The Broken Ones Novel – “You prick,” I say, so terrifyingly calmly. “Aren’t you going to introduce your girlfriend to your wife?” Noah makes a choking sound; the colour seems to drain from his entire body, and his face goes a ghastly shade of gray. The woman correction: Noah’s woman has scrambled off the bed, clutching the sheets to her undressed body. “Gwen,” she says, barely a whisper. We lock eyes; hers drop. “You,” I breathe. GWEN I feel queasy the moment I wake up in the morning. I have to run to the bathroom so I can vomit into the toilet bowl. I have been feeling a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach for the past few days, but I have ignored it. “Can I do anything?” Noah says from outside the bathroom as I retch. I rest my forehead against the cold tiled wall and call out, “It must have been something I ate last night. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a moment.” Noah doesn’t come in. I hear him unzipping the luggage bag, then the drawers and the wardrobe, whistling through his teeth. The nausea rises again, my eyes water, my forehead turns clammy, and I retch once more.
After a while, I flush the toilet bowl, and he comes to crouch beside me where I sit on the floor. “Do you think,” he says carefully, a tentative smile spreading across his face, “is there a chance that you might be pregnant?” I stare up at him tiredly. Nod reluctantly. “I’ll go to the pharmacy right now,” he stands up, supressed excitement in his voice. “Get a pregnancy test kit. Then we’ll know for sure.” An hour and two pregnancy tests later, I’m prone on the bed. “I’m sorry,” I say listlessly. “I’ve ruined our holiday.” Noah lies beside me, his head propped up on an arm, and strokes my hair. “Poor Gwen. There’s nothing to be sorry about. We’re going to have a baby.” I am pleased for him. And guilty that I don’t feel the same. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone yet,” I say. “I promise.” He smooches my forehead. “But you’ll have to tell your mum eventually.” “I know. Of course I know that.” I try to summon a smile. “There’s no point in both of us staying. Emma’s with my mum.
We’ve already paid for everything, and it’s too late to cancel. You go. I’l be fine. You’ll be back the day after tomorrow anyway.” Noah has the decency to be silent for a moment or two. “Go,” I repeat. “What about Emma?” “She’ll stay with my mum. This was my mum’s idea, anyway.” A month ago, my mum, with her shrewd eyes, looking at me, into me, had taken Noah aside after a dinner, and said firmly, Noah, Gwen and you need to spend more time together as a couple. I’ll take care of Emma. Go and holiday somewhere nice. Both of you have been working so hard. You need a break. “If you’re sure?” says Noah. “I’m sure. Go to that beach chalet. You’ve been looking forward to it for so long.” I sit up against the pillows, draw in my legs, and wrap my arms around my calves. “Can I get you anything?” Noah asks before he gets into his car. I shake my head, No.
He gives me a sweet, lingering smooch on my mouth. “I love you so much, Gwen,” he says quietly, and looks, really looks into my eyes. “You know that, don’t you?” He waves me goodbye as he reverses the car out of the drive. I rest for the next two hours, and when I get up in the late afternoon, my sickness has passed. I feel full of energy and not at all tired. I wash my face, brush my teeth, choose a dress, and take a bus to the beach chalet. It is under an hour’s ride we had chosen it specifically because of its proximity to home. I didn’t call Noah. My turning up at the beach chalet would be a nice surprise for him. Even though I know Noah isn’t really one for surprises. But perhaps that’s what’s been missing from our lives lately. Spontaneity. I called my mum instead. Emma had been tearful on the phone. Mummy, she had said, her voice wobbly, When are you coming to bwing me home, Mummy? I want to go home. Nowwww. Londoon is too noisyyy, Mummy. My ears hurt. I want to go home, Mummy. Pleaseeee, she had whined, then paused to say crossly, What is it, Gwanma? I’m talking to my mummy.
I could hear my mum saying something in the background. In two seconds, Emma’s voice came back on. Mummy, Gwanma just bot me a wabbit! It’s so pwetty! Bye, Mummy! There was a loud clatter and the phone went dead. It is dark when I get off the bus beside the village shop. I had dozed all the way in the bus. The smell of the sea, the pitch-blackness, and the beautiful silence after the bus pulls away all make me determined to prove my mother wrong. I am happy. I am married to a good, loving man. We have a beautiful daughter. We have a lovely, cozy home. I remember how Noah had proposed to me, his voice earnest, almost pleading: I love you, Gwen. Marry me. I’ll take care of you always. I promise. I walk along the edge of the beach, and the sound of the water lapping against the shore mingles with a whisper from another world, another time.
Promise you won’t die before me, Gwenna. I couldn’t live without you. Noah’s car is on the drive and there is a light on in the beach chalet as I approach, winding my way along the path of bent grass, my overnight bag in my right hand. I hear a faint cry coming from within the chalet. It sounds like a seagull. Could a seagull have flown inside, and somehow trapped itself there? The front door is shut. I look through the window. A small light has been left on, casting a yellow beam across a wooden table and a small patch of floor, leaving the rest of the space in shadow. An oppressive, heavy blanket of silence thickens the air. It is strangely unsettling. Where is Noah? There is no sign of him. Nor of the seagull. I set my bag on the stone tiles. Press my nose to the glass cautiously. A trapped, deranged seagull could be prowling the chalet. Better to be safe than sorry. Shadows writhe and tangle in fantastical, convulated patterns on the walls, ebbing and flowing, ebbing and flowing No. Not shadows, but Shapes.
Human shapes. I see Noah, kneeling on the floor in front of the bed, skin stretched taut over his spine, black shallowed hollows dipping between the arches of pale, knobbly bone. His head bobs frantically, sandwiched between pale lush thighs as the woman lets out a shrill cry the sound that I had heard earlier. It is not a seagull spread-eagled on the bed; it is a living, breathing, moaning woman, twitching convulsively to the ministerations of my husband’s clever, agile tongue. As I watch, she reaches forward to fist his hair. She lets out another strangled squawky cry. At my angle, I can’t see the seagull woman’s face; it is seeped in shadow. But, for an instant, as she arches her body and lifts her head, I can see her eyes. They are open, glassy. Like Emma’s when she was born, and although she looks straight at the window, she is lost in the moment and doesn’t see me.
Before my disbelieving eyes, Noah straightens, pulls her head down, and swallows her cry. They are devouring one another’s mouths now; moaning, grunting, sucking: deep, wet animal noises of hunger and carnal desire. I can’t move. They continue to smooch feverishly, greedily. Their bodies twist and writhe in an agony of lust. Noah’s hands are all over her, then one disappears between her legs again. The same birdlike cry, almost of pain this time, escapes from her and there is a low answering echo from him. I make a small sound, a whimper. But they are oblivious to my presence. It is as if I were not there. As if I were a ghost. Or nothing. My thoughts are jumbled and incoherent, skittering into one another —Noah and this woman — who is she — they are — when — how long — My hands are shaking so badly and bile rises up my throat, burning it. “No,” I whisper, stumbling back. It is as if I am a piece of glass, splintering into fragments.
Everything is pressing in on me, becoming dark, yet through a tiny tunnel of light I can still see them on the bed, his tongue in her mouth, her tongue in his. He shifts his body over hers and opens her thighs with his. She stays him with a hand on his undressed shoulder, says something in his ear, maybe: Wait. You forgot something. He stops. Straightens. Oh, merciful Lord, I think, this is a nightmare. Wake me when it is finished. Why, that can’t be Noah. Why, that can’t be another woman. Noah’s pale body is almost luminous in the restricted space, like an exotic night creature. He moves off the bed hurriedly. He fumbles for something on the table and as he stands in the half-light, his body facing me for the first time, I see his upright thing. It is wet, glistening, erect. There is a smile on his face, and as I watch it grow, there is the beginning of a roaring in my ears.
I reach across to my right, to the flower pot on the window sill. Pick it up with both of my hands. Not the handiest thing around, but it’ll do. Then I throw the thing against the glass pane and scream louder than I’ve ever screamed in my life. This is the part of the dream where you wake up, Gwen. When the flower pot crashes through the glass pane I realize this is real. This is not a dream. This is happening. Glass shatters. The flower pot smashes on the floor. Soil scatters on the carpet. The cactus plant does a flip, a twist and a half-roll before it slows to lie down sadly on its side. Noah’s mouth opens in shock; his thing goes limp, hangs between his legs. The woman cowers, pulling the sheets around her, receding further into the blur of shadows. I feel pain, actual physical pain assaulting me, as if someone has thrust a dagger into my flesh, and it hurts so badly.
I hear a loud noise rasping in my ears, and I realize that it is the sound of my mouth swallowing lungfuls of air. I have forgotten to breathe. But breathe I must, even though my throat is clogged and nausea swamps my vision like a black tide. “Gwen,” Noah says hoarsely. He is struggling to look at me. His face is ashen. A trail of wetness dribbles down the inside of his right thigh. I can’t speak for a second. Then: “You freaking fool,” I say, so terrifyingly calmly. “Aren’t you going to introduce your girlfriend to your wife?” Noah makes a choking sound; the colour seems to drain from his entire body, and his face goes a ghastly shade of gray. The woman — correction: Noah’s woman — has scrambled off the bed, clutching the sheets to her undressed body. She shuffles into view, steps into the light and now she’s clear as day. Her eyes are wide, her mouth trembling.
A lock of hair has swung from her head, flopping against her cheek. “Gwen,” she says, barely a whisper. We lock eyes; hers drop. “You,” I breathe. At first, I think: It can’t be her. Kathy. Kathy, Molly’s cousin, who used to babysit Emma on the nights Noah and I went out. Kathy, who babysat Emma the weekend I went to the art exhibition in London. Kathy, who came to babysit for us when Emma was just a baby. Kathy, whom I had trusted. Kathy, who is looking at me with shame on her face and guilt in her eyes. “Gwen, I — ” Finally I am able to breathe, gulping, like a swimmer breaking through the surface of the water. “I trusted you,” I whisper. “I trusted my daughter with you. And this is how you repay my trust? You, you … strumpet —” I hear her sharp intake of breath, but I don’t stop to look at her. I am already reaching for my bag, turning around, hurrying down the grassy path.
I move with rapid, almost noiseless steps, one hand clutching the straps of my bag, the other pressed against my stomach. “Gwen,” Noah says behind me. I move faster, though I don’t run. I can’t manage the proper functioning of my limbs. I wish I could run. I wish I could run forever. A cluster of garden gnomes painted in blazing greens, reds, and yellows gaze at me, all solemn-like, as I plough past blindly. “Gwen, you’re pregnant” — pleading —- “will you stop please.” I stop, and turn toward him. I stand still, my heart thumping in my chest, the prick of tears behind my eyes. He freezes, standing in the middle of the path. A thick mist has rolled in from the sea, obscuring Noah so that he appears blurry, less defined. And — —- rage grips me by the throat. It rises, swells, rushes, a boulder flung from a catapult; slams me, wallops my entire being, flays me alive. Molten white swarms my eyes, pools there, thick and deep. My mouth opens like a window.
Wind whips into it — and I shriek, my body rippling with the force of my rage, my hate: “Prick!” “Gwen, for God’s sake, you are pregnant,” he says hoarsely, moving toward me. I raise my hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t come near me. Don’t speak to me. Never, ever, speak to me.” I turn my back on him, this useless man, this man made of mist. I walk on, and then I find myself running. I have remembered how to run, could instruct my legs to do this once again. I run blindly, beads of water clinging to my clothes and my hair. The headlights show first and then a white van crawls out of the fog, pulling up a little way past me. The door opens and an elderly woman gets off. She looks at me, shivering in my coat and sandals. “You okay, miss?” “I — need a ride — ” Footsteps come running up from behind. Noah appears out of the mist. “She’s not going,” he says, panting. “Gwen, please. We need to talk. Please — ” Noah puts a hand on my arm, but I shake it off violently, repulsed. The elderly woman steps between Noah and me. “I reckon,” she says evenly, “this young lady’s in no mood for talking.” She puts a comforting arm around my shoulder, steers me toward the van.
She opens the back passenger door, and I climb inside with my bag. She shuts the door after me firmly, pops back into her driver’s seat. “Gwen, please. You can’t leave me. Please, Gwen, please — ” “We’ll be going now.” The woman pulls the door shut. She shifts the van into gear, and we’re off. In the van, I switch off my phone. “Thank you,” I say to the woman’s back. “I’m Enid,” she says, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “And you’re welcome.” After a while, she says quietly, “The mist will clear up soon enough. The sun will come up soon, love. Mark my words.” I tell Enid to drop me off at a Premier Inn on the outskirts of the city. Enid is right; when I alight from the van, the mist has cleared, and the sun glows in the sky. In the room, I sit on the double bed and look down at my hands. Then I look outside. A light rain is pattering the glass windows.
I go to the toilet and sit down on the toilet bowl. I am about to flush the toilet bowl when I notice that my knickers are stained with blood. I put my hand between my legs and stare at the blood on my fingers. I sit there for a while. And then I get up and rummage in my bag for a sanitary pad. I used the same bag to London and had stashed a small packet of sanitary pads in a side pocket. I extract a sanitary pad, and change to a new pair of knickers, adding the sanitary pad as if I could staunch the flow of liquid. I lie back on the bed, and keep very still, but an hour, or two, maybe three later, I get off the bed, and pad to the toilet bowl, and sit on it. When I pull down my knickers, the sanitary pad is saturated with blood. I feel a dull ache down there, low in my abdomen. I stand up, pulling my knickers back on, and I feel blood — more than before — gush out between my legs. I walk back to the bedroom, retrieve my phone from my bag. I switch on my phone, and a string of notifications pops up: hundreds of messages and missed calls from Noah, several from my mother.
I stare at my phone, thinking about what number to call. Finally I tap a number. It rings and then: “Gwen?” “Simone,” I say. “Gwen.” There are voices in the background, the chink of cutlery on china. “Gwen,” she repeats, this time her voice starting high and dropping lower. “What’s the matter?” “I think I’m miscarrying,” I say. And then another low ache floors me and I clench my teeth together and breathe through it. “Gwen, where is Noah?” Simone says after a second of silence. I know she would have that concerned expression on her face, the one where her eyebrows meet below her wrinkled forehead. “I don’t know. I caught him cheating on me. With the night nanny.” The night nanny. Is there such a term? “At the beach chalet.” “Cheating. At the beach chalet,” she says, after a pause. “Yes. I didn’t know who else to call.” “Where are you, Gwen?” I think. Where am I? An Inn of some sort. Holiday Inn? No, that’s not it. “Gwen? Where are you?” “The Premier Inn.” It comes out in a rush. “Which one? There are quite a few in Norwich.” Patient, calm. I think for a bit more, then tell her.
“Okay. Got it. You didn’t go home?” “No.” Her voice shrivels as she speaks to someone, and I hear more people talking and a burst of laughter, and then it comes back on. “And you think you’re miscarrying?” “I’m bleeding. I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible.” I don’t want to cry. “How far along are you?” “Seven weeks. Eight weeks. I don’t know.” “Gwen, listen.” She sounds more pragmatic than she has ever been before. “Noah’s your husband, your next-of-kin. He’s right there, in Norwich. Your mum’s in London. I’m in London. This is a medical emergency, and he should know. I’ll call your mum. But first, I’m calling Noah.” No, don’t, I want to say, but I’m too tired, and I hurt, and the flow of liquid between my thighs is now a relentless, unstoppable stream. “When you put the phone down, call the hospital, tell them you’re having vaginal bleeding, and suspect a threatening miscarriage. Get them to send an ambulance. Right away. I’m going to call Reception and tell them what’s happening. And Gwen, don’t worry.”
Two days later I return home in my boss Stephen’s car. I had called him the day before, and told him I was in the hospital. I’ll be discharged tomorrow. Could you pick me up, Stephen? Of course, he had replied instantly. Stephen’s wife, Valerie, holds my hand tightly in the back seat. Neither Stephen nor Valerie venture to ask why Noah isn’t the one picking me up. They know that something’s not right, but they are too polite to pry. I tell them Emma is with my mum in London. My frantic mother called Noah immediately after Simone’s call. Noah told my mother about the miscarriage on the phone. But left out everything else in between. Noah is not in. The house is empty when Stephen and Valerie help me up the stairs. It is a working day. Perhaps he is at work. Or, perhaps he is with Kathy. I call my mother. She picks up on the first ring. “Gwen. Oh, God, Gwen. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m at home. I was discharged today.” My mother starts to cry. “I was so worried. Simone called and I called Noah and he told me — oh, here’s Emma — it’s Mummy, darling — ” Emma’s voice comes on the phone. “Happy Birthday, Mummy!” My heart lifts and breaks at the same time. “Thank you, pumpkin.” “Did Daddy get you a birthday present?” I inhale sharply. But Emma is chattering on. “I told Daddy in the train but he was busy looking at his phone and I fell asleep and he called Grandma yesterday and I told him to remember your birthday present and he went all quiet and he said he had to go and his voice sounded funny so did Daddy?” she says, all in one breath. “Did Daddy what?” “Give you a birthday present?” “Oh, he did, pumpkin. Mummy got such a big surprise,” I fight to keep my voice light. “Are you having fun with Grandma?” “Yes, I miss you, Mummy. I want to come home, but Grandma says you’re tired because you’ve been working so hard and you need lots and lots and lots and lots of rest.” Her voice perks up. “I got you a pwetty present, Mummy.
Grandma and me went all over looking for it. Grandma got you a present too! It’s an oily painting!” Emma sings Happy Birthday to me over the phone, her voice high and sweet. I close my eyes and for an instant, and then for a moment, I’m holding my daughter again — holding her before her first day of nursery school, holding her in the swimming pool on our vacation in Spain, cuddling her in the park, watching the first snowflakes fall from the sky. Her heart beating against my own, a beat apart, a continuous drumline, blood surging through us both. And I love her, I miss her, I love her so much it is all I can do not to break down and cry into the phone: Mummy misses you so much. Please come home. Please. Mummy needs you so much. Now, more than ever. I lie in bed, one of those thick sanitary pads between my legs. The hospital scene replays in my head, and I’m too tired to fight it; it’s easier to let it in. I felt something glide out of me when they were wheeling me to a room.
Like a slippery eel slipping smoothly out between my legs. It didn’t hurt at all. I told the nurse, and she didn’t say a word, she just lifted the sheet covering me and checked down there, and then she said to me, her eyes warm with compassion, It looks like a sizeable piece of tissue has been discharged. Then she added, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to say. I was numb. So I closed my eyes. I heard later from a doctor that Noah had come alone to the hospital, and that he had caused a ruckus when he was told that I had no wish to see him, nor speak to him. I can’t describe what happened, but anyway, he was there, and when he refused to leave, security was called in, and he was escorted off the hospital premises. Now, I look at the lab report I came home with. They have a medical term for my miscarriage: Spontaneous Abortion.
The gynaecologist had told me in the hospital later — after all the procedures they had put me through — that mine had been a complete abortion; all the tissues of conception had left my body. Nothing remained of that fledging bud that had lived in me for eight short weeks. He or she was whisked away before I had a chance to say goodbye, too tiny to be returned to me in an urn or a coffin. I’d like to think that whoever it was that was in charge of the disposal — such a cold, cruel word —- said a prayer, at least. When I lay the report down, my cheeks feel wet, and when I touch them, I realise I am crying. I get up, open a drawer, and I push the report inside, deep. And then I close it. I go to the bed and sit in the centre of it. I cry, and then I wipe my tears with the heels of my hands, and I cry again. I think I might never stop crying, but eventually my sobs cease. I lie there, an empty vessel. I close my eyes. The mist stretches before me; blurring, shifting. Emma takes my hand. I blink my eyes open. Outside it is dark and the stars have come out. I have slept for many hours, a dreamless, black sleep that does nothing to alleviate the oppressive heaviness in my heart. Something has woken me.
I raise my head. There it is again. A knock. And another. “Gwen,” Noah says hoarsely through the locked door. “Please, open up. Please. Don’t shut me out.” His voice breaks on a sob. “Please, let me in. Please, talk to me.” I could choose to ignore him. Bury my head under a pillow and wait for him to leave. But — —- I can’t quite quell this niggling feeling at the back of my mind that there is more to this whole sordid episode. I remember the shopping bags, the obsessive flossing, the aftershave, the new shirts, the garish pink ties. Kathy the Night Nanny is a simple, homely girl. She dresses in old jeans and tee shirts. I doubt she would have a fondness for Ted Baker designer men’s wear. She mentioned to me once that she felt intimidated by branded stores. Couldn’t wait to get out fast enough, she had brayed, flashing her crooked, tea-stained teeth and a gap where a molar used to be. I reckon I’m the kind of girl that’s happiest at Primark. Kathy is not The only Other Woman.
She was probably a sidedish, a mere appetizer. The Big Fish, the Shark, the Whale, the Catch of the Day (and Night), whatever — is still swimming out there. Somewhere. I am going to reel her in. Here, in this room of truths, I will unmask Noah’s Other Other Woman. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and unlock the door. Noah’s face is white and his eyes are strained and wretched. “Oh, Gwen,” he says hoarsely. “Thank you. I thought you were never going to talk to me again.” “Don’t tempt me.” I step aside, and motion for him to come in. He takes one hesitant step, then another. He stops, looks at me. He looks lost. “Sit,” I say. As if I were talking to a dog. He shuffles obediently toward the bed. “No. Not there.” He stops. “There.” I point to the armchair. It’s a pretty floral-covered armchair that we bought from Ikea last Christmas. We were happy then. We were a family then. My heart clenches. The rage returns. I’ll get rid of the fabric cover, I think. Noah sits gingerly on the armchair. Looks hopefully at me. Like a little boy who has done something he knows is wrong, caught with his hand in the candy jar. Or two candy jars: one grubby hand in each. My blood starts to boil.
That helpless, sad look on Noah’s cheating face is doing him no favours. You…little… On second thought, I’m going to burn the armchair. This dirty prick could be riddled with a hundred STDs. Better to be safe than sorry. “So talk,” I say, folding my arms across my chest. It is a defensive move, but in my case, it is to stop myself from throttling him where he sits, fidgeting, squirming under my stare. Noah Mitchell, the accused, found guilty of his crime: Premeditated Cheating. Noah gulps, inhales shakily. “How are you?” he chokes. Are you kidding me? “Never better,” I say. He flinches, as if I have struck him. “I’m so sorry, Gwen — ” I hold up a hand. “Let’s stop with the lies, shall we?” I say in what I hope is a flat, detached tone of voice. “I wasn’t lying — ” he begins hotly, leaning forward, but I cut in: “Let’s start with the basics. So how long have you been cheating on me?”