The Other Woman's Shoes (31 page)

Martha thought this was a good day to take her rings off. She wasn’t sure why she’d kept them on for so long. Sentimentality? To show the world that she’d been respectably married before she conceived her two children? Ha. Jack didn’t like her wearing her engagement and wedding rings. He hadn’t actually said, ‘I don’t like you wearing your rings,’ but he had asked her why she continued wearing them in a way that implied ‘I don’t like you wearing your rings.’ It was a fair question, to which the reply – ‘habit’ – seemed inadequate. There was something sweet and old-fashioned, if not a bit inconsistent, in the fact that Jack would happily bed a married woman, but not one who was wearing her rings.

Martha didn’t feel like a married woman. She felt like a single girl, so the rings had to go. She wasn’t even deceiving herself any more. Her fingers were so skinny at the moment that the rings swung helplessly around; it was easy to slip them off.

Her hand would feel bare, and for weeks afterwards she would keep rubbing her thumb against her fourth finger where her rings used to be. Every time she did so, it surprised her to find that her finger was bare. She was once so proud of her rings. The engagement ring was her favourite. She remembered the first time she’d made love
as an engaged woman. She’d thought that she’d never make love to any other man again. She’d thought she was safe, complete. But that was a long time ago. Now her finger was nude.

Michael came to move out the rest of his clothes and possessions. It was as she had promised herself it would be – all very civilized.

At least until the part where she sobbed and howled like a banshee, ‘The worst of this, Michael, is that in years to come, when Mathew and Maisie ask why we aren’t a family, I’ll have to confess that I don’t know.’ He held her tightly and remained silent.

Michael had hired a white van for the day; he’d rung her a week in advance to say that he’d arrive at about 11 a.m. and expected to leave at about 4.30 p.m. Martha, in her wisdom and superior position as the person who’d managed their lives for the last ten years, knew that this would not be enough time for Michael to pack up his belongings and shift them. Michael didn’t know this because Martha had always done the lion’s share of that kind of thing as they’d moved from flat to flat, and eventually to this house. Their home. Martha found it hard to break a habit of a lifetime, and so helpfully packed up Michael’s suits, jumpers, shirts, T-shirts, pants, socks and shoes. She even packed up his navy towelling dressing gown that was the same as hers. She washed it before she did so, because there was nothing nicer than a clean, fluffy towelling dressing gown.

Except perhaps two clean, fluffy, towelling dressing gowns hanging side by side on the back of the bathroom door.

Martha carefully packed all Michael’s books, videos and DVDs. She gave him
Billy Elliot
even though she loved the film, because, strictly speaking, it was his. Mathew and Maisie had ‘bought’ it for him for Father’s Day. The gaps on the bookshelves and video rack reminded Martha of the gaps the tooth fairy leaves in a seven-year-old’s mouth. They divided up the furniture, the crockery, the cutlery and the bedding. He took the shoe polish, the non-stick frying pan, the mountain bike. There were gaps everywhere. Physical, emotional, historical and moral. They separated their lives. They were separating.

‘How’d it go, Little Miss E.?’ asked Jack when he phoned later that afternoon.

‘OK,’ said Martha. She’d never lied to Jack, and she didn’t want to start now, not even with a white lie, so she added, ‘Considering.’

‘Must be a bitch.’

‘Yes.’ Martha stared around her home. It looked ravaged, incomplete. It didn’t look like her home. It didn’t look like a home at all. ‘I keep going to get things and realizing they’re not here any more, that they went with Michael.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Tupperware boxes.’

‘What?’

Martha could hear the astonishment in Jack’s voice. She was glad he wasn’t in the room; he’d be able to see she was crying and he’d probably think it was odd to cry over Tupperware boxes.

‘Tupperware boxes,’ she repeated down the phone.

‘What are they?’

‘You know, plastic boxes, air-tight lids; I put the kids’ food in them. I cleared up after their tea today, went to put the ham in a Tupperware box and realized that I don’t have any Tupperware boxes any more.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Jack, making out that he was horrified.

Martha thought about the conversation and started to smile to herself. ‘I wrapped the ham in tinfoil.’ Martha was now in serious danger of laughing.

‘Good thinking, Dude. That saved the day,’ said Jack, then he added, ‘Should I come round?’

Jack arrived at Martha’s house thirty minutes later. He brought dinner, his smile and his sex appeal. She opened the door to him but he didn’t bother with small talk. There was nothing he could say to comfort her. Instead he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Really kissed her. His hands enveloped her head. She was almost scared that she might drown in his hands. She opened her eyes to see that he hadn’t closed his, he was watching her as though she was important. Vital. He nibbled her ear, which sent an electrical storm directly down her spine, through her buttocks, under, and up into her. He inched his hand down from her chin to rest flat on her breast, he firmly but gently massaged her nipple between his finger and thumb.

His lips never left hers until he’d teased, then bruised her with tiny, pleasurably painful bites. Without removing any of her clothes and without moving from that position, he pulled her into orgasm; her breath was shallow, her heartbeat fast, her chest was flushed, her pants were wet.
She came once, then again, then again. And it helped. Her mind was full of the smell of sex and the feel of blood pulsing around her genitals, which helped cloud out the lost Tupperware, the lost husband and the lost family. He inched her out of her jeans and sweatshirt. She moved quickly and shamelessly, stripped him bare, then threw away her own lacy briefs. They stood naked in the kitchen and in each other’s arms and kissed. Then kissed and kissed some more.

People had said to her that divorce was like death; that you had to grieve, that it was natural to feel lost and angry and sad. Martha didn’t know about that, all she wanted was to feel alive. With each joyous thrust she felt lit up, stirred, awake. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She directed him to the kitchen table so she could rest her buttocks rather than have him take all her weight – not that he cared, she seemed weightless to him. He pulled her closer and closer into him, entering her a little deeper, faster and harder each time. They behaved like animals that couldn’t, wouldn’t ever get enough of each other. They fucked hard, often, and with great hope and affection. She’d been a girl, then a woman, now she was a girl again.

February

33

Martha would always remember February as sunny. Which was peculiar, as February was normally so dull and soulless. This year, every morning she was greeted by bright blue skies split by sharp winter sun. She wore a great deal of yellow, and she smiled an awful lot, despite Eliza asking questions like, ‘You do know there’s no such thing as a perfect man, don’t you?’ Martha didn’t think she was actually required to reply, so she didn’t. Her silence provoked Eliza to demand, ‘You think he’s perfect, don’t you?’ in a tone that made it clear the correct answer, as far as she was concerned, would not be ‘yes’.

‘Near as damn it,’ breezed Martha as she buttered a slice of toast for Maisie. Maisie took the toast, held it for about two seconds, then threw it on the floor. Naturally, sod’s law was in force and the toast landed buttered side down.

‘Oh dear,’ laughed Martha. She buttered a second slice and handed it over. Stupid little things like smudging butter into the carpet didn’t upset Martha any more. For the first few weeks after Michael had left, Martha found that she cried if she spilt milk, despite the old saying that there was no point in doing so. The children’s tantrums had almost overwhelmed her; if one of them fell and grazed a knee, it had been a close call who cried the most – Martha or the child. The care of Mathew and Maisie
had appeared as a huge challenge that she was not up to. Now, nurturing, comforting, loving and protecting them was once again effortless.

Or at least possible.

Getting jiggy with Jack was good for Martha. She felt validated.

Eliza’s constant harping didn’t even get to Martha, although it sometimes seemed that Eliza’s
raison d’être
was to urinate on Martha’s parade.

‘Jack has so much energy. I wonder if you could cope with it 24/7?’ asked Eliza. She crammed the final spoon of her cereal down her throat and then immediately started flying about the kitchen, packing up the things she needed to take to work.

Was it possible that one day Martha would come to think his constant chatter as irritating as Michael’s silence was alienating? No, she couldn’t imagine it. Eliza was mistaken.

‘It was you who said perfect men didn’t exist. If so, Jack has to have some flaw, and if his biggest fault is being energetic then things can’t be too bad,’ reasoned Martha. ‘Besides which, I’m not proposing 24/7.’ Oddly, Martha didn’t feel as ridiculous as she perhaps should have in using a phrase that belonged in a teen movie.

‘Have you introduced him to anyone yet?’

‘What do you mean, “introduced him”? You’ve met him.’ Martha started to clear the breakfast plates from the table and stack them in the dishwasher.

‘I’ve
met
him, you didn’t
introduce
him to me.’ The difference, which was obviously apparent to Eliza, eluded Martha; she looked puzzled. Eliza tried to be clear. ‘I was
here, he came here, you told me his name. It’s not the same as going out of your way to introduce him to someone. Have you introduced him to Mum and Dad yet?’ Eliza stopped her frantic search for her mobile, her credit card and her Tube pass and turned to face her sister, hands on her hips.

Martha recognized a challenge when she saw one. ‘Err, no, the opportunity hasn’t arisen,’ she admitted.

‘Or Claire, or Dawn, or Dom and Tara, or any of your friends, or Michael?’

‘Michael? For God’s sake, Eliza, why would I want to introduce Jack to Michael?’

‘No one’s met him, have they?’

‘I’ve told everyone who’s important about him.’

‘But none of them have met him?’

‘No.’

‘Odd that,’ said Eliza; she was finding it difficult to resist adding ‘Ha.’

‘Not so odd.’

‘He’s a shag then, not a boyfriend.’

‘He’s a tender shag.’

‘But not a boyfriend,’ Eliza said flatly.

‘He does care,’ argued Martha.

‘You know that all the women he’s tenderly shagging will think that,’ said Eliza emphatically, then she asked if Martha had seen her Tube pass.

Martha would not think about it. It couldn’t be helped; therefore thinking about it wouldn’t help. So Jack saw other women. So what? Slept with other women – so what? A vision of Jack kissing another woman flashed into Martha’s head. The woman’s face was blurred, indistinct.
Martha pushed the cruel picture out of her mind, but not before it stabbed. She felt the pain in her chest. This was silly. She’d been through this in her head a million times. So, he still wanted variety. So, he wasn’t ready to settle down. Nor was she. He cared about her. She was having fun. That was all that mattered. There was no need at all to think beyond that. It was as good as it got.

In her position.

Eliza bounced upstairs. Martha could hear her turn the tap on to full as she cleaned her teeth. Eliza bounced back downstairs again: she was always late, always in a hurry. Martha handed her her Tube pass.

‘Oh, thanks.’

‘The thing is, Eliza, the odd mix of affection and coolness suits me; I’m not sure I’m ready for anything more.’

‘You’re just saying that because he’s not offering you anything more,’ argued Eliza as she zipped up her knee-high boots.

‘I’m having fun, hanging with a style guru who doesn’t do coke, how much harm can be done?’

‘Lots.’

‘He’s sexy and beautiful and–’

‘And you’re asking me what harm can be done? Look, he’s not your type. He has a tattoo, wears a necklace and rides a motorbike.’ Put like that, it almost seemed as though Eliza had a point. Martha wasn’t usually attracted to men with tattoos, or bikers or jewellery-wearers but, oddly, Jack had made all three things the epitome of horniness.

‘He has form. He’s slept with a stripper, and ticks off
women he’s done by country of birth. Variety is his thing,’ insisted Eliza.

‘So he has a past – don’t we all?’ Martha made a mental note not to share quite as much info with Eliza. It was evidence that was later used against her.

Eliza slid into her huge winter coat. She wasn’t exactly cheerful as it was, but putting on the ugly coat always catapulted her into a dire mood. The coat didn’t suit her. It had been a duff purchase. ‘It’s not even his past that worries me, it’s the fact that he wants a future.’

Martha sighed inwardly. She knew Eliza was right. The other day she’d asked Jack if he’d ever done three-in-a-bed. She’d sort of been joking, but he’d taken her question seriously and said, ‘No, not yet.’ Martha didn’t dare confess this to Eliza; she knew she’d be outraged. She’d also asked him if she was the first married woman he’d ever slept with. A fairly ignominious question, but she was struggling for a first, and she so wanted to be unique to him in some way. Unfortunately, it turned out that a few years back he’d casually dated some woman who was also waiting for her divorce to come through.

At least he was honest.

Cold comfort.

Martha only brightened when she realized that she hadn’t asked him if she was the first mother he’d slept with; she made a mental note to do so.

As if Eliza were reading her mind, she sighed theatrically and warned, ‘Oh Martha. You’re heading for such trouble. Even white mice in laboratories learn faster than this.’

Martha raged inwardly. She wanted to ask what Eliza wanted her to learn. How to close down? How to be cold
and untrusting? How to shield herself against falling in love again? That wasn’t a life as far as Martha was concerned. She didn’t say any of this; all she said was, ‘At least I won’t be in tidying the kids’ toy boxes on Valentine’s night.’