Page 93 of The World Outside My Window

I never really had a plan. I hadn’t decided to become a cheat, but as the web began to weave itself tighter and tighter, I couldn’t see any way of escape.

Leaving Cherry would have let my kids down.

Leaving Laura would have let her down.

I didn’t know Evie had found out about Laura, of course. I can’t believe she didn’t say anything to me. When Laura told me someone was watching her, and that she was terrified she had a stalker, it didn’t occur to me it could be true. She was often nervy by then, and I assumed she was imagining it. It wasn’t until we moved and someone came to ask for me and Laura in the shop that I realised it was real – and who it might be.

The biggest mistake I made, though, was marrying Laura. In all honesty I don’t know what made me think it was a good idea. Laura had been struggling for a while with loneliness, and I knew she was starting to wonder why I hadn’t asked her to marry me. It was just little comments here and there, but the thought of losing her was out of the question. It might have been exhausting, juggling two families, but I couldn’t abandon Cherry and the kids – and I didn’t want to abandon Laura either. So I booked our wedding in Gretna Green. I knew it was against the law to lie about not being married, but I couldn’t see another way out of it.

When Laura was attacked, everything changed. In fact that was when things really started to unravel. I took two weeks off to be with her because she was broken by her ordeal. I told Cherry I was being made to go away for two weeks with work. The one plus side to Laura’s subsequent agoraphobia was that there was now no chance at all that she and Cherry would meet by chance.

Then Laura said she wanted to move out of London. How could I move, when my other family was still in the city? It would make life a lot harder. But in the end she begged and I didn’t know how to say no without tying myself into even more knots, so I reluctantly agreed.

Moving outside London was, in the end, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Because Laura didn’t get better. Far from it. She became even more scared, even more clingy. There was a fragility to her that I didn’t feel able to fix. She needed me more than ever and it started to become almost impossible to leave her alone for days at a time.

I tried getting to know the neighbours in the hope that, by making friends there, Laura would see that we could settle there, and eventually she could get to know them as well.

But it didn’t work and I didn’t know what to do about it. The pressure was building and I felt like a man on the brink of a disaster.

And then one day, Evie told me she knew about Laura, and that if I didn’t leave her, she would tell her mum and Oliver everything. It wasn’t so much Cherry I was worried about, we both knew we hadn’t been in love with each other for years. It was my boy I needed to protect.

So that was that.

My work, everything I’d built in order to protect each family from the other, crumbled, shattering on the ground around me.

It was over.

I had no choice but to leave.

If there had been any other way, believe me, I would have tried it. But it felt as though there was nowhere else to go. Something had to give – and it had to be Laura.

So I left, and hoped that, somehow, Laura would be all right. Walking out on her that morning was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on her face as I said goodbye, knowing that I wasn’t coming back.

Now, here she is, and the whole thing is out. Exposed.

It’s over.

I’m over.

Why did I ever think I’d get away with it?

But I loved Laura. I still do. I don’t love Cherry, not in the same way, but I do love my children. And that’s all there is to it.

Love conquers everything.

Love ruins everything.

31

NOW – 24 OCTOBER 1992

Laura

The aftermath

Debbie and Ben have waited for her, and as she walks Bambi-legged into the small Italian restaurant on Putney High Street where they said they would be, Laura has never been so grateful to see anyone in her whole life. She feels beaten, bruised, as though she’s done ten rounds with Frank Bruno.

---