The Water Room(55)

Monica ran a hand through her hair. ‘I can’t take much more of this life, John. I’m not very good at being a sidekick. I don’t want to just be supportive. I was seriously thinking of leaving him when this came along, like some kind of a test. I know it wasn’t fair to involve you, but I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. The academic wives don’t want anything to do with me, and my old friends have all moved on. I thought you might remember me fondly.’

May smiled. ‘You know how I felt about you.’

‘Then why did you let me go?’

‘What can I say?’ The subject embarrassed him even now. ‘They were the disco years. Nobody acted their age, nobody settled down.’

‘That’s the lamest excuse I ever heard.’ Her laugh was unchanged. ‘You were married when I met you. What happened?’

‘Oh, it was all a long time ago,’ said May evasively as he rose and examined the canvases.

‘So it didn’t last.’

‘No, Jane and I divorced. She was—there were health problems. She became ill. Not physically, you understand, just—’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He saw little point in resurrecting the past, at least not while the pain of those years remained.

‘You don’t have to tell me, John.’

‘That’s just the problem—I haven’t talked about it in a long while. I rarely discuss my marriage with Arthur because—well, he has very particular views on these things.’

‘You’re talking about mental illness, aren’t you?’

‘We didn’t know what we were dealing with back then.’

‘But you had children.’

‘Yes, two. Alex was born first, then Elizabeth came along four years later. Now there’s only Alex.’

Monica rose and came to his side, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder. ‘What happened to your daughter?’

He turned aside, barely able to voice his thoughts. ‘She died, and it was my fault. I was more ambitious in those days, perhaps too much so. Alex is married and lives in Canada now, but wants nothing to do with me. Elizabeth—she gave birth to a baby girl. April reminds me so much of her mother. She lives here in London, and will be fine one day soon, I’m sure. She still has problems, but we’re learning to overcome them.’

‘Poor John, you haven’t had the things you deserve.’

He tried to make light of it. ‘I don’t know, I suppose it’s still better to have raised a family than to be like Arthur, even if I eventually lost it.’

‘You never lost me,’ said Monica, raising her hands to his face.



‘You’re telling me you slept with her? Somebody from our own neighbourhood?’ Kayla Ayson yelled.

‘What the hell has that got to do with it?’ Randall shouted back. The front bedroom of number 39 was small, and Randall was sure that the neighbours could hear every word. ‘What does it matter anyway? It was two years before I met you.’

‘Then why wait until now to tell me? Wait a minute.’ Kayla raised a hand to her forehead. ‘You were the one who liked this house so much, even though I thought it was too small for the children. Did you do that just so you could be near her again? Are you still seeing her? Christ, she came to the Wiltons’ party. You call yourself a decent Christian but you still want her.’

‘Will you listen to yourself? Of course I don’t, I’m telling you because it’s bound to come out sooner or later. I didn’t even know she lived in this street until I saw her that evening. She came over and spoke to me when I went to get a drink in the kitchen. What could I do?’

‘You could have told her that you’re happily married.’

‘Of course I did that, but she’s the kind of woman—I just thought you should know.’

‘She’s probably told half the neighbourhood. How do you think that makes me feel, knowing that they’re laughing behind my back?’

‘I wanted to be honest with you,’ Randall pleaded. ‘I wish I hadn’t told you.’

‘Was she married? Did you commit the sin of adultery?’

‘No, she was single, working in a plant nursery in Camden. I was just as shocked to see her as she was me. And she won’t have told anyone, it would only cause more trouble.’

‘But you had to tell me. And now she lives with that awful estate agent in the house opposite. What a convenient coincidence.’

‘We had a few dates, Kayla, that’s all. Lauren means nothing to me. Do you think I’d have told you about her if she did?’

Behind them, their daughter began to cry, awoken by the discordance in the house. Randall stamped out of the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving his wife in anguish and bewilderment.