Husbands Read online

  I shift uncomfortably on my chair. ‘It wasn’t working.’

  ‘No,’ says Stevie. ‘It wasn’t.’

  He doesn’t offer any insight into why not. He doesn’t utter any regret but then, what was I expecting? It was all a million years ago. I don’t want a trip down memory lane. I want a divorce. We have to act as quickly and dispassionately as possible. We have to sever our past and get on with our future.

  ‘It’s a long time ago. We’ve both moved on,’ I say.

  ‘You certainly have.’ Stevie takes a gulp of his pint.

  He was always painfully honest, verging on tactless. He didn’t give a bugger what anyone thought of him or his opinions, which, oddly, meant everyone thought well of him. I always found his honesty a turn-on, now I fear it might be a nuisance.

  I consider how honest I ought to be. It’s not that I’m an evil cesspit of deceit. In an ideal world I’d rather tell the truth than not, it’s just that I don’t live in an ideal world and so honesty is often a luxury I can’t afford.

  I have no idea if Stevie hates me or if he’ll be prepared to help me. He might turn nasty – even try to blackmail me or refuse to give me a quick divorce just to pay me back for leaving him. And who would blame him? God, if he’d left me so unceremoniously I’d be looking to hurt, even eight years on. I have to be careful. Philip is a rich man, which leaves me open to exploitation from all sorts of bounders or cads, villains or Elvis impersonators. I don’t know Stevie, he might be a nasty piece of work now.

  He doesn’t look it, I admit. He looks just as sweet and kind and gentle as he always looked. The old Stevie would not turn nasty or awkward. Neither blackmail nor revenge would cross his mind. The Stevie I’m looking at looks just like the old Stevie, except he’s a tiny bit broader, not fatter, just more of a man. In a breath I make the decision to play it straight; at the very least it will be a novel approach for me.

  ‘I need a divorce, Stevie. Philip doesn’t know about you.’

  ‘Ha.’ Beer sprays from Stevie’s mouth and falls on to the ugly wooden table between us. He narrowly misses the sleeve of my jacket. I’m not sure if the spraying was accidental, although missing almost certainly was. ‘I gathered that much last night. What the hell were you thinking of, marrying someone when you’re already married? Is it a scam? Are you planning on ripping him off? For all you’ve done, I never had you down as an out-and-out criminal.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I shout, outraged.

  Half a dozen eyes slowly turn in our direction. The oldies aren’t particularly curious; they assume they’ve seen everything before (although I bet they haven’t seen this). They are staring at us because we are interrupting their quiet afternoon.

  I lean closer to Stevie and mutter, ‘Well, yes, technically I am a criminal but my marriage to Philip isn’t a scam. It’s the real thing. It’s love.’

  ‘So, why didn’t you divorce me?’

  ‘I… I don’t know. I didn’t know where to find you.’ I know it’s feeble.

  ‘Did you try looking where you’d left me?’

  I won’t meet his eyes but I can feel his stare boring into my mind. He’s trying to decide if he can trust me and if he wants to help me. Or maybe he’ll let me hang.

  I wonder how long it took him to get over me. Did he pine for months, or did he go to the pub the very next night and sleep with a random stranger? How long did it take him to fall in love again? Years? Or did he fall for the random stranger? I’m curious; no I am desperate to know. I call upon my honed self-discipline. In this case, there’s no such thing as an acceptable amount of delving. If I go down that conversational route I might never be able to clamber back.

  Instead I say, ‘Laura really likes you.’

  As I utter this sentence a slither of shame runs up my spine. It’s disloyal to tell a bloke your mate is keen, unless she’s expressly asked you to do so, and besides, I know I’m doing it to remind Stevie of what he has to lose. This whole business taints me.

  ‘Is that right?’ Stevie feels into his jacket pocket and pulls out a packet of Marlboro Lights. I’m surprised. I know he smoked when we were together, which I hated, but I’d assumed he’d have kicked the habit by now, as everyone with an ounce of common sense has. As he inhales I pointedly waft the smoke away as it is drifting in my direction.

  ‘It’s tricky, isn’t it? You dating my best friend,’ I add.

  ‘I’m not going to stop seeing Laura.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask you to,’ I rush to reassure him. ‘Are you serious about her?’

  ‘I think so.’ Then more definitively he adds, ‘Yes.’

  Even among this chaos I’m happy about that. It’s messy but it is good news. I wish I could tell her. My reaction shows that I’m still a decent person, I was beginning to doubt it.

  ‘We’ve agreed that we are going to date exclusively and I don’t do much exclusive dating. You put me off.’

  Suddenly, the ice cube melting in my drink is fascinating. I stare at it. I want to say so much. Too much. ‘Laura can’t know about us,’ I state.

  ‘That puts me in a difficult position.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’ Stevie sighs wearily. ‘Do you want another drink?’

  I nod. I watch him at the bar. He shares a few words with the barman and they laugh. For a moment I see a glimpse of the animated, happy Stevie I once knew. What have I done? What terrible thing have I done? There’s such hurt there. Serious damage. This isn’t a game but I fear there may be losers.

  He returns to the table, lights another cigarette and takes a large gulp of his drink.

  ‘Are you happy?’ he asks.

  ‘Very,’ I reply without skipping a beat. Or at least, I was until Stevie came back into my world. ‘You?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it hasn’t turned out too badly, has it?’ I say stupidly.

  Stevie shakes his head – in disgust, I think.

  ‘How old is Philip?’

  ‘Thirty-nine.’

  Stevie splutters into his drink.

  ‘Don’t be so infantile,’ I groan. ‘When we were sixteen, thirty-nine might have seemed old, but—’

  ‘When we were sixteen, twenty-three seemed old.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say, thinking he had proven my point for me. But he’s grinning as though he’s proven his own.

  ‘He’s clearly wealthy.’

  ‘We’re comfortable, thank you.’ Not that it’s any of his business.

  ‘You’re not working?’

  ‘Not at the moment, but I didn’t marry him for his money if that’s what you are thinking.’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Stevie is smirking. I can’t be bothered to explain. I owe Stevie a number of explanations but not that one.

  ‘Do you think we can have our marriage annulled?’ I ask, trying to get back on track.

  ‘On what grounds? We’d hardly be able to claim non-consummation, would we?’

  We fall silent. I wonder if startlingly vivid images of my naked flesh are accosting his mind, the way images of him are demanding my immediate attention.

  Oh God, he’d been lovely. Toned and tanned. Fit and lean. Fun and loving. He hasn’t changed much.

  I lost my virginity to Stevie. Not that it was a loss of any sort, that’s a terrible expression. Rather, I chucked my virginity and caution to the wind and I was happy to do so. The funny thing about sex for the first time is that it’s such an enormous deal. Stevie, being male, pretty much pushed for sex from the moment he dropped his yellow checker into the blue Connect 4 frame. The onus to resist, to be cautious and careful, fell entirely on to my shoulders because I was the girl. But I wanted him just as much as he wanted me. I wanted him so much it hurt. Still, the initial opportunity took some negotiating.

  Armed with a three-pack of condoms (purchased from the male loos at the local pub) we set about finding somewhere suitable for the big event. We didn’t have a car so we couldn’t join most of our classma
tes who stumbled through their first time parked up at the beach. I didn’t want my first time to be up against the bike sheds or in the woods lying on his parka (although subsequently I found these to be more than adequate as venues for love). Stevie’s mother never went out so we couldn’t do it at his place and while all my brothers and my father went out loads, they didn’t coordinate their movements so – rather frustratingly – someone was always at home. Besides, I didn’t really fancy shagging in my room. I hadn’t changed a thing in there since my mum had died. It was (and as far as I know still is) a tatty and trippy mess of clashing flowery prints. There were flowers on the bedspread, different flowers on the wallpaper and another set on the carpet. There were posters of boy bands on the walls declaring that I was a teenager and dolls on the shelves arguing that I was still a wee girl. I simply would not have been able to concentrate on Stevie with Tiny Tears and Take That smiling down at me.

  In the end we caught a train to neighbouring town Newburgh and booked into a bed and breakfast. It was a dingy place with the type of landlady who didn’t ask questions providing you paid cash up front. Perfect. Stevie finally relieved me of my virginity on a narrow single bed. The mattress squeaked and the nylon bedspread scratched. Yet, I thought I was in heaven.

  Stevie had an enormous penis. Of course, back then I had nothing to compare it with except a picture of Michelangelo’s David, so I guess an average-size penis would have seemed gigantic. But I’ve since done more groundwork and I can confirm I was not wrong. The first time was actually quite uncomfortable and all over in seconds. His size, my nerves and our combined inexperience united to make the entire exercise daunting. So why is it one of my sweetest memories? I still clearly remember the look in his eyes as he rolled off me. Despite the brevity of the act we were both so proud and happy. Stevie almost shouted with excitement that we were lovers. We were grown-up. We were no longer kids whose only entertainment was hanging around the corner shop and the grey granite memorial for the drowned, swigging cider and kicking cans – we were lovers. Stevie promised me that the sex would get better with practice, so we made love twice more that night. Not only did we get our money’s worth out of the B&B but he also proved his point; the sex did get better and better with practice.

  The issue of where we had sex never appeared again. After the first time we seemed to reach a silent and mutual agreement to make love wherever and whenever we could. I didn’t care a jot about sand in my knickers or mud on his parka. Urgently we’d bang out our youthful desire, only pausing momentarily, to wedge a washbasket or other piece of furniture in front of the door. University halls of residence brought a certain level of comfort. At least in those narrow beds we did not have to keep one eye on the door handle. Our lovemaking was passionate, exciting, charged, novel and tender. It was rarely comfortable.

  Maybe I should have known that there was bound to come a point when I didn’t want carpet burns from thin nylon carpets which smelt of cat pee and had never seen underlay. Every girl dreams that one day she’ll slide out of silk underwear and then make love on goose-down duvets, surrounded by satin cushions – just the way I do with Philip.

  ‘Have you ever told anyone about us?’ I ask, forcing myself back to the issue I have to deal with.

  ‘No.’ Relief squelches through my body. He tilts back his head, blowing out smoke, ‘Er, thinking about it, yes, one person.’

  I’m immediately erect with tension. ‘Who, for God’s sake who?’

  ‘I can’t remember her name now. Helen or Ellen or Ella. Something like that.’ He shrugs, casually dismissing the woman who holds my most important secret. ‘We met in Thailand, on a beach. We’d smoked some weed. She asked me to marry her, as a laugh, cos she was mellow and I said no. She took it badly.’

  ‘Of course she did, after such a meaningful relationship,’ I snap. Bugger me, I’m jealous that he smoked weed with an anonymous girl on a beach.

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I told her that I was already married.’

  ‘You told some bimbo on a beach that we were married! What if I ever meet her? What if Philip does?’ I yell angrily.

  ‘She had braids and wore tie-dye. I can’t see her turning up at one of your dinner parties.’

  ‘How could you be so—’ I am about to call Stevie stupid. I can see from his face that he already expects this, so I resist.

  ‘Don’t get arsy with me, Belinda. I’m not the one who remarried.’ He has a point so I have no alternative but to breathe deeply. ‘Chill. She didn’t believe me anyway. Not even when I showed her your picture.’

  ‘You carry a picture of me?’

  ‘Always.’ Stevie coughs and turns away so I can’t see his eyes. ‘It’s just habit,’ he assures me.

  I don’t believe him and, worse, I don’t want to believe him.

  ‘It came in useful when I was looking for you.’

  I put my head in my hands and allow the full implication of the situation to engulf me. Over the last few weeks I’ve been so absorbed in my mess and how I can get out of it without affecting my relationship with Philip, only now am I beginning to understand the further consequences of what I did to this man whom I loved and who had loved me. Whose only mistake had been to marry me when we were too young.

  ‘Tell me about loving Philip,’ says Stevie, looking into his beer glass.

  ‘You don’t want to hear that.’

  ‘I do. I want to understand it. I want to understand you.’

  Stevie and I were once so close that we thought our souls had been cut from the same part of the sky. I remember him saying that to me. Now I can’t think we have anything in common. I expect he feels the same and wants to reacquaint himself. I’m uneasy but don’t see that I am in a position to negotiate.

  ‘We’ve been married for—’

  ‘You’re not married,’ says Stevie grimly.

  ‘Well, for the sake of argument.’ Stevie shrugs and lets me go ahead. ‘We’ve been married six months.’

  ‘That’s no time at all.’

  I can hear the jeer in his voice. Stevie doesn’t see my marriage to Philip as a real marriage. But he’s wrong. My marriage to him was the farce.

  ‘I want to get to our ruby wedding anniversary,’ I hiss. I’m irritated. I know I’m on thin ice. Six months is no time at all. It’s short enough for Philip to write it off as a ghastly mistake, which I’m sure he would, if he found out about my bigamy.

  ‘We’d dated for nearly two years before we got married. All our friends think we’re perfect for each other. When we announced our engagement, they asked what had taken us so long.’

  ‘You could have explained, Belinda. You could have said you weren’t in a position to commit,’ says Stevie sarcastically.

  I shift uncomfortably on my chair. ‘It was generally expected that when confronted with Philip-the-obvious-catch, I would snap him up after the first post-coital snooze. I live in London, where suitable bachelors are thin on the ground. At twenty-eight, I felt like a baby but was already being referred to as “Madame” by strangers. Philip was heading for The Times rich list and he’s kind.’

  ‘So you didn’t fancy him?’

  ‘I did. I do,’ I stumble. ‘Very much. I’m not blind. I could see that Phil was eminently eligible. He has sense, looks and money enough but I really wasn’t planning on marrying. I was trying not to fall in love with him.’

  I look at Stevie, hoping for a reaction. He sneers, which is not the reaction I was looking for. Fuck me, what did I expect? He can’t possibly be understanding.

  I hadn’t been waiting for a proposal. I was very aware that I was in no position to accept one. And I was planning to tell Philip about Stevie. Or, at the very least, to track down Stevie and sort out a divorce before I moved things on with Philip. I once went as far as to visit Friends Reunited but Stevie wasn’t registered. I wouldn’t have accepted Phil’s proposal if he hadn’t asked the night Ben was killed. I’m not saying that I didn’t want to marry Phil.
I did want to marry Phil. One day.

  I can’t articulate any of this accurately so I mutter, ‘There’s no crime in marrying someone who worships you.’

  ‘There is, if you’re already married,’ points out Stevie.

  ‘Well, yes,’ I admit with a reluctant grin. I’m surprised that I feel like grinning at all. ‘But if I hadn’t been married then it would have been OK.’ I touch my temples, I’m exhausted. ‘Look, I bath in a loved-up glow and I won’t apologize for that. I didn’t marry Philip for his money, you know, Stevie. I married his gravitas,’ I confess.

  I wonder if Stevie will understand this. I wanted to feel safe. Stevie must realize this as he knows me better than anyone else, or at least, used to. He knows where I come from but sadly did not know where I wanted to go.

  ‘Philip is big and strong and—’

  ‘Grey?’ says Stevie, rupturing the romantic bubble where he still understands me. I dream of being known and understood, something I’ve made impossible. Is he jealous of Philip?

  ‘Yes, he is greying but I like that.’

  ‘Older men tend to be richer.’

  ‘Maybe, and they tend to be more mature,’ I snap. Stevie looks offended and I’m glad. ‘I don’t need to explain my love for Philip. I don’t need to explain why I married him. He’s a good husband. An excellent one.’ I catch sight of Stevie’s face. He looks hurt again. I reach out and squeeze his arm, ‘I know you loved me too, but we were—’ I want to say we were too young but Stevie interrupts.

  ‘We were a mistake. I know, you told me.’

  We stay silent for some time as anything I say seems to make matters worse. We drain our drinks and Stevie stubs out his fag. Only as we walk to the pub door dare I ask.

  ‘Will you help me, Stevie?’ I put my hand on his arm. His skin feels soft, warm, and pleasant. Stevie pauses and then after the longest time he nods.

  ‘Yes, I will help you, Belinda, because some things never change.’

  The relief is enormous, it washes over me although I know I can never be clean again.

  ‘Stevie, one more thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My picture, in your wallet. You have to dump it.’