Page 50 of Someone Else's Shoes
Carl rises to his feet as she crosses the foyer of the hotel. It’s strange to look at him at this distance: she notices suddenly how jowly he has become, the way his belly bulges over his belt, like dough bursting out of a bread pan. Everythingabout him, from his well-cut suit to his perma-tan, his chunky watch, Italian shoes, screams money. He looks, she realizes with a start, like a stranger. How can eighteen years be wiped away so easily? He is smiling warmly, as if he is genuinely pleased to see her, and she is so taken aback when he goes to kiss her cheek that she lets him. He is wearing a cologne she doesn’t recognize and she feels a brief, residual flash of anger.Who is buying you different cologne?
‘Two coffees,’ he says to the waiter, who appears out of nowhere as they sit down. ‘Double espresso for me, an Americano for the lady. Cream?’
She shakes her head.
She is trying not to tremble. She has imagined this moment so many times over the past days, pictured everything from his abject apology to stoving in his head with a blood-spattered pickaxe. And now here he is, the genuine article, acting, weirdly, as if nothing has happened and this is just another lunchtime coffee together.
‘So … did you come far?’
‘No,’ she says.
She sits very still, her ankles folded neatly under her, her eyes trained on his face. This is the man I shared a bed with for almost twenty years, she thinks, whose every need and whim I catered to. This is the man whose head I caressed when he had headaches, whose shoulders I massaged when he complained of stress, whose measurements I knew by heart so that I could order him clothes from any tailor in the world. This is the man whose beloved child I bore, whose tantrums I calmed, whose enemies I watched and reported and undermined for him, whose life I streamlined and smoothed and imbued with as many comforts as much as any human being could.
This is the man who cut me off as if I had never even existed. Who fucked his assistant and lied to me the wholetime he was doing it. And the whole thing seems so surreal that she wonders briefly if she is dreaming.
‘So how are you?’ he says, when the coffees arrive.
‘Is that a joke?’
‘You look well.’
She stirs her coffee.
‘What the fuck is going on, Carl?’ she says. And he laughs. He actually laughs, his eyes warm, as if she has said something he finds amusing.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he says finally. ‘I … I haven’t handled the last couple of weeks as diplomatically as I might have done.’
‘Diplomatically? Seriously?’
‘I was badly advised by my lawyers. I realized that this was not the way. Our way.’
He reaches out a hand to place over hers, and she lets it briefly rest there, shocked by the familiarity of its weight, until she snatches it away. He watches her, settles back in his chair.
‘You’re hurt. And angry. I can understand that. And I’m here to … make things better.’
‘I’m not getting back with you.’ She throws it down like a gauntlet.
‘I know. I think we have probably reached the end of our road. But what a road it’s been, uh?’ He smiles fondly.
She is frowning at him. Is this Carl? Or has Ari employed some actor to take his place?
‘All those good years. Some good times. Fun trips. Our beautiful son. I think we did okay. We should still be able to be friends, yes?’
‘You have zero relationship with our son. You haven’t spoken to him in eighteen months, except via the staff.’
He rubs a hand over his head. ‘What can I say, Nisha? I am a flawed human being. I’m working on it. We … we have had contact this last couple of weeks and –’
‘You told him what you did?’
‘No. No. I thought maybe some of this would be better coming from his mother. You always were better at handling him.’
She shakes her head. Of course it would fall to her to do the emotional heavy-lifting.
He leans forward over the table, his expression earnest. ‘Look, Nisha, I’m here to say I’m sorry. I’ve handled everything very badly. I’ve not accorded you the respect you were due. But I’d like to change that. I’d like to think we can close this chapter of our lives in peace and harmony.’
She doesn’t say a word. She understands instinctively that the best power she has right now is silence.
‘I would like to make you a settlement.’
