It’s Not Me, It’s You. Mhairi McFarlane

something, Dee.’ He sounded gratifyingly shaky.

      ‘What am I supposed to say? And don’t call me Dee.’

      Silence. Apart from the clatter of Parsnip’s unclipped toenails on tiles, as he skittered back from the kitchen and settled into his basket in the hallway.

      She was expected to open this conversation?

      ‘How did it start?’

      Paul stared at the fireplace. ‘She came into the bar one night.’

      The same way I did, Delia thought.

      ‘When?’

      ‘About three months ago.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘We got chatting.’

      There was a pause. Paul had a cardiac arrest pallor again. It looked as if giving this account was as bad as the original discovery. Good.

      ‘You got chatting, and next thing you know, your penis is inside her?’

      ‘I never meant for this to happen, Dee … Delia. It’s like some nightmare alternate reality. I can’t believe it myself.’

      ‘How did you end up shagging her?!’ Delia screamed and Paul almost started with fright. Offstage, Parsnip gave a small squeak. Paul put his glass down with a bump, and his palms together in his lap.

      ‘She kept coming in. We flirted. Then there was a Friday lock-in, with her friends. She came and found me when I was bottling up. I knew she liked me but … it was a total shock.’

      ‘You had sex with her in the store cupboard?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘You did, didn’t you?’

      ‘No, I absolutely didn’t,’ Paul said, without quite enough conviction, shaking his head. Delia knew the answer he wouldn’t give: not full sex. But more than a kiss. What Ann called mucky fumbles.

      ‘What’s her name?’

      ‘Celine.’

      A sexy name. A cool name. Celine created visions of some bobbed, Gitane-smoking Left Bank beauty in black cigarette pants.

      Oh God, this hurt. A fresh wound every time, as if she was being whipped by someone who knew exactly how long to leave the sting to burn before lashing again.

      ‘She’s French?’

      ‘No …’ He met her eyes. ‘Her mum likes Celine Dion.’

      If Paul thought he could risk cute ‘you’d like her, you’d be friends’ touches, with information that had come from pillow talk, Delia feared she’d get violent towards him.

      ‘How old is she?’

      Paul dropped his eyes again. ‘She’s twenty-four.’

      ‘Twenty-four?! That’s pathetic.’ Delia had never disliked her own age, but now she boiled with insecurity at the twenty-fourness of being twenty-four, compared to her woolly old thirty-three. She’d never worried that men liked younger women, and yet here they were, living the cliché.

      Twenty-four. One year older than Delia had been when she met Paul. He’d traded her in. Ten-year anniversary – time to find someone ten years younger.

      ‘How many times have you had sex?’

      Delia had never wondered if she was the kind of person who’d want to know nothing, or everything, when in this situation. Turned out, it was everything.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘So many you’ve lost track?’

      ‘I didn’t keep count.’

      ‘Same thing.’

      A pause. So much sex Paul couldn’t quantify it. She could probably tell him how many times they’d slept together this year, if she thought about it.

      ‘Where did you have sex with her?’

      ‘Her house. Jesmond. She’s a mature student.’

      Delia could picture it; she’d lived there as a student too. Lightbulb twisted with one of those metallic Habitat garlands that looked like a cloud of silvered butterflies. Crimson chilli fairy lights draped like a necklace across the headboard. Ikea duvet. Bare bodies underneath it, giggling. Groaning. She felt sick again.

      ‘How did you hide it? I mean, where did I think you were?’

      To have had no idea was genuinely startling. She’d always been so proud of the trust between her and Paul. ‘All that opportunity, aren’t you ever worried?’ some women used to say. And she’d laugh. Not in the slightest. Cheating wasn’t something they did.

      ‘I’ve been leaving work earlier some nights. Delia, please, can we …’ Paul put his face in his hands. Hands that had been in places she’d never imagined.

      She looked down at her special anniversary dress with the dragonflies. She and Paul shared a home, a wavelength, a pet, a past. They were always honest, or so she thought. Any passing fancies on either side were running jokes between them, and could be admitted in the safety of knowing there was no real risk. There was leeway, trust, a long leash. Paul and Delia. Delia and Paul. People aspired to have what they had.

      ‘What’s she like in bed?’ Delia said.

      ‘Can we not …?’

      ‘Can we not be having this awkward conversation about all the times you’ve had sex with someone else? That relied on you, not me, didn’t it?’

      She felt as if Paul had let an intruder into their lives, a third person into their bed. It was a total, bewildering, senseless betrayal from the one person she was supposed to be able to count on. Why? She didn’t want to question herself – it was Paul who should face interrogation – but she couldn’t help it.

       Would it have been different if I’d been different? Made you feel less secure? Lost a stone? Gone out more? Gone on top more often?

      ‘When it started, it was like an out-of-body experience,’ Paul said, and Delia opened her mouth to say something about it surely being a very in-body experience, and so Paul rattled on fast. ‘It was disbelief at what I was doing, that I even could do it. I wasn’t looking for it, I swear. You and I, we’re so solid …’

      ‘We were,’ Delia corrected him, and Paul looked anguished.

      ‘And – I don’t know what happened. It was as if all of a sudden I’d crossed a line and there was no going back. I hated myself but I couldn’t stop.’

      Yeah, they’d come back to that, the stopping, Delia thought.

      ‘What’s she like in bed?’ Delia persisted.

      Paul squirmed.

      ‘I’ve never compared.’

      ‘Start now.’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘Was she like me?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘So, different?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘Better?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Would you tell me if she was?’

      ‘… I don’t know. But she isn’t.’

      ‘Is this something you’ve wanted for a while?’

      ‘No! God, no. It just happened.’

      ‘It doesn’t happen. You make a decision to do something like that for a reason. I mean, other women must’ve come on to you and you’ve said no? You told me you did.’