And then that night, there I was at their table, Claire having invited me over for supper. And I was so turned on I thought I would faint, thinking of what we’d done at lunch. But Daniel was glowering and refusing to meet my eyes, and even Claire commented that he was in a very sulky mood, and he just snapped at her.
The next day Daniel phoned me. ‘It’s over,’ he said, without any preamble. ‘I hate the person I’ve become. I’m not doing this any more. And you need to stay away from Claire and me for a bit. Just stay away. Tell Claire you’re busy. Just leave us alone.’
You’d think I would have been devastated. That I would have begged and pleaded, or even defended myself. But I just said, ‘If that’s what you want, Daniel. I can respect that.’
And then I didn’t wait for him to hang up, I just put down the phone. I wasn’t upset, because I knew Daniel couldn’t live without me. I knew that all it would take was patience, and he’d call me and say he wanted to see me again. I felt calm.
I gave him a week before I thought he would cave. He lasted two days. And when he called, it wasn’t to say that he wanted to see me again.
It was to say he was going to leave Claire for me.
‘I’m not a man who can have an affair and feel right about it,’ he said. ‘And it seems that I can’t live without you. So I have to leave Claire.’
Part of me was stunned – I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. I hadn’t thought about where this thing with Daniel and me was going. And I certainly hadn’t expected it to happen then, in the lead-up to Christmas, when every mistress knows the man goes back to the safety of his family. But it also felt inevitable. Obviously Daniel and I were meant to be together and it was just a terrible mistake that he’d married Claire before he met me. But this, I felt, was our destiny.
‘I’ll tell Claire tonight,’ he said. ‘So I’ll probably have to move in to your place immediately. I don’t think she’ll let me sleep there once she knows.’ He sounded matter-of-fact. Like he’d seen the inevitability of this path too.
‘My place?’ I’d never really pictured having Daniel as a fixture. The idea was strange.
‘Well, I assume that’s what you want,’ said Daniel. ‘For us to be together? I’m leaving my wife and child for you, so I kind of thought I should come to you.’
‘Of course you’ll come to me,’ I said. ‘I love you. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives.’ I pushed aside any doubts. I was now in the real world of grown-up relationships; there was no space for wondering if I wanted to move in with someone after such a short time. That sort of thinking was for other people, not for me and the love of my life.
‘I guess I must love you too,’ said Daniel, and abruptly put down the phone. I tried not to feel uneasy.
He arrived at about two in the morning, exhausted, and he’d clearly been crying. He had one sports bag with him, and over the next few days, his PA appeared sporadically with suitcases and boxes. I presume that she’d arranged this with Claire – who was staying with her parents for the week between Christmas and New Year, and refusing to speak to Daniel – but I didn’t know how or when, or what she thought of the situation. I made some space for his stuff in my cupboards, but that soon proved impractical, and he moved it into the spare room. There was a strange time when he just left his suitcases lying open on the spare room bed, and I wondered if he wasn’t sure whether he was staying. But eventually one evening, he announced that he couldn’t find anything, and he didn’t understand why his bags hadn’t been unpacked, and with inexplicable sighing, he unpacked them. The boxes have remained where the PA and I left them, in the passage and shoved into corners of rooms.
I presume he’ll unpack when he’s ready. I don’t want to push.
I didn’t ask what passed between him and Claire the night he left. I didn’t really want to know. And I haven’t seen Claire again. Or done pottery. I didn’t really think that part through either; I didn’t realise what else I would be losing.
Helen
Usually I visit Mike on Wednesday afternoons and then at some point over the weekend, often on both days, because what else am I going to do? But I couldn’t go yesterday because I was waiting for Julia, so I’ve taken an afternoon off today. The doctors are a bit thrown. I never take time off.
‘First humming,’ says Ewan Marigold, ‘now afternoons off. Next thing you’ll be eloping with the delivery guy from the pathology lab.’
I laugh. ‘I think he bats for your team, actually,’ I tease Dr Marigold, and then I blush because we’ve never talked about him being gay, although it’s obviously not a secret because his boyfriend – a luminous Ugandan who is proof that albinism can be beautiful – often comes to meet him at the rooms. In my confusion, I blurt out the next bit: ‘Anyway, I’m married.’
Dr Marigold looks at me. ‘I thought you were widowed,’ he says. He
