‘Jonathan?’ She looked at me desperately, but I refused to engage with her, refused to let her play her games. At long last I’d finally managed to prevent her from having any more power over me, ever again.

  She had no choice but to turn around to leave the room, everyone watching her. As she opened the door I heard one of the older patients tut and repeat Mum’s verdict with a muttered: ‘For shame!’

  I felt sick with relief. They believed me.

  Thank God. Everyone could see I was telling the truth.

  * * *

  Why did I choose Shahid Khan as a name? I didn’t. I just picked up a form off the floor and pretended to be someone else, so I could have the opportunity to safely ask her to leave me alone. I knew she wouldn’t be able to go crazy in a full surgery. That’s all.

  Yes, I still have the pay-as-you-go phone. I can’t prove the messages on it come from her. That was kind of the point in the first place. I doubt very much she has hers any more. She’s not that stupid. But my phone definitely exists. The number is 07887— call it right now if you like? It’ll ring. It’s genuine.

  I also want to make the point she was safe from me. I had no intention of going to the surgery to hurt her. I’ve told the truth. What kind of person would I be to have made everything up?

  What kind of person could even suggest that I had?

  Part 2

  The Aftermath

  15

  Rob

  Five days after the General Medical Council began to gather their statements, the first news story appeared. As Al was still suspended and there was no detail on the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Services website about the investigation at all, it was obvious that someone directly involved had leaked the story.

  Admittedly, a whole room full of patients had heard that bastard Gary Day publicly accuse my wife of ‘sexually assaulting’ their son, but none of them would have known anything more than that. The level of detail that appeared in the press, however, was astonishing, and Alex fell apart.

  ‘Oh my god. Oh my god,’ was all she could say, over and over again, staring at one of the articles on my laptop screen, as we both sat at the kitchen table after I’d dropped the girls off at school. She’d been sleeping so badly she was pale as anything anyway, but looking at the accompanying photo of herself in a tiny dress outside the club in Ibiza, clutching a drink – helpfully lifted from Stef’s Facebook page – she went actually white. It was the first time I understood what seeing the blood drain from someone’s face really meant.

  ‘I look like an old slag, someone who does this sort of thing all the time.’ She put her head in her hands and stared at herself. ‘When in fact I had to buy something new to wear because I don’t even own any going out clothes any more.’

  ‘You don’t look like a slag at all. You look lovely,’ I said truthfully.

  She didn’t hear me and turned instead to the headline:

  40-YEAR-OLD FAMILY DOCTOR DISCIPLINED FOR AFFAIRS WITH PATIENTS IS SUSPENDED AFTER ADMITTING TO SEX IN IBIZA WITH 17-YEAR-OLD

  She read aloud, then continued in disbelief;

  A GP who married one of her patients after having an affair with him, has been suspended pending a full investigation into a second allegation of misconduct. Dr Alexandra Inglis, of Crowborough, East Sussex received a warning when her relationship with a married patient was anonymously reported to the GMC, but now Dr Inglis faces allegations of conducting a sexual relationship over a three-month period with a second patient, aged seventeen years old.

  Jonathan Day, now eighteen years of age, has waived his right to anonymity. Day insists that while the relationship was initially consensual, after it ended, Dr Inglis encouraged Day’s mother to receive a home visit for a minor medical aliment, enabling Dr Inglis to gain entry to the family home where she is said to have ‘shoved’ Day’s girlfriend ‘violently’.

  Alex looked up at me, horrified. ‘Firstly, how about pointing out I met you eight years ago, rather than making out this all happened yesterday, plus – a three-month relationship? That’s just a blatant lie, and I didn’t encourage his mother to do anything of the sort or shove his stupid little girlfriend.’ She scanned the rest of the article, stunned. ‘They’ve referenced the weekend in Ibiza, David witnessing him kissing me at work, that weekend he supposedly came here, they’ve quoted Gary Day and there’s a huge picture of him too.’

  She pushed the laptop away from her and started to visibly shake.

  ‘Hey!’ I said, quickly moving my chair to get up and put my arm round her. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘It’s not OK.’ She went completely rigid at my touch and, thrown, I quickly removed my arm. ‘Everyone will see this. Our families, friends, colleagues, people I barely know, complete strangers – but most of all, what about Maisie and Tilly? This is going to be there forever now. What do I say when they’re old enough to find this? When their friends look at it and know what I’ve done?’

  ‘But you didn’t do it. Not what he says you did.’

  She closed her eyes, barely moving – as if undergoing an invasive medical procedure so painful all she could do was wait for it to be over. ‘I had no idea who he was. I swear.’

  I didn’t know what to say, and as I sat there unable to make it go away for her, or fix it, the now familiar feelings of powerlessness, rage and guilt began to burn within me. This was all my fault – and his.

  ‘Rob.’ She opened her eyes suddenly and looked at me, desperately. ‘You still believe me, don’t you?’

  I stared at the mother of my children and the woman I had fallen in love with on sight ten years ago. ‘Of course I believe you.’

  And I do.

  There are some messed up things that can happen in life – I’m not oblivious to the fact that some people find themselves going through truly horrendous experiences when literally the day before their lives were totally normal – but if anyone had told me Alex would one day walk in through our front door and announce that she’d been publicly accused of sexually abusing a vulnerable seventeen-year-old boy, I would have laughed. Not because it’s funny, but because it is so offensively ridiculous. When it actually happened and she said the words out loud, waiting, terrified, for my reaction, I didn’t even have to think about it. I got to my feet, walked over to her, and I held her while she cried.

  My wife is not what you would call a shy, retiring person. She’s outspoken, and what she would say is standing up for what’s right, other people might describe as being bolshy. I know she can appear unlikeable. Our first landlord ended up serving notice on us after Alex got into a heated argument with him about a faulty fridge he hadn’t fixed as fast as Al thought he should have. I’ve watched her have confrontations with restaurant, shop and hotel managers, listened to numerous draft complaint letters to the council, a window company and our bank, and not said anything when she’s threatened legal action over, among other things, a pair of faulty shoes.

  But my wife is also genuinely one of the kindest, most generous people I have ever met. Being a doctor, friends of hers often ask her for ‘informal’ advice. That can range from expecting her to diagnose their kids’ rashes over the phone, to wanting her to dispense advice when they’re worried their children’s behavioural problems are in fact the first signs of autism. She gets texts at all hours, and I’ve never known her not call anyone back because she was too tired to deal with it after a long day at work. When she asks people how they are, they actually tell her. Warts and all, as well as at great length, but she always listens. If one of her friends called in the middle of the night needing her, she would go. Without question.

  There aren’t, however, anywhere near as many people she talks to about things that bother her. She would say that’s because she’s a private person, but it’s more about her finding it hard to open up, because she doesn’t feel comfortable relying on people. Her father ran up thousands of pounds worth of debt behind her mother’s back, and it only came to light when he did a bunk, leaving Alex’s mum to sort everything out, with Alex’s help. They almost lost the house. Alex got used – fast – to having to sort things out for herself and as a result is a very competent person, who is now often mistaken for being strong to the point of invincibility. Her self-reliance can also come across as arrogance when she gets frustrated with people not doing things as fast as she could do them herself – just as her difficulty with trusting people can appear as aloofness to people who don’t know her well. But she let me in. In spite of the fact that she knew how much she was risking the second we crossed the line and kissed, she overrode her instincts.

  ‘All of my friends have warned me that if you’ll cheat on your wife with me, one day you’ll cheat on me too.’ She’d looked up worriedly as she lay in my arms in her bed after the first time we slept together. She was understandably afraid of getting hurt as well as the risk to her career and who could blame her? I didn’t think about Bella’s feelings when I slept with Alex. I knew I was going to devastate Bel and I did it anyway. Bella and I were childhood sweethearts. We’d long outgrown each other and reached the point where we either split up or got married. We went the wrong way and got married. That was our only mistake.

  I knew the second I met Alex that she was the one. She always has been, and she always will be. I explained all of that to Alex as we lay there in her bed and added: ‘I will never cheat on you like this with anyone else, and I will never leave you. I promise.’

  And while I know how pathetic it sounds to say I kept my promise – because when I slept with Hannah it was just sex and it meant less than nothing – I honestly believe it’s true. I had, and still have, no feelings for Hannah whatsoever. I don’t even particularly like her as a person. I made a mistake – but it’s scarily easy to do.

  Sorry, but it is. It’s easy to find yourself getting pissed much too quickly when you’ve got kids and you never get to go out. You’re overexcited to be out in a real-life pub, you start acting like you’re on day release and neck drinks on the company card that you don’t have the tolerance for any more. The alcohol kicks in and you start to feel invincible and reckless. You remember how funny you used to be, you’re enjoying yourself immensely and everyone is having a great old time. Then someone in particular appears at your elbow, laughing and smiling up at you. She’s pretty and acts like you’re amazing. She touches your arm, and you jump like it’s an electric shock because you don’t get touched much these days. Not like that anyway.

  Your wife is so tired when she comes to bed that if you turn over to hug her, she wriggles away and says she just needs five minutes peace to herself to read her book, so you wait, but you’re knackered too and by the time she turns the lights off you’re already pretty much asleep – which you can’t help thinking was your wife’s aim all along. You might try to talk to her about it for the hundredth time – tell her you want things to be different, you need to make time for each other… and she will respond that she has a really demanding job, two small children and she’s ‘giving’ all the time. What she really wants – rather than being told her marriage is in trouble and only a shag can fix it – is to be kissed and hugged a bit more? Paid attention to? Supported?

  Which is confusing and pretty fucking irritating because the last time you did all of that, you were told to get off, because she was reading.

  ‘So maybe don’t just hug or kiss me when we’re in bed?’ she might suggest, an edge creeping into her voice when you bring it up again while she’s clearing up after tea and you’re about to go and run the kids’ bath.

  Again, baffling. ‘But that’s the only time we have together. You’re either at work, or we’re with the kids, or one of us is at the gym.’ Then one of your children will come in and announce they need a wee before your wife has the chance to answer.

  So, when you are accidentally touched by this girl in the pub who thinks you’re really funny and because pretty much any kind of physical contact turns you on, as she tells you a story, you will lean in a little closer to hear properly. It’s much louder in the pub now, more raucous. She touches you again, this time her hand stays resting on your arm. Blood begins to pump. You can feel her warm breath on your skin and smell her perfume. You find yourself wondering what it would be like to kiss her. She says she’s going outside for a smoke, and you’re pissed enough now to realise you really fancy a fag, even though you gave up years ago.

  Once you’re standing in the warm, summer night air and dragging on the cigarette, London at night suddenly feels like a place that belongs to Bond – all glamour and shimmering possibility, rather than the late trains and limp lunchtime sandwiches of your usual daytime routine. She’s chatting away as someone pushes past her on the street and accidentally knocks her into you. You reach out to catch her, shout abuse at the stranger already out of earshot, look down at her to ask if she’s all right as she looks up at you wide-eyed like you actually are Bond, then all of a sudden you’re kissing, you’re in a taxi, you’re pushing in through the front door of her flat, you’re fumbling with clothes, gasping on the bed… and then it’s over and a possibility no more – just a sickening reality. You’ve fucked everything up forever for one throwaway moment of physical release.

  You think about your wife and kids and you shrivel away and die inside. Fully dressed and in the cab on the way home, you numbly stare at the text your wife sent you hours ago saying

  Hope you have fun! Don’t drink too much! xxx

  and you realise you’ve just traded eight years of fidelity to become a man of the moment – the person you promised you would never be – a serial cheater.

  But because you haven’t fucked up quite enough, the following morning, you actually tell your wife what you did the night before, because you’re a gutless shit who hasn’t got the balls to live with the guilt of what he’s done and keep his mouth shut. You want your wife to make even this OK. So you tell her, and you watch her heart break in front of you and no matter how many times you say you’re sorry, you keep coming into a room to find her in tears. She is by turns both devastated – and furious. She goes out and gets drunk herself. In Ibiza, miles away from the hurt you’ve caused her – looking for some reassurance and revenge all of her own.

  Once the initial shock of Alex’s confession – and my confusion when she told me who he was – had worn off, I became very realistic about the impact of my behaviour on her actions. I deserved what she did in Ibiza – it was my own fault. But she does not deserve people telling lies about her. Especially not people who have already taken advantage of her and tried to manipulate her to their own end.

  Alex stood up suddenly, interrupting my ever-deepening, drilling spiral of loathing for the Day family, wrapped her arms around herself and said: ‘I think I’m going to go and have a lie down, and you’ve got to get on with some work anyway, so…’ She glanced at the kitchen clock reading 9.05 a.m.

  ‘Do you want me to bring you a cup of tea?’

  She hesitated. ‘I’ll make one before I go up. Do you want one too?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ I pulled my laptop round to face me as she reached for the kettle and began to fill it.

  I stared at the photo of Jonathan Day, also accompanying the news item, fixating on the now-familiar eyes staring back at mine; the foppish brown hair, faintly amused smile and clean-shaven chin. They’d lifted the shot from his Instagram feed; it was one I’d already seen. I had become obsessed with looking at the boy that had offered the open arms for my wife to fall into, laced with a very real desire to smash his fucking face in. It was a complicated mix of emotions.

  I was starting to feel like I almost knew him myself, I’d now read so many social media posts of his and looked at so many photos. It wasn’t that I was trying to see what had attracted Alex to him, that was blindingly obvious: youth, muscles, classic good looks – all qualities I was well aware I didn’t possess any more. I was searching for answers behind that smug little smile: why had he told such blatant lies? What was in it for him? ‘Do you think he’s fallen in love with you?’ I’d asked my wife.

  She’d looked confused. ‘I can’t see that he can have, to be doing this to me?’

  ‘You say that, but it’s very successfully keeping him linked to you, isn’t it? He’s still part of your life – connected to you – albeit in a very messed up way.’

  She shook her head. ‘He started all of this because he thought I was going to tell everyone he’d tried to blackmail me into having sex with him.’

  ‘Exactly. You’d have to be desperate to sleep with someone to do that. He’s in love with you. Or whatever his version of that is.’

  ‘No. He attacked to defend. He got in there first with his own far more shocking story, but it snowballed. Now, he – or just as likely his horrible parents – has spotted an even bigger opportunity: fame.’

  That startled me. I hadn’t considered that. Jonny boy made for an arresting photo, that’s for sure, and the more papers that picked up the story, the bigger the accompanying pictures of him became. I obviously wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stop staring at him, but as I noticed his social media numbers beginning to soar, I realised Alex was absolutely right. Whatever his reason for starting this, Jonathan Day had now found a platform, something that was getting him noticed and making him stand out among a lot of other good-looking eighteen-year-old boys searching for a space in a crowded market. Now he’d created his fifteen minutes, he wasn’t going to waste it. It became clear to me that the whole thing had become a massive publicity stunt – with him as the star and Alex collateral damage. In my much darker moments I felt a fool for having wondered if they had been sleeping together for three months and if that explained why Alex had stopped being interested in having sex with me? He had made even me momentarily wonder if she’d done it, when I KNEW Alex wasn’t that person. Bottom line: her version of events made sense and was plausible. His didn’t, and wasn’t.

 

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