The Story After Us: A heartwarming tale of life and love for modern women everywhere

by Fiona Perrin

  Of course, I’d thought about it. In my always-present anger I sometimes thought about nothing else. The truth was, though, I still hoped that there was a route back to that incredible love from our early years and I felt fiercely that I had to do everything I could to keep our family – the fam – together, for the children – and for the dreams we’d shared.

  ‘If I give up hoping,’ I asked Liv, ‘what happens then?’

  She sighed. ‘I can’t watch you like this any more. It’s killing you. You’ve got to make him see that he needs to look after you as well as his bloody business.’

  ‘He thinks that looking after the future is looking after us,’ I said. ‘And you know, sometimes, when he’s here, it’s still OK – last Sunday we all had breakfast in our bed and it ended up in a tickling match.’ I knew I was desperately trying to find an example of how my marriage was still functioning. ‘He was home on Tuesday and we didn’t argue. Sometimes, you know, when he comes home and sleeps for ages, I climb in beside him and he wraps his arms around me and, then, it’s like the old Lars again.’

  ‘Come on,’ Liv said very gently. ‘You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself. What are you so afraid of? It can’t be being on your own, because you’ve been on your own so much. You could move on, meet someone else, be happy again, like you were with Lars in the beginning.’

  I wanted to tell her again how I would do everything I could to keep my family together, if it meant that we could give Tess and Finn the unfiltered, uncompromised love I’d always wanted myself from my own parents. That Lars and I had created a dream of what our lives would be and somehow, somehow, that still had to be possible.

  ‘I can’t imagine being with someone else, ever,’ I said and pulled the blanket up around my neck. I gestured towards the ceiling to indicate the kids. ‘And we’re still a family.’

  27

  2017

  I faced the man who was legally still my husband, knowing that I’d slept with someone else less than forty-eight hours ago. I hugged the life out of the exhausted kids, wrapping them up like babies and taking them to bed. As I came downstairs, however, there was Lars – unshaven and pale – in what had been his kitchen. He’d poured himself a glass of red wine and held one out to me.

  ‘You can’t just come and drink here now, you know,’ I said. ‘You should go.’

  ‘You look different,’ he said.

  ‘I had a facial at Champneys.’ I looked away from him as I took the glass.

  There was a pause before he said, ‘So all the papers are being sorted at your end?’

  ‘I can’t agree to anything financial until I find out if I still have a business – and we’re broke, Lars, really broke already. You’ll have to get some money out of your business.’ I lifted my glass to my mouth and smelt the memories of Friday night. I put it on the kitchen counter.

  Lars moved to the kitchen table and sat down as if I should come and sit opposite him. I stayed standing up.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘You know the thing with the kids nearly suffocating really shook me up.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Anyway, now we know what we have to do; we’ve got to keep a close eye on them while all this goes on. And Jenny is great – really good for them – and I’m at home much more. How were they this weekend?’

  ‘They were fine, but I kept watching them for signs they weren’t.’

  I knew what he was saying – I constantly watched for signs of trauma. Tess seemed better now she understood her living arrangements and Lars and I weren’t shouting at each other all the time, but I had still got us put on a waiting list for a child counsellor.

  ‘Didn’t Ulrika think that they might need a bath even if you didn’t?’ I went for a simpler subject. The kids had come back smelling musty and wearing clothes splattered in food.

  ‘Well, she did keep saying it in her way, but I never really seemed to get round to it – there wasn’t time… what with getting up and getting them dressed and then trying to get them out of the door and then coming back and everything… and all that eating they have to do, so I told her they’d had a bath on Saturday night when she went to a poetry thing.’ Lars looked wretched. ‘I know all you want to say is I told you so,’ he said with a half-smile. ‘Yes, I admit, it isn’t easy, but that’s because I’m not in my own house. They’re over-excited because it’s all new – and the little buggers just took advantage.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said then. ‘It’s been making me think.’

  ‘I’m a bit too tired for more thinking,’ I said. All I wanted was for him to go so I could be alone with my guilt.

  ‘I keep thinking about how you’ve said for so long that I wasn’t there for you and the kids – and then what could have happened to them.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. Now we were going to have this conversation?

  There was a silence before he said in a small bleak voice, ‘I’ve been blind. So single-minded that I nearly let my children get into danger. All I could think about this weekend is how Finn could’ve been killed.’

  ‘Yes.’ The horror of that pile of cushions hit me again. ‘It was my fault though – I was the one who was here and should have paid attention to the signs with Luba.’

  ‘No. With everything going on – all the arguments, the divorce, the trouble at work – I should have been here looking after them with you. And there I was stuck in Moscow because of a stupid web conference. Anyway, I was thinking about what you said when you were drunk on FaceTime.’

  I felt hot mortification again about begging him to stay with me. ‘Sorry about that.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘About whether we really have tried everything, I mean.’

  Hope and guilt crashed together inside me before landing with a thud of disbelief. He’d sat there with his spreadsheets and his dismissive manner; told me to get a lawyer. Now he spent a weekend alone with the kids and he wanted to try again? I gaped at him. ‘You feel guilty about the kids, so you come in here and say this now?’

  ‘Well, perhaps we should, you know, slow it down a bit.’ He stared at the wood of the table. Then he said in a gentle tone with a hint of sing-song I hadn’t heard for a very long time, ‘I know everything I said and what I did and I’m sorry. We can stop all of this before it’s too late. We can call it all off, give it another go. I can prove to you that I’m not the person you thought I was.’

  ‘Seriously, Lars.’ I picked up the glass of red wine and took a large gulp. I knew only that while I’d wanted to hear it, he had to mean it and, worse, I’d heard it all before in the years when he’d promised to try harder. A cold tear slid down my face. ‘A few weeks ago you called me some really terrible things and said you were leaving. You can’t just sit there and say you didn’t mean any of it.’

  And it’s too late.

  I’ve slept with someone else.

  I’ve broken the last taboo.

  I’m no longer yours.

  ‘I’ve been really angry with you for so long for not seeing my point of view,’ he said. ‘But then, in the last few days, all I can think about is that you’ve been right – I’ve been so focused on the company that I’ve forgotten what really matters. You and the kids. I want to do the right thing.’

  ‘I don’t want to be the right thing!’ I shouted. ‘We were in love, Lars. Really in love. You can’t replace that with doing the right fucking thing.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that… I’ve never stopped loving you. I think we’ve stopped liking each other over the last year or so and I know that that’s because you felt abandoned…’

  ‘You’re going to start telling me you’re going to change again, aren’t you?’

  Christ, he took me for a mug. I thought of all the promises he’d made when we’d done – as he’d put it – all that talking. ‘You promise the world and mean it for about two minutes and then you just forget we exist.’ A tear hung off my cheek. I sat down at the table after all. ‘You’re only saying
it now because you’ve had to look after the children all weekend and you can’t cope.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s not about the kids being difficult – it’s because being with them made me realise how much I miss you. Us. All of us. Together. I’m sorry for the things I said. I really am sorry.’

  I raised my eyes to the ceiling. ‘There is no “us” any more,’ I whispered.

  He tried to take my hand but I shrugged him off. ‘How can you be so cold to me?’

  ‘I’m frozen inside,’ I said and my voice was cold too.

  ‘Come on, you know we can make it.’ In the moment, he looked just like Finn trying to get me to agree to buy him a treat – sweets or chocolate.

  ‘If I compromise about everything and learn to live with you around only when you want to be.’ As I said them, the words were familiar to me because I’d said them – or versions of them – so often before. I’d spent many weeks now without any hope that we would get back together. In sleeping with someone else I’d effectively made it final.

  ‘I’ll be different.’ I felt only exhaustion as he spoke because I’d heard it all before.

  ‘Bollocks,’ I said. ‘Look, you’d better go. I don’t want to be having this conversation again. It’s gone too far. It’s too late.’

  ‘It’s not too late,’ Lars whispered. ‘Nothing has changed. We can go to counselling again.’

  ‘Everything has changed.’ My voice was low and sad. I can’t forgive you, now, I can’t. And you would never forgive what I’ve done either.

  ‘Like what?’ Lars looked directly at me. ‘Like what exactly?’

  ‘You hurt me so much.’ A bruise of a blush started to climb from my neck and up my chin; the more I tried to stop it, the more fierce and red it became. Still I told myself that I’d done nothing wrong.

  Lars stared intensely at me and then shook his head. ‘What’s going on, Ami?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing except that I’m not just going to forget everything that’s happened and let you come back into my life and hurt me all over again.’ I could feel my face getting hotter and brought my glass to my mouth to cover it.

  ‘Fy fan…’ Lars started shaking his head. ‘Fuck me. Is it really possible?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is there…?’

  ‘Is there what?’

  ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’ He jumped to his feet and started to pace around behind his chair.

  All I had to do was deny it. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘You’ve been seeing someone else.’ Lars’ voice was a whisper.

  ‘I haven’t.’ I said this as decisively as I could.

  His face contorted in anger. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘No one. Don’t be so stupid. And stop shouting – you’ll wake up the children.’

  ‘Who is it? Tell me who it is.’

  ‘Look.’ I got up too and faced him. ‘It’s nothing. You’d better leave now, Lars.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on.’

  But you have no right to know. ‘You said you didn’t want me. You said it time and time again.’ My chin rose. I’d as good as admitted it now.

  I wanted him to hurt, I realised. I’d given my body to another man and maybe I’d got strength in return. I stared defiantly at him.

  He marched around the table. ‘Is it true? You’re sleeping with someone else?’

  I tried to shake him off. ‘No, I’m not. Not sleeping with… It was just once.’ Again, there was a thrill in pushing the knife of hurt further into him.

  Lars took a step back from me as if I’d slapped him. ‘Fuck me, no.’

  ‘Why the fuck shouldn’t I?’ I whispered. ‘You don’t want me, so why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I never thought that you would…’ Lars’ voice was quiet and he moved away from me. ‘I never thought you’d do that.’

  So you thought I’d always be waiting; that all you had to do was change your mind and I’d be here? ‘How can you say that to me after everything that’s happened?’ I said. ‘Everything you’ve done?’ I fought on because if I stopped fighting I would let the guilt rush in and I knew it would never go away.

  This was the real end of our marriage, after so many endings.

  ‘Whatever’s happened… however much we’ve fucked it up,’ he said, ‘you’re still in my blood, Amelia.’ He picked up his glass and drained it and then, in his hurry to refill it, pushed the bottle from the kitchen cabinet to the floor where it exploded with a crash. I immediately thought about the kids upstairs. ‘Who is he?’

  I pulled a kitchen chair in front of me. ‘No one. No one,’ I said. ‘You’d better go.’ Through the blear of my tears I tried to find the dustpan and brush in the cupboard under the sink, then gave up, simply sitting down on the kitchen floor.

  ‘Is it someone I know?’

  ‘No, just someone I met. It was a one-off. But there’s no reason for me to have to justify myself to you.’

  ‘After everything we’ve had together? No reason to justify rushing out and screwing someone else? Christ, I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Get out, Lars.’ I struggled to my feet. ‘Just get out. This isn’t your house any more.’

  ‘You’re not my wife any more.’ He turned to the kitchen door and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  ‘No, and it was you who decided that,’ I said slowly. ‘Now get out.’

  As he pulled open the kitchen door, there, about to reach up for the door handle, was Tessa, dragging her blanket behind her. ‘I heard shouting and banging,’ she said in a voice soaked in sleep.

  Lars reached down for his daughter.

  ‘Tess, it’s all fine.’ I went towards the door and wrestled Lars out of the way, picking Tessa up and holding her. We’d promised there would be no more of this arguing near the kids. ‘Daddy was just going. Everything is all right. We broke a bottle by accident, that’s all.’

  Lars wiped his eyes again and pulled on his jacket. ‘Goodbye, Tess,’ he said and bent down to kiss his daughter on the cheek.

  He didn’t slam the door. Instead it closed gently on the latch behind him.

  28

  2016

  I tried not to argue with Lars the next time he came home; bought new underwear from Agent Provocateur, put the children in bed early and cooked a recipe from a Gordon Ramsay book, which said it should take half an hour but took two.

  He sat at the table and called me älskling and it sounded like a word from another epoch.

  I smiled and tried to relax. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been horrible.’

  Lars picked up his knife and fork. ‘I’m sorry too but we need to move on.’

  I looked up; I’d planned this. ‘Christmas. That’s a cheery subject. I was thinking that we could maybe just stay here, have your mother round for lunch, but, really, just be the four of us.’

  ‘You don’t want to go to your parents?’ he said. ‘It’s just…’

  ‘Well, I’m sure they’d understand that we want a bit of time on our own. I could ask them to have the kids for a couple of days and maybe the two of us…’

  ‘I’m…’ Lars paused and took a breath. ‘I’m not going to have that much time off over Christmas. A couple of days but I’ve got a big proposal to write and it would probably be better for us to go to your mother’s so that you had company.’

  Hot tears rushed into my eyeballs, but I took a deep breath as I’d practised. ‘I want you to have a couple of days off with us,’ I said gently.

  Lars put down his fork. His smile was tense. ‘And I will be there, I promise,’ he said. ‘But it’s the only time I’ve got and I really need these lawyers on board and I promised them a proposal.’

  I thought about how Sasha, the Relate lady, advised me to deal with my husband – ‘Control your anger’ – and then immediately did the complete opposite. I couldn’t seem to help it.

  ‘It’s fucking Christmas,’ I shouted. ‘A family time. And you want
us safely parked at my mother’s so I can’t cause a fuss and you can work all you fucking want… You actually wish you weren’t married to me at all, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he snarled back. ‘At least I wouldn’t have someone asking me where I was all the time, going on and on about how bad their marriage is…’ He paused then and looked exhausted. Then he said very quietly, ‘This isn’t right any more.’

  And that was when I’d known that he was starting to think very seriously about leaving me. Still, after everything we’d shared, it seemed somehow impossible that he actually would.

  29

  2017

  I swept up the glass from the kitchen floor and it was as if I were sweeping away my old life. I didn’t cry any more. I felt only cold anger and with it came a new sense of purpose: getting divorced was the right thing to do.

  In the morning, I dropped the children off with a hug. Parminder waved across the car park at me, mouthing, ‘You OK?’ and I smiled back: ‘Yes,’ feeling more determined than I had in a good few months.

  At the office, I sat down in my chair and turned on my computer. The email from Ben Jones was at the top of my inbox. Finally, the day of reckoning. The subject header simply said, ‘Account’. I double-clicked on it.

  Ami,

  I was impressed by the ideas that Brand New presented. I’ve conducted a review of all agency proposals and there is nothing that compares to your campaign. I would like to go back to the conversation we were having when you so unfortunately needed to leave – does 12 p.m. today at your office suit you?

  Sincerely,

  Ben

  As if he ever does anything sincerely. But I reread the email and shook my head slowly to make sure that this wasn’t a dream. I beckoned to Bridget and indicated that she should come and read it from my screen, just to make sure. She strode across the office and read it over my shoulder before shouting: ‘Omigod, Omigod.’

  ‘Please ring up and say 12 p.m. is fine,’ I said, standing up and then sitting down with a thud. There was a chance – a chance whose outcome was unfortunately in the hands of a man who I’d disintegrated in front of – that today might not be the day that Brand New packed up its portfolio forever. ‘And ring Marti’s assistant and see if he’s around because we’ll need him this afternoon to tell Ben that he’ll back us.’