A/N: Thank you, thank you for all the reviews, they're keeping me going. M for language.
There was a blissful moment of calm when Edith woke up. As her eyes peeled open the events of the previous evening crawled over her, a suffocating shadow intent on destruction. She buried her face in the pillow. He's married. He's married and it's finished.
Every occasion they'd been together played on an endless reel in the back of her stupid head. She could feel the softness of his touch, hear his voice, his laugh, taste his cooking, his tongue in her mouth. Now, when she wanted to feel nothing, she couldn't stop feeling everything.
Did he take Maud against walls? Did he caress her breasts with the same reverence? Was there a hitch in his breath as he entered her? The images came thick and fast, Maud's face where her own had once been. Edith fought a wave of nausea.
She wanted to take a claw hammer to her skull and crack out the memories. Living life as an empty shell had to be preferable to this emotional torture.
The wall would be the last time they were together. Basically fully clothed. If she'd known she would have demanded the bedroom and taken her time. He could've – stop it, stop it now. These were blind alleys, dark with dead ends. She needed to be strong.
She lay still for hours, or maybe minutes, taking shallow breaths through the cotton fabric.
"Ede?"
She jumped up with a start, blinking heavily at the unfamiliar surroundings before remembering that she was in Matthew's house. She still wore yesterday's outfit.
Matthew came fully into the room, "you fell asleep about eight o'clock. I didn't want to wake you."
"What time is it?"
"A little after nine. I've got breakfast on the go."
"You're not going to court?"
"I got my morning cases covered." He cleared his throat, "I've set out some clothes in the bathroom, some fresh underwear and a blouse."
"Why do you have ladies clothes?"
He pushed a hand through his hair and flushed a little, "They're Mary's, she's been staying here a fair bit."
Ordinarily she'd have joked about it, shouted 'ah-ha!' and jibed him for the revelation that her sister stays at his house. That version of Edith was absent, almost a stranger. She couldn't manufacture a reaction, real or pretend. She just plodded, heavy-footed, heavy-hearted to the bathroom.
She pushed the scrambled eggs around the plate with a piece of dry toast, unable to imagine ever wanting to eat.
"You're not leaving the table until you've eaten something."
"You sound like my Mother."
"If Cora was here that's precisely what she'd say and she'd be right. Now: eat."
Halfway through her third bite the inquisition commenced. Matthew spoke as he was putting away the dishes, his actions suggested nonchalance but is tone demanded answers, "what happened last night Edith?"
"Mary and I walked through Lincoln's Inn. It reminded me of Sybil. I got upset."
He topped up her coffee, "not buying it, sorry." She shrugged and chewed methodically on a piece of toast. "We used to tell each other everything Ede, what's changed?"
"You fell in love with Mary and I stopped trusting you." In her usual state she'd have felt guilty for such a brutal truth, but he'd asked and she wasn't of a mind to lie any more. Lies were cancerous.
"Jesus, Ede."
"Look, I was seeing someone and now its over. He's not the person I thought he was and it's over and I'm upset." It sounded so prosaic. The story of a million girls before her and probably a million after her, there was nothing remotely unique about such a tale. Yet the gnawing horror inside her chest was a pain all its own, she couldn't imagine she'd recover like the million girls before. She pushed the chair back and scrapped the remainder of her breakfast into the bin, "don't tell Mary."
"I – don't – I - You were seeing someone? Who?"
"Matthew, I cannot convey how much I do not want to talk about it, please don't press me on this, please?"
It was a struggle for him, he shifted from foot to foot, shaking his head and finally, exhaled, "What can I do?"
"Take me home via Sainsburys? I've got no food in."
Turning the corner to her flat she found Anthony sitting beside her front door. His darkened blue eyes said it all for him; he knew. If the eyes hadn't done the talking for him, the time and date would've done, he should be summing up right now, but instead he was here on her cold concrete floor. He looked small with all his limbs bunched up. Still handsome, but somehow entirely different. This man, for all his pleasing looks and soft crooked smiles, wasn't to be trusted
"Oh God Edith, please let me explain." He followed her into the flat. Edith gripped the edge of the heavy door and willed herself to slam it in his face. If it caused injury - all the better; he had injured her in ways she could not quantify – he deserved the same. Instead, her hand slid down the wood and the door gaped in welcome. They were both safely inside.
"You are married."
"I beg your pardon?"
Edith dumped the bags unceremoniously onto the small kitchen table. The carton of milk fell on its side and the sound bounced around the studio, "you are married. That's it: that's the explanation." She shrugged, wrestling the shopping from the bag and looking anywhere but at him, "Not much more to say."
He rubbed his fingers across his forehead, "let me explain. Maud and I – I – yes. I- yes. I am married. But, not when you and I met and not when – whilst we've been together -" His bottom lip funnelled air across his face, the hair on his forehead lifted before returning to its haphazard position, "we are separated."
Edith busied herself in the kitchen and gulped back the tears which threatened to come. Last night they had been tears of sorrow. Now they were tears of anger. Opening cupboards and feigning calm Edith transported the items to their proper places. Beans, the top left shelf. Mayonnaise, second cupboard on the right. Fruit, in the bowl. Milk, the fridge.
He pleaded, "There was no right time to bring it up."
She scoffed at that. It seemed to her there had been hundreds of opportunities, lots of signs pointing towards the reality which she only saw now.
"That's why your flat is empty?"
"I'm sorry?"
"That's why your flat is empty of anything personal, because you don't really live there?"
"I do live there, Edith, Maud and I have been separated."
"Yes, but all your stuff is at a big house someplace with all her stuff?"
He gawped stupidly, his mouth grasping for words in response, but she didn't care, she knew it was true. "You told me you'd slept with 28 women –" she quoted, " 'most of them at Cambridge – I slowed down a fair bit at the Bar'. You slowed down a fair bit? You slowed down at the Bar, Anthony, because you got married." A new and petrifying thought tripped through her mind then, carried by a wave of anxiety, "or am I not the first mistress?"
"God, Edith, no. You're not my mistress for Gods sake and I – no, I mean, yes, you're the first but you're not my mistress."
"No?"
He took a step towards her and she took a step back, "No. I – Edith, you are wonderful and –"
"Stop it please. Just stop." Words of affection were pointless barbs now, serving only to emphasise what she'd lost. "It's why you don't kiss me in public, or touch me. It's why you haven't told Mrs Hughes or His Honour Judge Carson? You were worried about getting caught."
The evening at the pub, her victory in the silly tournament had taken on a different complexion. She thought it was a turning point. But his change in attitude had nothing to do with her or him or their relationship, how stupid she'd been to think that; the difference was the alcohol. He'd been drunk. He had to be drunk to touch her in public.
"Caught isn't the word I'd use, I didn't think about it in those terms. It wasn't some big deception, Edith. I just didn't want to give you the wrong idea."
"You didn't want to –" She choked out a frustrated laugh. "Tell me, what idea did you suppose you were giving me?"
"I tried to convey that it was all some temporary fun." He clasped his hand on his mouth, "that didn't sound right. I'm not saying any of this right."
"Temporary fun." Two mundane words had never caused such pain, "Goodness, that's quite different to what I thought was happening."
"I'm sorry if I wasn't clear." He lifted a shoulder, half a shrug, as limp as his explanations, "I never lied to you, I was very careful about that."
"Oh, were you? How very lawyerly of you." He'd planned his deception, planned her destruction.
"It wasn't like that. It's bad, I know that. I tried to be honest in some ways. I told you - I – I told you that I wasn't suitable, that you should stay away, that I wasn't a good man. I told you."
"So, what? This is my fault?"
"No – no. Of course not. This isn't – I'm not saying it right, but – I never lied to you."
She bit hard on the back of her tongue to stop herself from screaming. She wanted to slap him or pummel at his chest. She snapped the words out, "I met her. I met her at that restaurant. She knew and you knew and you said nothing to me. I was just the stupid girl in the corner, none the fucking wiser."
It was good to swear. Just peeling the words out into the space between them relieved a little of the tension, took her a step back from tears of raging sorrow, "but you're right, I suppose, you didn't lie." The word was thick on her tongue.
He whispered, "sweet one, please."
"Do not call me that." She was renewed and barked the question out, brows furrowed, "where did that name come from anyway?" She used to love it, now it, like everything else, had taken on a new meaning, "is it because I'm small and naïve? That's the nickname you gave to the foolish young woman too stupid to know she's being used, the foolish young woman you're just having some 'temporary fun' with?"
"I didn't use you, or I didn't mean too. I really can't bear this, please, I can't bear for you to look at me that way."
She was grateful then - utterly, incandescently grateful - that Mary was her sister because she'd learnt something from the years of torture. There was some ugly, beautiful ability within her, honed by a childhood at the receiving end of her sister's wicked brain. She unleashed the lessons and spoke with biting sarcasm, "can you not bear it? Well, heaven fucking forbid. I must adjust my attitude in case you feel uncomfortable."
He was shocked, "Edith, I-"
"Should I thank you? Thanks for the time together, the trips, the meals, the cooking, the sex, the orgasms. Thanks for never lying, as though an omission on the scale you perpetrated doesn't matter. Thanks for never telling me it was just some 'temporary fun', so I might have taken some measures to insulate myself. Thanks for making me feel like it all meant something, like there might be some hope where there never was any at all."
She was gulping in breaths at the end of it. Chest heaving. She loved him. She was in love with him. Clear as day, bright as the sun, driving straight through her heart, like the sharpened blade of a dagger. It was painful how much she loved him. Now she hated him too. She wanted to scream. Cry. Laugh.
"Edith –"
His fingers brushed the top of her arm and she wrenched away, her hip thudded into the kitchen cabinet. The cutlery draw rattled. "Don't touch me!"
An orange rolled off the side and landed heavily onto the floor. The mechanics of living did its job. She picked it up, its skin weeping into her hand. Took it to the peddle bin, pressed, dropped. Turning on the tap, she washed away the juices.
Half turning her body she looked over her shoulder, her hands remained braced on the sink. Anthony looked broken, smaller, somehow than he had ever had done before. Only now did she see that his hair was disheveled and his face was strained. Good. She hoped he was as battered inside as he was outside. It could be nothing next to her hurt.
She looked back to the dripping tap. They'd made love here once. Anthony lifted her hands from the soapy washing up and placed them on the sides of the basin. Kissed her neck, behind her ear. A silent command to stay. One hand worrying a nipple, the other beneath her skirt and there. He made her ask for him. He liked it when she asked, she liked asking. How did he do that? Give her exactly what she wanted when she'd never even known she'd wanted it?
Abruptly, Edith pushed away from the sink. She didn't want him remembering that moment. He didn't deserve the memories.
"You must let me -" His voice cracked.
"There is nothing I must let you do."
"I'm sorry. God, I am sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."
Edith gritted her teeth at the rage that bubbled through her. She'd never thought him dishonest, now it seemed that's all he was, that it had been a calculation on his part with not a care over how she might be affected by it.
"That's not true either. You're on-off with Maud, but eventually you're always on again, that's right isn't it?"
He turned and ran his hand along the painting table, shaking his head, "who told you that?"
"Answer the question Anthony – eventually you are always on again?"
"This is the third time we've split up and, yes, on the last two occasions, she came back and I took her back."
"And this time?"
He whispered his resignation, his confession, into the vast space between them, "I have to take her back. I have no choice."
It was true what they said, love and hate really could walk hand in hand, "You say you never meant this to happen, but you knew – you knew – and you still – " She didn't have the words. How utterly idiotic she'd been.
"Tell me what you want, I'll do anything to make this better."
I want you to love me.
"There's nothing you can do. I think we're about done. I'd like you to leave."
"Edith –"
"Please, Anthony. Just go." He shook his head gently and drew a breath to start speaking again. She couldn't bear it, not even another second, "Don't! Please, please don't. If you ever felt anything for me, at all, you'll just go."
To her eternal relief he did as she asked. She sunk down onto the floor in the corner of her kitchen, her legs no longer able to manage the gargantuan task of holding her lifeless body.
When Thomas came back from Liverpool two days later he found her in bed, fully clothed, with greasy roots and a reddened face. She sobbed the story into his leather jacket.