The French Gardener(125)

He regretted his arrogance. He had believed he had a right to everything because he worked hard and earned lots of money. But Miranda wasn’t one of his chattels like his house and his car, to be added to a list that included mistress and pied-à-terre. He loved her. She was the mother of his children. He was a family man. He’d do anything to put back the clock. Anything.

David had many acquaintances, but there was only one friend he could really talk to. Somerled Macdonald, nick-named Mac, was someone he had known for a very long time. The kind of man he could trust to keep the most shameful of secrets and not think any less of him for it. With honest hazel eyes, the strong, sturdy body of a gifted sportsman, Mac was reliable and consistent, with a sense of humor that always made the best out of the very worst. Mac’s wife, Lottie, had grown close to Miranda over the years they had been married. They had enjoyed weekends shooting on Mac’s family estate in Yorkshire, and David shared Mac’s obsession with rugby and cricket, staying up until the early hours of the morning in Mac’s Fulham sitting room to watch the Ashes on the telly. Mac was Gus’s godfather and David was godfather to Mac and Lottie’s son, Alexander. Now it was he who needed a godfather’s wise counsel.

While Lottie was upstairs putting Alexander to bed, David broke down in front of his old friend. “I’ve been a total bastard,” he said, sitting on the sofa and rubbing his face in his hands. “I’ve lost everything for what? A meaningless affair!” Mac listened patiently while he recounted his foolishness in a miserable soliloquy. “Miranda’s only ever been the perfect wife and look how I’ve treated her! My mother would say what goes around comes around and I fully deserve to be kicked out.” He raised red-rimmed eyes in supplication. “What do I do? Tell me, Mac. How do I get her back?”

Mac sat with his legs crossed, a glass of lager in his hand, one trouser leg raised to reveal a pair of rugby socks. “You’ll get her back, Dave. But she’ll make you crawl through the mud first. There’s no point going over what’s done. It’s in the past and you can’t change it. The first thing to do is write to her.”

“I’ve done that. I bet she threw my letter in the bin.” He took a gulp of whisky.

“I doubt it. If she still loves you, as I bet she does, she’ll want to hear your apology. She’ll want to hear that you wish it had never happened, that you love her and want her back. How much you value her and the children. How much did you grovel?”

“A lot.”

Mac shrugged in his laid-back way. “Putting-your-hands-in-the-mud-to-begin-the-long-crawl-back kind of a lot?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Mac grinned and took a swig of lager. “Good. That’s a start. Send flowers with a note telling her that she’s the only woman in your life. I don’t mean a small bunch, fill her kitchen with roses. It’s only when you lose someone that you realize how much they mean to you. Use that, it’s how you feel right now. If you really want her back you’re going to have to fight hard. She’s hurt and humiliated. Christ, why you didn’t choose someone from another world, I can’t imagine! Anyway, that’s by the by, you’re the father of her children and she’s not going to want to lose you either. She’ll just want you to suffer as much as she’s suffering. Prepare to spend the next ten years of marriage eating humble pie.”

“I don’t want my kids to see me as a monster. I couldn’t bear them to think that…” He put his head in his hands again. The whisky had made him dizzy.

“She’s a sensible woman. She’s not going to poison her children against you.”

“People do stupid things when they’re in a corner.” He heaved a sigh and sat back against the cushions. “You know, I’ve been so one-track minded, thinking about myself and work, I’ve been a terrible father. I spent weekends watching sports on telly rather than take my kids off to build camps and catch fish. Then I saw the gardener, Jean-Paul, worming his way into my shoes.” He laughed bitterly. “I saw him in the vegetable garden with Miranda and the children. The sun was out, the birds chirping in the trees, all they needed was a sodding dog to make it picture-perfect. I realized I was being pushed out of my own family and you know what? It was all my fault. Not Jean-Paul’s. God, he was just doing his job, brilliantly. I distanced myself from Blythe, until she turned up at the office in nothing but a fur coat. After that I resolved to finish it with her and spend more time with my family. I was just beginning to enjoy them when Miranda went and asked her down for the weekend. I didn’t continue the affair, I tried to finish it as tactfully as I could. I knew if I made her cross she could spill the beans and ruin everything. Miranda thought I was fucking her in the greenhouse. That’s what it looked like, but it simply wasn’t true. God, I’m stupid.”