Romance and Retribution

Reader I married him.

Not that Charlotte Bronte would have been impressed by my ‘Mr Rochester’. There were some similarities. He was already married when I met him and didn't bother to tell me (thankfully the revelation didn't happen at the altar). She was hidden away, not in an attic but in an out-of-town dream house in a picturesque village complete with all mod cons, a four-by-four in the drive-way, 2.5 children (yes she was pregnant), the dog and a goldfish. That's about it for shared ‘qualities’. I can't imagine the (anti)hero in my tale striding the moors in search of me or saving anyone from a burning building. No, rather than a brooding, masterful patriarch, he was a wet dishrag of a man. Much happier to sit dozing and farting in front of Match of the Day than engaging in witty, flirtatious debate with his life’s grand passion. I appreciate that Jane Eyre's eventual husband is not every 21^st Century woman's ideal. But a bit of romance isn’t too much to ask for is it?

I should have stuck with my books.

I've loved the written word for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of sitting in my mother's lap, sucking my thumb and pointing at the pictures whilst she read. She would put on a different voice for each character and I can’t look at a Beatrix Potter book without hearing her in my head. My father read to me too and made up some stories of his own. I especially loved the one about the mouse who wanted to fly. For all my childhood birthdays and Christmases I only ever asked for books. I even wrote some tales of my own as a teenager, experimenting with genres, everything from science fiction to historical bodice rippers. Merely a phase. I soon discovered I'd much rather read the words of others than write my own.

Sadly it was a book that got me into the biggest mess of my life.

I was in the middle of one of my voluntary stints at the charity shop. Unpacking a box of donations I came across one of my all-time favourites. I'd just finished the first sentence of Austen's most famous text - 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife' - and I looked up and there he was.

‘How much is this one?’

He wouldn’t have won a wet shirt contest up against Colin Firth but he had a smile that reached his eyes, no wedding ring and a novel in his hand. What more could a thirty-something bookworm want?

And we lived happily ever after . . .

No; not this time, not this story.

We dated for a while, but didn't go out much. I cooked, he watched TV (to be fair the farting didn’t start until he fully moved in) whilst I read (the book he bought was for his mother), we had sex. Romeo and Juliet it wasn't but I hadn't had a boyfriend for a while, was the only singleton in my group of friends, and fancied I could hear the faint ticking of a biological clock. I ignored the obvious signs; that he only gave me his mobile number, was only available on week nights, didn’t suggest I meet his family or friends. My nearest and dearest weren't keen and I nearly finished it a few times but then he would surprise me with a meal out or a night away and once with a signed first edition, of a Joanna Trollope novel. At the time I didn’t recognise the irony of his choice of Other People’s Children.

He might never have told me the truth if I hadn't seen them out shopping together in a near-by town. He even had the baby in a front sling, her downy head next to his heart; clear evidence of his starring role in his own Famous Five adventure. He didn't see me watching, as he possessively guided his wife to the door of the shop, his hand on her lower back. I didn't sleep much that night but instead read passages from my two favourite break-up books. If only I had the sense of Elinor Dashwood rather than the sensibility of her sister Marianne. If only I could find as true a hero as did Bridget Jones. If only someone had thought to clone Colin Firth.

Two evenings later I cooked his favourite meal, squirted myself with the perfume he said he liked and waited for his knock. He seemed nervous even though I was sure he had no idea of what was coming. He ate his food as I pushed mine  around my plate. He talked. I pretended to listen. Then we went to bed. He was staying over for once. He watched as I slipped a silky nightdress over my head.

'Why are you putting that on?’

He leered at me, in a way he obviously thought was sexy, but I found creepy; definitely more Uriah Heep than Sir Lancelot. He pulled me towards him and satisfied himself but not me. No words of love, no foreplay, no post-coital cuddle.  After it was over (it didn’t last long) he rolled over and went to sleep.

I lay awake. 'How long has it been like this?,' I asked myself. 'Almost since the beginning,' came the answer.

The next morning I presented him with a packed bag. I'd spent the early hours clearing my bathroom cabinet of his toiletries, my wardrobe of the dressing gown and the few other clothes I’d bought him, and the sitting room of various bits of male paraphernalia. He'd slept through it all. The look on his face - which put me in mind of Wormtail from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when fearing for his life - almost made me laugh.

'What's all this?’

'What's her name?’

'What, who, what's this all about?' I noted the whine in his voice.

'What's her name?,' I repeated.

Eventually he left but it didn't end there. He phoned, he messaged, he sent flowers (the first time ever). I began to thaw. What I didn't know then, but do now, is that he was as useless a husband as he was a boyfriend and his first marriage was all but over, his wife having packed a similar, if bigger bag, of his belongings the day before I did the same.

I can only paraphrase from A Christmas Carol to describe the next few years; 'a humbug, a total waste of time....' Like Robert Frost I should have taken 'the road less travelled by...' but I chose the compromise of marriage over the happier life of a single girl (that is when you’re saddled with a Mr Wickham rather than blessed with a Mr Darcy). Following his divorce there was a quick civil ceremony. We had a celebration of sorts sharing a meal and some dried fruit cake with a small group of significant others. For a while I was optimistic and made plans for our happy future but it wasn't more than a month or two before reality set in.

There was no house in the country, or anywhere else, for us. ‘I’m still paying a huge mortgage on my family’s house,’ he complained, unaware of, or unconcerned by, the insensitivity of his words. We stayed in my flat.

There were no children, despite the fact that my reproductive timepiece was now loudly moving towards its alarm. ‘Why would I want any more?,’ he said, clearly suggesting that it was unreasonable of me to ask this of him. So I cooked and cleaned, picked dirty underpants up off the floor and succumbed to unsatisfactory and unproductive sex with their owner once or twice a week.

I pitied myself. There was no Mrs Danvers in our life but I was constantly reminded of my status as second wife, my husband spending as much time with his first family as with me. I had all the responsibilities but none of the pleasures of marriage. I grieved for past freedoms, for the children I would probably never have and for the relationship I might have had with the hero of my dreams if not for the villain I was stuck with. I felt guilty too. I hadn't exactly stolen him from the bosom of his family, but whilst not a She Devil I was no Snow White either.

Enough was enough.

'Get me another can, babe,' he demanded his eyes focused on the match. Handing him his beer I remembered a quote from Dangerous Liaisons: ‘A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness she gives.’ I was anything but happy though.

That night, for the second time, I packed a bag whilst he slept. He was as incredulous as he had been the first time I threw him out but in the end he realised I was not going to change my mind this time. I don’t know if he realised he was quoting Rhett Butler when he shouted; 'I don't give a damn'.

I couldn’t be bothered to respond with the obvious ‘[t]omorrow is another day’. Instead I shrugged and opened my book.