There have been times when my intuition told me I was about to be harmed. Before I moved to Somerset, I lay awake every night, full of fear and regret and nostalgia for my easy London life, even before I had packed up and left.
I knew my husband was having an affair in India by his silence on the phone, his tone, his, ‘You take care.’
When I arrived at the flat or the cupboard after the Rock Star had left for the ‘spa’, and after my cleaner had been in with the Vanish, I noticed there were black speckles in the soap.
‘Hmmm. He must have shaved,’ I thought, peering at the soap closely, turning it over in my hands (it’s amazing the number of mad actions you perform when you live alone). ‘He only shaves if we are going to kiss. Why would he have shaved after I left?’
So a speckle of doubt was in my mind, even then. What you brood on you will hatch.
So when he told me he’d slept with someone else, in my Heal’s four-poster bed, next to a blown-up framed photograph of Squeaky, what with the roaring in my ears, like the ocean, and the stress, it meant my brain was concentrating on fight or flight and didn’t have enough synapses left to enable me to hear what he was saying, so I just said, ‘Pardon?’
‘I said!’ And he repeated what he said at the end of last week’s column. My brain kicked in. It had decided on ‘fight’.
‘No wonder Muhammed said you looked tired.’
‘Who the hell is Muhammed? One of your exes?’
‘My God. Muhammed was the man who had to hammer on the door in order to take you to the airport.’
‘Oh.’
‘Who did you sleep with?’
‘I’m not telling you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you will ask me how to spell the name, and you will publish it, and she will get upset, report you to the Press Complaints Commission or whatever controls you hacks these days, so, no, I’m not as stupid as your husband was.’
It was as though he had turned into a different person.
This is what happens with therapy: they make you feel you are important, worth something, they change your personality.
Have you ever heard of a therapist saying to a patient, ‘Well, I think you are just plain nasty, jealous, stupid and ugly’? No.
‘You knew what I’d been through with my husband, with my family, when you first emailed me. I kept you at arm’s length for years because I told you I would rather be on my own than mucked about, and you do this. We are so over. I’m sending you the bill for the taxi, and the two hours’ extra cleaning. You’ve spoilt my sanctuary.’
‘Oh, get over it.’ He then started whining, in imitation, I presume, of me. ‘“You’ve spoilt my pre-Christmas Friday!”’
‘Oh, p*** off. I always preferred Prince anyway. You’re a f***ing meat-eating has-been. It’s not even that I care that much, as we weren’t married, or living together, but what I cannot stand is being lied to. I can’t stand that some w**** has been in my private space.’
‘Oh, “Respect my space! Respect my space!”’ he whined, doing another impression of me. I didn’t even feel like crying because I was so angry.
I think because I have been through so much these past five years, I have become hardened, emotionless.
Maybe that is why he slept with someone else. I should have learnt from my marriage that men can’t go without sex.
When I hadn’t had sex with my husband for nine months I asked a male friend if this was normal.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘He might not be sleeping with you, but he sure as hell is doing it with someone.’ And he was right.
I put the phone down. I’m about to be made bankrupt, so last night I didn’t dream about him, but dreamt I was in jail, sleeping three to a room.
No wonder he went off with someone else. I bet she smiles when she wakes up. I bet she lets him see her naked.
I can’t believe this has happened again! What’s wrong with me?
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