Light and shade.
I find myself staring at them again.
Harry.
Chapter 28
I intend to drive somewhere quiet, or to go home. I intend to simply let this new information sink in, to allow myself time to calm, to accept, to process.
I intend all of that, but what I actually do is drive straight to the barn where Harry has his offices. I think it’s fair to say that I possibly look a little steamed up as I enter the reception, as Jimbo, the young man who runs front of house, appears to be terrified of me.
Jimbo is barely into his twenties, and had a leg amputated after complications from childhood meningitis. He is a lovely boy and not the sort of person you feel proud of terrifying.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, eyes wide, ‘but he’s not here, Elena.’
‘Well, where is he then?’
‘He’s with Alison. They’re working on a new presentation for a potential donor.’
‘Right. Where are they doing that? If they’re not here?’
‘I think,’ he replies, looking at his computer screen, ‘that they’re working from home. I don’t know if that means your home or hers. Sorry. Again.’
I take a deep breath, and force myself to appear relaxed.
‘No worries, Jimbo. I’m sure I’ll catch up with him. Thanks for your help!’
He looks relieved and grateful, and I tell myself off for turning into the Wicked Witch of the West as I get back into the car. I sit still for a few moments before I start the engine, wondering what on earth I hope to achieve by all of this. By tracking him down, confronting him when I’m angry, causing a fuss. I never cause a fuss. It’s not usually in my nature.
My phone beeps and I see a message from Olivia, asking where I am.
You’ll have to slum it, I reply.I’ve got to go and cause a fuss.
I picture her face as she reads it, imagining how wide her eyes will go, and how she’ll make a little ‘ooooh!’ sound. Frankly she’ll be delighted.
She responds with an animated GIF of Wonder Woman bearing the words ‘You Go Girl!’ at the bottom. I switch the phone off – I don’t want to have to answer any questions right now – and decide what to do next.
I am so rarely angry that it actually feels quite good, like something I should savour and store up. I know that doesn’t sound healthy, but maybe it’s just a pleasant change from feeling borderline sad, and constantly battling with myself about it.
I never in a million years lived under the illusion that Harry was perfect. I never assumed that he never looked at another woman. But this … this hurts, far more than I would have imagined it could. On the night he claimed he was going to propose, he was actually snogging someone else. While I was sitting with Alex, feeling guilty about the fact that I was enjoying his company, Harry was groping another woman’s bottom.
It hurts for so many reasons, not all of them obvious. It hurts because my boyfriend and now husband behaved like that. It hurts that he deceived me, not only about buying the ring that night, but about what he was doing. All these years I’ve believed him when he said his memory was affected, and now I suspect that was simply a convenient fiction.
It also hurts because of everything that followed. I stayed when I should have left. I married him when I should have said no. I let Alex leave my life when I should have held on tight. I feel like an idiot. An idiot who trusted him, who trusted his version of events, who trusted that I was doing the right thing.
Our entire marriage is built on lies. On sinking sand. On myths and legends.
I have felt, recently, a slight shift in those weak foundations. A shared honesty, a small and creeping sense of optimism. Nothing major, nothing life-changing, but potential – potential for me and Harry to find a fuller life together. A better life.
Now, I can’t find any of that. I can’t find that hope at all. If he’d told me, maybe it would have been different. Maybe I could have dealt with that, if he’d been honest, like he was about the ring. Mistakes I can accept – Lord knows I’ve made enough of my own – but the lies leave me feeling empty, mocked. Even further away from him than before.
I have my own secrets, things I’ve never told him, for reasons I have convinced myself are right. I have never told him about our baby, believing that I was protecting him. I have never been totally frank about Alex, which I think was protecting both of us. But recently, I wondered if perhaps we could start afresh. Share it all, let go of our past, and move on. Now, it feels like we are trapped in a web of lies.
Unless … unless, I remind myself, he wasn’t lying when he said his memory had been affected. What if he actually doesn’t remember? What if I’m being outraged because he didn’t tell me when he actually doesn’t know? What if seeing those photos would be as much of a shock to him as it was to me? Shouldn’t I at least give him the chance to explain that?
It is a tiny ray of sunlight, but my mind basks in it. Harry might have been with another woman that night, but that was a different Harry to the one I am married to now. That was the young, callous version of my husband – and if I look at that Harry clearly, it does not surprise me that he engaged in a quick tumble with a pretty Aussie girl while his girlfriend was only metres away.
This Harry, the new Harry … I don’t think he would do that to me. I don’t think he would be that cruel. And this Harry, I try to convince myself, would have been honest about it. He knew this thing with Em would raise some questions; he knew that whole night would be under the spotlight in a way it wasn’t before. He knew that any secrets might be uncovered – that’s why he told me about the ring. He didn’t want it to come out any other way than from him to me directly.
