Page 83 of The First Mistake

‘Well, the new you didn’t last very long,’ laughs Nathan, as he gently lowers her onto the bed. ‘I’m pretty wired, would you mind if I went to the bar?’

She’s sure she’s stopped breathing. Was he honestly seeking her permission to cheat? Because that was surely what he was about to do. She had no idea who the woman was, but it seemed as if she could be here, in Japan. She tried to put aside how warped that made Nathan. What had he gained from dragging her all the way over here apart from getting her to sign the contracts, which she could have done in London? Had he brought his wifeandhis mistress to satisfy his sick ego?

She shivers involuntarily as she recalls how she’d waxed lyrical to Nathan about everything she’d done wrong, how she wanted to change and give him what he deserved. He must have been laughing at her the whole time. What a fool she’s been.

As soon as Nathan’s out the door, Alice gets up and frantically goes to the minibar, breaking the miniature Bombay Sapphire cap in her impatience. She doesn’t even think twice about drinking it directly from the bottle. It burns her throat as she pours it into her mouth neat, grimacing at the taste.

She knows it won’t bring answers, but it makes things just a little bit easier to bear until she makes her next move.

Her phone is sitting on the bedside table, its new content making her feel as if it’s somehow complicit in Nathan’s chicanery. She picks it up, staring unmoving at the screensaver picture of Sophia and Olivia poking their tongues out. Negative thoughts crowd her headspace, each battling for supremacy. It feels as if her whole world is balancing on a precipice. She needs to talk to someone. She needs to talk to Beth.

Her thumb hovers over the number, stored underYourBest Friendin her contacts. Alice can’t help but smile at the memory of Beth changing it, unbeknownst to her, when she went to the ladies in the pub. The next morning, on her way to school,Your Best Friendhad lit up the phone screen. Alice hadn’t been able to get out of the car for laughing. What she wouldn’t give to be laughing with Beth now. Couldn’t they just go back to how they were? Pretend it never happened?

Alice dials, before immediately stopping the call, choosing instead to log on to Facebook in the hope that Beth has posted a cryptic message that will somehow make everything all right again. All she needs to say is that she got it wrong, that of course it’s not the same Tom, how could it be? But there’s nothing other than an advert for the school fete this coming Saturday. Alice remembers she’d promised to man the face-painting stall, but that wouldn’t be happening now.

With a shaking hand, she types in Tom Evans and waits as it collates all the one thousand and forty-five Tom Evanses listed. She hopes and expects that since her phone call to Facebook to inform them of the error, there will now be one less. But his face is still there, staring out at her as if everything is how she believed it to be, and all she wants to do is reach into her phone and gouge his eyes out.

She clicks on his profile and a new photo fills the screen. It feels as if she’s been kicked in the chest – the air rushes out of her as she looks at it through a blurry haze. An attractive woman, whom she’s never seen before, has her arms wrapped protectively around a toddler. The pair, both with fur-lined hoods and red-tipped noses, pose against the backdrop of a snow-covered mountain. Below, Tom has written,My Girls – My World.

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‘He can’t be alive,’ says Alice out loud, still poleaxed on the bed. ‘He justcan’tbe.’

But then she remembers that this time last week, she’d also thought it was impossible for him to have loved another woman and fathered another child.

She shakes herself down. She can’t deal with this right now. She needs to find Nathan.

She moves around the room, picking up the clothes that had been carelessly discarded as their lovemaking had built in momentum. The lace knickers that had lent themselves perfectly to being peeled off by Nathan’s teeth now look sordid, the expensive black dress that he’d sexily unzipped, teasing her back with his fingertips as he did so, now makes her feel cheap as she slips it back on.

She squeezes her feet back into her three-inch heels in a desperate bid to get out of the confines of the room, where the air feels like it’s being sucked out. She doesn’t know whether she wants to find Nathan or kill Tom a second time as she walks unsteadily down the corridor, forcing a smile at the hotel employee in the lift.

If she knew where she was going, and what she was going to do when she got there, it would help, but right now, all she knows is that her paranoid fears about her husband having an affair have finally been proven, and she needs to decide what she’s going to do about it.

The bar is just as busy as when she’d sat there enjoying a bottle of champagne with Nathan before dinner. She’d felt excited then, finally buoyed by optimism for the future. Now, she has a lump in her chest and a sickening sensation swirling in her stomach.

Despite her trepidation, she strides in with her head held high, trying desperately hard not to look how she feels; panic-stricken. She surreptitiously takes in everyone there, not sure if she wants to see Nathan or not. If he’s here, she will need to go to him and ask what the hell is going on. If he’s not, she’s got an even bigger problem on her hands. Where is he? And who’s he with?

She thinks back to the earring and bouquet, and the bill from this very same hotel. She’d let Nathan convince her that the charges for cocktails, room service and a couples massage had been a mistake. He’d promised her that he’d never seen the earring before and that the florist delivering the bouquet was a million-to-one coincidence. How had she allowed herself to be played? Maybe because knowing the truth about Tom had made her look at Nathan in a whole new light. One in which she refused to believe that he was like her cheating first husband.

The realization that one man she loved would do that to her is hard enough to take. Now that she’s faced with the prospect thatbothof them have makes her question whatshe’sdoing wrong. All she’s ever done is love them the best way she knows how. How could that not be enough?

She holds her breath as she looks around the bar, willing Nathan to be there, because right now, that is the lesser of the two evils. If he isn’t, she doesn’t want to go where her mind will undoubtedly take her. She doesn’t want to acknowledge that whoever just sent him that text might be in Japan.

Does she live here? Is this where he met her? Has she got something to do with the site? Is that why he’s so keen to do it, so that he can spend more time here, be with her, knowing that Alice wouldn’t be keen to travel? She wonders if her announcement that she was going to come had surprised him. He wouldn’t have been expecting it, that was for sure. Had she scuppered his plans? His chance to be withher? Perhaps not, because as she fruitlessly scours the faces in the bar, she’s hit by the realization that he’s gone to her anyway.

She orders a Baileys with ice – the first drink she can think of when the bartender asks. The man playing Sinatra on the piano looks over and gives a cheery nod. She smiles weakly and sips her liqueur, resisting the urge to knock it all back.

Despite being in a strange city, on the other side of the world, where Alice’s imagination could so easily concoct a horror story about what could have happened to Nathan, there’s no part of her that’s worried about his safety. Perhaps because deep down, she’d hazard a guess that it’s not his safety that’s being compromised – it’s his morals.

‘May I?’ asks a gentleman, indicating the stool next to Alice.

‘Of course,’ she says, smiling, her subconscious having already registered in that split second that he’s attractive.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’ he asks in an American accent.

Her first instinct is to say no, but then she wonders, why not? Why shouldn’t she accept a drink from this handsome man? Why shouldn’t she enjoy his company and flirt with him a little? She might go even further if the opportunity arises. Panic rises within her as she contemplates the idea of going to bed with the man in front of her. As exciting as the prospect may be, she cannot even begin to understand how people who are married, who are supposed to love their partners, can cheat. Her heart palpitates at the mere thought of it.

‘I’ll have a G and T please,’ she says. ‘A double.’

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