Page 4 of The Winter of Second Chances
‘We want you to know that we support your decision one hundred per cent,’ said Alex.
‘So, you can go easy on yourself, knowing that you don’t need to worry about us,’ added Peter. ‘We don’t come into the equation.’
‘What we’re saying is,’ said Alex, ‘don’t go back. If it’s permission you need, then you’ve got it.’
The call ended and Annie promised to keep them posted on her movements, although at the moment she couldn’t envisage herself moving very far. She wondered what it was aboutthisaffair that had finally forced her out of impotence. The scene flashed before her in all its fleshy glory and she winced. That was why: there was knowing a thing and there was seeing a thing. Actually bearing witness to your husband cheating in full technicolour was like a sucker punch to the eyeballs; Ellie’s perfect pointy nipples were going to haunt her for the rest of her days. Annie pulled the duvet back over her head and went to sleep.
When she had once again exhausted the supply of tiny coffee sachets in the room, Annie went down to reception to ask for more and to book herself in for another four nights at the hotel.
‘Um, do you have another card?’ asked the receptionist, her cheeks blotching pink.
‘Another card?’ asked Annie.
‘Yes. This one doesn’t appear to be working.’
The receptionist handed the business bank card back to Annie. Annie was flummoxed. She knew there was money in the account – quite a bit actually.
‘How odd,’ said Annie and she handed over the card to her and Max’s joint savings account.
The receptionist gave a hesitant little cough, her cheeks blotched darker.
‘This one doesn’t seem to be working either,’ she said, trying not to meet Annie’s gaze.
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ Annie took the card back and looked it over as if there might be a clue in the shiny plastic. ‘I can’t understand it.’
‘Is there perhaps any reason why your cards might have been stopped?’ asked the receptionist awkwardly.
A sudden dawning broke through the clouds of confusion in her mind and Annie came over first hot and then cold as white rage consumed her. With a calmness she didn’t feel, Annie pulled out her personal credit card and handed it over.
‘I’d like to use this instead, please,’ she said.
As she walked back to her room, she was dizzy with anger. She called Max. He didn’t answer. When his smooth, crooning voice said, ‘Hey, this is Max Sharpe, leave a message and I’ll get right back to you. Beep,’ it was all Annie could do not to bite the phone in half. She took a deep breath.
‘You froze me out of our accounts!’ she yelled into the mic. ‘Unfreeze them now, Max, or so help me I’ll...’ What would she do? What could she do? ‘I’ll make you sorry!’ she finished with what she hoped was a vague enough threat to be menacing.
She was livid. She wanted to throw things and smash stuff up, but this wasn’t her house, and the furniture was nailed down. Instead, she lay prostrate on the bed and fantasised about what she’d do if she was at home right now: she’d empty his expensive aftershave down the toilet and replace it with pine floor cleaner, maybe scratchFUCK YOUinto his vintage vinyl Smiths records with her fingernails, and very possibly fill the toes of his beloved brogues with cat food.
Annie had become pregnant with the twins at just seventeen and she and Max had married the same year. With her parents’ support she was still able to enrol at catering college and do her chef’s training. She got a job as a line chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant and worked her arse off to make it up through the ranks to sous chef and then head chef. It was tough but she was driven.
Max, charming, hardworking and everyone’s friend, had risen quickly from waiter to manager of a successful gastro pub. In the moments when the couple weren’t working or dealing with the demands of raising twin toddlers – usually in the scant time between their heads hitting the pillows and sleep – they fantasised about opening their own place. They had a lot of shared dreams once.
Annie’s parents had died far too young. Although she had a family of her own by then, their deaths left her feeling like she’d been orphaned; she felt cheated by the lack of time she’d had with them. Her mum was only sixty-five when she died suddenly from an aneurysm, and her dad died soon after, of a broken heart. Annie used her inheritance to buy The Pomegranate Seed building. They lived in the flat above and built up the restaurant below, with Max managing front of house and Annie running the kitchen and doing the lion’s share of the childcare.
There were times when she would cry from sheer tiredness but then Max would steal her away to the stockroom and sweep her into a Hollywood embrace, and she would be restored. Max could do that: he could make her feel like she was his entire world, and they were on an amazing adventure together. But Max’s powers worked in reverse too; just as easily as his words could build her up, so too they could knock her down, so that she felt small and worthless and afraid of what she would be without him.
A restaurant critic for theGuardianhad once described her and Max as ‘a dream team’ and in many ways they were. While Max schmoozed the patrons out front, Annie excited and delighted them on the plate. Glossy magazines ran features on them, and Annie was frequently asked to share recipes for special holiday issues. They had a lot going for them; far too much for Annie to throw it all away over a little thing like infidelity.Relationships are messy, she would tell herself,no marriage is perfect.
When the boys grew up and left home after university, Annie took on more work. They converted the upstairs rooms of The Pomegranate Seed (their old flat) into a coffee lounge. The restaurant opened for lunch and dinner and the coffee lounge opened from breakfast till teatime. Annie was busier than ever, and more successful than ever. She never had a moment to herself. All these things helped her swim against the current of self-doubt and kept her too tired to address the notion that her marriage had been failing almost from the time it began.
Annie breathed in and out, long slow breaths to centre herself, as she lay prostrate on the hotel bed, picking over the carcass of her marriage. Enough was enough: she’d spent too long running and going nowhere; she was jumping off this hamster wheel. There would be no more hiding, no more excuses, for her or Max. Her children had grown and flown and there would be no better time to rebuild herself. Annie had ripped the blinkers off, and she was ready to face the music.
Most of the tables in the hotel restaurant were occupied by families with young children; crayons and character backpacks littered the floor and the ignorable muzak melodies were almost lost beneath their cacophony. Annie sipped her wine. She was the only woman eating alone. She didn’t mind. Being by herself used to be a rare treat when the boys were small. Since they’d grown up, being by herself had become her state of being. A man in a cheap suit a few tables down, also eating alone, consistently tried to get Annie’s attention, raising his glass and winking at her every time she looked down that end of the restaurant. Annie smiled weakly and ignored him. As she scoured the dessert menu, another man approached her table and asked if she’d like some company. She politely declined and the man sloped off, shrugging his shoulders, and went back to propping up the bar. She was just scraping up the last of her ‘triple chocolate delight’ when another man-shaped shadow fell across the table. Annie was about to insist that shereallywas more than happy to share a meal with herself, when she caught sight of the shadow’s shoes: two-tone, well-worn brogues. Max’s shoes.
‘Hello,’ said Max.
His face was all angst. He looked down at her imploringly with his big blue eyes. Annie realised she had frozen with the dessert fork halfway to her mouth. She laid it down, unable to eat the last mouthful of her pudding, which pained her slightly.
‘May I sit?’ asked Max.
