However, last year, as early as October, Daan started to make noises about how he really wanted us to have a Christmas together. ‘I don’t mind how we do it exactly. I can come up to your mother’s care home with you. I just want us to be together.’
‘No, that’s not much of a Christmas. You are better spending it with your family.’
‘But you are my family. You are my wife. I want to spend it with you. And from what you say of your mother it is not even clear she knows it is Christmas Day. You could go to her the day after. Just one Christmas. Is that an unreasonable ask?’
Of course it was not. Or rather, it should not have been. So, I agreed.
We woke up late and ate smoked salmon on rye bread, sipped vintage champagne, until we started on the oysters and bloody Caesars, which Daan introduced me to, explaining that they are the same as Blood Marys but with a splash of clam juice added. We ate the meals in bed. There was no plastic, or novelty dancing Santas, he did not gift me a sandwich toaster or a new Dyson. He bought me a diamond pendant. As he fastened the clasp, I felt his breath on my neck. I missed the boys and Mark and the smell of sprouts so much I wanted to howl. They believed I was stuck, because of weather, at one of my half-brother’s homes. Suddenly, I was awash with an overwhelming need to get back to Mark, Oli and Seb. I couldn’t have Christmas there with Daan. The routines, the patters, everything could fall apart.
I played with the idea of telling Daan that I’d had a call from the nursing home, that my mother needed me, that I had to leave. But I knew he would rally, offer to come with me. Of course he would. Wouldn’t any considerate husband? He would want to drive me to Newcastle. But I wasn’t planning on going to Newcastle. There was no care home to visit, no sick mother. I wanted to go to my boys. I was stuck. I couldn’t do anything. If I did, I would undermine, I’d destroy everything that I’d so carefully constructed. I felt sick for the entire day. The delicious food, the vintage champagne stuck in my throat as I fought tears. Daan repeatedly asked if I was OK, ‘You are not yourself.’
‘The early morning drinking has gone to my head, I’m already fighting a hangover,’ I muttered.
When I returned to my home with Mark and the boys on Boxing Day night, the house was gloomy. They arrived half an hour after me and made it a home. They’d had a great Christmas, apparently it was the same as ever. I wasn’t really missed.
And that was terrifying.
Are they missing me now?
I am beginning to wonder, even before I was brought to this room and locked up, made to shit in a bucket, was I trapped? Was I already being punished? Why can’t I tell who it is behind the door? Why can’t I distinguish between them? Haven’t I been paying attention? I thought they were so different, so distinct. Two completely separate lives. Two completely different men. I can’t deny it was a thrill discovering another man. His body. His brain. I was curious. With Mark I had been looking for a soulmate. I thought I’d found it. But now, I have to wonder, does such a thing even exist or is it made up by songwriters, novelists, film-makers to comfort the masses? To give us something to search for? The truth is, Mark didn’t answer every aspect of my being, it’s maybe an impossible ask. I yearned to be carefree, but I never could be with Mark. Not entirely.
Because we’re the sort of people who are aware that things don’t always turn out well. I know this because my entire childhood proved it, he knows it because his wife died young. Daan offered me a rose garden of a life. His vast wealth and confidence (both earned and inherited) formed a protective bubble that was so deliciously tempting. With Mark I am always aware that in every garden there are stinging nettles, biting insects. There is a sadness to Mark, a seriousness. Even now, all these years later, he can’t quite allow himself to be completely joyful. I realised when I first met him that things were still raw, I thought it would wear off. I thought I’d make him happy. But I didn’t. As the years went by, I accepted that whilst Mark is indeed a lovely man, he is not a happy man, not entirely and he never will be; I can’t change that. He is slightly depressed. The world disappoints him. I wonder whether he thought the world was rosy when he first met Frances. Did she have that? Something else she beat me to. As the ultimate people-pleaser, this hurts me; that I can’t make him entirely happy. Consequently, I can’t be entirely happy when I’m with Mark.
I married two men in an attempt not to be lonely, yet I have destroyed the intimacy between Mark and I, and I can never build intimacy with Daan. I am not who they think I am. I am just a version of her. They each have a version of me. The problem is not just that no one knows where I am. No one knows who I am.
I am lonelier than ever. My loneliness pulls me under. I close my eyes again. Allow my mind to shut down, my body to preserve energy. My sleep is broken. I keep jolting awake, scared by my dreams, horrified when I land in
