Page 2 of Letting Go of Yesterday
Rowan hadn’t said any of those things to James. Instead she’d drunk more of the champagne and gone out to dinner with him as planned. They’d stuck to safe ground and talked about the children, and she’d tried not to think too much about whether there was someone else he’d rather be with; someone he wanted to touch in the way he never wanted to touch her any more. He’d never been particularly passionate, but his disinterest had grown since the birth of their second child and had tailed off altogether around the time that Izzy Hennessy, the new religious education teacher, had joined the school. Izzy worked closely with James, and Rowan had seen them together, looking far more like a touchy-feely couple than he had with his own wife. They always looked as though they were laughing at some private joke and more and more lately she wondered if she might be the butt of that joke. She didn’t want to believe it of James. They’d been a couple since they were nineteen and he was the school chaplain, a man so devoted to his beliefs that he went on regular retreats to connect with his faith on a deeper level, and who volunteered with several Christian charities. His father was a retired bishop and there was no way he’d have an affair. She was sure of it. Almost.
Except now, sitting here and listening to her two friends talk about their husbands, she knew something was wrong. They were all around the same age, they all had children and marriages of a similar length. James’s job was arguably the least physically demanding of any of them, yet for well over a year he’d allegedly been too exhausted to sleep with his wife. During that same period he’d started undertaking weekly ‘faith walks’ with Izzy. She should confront him and ask outright if there was something going on between him and Izzy, but somehow it felt far easier to bury herself in work. Although she was about to discover that she wasn’t hiding her worries nearly as well as she’d thought.
‘All joking aside, Row, you’ve been really quiet lately. Are you okay?’ Pippa narrowed her eyes, seeming to answer her own question before Rowan even tried. ‘You’re not, are you? What’s up? Is it just the job or…?’
Pippa’s eyes hadn’t left her face and Rowan wished her friend would look away; it would be far easier to lie to her if she did. Then she could pretend the job was the only thing bothering her, but Pippa still hadn’t broken eye contact.
‘Work is busy.’
‘It’s not just that though, is it?’ The eye contact was too intense and Rowan found herself blurting out the words she’d never intended to say.
‘I think James might be having an affair.’ She looked from Pippa to Odette, trying to read their expressions, now that the unthinkable suggestion was out there. Membory Grange could be a hotbed of gossip and if there really was something going on between her husband and Izzy, there was a good chance one of them had heard a rumour. Although if Odette knew, she’d clearly missed her vocation as an actress, because her eyebrows had shot up in surprise and disappeared behind her fringe, her mouth forming a silent O. And Pippa had furrowed her brow.
‘I can’t see it.James?’ She made it sound ridiculously far-fetched. As if Rowan had suggested that her husband was secretly working for MI5.
‘Me neither.’ Odette sat down next to her. ‘He always seems devoted to the job and the kids, and…’
‘You can’t finish that sentence, can you?’ Rowan looked at her friend. That should have been the moment when Odette had said ‘and to you’, but she hadn’t been able to do it, because it was obvious even from the outside that James wasn’t devoted to Rowan.
‘Well, I mean, you’re the headteacher and he’s the chaplain, so I wouldn’t expect to see you walking around the school holding hands.’ Odette gave her a weak smile.
‘No, but you, me and Pippa socialise together, with our husbands, and I’ve seen the way Seb looks at you, and how Daniel is with Pippa. It’s starting to feel as if James and I are more like friends than husband and wife, and if he moved any further over to his side of the bed he’d be on the floor.’
‘It can be easy to drift into complacency in a long-term relationship.’ Pippa’s tone was soothing. ‘But I’m sure James wouldn’t do anything to risk your marriage. Have there been any other signs to make you suspicious? There’s supposed to be a whole list of dead giveaways if someone is having an affair.’
‘Oh, there are. And wanting either more or less sex than usual is just one of them.’ Odette nodded sagely and then began reeling off a list of other signs that a partner was cheating, counting each item off on her fingers as she did. ‘There’s taking more care of his appearance, being secretive about his phone and seeming more distant. Then there’s working late or starting up new hobbies that keep him out of the house, spending money he can’t account for, and criticising you more. Oh and mentionitis, where he can’t stop bringing up her name, that’s a big one.’
Pippa laughed. ‘You sound like a divorce lawyer. How do you know all of this?’
‘Because when Céline thought her husband was cheating, we did our research.’ Odette wrinkled her nose. ‘And he was of course. I felt so bad for my sister, but he was ticking every box. I bet James isn’t.’
Odette looked at Rowan expectantly, and she wanted to be able to reassure herself and her friends that none of those things applied to James, but it wasn’t true. He did seem more distant and he was out of the house more often, but he didn’t fit the description in other ways and, unlike Odette’s sister, Rowan couldn’t tick every tell-tale sign off the list.
‘I wondered if it might be Izzy. They’re spending a lot of time together, but he doesn’t really mention her in between, there’s no unexplained spending and he never criticises me. The opposite if anything.’ Rowan sighed heavily.
‘Well surely that’s a good thing then.’ Pippa put an arm around her shoulders and Rowan desperately tried to blink back the tears burning her eyes.
‘I don’t know if it is. At least if there was someone else, I could pin a reason on why everything feels as if it’s changing. But it’s like he’s slowly pulling away instead and there’s a distance between us that makes me feel so lonely. If that’s happening and there’s no one else involved, it’s almost worse, because it means he’s had enough of us – of me – and I don’t think there’s any coming back from that.’
‘Oh Row, it won’t be that.’ Pippa pulled her in for a hug. ‘There’ll be something else going on with work that he hasn’t told you about. You know what he’s like when he’s supporting someone going through a crisis, it consumes him. He’s just got this tendency to take other people’s problems on as his own. That’s all it will be.’
‘It’s true. He was like that when Graham Johnson was going through that disciplinary process, before the old head left.’ Odette lowered her voice, as if even in an empty staffroom someone might overhear them. ‘You would have thought it was James facing the sack, and it took him months to get over the fact that he couldn’t help Graham keep his job. He’ll just be navigating someone else’s crisis again. Once it’s over, you’ll get him back, like you did last time.’
‘I hope so.’ Rowan sighed again, but far less heavily this time. She hadn’t intended to offload any of this on her friends, but she was so glad she had because the idea of her marriage being over felt far less inevitable. She didn’t want her children to go through what she’d faced in the wake of her parents’ horribly messy divorce. It had resulted in Rowan’s life being split between Cornwall and London, a mountain of bitterness, and her family being the subject of gossip in Port Agnes for years. Things between her and James might not be perfect and sometimes she felt lonely in her marriage, but she still loved him. He was her best friend, he had been since she’d met him when she’d first moved to London, and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. Pippa and Odette were right, she was allowing her fear of history repeating itself to make mountains out of molehills and she needed to stop before she drove a wedge between herself and James that was entirely of her own creation.
‘I know so.’ Pippa nodded, emphasising her certainty. ‘I also know that what we need is a night out. One where we’re no one’s mums, teachers or boss, and I think tonight is as good a night as any.’
‘James is doing a shift at the food bank tonight, so I’ve got the kids and I said I’d be home by six, but you could come for a takeaway and some drinks at mine?’ Rowan couldn’t keep the hopeful note out of her voice; she hadn’t realised how much she’d needed a night with her closest friends until Pippa had suggested it.
‘No, absolutely not, we need a proper night out.’ Pippa whipped her mobile phone out of her pocket. ‘I’ll text Daniel now and let him know that Bella and Theo will be having a sleepover at ours tonight.’
‘You can’t just drop that on him.’ Rowan was pretty sure this wasn’t how Pippa’s husband had envisaged spending his Friday evening.
‘I’ll make it up to him tomorrow night.’ Pippa grinned and Rowan tried not to let uneasy feelings about her own relationship wash over her again. Comparison was the thief of joy, she knew that, and just because she and James weren’t having sex, it didn’t mean their marriage was over. When she’d had girls’ nights out in the past with Pippa and Odette, and one of them was approached by some sleazy chancer who wouldn’t take no for an answer, it had made them appreciate their partners all the more. None of them were married to the kind of creepy guys who sat down uninvited, making leery comments about their bodies and trying to force them to accept unwanted drinks. Pippa was right, she needed a night out to get things into perspective and to appreciate how lucky she was to be married to someone as kind and caring as James. Living and working at the school was intense, and a change of scene would do her the world of good.
‘If you’re sure Daniel won’t mind, the kids would love that. What about you, Odette? Can you make it?’
‘That’s the glory of having teenagers. They’ll be up in their rooms and they won’t know whether I’m there or not, as long as there’s food in the house.’ Odette rolled her eyes. ‘Seb is home tonight anyway and I suspect he’ll be only too glad to order pizzas in for them all. I don’t really like takeaway pizza, so they’ll all be thrilled to get the chance to eat junk food and watch sport all evening long.’
