Page 76 of The Women

Hey. It’s been a while. How are things? X

The house is cold. Christ, it’s freezing. Her nose is an icicle, her fingertips red. Shivering, she takes the heating dial from the shelf and sees that the temperature has dropped to 15 degrees. She resets the thermostat to 19, thinking as she does so that 19 is, for her, a little chilly but that Peter has told her it is the correct temperature for the house. She shifts her thumb over the dial, bumps it up to 21.

Her phone beeps again but it is only Aisha’s message re-announcing itself. Samantha reads it again before replying:

All fine, thanks. Don’t think Peter is up to anything dodgy anymore but am keeping eyes open. You OK? X

That should do it. Her life from this moment and what she does about it is no business of anyone else’s. It is Medusa’s face; it is not possible to stare into it directly. Ha! Peter would love that analogy, were he not himself the monster. Samantha is alone. Like Lottie. Poor, bewildered, apologetic Lottie. Lottie, who she has hated for stealing her child, whom she betrayed even when that hate turned to sympathy. Lottie is a schoolgirl ruined, a woman ruined, a life ruined. While she alone has carried the shame and the consequences, the man walked away uncaring, unscathed, unaffected. And that man wants her, Samantha, to be his wife. He wants them to step together into their glorious future in this beautiful house with their beautiful child and every possible material need met.

Everyone has the right to leave the past behind.

Do they?

Do they really?

Her phone beeps. Aisha again.

Just wondered if you’d like to see King Lear at the Curzon next week? 21st? It’s the live feed direct from the Playhouse Theatre in town? Jen not fussed. Spare ticket yours if you want it.

A peace offering. But her head is mince. Her face is sticky. Her bones are old. She is sitting in her home, but the thought of her home makes her sick. There is no home for her back in Yorkshire, not really – her mother’s flat is too small, and she’s damned if she’s going to live like an old maid, end up bitter and brittle. There’s no way she’d knock on her father’s door, face bringing up her daughter alongside her own half-sister, co-exist with a stepmother her own age, endure her mother’s devastated gaze. No, no, no. She should never have let Peter persuade her to trust him, should never have let herself get pregnant, let him get her pregnant, oh God, but now it is too late too late too late, and anyway she would never wish Emily away, would never …

She groans, throws her head into her hands.

‘Idiot,’ she shouts at no one. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’

A play sounds like the last thing she should do. But she lovesKing Learand real life is unbearable. It would give her something to look forward to while she figures out what the hell to do with her life. She could ask Peter to babysit. No, not babysit. Emily is his child too. Samantha’s not been out in the evening since Emily was born, not once, not without Peter. Peter has been out, been away, worked late, worked weekends. Peter has carried on as if nothing has changed. Even his early-evening red wine has remained unaltered, though Samantha knows now why that is. Jenny had a point. He knows what he is. A narcissist who is clever enough to know he’s a narcissist, who won’t be caught looking in the pool, who won’t be drowned by his own reflection. She thinks of Dorian Gray, the comparison horribly obvious to her now. The man who wears so well on the outside but whose hideous likeness rots away in the attic. In the attic, she thinks, with all the frightened madwomen driven there by men like him.

The letter on the kitchen table is Peter’s portrait.

Yes, yes, yes, so much for all the hand-wringing. There is a child, there are practical issues of money, food, shelter. Again, her mother comes to mind. That first time in the new flat. Sparse, cold, so far from the cosy kitchen at the farm.

‘Put the kettle on,’ her mum had said, sniffing brightly. ‘Small steps, that’s what’s needed. One thing at a time.’

Small steps, Samantha. One thing at a time. A solution will present itself by degrees. She just has to wait until it becomes clear.

She checks the calendar on the kitchen wall. The twenty-first of March is next Wednesday. Peter has written:Dep meeting 8 p.m.

‘Bugger,’ she whispers. Peter’s life: ongoing, undisturbed; everything else fitting around it.

She texts Aisha:

Sorry, but Peter has a meeting. I would have loved to! Thanks for asking. Xx

Aisha must have her phone attached to her hand, because her message flies back seemingly moments later:

Jen says she’ll look after Emily. You can drop her at ours.

Samantha chews her cheek. Replies:

Would love to. But Peter won’t like it.

‘Bugger,’ she says as the text sails away. She should not have added that last bit. The conversation with Jenny and Aisha returns to her. How it took a termination for Aisha to wake up to who she had become. They will see whatshehas become – subjugated, afraid, cowed. She is about to send another text when Aisha replies:

Peter doesn’t have to know.

No, Samantha thinks. He bloody doesn’t. He will undoubtedly go for a drink after the meeting, as he always does, and it will take him over an hour to get back from central London. And if he does get home before she does, well, she will have to think of Lottie and Aisha and Jenny and the others she doesn’t know about, and Emily for that matter, and stand up to him.

All right, she texts.Send me your address and the time. Thanks.

---