The House Swap

by Rebecca Fleet

  Once I’m back at Turnham Green, I sit down on a cold bench at the bus stop and read the email again. If you want me to be. If you want me to be. You were always like this: batting my questions back, twisting them into self-reflection, saying that you only wanted to do what was best for me. Your own feelings were slippery, like mercury. I would seize on anything that gave me a clue as to what was going on inside your head, only to find that I was holding on to nothing, no wiser than I was before.

  I press the reply button. I don’t understand, I tap out, painfully aware of how inadequate these words are. Why are you doing this? Why now? What do you want? Too many questions. I can’t think what else to say. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve always clung on to a little private fantasy, that if I ever had any contact with you again it would be tinted with tenderness and nostalgia – not this strange, adversarial game of cat and mouse. For a moment I can see you as clearly as if you were standing next to me, and I badly want you to be there, to throw my arms around you and ask you to tell me it’s OK, that there’s some explanation for why you’re doing this and that it all makes sense.

  I put a C at the end of the message, then a kiss. I stare at the kiss, then delete it. Hit send. Already I’m counting the seconds, waiting for a reply. I can’t stand it. Regret is surging through me – I’m not sure enough that this was the right thing to do – but it’s too late to unsend it and now I’ve set myself up to wait for God knows how long, my nerves as scratchy and strained as barbed wire.

  On the bus back, I press my forehead against the windowpane and watch the lines of trees and houses rushing by, trying to drive these thoughts out. There’s nothing to replace them with. Only the image of Francis’s face, and that painful mixture of anger, hurt and regret in his eyes. It’s been a while since we fought like this. In the early days after I told him about you, exchanging this kind of vitriol felt too dangerous – as if every harsh word could be the one to tip the balance and break us apart.

  I would have thought it would feel safer now, but it doesn’t. What we have remains precarious. We’ve fought hard to keep it, against the odds, and the idea of losing it is bleakly depressing. All this effort and sacrifice, and still no lifetime guarantee. Now I’m stepping off the bus and walking quickly through the streets and swinging left towards Everdene Avenue, and suddenly I’m thinking of our wedding night … lying awake in the early hours and looking across the dark room at him sleeping next to me, and that powerful sense of tenderness, of knowing I was where I was meant to be. How frighteningly easily certainty can crumble. How little it takes.

  My hands are shaking as I unlock the front door and listen for signs of life inside. As soon as I step into the hall, I know the house is empty, but I search in every room anyway, just in case he’s there. Nothing. I call his mobile, but it’s switched off. I’ve got no way of knowing where he is and what he’s doing. I should know how to deal with it by now but, if anything, it feels worse than ever before. Even without the drugs, Francis is impulsive. I can’t predict what he might do.

  I go to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water, gulp it down in seconds. The coldness numbs and clears my head, and for a few moments I just stand there, looking blankly at the glass. It’s tall and curved, etched with a greenish line around the rim. It’s the sort of thing I might have chosen. And then the realization hits me, long overdue – that if you’re in my house, then I’m in yours.

  The thought brings a rush of adrenaline, and I find myself pacing through the rooms again, searching for clues. Everything is so frustratingly anonymized. Bare wooden furniture, no photographs, almost nothing in the cupboards. I remember laughing with Francis when we arrived, wondering who might live in such a strangely minimal place. Now I realize that no one lives this way unless they want to hide something. You didn’t want me to know straight away. You wanted to drip-feed me with information, until it took hold and had an effect.

  Sinister. The word pops into my head without warning. It makes me stop, arrested in the act of opening the hallway cupboard.

  I’ve spent the past two years believing that you cut yourself off from me because you cared; because it was impossible to do otherwise and because, however brutal it might have seemed, it was the sacrifice that had to be made to wipe the slate clean. I can’t imagine what could be strong enough to overturn everything that happened the last time I saw you. Why have you changed your mind?

  Something is rising in the back of my mind. Shadows stirring darkly at the end of a long road. Your voice, rising out of nowhere. I press my hands to the sides of my head, willing the image back down. I won’t think about it. Not now. Not ever.

  I hear the sound of sobbing and I realize that I’m crying, tears streaming down my cheeks and trickling on to my top. Blindly, I move to the front door and fling it open, step outside. There’s nowhere to go, but I can’t stay here. I see the rows of houses through my tears, with their neat, featureless windows and their prettily kept gardens. Across the street, a middle-aged man is carrying recycling bins out, setting them on to the front lawn. He’s watching me through narrowed eyes, frowning, evaluating.

  ‘Caroline?’ It’s Amber’s voice, and I jump. She’s appeared out of nowhere, just behind me, stretching out her hand tentatively to touch my shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’

  I wipe my sleeve across my eyes, burning with embarrassment and fighting to compose myself, but it’s useless. Mutely, I shake my head. She is staring at me, her lips marginally parted and her smooth forehead creased. Her eyes are wide and unblinking, like painted glass. The thought flicks through my head that this isn’t normal; the intensity of it, the tight focus of her concentration. And yet I can’t help but respond to it. When you’re at the centre of that focus, I realize, it’s hard to ignore.

  ‘I’ve had a message,’ I hear myself say. The enormity of it all is swirling in my head, but I have to get rid of at least a fraction of it. ‘From an ex,’ I manage to say.

  Amber nods slowly; her eyes are asking me to continue.

  ‘I’m not …’ Speaking is an effort. ‘I’m not sure what it means.’ Abruptly, the tears dry up. I sit down numbly on the low garden wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the man opposite straighten up to dust off his hands, give me one last look then disappear slowly back towards his house.

  Amber sees me looking. ‘Don’t worry about him.’ She raises her voice, just loud enough that it might carry on the wind. ‘It’s your business, not everyone else’s.’ The man’s back stiffens, and he slams the front door behind him without looking back.

  Amber turns back, crouching down beside me. ‘Listen,’ she says, ‘is this ex someone you want back in your life, or not?’

  ‘No,’ I say quickly. The word feels treacherous and unreliable in my mouth. ‘No.’

  ‘Then you ignore the message,’ she says, shrugging. ‘It’s simple.’ All of a sudden, the concern has dropped away from her face and she’s smiling as if she has solved a complex conundrum, the final piece slotting into place to illuminate the whole.

  I nod, because there seems to be nothing else to do. There’s no way of explaining that it’s already too late to ignore you. And besides, the question she has asked me is redundant. You can’t come back into somebody’s life when you’re already in it. What happened to us isn’t something that can be brushed away or undone. Even after all this time, it’s still under my skin.

  Home

  Caroline, May 2013

  IT’S SATURDAY MORNING and, as soon as we get up, everything is clear and sweet and simple. The night has passed uninterrupted, free of the erratic noises and movements that so often characterize Francis’s wakeful hours before dawn. He’s slept in our bed all night; opening my eyes to see him beside me feels gleefully novel, as if we’re a young couple waking up together for the first time.

  Eddie has slept well, too, and prattles through his breakfast, a barely comprehensible stream of consciousness that could be conversation or the aftermath of some half-remembered dr
eam.

  ‘Come on,’ I tell him, bringing him his clothes. ‘Arms up,’ and he obediently stretches, his fingers splayed and grasping for the skies.

  ‘You want to go to the playground,’ he says, his voice muffled as I pull his T-shirt over his head. It’s a strange little quirk that always makes me smile, this inability to differentiate between the first and second person, as if we’re two indistinguishable halves of the same whole.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘We can do that. I’m not sure about Daddy …’ I glance at Francis, expecting him to make some excuse, but he smiles.

  ‘Why not?’ he says. ‘Nice day for it. We could go down to that one near the river.’

  ‘There you go, Eddie.’ I nudge him gently in the ribs. ‘Mummy and Daddy will both come. Does that sound good?’

  ‘Yes!’ He beams and throws himself between us on the sofa, arms stretched haphazardly in an attempted cuddle. You could take a snapshot of us now, I find myself thinking, and we’d look like a happy family. And although I know that pictures lie and moments are transitory, it’s a comfort, nonetheless, to think that, even momentarily, the pieces have clicked into place and are fitting together the way they were always meant to.

  ‘We could leave now,’ I suggest tentatively. A little thought is flickering at the back of my mind – I don’t think he has taken anything this morning, and if I can get us out of the house … He frowns slightly as he weighs up my proposal. For an instant, the air between us sharpens and tightens as I wait. Then he nods, and I’m rushing Eddie into his shoes and jacket, pulling on my own clothes and getting the buggy ready, filled with a crazy, stupid sense of elation.

  We take the bus to the playground, and all the way Eddie sings loudly, tracing patterns in the air with his hands as if he’s conducting the passengers. Sometimes, strangers can be unfriendly, but today it’s all indulgent looks and doting smiles. ‘He’s lovely,’ an elderly woman comments to us as she hobbles off the bus. It feels like an award, a seal of approval. We’ve done something right. Francis brushes my hand with his fingertips and my eyes fill up with tears.

  At the playground, Eddie runs ahead and launches himself straight on to the climbing wall, struggling to get a grip in his canvas shoes. I buy a carton of juice from the café and stand watching him, laughing as he grudgingly accepts an offer of help from an older boy, then follows him minutes later to the sandpit and stands shyly, waiting to be invited to play.

  On the bench behind me, Francis laughs, too, and it strikes me that I haven’t heard this sound in a while. I twist around and look at him, trying to see him through fresh eyes. So many times in the past few months I’ve been ambushed by the sharp, unpleasant thought that he’s little more than a ruin of who he once was – the pale, bloated face, the glazed eyes. But today, with the brightness of the early summer sun streaming across his face and the happiness he radiates as he watches Eddie, he looks almost well.

  He catches me staring and gets up, hands in his pockets as he strolls towards me. ‘He’s enjoying it,’ he comments. A beat, and then he slips his arm around my waist. ‘I am, too,’ he says.

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

  ‘Listen,’ he says quietly, bending his head closer towards mine. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve been rubbish lately. I’m going to change things, you know.’

  It’s the first time for months that he has said these words, and it feels as if some tension has snapped and released. The warmth of the sun is on our faces and we’re watching our child playing and, even though I’ve heard it all before, in this moment it feels like there’s nothing wrong and nothing in the way.

  The words I’ve held back for weeks are forcing themselves to the surface. ‘The pills …’ I say. ‘I know you say you aren’t, but I know you’re taking them again.’ I hesitate. ‘Too much,’ I force myself to say.

  His eyes cloud and I think he will shrug and retreat into another distant denial. Then he gives a brisk, decisive nod. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s stupid. I don’t know why.’

  ‘I know,’ I say softly, and I do believe this. I used to search for a reason. I tried to unpick it, rationalize it, trace it back to those first few weeks when a bout of stress at work and a few lingering family tensions had driven me to suggest that he should get some help. It has taken me a long time to realize that, try as I might, this won’t fall into the neat little boxes of cause and effect I want it to. It’s bigger than that. Senseless, irrational, powerful.

  ‘They did help in the beginning, you know,’ Francis says. ‘Too well. When you’re so used to being wound so tight, and then that gets released, it’s a relief. More than that. And of course, you want that feeling again and again. It’s not just the big stuff – it makes everything easier. But that’s the trouble with those pills. The more you take, the more …’ He breaks off, frowns in half-surprise. ‘The more you need,’ he says finally, and his face is briefly flooded with an almost childlike revelation.

  ‘I understand,’ I say. I’ve heard these things before, but there’s something different about his tone. Despite the sun, I’m shivering slightly. I have the feeling of walking a tightrope, delicately balanced, not wanting to move too fast. I bite my tongue, watching him as he looks out across the playground at Eddie in the sandpit, his hair fluttering in the wind as he bends his head in concentration.

  ‘I’ll stop for good this time,’ he says at last, his tone heavy with decision. ‘I don’t even want them any more. When I woke up this morning, it was really good to feel clean. They’re just fucking up my head.’ He pauses, then gives a quick ripple of his shoulders, somewhere between a twitch and a shudder, throwing the thought off. ‘I feel really good,’ he repeats. His gaze is steady and for an instant his green eyes widen and look straight into mine.

  We stare at each other for a good ten seconds. It has to be nine more than I’ve spent looking into his eyes in months. The thought comes strong and unbidden. It’s going to be all right.

  Across the playground, Eddie is shouting something. I glance towards him and see him scrambling out of the sandpit and gesticulating towards the seesaw, demanding to be put on. ‘Hold on,’ I say, and start to move away, but Francis stops me.

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ he says. I watch him heading towards Eddie, lifting him high into the air and placing him gently on to the seesaw, then striding across to sit on the other end. My heart is beating fast and an image of Carl comes into my mind. I’m sitting on his lap in the bar we went to last week, my arms laced around his neck and his hands holding the small of my back as we whisper to each other. He’s listening to me, and his face is lit up with eagerness and affection.

  I can’t quite connect it with reality. A strange sense of division: two lives played out in parallel and sliding smoothly past each other without touching. Rarely, if ever, have I told myself that, sooner or later, I will have to choose one. But now the truth of it comes to me sadly and strongly, and it’s suddenly clear which life it should be.

  Eddie is sliding off the seesaw and running towards me, his little legs doggedly pistoning up and down, a smile splitting his face open. Behind him, Francis powers in his wake. The sunlight is behind them and they’re cast in its glow, and my eyes are smarting again because I could so easily lose this, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to.

  ‘Good running!’ I cry, as Eddie reaches me, and I kneel down so that he can hug me. I dip my face to his hair, drawing in the scent of mint shampoo and cut grass. I’ll text Carl when I get home. I’ll cancel our meeting tonight. The thought gives me a pang of loss, but I push it down. It’ll give me some time and space to think, and Francis and I can spend the evening together. A film, maybe a takeaway. Normal things. It’s amazing what a powerful rush this idea is.

  We stay another twenty minutes, then wander back towards the bus stop. When we’re on our way home I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s as if the tension of the past few months has dissolved into nothing and every muscle in my body has relaxed. I find myself slipping luxuriously in
and out of sleep, resting my head against the warm glass of the window, Francis’s arm slung loosely around my shoulders.

  ‘Caro.’ Hazily, I realize that he is nudging me, trying to rouse me. ‘He’s fussing. Not sure what the matter is.’

  With an effort, I raise my head and look at Eddie strapped into the buggy in front of us. Sure enough, he’s grizzling for no clear reason, his earlier good temper forgotten. Still half asleep, I lean forward and reach for his hand, trying to calm him, but I move too clumsily and knock the rice cake he’s holding out of his fist, sending it skidding across the bus floor. He stares at his empty hand, then squeezes his eyes tight shut and screams. Across the aisle, I see people flinch and whisper.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say uselessly, stroking his forehead. ‘I’m sorry, that was an accident. I’ll get you another.’ I’m scrabbling around in my handbag, looking for the packet of rice cakes, but when my fingers close on it it’s empty. ‘All right,’ I say, feeling the first tiny flickers of panic start to lick. ‘Sorry, I don’t have any more, but when we get home we’ll get you another treat, OK?’ He ignores me, turning up the volume of his screams so that his face turns bright red. The noise jars through me, wiping out any trace of relaxation. I can feel myself begin to shake. I can’t stand this. I know what he’s like when he gets into this state, and there’s no way to calm him down. He needs to burn it out, and we’re trapped on this bus, still fifteen minutes from home.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Francis looking at us intently but blankly, the kind of expression he adopts to watch a news report of mild interest. ‘For God’s sake,’ I snap without thinking, ‘can’t you help?’

  He looks taken aback, then shrugs, retreating into some private space. ‘I’m not sure what I’d do that you’re not doing.’