by Pippa Wright
To Pin and Alaine,
with love and submarines.
‘Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,’ I said.
‘And sometimes I think there isn’t anything to us but our mistakes.’
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (Virago, 2011)
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I know she’s told you everything. I don’t expect you to forgive me – I’m not even sure I can forgive myself.
I’m not excusing what I did, but maybe something had to happen so we could stop making each other so unhappy. I suppose this was it.
I’m sorry.
1
Only an idiot would come to Lyme Regis to escape the past.
Lyme Regis is the past; it’s saturated with it. Here, more than anywhere else I know, it is impossible to escape the heavy weight of time gone by. I don’t mean the fact that I’m constantly bumping into people I went to school with, or friends of my parents, though there is that. It’s not just personal history. I mean that you can’t turn a corner without coming across some Jane Austen Society re-enactment of Louisa Musgrove falling off the Cobb into the arms of Captain Wentworth, or a troop of backpack-toting schoolchildren heading off to East Beach, fossil-hammers enthusiastically, if inexpertly, in hand.
Of course nowhere is truly free from the past, but I wonder if anywhere else is so insistent on reminding you of it. Lyme presents the centuries gone by like a carpet seller laying out his wares in front of you, one on top of the other. Jurassic Period, madam? No? Cretaceous perhaps? Or does madam prefer later? Regency? Late Victorian? Mid-Seventies Postmodern? Layer upon layer of fossilized history, compacted over millennia, helpless creatures trapped in it, forever frozen in a moment not of their own choosing.
I am that idiot. I am that helpless creature. But it wasn’t like I had an awful lot of choice.
At least I’ve ended up here in the autumn, just as the town is winding down from the summer months. At this time of year it is perfectly possible to walk the length of Broad Street without becoming trapped in the middle of one of the innumerable walking tours (half of which are run by my parents), and I haven’t yet seen a single coach negotiating the tricky bend in the road down by the museum. But the shops are still putting out hopeful signs advertising cream teas and other essential tourist purchases: fudge, Cath Kidston oven gloves and trilobite paperweights. Like there is a great call for paperweights these days. Still, I’ve managed to walk all the way along the Cobb this morning, the wind whipping my hair, wondering if I look a bit tragic and intriguing in the manner of the French Lieutenant’s Woman, without having my moody reverie spoiled by hundreds of daytrippers. Although, to be honest, it’s hard to retain an air of heartbroken mystery when you’re accompanied, as I am, by an excitable puppy capering on the end of her lead and trying to fling herself off the sea wall in fruitless pursuit of seagulls.
And yet I am heartbroken; I don’t have to act at all. It’s why I’m here. Even if I’d thought I could escape the past, I should have known I wouldn’t be able to. Not in Lyme Regis; not anywhere. You can’t run away from yourself.
When she has exhausted herself sufficiently, I drag Minnie away from the seagulls to the Town Mill Bakery to share a warm, buttery croissant while the waitresses pretend not to notice. There is a sign that says dogs aren’t allowed, but we all pretend not to notice that, since it’s the tail end of the season and there’s no one else in here to complain, except for two older women sat on the trestle table behind me.
Just as Minnie licks the last crumbs from my fingers, I hear the women nearby adopt the telltale hissing whisper that indicates the imparting of gossip. Naturally, I lean backwards a little to earwig. Well, wouldn’t you? I love an overheard conversation, and somehow it’s all the more fascinating for being about complete strangers. I’ve passed many a slow afternoon listening in to the dramas of other people in Belsize Park cafes; it makes me feel better about my own. I catch the word ‘divorcée’ and listen a bit harder. Such an evocative word. It makes me think of Elizabeth Taylor, violet-eyed and be-turbanned, drying her post-Richard Burton tears with a handkerchief trimmed with diamonds.
I’m helped by the fact they’re both hard of hearing enough not to realize how loudly they’re speaking.
‘Apparently,’ the woman furthest away from me hisses, her voice penetrating through the empty cafe, ‘her husband was – you know – playing away.’
I’ve hit paydirt.
‘Nooo.’ Her companion sounds scandalized. ‘But she’s so lovely, both of those girls are gorgeous, take after their mother, of course. And he always looked such a fine young man. Why would he do such a thing?’
‘Well, you know what it’s like in that London,’ says the imparter of the gossip. Her voice sounds suddenly constricted and, though I can’t see her, I can imagine that she has pursed her lips.
Interesting, I wonder who they could be talking about? I’ve so thoroughly shaken the provincial dirt of Lyme off my shoes since I moved to London myself that I haven’t got any idea who else might have headed there in my wake.
‘And in that world, too,’ says the companion. ‘All celebrities and parties and,’ her voice drops lower as if she hardly dares speak the words, ‘drugs, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘You can be sure of it,’ says the gossiper with authority. I am even more intrigued. This sounds like someone I might know. Not that I’m a drug addict or a celebrity – far from it – but my working life was sometimes nothing but celebrities and parties and drugs. That’s the music business for you.
‘Well, she just walked out of the marriage, I hear. Gave up everything and came down to Barbara’s old bungalow with nothing but a suitcase and the dog.’
I look at Minnie under the table.
‘I thought they sold that place when she died?’
‘Tried to, of course, but no offers. It’s a dreadful time to be selling somewhere. The credit crunch, you know. I suppose she’s grateful for that now, or where else would she have gone?’
‘Terrible’, says the companion, ‘to be left with nothing.’
I can feel the croissant stuck somewhere in the middle of my chest, a hard unmoving lump, as if my insides have stopped working all of a sudden. I look at Minnie again. You’re not nothing, I think. We’re not nothing. Don’t listen to them. I try to swallow but my throat has turned to stone.
‘Desperately sad,’ agrees her friend. ‘Sandy and David say she’s devastated. Apparently he’s been ringing their house all times of the day, but she won’t answer his calls.’
Of course I can’t answer his calls. I haven’t spoken to him since the note – what is there left to say? Whatever he has to say to me, I don’t want to hear it. How is talking about it going to make any of it better? It’s finished. The only way I ca
n keep myself together is to keep the shutters down completely. Impenetrable, closed off. If I let him in, even a little, I know we’ll just go back to where we were. And I couldn’t bear it. Not again.
‘Hardly surprising she won’t speak to him,’ says the companion, tutting. ‘No one should have to tolerate that sort of behaviour. It’s disgusting. Does nobody take marriage seriously any more?’
I think I might be sick. I need to get out of here. I turn on the wooden bench, preparing to swing my legs over.
There is a sharp ‘Shh,’ when they see me move.
As I stand up the two women duck their heads, retracting into their coats like tortoises, as if I might suddenly grab a baguette from the nearby bread counter and swing at them with it out of rage. But I won’t. I’m not angry; just stunned. I thought I’d get away from everything hidden here in Dorset, away from my real life in London, but apparently not. Anyway, it serves me right for listening in to their conversation. Wasn’t I intrigued and fascinated myself, until I realized they were talking about me?
Besides, I am devastated. It is desperately sad. But they don’t know the whole story. They’re wrong about everything. I didn’t leave with nothing. What I left behind was nothing. That was the whole problem.
2
It turns out to be pretty easy to end a marriage, once you’ve got to the point where you know there’s no going back. I read and re-read the note on the kitchen table until I realized I had it by heart, learned like a poem for school; I expected I would be able to recite it perfectly even in ten years’ time. I turned off my phone and left it on top of my laptop, shut tight like a clam, so that Matt would know there was no way to contact me. I put my wedding ring on top of them both. And then I left.
In the months before I walked out, I’d found myself constantly fantasizing about splitting up. I obsessed over it with all the passionate intensity that I had once poured into planning our wedding. Just as I’d thought, not even two years ago, that the choice of wedding flowers was a huge signifier of who we were and what our marriage would be (glamorous, exotic, expensive, flown in from far away), so I felt that the manner of leaving the marriage would be some enormous statement that summed up everything that had gone wrong between us. I imagined tempestuous fighting, rows over who owned what, outrageous demands. Matt and I had always excelled at arguing, after all. I’d expected that it would be me who’d throw him out – it was his unreasonable behaviour that got us here after all – while I barricaded myself into the house, throwing his stuff out onto the pavement. I harboured dark thoughts of cutting up his suits, burning his stupid cricket memorabilia, clearing out our joint savings. I’d seen enough movies to know how it was meant to go. With the help of a brilliant lawyer (I hadn’t worked out quite how I’d pay for that, seeing as I hadn’t worked for nearly a year, but surely it was a mere technicality?) I’d sue Matt for every last penny. Hadn’t I given up everything for him? He owed me. And if he wouldn’t pay emotionally, I’d bankrupt him financially instead.
What I’m trying to say is that, in my furious imaginings, I thought the arguments leading up to the end of a marriage would get bigger and more dramatic until they culminated in the mega-row that would end it all. What I hadn’t expected was that they’d get smaller and smaller. As if neither of us was willing to waste energy that we might need, instead, for our escape.
By the time I left all I felt was a complete blankness. I knew it was going to hurt later, but at that moment what I felt reading the note was more like a grateful recognition – so here you are, at last, my way out. It was a safety net, unexpectedly appearing to someone trapped in a burning house. And, like someone leaping from the flames, it didn’t occur to me to take anything with me; it was all too tainted by then. The bitter rancour of the last few months had seeped into everything.
I took a few clothes, though. There was making a point, and then there was being arrested for public nudity. People were going to be talking about me enough without my being done for indecent exposure. By then I didn’t much care about what I wore; my work clothes had hung, untouched, in my wardrobe for months, and there they stayed.
And I took Minnie, of course. I knew Matt would be upset about Minnie. Sometimes I thought that he had bought me a puppy just so he could guarantee there would be someone in the house to greet him with boundless enthusiasm when he got back from work – God knows I couldn’t always manage it. I couldn’t leave her behind. He was never at home anyway, so who’d have looked after her when he was away for work? And even when he wasn’t away, she’d have been too lonely on her own in the house all day. I should know.
Perhaps if I’d thought a bit more about what I was running to, instead of what I was running from, I’d have brought a bit more with me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have left with nothing after all; I hadn’t even fought for any of it.
‘Excuse me, are you okay?’ asks a voice. I realize that I’m resting my forehead against the outside wall of the bakery, as if I’m trying to press my head through the grain of the wood. I’ve only made it a few feet away from the shop doorway. Minnie whines at my feet, confused by my immobility. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing here.
‘Thanks, I’m fine,’ I say, straightening up and smoothing my hair away from my face. ‘I just felt a bit faint, sorry.’
‘Do you feel all right now?’ the woman asks, looking concerned. I see she has an apron wrapped around her hips, and I suddenly recognize her as the woman who served me coffee in the bakery. I feel mortified that she’s seen me like this.
‘Yes, fine, thanks, fine,’ I repeat firmly. I cannot take sympathy at the moment, especially not from strangers. It makes everything worse, as if all of my problems are written on my face for everyone to see, visible even to a passing acquaintance. I take my sunglasses out of my coat pocket and put them on. I have a horrible feeling I might be about to cry and I can’t bear that she might see me break down.
‘That’s a lovely little labradoodle puppy you’ve got there,’ she says. I appreciate her attempt to change the subject, but I wish she’d just leave me alone. The painted wooden slats of the bakery wall had been cold and solid on my forehead. Comforting, somehow. I could have stayed there for a while.
‘She’s an Irish water spaniel,’ I say automatically. I don’t know why I always feel I have to correct everyone – it’s not like Minnie cares what breed they think she is. Matt would say it’s because I always have to be right. Maybe it is.
‘She’s lovely,’ says the woman, bending to pat her. Minnie squirms with delight at the attention, rolling onto her back to present her fat round belly. ‘How old is she?’
‘Five months,’ I say. I know, before the woman even opens her mouth again, that her next comments will be: what’s her name? Hasn’t she got enormous paws! Will she get much bigger?
There were days in London when I would have this exact conversation five or six times. And I’d be grateful for it; that might be the most I’d speak all day, until Matt came home. And when he didn’t come home? Well, then I’d just speak to Minnie instead. Poor dog. Sometimes I wondered if, behind that enthusiastic canine grin, she was thinking, Will she ever shut the fuck up?
But this woman is going off on a tangent.
‘Aren’t you Prue’s sister?’ she asks, looking up.
‘Yes, I’m Kate,’ I admit, slightly haughtily. Prue is eight years younger than me. I prefer to think that she is my sister, rather than I am hers. It’s a minor distinction, perhaps, but one of those that matters a bit too much between siblings.
‘I thought you must be,’ says the woman, smiling. ‘You look exactly like her. I’m Cathy, by the way. Friend of your mum’s actually. You look just like her too.’
It’s strange how in London people identify me by my unusually white-blonde hair – halfway down my back and untouched by hair dye. It’s the one thing that makes me stand out from the crowd, which is helpful when you’re only five foot two. But here it’s simply the way that everyone can tell I’
m one of the Bailey girls. There’s no escape; it’s like wearing a badge with my name, age and family history on it.
As a teenager I never managed to set foot in a local pub without someone immediately recognizing me as Sandy’s underage daughter and officiously marching me out. And even though now I am back I can drink legitimately, clearly I won’t be able to do so without someone commenting on my family roots.
‘Oh right, yes,’ I say. ‘Of course. How nice to meet you, Cathy.’
She stands up from petting Minnie and sets her hands on her hips, as if she’s sizing me up. ‘Sandy says you hardly ever come back to Lyme. Are you here on holiday?’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ I say stiffly. I wish she’d take the hint and leave me alone. Must everyone in Lyme have an interest in my private life? ‘Just taking a break, you know how it is.’
Her smile suddenly falters. Obviously she’s remembered what’s really brought me home. Does everyone know? Has there been some sort of public announcement in the Bridport and Lyme Regis News? ‘Kate Martell, formerly Bailey, formerly the one who got away and made herself a glamorous life in “that London”, has slunk back to Lyme in disgrace, her marriage over, her career finished.’
‘Well, I’d best be getting on,’ says Cathy, hurriedly looking at her watch. She attempts another bright smile, as if that will make everything better. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay out here.’
I smile politely; I’m good at that. Keeping up the appearance that all is fine.
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘Send my love to your mum and Prue,’ she calls as she turns away, heading back into the bakery, where I hope she might spill some hot tea on those gossiping old biddies who were sitting behind me.
‘Mmm,’ I say, non-committal, even though she’s too far away to hear my answer.
To send her love to Prue I might actually have to speak to Prue, and so far I seem to be unable to do that without arguing with her. I wonder if I’ve grown so defensive and angry that I can’t speak to anyone without ending up in a fight. But then we were always like that; I shouldn’t have expected that anything would be different, even though fifteen years have passed since we last shared our home town.