He slams the laptop shut, and with it the light snaps out of the room, plunging us into near-darkness. ‘No,’ he says again, after a while. I watch his profile for a few minutes, willing him to turn his head and look at me, but he doesn’t move, and in the end I just get up and leave.
In the bathroom, I clean off last night’s make-up and put the new day’s on. I focus on my face in fragments, minutely scrubbing and rebuilding one small area after another. I smear foundation thickly over my skin, trace shadow carefully over my eyelids, run black liner to the corner of my eyes. Last, I choose a dark pink lipstick and apply it slowly across the width of my mouth, pressing my lips together to set the colour. Only then do I step back and stare at my reflection. I look good. Better than I should. Even so, I don’t like looking myself in the eye. I’m afraid of seeing something there that I don’t want to transmit. Disappointment, maybe, or sadness. Anything at all.
‘Mummy, Mummy.’ Eddie’s voice drifts from down the hallway, amicably querulous. I glance at my watch. Already half past seven, and only an hour to get us both ready and out of the house. Then the hurried journey to nursery, the bus back into town to the office, eight hours of sitting at my desk, turning over the mental picture of Francis on his own in the house and wondering what he is doing, what he is thinking. The thought of it all is exhausting.
I could go back to bed. The idea falls into my head, clear and sweet as water, as I walk down the hall and push open Eddie’s bedroom door. Call in sick, pull the covers over my head and sleep for another eight or nine hours. But I won’t.
‘Good morning!’ I sing, drawing back the curtains. I bend down by his bed and pull him into a hug, feeling his hot little fingers closing around the back of my neck.
I start the routine. Clothes, breakfast, teeth-brushing. First one thing, then the next. This is how you get through life. This is how it goes.
‘Nursery today,’ I tell Eddie. ‘What do you think you’ll be doing?’
He cocks his head to one side, an exaggerated parody of thoughtfulness. ‘Don’t know,’ he says slowly. ‘Playing, I think.’
‘That sounds about right.’ I smile, and he beams at me, aware he’s somehow made a joke. ‘Well, make sure you have fun,’ I add.
At half past eight I brush his blond hair carefully twenty times, counting each stroke in my head. He is murmuring quietly to himself, moving two plastic animals across his lap in some complicated game. ‘What are they doing?’ I ask, but he doesn’t reply, swivelling his grey eyes up to mine and narrowing them in what looks like amused mistrust. Sometimes, his expressions strike me as oddly mature, brewed for far more than the two and a half years they have had to arrange themselves on his face.
I finish the brushing and straighten his T-shirt. ‘Go and say goodbye to Daddy,’ I say, and he trots eagerly off to the living room. I hear Francis’s voice, complimenting him on his smartness, advising him to be good and have a nice day. He sounds pleasant, doting even. Completely normal. The thought lifts me, and I hurry down the hall to join them. Sure enough, he’s smiling, stroking the top of Eddie’s head with the flat of his hand.
‘We’ll be off, then,’ I say. Eddie slips out of the room, knowing the drill, clattering down the hallway towards the front door to wait for me. The instant he is gone, the atmosphere drops and folds in on itself. Francis sits down again, wrenching the lid of the computer up and intently focusing on the screen.
‘Yeah,’ he says.
‘You won’t forget to pick Eddie up? I’ve got that work party tonight, remember?’ I ask.
He glances up, irritation flashing across his face. ‘I know,’ he snaps. ‘You told me already. Three or four times.’
I bite back the retort that springs to my lips – the accusation that what he remembers these days seems to be entirely arbitrary, filtered through some invisible system that can hang on to the slightest perceived misdemeanour or thoughtless word for years but let dates, times and appointments drift through it like clouds of finely spun sugar. ‘Fine,’ I say, knowing my voice is harsh and unkind. ‘Well, don’t wait up.’ The petty cliché falls uselessly between us.
Francis leans back in his seat and sighs, a short, defeated exhalation that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. ‘See you,’ he says flatly, and all at once I’m thinking about touching him, wondering how it would change things if I walked over and knelt in front of him and pressed my hands to his forehead, smoothing his hair and kissing his lips. The idea is strangely compelling, but I don’t move.
I tell him goodbye, and search my head for something else to say. But there’s nothing.
The bar is hot and dark, its walls prickled with flashing Christmas lights. Glancing at my watch, I realize it is already almost ten o’clock. I’ve been dreading this party for days, unable to imagine getting into any kind of festive spirit, but now that it is here I am flooded with relief. Lately, it seems that I have shuttled between the house and the office like a rat on a wheel, the cycle broken only by the odd half-hearted dinner with a friend filled with platitudes and lies that ends by 9 p.m. It has been a long time since I have been out with a group, and dressed in the short, sparkly dress I brought with me to change into.
Glancing down, I stroke it over my thighs, watching it shimmer, and for some reason I find myself giggling. It strikes me that I am already quite drunk. My head feels pleasantly fuzzy, anaesthetized. Across the table, Steven is raising his voice in some vague attempt at managerial authority, rambling out a toast. ‘We’ve all worked hard …’ I catch. ‘Time to celebrate and look forward to another year of …’
Whatever it is we have to look forward to is drowned in a general chorus of agreement and clinking glasses. It doesn’t much matter what it is in any case; in the world of media sales there’s only so good it’s going to get. I snatch up my own glass and join the toast, not caring that the liquid sloshes over my hand. I tip the rest down, wincing at the burn of alcohol. I don’t drink much these days. My head spins, and I decide to go to the bathroom. I nudge Julie next to me, indicating that I want to get out, and she shifts across the bench, half falling into the lap of one of the junior salesmen, who looks none too displeased. ‘No need to hurry back,’ she calls, winking at me. I roll my eyes good-naturedly, but I can’t help feeling a brief prick of something like envy.
I make my way across the bar. The music throbs loudly around me, but inside my head I can hear the click of my high-heeled shoes on the polished floor, neat and rhythmical, each click vibrating through my body. Spotlights glimmer above me, reflecting and blurring on to the glossy metallic bar. As I draw closer, I see that Carl is waiting there, jostling in the throng. He’s checking his phone, head bent, squinting at the lit-up screen.
‘You’ll never get served like that,’ I say as I pass, and he looks up and laughs, tucking the phone away into his pocket and glancing back towards the bar.
‘Yeah,’ he answers. ‘Got distracted. It’s taking fucking ages. I can’t even remember what anyone wants.’
‘Just get a few lemonades.’ I shrug, grinning.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘They’re all so pissed, they wouldn’t notice anyway.’
‘Not like you,’ I fire back.
‘Or you. We’re the sensible ones,’ he says.
‘You got it.’ It’s easy to fall into this kind of banter with Carl, as easy as breathing. Eighteen months of walking around on the same bit of carpet for five days a week has created a friendship between us that I have grown to value. He’s almost a decade younger than me, but we have the same attitude towards the job we’re in – the same mix of bored familiarity, frustration with our colleagues and occasional flashes of excitement and interest.
‘Having a good night?’ he asks, angling himself away from the bar and towards me, the attempt to attract the barman’s attention forgotten.
‘Yeah – it’s great,’ I say, leaning forward earnestly for emphasis, and as I do so the heel of my shoe twists under me and I trip slightly, lurching against him, the sleeve of his bl
azer brushing against my bare skin.
‘Steady on.’ He rights me, his dark eyes amused, flashing in the beams of light glittering across the bar.
‘Sorry,’ I say, laughing. ‘I didn’t, um, I didn’t mean to throw myself at you like that.’ It’s meant to be a joke, the kind of lightly flirtatious banter that we’re well used to making in the office, but somehow in this setting – the dark, perfume-scented air, the red-tinted spotlights and the crush of people around us – it sounds different. Loaded. Frozen by sudden embarrassment, I find myself staring into his eyes, and I have just a second or two to register that there is something strange in this mutual silence before he shrugs and smiles.
‘No worries,’ he says. ‘Must be all those lemonades.’ He twists away from me suddenly, motions towards the barman and reels off a long list of drinks, seemingly at random. I take a few deep breaths, composing myself. ‘So,’ he says when he has finished, ‘how are you doing?’
‘Er. I’m all right.’ The question is too vague to be worth replying to in any detail. ‘On the edge of mental collapse,’ I elaborate lightly. ‘That was a joke,’ I add a moment later, though it wasn’t really.
Carl leans back against the bar, his arms folded. ‘Things still bad at home?’ he asks.
I shrug. The implicit reference to Francis stabs me unpleasantly, and I realize I have barely thought of him all evening. The picture slides into my head – his body slumped apathetically on the sofa, lost in sleep or oblivion, the lamp burning in the corner of the cold, grey room – and out again. ‘Not great,’ I admit. I think about saying more, but I can’t quite find the words. Carl knows more than most about the way things are, and we’ve always been good at striking a balance between friendly intimacy and respectful distance, but tonight I can’t trust that I can find that balance. I have the vague, worrying sense that if I started talking, I might not stop.
He’s watching me closely, but when he speaks his tone is light. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘if you need a shoulder to cry on, you know I’m around.’
I nod. I know I should say something, but my mind is suddenly blank. ‘Better get to the bathroom,’ I say, and turn abruptly away, realizing that my legs are shaking.
In the bathroom I splash cold water on to my face and watch my reflection in the mirror as the drops trickle down my skin. My eyes look wide and intense, sparkling in the glowing red light. I turn my head slightly, monitoring my profile, evaluating myself from this angle and that. The room lurches around me and I blink hard, trying to drag myself back down to earth. One more drink, and then I’ll go home.
For the next hour I sit in the tight little circle of my workmates, listening to the conversations flowing around me, barely in the room. When I get to my feet and say my goodbyes, Carl comes over to wish me a happy Christmas.
‘See you in the New Year,’ he says. ‘Have fun.’ His hug is friendly, vaguely affectionate. It lasts about two seconds, and yet it sends something unfamiliar ricocheting through me, something I can’t quite pin down and examine before it’s gone.
‘You, too,’ I say. ‘Bye, then,’ and then I’m ducking out of the bar, my heart beating fast again, and my bones rattling under my thin jacket as I step into the icy-cold air.
All the way home, those few minutes at the bar replay senselessly through my head. I lean my head against the steamed-up window of the bus. I’ve never thought about Carl this way before – not really, not seriously – but right now I can’t drag my mind away. A harmless little fantasy, I tell myself. No one could begrudge me that. And suddenly the gates swing open and I’m wondering what it would be like to kiss him – to kiss anyone, after all this time. The thought is strange and violent. I press my fingertips against my forehead, which is already aching. I’m going to be in no state to be the perfect wife and mother tomorrow.
When I reach home, I unlock the door quietly and, as soon as I do so, I can hear Francis snoring. I tiptoe to the half-open door of the lounge and see him sprawled on the sofa, fully clothed, dead to the world. Silently, I turn away and go into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. I pull off my short silver dress, feeling the sequins scratch against my bare skin, peel off my underwear so that I’m standing naked in front of the window. The curtains are open, and I hesitate for a few seconds before pulling them shut, a half-formed thought lurking darkly in the back of my head: a sudden, wanton desire to be watched, to be seen.
Throwing myself down on the bed, I reach for my handbag and pull out my phone, seeing at once that it is flashing to signal a new message. I bristle with instinctive knowledge and, sure enough, it’s Carl’s name that appears on the screen.
Good to see you, the message reads. You’ll be glad to know I decided to go home soon after you left. Got to stay sensible, right?
I try and think of something to reply, but my thoughts slip through me and I can’t hold on to what I want to say. I throw the phone on to the bedside table, roll over to turn off the lamp, then lie back and close my eyes, feeling my head swim. It’s not unusual for us to text each other, but it’s rarely so late at night. In light of my fantasies on the way home, it feels significant. It isn’t, of course. It won’t change anything. All the same, as I lie there in the darkness and think about him, I do something that I haven’t done for a long, long time, and when I wake up hours later, dragged out of sleep by dreams I can barely remember but which leave me hot and frustrated and confused, I do it again.
It’s another day and a half before I look at the photographs in the hall. They are what I expected: luminously filtered snapshots of marital and familial bliss. Caroline holding Eddie and laughing against a sparkling, snowy backdrop, both of them wearing woolly hats and gloves; Caroline and Francis strolling hand in hand down a sandy beach and squinting amiably into the sunset, the photo presumably taken by some roped-in onlooker; the three of them seated in the chaos of what must be Christmas morning, surrounded by the debris of multicoloured wrapping paper and ribbons. Eleven photographs. They are all showing different moments, different landscapes, but they have one thing in common: they all seem to have been taken within the past year. There’s no progression, no sense of history. Everything that came before is a blank.
I don’t spend as much time looking as I had thought I would. When it comes down to it, they’re just pictures. They don’t hurt in the way I thought they would, either. The happiness in them doesn’t feel real, and whoever said the camera never lies has clearly never set foot in this place.
I go back upstairs to her bedroom, and look around at the mess I’ve created. Anyone walking in here would be forgiven for thinking it had been the victim of a senseless raid – possessions thrown helter-skelter across the floor, cupboards and wardrobes stripped and gutted. I haven’t bothered to clear up after myself, but I’ve been very thorough. Any fool knows that if a woman has things she wants to keep secret, she hides them where she sleeps. So far I haven’t found much, but I know that will change. I know in my gut that Caroline isn’t the type to erase the past, despite the image she tries to portray. She isn’t the type to make a choice. She wants it both ways.
You can’t have your cake and eat it. Strange expression. It makes no sense, unless you know that, in the past, ‘have’ was used to mean something more like ‘keep’. You can’t keep your cake and eat it. You can’t hang on to something and destroy it, too. Wanting to keep your memories safe and at the same time wanting to wake up one morning and find that they’ve been wiped out of your head … Wanting to nurture what you’ve got, and at the same time wanting to light the blue touch paper and stand back to watch it burn and explode … yes. That’s something Caroline and I can both relate to.
Away
Caroline, May 2015
I GET UP early and make breakfast in the gleaming show-kitchen. Its emptiness is surprisingly restful; at home, I can barely move for clutter. Sometimes, I fantasize about doing what I occasionally read about in magazines and throwing out everything we own, starting over again with an entirely clean slate.
The people who put themselves on record to talk about this kind of thing always look liberated to the point of insanity – smiles manic, eyes wide and evangelical. When it comes down to it, though, I can’t imagine doing it. Francis is a hoarder, and I wouldn’t even know where to start.
There are eggs and milk in the fridge, if nothing else, and a quick scout through the minimalist kitchen cupboards reveals a bag of flour, so I make a pancake batter and heat a frying pan on the hob. I’m keeping myself busy, but as I stir and pour I can’t help thinking about the flowers on the windowsill in the bathroom. Their image hangs there like an eye-mote, glimmering pinkly at the corners of my mind.
This sort of thing happened a lot, in the early days. I’d be caught out at almost every turn by a song playing in a shop or an idle turn of phrase from a stranger. Everything reminded me of you, because it was so easy to make the connections – you were at the very top level, all the time. In the same way, back when Francis and I first got engaged, I found myself noticing other newly engaged women everywhere I went. They were easy to spot, because they only wore one ring on that finger, and often it was slightly too big or too tight, so they would fiddle with it. It was like that, only it wasn’t a good feeling. It was like it in the worst possible way.
I thought I’d got past that. It was because it was unexpected, I suppose. As I prod at the edges of the batter in the frying pan, watching it bubble and harden, I’m thinking of that afternoon in the market, and the way you grabbed the roses from that stall, saying you wanted me to have them, even if I couldn’t keep them. The way the petals felt on my fingertips. Cool and soft. And the scent of them that lingered on my skin, long after I’d left them lying on the station platform and taken the train back home.
I’m still staring at the frying pan, turning the memory over in my head, when I become conscious of a creeping sensation across the back of my neck – a wordless warning. I glance around me, registering the bare, blameless surfaces, the evenly spaced spotlights. There’s nothing here to unsettle me, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being observed; the instinct urgent and strong, in the same way that the presence of a stranger in the house at night might be sensed, even through closed eyes.
The House Swap Page 2