‘Is this relevant?’ Lydia asks quietly.
‘It is if we’re going to get everything out in the open and do this properly.’
‘It was years ago. I can’t change it and I don’t see how it affects anything now.’
‘It affects everything now,’ Josh snaps, raising his voice. ‘If you’re only giving half the picture, we’re never going to agree on anything.’
A silence descends on the room. Lydia chews her bottom lip while they wait for her response. Eventually Karen speaks.
‘There was a reason I wanted to focus on your wedding day. What you both need to do is try to remember the way you felt on that day. There are obviously a lot of unresolved issues here, but the things you loved about each other back when you got married still exist – you just need to find a way to recapture those feelings. They’re not lost – they just get misplaced sometimes in the reality of everyday life.’
She is smiling at Lydia as though this is everything she wants to hear, but what Karen doesn’t realise is that Josh can see what lies beneath the smile. There is an unspoken dialogue between them, and despite the silence of the conversation, he knows exactly what is being said. Leave him. Get out before things get any worse.
‘Lydia, I’d like you to list the three best qualities Josh had when you got married.’
‘He was kind,’ she says, the smirk slipping from her face. ‘That was the main thing, I think. He made me laugh. And he was a good cook.’
‘And what do you think has changed for you since that day?’
‘I’m still a decent cook,’ he says.
Lydia laughs nervously and picks at a fingernail. ‘Honestly?’ she says, as though she is scared to reveal her true feelings. ‘Almost everything has changed.’
Karen shifts in her chair. The movement pushes her skirt up and Josh notices a ladder in her tights that runs up the side of her thigh. ‘Let’s start with the kindness,’ she says, tugging at the bottom of her skirt so that it now rests at her knees. ‘In what ways do you feel Josh has become less kind?’
‘He used to have time for me. We used to talk, but now I’m just there. I do his washing, iron his clothes, cook his meals. I’m a glorified maid.’
‘You used to like doing those things.’
‘No I didn’t,’ she protests. ‘I’ve never liked doing those things – nobody likes doing those things. I used to do them because you did things for me – you supported me in other ways, so I did what I could to support you. But all that’s changed now. There’s nothing given in return, you just take what you can.’
He turns to look at Karen, his grey eyes scanning her so quickly she might miss it if she isn’t concentrating. ‘Ask me,’ he says, the words delivered with the tone of a demand. ‘Ask what’s changed for me.’
‘I think you need to address Lydia’s concerns first.’
‘I don’t need to do anything. What I’d like is to be given an equal opportunity to speak, but that doesn’t seem allowed. There’s a definite imbalance here, don’t you think?’
Karen’s lips purse. ‘For someone who was sorry for his behaviour last time, the apology hasn’t lasted long.’
The air in the room turns cold with her frostiness.
‘I don’t think I’m unkind,’ he says, relenting to the pressure of the stares being delivered by both women. ‘I’m busy. Sometimes my tiredness might be misjudged, but that’s hardly my fault.’
‘Nothing’s ever your fault,’ Lydia says, her voice small.
‘I don’t cook any more for the same reason,’ he continues, with what he realises must sound like rehearsed lines. ‘I’m at work all hours. I’d love to be able to swan around the house all day baking, but someone’s got to keep the roof over our heads.’
‘That’s what I do all day, is it? Swan around? This is where he’s changed,’ she says, turning to Karen. ‘He just takes me for granted.’
‘And that doesn’t apply to you, does it?’ He cuts in before Karen has a chance to speak. ‘Let’s talk about what’s changed with you. The vows have certainly changed, haven’t they, Lydia?’ He rolls her name from his tongue, unable to keep his sarcasm suppressed. ‘You know the ones – you repeated them all, didn’t you? The ones about loving each other and remaining faithful for as long as we both shall live. Remember that?’
‘I remember,’ she says, defiant. ‘I meant every one of them.’
‘What about you, Josh?’ Karen says, in an obvious attempt to soften the increasingly tense atmosphere. ‘Can you give me three qualities that you most admired in Lydia?’
‘She was loyal,’ he says, keeping his eyes on his wife, doing everything in his power to make her uncomfortable. ‘She was honest. She seemed to have a strong sense of right and wrong.’
He isn’t expecting what happens next. Lydia smiles and moves closer to him, sliding along the sofa and tilting her head to the side in a way that to anyone else might look flirtatious.
‘You need to stop this, darling,’ she says. She turns to Karen. ‘I still love him.’
She slips her hand into his and he looks down at their interlocked fingers, finding himself disgusted by the feeling of her skin against his; by the cold touch of her wedding ring. He pulls away from her, retracting his hand as though her skin might in some way infect his own; not caring what either of them chooses to make of his reaction. Then her hand moves to his leg and rests upon his thigh, and he knows there is nothing he can do about it, not after last week’s outburst.
‘I’ve always loved him,’ she says, and her fingers tighten their grip on his leg before she pulls away from him.
He moves along the sofa, widening the distance between them.
‘Like I said,’ Karen says, looking awkward at the unexpected show of physical affection that Lydia has put on for them, ‘these feelings aren’t lost, not completely.’ She smiles at him, but there is no warmth in the look. She clearly knows that Lydia’s gesture was forced, and the smile is almost accusatory. I see you, it says. I know what you are. ‘I don’t think you’re being entirely honest with me,’ she adds.
‘What do you mean?’ Lydia asks.
‘Exactly what I say. I get the impression there are things being left unsaid, and if you’re not honest with me then you’re not really being honest with yourselves. I can’t help you unless I know everything.’
Glances are passed between the three of them in a moment of exchange that is long and uncomfortable.
‘Josh, is there something you’d like to say?’
‘No,’ he replies with a shake of his head. ‘I’ve said everything I want to say for today.’
Waiting for Karen to test him, he looks at Lydia, who has fallen into silence at the other end of the sofa.
‘I can’t stress enough just how important it is that you’re both honest in this room. You are paying me to help you, but I can’t help you if I’m only getting half the picture.’
Her words, he is sure, are meant for him, yet it is Lydia she is looking at; it is Lydia she is exchanging further silent dialogue with.
‘I’ve been honest with you,’ Lydia says, which he realises is as good as saying, ‘He hasn’t been honest with you.’
‘Are we done?’ he asks.
‘If there’s nothing else you’d like to discuss today?’ Karen looks at each of them in turn, waiting for one of them to utilise the ten minutes remaining. Neither of them takes up the offer.
They exchange forced phrases of gratitude and less than friendly farewells, and neither speaks to the other before they get into the car.
‘What the hell were you playing at?’
‘What?’ Lydia starts the engine and revs the accelerator unnecessarily.
‘Holding my hand in front of Karen. Don’t touch me like that again. This isn’t a game.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘I know what you’re trying to do.’
‘Well I’d hope so,’ she says, pulling away from the kerb. ‘That’s kind of the point.’
/>
He swallows down the hundreds of words he would like to say to her, knowing that not one will embed itself between her ears.
Six
Lydia
Lydia isn’t sure she wants to be married any more. She can’t say it aloud to anyone – not even to herself, really – but coming here week in and week out has served to highlight the problems in her marriage, things she has tried to brush to one side and ignore but which she now realises are far worse than she had previously suspected.
‘… to help you make this work.’
Karen has just finished saying something; Lydia realises she hasn’t heard a word of what has been said.
‘Are you okay?’ Josh asks, as though he cares. ‘You weren’t listening, were you?’
She hears the accusation in the question.
‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ he says, firing the question at Karen. ‘Apparently I’m the one who doesn’t listen.’
‘I was thinking,’ Lydia says defensively. ‘Isn’t it just as important to think before you speak, to avoid saying something stupid?’
‘Like me, you mean?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’ He looks at Karen and smiles with one corner of his mouth, raising his eyebrows as though to say, You see … this is what I’ve got to put up with. There is flirtation in the expression, she is certain of it.
‘Josh was just saying that he’s enrolled on some anger-management classes. I think it’s a great idea and a really positive step forward, don’t you, Lydia?’ Karen looks at her and smiles, but no light shines behind her eyes when she does so. And now she sees it. Karen is playing along with Josh, saying the things she thinks he wants to hear.
‘Have you? You didn’t say.’
‘I did – I told you in the car after we left here last week.’
‘No, you said you were going to, that’s not the same thing. I didn’t realise you’d actually signed up to them.’
‘Well, aren’t you happy?’
‘Should I be?’
He sighs loudly and his fingertips dig into the cushions at his sides. ‘There’s no winning with you, is there?’
‘I just wonder why you’ve left it so long.’ This is true: Josh has needed help for far longer than he would ever admit.
He throws his hands in the air. ‘There we are,’ he adds, directing the comment to Karen. ‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about. If I don’t do anything I’m wrong, and when I do something I’m too bloody late anyway.’
‘Josh has got a point there.’
‘Thank you,’ he says, though there is no gratitude in his tone. ‘At least someone is interested in how I feel.’
‘We all know how you feel,’ Lydia says with a sigh. ‘We’ve all been listening.’
‘Karen might have been,’ he says. ‘You haven’t.’
‘You keep saying that, but I have. I know you think I’m ungrateful and that I don’t appreciate you, but what about everything I’ve done for you over the years?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like just about everything. I’ve given up my life for you – where would you be now if it wasn’t for me?’
She is aware of Karen’s questioning eyes on her, but everything she says is true. She has made more sacrifices for him than the counsellor could ever know.
‘It’s not me who’s different,’ she adds, unwilling to let the point drop just yet. ‘You’re the one who’s changed.’
‘How?’
‘You just have. You never used to be like this.’
‘Like what, though? You’re being a bit vague, aren’t you?’
‘So controlling,’ she says, the words hushed into little more than a whisper. ‘You never used to argue with me about everything.’
‘You never used to want to be right about everything, that’s why. I’m not the one who’s changed. You’ve not been yourself, not for a long time. Ever since Mum died—’
There is a sharp intake of breath; too late, Lydia realises it has come from her.
‘Her death was difficult for the whole family,’ she says quickly, turning to Karen, ‘but he uses it as an excuse for his behaviour. We’ve all lost people we love, haven’t we?’ She meets Karen’s eye. ‘We can’t use it as an excuse,’ she adds.
‘What were you going to say, Josh?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said “Ever since Mum died”, but you didn’t finish what you were saying.’
‘Lydia’s been different since then, that’s all.’
‘He’s trying to look for something to pinpoint,’ she says, knowing she is talking about him as though he isn’t there. ‘But life’s not that straightforward, is it? He wants to be able to look back at a time and say, right, that’s where everything went wrong, but I know we won’t find it. It’s been a gradual decline, you know?’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Karen says, sounding like every cliché Lydia has ever heard. ‘Had she been unwell?’
Josh looks at Lydia before answering. ‘I think she’d been ill for quite some time, but she never let on. She was proud like that – she wouldn’t have wanted us to worry. She kept everything bottled up, didn’t she?’
‘Are you in agreement that your relationship changed following the death of Josh’s mother?’ Karen asks.
Of course they are, she thinks: that, at least, is one thing they are able to agree on.
Josh is the first to respond to Karen’s question. ‘She’s in agreement if she’s honest with herself.’
Lydia nods. ‘I know it changed the relationship. It changed everything. But that doesn’t mean it’s all my fault.’
‘You didn’t care.’
‘That’s not true,’ she argues, appealing to Karen. ‘I did care, but he just shut himself off. No one could go near him for a long time, not without being attacked in some way.’
She chooses her words carefully, knowing what they imply. Karen can’t have forgotten Josh’s potential for violence.
‘I took her death hard,’ he says. ‘I never hid the fact and I couldn’t do anything to help that. But she just acted as though nothing had happened, as though we could just carry on with our lives as though Mum had never been a part of them.’ He is talking to Karen now, spilling his thoughts in the space between them as though Lydia isn’t taking up a part of it; as though she isn’t there at all.
‘Have you ever spoken to anyone else about this?’ Karen asks him. ‘A grief counsellor, perhaps?’
He shakes his head.
‘Why do you think the death caused a change, Lydia?’
She notices the way Josh reacts when the question is put to her, as though he’s the only person who should matter. ‘I don’t know,’ she says quietly. ‘I wish I did, then we might be able to put it right.’
He shakes his head, his mouth twisting at her words. ‘You’re unbelievable.’
She looks at Karen pleadingly. ‘We didn’t have the closest of relationships, but that’s not unusual, is it? Lots of families have tensions.’
‘Tensions?’ he repeats. ‘You never liked her. It was obvious to everyone you never respected her, and you never even tried to get closer to her.’
‘It wasn’t for me to try.’ She pauses; she knows she sounds increasingly insensitive. ‘Look,’ she says, speaking to Karen. ‘She wasn’t the easiest of women to get along with. I always wanted to be closer to her, but she tended to isolate herself. She never made the effort and she made it difficult for people to get close to her. I wish I could go back and change things, but I can’t. Nobody can.’
‘Would you, though?’ he says, speaking to her as though he has somehow managed to forget that Karen is there in the room with them. ‘If you could go back and change things, would you?’
‘Of course I would,’ she snaps, trying and failing not to sound defensive. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
Karen is watching the two of them intently, her eyes moving from side to side as she follows the exchange. She shifts in he
r seat and moves her attention to him.
‘What about you, Josh? What do you feel has changed in the relationship since your mother’s death?’
He looks down at his hands. Lydia’s eyes linger on his fingers: he isn’t wearing the ring she gave him.
‘I think it made us both look at things differently.’
Karen says nothing, waiting for him to offer more.
‘It did change me,’ he admits. ‘I disappeared for a while, in a sense, but I don’t think that’s unusual, do you?’
‘I think it’s entirely normal and completely understandable,’ Karen says, and she is looking at him in a way Lydia hasn’t seen before, with a sympathy that has been offered to her but has never previously been extended to his side of the room. ‘Grief is powerful and unpredictable. There are no rules for it.’
She feels pushed to one side by the turn in the conversation. ‘I understand why he wanted to shut himself away from everyone,’ she says, feeling the need to defend herself. ‘I did the same when my father died.’
‘It’s not a competition, Lydia,’ he snaps.
‘Look,’ Karen says, raising her palms in a peacemaking gesture. ‘We can’t compare one another’s grief – it’s unrealistic, and it won’t help anyone deal with their own. If possible, what you need to achieve is some common ground, a way you can share your experiences and use them to help one another.’
‘He thinks his mother’s death didn’t affect anyone else, but it did. Lucy took it particularly hard. She might not have shown it, but that was just her way of coping.’
‘I don’t think Lucy was affected,’ he argues. ‘They were never close.’
‘It’s not as simple as that. Lucy doesn’t always show her feelings,’ she tries to explain. ‘It doesn’t mean they’re not there, though.’
No one else speaks, as though they have both been silenced by their misunderstanding of her reaction.
‘Lucy would love to have been closer to her,’ Lydia tells Karen, ‘but she was always made to feel like an outsider.’
‘In what way?’ he challenges.
‘James was always her favourite. He didn’t need to do anything to merit it – that’s just the way it was.’
The Divorce: A gripping psychological thriller with a fantastic twist Page 9