Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [93]
‘Okay, okay…tell me and I promise I will be quiet.’
‘First you changed when we got married. You started getting resentful about my job.’
‘I didn’t say much.’
‘You didn’t need to. It was obvious from your attitude. You’d sulk when I had to go away at Christmas or on our anniversary when really you knew I had little control over these things. And then you became obsessed about having a baby and I just felt like a piece of meat or…I don’t know…a sperm donor. You only seemed to want to have sex to make a baby after that. Do you know how it feels for a guy to be rejected all the time when he wants to make love to his wife? Like it’s some sort of burden.’
He paused for a moment.
‘Then…after William…you spent so much time with those counsellors and on your chat groups that you seemed to have no time for me. You were always online with those bloody chat groups. I didn’t want to talk to counsellors. I wanted to talk to you.’
‘But I couldn’t help you Tony. I was hurting too much myself.’
‘Okay…I think I can understand that now but can I please finish? Then it was back to being the sperm donor and after Isabel was born it got worse.’
‘Now that’s not fair. I had a terrible time with Issy and you didn’t help. You were awful to me just when I needed you most.’
‘I’m not making excuses. I’m just trying to explain why I got involved with Wendy…though, I don’t know, I’m not even sure I really know myself. It sounds stupid but it just sort of happened. It’s not like I went looking. You find yourself in these situations…and then she seemed to have the time for me that you never had. Anyway the main thing is it’s never going to happen again. I know what I’ve got here.’
Wendy? I hadn’t heard that before. It seemed a name more suited to a tuckshop mum than a mistress. But what was I expecting - Krystle or Bambi?
And of course she had more time for him - she didn’t have a screaming baby to attend to.
But that could wait. This was clearly not the time for point scoring.
I was astounded that this had all come out of Tony’s mouth. I began to think we must have been drinking truth serum rather than champagne. If that was the case it was best I kept my mouth firmly shut.
‘We could have saved ourselves a lot of tears if you’d told me some of this earlier,’ I said after it was clear he’d finished, ‘but we can’t change that. And it doesn’t mean we don’t need to go to counselling. We - and I mean both of us - still have some huge issues to deal with around communication.’
‘I know. But thanks for not biting my head off this time when I mentioned the affair.’
Oh Tony, if you only knew the reason you wouldn’t be thanking me.
My eyelids were feeling heavy. I lay my head on the pillow. All that champagne on an almost empty stomach was taking its toll.
‘I think I need to sleep. Can we talk more tomorrow?’
‘Okay, I’ll wash up.’
I dragged myself to the bathroom to wash and brush my teeth and then crawled into bed. At first I must have fallen into a deep sleep as I don’t remember Tony coming into the room, but from 2am to 4am I dozed fitfully and after that was wide awake. He slept on beside me, his breathing heavy and regular. It was time to think.
I knew he thought I was coming around to the idea of going to Hong Kong with him - and he was correct - although a few issues needed to be ironed out beforehand.
I’d got myself in a terrible pickle and removing to Hong Kong was the best way to extricate myself without too many tears. It would be a clean break from Alex, which was exactly what was needed. We would not even be in the same city; there would be no temptation to lapse.
The lure of Alex was strong but I had known him for such a short time: less than a year and intimately for much less than that. And how well did I really know him? I only had his version of events about his breakup from Julie. I’d also never thought to check with Paul if Stacey really was James’ girlfriend. I had given Alex the licence to see other people and whilst I thought he was being faithful to me I’d always thought