I wish we’d never seen the interview, but we did, and last night I watched you watching it over and over and over again. The bit where Henry Winter mentioned you. I stood quietly in the hallway of our home, and watched while you rewound and played it seven times.
Graham leaned forward. ‘Now, tell me, just between us…’ the audience laughed, ‘… what do you really think about the TV and film adaptations of your books?’
The false smile vanished from Henry’s heavily lined face.
‘I don’t own a television set, I’ve always preferred reading.’
‘But you must have seen them?’ Graham persisted, taking a sip of his white wine.
‘I’ve seen them. I can’t say I like them much. But I was persuaded to let the screenwriter have a go – his career was going nowhere before I said yes – and even if I don’t like what he did to the books, a lot of other people do. So…’
Graham laughed. ‘Yikes, let’s hope he isn’t watching!’
But you were watching. So was I. I don’t think you’ve spoken to Henry or written anything new since.
You blamed your agent for what Henry had said, and I felt awful – I like your agent, he’s one of the good guys in what can sometimes be a bad business – but I still couldn’t tell you the truth. I thought things with us were finally back on track, telling you that I was the reason Henry let you adapt his books in the first place didn’t seem too bright an idea.
I don’t know what made you sit in the dark, and watch an old clip of Henry putting you down. I don’t know why you still care what he thinks. I noticed the half-empty bottle of whisky then – Henry’s favourite brand – sitting next to your Bafta award. It’s hard when the highlight of someone’s career comes right at the beginning of it. Sometimes it’s best to start small – give yourself room to grow.
I crept back out to the hall, slammed the front door, then ran straight up the stairs. ‘Just going to have a quick shower,’ I called, so that you would think I hadn’t seen you. When I came down, the TV was off, the whisky was gone, and the Bafta was back on the shelf. I wondered how long you had been pretending to be OK when really you were feeling broken. Putting on an act every night when I got home. Your job means that you spend a lot of time on your own. A little too much sometimes, maybe. I wanted to fix you, but wasn’t sure how.
The next day – our anniversary – I decided to leave work early. I was determined to cheer you up and surprise you. Something felt wrong even as I walked up the garden path. The magnolia tree you planted in the middle of the lawn for our fifth anniversary looked like it might be dying. I chose to ignore what could have been a sign and let myself and Bob inside the house. Everything was still and silent, just like it always is when you’re out in the writing shed, which you almost always are. There was a tin of baked beans on the kitchen table – I thought it must be some kind of joke, knowing that tin was the traditional gift for ten years of marriage. I smiled and headed straight upstairs to our bedroom. I planned to spend a bit of time grooming myself instead of abandoned dogs for a change, before surprising you.
But you surprised me instead.
You were still in bed.
With my friend from work.
She’d called in sick that morning. Now I knew why.
Everything stopped when I walked into the room. I don’t just mean you, or her, or what you were doing. And I don’t just mean that I stopped breathing – even though it felt like I did – it was as though time itself stood perfectly still, waiting for the pieces of my broken life to fall and see where they would land.
I just stood there, staring, unable to process what I was seeing. She smiled. I’ll always remember that. Then I remember you looking between the two of us. Your wife in the doorway and your whore in our bed.
‘I thought it was you,’ you said, wrapping the sheet around yourself. When I didn’t respond, you said it again. As if the words might sound less like lies if you said them a second time. ‘I thought it was you.’
Just the thought of lying can make you blush, and your cheeks turned bright red.
I’m not proud of what I did next. I wish I had said something clever, but I’ve never been good at knowing what to say until long after an event, and even now I can’t find the right words for what I saw that afternoon. So I didn’t say anything, but I did go to the garden shed, grab a shovel, then dig that bloody magnolia tree up and out of my once-perfect front lawn. She left and you just watched in horror. The tree had grown bigger than me by then, but I dragged it through the front door and up the stairs, scratching the walls and leaving a trail of dirt and broken branches behind me. Then I threw it on the bed where you had slept with her, before tucking it in beneath the sheets, like a baby.