Page 125 of Other Women

‘Oh Finn knows,’ I say.

Nate’s face is a picture.

‘It transpires that you spent a lot of money on dinners for two, jewellery I’ve never seen and lingerie. Some of the shops you’ve gone to, Nate, they’re way kinkier than I gave you credit for. But of course, if I’d looked properly a long time ago, I’d have realised you have another credit card. But I didn’t, because I trusted you. Trust is a lovely concept, but the person has to be trustworthy in the first place.’

‘I am trustworthy.’

‘No, you’re not,’ I say.

‘Oh come on, come on,’ he says, ‘you’re justover-wrought because Rachel’s gone.’

‘It’s over, Nate, so I’d advise you to go upstairs and pack your bags and move out.’

‘What?’ I think it’s hitting him now. ‘What – what about Joey?’

‘I’m going to tell Joey that you are working away for a while and frankly I don’t care where you go. But you are going to go. And you are not going to talk to our daughter and tell her what’s happening until I’m ready to. Nothing much is going to change with Joey anyway, because I bring him to school and I pick him up from school and I bring him to his football matches, because you don’t do that sort of stuff.’

‘I do.’

‘No, you don’t, you do your own thing and then you go off with your girlfriends.’

‘I don’t have girlfriends.’

‘Don’t bullshit me.’ I think of the blonde Louise saw him with. How did I ever suspect lovely Angie, who has been a tower of strength for me.

‘I was worried about you, Marin,’ she’d said one day. ‘He was all over Bea that night of the party – I was giving him a dressing down and he didn’t like that.’

Nate stands up and suddenly he doesn’t look so big or strong anymore. He’s just a guy whom I trusted and I believed was a good person. Probably the way Sid believed the guy she worked for all those years ago was a good person, until she found out he wasn’t.

‘Just go, Nate,’ I say.

I pour myself a glass of wine and after half an hour I hear him dragging two big suitcases downstairs.

‘You’re going to regret this,’ he says, a little flush on his face now he’s angry.

‘Have you got your meds?’ I say, last act of a kind wife. But he’s a big boy, he can look after himself at whichever girlfriend’s house he’s going to. He’s not my problem anymore.

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘All right,’ I say, ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Oh yeah, you can leave your keys.’

‘You’ve no right to ask me for the keys.’

‘You want a bet?’ I say.

He throws his keys down on the table. Then he’s gone.

I sit there for a minute, breathing heavily, and then I ring April.

‘You can come round now,’ I say, ‘he’s gone.’

‘Oh goody,’ says April. ‘Maybe we should have a party.’

And we both laugh.