The Birthday That Changed Everything Read online

  ‘No, no, your dad’s balls are fine…well, I suppose they are, I haven’t seen them up close recently…’

  ‘Oh, gross, Mum!’ cried Ollie, making gagging gestures with his fingers in his throat and pretending to vomit. Lucy looked similarly disgusted at the mere mention of me in close proximity to her father’s genitals. Clearly she preferred the theory that she had been hand-delivered by Satan’s stork.

  ‘Oh, just shut up, both of you!’ I said. ‘Your dad, and his testicles, are okay – but he’s leaving us. No, that’s not right. Not us – me. He’s leaving me. For a while. Just for a bit, while he gets his head together. I’m probably being dramatic for no reason. But…well, I only just found out. He told me today. Kind of. He e-mailed me today, actually—’

  ‘Hang on a minute – did you say e-mail? Are you telling me he frigging e-mailed you to say he was doing a runner?’ asked Lucy, incredulously.

  ‘Yes, well, you know how busy he gets at work…’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Mum, you,’ she replied, leaning down over the sofa and poking one of her fingers in my face so hard that I went cross-eyed, ‘are such a loser! He e-mails you to say he’s walking out and you justify it because he’s busy? This isn’t about him, it’s about you. You’re a doormat. You’ve got no backbone. You’re just a human being made of fucking jelly. No wonder he left you – you probably bored him to death!’

  Exit Lucy, stage left, in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. I could practically feel the ceiling shake as she stomped up the stairs to her room, slammed the door, and started blasting music so loudly through her speakers that nomadic tribespeople in Uzbekistan would be wondering where the party was and if they should bring a bottle.

  Oh good. The Afterbirth again. My favourites.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Nobody else my arse,’ said my sister-in-law Diane on the phone from Liverpool. ‘There always is, Sal. It’s rule number one in the big book of rules about men – they never, ever leave a woman unless there’s someone else to go to, no matter how miserable they are. They treat their sex lives like a relay race – they always need to pass the baton…’

  Phallic imagery aside, I knew she had a point. And Di should know. She was married to my brother Mark, who was pretty much the best of a bad bunch, but they’d really gone through the mill when they were younger. He’d had affairs. She’d had affairs. It got to the stage where they needed a PA to remind them of who was shagging who. Eventually all the mistresses and toy boys became a burden, and they decided to have an affair with each other instead. Two decades on, they’re still married, so they must have done something right.

  It was the day after my exciting e-mail treat, and the kids were handling it about as well as could be expected. Lucy was out, probably scaring toddlers in the local park as she sat having a fag in the playground with the Demon Twins. Ollie was upstairs in his room, playing Lords of Legend online.

  And Simon was due to come round any minute.

  ‘But he says he needs to find himself, Di. Don’t you think there could be some truth in that? We’ve all been so busy for so long since the kids came along, and there’s his work. What if he genuinely just needs a bit of time and space?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she snorted, ‘of course. Let’s face it, Sal, any man who spends as much time in front of the mirror as Simon does shouldn’t have any problem with finding himself. And, as for his work, are we supposed to feel sorry for him because he’s successful? That could’ve been you if things had worked out differently. I know you wouldn’t be without the kids – well, not Ollie anyway – but if Mr Lover Lover Man hadn’t got you knocked up when you were still a student, you’d be a doctor too.

  ‘He couldn’t have done everything he has without you at home backing him up. So don’t give me that “finding myself” crap. Take my word for it, he’s got some little tart he’s shacking up with who gives him seven blow jobs a day and treats him like God. I know it’s not really in your nature, but you need to find your inner bitch. He deserves it for dumping you by e-mail.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I keep thinking I might have missed something and opening it again…For a while I convinced myself it wasn’t real, it was some kind of freaky spam…Anyway, better go – he’ll be here soon. Thanks for all the advice and I’ll try to stay tough, okay?’

  ‘Okay, love, you do that – and you better not have ironed those bloody shirts!’

  I put the phone down, still marvelling at the thought of a woman who had the time – never mind the oral dexterity – to give seven blow jobs a day. How would that even be possible? She’d have to go to work with him, and live under his desk. And it could be really distracting when he was in surgery – she’d have to scrub in, and even then I’m not sure it would be hygienic…

  Had Simon and I ever reached those levels of sexual athleticism? Maybe – but if we had, we’d been too drunk to notice. I was only twenty-one when we met, and sex at that age is all about enthusiasm, not expertise. And, in our case, it was also all about the contraception. Or lack thereof. Before long I was puking my guts up on morning rounds at St Sam’s, realising I was pregnant with the blob of cells that would become Lucy. She was a lot less trouble then.

  I spent the next four weeks vomiting. Simon spent the next four weeks planning our wedding – or at least his mother did, as soon as she found out what was going on. She was a force to be reckoned with and we weren’t left much choice. Within minutes of peeing on the pregnancy test, she told us when and where we’d be getting married. I was too tired to care really, and Simon – well, he’d come from money, and respectability, and having a bastard child in his twenties was never going to be part of the plan.

  Up until now I thought we’d made the right choices. For everything I’d given up, I’d gained tenfold. A good man, two healthy children, a nice home. It was more than most people got, and I’d been content. On the whole.

  But maybe I’d got it all wrong. Maybe I should have spent more time getting blow-job lessons at the local College of Sex. Seven times a day? Really, was it possible?

  Simon had texted me to say he’d be round at eleven, so he must be taking a break from his BJ schedule for at least an hour. He was always on time for everything; it was a point of pride with him, so I had exactly ten minutes left. Ten minutes left to rehearse speeches I knew wouldn’t come out right, as I didn’t have a clue how his side of the script went. I didn’t know if Diane was right about there being someone else, or how I’d cope with it if there was.

  I’d got up early, exhausted after a disjointed and dream-ridden night’s semi-sleep. My eyes were swollen and stinging from fatigue and tears. I’d walked the dog, cried, had a shower, cried, done the ironing, cried, and had a Force Ten row with Lucy, all before calling Diane. I’d also tried on three different outfits and rearranged my hair several times before giving up in disgust. I mean, where are the style guides on How To Look Good Dumped? Or What Not To Wear While Confronting Your Probably Cheating Husband? You never see that on bloody telly, and I bet it’s not just me who needs it.

  Physically, I’m not in bad nick considering I am, as my kids charmingly put it, ‘halfway to dead’, but I’m definitely at the stage in life where the perfection of youth is a distant memory.

  I’m in a gym, but in all honesty the only pounds I lose are from my bank balance. I had been hopeful that the sheer effort of carrying round a membership card in my purse would reinstate me to my size ten glory days, but apparently not. What a con.

  I still fit into a size fourteen, or at least most of me does. But I have a wobbly blancmange tummy that never left after childbirth, and my derrière is, diplomatically speaking, comfortable. My boobs are too big for their own good, and need an awful lot of help from a very strong push-up bra fairy. I’d ‘let myself go’, as my gran might have said.

  Eventually, after a load of fretting that did nothing but get me hot and bothered, my hair had ended up in its usual slightly unruly shoulder-length bob, and I stuck with jeans and a
T-shirt. I had no idea what to go for – seductive, dignified, aloof? All I felt was shattered and confused. And I knew the fact that I was focusing so hard on clothes and preparations was just a way of avoiding the ugly truth: the fact that my marriage, and life as I knew it, could be over.

  I heard the key in the door, accompanied by an inappropriately cheery ‘Hello!’ as Simon arrived and let himself in.

  He was wearing a pair of new jeans – at least jeans I’d never seen before. Skin-tight on the thighs and boot cut. His fair hair was styled slightly differently, swept straight back and gelled rather than parted in his traditional ‘trust me I’m a doctor’ look. And he smelled – a lot. Of some quite powerful cologne or aftershave that he’d never used around the house. He looked younger, and cooler, and actually pretty damn handsome. It was him – but not him. It was his sexier evil twin.

  ‘You’re having an affair with some little tart who gives you seven blow jobs a day and treats you like God, aren’t you?’ I said immediately.

  I just knew – from the second he walked into the room, I could tell. It wasn’t only the new style and the new smell – it was the new swagger.

  He was trying desperately to hold a serious and sympathetic expression on his face, but I could see it there in his eyes: a newfound confidence, self-belief…happiness, I suppose. The bastard.

  He sat down next to me on the sofa, taking my hand in his and looking at me with that same sympathy. The look I’d seen on his professional face so many times over the years. The one that said: ‘I am the bearer of bad news, but don’t worry, I’m here for you.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Simon – I can see it all over you. There’s somebody else, so don’t deny it. How long has it been going on?’

  ‘Oh, Sal,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry…I never wanted to hurt you, I really didn’t…I wasn’t looking for this. It just happened. We’ve drifted apart so much in recent years. I honestly don’t think you’re happy either…’

  I slapped his hand away and looked straight ahead. I couldn’t bear to see that sparkle he was trying to hide, the way he was sad about destroying me, but unbearably happy for himself. The emotional conundrum of the newly freed male.

  ‘What do you mean you weren’t looking for it? Did you accidentally fall into another woman’s vagina, then?’

  ‘There’s no need to be crude about it, Sal; it’s not like that! It’s not just the sex…’ – the never-ending, headboard-pounding, scream-out-loud sex, I added in my own mind’s eye – ‘it’s more than that. I’m in love with her. You have to believe me when I say I’d never do anything to intentionally make you suffer, or the kids. I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t serious. But I just couldn’t go on like we were any more. You must know what I mean!’

  Uhm…no, actually. I’d been perfectly happy the way things were. Or, at least, definitely not unhappy. I obviously had a much higher boredom threshold than he did, and significantly lower expectations of how exciting family life in the suburbs was supposed to be. Simon, though, seemed to mean what he was saying, and appeared confused that I didn’t ‘get it’ – he genuinely thought we’d both been unhappy, that this was somehow inevitable or necessary, a natural progression rather than a thunderbolt from the blue.

  ‘So who’s the lucky woman then?’ I asked, focusing on the mistress straight away. The other issues – the fact that he’d seen our marriage in a totally different way to me – were too complicated to tackle just then. The fact that he was shagging someone else was, in a twisted way, more palatable.

  Even as I spoke, I recognised that my tone of voice could curdle milk. I sounded like a bitter old hag, and might as well buy seven cats and stop washing right now.

  ‘Her name is Monika,’ he replied, intonating the name with such reverence that he could have been talking about the Virgin Mary. Except not in this case, it would seem, unless the Blessed Mother had taken a very unexpected turning in life. ‘We met in a…in a hospitality venue I visited when I was on that Ortho conference in London in March.’

  ‘The one you said was full of cranky old men talking about hip replacements over their peppered steak? And what’s a “hospitality venue” anyway? Is it double-speak for a pub or a…’

  The light slowly dawned as he started to shuffle slightly nervously next to me, casting his eyes down for the first time.

  ‘A strip club? A strip club. You’re running off with a fucking stripper. My God, Simon – could you be any more predictable? You’re giving up your wife, your home, your kids and your bloody dog, all for the sake of someone who shakes her tits for a living?’

  His head snapped up again, and I could see I’d hit a nerve. ‘She’s not just some slapper, you know! Back in Latvia she was training at catering school, then the opportunity came up to travel to London. She’s a really intelligent girl, I’m sure she’ll do very well for herself once she goes back to college!’

  ‘In Latvia? Back to college? Please tell me you mean as a mature student…how old is she?’

  A beat of silence. He didn’t want to tell me. This was going to be bad – very bad.

  ‘HOW OLD IS SHE?’ I yelled in his face.

  ‘Nineteen,’ he mumbled, jerking his head back in shock, ‘she’s nineteen, all right? But that means nothing. Where she’s come from, that’s mature. She’s been through more than most people have already. It’s not easy growing up in Latvia, you know. There wasn’t much money, no jobs, no way out. She needed—’

  ‘She needed a really stupid man, Simon, that’s what she needed. A really stupid man with a bit of money and his brains in his balls. And it looks like she got exactly that. It’s pathetic…Ollie and Lucy are losing their father because you can’t keep it in your pants? Have you any idea how much this is going to hurt them?’

  ‘But it won’t,’ he replied, edging away from my anger. ‘They’ll understand, even if you don’t. They’re older now – we’ve done a good job raising them. They’ve had a solid start in life, and they don’t need us to be together for their sakes any more. They’ll know I deserve a chance to be happy and in love – and so do you. And there’s no problem with the house – obviously you’ll keep that for as long as you all need it – or with money. I’ll make sure you’re all provided for…’

  I was momentarily struck dumb by his use of the phrase ‘together for their sakes’. Was that how he’d been feeling? Is that what our marriage had been? Had I been so stupid I hadn’t noticed – or was Simon rewriting our history to justify current actions he must be ashamed of, deep down?

  It was as though I was talking to a stranger – and one who certainly didn’t understand at least one of his children.

  ‘If you think for a minute that Lucy is going to accept this in any way,’ I said, ‘you’re even dumber than you look in those sprayed-on jeans. She’ll hate you for it. And I don’t blame her.’

  I don’t know how he’d expected this conversation to go, but I was clearly not reacting the way he’d expected. He looked almost afraid as my voice rose. He stood up, retreating by several steps and taking refuge by the bay window – presumably so he’d have witnesses if I whacked him round the head with a paperweight.

  ‘Don’t worry, Simon, you’re not worth it. If I’m not what you want any more, that’s your choice. Before you came here today I was really hoping we could patch things up. That we could put things right – that I could try and be more like you want me to be. But without the aid of a time machine, that’s obviously not going to happen. I can’t believe you’re leaving me for someone who’s not much older than your own daughter. We’ve gone through all these years together and you throw it away like it means nothing…’

  My quieter tone calmed him, and he took a step forward, holding out his hands in supplication. How could somebody so familiar, so beloved, suddenly be a complete alien? I suppose we’d taken each other so much for granted over the years that it seemed unbelievable that anything could change. Now here he was in front of me, as a totally different person. Amazing
what the love of a bad woman can do for a man.

  I wanted to kill him, and spit on his bleeding corpse. And I wanted him to take me in his arms and tell me he’d stay, that everything was going to be all right. I wanted the whole damn mess to just go away. I wanted my husband back. I wanted to sleep for ever. The shock of it all was starting to really kick in, and I didn’t know where to put myself. The anger of my words was real – but the changing landscape of my future life was now becoming a hideous reality, a poisonous shift that I could do nothing to control or avoid.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sal,’ he said, sounding genuinely regretful. ‘If there was anything I could do to make you feel better, I would…but I belong with Monika now. If I don’t try and make a go of this, I’ll never forgive myself – and I won’t be much use here with you, either.’

  I gulped back the sobs I could feel coming. I needed to weep and wail and beg God to help me, but that was between me and the Almighty. I’d never forgive myself if I broke down in front of Simon.

  ‘You’d better go then,’ I said, waving him towards the door. ‘Leave the keys behind. Call to arrange a time to see the kids. Your bag’s in the hall. And yes, I did pack your five freshly ironed work shirts.’

  With five freshly burned holes through the backs, I silently added. But he didn’t need to discover that until Monday morning, did he?

  Chapter 3

  Oxford is a beautiful city. Full of beautiful people, leading beautiful lives. On a good day it’s an inspiring place to be; surrounded by ancient, ivy-clad colleges, woodland walks, quaint bookshops and the sense of being somewhere truly special.

  This, however, was not one of those good days. I’d driven into town with Lucy, planning to do some shopping, but we’d almost come to blows within minutes of arriving at the Covered Market. She wanted her nose pierced. I said no. She said I was a boring bitch. I said thank you very much Lucy and headed for the Ben’s Cookies stall. She stomped along behind me, knocking dangling pigeons out of the way as we passed the butchers’ stands, sizzling with fury.