Outside. I swing round to face the window, and it’s barely half a second – the smooth gliding of a shadow, something half seen and snatched away. It could be a trick of the light, but it’s enough. I peer out, looking for something, anything. The neat little square of lawn is empty, but I think I catch the faintest ruffle of the leaves at the far side, the kind of tremulous movement that could be the aftershock of someone pushing past and through.
‘I was going to do that!’ The sound of Francis’s voice makes me jolt. He’s suddenly behind me, putting his arms around my waist and briefly kissing the back of my neck. ‘I don’t want you to be slaving away over a hot stove all week.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I thought I might as well.’
‘Something on your mind?’ His expression is anxious, solicitous. ‘You look a bit rattled.’
My eyes stray back to the kitchen window. The garden is empty and the leaves are still again. I shake my head. ‘No. It’s fine.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘If you’re sure. Well, shall we have these and then go into London in a bit, when we’re ready? I thought maybe we could go to a museum or something, have some lunch out, then, I don’t know, do something else. Is there anything you fancy doing?’
‘Not sure … I’ll have a think.’ Even a year on, it feels new to hear him making plans and suggestions. It has the curious effect on me of wanting to relinquish responsibility completely and be borne along on the tide of his enthusiasm. There is no need for me to steer and control our days now. I don’t want to decide what we do or where we do it.
We eat the pancakes at the wooden breakfast table, joking about how Eddie would commandeer them all if he were here. I miss the sound of his voice, and I think about calling Mum, checking that he is all right. I’ll do it this afternoon; he’ll be at school now, anyway, and I’m supposed to be relaxing and enjoying myself.
‘I miss him, too,’ Francis says, reading my silence. ‘He’ll be fine, though. He’ll probably want to go and live with your parents permanently by the time we get back.’
‘I know,’ I agree, and lean in towards him for a kiss. It lasts longer than I had intended, and I wonder if we should go back upstairs to bed. Tired by the journey and shaken by the sight of the flowers, I hadn’t felt like sex last night, but right now the idea feels interesting, tangible. I hesitate a little too long, and the moment passes. Francis collects up the plates and takes them over to the dishwasher, talking about an exhibition on light and sound he has heard about that he thinks I might like to visit. It does sound good, actually – the kind of thing I used to go to on my own in my early twenties, wearing my most carefully selected artistic clothes in an attempt to fit in. It also sounds like the kind of thing that Francis would see as entirely inane and pointless.
‘We could do something you want to do, too,’ I venture.
He laughs. ‘Whatever you want to do is fine with me,’ he says. ‘That’s what I want.’
I wait in case anything else is forthcoming, but he just stares at me expectantly. ‘OK, then,’ I say finally. ‘Great.’ For a moment, I experience a strange pulse of nausea – the sense of some veneer cracking. Who is this Mr Perfect busying himself with the cleaning and tidying up, chatting about taking me out to exhibitions? Not my husband, or not the one I thought I had.
I breathe in deeply, steadying myself, waiting for it to vanish, and it does. ‘I’m going to pop up the road to that newsagent’s we saw,’ I say. ‘I can pick up the paper and a few bits and bobs while you have a shower?’
‘Sure,’ he says casually, to my relief. I need to get out for a few minutes to clear my head. I want to enjoy this week, and to do that I need to be in the right frame of mind. It’s not easy yet, not automatic. I’m not sure it ever will be.
I take my time on the way back from the newsagent’s, knowing that Francis will still be getting ready. Turning back into Everdene Avenue, I stroll down the pavement, glancing at each of the houses as I pass. They are boxy and self-contained, neatly spaced along the road in terraces of three. Occasionally, I see the shadows of their inhabitants moving past windows, gliding in and out of view like fish in darkly lit aquariums. If I moved a little further away from the road, I would be able to stare into their living rooms. In the tall, narrow tower block we live in now, we’re suspended in mid-air. Beyond the occasional bursts of music and noise that filter through the ceiling and floor, we might as well be living alone in the building. It feels odd to have other people’s lives so near that I can almost reach out and touch them.
As I approach number 14, I find myself slowing down even further. This was the house I noticed yesterday – the one with the relatively unkempt front lawn, the trails of dirt and dust running in fine lines along the outside walls. As I come closer, I see that there is a silver wind-catcher hanging from the front porch, tinkling gently in the breeze, the sound soft and clear, almost menacing. It reminds me of something for an instant, a split second of barely remembered, uneasy meaning that soon twists away.
The front door swings open and a woman is standing there, peering out into the street. She’s in her mid-twenties, wearing a dark khaki dress, with long, carelessly tangled blonde hair that spills over her oversized black cardigan. ‘Are you Heather?’ she calls out abruptly.
‘I – no.’ Awkwardly, I smile and shake my head, feeling my cheeks flush. ‘Sorry,’ I add.
The woman laughs, leaning back against the doorframe and folding her arms. ‘Well, it’s not your fault,’ she says. ‘I’m expecting someone from St Mary’s to come round about the fundraising event. Thought you might be her.’
‘Right,’ I say, shifting away. ‘No worries.’
‘Actually,’ the woman says, and I have already turned away from her when I hear her voice pulling me back, ‘I think I saw you arriving yesterday. You went into number 21, didn’t you?’ Somewhere along the line, she has drifted away from her own doorway and is halfway across the front lawn towards me, standing in her bare feet. Her face is open and innocent, and yet I catch a sly, conspiratorial look in her wide, green eyes, as if she is intimating that she and I both know that her initial query was a pretext.
That’s suburbia for you, I think, glancing back up the street. She seems a little young for a curtain-twitcher, but I suppose this environment breeds it early. I imagine a hotline of coded radio signals pulsing along the street in secret and tapping into each home one by one – newcomer alert! – and I can’t help smiling. ‘Yes,’ I say mildly. ‘Just staying for the week. House-sitting.’ Some obscure little scruple stops me from saying ‘swapping’, rather than ‘sitting’. I know absolutely nothing about the person whose house we are staying in, have no idea if they would want their movements and their choices relayed to their neighbours.
The woman perches on the edge of the low brick wall flanking the front lawn, fumbling in the pocket of her dress. The movement briefly pushes her breasts out against the material and, as she bends her head, I see the sweep of her long eyelashes and the angle of her cheekbones. She is unusually pretty.
She fishes out a packet of cigarettes and tilts it in my direction, raising her eyebrows inquiringly. I laugh, uncomfortable. ‘No, thanks.’ The woman seems unperturbed, putting one to her lips and bending her head to light it.
It feels like a natural end to the encounter, and I start to move away again, but she glances up. ‘Well, if you find yourself at a loose end,’ she says, ‘I’m at a bit of one myself this week. If you fancy a coffee or something? Two lonely women, and all that.’
Her voice is lightly mocking; for a bizarre moment, I wonder if she is flirting with me. There is something unsettling about her proposal – the directness of it, an invitation to play. I look at her; the way she is sitting on the wall with her knees drawn up to her chest, the inquisitive tilt of the head. She reminds me of something, or someone. I can’t quite catch on to the thought, but the trace it leaves fizzes with significance. It’s the
same sense of déjà vu I felt when I looked at her front doorway, and I don’t like it.
‘Actually, I’m here with my husband,’ I say, a little more sharply than I intended. ‘But thanks. I’d better get on.’
The woman half smiles. She eases herself off the wall, smoothing down her dress, then abruptly turns and walks wordlessly back to the house. I watch her as she goes back inside without a backward glance and closes the door. Guilt is starting to prickle over my skin. I was a little rude to her; she was only being friendly, however bizarre it seems. considering we have never met before. A vague idea stirs – an apologetic note through the door, a conciliatory proposal to meet – but I tell myself I am being stupid. We are only here for a week, and we’ve come to spend time with each other, not to make friends.
Lost in thought, I find that I am already at the front door and that I have pushed the key into the lock with as much familiarity as if this really were my house. As soon as I open the door I realize that something is wrong; a flash of instinctive recoil even before I have heard the first note. Music is drifting down the staircase. It takes a few beats to recognize the song, but my body knows it before I do. My heart is thudding and my limbs feel weak and liquid, suddenly awakened.
I haven’t listened to this song since the last time I saw you. But I remember the crowded bar where I first heard it with you; that magical sense that everything was fusing together, that it was a perfectly crafted soundtrack to what was happening in the tiny pocket of the room where we stood inches apart, your hands moving lightly to my waist and pulling me towards you.
Francis appears at the top of the staircase, rubbing his hair dry with a towel. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks instantly.
‘Nothing,’ I say with an effort. ‘Why have you put that on?’
‘The music?’ He glances inquiringly behind him. ‘I just found a few CDs in the bedroom, behind the stereo, and it was the one on top. I thought I might as well stick it on while I got ready. Got a bit over-excited, you know – stuff! Possessions! If we keep looking, we might even find a book or two.’
‘Right …’ I’m not in the mood for light-hearted repartee. I walk quickly up the stairs and into the bedroom. The song is only halfway through, and I am shocked by how hard it is to reach out and switch the stereo off. When I do, a fierce sense of loss rips through me.
Francis is standing behind me, his face anxious and alert. ‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘Did I do something wrong? Was it …’ He doesn’t carry on, but I know what he’s thinking.
‘No,’ I say, but even as I say it, I’m thinking that I’m sure he knows this song is loaded for me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it, in our long, exhaustive conversations over the months, when the spirit of confession has seized me and his desire for self-torture has been matched by my own savage compulsion to purge these details from my head. Can he have forgotten? ‘I just …’ I say uselessly, looking at him as he stands there, unblinking, waiting for me to continue.
‘It’s nothing,’ I say at last. We stand in silence for a few moments, and I put my arms around his neck and hold them there, pushing my face into his chest and listening to his heartbeat. When I pull back, I realize my eyes are wet, but I don’t blink, and after a short while I feel the tears shrinking back unshed.
‘I’ll go to the bathroom,’ I say, ‘and then let’s get out, yes? Take the train up to town and go to that exhibition.’ I watch his face relax into a smile, and I try to take some comfort from it. Small things can remain small. They don’t have to inflate until they suffocate all the life out of the room.
Feeling stronger now, I give him one last squeeze then gently extract myself, heading for the bathroom. I cleared the flowers out this morning, telling myself that they were beginning to brown and curl at the edges, so the windowsill is blamelessly clear. I go to the window and push it open. Leaning out, I stare down at the street, with its cloistered lines of identical houses. A little ripple of sound and movement catches my eye – the sense of a door or window banging shut – and I find myself glancing instinctively across at number 14, but by the time my eyes have settled on the house, everything is silent and still.
Home
Caroline, February 2013
I’M WALKING ALONG the riverbank with the wind lashing wetly into my face, flattening my hair against my scalp. My fingers are curled whitely around the handles of the buggy, pushing it forward. Eddie is shifting restlessly under the rain cover and I can see his profile darkly through the plastic as he twists his face upwards, staring at the rivulets of water that run down the canopy. Next to us, Francis is moving as if he is barely awake. His face is sulkily clouded, eyes staring straight ahead. His hands are shoved into his pockets, and the wind is catching his shirt-tails, whipping them back and forth in the cold air.
‘You must be freezing,’ I say, for the second or third time. He refused to take a coat when we left the house, muttering something about not needing anything. I had argued back, but it had only had the effect of entrenching his position. We had made our way to the bus stop in morose silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. Already, before we had even lost sight of our road, I knew the excursion was a mistake.
‘I’m not,’ he says now, shooting me a glance of mistrust, as if he suspects me of some underhand motive in showing concern. ‘Just shut up about it, will you?’
‘Charming,’ I snap, increasing my pace, although I know he won’t bother to keep up with me. Marching along the bank, I try to imbue my steps with enough righteous indignation to warm me from the inside out. It doesn’t work. Despite my long coat, I am shivering, and the rain is starting to soak through and settle on my skin in a damp, clingy film. Last night, when I had conceived this plan, I had imagined a bracing riverside walk in crisp winter sunshine, a chance to clear the cobwebs. I try these kinds of strategies maybe once a fortnight. Half the time, the dice fall in my favour. The other half, I’m left feeling that I am trying to move an unwilling puppet into action, contorting its limbs into a semblance of life.
After a while, I realize that Francis isn’t even walking any more. I look back and see that he is leaning on the iron rails, looking out on to the churning river. For a brief, nauseating instant I see him as if he were a stranger: the dishevelled hair and clothes, the odd, shuttered expression. I push the buggy quickly back to where he is standing and put my hand out to touch his wet shirtsleeve.
‘What is it?’ I ask. I had meant to sound concerned, but my voice is harsh and accusatory.
He shrugs, still staring out at the greyly lurching water as it rises and falls with the wind. ‘I think I’m going to go home,’ he says. ‘I’m knackered. And this isn’t really working, anyway, is it?’
Even though I cannot disagree, fury surges up in me at losing the day I had planned. I glare at Francis, torn between rage and worry. And above it all, the flat blanket of weariness settling. It’s all piling up: the sleepless nights, the short-tempered moments, the distance in the way he looks at me, the emptiness. We had a few good weeks but, lately, it’s becoming more and more clear that nothing has really changed.
He’s back on the pills. The thought lands like a stone in my gut. I’ve been trying to paper over the cracks, but it’s impossible to ignore. We’re back on this same old grinding merry-go-round. His pointless denials and the increasing loss of control. The refusal to admit that this is still happening. My tears and recriminations and supplications, which count for fuck all, because trying to reason with addiction is like trying to hold back the tide with the palm of your hand.
‘You know,’ I say, ‘maybe you should go back to the doctor. He might … might be able to help you.’ I can taste the irony in my own words. This was how it started, over three years ago now – with my well-intentioned suggestion that he should visit the doctor, maybe get something to help him through a tough few weeks at work. An image of him returning home the next day, jauntily waving a little prescription slip. Got me some happy pills! ‘I mean, sort out some counselling,’ I say car
efully. ‘Not just a quick fix.’
Francis shoots me a look of heavy scorn. ‘Fuck off,’ he says wearily.
My mouth opens in shock. It’s not the words themselves but the way in which they seemed to be so close to the surface, so ready to push me away. ‘Fuck off?’ I repeat. ‘Believe it or not, Francis, I’m trying to help you.’
‘You seem really fond of that word,’ he says. ‘Help. I don’t need any fucking help. All right?’
‘Yes, you do,’ I bite back tightly, struggling to keep control. ‘Yes, you do. You’re like a bloody zombie most of the time, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of pretending not to notice—’ I cut myself off, seeing a middle-aged couple ambling towards us.
Francis follows my gaze, and his lips twist unpleasantly in an approximation of a smile. ‘Don’t mind us,’ he says loudly, fixing his gaze on the couple. ‘We can even speak up if you like, if you’re feeling curious?’
‘Francis,’ I hiss. ‘Shut up.’ I’m flooded with embarrassment, my cheeks hot, clothes prickling damply against my skin. The couple give us a look, half pity, half alarm, and move swiftly away, muttering inaudibly to each other.
‘Fucking rubberneckers,’ Francis says, turning to me with eyebrows raised, and with a light shock I realize that he thinks we’re on the same side, complicit. He doesn’t understand at all.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I say. ‘I’m tired of you showing me up, and I’m tired of living like this. What would you do if you were me, Francis? Seriously, what the—’ Somewhere along the line, my voice has risen out of control and I’m shouting across the rapidly widening space between us. I watch him amble away with his head down, his interest in the conversation lost, pushing through the crowd of tourists and heading for God knows where. I’m crying, tears running down my face and mingling with the rain, and my left hand is still automatically rocking the buggy. I glance down and see that Eddie is oblivious, a fist pressed to his mouth and his eyes starting to glaze with tiredness.
The House Swap Page 3