Page 77 of The Fall-Out

‘I think first you take off your shoes,’ I joked, trying to hide how ridiculously nervous I felt.

‘On it. Jeans as well?’

‘As far as I can recall, yes. I mean, you could leave them on, but that would be…’

‘Tricky?’ He raised an eyebrow and I giggled, reassured that he was finding this just as awkward as I was.

‘Yeah, I think I read that somewhere.’

We laughed. Feeling as apprehensive as someone about to go into a job interview, I watched as Patch unlaced his shoes and stepped out of his jeans. The muscles of his thighs were hard and defined. When he raised his arms to take off his shirt I saw his skin stretch taut over his abs and chest. Untying the belt of my dress, I felt painfully conscious of the extra few pounds I’d been meaning to lose for years, the stretch marks on my belly and thighs, the way my breasts would sag when I removed my bra.

It doesn’t matter, I told myself. You gave birth to his children. He loves you.

But still, I wished I’d turned the light off.

Dropping my dress to the floor, I stepped towards him, feeling his strong arms around me, the warmth where our bodies met. I closed my eyes and waited for his kiss, and when it came I kissed him back, feeling the familiarity of his lips and tongue, waiting for the equally familiar surge of desire to fill me.

But it didn’t come. And after a few moments, I realised it wasn’t going to – and neither was I. I’d loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone. He was the father of my children. He was the most handsome man I’d ever kissed.

So why couldn’t I make myself feel desire for him?

I didn’t ask him to stop. I tried my best to enjoy it, without actually faking it. I told myself it would be all right; we loved each other, we were just out of practice. I told myself that trust could be rebuilt and intimacy return.

All the same, when it was over, I was conscious of a surge of bitter sadness.

Is this what I’ve signed up for? Is this how it’s always going to be now?

TWENTY-EIGHT

For the next couple of weeks, I felt as if I was existing rather than living – enduring rather than enjoying my life. I woke every morning (or during the night, because the twins’ smashing-it-out-the-park night’s sleep was only occasionally repeated) feeling fairly normal, and then after a few seconds reality would kick in and a black cloud of gloom descend. I went through my daily routine on autopilot: getting dressed, getting the children dressed, making breakfast, taking them to nursery, dropping in on Bridget, doing housework, collecting the children, going to one or other of many activities, going home, giving them dinner, getting them to bed, preparing dinner for Patch and me.

It felt relentless. It felt soul-destroying. Even the weather wasn’t helping – the promise of spring that had brought me so much cheer had lapsed into a wet, chilly, blustery May that tore the new leaves off the trees and had apparently frozen fledglings in their nests.

‘Only a few months until they start school,’ the other mums said at the nursery door. ‘Hasn’t it flown by?’

But even that landmark in my children’s lives felt like it would be little more than a comma in my own. So they’d start school – then what? My own life would stay unchanged, endless days the same, only I’d be wrestling Toby and Meredith into uniforms each morning and dropping them off at a different building.

Sometimes, like a child peering through its fingers at a scary movie, I allowed myself to look further into the future. The children would grow older. Their primary school uniforms would be replaced with different ones. There’d be activities to ferry them to after dinner as well as before. And then, eventually, they’d leave home altogether, to university or homes of their own.

And then what? I’d be fifty-two, unemployed and probably unemployable, stuck in an empty house in a marriage I felt I’d achieved under false pretences. Bridget would be older, frailer, needing more care. Perhaps I’d have learned to play bridge, or joined the Women’s Institute or a swingers’ club, just to have something to do.

Not that anyone would want to play bridge with me, given that my brain would have atrophied from disuse. Or have sex with me, given that my vagina would have atrophied from menopause. Hopefully at least my scones would be decent, only I’d probably have given myself type two diabetes because I’d have no one to share them with.

And there was the crux of it. I was missing my friends. I wanted to have people I could complain to about the tedium of my life, who’d sympathise and then make suggestions about how I could make it less tedious. I wanted to shriek with laughter at the unthinkable cringeworthy images of swingers’ parties. I wanted, when the time came, to compare notes on hot flushes and progesterone pessaries.

Maybe I’d make new friends. I’d already been for a coffee with Imogen and had a few glasses of wine with some of the other nursery mums after a playdate. One had suggested I join her yoga class.

But it wasn’t the same. Those women – pleasant as they were – weren’t my tribe. They weren’t the Girlfriends’ Club. They weren’t the friends I’d believed were the only friends I’d ever want or need.

Patch seemed to sense my gloom.

One evening over dinner, when I was pouring the last of a bottle of wine into my glass, he asked, ‘Is everything okay, Nome?’

‘Fine,’ I said, not looking him in the eyes. ‘Just tired. Been a long day.’

‘Wasn’t yesterday the second Wednesday of the month? You didn’t go out.’

‘You were at the gym, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving the kids with your mum. Not since the thing with the smoke alarm.’

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