The Marriage

by K. L. Slater

  Ten years ago, when he used to come over to the house to hang out with Jesse in the den – the name Jesse coined for our third bedroom, so poky it wouldn’t accommodate a double bed – I had lived somewhere very different. He knew I’d recently moved, but despite that, he’d probably been expecting something more modest.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ he said, still not moving. ‘You’re amazing, Brid, how far you’ve come.’

  Thanks to money I’d invested from the GoFundMe community campaign when Jesse died, plus my substantial salary from the charity, I’d been able to buy the property off plan two years ago. I’d put down a hefty deposit and mortgaged the rest. It was in an exclusive cluster of brand-new three-storey detached houses on the outskirts of Ravenshead, a well-regarded residential area in Nottinghamshire and only about three miles from the house where Tom had grown up.

  The gardens of these new-builds weren’t huge. They stood tightly packed together, because land was at a premium in the area, but the outlook from the front aspect was a rare one of space. The master bedroom, on the third floor, was high enough to enjoy unhampered views over open fields and woodland.

  But I had another surprise waiting for my new husband. I took the car keys out of my handbag and held them in front of him.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said, grinning. ‘Are you gonna let me drive your motor, too?’

  ‘No need,’ I said, nodding to the BMW. ‘You’ve got your own little runaround now.’

  ‘What?’ His mouth dropped open as he looked at the keys and then the car.

  ‘Someone at work was selling it. I knew it was a good buy so … consider it my coming-home gift to you.’

  ‘No way!’ He took the keys and rushed over to the car. Then rushed back and kissed me. ‘Thank you! Thanks so much, Brid. This is unreal. To think I was driving Mum’s little Fiesta when I went away.’

  I suggested we made a move inside the house.

  ‘Unless you’re planning on staying out here all day admiring the dashboard, we’d better get you inside.’ I grinned and led him up the short path through shared frontage to the glossy black front door. ‘We can get your stuff out of the car later once I’ve shown you around.’

  I guided him across the ground floor, a big open-plan sweep of gleaming black and white kitchen units, a dining and living space, and pristine white ceilings dotted every few inches with silver spotlights. Outsize bifold doors led to a spacious decked patio complete with a built-in fire pit, and beyond that, a modest but reasonably sized lawn.

  I pointed to a row of spindly trees. ‘Another year and the conifers will be mature, and then we’ll have great privacy here.’ There were houses behind, a couple of which had upper floors that overlooked the patio area. ‘Long summer nights and BBQs on the terrace. What do you think?’

  Tom grabbed me as I headed for the glass-sided staircase, and caught unawares, I squealed.

  ‘I think that sounds incredible.’ He nuzzled into my neck and I shivered, the thrill of his touch sending shock waves way down into the core of my aching body. I’d purposely worn the perfume he loved when I visited that he said smelled like burned sugar. ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘Everything we talked about and longed for is a reality now,’ I reminded him. ‘That’s why you have to be brave and push through the next few weeks with your parents. Jill will come round, I know it.’

  He bit his lip and took a step back from me. ‘I know,’ he said, but I didn’t think he did. Not really.

  Jill had totally bucked against our marriage like I’d known she would. That was why Tom wanted to get married before his release. It had seemed like the perfect solution.

  ‘We can have a party for family and friends once they come around to the idea, but like the prison officer’s suggested, if we’re already man and wife on the day you’re released, there’s nothing anyone can do about it,’ he’d said and I’d agreed.

  What he really meant was that there was nothing his mother could do about it.

  I’d been prepared fully for a showdown when I went to their house, but her reaction had been totally over-the-top. While the rest of us were calmly discussing things, she’d begun making strange wailing noises, and finally losing it. Robert had ushered us out of the house in a panic.

  She’d looked awful – old way beyond her years. Her neat brown bob was longer now, ragged at the ends and shot through with grey. And her clothes looked like she’d got her entire wardrobe from that grubby charity shop she worked in. She didn’t seem too fussy if the garments actually fitted or not. Her mud-coloured skirt, round-neck sweater and cardigan all bagged and hung off her scrawny frame. If she hadn’t acted like a crazy witch and upset Tom, I’d have almost felt sorry for her.

  Robert had aged too, but in that infuriatingly craggy way that some men did, almost rendering them more attractive than when they were younger. I’d wanted to take Jill aside, warn her what might happen. She knew the story of how my dad had left Mum for a woman half her age once she’d hit her forties. You had to keep yourself tip-top, stay youthful and fresh. That was why I loved to be in the company of young people; it made me feel safe from getting older.

  ‘Brid?’ Tom said, waving his hand in front of me. ‘Ground Control speaking.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I smiled. ‘I’m thinking about how long I’ve waited for you to be here, for us to be together in our new home. Upstairs next.’

  ‘Music to my ears.’ He winked cheekily and my stomach lurched with delight like it hadn’t done since I was a teenager.

  He climbed the stairs, his powerful thighs taking them two at a time. God, he looked fit from behind. Halfway up, I saw him hesitate and I swallowed. He’d spotted the photographs.

  ‘They don’t bother you, do they?’ I came up behind him and put a hand on the small of his back. ‘The photographs, I mean?’

  ‘No! I mean, I’d expect you to have photographs up.’ He did a double-take and peered closer. ‘Oh! You cut me out of that one?’

  I’d taken this picture of the boys myself. We’d been on a trip to a local park during the school holidays when Jill had been working at the library. Jesse and Tom had played on the climbing frames while I’d dozed on a blanket in the sun. While the boys fished for sticklebacks with brightly coloured rod nets and jam jars, I crept up behind them with the camera. I’d loved the vitality in Jesse’s face and called out their names so they both looked straight at the camera before I snapped the shot.

  ‘After Jesse died, I couldn’t bear to see you up there. Not for a long time.’

  ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to explain,’ Tom said softly, and I loved him for that.

  I showed him the two bedrooms on the first floor and the family bathroom with the free-standing white tub and the TV set into the silver marbled wall tiles.

  ‘Awesome.’ He gave a low whistle. ‘A beer, a bath and Man United. What more could a man want?’

  ‘Charming!’ I mimed a slap, and he dodged my hand like a boxer. Jesse’s face flashed into my mind and I pushed it gently away.

  Tom winked and bent down to kiss my forehead. ‘Tub’s big enough for two, gorgeous, so no worries there. Footie won’t even come close.’

  I headed to the next staircase and began climbing up to the second floor. Tom followed me this time, lingering again as he passed the collage I’d compiled as a visual representation of the eighteen years of Jesse’s life. From his first baby picture in hospital the day he was born to one I’d taken of him blowing me a kiss from the garden gate the week before he died.

  Tom had been in many of the original photographs, but back then, in the maelstrom of raw grief, I’d taken each one and carefully snipped out his image. Excised him from my son’s life like a malignant tumour. It had felt like the right thing to do.

  He didn’t comment, and I was glad.

  When we reached the top landing, I led him into the large master bedroom, the pièce de résistance of the house. It featured an expansive floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the open country
side beyond the road, including what was a spectacular wildflower meadow in the summer months.

  ‘Wow!’ His voice sounded strange, and I saw his eyes were glistening.

  ‘Oh Tom, that’s so sweet.’ I wrapped my arms around his waist.

  ‘Ignore me, I’m turning soft,’ he said gruffly. He wiped his eyes with the back of a hand before hugging me closer. ‘After everything that’s happened, I guess I never thought I’d feel happy again. I’ve never felt this happy.’

  I snuggled into him, laying my cheek on his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat. Jesse’s face fluttered in front of my mind’s eye yet again, and I took a moment to remember my strong, beautiful boy, whose heart would never beat again.

  ‘I like to think Jesse is here now, looking down on us,’ I said softly. ‘Watching us, you know?’

  Tom coughed. ‘I suppose I’ve never thought of it like that.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve always felt his presence,’ I said easily, walking to the window and scanning the vista. ‘I feel him with me all the time. Even here, in this bedroom.’

  Tom looked away, shuffled his feet. ‘Well, he would’ve loved it here, I’m sure. All that open countryside for his motocross.’

  ‘Look at the bed.’ I sat on the edge, smoothed the black and silver throw. ‘I got us a super-king. I thought you’d appreciate the extra room.’

  ‘You bet I do.’ He walked over and kissed me lightly on the top of my head. ‘I think you’ve done amazingly, Brid, going from your life as it was before to this. You’ve worked so hard, and now it’s time for you to enjoy the fruits of …’ His voice trailed off as he became distracted by something on the other side of the room. ‘Is that …’

  He peered at the far wall, where I’d hung the framed order of service from Jesse’s funeral.

  ‘Yes, it’s such a wonderful memento of his life. Too beautiful to pack away in the attic.’ I stood up and pressed my fingers to his cheek, gently guiding his gaze back to me. ‘We’ll be so happy here, Tom. Here with each other and, as you’ve always said, our shared precious memories of Jesse.’

  I slid my hands under his fitted T-shirt and pressed them into the smooth warmth of his muscular torso.

  Our lips met, barely touching at first, and I felt an electric jolt shoot through me. He pulled me towards him, over to the bed, peeling off his T-shirt. He smelled clean and fresh and I buried my fingers in his thick dark hair. The bulk of him hovered over me, his weight anchoring me in bliss as he lowered himself gently on top of me.

  ‘We belong together, Tom,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘Nobody can come between us now.’

  Fourteen

  Jill

  When Tom and Bridget had left, I sat down on the comfy sofa by the French doors in the kitchen.

  Comfy was a polite word we used to avoid facing the fact that the furniture had seen better days. When we were younger, with Tom growing up and me changing to part-time hours, it had seemed a constant struggle to keep renewing things, tweaking the house and the accommodation within to make it fit for our growing family. We’d splashed out on this kitchen extension, and the stylish French doors that made the most of the view of the garden. ‘To bring the outside in,’ I remembered the kitchen planner saying to good effect as Robert willingly handed over the deposit.

  We’d taken to enjoying a cup of tea there – and the odd gin – while we kept an eye on Tom and, more often than not, Jesse as they played out in the garden. We’d relish letting off steam about the day we’d had, Robert grumbling about his colleagues at the architect’s office where he’d worked then, while I’d tell him about some rude or noisy customer I’d had to tolerate in the library.

  Now, it only ever seemed to be me on my own, sitting there staring out at the patchy lawn and the tired, colourless borders.

  When I first sat down, I’d felt light-headed and slightly confused, Tom’s words whirling around in my mind and still not making any sense.

  ‘Now do you see why we can’t trust him?’ Robert kept saying until I yelled at him to stop.

  I watched as he moved back and forth making the tea. Nearly thirty years ago, we’d met at our high school dance. He’d been in the sixth-form, a couple of years older than me which I’d found very attractive. At fifty-two he had a bit more padding around the middle than he did then. His jeans bagged slightly around his bottom and his hair had grown a little thinner. But he was still a good-looking man and when he wore his blue and white striped scarf from his Birmingham university days, it gave him that college student air again.

  He opened the cutlery drawer and selected a teaspoon, humming something tuneless and unidentifiable as he took two tea bags out of the canister. He didn’t seem gutted about what had happened with Tom. In fact, he didn’t seem concerned at all but then Robert always thought he knew best.

  Life had held little excitement for the two of us for many years now. Over the years he’d become increasingly selfish, only interested in serving his own needs. For instance, when Robert began his counsellor training back in 2007, he took over the small office down the hall which I’d used as a little reading room. Nothing fancy, a squashy armchair, a lamp and a blanket. A quiet space to sit in, surrounded by my books.

  When my mother died and we cleared the house, I found a set of my gran’s Charles Dickens books in an unmarked box amongst piles of old greetings cards and mildewed clothes in Mum’s cluttered attic.

  Robert, whom I’d never seen read a book, looked on disparagingly when I asked him to put the books in the car. ‘Surely you don’t want these fusty old volumes? I’ll buy you a new set,’ he’d said airily.

  ‘I don’t want a new set!’ I’d removed one volume and carefully leafed through. ‘Look, published in 1930 and they’re illustrated.’

  They weren’t quite first editions but were still pretty old – their fading red leather covers still replete with gold leaf lettering. The memories had come flooding back when, as a child of only seven or eight, Gran would let me sit next to the bookshelf and run my fingertips across their spines. I’d take one out at a time to leaf gently through the illustrations.

  Despite Robert’s disapproval, I’d folded down the box lid and carefully taped it up again. ‘If I take nothing else, I want these.’

  When I fell pregnant with Tom, I attended a night school course on book repair, intending to restore Gran’s books to their former glory and display them. Time passed and I’d begun the lengthy process when Robert took over my reading room. One day I came back from work to find he’d packed up all my books without asking, including the Dickens set, and dumped them in a dusty corner of the garage.

  When I complained, he looked at me with an astonished expression. ‘It’s a few old books, for goodness’ sake! I’ll cart them all back in again when you can find a good place for storage,’ he’d said from behind his newspaper. ‘Preferably somewhere I won’t be tripping over them.’

  He’d never got around to hauling the books back out again and when Tom went to prison, I forgot about them all together.

  ‘Why are you scowling?’ Robert said curtly, bringing my tea over. ‘Let me guess. Your precious son upsets you and yours truly is about to take the rap for it.’

  ‘I’m thinking back. Seeing things in a different light,’ I said in a tone that made it clear I wouldn’t be sharing my thoughts.

  I pushed thoughts of the books out of my mind and opened up Facebook on my phone, searching for Bridget’s profile page. I’d viewed it many times over the past few years, but she had a high privacy setting so there had been nothing new to see in terms of public posts for ages.

  ‘Oh no,’ I whispered as the page opened up.

  ‘What is it?’ Robert said, straining to see. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I held my phone screen up to show him Bridget’s new profile picture. A full-length photo of her and Tom captured as they walked down a makeshift aisle scattered with rose petals. Bridget looked elegant and youthfully slim in a cream silk sheath, clutching a neat bouquet. They wer
e both smiling, gazing into each other’s eyes as they moved. They looked extraordinarily happy.

  Robert huffed. ‘There’s no surprise there, is there? You already know they’re married.’

  I glanced at the photograph. Posted an hour ago. ‘She obviously waited until Tom had told us, then immediately posted it for everyone to see.’

  Robert shrugged. ‘That’s Facebook for you. I don’t know why you bother torturing yourself. I’ve got some work to do in the office.’

  Robert detested social media, partly because he had to deal with the fallout when it went wrong for the students he counselled. ‘I’ve seen too many young lives ruined by Facebook and Twitter and worst of all, Instagram,’ he’d always claimed.

  ‘I’ve texted Audrey and she’s on her way over,’ I said as he headed into the hallway.

  He threw his hands up in the air. ‘Why are you involving Audrey in this? The whole of Mansfield will know about it once she gets all the gory details. I don’t want her here.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ I pulled him up. ‘Audrey’s a good friend to me and that’s what matters. Not the fact that you can’t stand her. Besides, now Bridget has pasted their business all over Facebook, everyone’s going to know about it anyway.’

  Robert mumbled something I didn’t quite catch and headed out of the kitchen door. There’d never been much love lost between him and Audrey, he seemed to sense she had a low opinion of him. In recent years, the animosity had somehow seemed to flourish in Tom’s absence. Audrey could be scathing about the way Robert ran me down all the time, adamant I’d be better off without him. Robert called Audrey ‘an interfering battleaxe who hasn’t got a life of her own so sticks her nose into other people’s’. Which was completely groundless, of course.