My Husband the Stranger

by Rebecca Done

  And anyway, maybe Alex has his own private ways of improving. I haven’t told Graeme yet about the drawings I discovered in his sketchpad a couple of weeks ago; though I have taken to flicking through it every now and then, idly curious to know if he’s been adding to it. He has, and I’ve noticed a pattern – if he’s had a good few days, a new drawing will appear (there’s been one of the pub, the plum tree in our garden, another of Buddy), but if he’s not been having a good time, the pages remain defiantly blank.

  Secretly, I am still waiting for the magical day when a drawing of me appears.

  It’s almost like having a conversation with him, looking at his sketchpad, because I’m able to find out how he’s feeling without needing to ask. Of course I’m desperate to know if it helps, the drawing – how he feels when he’s doing it, where he gets his inspiration from, whether he knows just how good he really is – but I can’t tell him I’ve been looking. He’d say I’ve been spying on him; and if I brought it up then never saw another sketch again, I’d never forgive myself.

  And telling Graeme would be disastrous – he’d be all over it, demanding Alex show him, encouraging him to do more, buying him all sorts of art equipment, psychoanalysing the hell out of it. All of which can be great when it’s well-timed and carefully judged, but this is Alex’s private pastime and I am terrified of scaring him off it.

  ‘I should go and look for him,’ I sigh now.

  ‘Molly,’ Graeme says, putting a hand on my arm, ‘just relax. He’s not a toddler.’

  I do treat him like one some days – I know I do, and I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. It’s instinct more than anything else.

  Our assistant finally arrives to give us the lowdown we need on washing-machine disposal. She’s young and pretty, and Graeme flirts with her as he does with all young, pretty girls. He even manages to make her blush at one point, which I assume to be quite an achievement, since I’m sure Graeme isn’t the first guy to come in here who’s fancied chatting her up.

  ‘What?’ he protests, when I shoot him a look after she’s gone.

  ‘Nothing!’ I laugh, holding up my hands.

  ‘I was just being polite.’

  ‘Politely flirtatious. I was going to leave you both to it at one point.’

  Graeme looks strangely bashful then. ‘It’s not … fully intentional.’

  I smile and shake my head. ‘Ha. I guess you just can’t help it if you naturally ooze charm.’

  He beams at me. ‘Well, thank you, Molly, I’m going to take that as a compliment.’

  I laugh. ‘Don’t, it wasn’t one. Right, shall we go?’

  Alex’s mood doesn’t improve much after we leave the shop and stop for petrol – he takes exception to Graeme paying at the pump with his credit card, adamant he’s doing it solely to provoke him, to show off that he has a credit card and Alex doesn’t. In the end Graeme is forced to give up and apologize before the whole thing escalates.

  But later on his frame of mind is more amenable, and he even suggests heading to the pub for supper. It’s rare he instigates being sociable, so if he does, we try never to turn him down.

  It’s busy in here tonight, but on the plus side it’s familiar territory for Alex, which helps. I admit I’m sort of relieved when he lopes off to stand near the pool table and watch his friends, observing them for a few minutes as he always does, joining in when he’s ready (they’re used to this).

  We order drinks and food, and Graeme’s in the middle of telling me about a pop-up beach on a roof terrace he’s been to recently in London when I glance over towards Alex and spot him chatting to a girl. Unfortunately, it’s not just any girl. It’s his ex-girlfriend, Nicola.

  They dated for six years, living together for three of those in Alex’s London flat. It ended when Nicola dumped Alex for someone she’d met on a weekend trip home to Norfolk. The new man lasted only a few months.

  I know – and I’ve heard it from other people too – that Alex has always been Nicola’s one-that-got-away, the man she always regretted dumping. She wanted to come and visit Alex in hospital after his accident, but it just felt too weird to me, her being his ex. She sent a series of cards instead, which I didn’t feel entitled to throw away on Alex’s behalf, so they are sitting with all the rest of the well-wishing stuff in a box in our spare room. I resent her for that more than I probably should, for sending things to the house for Alex that I have to hold on to. She sends him Christmas cards too, birthday cards. And the Easter before last a giant chocolate egg was left on our doorstep, no name attached. I knew it was from her.

  One thing I really dislike about her is the way she acts as if I don’t exist. She’ll acknowledge me when she has to, but that’s all it is – a begrudging nod to the fact I am alive. Alive, and very much in her way.

  It doesn’t help of course that she always looks fantastic, whereas I always look like the ‘before’ picture in a makeover photoshoot. She’s a personal trainer, so she carries a year-round glow from all that jogging around the park with a stopwatch. Not a scrap of fat on her, beautifully toned, whitened teeth, designer activewear. She has a lot of wealthy clients, and her job is to look at least as good as they do at all times. She rarely drinks but wafts around the pub with a club soda and lime, networking by touching people’s forearms and making them fantasize that they too could look as good as her if they just set down the pint glass, skipped the chips and signed up for press-up lessons at fifty quid a pop.

  ‘… yeah, they have deckchairs and stuff, barbecues, music. I mean, it is what it is, but …’ Graeme trails off. ‘Moll? You okay?’

  I swallow, look back down at my lemonade. ‘Yes, sorry. What were you saying?’

  ‘Just about this urban beach thing. I know the guy who runs it – we could get a day pass if you think Alex might enjoy it?’

  I can’t resist glancing back over at Nicola. She’s leaning against the pool table now and Alex’s hand is on her arm. He’s laughing at something she’s saying, which is enough of a sting in itself. He so rarely laughs at anything I say any more.

  It grates on me too that, just like always, she doesn’t so much as glance over to check if I’m here. She does the same thing if we run into her in the street, or spot her in the supermarket – she’ll raise a hand, smile at Alex, but say as little as she can get away with to me. She doesn’t even care if I’m over here getting riled, and it’s the inference I’m insignificant that’s always wound me up the most.

  Graeme follows my gaze, then turns back towards me and clears his throat. ‘Just ignore them.’ His face and voice have darkened slightly.

  ‘She should know better,’ I mutter into my drink.

  Graeme, like me, is completely allergic to Nicola. This is partly good, because it means I’m not alone in my disdain for her, but it also makes me worry that I have good reason not to trust her. And though Graeme’s advice to ignore them is well-intended, Nicola works hard to make that near-enough impossible for me.

  Alex is laughing again now, miming something with his hands, completely animated. She’s giggling like a schoolgirl. I see Alex’s mate Charlie glance over at me, concerned. I shrug, like this is perfectly normal.

  And the horrible part is, this is almost normal – turning on the charm around other women is just something Alex does now. Nicola’s convinced she’s special (she always has been), but there’s no way to know if he’s doing it because it’s her, or if she could be any other girl he happened across. Still, it kills me to see him flatter his ex of all people with his latent ability to be smooth and sparkling, when he so rarely does the same with me.

  ‘Reminds me of you in that shop earlier,’ I say to Graeme, trying to make a joke out of it, because if I don’t I’m afraid I might start crying.

  Graeme, who clearly doesn’t think the situation is worthy of humour, frowns. ‘God, don’t say that. Look, the food’ll be here soon. I’m going to go and break up their little powwow.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ I say.
‘I don’t want to cause a scene.’

  ‘Well, no, but you’re right, Moll. Nicola should know better.’

  I watch nervously as Graeme strides over to them. I can never predict how Alex will react to being told off or interrupted, especially in an environment where he’s probably overstimulated anyway.

  As Graeme arrives at Nicola’s side I see her smile wordlessly. He ignores her and speaks to Alex for a few moments, then Alex responds before Graeme turns round and heads back to our table. As he walks away I see Alex roll his eyes and say something else to Nicola – and it must have been funny, because she responds with a laugh, touches his arm again. Why does she need to keep touching him?

  Our food arrives as Graeme sits back down – vegetable chilli (extra hot) for Alex, fish and chips for Graeme and me.

  ‘What did you say?’ I ask him, feeling a mixture of relief and confusion as the waitress deposits our cutlery and vanishes.

  ‘Told him the food had arrived.’ He smiles, makes a quick exhale. ‘Phew. Perfect timing.’

  ‘What did Alex say to you?’

  ‘That he arranged to meet her here.’

  I stare at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, I know. A bit weird.’ Graeme glances past me and beckons urgently to Alex, mouthing, Come on.

  I think back to Alex enthusiastically suggesting we all eat here tonight. ‘Do you think he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘No way of knowing.’

  ‘Well, what did Nicola say?’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe a word that comes out of her mouth,’ Graeme says sharply.

  Not for the first time, I wonder if Graeme’s dislike of Nicola stems wholly from the fact she cheated on his brother then dumped him, or if there’s something more to it.

  Alex rejoins us then and, without saying anything, sits down and starts eating his chilli as if nothing much has happened.

  I can feel Graeme watching me. ‘Graeme was saying there’s a beach you can go to in London –’

  Graeme talks over me. ‘Alex, do you think you should be chatting to Nicola while Molly’s over here?’

  Alex looks up at him but not at me. ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘I mean, Nicola’s your ex-girlfriend. Molly might feel a bit upset about that.’

  Alex shrugs, so I look down at my chips.

  ‘She asked me to meet her.’

  ‘Why?’ Graeme says.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘When did she ask you?’

  ‘What? I don’t know, Graeme!’

  ‘Just leave it,’ I say, meeting Graeme’s eye. ‘Can we please just talk about this later?’

  But Graeme’s not finished. ‘I don’t think that was appropriate, Alex. She kept touching you, flirting with you –’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Well, you looked like you were enjoying it …’

  Alex points his fork towards Graeme. ‘You never want me to have any fun.’

  ‘No, that’s not it. There are just certain people –’

  ‘We do want you to have fun,’ I assure him quickly. ‘That’s all we want.’

  ‘So what are you talking about then? You’re always saying, Don’t talk to him, don’t talk to her … you treat me like a child.’

  ‘Alex, it doesn’t matter,’ I say, a last-ditch attempt to save the evening.

  But it’s too late – he puts down his fork, gets up and walks away without saying or eating anything further. On one level it’s encouraging that he’s heeding the advice he was given in anger management, to remove himself from situations that wind him up. The only problem is, he often forgets to tell us why he’s walking away. I’ve lost count of the number of times I or someone else has been left abandoned and slightly bewildered mid-conversation if we’ve unknowingly touched on a point that needles him.

  ‘You okay?’ Graeme asks as I stab at a chip in frustration.

  ‘Now isn’t the time, Graeme. We should have just waited until later.’ I tip my head at Alex’s picked-at plate of food. ‘He won’t eat that now.’

  Graeme leans towards me. ‘Moll, we’ve talked about this. He needs to know now that what he was doing wasn’t right – he won’t remember later, it won’t mean anything to him. You know he needs consistent messaging, or nothing will stick.’

  ‘You tell me this stuff like you think I don’t know it.’

  ‘Because you always back down. Because you never want a scene.’

  I feel my tears rise quickly. ‘Because that’s who we were, Graeme! Me and Alex were both that couple who would never make a scene. You know – we never fought in public, or told people to shut up in cinemas, or complained in restaurants, or argued with the neighbours about fence panels. That was who we were. And I know Alex has changed now – I know that more than anyone – but you’re asking me to change the essence of who I am too. Do you know how much it broke my heart to see that woman tutting at him in the shop earlier? Do you know how much I wanted to turn round and say to her, You don’t understand, this isn’t who he is, he’s the gentlest, kindest, most loving …’ But I can’t finish. The choke in my throat holds back the rest of my words. I have to shut my eyes and lower my head for a moment to steady myself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Graeme whispers. ‘I know all that. Honestly.’

  I swallow and breathe out. ‘You’re the guy who doesn’t mind a scene, who isn’t self-conscious, who thinks everyone else can generally do one. And that’s fine – that’s who you are, and I would never criticize you for that – but that isn’t who I am, and I can’t always do everything exactly as I’m supposed to. Sometimes I get it wrong, and I hate myself for that, but this is hard work …’

  ‘I know that too. I’m sorry, Molly, really.’

  We don’t say much more for the rest of the meal. Our mood has flattened and Alex doesn’t return – he’s over at the pool table now, talking to Charlie and taking the occasional shot. Thankfully, Nicola has vanished, but I can’t stop thinking about her.

  Alex heads upstairs to bed with his water and his meds almost as soon as we get home. Graeme suggests a nightcap but I’m tired too, and I don’t want to talk about Alex any more.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ I tell him. ‘Do you need anything?’

  His back to me, Graeme’s looking at a particular photograph on our mantelpiece, the one that sits next to the picture of me and Alex drinking honeymoon cocktails on a Mexican beach. The photo he can’t stand is a monochrome shot of Alex and his dad – they’re embracing and laughing, and Alex is looking up directly into his eyes. He must be five, six at the most. I think it’s a beautiful photo, and I know it’s very precious to Alex, but Graeme hates it. He dislikes it so intensely that sometimes I’m tempted to slip it into a box whenever he comes round, but he’s so keenly aware of its presence that he’d definitely notice, which would kind of negate the point of doing it in the first place.

  ‘Might just stay down here and get sozzled if it’s all the same to you.’

  I know why he hates the photo, and as always I am tempted to tell him to let it go, but I don’t. I just make a sympathetic face and tell him goodnight.

  ‘Joke,’ he calls out to my retreating back as I head upstairs to bed.

  Alex is gently snoring when I slide into bed next to him, but a full hour later I’m still wide awake. I can’t stop thinking about Nicola. Did she really ask to meet him at the pub, and if so, why?

  At first glance, Alex might not appear to be vulnerable, but he is – he takes people at their word and interprets everything literally. Who knows what charms Nicola might be pulling on him with me out at work all day, with Alex living just down the road? I know for a fact that her favourite running route just so happens to take her directly past our front garden.

  She was like this before the accident too – and I assume ever since she decided that ditching him for someone else was a huge mistake – but of course there was a limit to her influence then, because Alex always rejected her. He’d cross the road to avoid her, pull me l
aughingly behind a building with him if he spotted her, tossed Christmas and birthday cards on to the open fire.

  But now … I can’t shake the thought of her from my mind, or the image of him enjoying how she was flirting with him. Would he have the strength of mind to turn her down if she propositioned him? Would he even know that was the right thing to do?

  Tears sting my eyes as I find myself picturing them together. It’s not fair. You got the best of him, and you didn’t want it – and now, every day, I’m living with the worst of him.

  But still. I love him. I grip on to the fragments of the old Alex he occasionally throws my way like titbits, and I hold them to my heart.

  I look at our texts sometimes, and it’s his last-ever text to me before it happened, the one he sent at sixteen minutes past midnight, that always chokes me.

  Great night, love you xxx

  How much more would he have wanted to say, had he known what was about to unfold?

  Downstairs I hear the tell-tale chinking of a glass being removed from the cupboard and, moments later, the suck-pop of a cork being pulled from the neck of a wine bottle. I can’t help thinking about Kevin, that this is exactly the sort of thing he would do late at night too when he felt alone, or crap, or like blanking out the world for a while.

  I turn to look at my husband sleeping. It’s too easy to believe when his eyes are closed that he’s the old Alex, returned to me; so lovely to imagine his eyes will blink awake at any moment, that he’ll put out a hand, brush the hair from my face and say sleepily, Hey.

  I reach out, touch his shoulder, run my hand along the line of bicep down to his forearm. It is soft now where it used to be sculpted, but I don’t care. I want to lean forward and kiss him in the hope he’ll wake up and want to kiss me back, make love to me. But he’s in his deepest cycle of sleep now, so crucial for the rest and repair of his newly altered brain. So instead I lift his hand to my lips and peck the back of it, then hold it to my cheek as I slowly fall asleep.

  8

  Molly – present day