The Resident Page 2

  She smiled grimly, what were the odds of her catching him on the first occasion of his infidelity to her? Astronomical, she supposed. His betrayal of her was probably as mundane to him as a trip to the supermarket. Get up. Eat breakfast. Kiss your departing wife goodbye as she leaves for work. Write your novelist’s quota of words for the day. Fuck the pretty blonde from the tennis club. He had probably been doing it for months. Maybe he had done it from the very start of their marriage and just never bothered, despite their vows, to stop.

  She almost turned around and went back into the house. It was instinct, of course. It was what you did in times of trouble: you yearned for home and the consoling arms of the one you loved. But there was no consolation there; only treachery and humiliation. Her husband had proved himself a deceitful stranger. She could no longer call this place a home.

  Where would she go? What would she do? To whom would she turn? She moved her loosened molar with the tip of her tongue and wondered whether she might lose it. But what was the loss of a tooth? She had just lost a marriage.

  Sobbing, she limped to the end of the block, fumbling in her pocket for her cell phone and called Sydney. Sydney wasn’t just a colleague, she was Juliet’s best friend. They shared the same occupation and the same boss and the same sometimes insane demands on their time and professional skills.

  Despite the sluggish speed at which her mind was working, Juliet was processing what she had just experienced. It was a failure and humiliation that she’d prefer to keep private. But right now she didn’t have the strength to do that; she needed love and sympathy and Sydney was the one person in the world most willing and likely to be able to comfort her.

  She got voicemail. She garbled a message out between sobs. ‘I just caught Jack fucking a trophy blonde. They were in our home. They were in our bed.’

  She wiped tears from her eyes and kept on walking. She had no destination in mind, she just knew she had to get as far away from what she had just witnessed as she could.

  Her cell phone began to vibrate.

  ‘Hon?’

  ‘Sydney. Thank God.’

  ‘Tell me it isn’t true, Jules.’

  ‘I only wish I could.’

  ‘Get over to our place, now. Go there immediately.’

  ‘You’re on the late shift.’

  ‘And you know I won’t finish for a couple of hours. But I’ll call Mike and he will be there. He’s not perfect, but it’s better than walking the streets. You’ll stay with us tonight. You’ll stay with us for as long as you want to.’

  ‘It’s only three o’clock, Sydney. Mike can’t just walk out of the office.’

  ‘He’s the boss there, babe. Of course he can. He’s the man in charge. And you know perfectly well he’ll do whatever I tell him to.’

  There was a bad moment a few seconds after Juliet broke the connection when he almost stumbled into a woman on the sidewalk wheeling a stroller while she shepherded a small boy on a toy scooter. Juliet mumbled an apology. The woman smiled at her cheerfully. She looks happy, Juliet thought. She looked like she was living the life Juliet had been expecting to live one day. Until now.

  Christ, Juliet. Pull yourself together. Before she got a cab to take her to Mike and Sydney’s brownstone miles away, she needed to compose herself. No cab driver would pick up someone looking the way she did right now. Swollen face, black eye, uncontrollable sobbing. They’d whizz right by her, refusing to be dragged into whatever trouble she was running away from.

  Mike knew. Juliet saw the pity and compassion in his eyes when he opened the door to her. She took in the familiar stocky shape of him and noticed that in his slightly careless, ramshackle way he had spilled something, probably a forkful of a hasty lunch that had left a stain dried on his shirtfront.

  Good old Mike, Sydney’s husband of five years, the father of the child shortly to be born to them, a man who tripped over shoelaces he had forgotten to tie and was apt to dip his shirt cuffs in the sauce at dinner. A shrewd and successful mess of a man who loved his wife and was honest and true and totally dependable.

  He tried, with an almost comic lack of success, to hide his shock at her battered appearance. Then he opened his arms to her and said, ‘Juliet, you poor honey.’ And she hugged him back gratefully and started to cry again, afraid this time that she might never be able to stop.

  Two

  FOR DAYS AFTER the discovery, Juliet was numb. Infidelity was the stuff of magazine features and trashy television shows, not for one moment during her time with Jack did it occur to her that it would apply to them. They were too much in love, the perfect couple. She had planned her life and her career with the utmost care, and to have it overturned in an instant was shattering.

  ‘I don’t think I understand the rules any more, Sydney.’ Juliet was huddled in the corner of the sofa, while Sydney stretched out on the other with her feet resting on the arms, hands stroking her bump.

  ‘What rules, hon?’ Ever-sympathetic, Juliet was amazed Sydney still had the patience to listen to her.

  ‘The rules that tell you how to spot that your husband is screwing around. Shouldn’t I have guessed what he was doing? I mean, loads of women get these feelings when their husbands cheat, don’t they? They see it in the way they behave, or the way they dress, or even the way they get their hair cut. So why didn’t I spot it? How come I didn’t smell that woman’s vile perfume on him? How could I have missed it? Maybe I just wasn’t there enough to notice. I should have spent more time at home, taken more interest in his work.’

  ‘Come on, Juliet. You think it’s OK for him to go off and sleep with someone else because he’s not getting enough attention from you? You think he needs to be treated like a child?’

  ‘I don’t know, Syd. But I wasn’t around much. But then, maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it was just that he was bored of me. Maybe I’m boring? I haven’t even read his books, I don’t go to art exhibitions. I mean, men don’t cheat on interesting women, do they?’

  Sydney rolled her eyes. ‘Ain’t that the truth? I mean, take Sandra Bullock for example,’ she yawned extravagantly. ‘And that Hillary Clinton, have you ever tried having a conversation with her? Boring as hell. Come on, Jules, you know you’re talking crap. Jack’s a fool, and you’re an intelligent, successful, beautiful woman.’

  Juliet smiled sadly. ‘That wasn’t enough, though, was it? And I really should have seen it, Syd. I should have noticed Jack was unhappy and that woman was sniffing around. I should have made him want me, not her.’

  ‘OK, enough, Jules. Stop beating yourself up. This is your grieving time, but do not blame yourself for something he did.’

  ‘I know you’re right, but I thought he was my soulmate, the love of my life.’ Juliet fought back the ever-present tears before slapping her hand down hard on the arm of the sofa. ‘God, I hate being like this. It’s pathetic. Do me a favour. Next time I get like this just give me a kick.’ Juliet switched on a determinedly bright smile. ‘Anyway, I can’t hang around here for much longer. You and Mike need to make the most of your last few weeks of peace before life changes for ever. The last thing you need is me crying in the corner every time you turn around. From tomorrow I am going to walk the streets of New York until I find the apartment of my dreams.’

  Three days later, Jack called. Juliet was filling out an accident report at a desk at the hospital when the call came. Her eye was a mess by then, a pulpy riot of purple and blue that screamed domestic violence to anyone unacquainted with the facts. She was not concussed any more, though, which was a blessing because work was something she could lose herself in. Holstrom had been wary about taking her back but amenable. The challenge of finding a permanent home loomed like an unconquerable mountain at the back of her mind. For the moment, she was keeping it there.

  She felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket, took it out and saw the familiar number light up the display. She did not take the call. She did not, she realised with a sick pang in the pit of her stomach, despit
e her brave words to Sydney, have the strength at that precise moment to hear his voice.

  He called again later that afternoon, as she drank coffee which had no flavour and ate a sandwich curiously devoid of taste in the hospital canteen. It was quiet and the canteen lacked its usual metallic clamour of background noise. She walked out just the same, finding an empty room off the corridor outside in which to answer the phone in private. She felt strangely guilty for taking the call.

  ‘Leave me alone, Jack. You’ve done enough to upset me. Just leave me in peace.’

  ‘I didn’t think you cared.’

  ‘What? What did you just say?’

  ‘I didn’t think you cared.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus. Come on.’

  ‘I really didn’t think you cared about me. About us.’

  ‘So, what, Jack? You thought you may as well fuck someone else instead of bothering to talk to me? You think that’s an excuse for breaking your vows? Breaking us? Breaking me?’ Juliet hated herself, but she couldn’t stop the sob that echoed off the walls.

  ‘Jules, I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. I knew it as I was doing it. I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you like this.’ Jack sounded genuine, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to trust anything he said again.

  ‘Poor you, Jack. That must be so hard for you. God, what were you thinking? And with the Tennis Club Blonde? It’s such a fucking cliché. And for your information, I don’t care. Not any more.’ The hand holding the cell phone was shaking, but at least her voice was steady. She had that under control. To herself, despite what she felt, she sounded reasonably composed.

  ‘I would never have done it if I’d known you still had feelings for me,’ he said. ‘I only realised I mattered to you when I saw the look on your face at the house. I saw your pain. I will never forgive myself, Juliet, for inflicting that on you.’

  ‘You’re blaming me for your infidelity? That’s bullshit. Seriously, I can’t listen to this. It makes me sick to hear you pretending to be sorry. Because it’s clear you’re the one who didn’t care. Not about our marriage, and certainly not about the vows you swore when you took me as your wife.’

  ‘She means nothing to me.’

  ‘I’m grateful to her. If I hadn’t surprised you two together I might have spent years being cheated on. I owe her one.’

  ‘Juliet —’

  But the conversation was going nowhere. Juliet pressed the button on her phone, terminating the call. She went back into the canteen and her sandwich. She had no appetite, but she needed the food to keep going. She bit into the sandwich and chewed cautiously, noticing with relief that her gum seemed to be tightening its grip around her loosened molar again.

  During those early days of separation, in moments of weakness, Juliet would fantasise that this was a nightmare. That at any moment she would wake and find Jack sprawled beside her, tousled and gorgeous in sleep. Sometimes she even believed it, and went around the whole day waiting to wake up. Not caring what was happening because none of it felt real. Sometimes she feared her grip on reality was tenuous and that the pain of what had occurred, if she did confront it fully, would propel her towards breakdown.

  Thank God for her job. If she’d been in a less demanding profession, one that enabled her to drift off into her own world for hours at a time, she was sure she’d have lost it. Working flat-out on the front line of the medical profession meant that people depended on her every day, and if her concentration slipped for a moment it could be the difference between saving a life and losing one. But outside the hospital, without the adrenalin pumping through her, the life or death decisions, and the sheer exhilaration she sometimes felt when she performed well, life felt out of control. She had nowhere to live, no husband, no future outside her career. The breakdown of her marriage meant she had failed in one of her self-imposed life tests, and she could not think how to put it right. And she missed Jack. All the time.

  A fortnight passed. Then a fortnight almost imperceptibly became a month. At the end of that month, she agreed to a meeting with the lawyer Jack had engaged to help him deal with some of the administrative aspects of his commercial success, because although Juliet hadn’t managed to read one of his novels, there were plenty of others who had, and their numbers were increasing.

  As the only subjects Juliet had left to discuss with Jack concerned divorce and property, she couldn’t quite understand what his lawyer, who specialised in copyright, could have to say, but she met with Philip Beal because she wanted to keep things as amicable as possible. She really couldn’t handle any more animosity in her life.

  They met for lunch at an expensive restaurant; their table was on a terrace with a panoramic view. The lunch was on Philip. Or at least, Philip was picking up the check. Juliet assumed that Jack was actually paying and as she studied the menu, she experienced a moment of nostalgia for the time when she and Jack had met as struggling students and had gone happily Dutch on their modest evenings out together. They had been cheap, those occasions. And they had been intensely romantic and they were gone for ever, and leaving only bitterness in their wake.

  ‘He wants you to have the house,’ Philip said once they had dispensed with the small talk.

  ‘I don’t want it, I couldn’t live there now, Philip. He must know that. You would know it too if—’

  ‘I am aware of what happened,’ Philip said. He coloured. ‘Of the circumstances in which you became aware of his infidelity, I mean.’

  ‘I never want to see the house again. I have to move on with my life. I won’t return to the suburbs.’

  ‘Done with the commute?’

  ‘Done with the claustrophobia. And I seem to have developed an allergy to country clubs. Unless it’s just an allergy to their blonder members,’ Juliet said sardonically.

  Philip’s colour deepened. Obviously Jack had told him everything. The facts did not paint him in a favourable light. He could only have related them truthfully to his lawyer in an effort to try to achieve something. ‘What does he want, Philip?’

  ‘He wants reconciliation.’

  ‘Then he’s deluded.’

  ‘He still has very strong feelings for you.’

  ‘Evidently not strong enough.’

  ‘He won’t just give up.’

  ‘And he won’t succeed. So we have a stalemate, don’t we?’

  ‘I have the keys to the house in my pocket. He has moved out. He hopes to earn the right to move back in. In the meantime, he has asked me to give the keys to you.’

  Juliet laughed bitterly. ‘So the house is a bribe?’

  Philip shrugged. ‘A gesture,’ he said.

  ‘Tell him to sell it. When he eventually succeeds in doing so, we’ll divide the proceeds equally.’

  ‘He knows he’s the one at fault.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He feels he should be the one to lose out, as it were. The one to pay the penalty.’

  ‘He is paying the penalty, Philip. He’s losing out on me.’

  The words sounded a lot braver than she felt and she pondered them on her way back to her temporary home, a room not much bigger than a closet in Sydney and Mike’s apartment. They had originally had a spacious guest room there. But that had now been decorated as a combined bedroom/playroom for the baby. The birth was only weeks away and Juliet felt the imposition of her own presence in the apartment increasing by the day.

  Sydney and Mike were wonderful and generous and never made her feel unwelcome, but the impending birth and their excitement sometimes left her feeling lonelier than ever. The pressure to go was implicit in every soft toy and item of infant clothing the couple shopped for. It was only right that they enjoyed the adventure of parenthood in the privacy of a home shared only with their new daughter.

  ‘I’ll find a place to live tomorrow,’ she said to Sydney when she got back from her lunch with Philip Beal, just before she left for her night shift at the hospital.

  Sydney smiled at Juliet, putting her hand on her
growing bump and said, ‘Just like that?’

  ‘I know. It’s likely to be a struggle.’

  ‘It’s life and death, hon. Set your heart on anywhere specific?’

  ‘I’m done with the ’burbs. I want to live in Brooklyn.’

  ‘Then it’s not life and death. It’s far worse.’

  ‘I’ll find a place. I’ll have to.’

  Sydney was silent for a long moment. Then she said, ‘I think you will feel better when you do.’

  ‘It will be a relief,’ Juliet said.

  ‘Are we so difficult to live with?’

  ‘You’ve been sweethearts, both of you, I’ll always be grateful. And you know that. But I really need to find somewhere of my own.’

  ‘Security?’ Sydney said.

  Juliet shook her head. ‘Closure,’ she said.

  Three

  ON THE WAY to the hospital that evening, she stopped to buy a coffee at a small bodega outside the elevated subway station where she caught her train to work, as she had every day since she’d moved back into the city. She was preoccupied with the magnitude of the task facing her when she finished her shift. She really did intend to find a place to live. Whatever it took, she would look until the deal was done and she had the keys to the door in her hand.

  It was raining and she didn’t even notice the chaos of Brooklyn around her. The screech of cars braking abruptly, voices shouting above the traffic noise in the effort to be heard and music blaring in a harsh cacophony of competing rhythms washed over her. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she barely noticed two police officers sipping their own coffees as she slipped out of the bodega. She had walked only a few feet further on when a staccato burst of gunfire exploded twice in her ears from the direction of the place she had just left. Screams broke out around her, and she turned in shock, as a figure – male, young, Latin-American – blundered past the two cops and ran for an alley, reaching into his jacket before wheeling about and taking aim at the cops with what she assumed must be a handgun.