The thrill of the cold water was a wonderful antidote to the intense heat, but as I emerged, all I could see in the watery moonlight was Dan’s irritated face. ‘Oh Clare, no!’ he was saying. ‘Get out. The children’s room’s over there.’ He pointed to the side of the house. ‘If they hear you…’
‘They won’t. They’re exhausted, and fast asleep. If they call out, Joy’ll go to them. I thought you were coming in with me?’ I said, now feeling a little foolish that I’d gone into the water.
‘Sssh!’ Another shushing. ‘No, I’m not. It’s late, and you’re drunk. It’s dangerous.’
‘I’ve only had two glasses of wine,’ I said, too loudly.
‘Come on.’ He was holding out his hand to help me out, but I was damned if he was ruining my fun.
‘You asked me to be spontaneous, Dan.’
‘Yes, but not now, not here…’
‘But that’s what being spontaneous is.’ I was hurt, disappointed.
‘It’s… not… it’s stupid. Get out, take my hand,’ he said, angry now.
‘No, sod off, I don’t need your help.’
‘Oh, do what you like,’ he said and stepped away from me.
I was trying to be what he wanted, and still he was rejecting me.
‘You’re the one who isn’t spontaneous,’ I yelled. ‘You’re so bloody scared of your mother you can’t do anything without permission,’ I added, my throat now tight with tears. I was goading him, desperately wishing he’d turn around and come back, even to have the last word, but he didn’t, he just kept walking until he’d disappeared into the blackness.
Okay, I’d had a drink, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been swimming, but even then, in my tipsy anger, I couldn’t help but wonder, if he thinks it’s so dangerous, why is leaving me here, alone, slightly drunk in deep, dark water?
CHAPTER TEN
I swam to the shallow end of the pool, and pulled myself out. It felt dark and lonely, the slightly frivolous excitement I’d felt only minutes earlier now smashed. I felt foolish. I’d wanted Dan to be so carried away by passion that we made love in the pool, or outside. I’d tried to be who I thought he’d wanted me to be, and I hated myself for it, for trying to be who I wasn’t.
Until Marilyn I’d been happy, I’d even learned to quite like myself. I wondered, as I had for months now, how I compared to her. Did Dan look at me and wish I was her, did he scroll through his memories of Marilyn, and use them like porn to turbocharge his desire when with me? And did I come up short?
I don’t know why I’d been so surprised that he’d fallen for her. They were together twenty-four/seven; she worked on the money side, and he on the business. She was important to the growth of Taylor’s and had ways and means of making their money go further. She also happened to be pretty, seventeen years younger and three children lighter. It might have been predictable to anyone on the outside （anyone, apparently, except me） that they were falling into each other’s arms. But then I’ve never been good at guessing surprises – from Dan’s marriage proposal fifteen years before, to the surprise party he threw for my fortieth birthday. But the fortieth fireworks and Tiffany bracelet paled into insignificance when he said he’d been having a six-month affair with the accountant. Yes, Dan always had the ability to take my breath away.
But this wasn’t the first time. About three years before, he’d had a fling with a stewardess he’d met on a business flight to Dublin to look at some properties – apparently her name was Carmel. I’d heard him on the phone to her, when we were on holiday in Greece that summer. It was horrible, I’d been so hurt, so disillusioned. And later, much later, he told me about her, said she’d been a fling, nothing more, and he’d had to say he was leaving me because she was threatening to kill herself. But eventually he finished it, and that’s when all the trouble started.
‘She won’t accept it was nothing,’ he’d told me. ‘She’s been calling me at work, making things difficult – texting me at all hours.’ Dan explained that she was a fantasist, virtually a stalker, she couldn’t leave him alone and he was genuinely worried about me and the kids being caught in the crossfire.
I was devastated. I’d ranted and raved and cried and beat his chest with my fists, leaving bruises and hating myself for becoming that woman. But as Joy, who’d been aware of the calls to work, pointed out, we had two young children, were both exhausted from sleepless nights, so it was no wonder he’d strayed – we weren’t connecting. Dan said it was a terrible mistake, he’d learned his lesson and it would never happen again.