The Forever Home by Sue Watson

Chapter Ten

Someone was walking into the hallway, and I thought I was going to pass out there and then on the stairs.

‘It’s okay, Mrs Anderson, it’s only me.’ Ryan suddenly appeared in my line of vision, holding a mug, smiling.

‘Oh my God! Ryan, you gave me such a scare. I thought you’d gone home.’ I breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I… No. I popped out to get some paint, but I’m back now…’ As he came closer, he looked up at me, then quickly looked away.

I suddenly remembered I was in a miniscule towel that covered very little. I leapt backwards, out of sight.

‘I could show you where I’m up to with the painting, if you’d like to check it over before I go for the day,’ he said, now with his back to me.

‘Okay, I’ll get dressed,’ I called, clutching at the tiny towel, mortified. How embarrassing! I didn’t even want to think what he’d seen from the ground floor.

I ran into the bedroom and quickly threw on some clean clothes and headed downstairs two at a time.

‘Sorry, I was just taking a shower,’ I said, unnecessarily, as I arrived in the kitchen.

He was leaning on the island, the mug still in his hand, the sun behind him, and I discreetly took him in for a moment. He looked good. Messy hair, long in his neck, face shadowy with bristle, like he had so much testosterone surging through him he couldn’t keep the bristles at bay.

In an attempt to stop thinking about Ryan’s no doubt unending supply of testosterone, I walked into the living area, where my eyes alighted on the wall of framed pictures. ‘Ryan, I know this is a mad question, but you haven’t moved any of those pictures, have you?’ I pointed to the wall.

As it was open plan, he could see from the kitchen area, and he looked over, shaking his head. ‘Why?’

‘I put them up differently… Mark probably moved them earlier. I think he forgot he doesn’t live here any more,’ I said. He was pissed off I’d brought Ryan in to work on the house, so probably decided to swap the photos around in a territorial way.

‘Oh ignore me Ryan, I’m going mad,’ I said with a smile.

‘I hope you don’t mind, I made myself a coffee?’ Ryan lifted the mug to demonstrate.

‘No, not at all,’ I said, wondering if he had a girlfriend, and what she looked like, and fleetingly, shamefully, wondered if he liked her on top?

‘Are you ready?’ he asked.

‘Ready?’ Still thinking about Ryan and his girlfriend’s sex life, for a moment I wondered what he was referring to.

‘Yeah, to check the paintwork.’

‘Oh yes… yes, I’m ready.’ My face was hot, and not for the first time, I missed having Lara in my life. She’d know if this was a hot flush, or merely unrequited lust. She was an expert on these things.

‘I like customers to see what I’ve done before I leave for the day, something my dad always did.’

I smiled, remembering Ted Jarvis, a bluff, overweight man, nothing like his son. I followed Ryan outside, admired his paintwork. In the middle of a discussion about rendering, I began to feel dizzy. I didn’t want to be a drama queen, so discreetly leaned on the wall, hoping it would pass.

‘Hey, you’ve gone very pale, are you okay, Carly?’ Ryan asked, and my heart shuddered slightly. He reached out to me with his hand, like he was going to catch me. And I leaned on him. Then, to my own surprise, I just burst into tears.

‘Aww, Carly,’ he was saying, in a really soft, gentle voice.

He put his arm around me, and I tried to emerge from tears and mucus, telling him, ‘I’m fine, honestly. So stupid. Don’t know what’s wrong with me – this is crazy.’

‘Come on inside and sit down. Looked like you were going to faint for a minute there,’ he said, his arm firmly around my waist now, as he helped me into the house.

I was perfectly capable of walking, but I have to admit, I liked how it felt to have him holding me, to be so close I could breathe in his warm, musky smell.

‘Can I make you a coffee?’ he asked, once I was sitting down.

‘No, I’m fine thanks, Ryan. You’ve finished work, get off home, I’m fine.’

‘I’m not leaving you,’ he said softly, sitting down on the sofa next to me. ‘Are you sure I can’t get you a drink… some water?’

‘I think I might need something stronger than water,’ I said. ‘Let’s open the gin.’

Ryan got up and I directed him to the cupboard where I kept the bottles.

‘I’m so sorry, I feel such a fool breaking down like that,’ I sighed.

He poured tonic onto gin, threw in some ice and as it fizzed and clinked he handed me the glass.

‘Would you prefer beer?’ I asked, but he shook his head and, after making a drink for himself, sat down next to me. I could feel his warm thigh against mine, and I tried not to think about it because I might really pass out.

‘I was worried about you,’ he said, gazing into his gin.

I was touched. ‘I’m fine, thanks. I don’t know what came over me – it was just seeing Mark, I guess. I haven’t seen him since… and it brought everything back.’

‘I still can’t believe what he did… and telling you at your party too – well, that’s what I heard?’ He trailed off.

I nodded to confirm this. I knew I was under strict instructions not to tell anyone the truth, but I was now a free agent, and there was something about Ryan that made me want to put my head on his chest and tell him everything.

‘Unbelievable – what’s wrong with him, is the bloke a sadist?’ he said, tightly swirling the ice in his glass.

‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t want to know about your client’s marriage,’ I sighed, taking a large glug of gin, the cold aromatic liquid filling my throat with soothing fire.

‘I don’t usually want to know about my clients,’ he said. ‘I’m not being nosey or anything, but… but you’re different.’

I was now very warm, and he was very close. ‘Shall we sit outside?’ I suggested. ‘This room is so clinical, I feel like I’m waiting for a smear test.’ I flushed – why on earth did I say that? As if this whole scenario of drinking gin with me wasn’t awkward enough for Ryan, I had to add to his discomfort by conjuring up an image like that.

Before I could dwell on it, I got up and headed outside. He followed me into the garden. It was early evening, and quite chilly, but I was wearing a thick knitted cardigan, and he had a sweatshirt on.

We sat on the garden chairs. ‘My mother planted this garden originally,’ I said, eager to change the subject. ‘She loved being outside. I’m the same, I never tire of being here. We’re so lucky to live by the sea, aren’t we? When I was younger, I used to take it for granted. I hated the small village, the church hall cream teas, the vicar’s wife in her hat every Sunday. I wanted to tear it all down back then, hated the small-town attitude. As soon as I was eighteen, I was on a train to London.’

‘Did you study there?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. Art. I had great aspirations – turned out to be less aspirations and more delusions of grandeur,’ I laughed.

‘Rubbish, I’ve seen your paintings. They’re leaning against the wall in the garage, right? At least I think they’re yours, you’ve signed them?’

‘Yes, those are mine. I’ve only recently started to paint again, just views from the window,’ I sighed, referring to my huge impressionistic landscapes of sea and sky, bright turquoise, daubs of orange, storms and sunsets on white canvas. My short-lived degree-show smashing of the patriarchy with pants was now a distant memory, and I was more fascinated by the unpredictable, moody sea. I loved and feared the sea. I’d seen what it could do, and despite its treachery, was comforted by the calm beauty of the ocean on a summer’s day.

‘Well, I think they’re amazing. Really,’ Ryan said, looking so deep into my eyes, I had to look away.

‘What about you, what did you study?’ I asked.

‘Chemistry,’ he replied, ‘and when I finished, that’s when the real learning began. I went travelling. Best thing I ever did – India, Nepal, Thailand.’

‘Oh, I’d love to go to Thailand.’

‘An amazing place, beautiful,’ he sighed, lost in his memories. ‘I’m saving up to go back there. I’m going to live in a shack on the beach, fish for dinner straight from the sea – you can live on nothing,’ he said. ‘A few baht for beers, sit on the beach under the stars all night…’ He turned to me, smiling.

‘I hope you can get there soon. Mark and I talked of going to that part of the world – I always wanted to see India too. We said we’d do a “middle-aged” gap year, five-star hotels and luxury travel to each destination. But, honestly, I’d have been happy with rucksacks and a youth hostel,’ I said with a giggle, then felt a shadow come over me, another dream biting the dust. ‘We never did get there.’ I smiled, so he didn’t think I was bitter. I was though.

‘If ever you get the chance, you should go, it’s life-changing,’ Ryan was saying.

‘I’m sure it is,’ I replied, ‘and I hope I do get there one day, but for now, I just want to be here. I need somewhere safe and familiar to lick my wounds, you know?’

‘Yeah, I love this house,’ he said. We were sitting facing the house, our backs to the sea, and he was slowly nodding, weighing it up with his eyes. ‘This place is probably worth a bit too. A bit of paint and some general maintenance and it’ll be spot on – even if the ground’s shifted a bit over the years…’

‘Oh God,’ I sighed thinking of the news footage as cliffside homes were swept down into the water, gone forever. Being by the sea was a constant reminder of how everything we love is fragile, and life can never be taken for granted against the wild coastal backdrop. It could swallow us up at any moment.

‘The house won’t end up in the sea, will it?’

He laughed. ‘No, not for a long time. You’ve got this big, long garden, and the movement will be miniscule in our lifetime. Hopefully you and I won’t be here if it ever does fall off the cliff.’ He gazed back at me intensely.

I clutched my chest. ‘Life’s a bit precarious as it is at the moment – that’s all I need.’ I looked back at the house, white and beautiful and proud, yet breakable, the foundations moving all the time, miniscule, but real nonetheless.

‘I like the way it isn’t completely symmetrical,’ he continued, framing the back of the house with both hands.

‘Isn’t it?’ I screwed up my eyes to work out the symmetry – or not – and eventually I saw it. ‘Oh yes, it is slightly off, isn’t it? Is that a mistake?’

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t look like it – again, it might be due to the shifting ground it’s built on, and the rear extension probably had some bearing on the wall. But it’s nothing to worry about, even the Taj Mahal isn’t totally symmetrical – and there’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘I never knew that – about the Taj Mahal,’ I said, recalling the iconic, and very telling photo of Princess Diana sitting alone in front of one of the most romantic buildings in the world. I remember thinking that I would one day go there with the man I loved. I met Mark soon after, and despite talking about it, we never got there.

‘Yeah, the Taj Mahal is pretty awesome, this guy built it for his wife who’d just died giving birth to one of their children,’ Ryan added.

‘Oh, how sad,’ I sighed, and we both stared at the house.

After a few minutes of silence, Ryan shifted his chair slightly, turning it around to face the sea, and closer to me. I did the same, so I could look out at the blurred blue horizon. ‘It’s calm today.’

‘Yes, like glass, so peaceful,’ I said, feeling the warmth of the emerging sun on the back of my neck. ‘I love it like this. Although electrical storms are pretty great from here too, it’s a brilliant vantage point. Me and the kids would sometimes pull the big sofa over to the window, and watch the lightning over the sea. Jake was always scared and he’d huddle up close to me.’ I was aware I was smiling at the memory.

‘You miss the children, don’t you?’ Ryan asked.

‘I do, like any mother I suppose. Sounds silly, but you think they’ll be with you forever, and it’s quite a shock when they go off and make their own way in the world.’

‘Are you lonely?’

‘No, not really. I’m alone, but not lonely,’ I said, realising I was probably more lonely in my marriage than I was now.

‘When a couple like you and Mark split, everyone panics, because you guys were goals – you know what I mean? “The Golden Couple”, my mum always called you.’

‘We weren’t golden, far from it, more like gilt.’

‘Oh.’ He was looking at me intently.

‘Mark wasn’t… isn’t what he seems. He may appear to be this amazing husband, father, TV star who can turn his hand to anything, but that’s his TV persona; the real Mark is quite different.’

‘In what way?’

I paused. The gin was making me say more than I normally would. Being married to Mark, everything I did or said had to be run by him or Estelle first. It was so liberating to be sitting in the dusk on a cool spring evening talking freely. ‘Erin wasn’t his first affair,’ I heard myself say, and then after years of keeping everything bottled up, of telling lies to cover the truth, it all came tumbling out. ‘Mark loved women, you see, he couldn’t help himself. And it wasn’t like it was something that crept up on him, the boredom of marriage or fear of growing old. At our wedding, he asked my bridesmaid if, after the honeymoon, she’d hook up with him.’

‘No,’ Ryan replied incredulously.

‘Yeah, I mean, she didn’t tell me until years later, and I thought perhaps she’d misunderstood. But deep down I knew she hadn’t,’ I sighed. ‘Throughout our marriage, he had… liaisons. He was always discreet…’

‘He never got caught, you mean?’

I smiled again, but this time it wasn’t with fondness or nostalgia, it was to cover the hurt that still sat in my chest. Only me and Mark had known the truth of our marriage.

‘Wow! But you guys were always so…’

‘Perfect?’ I gave a hollow laugh.

‘Didn’t he feel any kind of, I dunno, responsibility to you?’ Ryan said, pouring us both another large gin from the bottle he’d brought out to the table.

‘I… I don’t know.’ I was surprised at Ryan’s comment and the fact he’d mentioned responsibility to me, something that never occurred to Mark. ‘I shouldn’t really be saying any of this.’ I looked away.

‘It’s okay, you can trust me. I won’t go blabbing to everyone.’

He seemed so genuine, so warm. I felt myself relaxing after keeping everything secret, bottled up all these years; this was a release. ‘I was very young when we married, then my mum died when Phoebe was quite small. I think we just went different ways, and by the time we realised, it was too late.’

‘My own father had never been a “family guy”; in fact, he was quite insular. He’d never really been involved in my life, and rarely engaged with my mother, so I had no role model. And if Mark took us all on a picnic, or a day at the beach, I thought that was amazing.’ I looked at Ryan, who rolled his eyes. I almost laughed. ‘Yes, but it was a low bar. I had nothing from my own dad, so whatever crumbs Mark threw my way I was grateful for.’

‘I get that,’ he said, looking down into his glass of gin. ‘But other women?’

‘I made excuses to myself at first, I’d covered for him,’ I added. ‘I took over care of the children and the household and business finances but in doing all that, I’d indirectly allowed him to abdicate all responsibility as a husband and father. Of course, I didn’t realise that at the time.’ I stopped for breath. I hadn’t been listened to for a long, long time and I knew I shouldn’t be spilling everything like this, but I couldn’t help it. ‘When I married Mark, I knew he wasn’t perfect. I mean, he met me on the way to meet his girlfriend – and instantly dumped her. I should have known then really.’

‘When you fall for someone, you see what you want to see,’ he said.

‘Yes, exactly – and I had this image of him that I’d held on to, but it wasn’t really him, it was who I wanted him to be. For years I waited for that person to come back. But he’d never really existed.’

Ryan smiled gently. ‘That’s sad.’

‘Yes, and stupid in retrospect, but I was young and naïve, and even when I thought he was playing around, I was never completely sure because if I confronted him… he’d deny it. He’d say I was paranoid, and become angry.’

‘Wow! But why didn’t he just admit it and get help, or end the marriage?’

‘Because he had the best of both worlds, why would he leave?’

The grown-up me can now see how he manipulated my feelings, my vulnerability. I’d have done anything for him. I had no experience of life or men, and when I knew for sure he was being unfaithful, I blamed myself for my husband wanting to be with other women. I thought if I was prettier, sexier, more sophisticated, then he wouldn’t need anyone else, he’d be happy with me. I spent my twenties and thirties waiting for him to turn up in the marriage. I’d try so hard to be perfect for him, a new dress, a new haircut, and we’d go out to some party or dinner and he’d whisper, ‘Darling, you are the most gorgeous woman here tonight.’ I’d glow, and then I’d come from back from the bathroom to find him cosied in a corner with another woman. It was like a compulsion with Mark, a constant need to feed his ego and prove himself. I suddenly remembered it was all over, and dragged my thoughts from the past, and into the present, and Ryan.

‘Why did you stay?’ he was asking, his eyes locking on mine.

There were things I couldn’t tell Ryan. I could never tell him how Mark threatened to go to the police if I left him, how even now I worried he might betray me. But I could tell him other stuff, about my marriage, that I’d never told another living soul.

‘I stayed because… he scared me,’ I heard myself say.

‘Mark scared you?’ He looked at me in almost disbelief.

I nodded. ‘I know. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Affable Mark Anderson, charming, handsome… on the TV.’

‘How did he scare you?’

‘The first time, was when we’d been married about a year. We went to a friend’s house party. I drove, he drank… and I mean drank,’ I paused, wondering again why I was telling Ryan all this, but unable to stop. ‘During the evening, Mark had been flirting with this girl, she was the hostess’s younger sister, and about eighteen. He was teasing her, and she was enjoying the attention from a handsome, older guy and though I was uneasy about it, I didn’t say anything. But when he asked her to sit on his knee, I felt he was going too far. It was embarrassing and hurtful for me, and I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.’

‘Didn’t anyone say anything?’

‘Well, everyone except me was drinking, and amused by a pissed Mark telling his hilarious stories. I was already upset, but then I saw his hand move around her waist, I thought I would burst into tears.’

Ryan continued to sit and listen as I spoke, reaching back through the years, unloading everything I’d hidden for too long.

‘I didn’t want to show myself up, but when he started bobbing her up and down on his knee, I couldn’t take any more. I jumped up from my seat, grabbed the car keys, and told him I was going and if he wanted a lift he’d better leave now.’ As I recounted this, I was surprised to feel my hurt and anger was as hot and potent as it had been all those years before.

‘He looked at me everyone went very quiet, then he stood up quickly, almost throwing the girl from his knee. I remember his face, flushed with embarrassment, but he reached out and put his arm around me and said, “Oh sweetie, I’m sorry, I’ve been neglecting you, forgive me?”

I remembered being so angry, I’d pulled away, and marched out to the car, leaving him to say his goodbyes. Sitting in the car, I heard laughter – no doubt the laughs were on me – but I didn’t care, I was humiliated and hurt, and bloody angry. He kept me waiting ages. I was sure it was deliberate, and imagined he made a huge deal about apologising for my behaviour, when he was the one who’d behaved badly. I was just about to drive off when he appeared, taking his time, wandering to the car, still waving and shouting to the others. We didn’t speak all the way home.

‘And… what happened?’ Ryan was waiting for me to continue.

I took a breath. ‘Once we got home, he slammed the car door and stormed into the house, and I followed him, slamming my own door and making my anger known,’ but when I walked into the kitchen, he was standing there, waiting for me.’ I hesitated, knowing I really shouldn’t say any more. But I couldn’t help it, I felt like I was releasing a valve that had been so tightly closed, I hadn’t breathed properly for years. ‘At first, he just let me talk, and I did, I told him exactly how I felt, how he’d shown me up, made me feel worthless, that he was embarrassing. I thought he was listening, taking it in, but when I’d finished, he just stared at me for a long, long time. I wondered then if he’d even heard what I’d said because there was nothing behind his eyes. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, he pushed me, so hard in the chest I fell backwards onto the stone floor. I hit my head, and could barely fathom what was happening, as he stood over me, saying in this really calm, weird way how I’d embarrassed him. He said “You’re possessive and jealous and I don’t even know why I’m with you. The reason I was flirting with the girl is because you’re ugly and stupid – and you bore the hell out of me.” And then he stepped over me, and went to bed.’

Ryan reached out and touched my hand in a comforting gesture.

‘Was there anyone who could help you?’

I shook my head. ‘There was no one, only Mum, but I couldn’t call her in tears late at night to say my perfect husband had just hurt me. I didn’t want to scare her too.’

I think he was too shocked to say anything. And we sat in silence in the fading light, our glasses empty.

I hoped that telling my story might free me, but it seemed to be pushing me deeper into the past. I remembered how the fall had banged my head so hard I couldn’t hear properly for days, and my arm was dislocated; it was agony. That night, I saw Mark’s true colours for the first time and I realised I was scared and alone, but there was nothing I could do. I was eight months pregnant with Phoebe.