Vanessa on hers,’ Natalie says tartly.

‘I didn’t tell you because I knew you would want to get rid of the baby, and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted.

I might not have told you straight away, but that’s small fry compared to what you’ve done.

You’ve destroyed our family, Pete.

Everything you said out there was lies.

I should just throw you out now, tell all our guests what you’ve done.

’

‘Natalie, this wasn’t all me.

’ Pete’s voice is low, and she has to strain to hear him.

‘You have to take some responsibility for what’s happened.

’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Natalie’s hackles rise, but as Pete reaches out and grips her hand, she falls silent.

‘You knew I wouldn’t want another child, and you kept the pregnancy from me for weeks.

Even though I told you I wasn’t happy about having another baby, you went ahead and did it anyway, without any regard for how I might feel or how it might affect our other kids.

’ She tries to pull away but he won’t let her, his fingers digging into the back of her hand.

‘I was lonely, too, Nat. You pulled away from me – I could go for days without you exchanging even a word with me – and you don’t seem to see what’s going on around you at all.

Look at Zadie. She’s not eating, she’s wetting the bed, playing up at school.

And Emily can’t wait to get away to university.

’

‘You keep giving Zadie juice—’

‘No, Nat.’ Pete’s voice is firm – the voice he uses when the kids are playing up, or when a client is refusing to pay an invoice.

‘You have to stop burying your hand in the sand.’

‘You don’t know what’s going on, Pete, you’re never here!

Instead of coming to school with me when they said Zadie had been bullying people, you were off having a roll in the hay with that …

that …’

‘Zadie’s behaviour has got nothing to do with juice at dinner – she’s playing up because our whole family dynamic has changed, and you have to take some responsibility for that.

’

Natalie sags against the wall, feeling sick with the realisation.

She had never seen it that way, had never thought of it at all.

All she’s been able to focus on since the day Erin was born – since before, really; since the day she first felt that crippling exhaustion and nausea – was just making it through to the end of the day without killing anyone or wanting to throw herself under a bus.

‘None of that excuses what you’ve done,’ she says, but she can hear in her own voice that the fight has gone out of her – for now, at least. ‘But maybe you’re right.

I was so focused on this baby, on the idea of a new life, that maybe I didn’t properly think about the effects it would have on our family.

Maybe this is all my fault.

Maybe I was the one who made a horrible mistake.

’ As she raises her eyes to look at him, tears spill over her cheeks, dripping ontoher dress and darkening the hot pink to a deep rose.

‘Maybe if I hadn’t gone ahead with the pregnancy then none of this would have ever happened.

Maybe it would have all stayed the same, and we would still be happy, Emily and Zadie would be happy.

Maybe it would have been better all round if Erin wasn’t here at all. ’