Recollections May Vary

By Carol Marinelli

The Ex-wife and the Widow….
Gloria's becoming addicted to social media!
She's not stalking her ex-husband. Or even Lucy, the much younger woman he left her for twelve years ago. It's eleven-year-old Charlotte – the half-sibling of her own children – who's posting updates that are ringing alarm bells for Gloria. She was married to the same man, after all.
When he dies in the most embarrassing of circumstances, to both Gloria and Lucy's chagrin, they find their lives becoming increasingly intertwined.
Charlotte's godfather, Luke, is firmly Team Gloria. He had every intention of doing the right thing by his late friend but it's getting too hard to even be in the same room as Lucy.
The first year is supposed to be the hardest, yet the death of her ex gives Gloria the push she needs to finally move on. Her life starts to come together, just as Lucy's is falling apart.
Luke's doing all he can to avoid Lucy's dramas. He always has. While recollections may vary, Luke knows exactly what happened all those years ago.
Lucy on the edge of a breakdown is hardly Gloria's problem. What goes around comes around, right?
Charlotte's still online though…

 

380 pages.

Secrets and shame.

Recovery and healing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Marinelli
• Release date: Oct 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9798224733217

Book preview

Chapter 1

Gloria

––––––––

I’ve tried to forgive.

For selfish reasons perhaps, but apparently, you can’t really move on until you forgive the person who hurt you. 

And so recently that’s what I’ve been trying to do....

Forgive him.

I’m finally ready to move on.

I’ve never even attempted to forgive Lucy though. I’ve nurtured my hate for her for years. I’ve fuelled it, I’ve sustained it, I’ve deserved it and yet, sitting at the hairdressers and listening to the woman in the next chair telling Jasmine about her husband’s affair, I find myself frowning. Instead of joining in, instead of nodding in furious agreement when she talks about the bitch that ruined her marriage, there is, for the first time, the absence of hate when I think of Lucy.

No one notices but me, of course.

I stare in the mirror and I am still frowning as I hear them talking. The way this woman describes it, the way I described it perhaps, was that there I was in the midst of living happily ever after when along came this woman and took my perfectly content husband, tied him to the bed and had sex with him.

Not quite, but possibly you get my drift.

Possibly not.

The woman next to me wouldn’t.

Just a few months ago I wouldn’t have got it either.

She pays and leaves and Jasmine comes over and rolls her eyes. ‘They’ll be back together by next week.’

I smile but not on the inside.

We always got back together, till along came Lucy.

I had the bar of my happiness set so low.

Not now though.

‘You’re looking really well, Gloria,’ Jasmine comments.

‘Thanks.’

‘Right, what are we doing for you today? Just a trim?’

‘No, I’d like to do something about the grey and, also, could you wax my eyebrows and upper lip?’

‘Sure.’ Jasmine smiles and I can tell she’s a bit surprised because I usually just have a trim. ‘Have you got something nice planned for tonight?’

‘No.’ I go a little bit pink when I answer her. ‘I’ve got a date on Monday. Well, just a drink but....’ My voice trails off but Jasmine smiles.

‘Good for you, Gloria! It’s about time you got back out there. How long has it been?’

‘Long enough that I don’t want to answer that question.’

‘So, where did you meet?’ Jasmine asks.

‘At the slimming club I joined.’

We chat away but I’m really only half in on the conversation; instead I am thinking about twelve lost years and how I let myself go.

For a very long while after he left, I didn’t care how I looked.

There was too much other stuff going on.

Then there wasn’t even that excuse.

I simply didn’t care.

I let things slide for a very long while.

Way too long in fact. 

But I’m slowly getting there. I started losing weight a few months ago and I finally plucked up the courage to ring my son-in-law, Noel, and I asked him to fix my teeth.

Even though I never expected to, I met someone at my slimming club.

I recognised him from work and we started chatting and it’s all sort of grown from there. Or rather it’s sort of shrunk from there because Paul’s lost a lot of weight too. He’s been going there for nine months now and, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d have said yes to a date if he’d been as big as he once was. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have asked and, if he had, I wouldn’t have said yes, but for my own reasons.... you sort of lose your confidence really, well I did. 

It’s starting to come back though. I finally feel ready to get back out there. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I know now that I deserve to be treated well. 

I care about myself again. 

I have hope.

After the hairdressers I walk into the house and I look at my hair. It’s back to dark brown but instead of lingering at the mirror I head over to the computer and go onto Facebook.

I shouldn’t.

I just do.

Why am I looking up my ex-husband’s daughter?

She’s my children’s half-sister, so I guess there’s your answer, but the truth is I’m not really looking to find out more about Charlotte, nor my ex.

I click on an image and there is Lucy, smiling, slender, blonde and beautiful and it’s still there — the absence of hate.

I look at Lucy closely. She’s always been slim but she’s far too thin and there’s also a certain tension to her features that I recognise.

I was always my thinnest when he was cheating. This sort of deal I had with myself that if I lost so many pounds he’d want me again. That if I hadn’t let myself go then he wouldn’t have strayed.

I blamed myself.

I blamed her.

It was him.

I scroll through Charlotte’s messages.

Mum and Dad are fighting again!!

I wonder if Lucy checks Charlotte’s posts, if she knows that it’s there for all to see that her perfect life isn’t quite that.

Going for a sleepover to Felicity’s tonight

I do a little further searching and it would seem that Charlotte is going for a sleepover tonight because her parents are going to a work do.

My stomach tightens as I remember those nights.

Oh, my three daughters think they invented sex, that I haven’t a clue. They would die if they knew what some of those monthly work do’s entailed, the stuff that I put myself through in an attempt to hold onto my marriage.

I was boring in bed, apparently.

Tears sting my eyes as I remember Greg, the Managing Director, and his wife, Shirley. I start to really cry as I remember the humiliation of those work do’s and how they inevitably ended. The partner swapping that took place at the end of the night when most had gone home.

It was the sort of thing my husband liked. 

He put me through hell, my marriage really was a death by a thousand cuts but at the time I didn’t even realise he held the knife.

I’ve spent twelve years blaming you, Lucy.

I start to sob, not for me, but for the old me, for the angry, bitter, terrified person that I once was.

There is no lonelier place than a bad marriage.

None.

The façade, the pretence, the futile hoping, the endless promise of change. 

I go back through Charlotte’s posts. 

He’s away a lot with work, judging by the presents he brings back for Charlotte. He’s coming home later and later.... 

I haven’t seen him in years but I can still smell his trouble a mile off.

He’s messing around, cheating again. I know it down to my bones. 

I click back to the image of Lucy. 

Is he doing the same to you as he did to me?

I’ve waited twelve years for your downfall, Lucy.

I’ve fantasised about it in fact, but now that it’s here, and it is here, that much about him I know....

I don’t know if I hate her anymore. 

I pity her, perhaps?

I turn off the computer and go and make a drink. I’m not going to look anymore. I don’t want to know what’s going on in their lives. 

Except, the absolute truth is, I do....

Chapter 2

Lucy

––––––––

‘Mrs Jameson?’

I put down my magazine and stand when I hear my name.

‘Lucy.’ I smile at Dr Patel.

My usual GP is on maternity leave, I learned when I made the appointment, but they were able to slot me in with Dr Patel.

I’ll only be here two minutes.

We make small talk as I take a seat and no, she isn’t new, Dr Patel tells me, in fact she’s been here close to a year.

‘I’m not here much,’ I admit. ‘I’m healthy, really....’

Apart from these headaches.

But luckily, after I’ve described my headaches and she’s tested my eyes and done my blood pressure and things, Dr Patel doesn’t think that I have one.

A brain tumour, I mean.

‘Your blood pressure is a bit high, though,’ she tells me.

‘Probably because I’m here.’

I ask for some stronger headache tablets but she doesn’t leave things at that, instead she asks if I exercise as she takes me over to the scales and weighs me.

‘I do yoga – I’m at the gym every other day.’

‘You certainly don’t need to lose weight, Lucy.’ Dr Patel nods, and then, when we’re back sitting down, she asks about my lifestyle but there’s nothing lurking there.

‘We eat really well,’ I say, and we do. I’m careful with our diet and no, I don’t smoke or drink.

Well, hardly.

‘I have the odd glass of wine.’

She nods.

‘And I like a brandy now and then.’

She nods again.

Dr Patel, I am starting to realise, does that a lot.

And no, we’re not under any financial pressure — she just has to look at my address!

I don’t like all these questions.

Everything’s perfect, I tell her. I just want some stronger headache tablets and I’ll get my eyes properly tested as she suggested, but Dr Patel is still just sitting there. She asks about my relationship and that’s perfect too, I tell her, except....

My mind darts to Beth who works in reception and I wonder if she reads the patient notes. She goes to my gym and I don’t want anyone knowing about this, I mean, I don’t want anyone knowing that we’re having problems.

Or rather, we’re not having problems.

He is.

With that.

I don’t want to tell Dr Patel, I certainly never intended to.

Except, I do.

Of course, a moment later I regret it. I have to sit there as Dr Patel tells me everything I already know — that there are lots of treatments available, that just because one thing doesn’t work, something else might.

I can Google too!

‘Well, given that he won’t even talk to me about it, there’s no way I can get him to come and see you.’

We just sit in silence for a moment. I shouldn’t have said anything. I know that there’s nothing she can do if he won’t even come in and, even if he does — well, I’m finding it hard enough to talk to Dr Patel so I can’t imagine he would!

‘I’m trying to be understanding.’ I am. Though I don’t tell her that I’m not doing a very good job of it. My face starts burning as I think of the last time we tried and patience isn’t a virtue that springs to mind.

God, Lucy!

I close my eyes as I recall it and, to be honest, I couldn’t have handled it more badly if I’d tried.

Not it.

I mean, the situation.

‘I know he’s older than me, I know that it happens....’

I just never thought it would be happening to me.

That I’d be sitting in a doctor’s office on a Saturday afternoon discussing my husband’s floppy willy. ‘It’s just hard sometimes....’ I say, and then I smile at her and let out a little laugh. ‘Well, actually, it’s not.’ But she doesn’t get my little joke apparently, because she doesn’t smile back — there are no double entendres with Dr Patel. She just looks at me with her solemn brown eyes and waits for my smile to fade.

Then we chat for a little while longer.

Well, she does.

She gives me all these pamphlets, one about his problem, one for partners dealing with his problem and then she suggests that perhaps I could try talking to him again, let him know that it’s concerning me....

‘Or I could just leave these by the bedside!’ I smile, but again it isn’t returned.

I don’t think she gets me.

Then, I know that she doesn’t when she reminds me that the surgery offers counselling and couples counselling. Oh, and I’m to make an appointment with the practice nurse to get some blood work done and my blood pressure checked again. I get a few more pamphlets to read — there are pamphlets for everything it would seem.

It’s me that’s nodding now, I just want out of here.

I smile and thank her, tuck the leaflets into my bag, and then wave to Beth at reception as I head outside.

I’ll ring and make an appointment next week — I’m not asking Beth. Isn’t high blood pressure something that old people get?

Not thirty-six-year-olds who take care of themselves — and I do take care of myself, absolutely I do.

I promptly bin the leaflets.

I shouldn’t have said anything.

I’m cross with myself that I did.

She didn’t even give me some decent headache tablets.

I’ve got an hour to kill before my hair appointment. We’re going to a dinner party tonight but as I walk down to the high street it’s with purpose.

I’m going to fix his little problem by more traditional means!

I step into my favourite boutique and yes, I thought I knew what I was wearing tonight, but I’ve changed my mind.

It’s spring.

I flick through the racks and I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it. My hand hovers on a dress, but it’s different from my usual. It’s a blood-red dress with huge silver flowers on it. It sounds disgusting, I know, and really, it’s so not me but, as the assistant assured me when I held it up, it does look stunning on.

I think.

It’s sort of Grecian and floaty and it falls really well. It’s the sort of red that looks perfect with blonde hair. I’m showing an awful lot of skin though and I don’t have my spray tan booked till Monday.

I glance at the price tag and even I blink, but really, I love it and with heels and make-up....

I hate those disgusting shoes they leave in the changing rooms, so I don’t slip them on. I step outside and, as I look in the larger mirror, I see the assistant smile.

She doesn’t always.

I do trust her (sort of), but really I don’t need her opinion; I’m already in love, I just want her to confirm it.

‘Lucy, you look amazing.’

I do.

I spend another small fortune on underwear, which is nothing new — I can shop for England.

I do know what I’m doing in the underwear department — I am subtle, I swear — I don’t want to terrify him! I just know that if my dress slips a fraction he’ll get a glimpse of lovely silvery lace and I am going to sort this.

With Ricky’s help.

‘Curls!’ he says when I show him my dress. ‘Loads of curls, Lucy.’ He’s as excited as me. ‘So what have you got on tonight?’

‘Just his work thing.’ I don’t wrinkle my nose as I usually do — I’ve got a different agenda tonight.

I chat away to Alexis, who’s in the next chair, as Ricky gets to work. She has a daughter in the pony club too and she asks how Charlotte is doing without Noodle. We had to let him go a couple of weeks ago; she was just far too big for him and when a chance for him to be a companion pony came along, it was too good to pass up but, of course, Charlotte was devastated.

‘She’s a bit better....’ I turn my head to talk but Ricky tells me to keep still, though that doesn’t stop me from talking. ‘We’re going to start looking for another one in a couple of weeks. But you know what they’re like, they get so attached.’

Ricky works his magic and pins it all up so it just falls in long ringlets, and Alexis watches on and grumbles about my being a natural blonde.

‘I get a few foils,’ I admit, but yes, I smile, even if my father didn’t hang around for very long, his Swedish genes did and I’ll be forever grateful to him for that.

I head for home, but first I stuff all my purchases into the one bag. When I get there I shout, ‘Hi!’ I head straight up the stairs and take all the bags out and quickly pull off the labels so, if he asks, I can say that I’ve had them for ages.

I take the body moisturiser and perfume I’ve also bought out of their boxes.

Oh, and the earrings.

And handbag.

I can do a lot of damage in an hour and he’s going to freak when he sees the credit card bill.

No, he’s not. I smile as I start getting ready because it will all be sorted by then.

Chapter 3

‘Hi, Mrs Jameson.’

I hate FaceTime or Zoom, or whatever....

Everywhere you go in the house it feels as if there’s an extra pair of eyes watching you.

‘Hi there, Felicity,’ I say and I give a wave to the computer screen as I walk into the lounge to tell Charlotte to hurry up. ‘We’re just on our way over to you now,’ I tell Felicity. ‘And you can call me Lucy,’ I tell her again.

I hate being called Mrs Jameson.

‘Come on, Charlotte,’ I prompt when still no one’s moving. ‘Get off the computer and get ready — you can speak to Felicity in person soon.’

But they’re playing some game that they want to finish and so I get the inevitable protests, though not just from Charlotte, from both of them.

God, I hate these online chats.

‘We’ll only be a couple more minutes.’ Felicity beams back from the screen. ‘By the time you’ve changed we’ll be finished.’

‘I am changed.’

‘Oh, sorry, Mrs Jameson, I thought you were wearing a sarong.’

For a second I meet Felicity’s cold blue eyes. 

I know that look. 

I do.

I was on the receiving end of it on numerous occasions when I was at school.

"I was just joking, Miss." They would say if I dared to protest or point their bullying out.

Of course you were, Chloe. You’re too sensitive, Lucy. The teacher would smile as I sat there crying.

So, I stopped being too sensitive and I got hard.

That won’t happen to my daughter.

I shan’t let it.

I smile brightly at Felicity as I click off the screen. ‘You’ll see Charlotte soon.’

I don’t like Felicity. She lives across the road with her helicopter pilot daddy and her high-flying executive mummy, Simone, and she goes to Charlotte’s school.

Felicity’s the popular one.

And I know all too well what that means.

‘What’s Felicity like?’ I ask Charlotte as she picks up her bag.

‘Everyone likes her.’

‘Do you?’

‘Of course I do,’ Charlotte says and I let out a small breath of relief but it catches when Charlotte carries on talking. ‘I’m lucky that she likes me.’

He’s calling for us to hurry up but I ignore him.

‘No,’ I say to Charlotte. ‘Felicity’s lucky too.’ I give her a smile. ‘She’s lucky to have you as a friend.’

I’m speaking the truth.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life, I’m not proud of many things that I’ve done but I am so fiercely proud of this girl.

She is intuitive, funny and kind and she is the very best thing in my life and I won’t let the world spoil her.

I shall keep her safe.

This I shall get right.

I step out into the hall and he sees me for the first time. I mean, with the new dress and shoes — the full effect. His approval shows in his expression. ‘You look great.’

‘Felicity thought she was wearing a sarong,’ Charlotte says.

Bloody Felicity.

But he just laughs.

And then he looks at me, I mean, he properly looks at me and, if we didn’t have an eleven-year-old present....

Well, let’s just say that I’m actually looking forward to getting home tonight.

I wave to my neighbour — she gardens constantly, or rather, she gets a view of the goings-on in the street behind the guise of her garden shears. I’m sick of her trimming the privet between our two houses. Shouldn’t privet mean private? Why can’t she stop trimming it like we’ve asked her? I must get him to have another word.

‘Here.’ He picks a piece of honeysuckle and pops it in my hair and then he lifts my chin and I think he’s going to kiss me. ‘Behave tonight.’

I smile.

I go to say something about misbehaving later, but I remember, from my many hours spent with Dr Google that I am not to add pressure. I carry on being subtle but I’m just fizzing inside because I know this is working....

I can flirt for England too.

And often men don’t even know when I am!

We drop Charlotte off and I chat for a brief minute with Simone before we drive away.

‘I’m not sure about Felicity,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t know that she’s very nice....’ but he just sighs.

‘Oh, you’ve got it in for an eleven-year-old now?’

‘So you think eleven-year-olds are all nice?’

He shoots me a look and I press my lips together. I don’t want to fight tonight but I hate the way he dismisses my concerns. I hate the way he doesn’t back me up at times. I can feel another headache starting and I go in my bag and take out the little tin I have and take two headache tablets.

We haven’t even got there yet and I’m tense.

We find Jess and Luke’s new home easily — or rather the Sat Nav does — and we park with the other Audis and Mercedes in the driveway. When we get out he takes my hand and gives it a squeeze as we walk up to the door.

‘Wow!’ Jess beams as she opens the door. ‘You look great!’ She takes the wine and the flowers we’ve brought and we do the kiss, kiss thing and I see that she goes a bit pink when he kisses her.

He does that to most women.

He can flirt for England too!

‘Thank God you two are here...’ Jess says and I know exactly what she means — these nights are painful at best.

If there’s one thing they should warn you when you marry that sexy older man, it’s that you inherit his friends, who all just happen to have really liked the first Mrs Jameson.

Especially Luke.

It’s a bit too complicated to explain right now, as we have to go through, but in a nutshell, Luke lived with the Original Jamesons for a few months when he was seventeen and I think he sees them somehow like parents.

Which means he thought their marriage was perfect.

But then along came Lucy.

And, of course, it was all my fault.

Jess is the only relief here. She and Luke married about two years ago, though Jess and I have been best friends for years. When I first had Charlotte and I’d put on some weight, Ricky told me about a Pilates class in the village and that’s where I met her. Jess is an out there Welsh girl; she’s funny and sexy and she finds these nights as excruciating as I do.

‘Honestly.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘It’s agony in there.’

‘I’ll sort them out.’ He winks to Jess. We walk through to the lounge and do the kiss, kiss thing with the dinosaurs and I can feel disapproval from the wives and the opposite from the men.

Perfect.

‘Lovely dress,’ says Shirley, who’s married to Greg, the Managing Director. 

‘It’s not a dress,’ he says, ‘it’s a sarong. I had to haul her out of the shower or we’d never have got here....’

He does sort them out as promised — he’s just so good at things like that. He’s got charisma, I guess, and within a few minutes the room has lifted and you can see Jess start to relax. ‘The house is gorgeous.’ I look around the lounge and out to the hallway. I know a thing or three about real estate, and it’s clear that they’re doing really well.

‘I’ve just shown everyone around, but I’ll give you a little private tour later,’ Jess says, and we smile at the thought of brief escape.

We’ll certainly need it!

I don’t often drink but thank God for wine tonight because dinner is hard work.

Conversation starts sticking at the starter.

It probably has something to do with the mini sticky onion tarts with Teifi cheese getting in their dentures. I mention Charlotte and her online chats, and that sort of grinds them slowly towards the present date, gets their miserable goats going and the conversation re-started. They really are the most opinionated, boring, disapproving lot. They start moaning about adverts, not just on the internet but also on the television and radio, about how everything is so openly discussed these days.

‘There was one on the radio the other morning about erectile dysfunction!’ Shirley says, and I start to laugh because I had Charlotte in the car with me when it came on.

‘Yes, I know,’ I say, joining in. ‘Charlotte asked me what it was.’ There’s a small ripple of laughter.

‘And what did you tell her?’

‘I told her to ask her father.’ I smirk and now they really do laugh, only I wish they wouldn’t. I can feel his disapproval. Shit, I want to take it back! I didn’t mean it like that, I wasn't talking about him, I was just trying to make conversation.

I struggle through the crispy duck we’re having for main and when Jess gathers up the plates I help her, just for the excuse of a quick bitch in the kitchen.

‘It’s your turn next month!’ Jess reminds me that I’ll soon be the host. ‘What are you going to make?’

‘Cyanide casserole.’

‘That’s not elegant enough, Lucy.’ She’s warming up sauces and I’m waiting for her to open the fridge — for the inevitable Trio of Desserts we all have to make these days. ‘We could add arsenic to the desserts.’ Jess grins as she stirs. ‘Just a little bit each month.’ She does make me laugh. ‘Can you get the ice cream cake out of the freezer?’ Jess calls over her shoulder. She doesn’t notice my silence as I stare into the freezer; she’s chatting away as she makes one jug of hot chocolate sauce and one jug of butterscotch.

‘What happened to my trio of desserts?’ I try to make a joke but my voice has gone all husky.

‘Who’s got the time?’ Jess says and proceeds to tell me the recipe. ‘You get a good vanilla ice cream and a mud cake which you break up and stir into the ice cream, along with Crunchies and Snickers, all chopped up, add Maltesers and a big slug of Baileys too. Then wrap it in cling film, put it in a cake dish and you shove it all back in the freezer. Great, isn’t it?’ Jess says, peeling off the cling film and sprinkling a Flake over it as I watch. ‘Don’t worry.’ She must have seen the slight horror on my expression. ‘I used gloves to mix it.’ Then she winces as she remembers that I’m allergic to ice cream. ‘Lucy, I forgot!’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ It’s no big deal, I tell her. ‘I’ll just skip to the cheese.’

‘Are you sure?’ Jess checks, and I nod. We start to carry the desserts through and I see my husband look from the ice cream on the plate and up to me as I hand him one and I know I’m being served another warning to behave.

I go to get the next lot of plates and, as I do, Jess asks if I’d mind putting the rest of the cake back in the freezer.

I do so, and then carry the