Her lips quiver, and I know what that means. She's gearing up to ask a question, but she isn’t sure whether she should. Turns out that she goes for it.
“So have you told Erica about your past life yet?”
I decide to act dumb (which isn’t too difficult) just to play for time.
“About you and me? The responsible, civilised life I lived before I met her? Of course. She thought it was hilarious. She doesn't exactly play by the rules, you know. You’ve met her, remember?”
Jenny pulls her head back and laughs. I glance at the crease between her chest. “Not about us. About your real past life, before we met.”
I’m sure she knows the answer, which is probably why she asks the question.
“Not yet,” I say, shaking my head. “I found it quite difficult to raise when we first met. We all have skeletons in the closet, but I nearly became a skeleton, didn’t I? What was I supposed to say? ‘Oh by the way, dear, I was almost killed by a serial killer? Oh and another thing, Marcus isn’t my real name. To be totally honest, I’m not actually who you think I am at all...’”
Slapping my wrist with her hand, Jenny laughs louder now. “Jesus, Marcus, your girlfriend doesn't even know your real name, doesn't know that you used to be somebody else. Don't you think that's slightly fucked up?”
“Don't you think that I'm generally slightly fucked up?”
“Good point.”
Looking up at the cloudless, impeccable blue sky, Jenny thinks about this for a few moments. “I understand why you didn't tell her when you first met. Didn't want to scare her off. But that was then. You’ve been with her years, though. Why don’t you tell her now?”
“That is the point. I’ve been with her years. Too many days have passed. How can I suddenly drop that bombshell? There just doesn’t seem much point. Don't want to needlessly fuck up any more of my life...”
Jenny holds my look. Her eyes are watering. She is trying to suppress something. She gives up. Jenny bursts into hysterics.
“It really is fucked up when you think about it, isn’t it?”
I feel like slapping her wrist now, but instead I just start laughing, too. “I’ve never pretended that it was anything other, dear.”
I have an urge to hold her in my arms, to feel the warmth of her body close to me, just like I would spontaneously – absolutely without thinking – when we were Mr and Mrs Clancy. But instead, I just tap my fingers on the side of the deckchair, and think back to when we were married. Bad decision. The red mist within me stirs.
“Why do you think he asked you to tell me about your affair, Jenny? I mean, he clearly had no intention of making a life with you? What was the point?”
Jenny’s face crumbles. She leans back in her chair, makes an effort to move away from me. I know what she is thinking: why did I have to ruin it?
“Very fucking subtle, Marcus,” she says.
That evening is crystal clear in my mind. We’d had a stretch of hot days, just like now, and then suddenly, late afternoon, the unblemished skies were invaded by dark, threatening clouds. The heavens opened. My shell of a one-bed flat rattled and shook, like a cardboard box blowing in the wind. Pellets bounced from the windows.
The doorbell rang. My first reaction: did they have the wrong house? Was some poor soul trying to sell me something in this weather? Who had I actually given my address to? Who cared enough to pay me a visit? The doorbell rang again. Maybe somebody was playing a prank? The doorbell kept ringing until I was hit by the thought that something wasn’t right. It had rung for minutes and I'd stayed glued to the spot, staring into space, doing absolutely nothing about it. Now I ran down the stairs two steps at a time, desperate to get to the door before whoever it was gave up the ghost and left.
They were still there. Jenny was still there. She looked like a more diminutive version of the Jenny I remembered, like she'd shrunk and withered in the rain. Her face was coated in water and her body shivered. My wife looked so fragile and vulnerable, and yet so exquisitely beautiful. Right then the urge to take her in my arms was stronger than it had ever been; I wanted to comfort and protect her because it was my duty and honour to do so as her loyal and loving husband. Only I wasn’t, was I? Not really. Now I was only her husband in name; the sheet of paper declaring us to be husband and wife had been stripped of any meaning.
Placing my arm around her shoulder, I shut the door and ushered her inside without asking why she was here. It wasn’t until Jenny had stripped off her soaked clothes, showered and dressed again that we sat down in the living room and talked. Jenny sat on the floor with her legs crossed, still tiny in my outsized grey tracksuit bottoms. She took the piping hot mug of coffee I passed her like it was a pot of gold. As I sat down on the sofa a good six feet from her, I noticed that her eyes were still red; her vulnerability reminded me of an albino gerbil. It occurred to me that her face had been wet not just from the rain.
“He doesn’t want me,” she said.
I looked down at her
