by Rebecca Done
I am heading to London for the weekend, which both thrills me and fills me with trepidation, because I miss living and working there almost as much as I miss the old Alex. It’s a sweet form of torture, to look out of the train window and see the trees morph into buildings, the horizon grow high-rises like green shoots in time-lapse. The landscape I used to know and love, my birthplace and stomping ground, the place that made me feel alive and my heart sing. I’m ready for some noise, some energy, the charge of people, a little adrenaline.
Mum is waiting for me at home in Clapham with a pot of freshly brewed tea and a comically oversized plateful of lemon madeleines. She’s exactly the sort of mum I always hoped I might one day become – kind, calm, nurturing. She envelops me in one of her hugs, which I’ve noticed have become a lot tighter since Alex’s accident. She always greets me with the level of relief you might see at a military airbase when a plane touches down from a conflict zone.
I sit at the kitchen table and she pours the tea, piles lemon madeleines on to a plate for me. ‘How are you? It’s so lovely to see you.’
I bite into a madeleine, savour that sweet, citrusy tang. God, I miss my mum’s baking. I used to dabble but I can’t remember when I last had the time or inclination to get out my measuring scales, or come to that, a cookbook. ‘I’m fine, Mum. You? How’s Dad?’
‘Oh, he’s fine. He’s helping get ready for the church fayre. We’re selling lots of Fairtrade, organic things.’
‘You should have gone with him, Mum. We can catch up tomorrow before I go.’
‘No, no,’ she says, waving my insistence to one side. ‘It’s only setting up the tables and checking the mikes. I leave all that to him. Anyway, I’d far rather be here with you.’ She pulls up a stool and sits down next to me with her own cup of tea, pats my hand.
I smile. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘You should come along tomorrow, though. I know Peter would love to see you.’
Peter is the vicar at our church. I grew up listening to his sermons each Sunday, and since Dad retired he’s been an even bigger part of Mum and Dad’s life, as they volunteer at the church several days a week. He married me and Alex, which was important to my parents, and I know he’s really keen to talk to me about Alex’s accident, something I’ve been equally as keen to avoid.
It’s not that I think he can’t help as much as knowing he’s convinced he can. I’m not sure I have the energy to discuss the ins and outs of my new life with yet another person whose end goal will be to persuade me that this is exactly what those pesky marriage vows were all about. In sickness and in health, until death do us part.
‘Maybe, Mum,’ I say. ‘I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.’
She smiles at me, sips from her tea. ‘So how’s Alex?’
‘He’s okay,’ I tell her, without adding that we didn’t part on great terms this morning. As usual, it started over something innocuous – I was nipping to the shop, asked him if he needed deodorant. My wording was careless, and of course he interpreted the question as a suggestion that he needed to put some deodorant on right now. Fortunately he’d calmed down by the time Darren arrived to keep him company while I’m away, but I spent most of the train journey feeling disappointed and frustrated. It’s hard, adjusting the language you’ve used all your life when you’re with the person you know best in the world. Every little linguistic shortcut we rely on day-to-day – metaphors, half-sentences, nuances and even euphemisms – have had to be stripped back, considered. And as usual it’s the unpredictability that’s the hardest to deal with – sometimes my careless use of language doesn’t even matter; sometimes it can cause the most unbelievable rows.
‘And how are you?’
I try a smile across the rim of my teacup. ‘I’m all right, Mum. Tired.’
‘Is work any better?’
‘Nope,’ I say. ‘But they haven’t fired me yet.’
Mum sighs. ‘Gosh, I do wish you’d never moved away. You loved your job here so much.’
I frown. ‘Come on, Mum. You know that’s not helpful. I can’t turn the clock back.’
‘But if you were still here … we could help you both so much more.’
‘You did help.’ And they did, hugely – after Alex came out of rehab, they moved to Norfolk for a few months to help us out, staying in a local B&B. They were fully exposed to the gravity of the situation, so they do understand. But I know they’re both disappointed that life has turned out this way for us, though they try to hide it. I think it’s the fact they may have lost their only chance to have grandchildren that probably wounds them the most.
‘I hate to think of you doing that horrible job at Spark with that horrible boss.’
I bite into another madeleine and try not to picture Seb railing at me about turnaround times like he did yesterday afternoon. ‘What can I do, Mum? We need money.’
‘Move back,’ she suggests, for the millionth time. ‘You and Alex. Me and your dad – we’ve been thinking.’ She whips out her iPad, which always makes me smile – my mum, all her life the most traditional person you could imagine, has now discovered Technology, and you can’t keep her away from it. ‘We had an architect over, and he drew up some plans for an annexe. There’s more than enough room at the bottom of the garden, Molly. You and Alex could move into the annexe, and then we could be here all the time, to help. You could go back to your old job, and you wouldn’t have to worry about Alex during the day. Look.’ She taps on to a saved file and hands the tablet over to me – the plans are all drawn up for a gorgeous little one-bedroom annexe with a kitchen, living room and bathroom.
The sincerity of her offer, the strange combination of hope and grave concern in her expression, make me want to weep into my cup of tea. ‘No, Mum,’ I say gently, passing the tablet back to her.
‘Please consider it, Molly. You’re so isolated in Norfolk all by yourselves.’
‘We’re not by ourselves,’ I remind her. ‘We have Eve, and all Alex’s friends, and Graeme …’
‘Graeme lives in London.’
‘Yes, but he comes to visit all the time. What I mean is, we’re not alone, Mum.’
‘But Alex so often tells you he’s bored. Wouldn’t he have more to do here?’
‘Mum,’ I say, with a smile, shaking my head. ‘It’s not that simple any more. When Alex says he’s bored … it’s not the same as when most people say it. He means he’s frustrated, angry about how much his life has changed. And being in London wouldn’t make that better, it would make it worse. He wouldn’t cope here.’
It’s true – with a shudder I picture him trying to catch the tube, cross the road, negotiate crowds without getting into a fight, cope with all the noise and overstimulation. It’s hard not to worry about these things, when it wasn’t so long ago he couldn’t even remember how to brush his teeth.
‘But he was living in London when he met you,’ Mum reminds me.
I haven’t ever really told her how much Alex hated city life, that he always craved the peace and tranquillity of Norfolk, his childhood home. That for a long time he sacrificed his own needs for mine. ‘I know, Mum, but he loves our cottage. He’s really attached to it, and all his memories of his parents are tied up in it. I couldn’t ask him to leave it, not now. And anyway, he won’t do anything he doesn’t want to – you know that. I’d never be able to persuade him to move to a city he doesn’t even like. He’d take it really badly. He’d think I was trying to control him, baby him.’
‘I thought,’ she says, after a pause, ‘that maybe if we were close by … you might feel happier about starting a family.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ I see the disappointment in her face now, and I feel it whenever I talk to her and she tells me that so-and-so-from-the-church’s daughter has had twins, or next-door-but-one has had another little boy. She so desperately wants me and Alex to follow all the social conventions of married life; besides which, she wants me to have everything I ever wanted. She finds it hard to accept the idea that, sometimes, life doesn’t real
ly care about your plans.
That was part of the reason she was so devastated when I told her we were moving to Norfolk four years ago, before Alex’s accident. She had always imagined being near to her grandchildren – in Mum’s world, that’s just how things are supposed to be.
I’m always so thankful I never actually told her Alex and I were trying, in the months before the accident (I knew how much she would get her hopes up, and it would have felt too much like tempting fate). At least now I don’t have to add the pain of having had fate against us to the list of daily regrets she has on my behalf.
‘It might still happen, Mum,’ I reassure her. ‘It isn’t that we can’t have children. It’s just … too soon. You know that. We’ve talked about this.’
I see her swallow back tears and try a brave smile. ‘Yes, I know. Gosh, I’m sorry, darling. I know the last thing you probably need is me putting pressure on you.’
‘Offering to build us an annexe so you can look after us is hardly putting pressure on me. Believe me, Mum, if there was a way to do it, I’d love to. But Alex is so sensitive to change now. He’s … not like he used to be.’
‘I understand.’ She nods, then blows a breath from between her cheeks. ‘Right! More madeleines.’
I smile, shake my head. ‘They were enough to last me for the rest of the day. Delicious though.’
‘Your dad’s request,’ she says, smiling back. ‘But he knows you like them too.’
Dad lived in France for a while before he met Mum, so she likes to dabble in French pâtisserie. It was once a dream of mine too to maybe move out there with Alex, perhaps when our children were still young enough to absorb the language without too much trouble. I had an idealistic dream of living in a village that still had a boulangerie and charcuterie, of sitting at pavement cafes whiling away hours while our children played in the square, of taking long walks in the countryside, a couple of dogs at our heels. I even had a feeling Mum and Dad might not have objected to an impromptu move across the Channel themselves, Dad being still near-enough fluent in French and obsessed with all things continental.
It’s a funny thing, when the future you once dreamed of can never be anywhere but the past.
‘You do spoil me,’ I say to Mum now.
‘Well, that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘For me to look after you. Now, tell me all about where you’re going tonight.’
Where I’m going tonight is a great little fondue place in Balham with Sarah, my line manager from my old agency, and Phoebe. I love it here, and Phoebe’s booked our favourite table in the restaurant’s cosiest corner. It’s awash with candlelight and there’s a bottle of red wine waiting for us on the table.
We order a veggie Gruyère fondue to share, along with piles of cornichons and fresh French bread, and get stuck into the red wine. Luckily for my bank account, Phoebe and Sarah have insisted on paying for the whole weekend – train ticket, food, drink – the lot.
I’m keen to ask them both about their lives, because everyone always thinks they have to ask me about mine first. After my emotional conversation with Mum this afternoon, I’m ready to talk about something other than Alex and all my broken dreams.
Phoebe tells me about Craig – he’s a rugby player, and she’s started going to matches to watch him, and even though she still cheers at all the wrong moments (to the point of occasionally whooping when the opposing team score a try), she’s really beginning to enjoy it. She’s even started socializing with the other wives and girlfriends.
‘Hold on,’ I say with a smile. ‘You’re a bona fide WAG now?’
‘Actually, we don’t appreciate that term,’ Phoebe says mock-snootily, dipping a cornichon into the fondue and nibbling on the end of it.
‘Does this mean you’re going to start getting papped falling out of posh restaurants?’
‘Here,’ Sarah says, reaching into her handbag. ‘You can borrow my sunglasses.’
I smile and take another sip of wine. This is what I love – catching up with my closest friends, chatting and laughing about simple, normal stuff. Stuff that isn’t life or death, catastrophic and consequential. Of course I love Eve, but my friendship with her is different – nine times out of ten the kids are running around our feet, and although I love that too, it’s not like this. Here, I can pretend I’ve simply slipped back into my old life. Here, I can pretend Alex is waiting for me back at the flat, with a nightcap and soft music and a kiss I can sink into.
‘I’m so happy for you,’ I tell Phoebe. ‘Can’t wait to meet him. Maybe the next time me and Alex are down, we can.’
‘Yeah,’ she says – but is there something artificial in the way she widens her eyes and nods several times in quick succession? Can I detect a slight strain to her voice, or am I just imagining it? Is Craig the kind of guy who wouldn’t be interested in meeting someone like Alex? But the moment passes quickly, Phoebe takes another sip of wine and Sarah starts talking to me about work.
‘So we’re recruiting soon,’ she says innocuously, swirling a hunk of bread in the melted cheese. ‘For the exact job you used to do.’
‘Really? Who’s leaving?’
‘Libby. She’s moving to Singapore.’
The agency has a sister operation in Singapore, and occasionally one of the creatives gets the opportunity of a lifetime and a contract for relocation.
‘Wow. I’d love to do something like –’ But I stop myself, swallowing with some difficulty a little spike of envy as I contemplate again the death of a dream I once had to move abroad with Alex, for us to do something really exciting like that. ‘Lucky Libby,’ I conclude eventually, a false note of brightness to my voice.
‘Or you,’ Sarah says, popping the bread into her mouth and looking right at me.
‘What?’ I say, smiling faintly because I must be missing something.
She pushes her hair back over her shoulder. ‘Everyone keeps talking about you, like – is there some way we could get her back? We all miss you so much, Moll.’
‘Ha,’ I say. ‘I’m the one who ate all the free snacks.’
‘Exactly. Everyone’s put on three stone since you left.’
I smile as the crowd of kids at the table next to us start roaring with laughter about something. I hear ski slopes mentioned, then hot tubs. The acoustics in here make it sound as if everyone’s shouting, but I don’t mind. It makes me feel like I’m living, at least.
‘I mean, if you wanted it,’ Sarah says now, ‘Libby’s job could be yours.’
I stop crunching mid-cornichon and stare at her. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Like I say, I’m about to recruit, but … I don’t have to advertise, if I already have someone I want.’
‘But, Sarah, we tried to make it work. The commuting wasn’t practical, looking after Alex …’
‘It’s just that I bumped into your mum the other day …’ Phoebe interjects.
‘Ah.’ I look down at the table. ‘And she told you I might be moving back?’
‘Did she show you her plans for the annexe?’
‘I mean, hello – an annexe,’ Sarah says.
I laugh. I can’t help it. ‘Oh my God. What have we become – thirty-something women sitting around a table getting excited about annexes?’
Phoebe and Sarah both smile, but it’s clear they’re waiting for a sensible response.
‘Guys, I can’t.’
‘Move back to London? Take the job?’
‘Any of it.’
I see Sarah deflate a little. Phoebe shakes her head as she spreads more melted Gruyère over her bread, and I hope it’s an expression of disappointment rather than disapproval.
‘Alex can’t move to London, so I can’t take the job.’
‘He really can’t?’ Sarah asks me pleadingly, doe-eyed over our flickering candle.
‘He would hate it, absolutely hate it. He didn’t exactly love it before the accident.’
‘What about commuter belt? Somewhere halfway maybe?’<
br />
I sigh. ‘Then we’d have no one. At least right now we have friends in Norfolk and family in London. But somewhere completely new – we’d be even more marooned.’ I look down at the table. ‘And anyway, he loves the cottage too much. It was really important to him. You know – what with his mum, and everything.’
Phoebe and Sarah share a look that tells me my situation has probably been the subject of discussion long before tonight.
‘And what about what you want?’ Sarah says cautiously.
‘It’s a non-starter,’ I reiterate. ‘Alex hates change for one thing. He wouldn’t go – he’d think I was babying him. It could never happen.’
‘That wasn’t my question,’ Sarah says, her voice softening further.
They’re both staring at me in wide-eyed concern, but instead of making me feel comforted it makes me feel more alone than ever, because their incredulity only goes to show they don’t truly understand. They think I’m weak, that I’ve lost my ambition, my drive, my sense of self. And it’s true – I have lost all those things, but it’s not because I’m weak. It’s because when I’m trying every day to be strong for Alex, I have no strength left for me.
‘What about,’ Phoebe says hesitantly, treading carefully, ‘all the things you ever wanted, like starting a family?’
Phoebe knows Alex and I were trying, before. I never told Sarah specifically, but she knew how important it was to both of us.
‘Seriously, guys,’ I say then, ‘what is this?’ I take a long slug of wine to try and wash away the feeling of being criticized for failing to be the girl they knew before.
‘We just don’t want you to give up on everything you ever dreamed of, Molly,’ Sarah says gently. ‘There is another way, and we’re here for you. There are so many people here who love you, who could help. We just hate to think of you stranded all the way over there in Norfolk, without help, without support.’
‘But don’t you understand? If we moved back to London that’s exactly how Alex would feel.’
‘Graeme’s here,’ Phoebe reminds me, like she thinks I might have forgotten.
‘But Alex’s friends are in Norfolk, and Graeme comes to visit all the time. Where we live is quiet, it’s relatively safe, there’s space for him to breathe. He’d be cooped up in London, terrified to go anywhere.’