Monique Roffey - With the Kisses of His Mouth

Monique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and educated in the UK. Since then she has worked as a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation and has held the post of Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Sussex and Chichester universities. She is the author of the highly acclaimed novels sun dog and The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010.

Monique currently lives in London, where she spends most of the day in her pyjamas, writing. You can read more about her at: www.moniqueroffey.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2011
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright Monique Roffey, 2011

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.

The right of Monique Roffey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN: 978-0-85720-429-5
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84737-722-7
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85720-256-7

Andromeda Heights words and music by Paddy Mcaloon 1995,
reproduced by permission of EMI Songs Ltd, London W8 5SW

This is a work of non-fiction. The names of some people and some details have been changed to protect the privacy of others. The author has warranted that, except in such minor respects not affecting the substantial detail of events, the contents of this book are accurate.

Typeset by M Rules
Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD

for love is strong as death
The Song of Songs

For Demara and Rosie,
women of the light

the letter bomb

The night before, for the first time, wed talked seriously about splitting up. For months thered been stalemate: rows followed by long silences, followed by rows. Wed even tried counselling together and then hed started seeing a therapist alone, a bad sign. One by one, in sworn secrecy, Id confided in my closest girlfriends about our problems. Id even told my mother what was going on a very bad sign. Even so, facing the reality of the loss had brought on an onslaught of gut-churning dread and anguish. It was, after all, my fault. I knew this. It was me whod ruined it all, months back, by admitting, finally, that I was restless; our relationship had been mostly celibate for some time.

I wept all night. Ours was an affair of the heart. He was my twinned universe and our years together had been rich, eventful, loving and romantic. Now, all this felt long gone, ruined. The split was upon us, it was happening. How? Waves of grief washed over me, tears of disbelief. He slept on the sofa downstairs.

The next morning, we sat at the breakfast table in a wordless state. My face was red and crumpled. It was dawning on me that hed been assessing the situation with a clearer head, thinking it all through: he knew this was pre-split time, a grim but necessary part of any relationship to be endured. This had happened to him before, with two ex-wives. He was conducting these hours with what seemed to be a newfound steeliness. Hed come to his own stopping point maybe even months before. Now he only had to negotiate this dreadful time, not look me in the eye. I suspected hed made plans of where and what hed do next.

He made us coffee and toast. There was unopened mail on the table, including a brown manilla envelope with my name and address typed on it. It had been lying on the table for over a week while Id been away visiting my family in Trinidad. Bleary-eyed, over coffee, I picked up the envelope and began to tear at the flap. He sat opposite, expressionless, attempting to read the newspaper. We were in pyjamas and slippers, dressing gowns; neither of us was good in the mornings.

I had so many things to say to him but nothing came. My body was weak from the sleepless night; my nerves prickled, like sugar in my veins. The thought of actually parting from this man, from our way of life, brought a feeling of mortal threat. I would die; surely Id die if this happened.

I pulled the papers out of the envelope. Three or four A4 sheets of blue handwritten scrawl and a thicker sheaf of printed-out emails. I took a sip of coffee and began to read the letter. At first it made no sense at all.

Dear Monique, Please sit down; I have something shocking to say.

The letter was from a woman I didnt know. She claimed shed had a passionate affair with my partner. She had fallen in love with him and he had rejected her. She was writing to tell me all about it.

I sagged in the chair. A small atomic explosion went off in every cell. What on earth was this all about?

The letter went on to tell me how theyd first met, where and when. Shed left her husband over this affair, had become so distressed that she had even stopped eating. She had thought of coming to our home personally, to tell me what had been going on. She wanted me to know what kind of man I was living with.

I looked up at him, suddenly cold. His head was still buried in the newspaper. It was then my heart broke. My eyes filled. I couldnt say a word. I looked down at the letter in my hands. There were emails too: emails from him to her.

The emails were proof of her claims. I managed to read fragments of them, but the shock made them blur. Hed promised to be with her. Hed fallen in love with her I saw that written too. Hed promised her that hed leave me, to be with her: wait for me, wait for me. But hed reneged on his promises. So shed decided he wouldnt get away with hiding their love affair.

In her letter, she said as much. Briefly, I was able to take all this in. She wanted to make her presence known, wanted her status fully acknowledged. She was doing what we, so far, had been unable to do. She was parting us.

I stared at him, hands shaking. What the fuck is this?

What? He hadnt seen what Id pulled from the envelope.

This woman... has written to me. About your affair.

He looked up and stared. His face paled.

What the fuck has been going on? I rose from the table. I stood tall then, tall and on the verge of a wildness Id never known.

His mouth fell open. I can explain...

Look! I shouted. I began to read from the letter. Terrible words were emerging from my mouth, amazing sentences. To me these words were violent, awesome. Like being walloped by lightning, like being run over by a truck. Overturned and bulldozed into the ground. She knew I was asthmatic! Knew about my novel, sun dog; had read it, even. She knew the hours I worked, when she could call him freely. She loved him, she said. And hed rejected her. Hed ended the affair months ago, but she was still miserable.

Look! I screamed again. I began to read from the emails too.

No, he begged. Dont read them. Theyre poison. Theyve been edited.

I dont fucking care!

Through a maelstrom of tears, I read scraps of the emails aloud. Im only with Mon for career reasons. Hed been planning to join her, to be with her. Then hed got cold feet. There was a flow of lust and fantasy in those emails, how much he wanted her. I stare at your photo, I want to make you pregnant. In those moments, I saw a picture of the affair, a proper full-blown wild and ardent love affair that had been raging alongside my own relationship for how long? I didnt know and I didnt care when it had ended. Right then, the details didnt matter. I hadnt understood why our relationship was limping quite so badly, what had caused things to be so irreparable at that moment it all added up. Hed already left our relationship. Hed stepped outside of it, gone elsewhere some time ago.