by Holly Seddon
I shake my head awake and look across at Paul, studying his face in the white light. We both have crow’s feet now, but not as deeply as our parents did at our age. Paul’s parents, I should say, my mother never reached my age.
We’re younger at forty than they were, healthier too. I look at Paul’s hair, a shorter, smarter, greyer version of the style he’s had since he was thirteen. He’s not bad-looking, my husband. He has thinned out around his neck in the last few years, his belly sticks out a bit but nothing like many of our contemporaries.
My hair is very grey under the dye, but I’m not sure that Paul knows that. My hands show my age more than my face. My body has looked far worse, so that’s something.
‘I guess it’s fitting that we’re stuck in a storm,’ Paul says after a while.
‘Do you ever wonder,’ I say falteringly, ‘if things would have been different if it hadn’t been for that other storm?’
‘I think about that all the time,’ he says.
I concentrate on breathing in and out, building up strength.
‘Have you told her about the storm?’ I say eventually, quietly.
‘Her? Her who?’ If there’s a tremor in his voice, it’s lost to the wind. He’s a better liar than I thought.
‘Paul,’ I say quietly. ‘It wasn’t legally binding. We were fifteen.’
He says nothing, I gulp in some more air. ‘You can leave,’ I say.
‘What are you talking about?’ I hear him try to shift in his seat, feel the car move a little as he tries to touch me but can’t move enough.
‘You’ve been distracted, you’ve been working late, you’ve been less interested in sex, in me, in everything,’ I say. It comes out flat, robotic. There’s silence for a long moment.
‘You think I’m having an affair?’ he says.
‘Aren’t you?’
‘How can you ask me that?’
I don’t know what to say so I close my eyes for a moment and wake up to Paul nudging me.
‘Kate? Are you okay?’ he says. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Have you fallen in love with someone?’ I ask. I can’t waste words, it hurts to talk.
‘Not since you,’ he says.
I think about the people I’ve loved. Who have I loved? The children, that’s the purest and most unequivocal answer. I could have loved Will, back in college. I loved my mum, even if she didn’t deserve it. I loved Mick and Viv. I loved The Loxtons.
‘Kate,’ he says more urgently. ‘Are you hurt?’
I think about lying, about telling him I’m fine so that he doesn’t worry but I’m getting colder and more afraid and a selfish need for comfort overtakes me.
‘I’m a little hurt,’ I say, ‘and I’m a bit scared,’ I whisper, just in case Harry is faking his sleep.
‘Don’t be scared,’ Paul says back.
‘Okay,’ I say, and we both laugh briefly at the absurdity of it. I might die, I think. That’s a turn up for the books. I wasn’t expecting that when I woke up this morning, thoughts of tonight’s plan bleeding into the dying embers of my dreams before I’d even come-to.
My greatest fear has always been something happening to both of us and there being no-one to look after the kids. Them landing in the care system, floating away.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask. ‘One of us needs to be okay.’
‘I’m fine. I’m stuck but I’m fine,’ Paul says determinedly and I don’t know if he’s saying it to make it true or if it is true. ‘And you will be too.’
I think about the three of them back at the cottage without me. I imagine him calling someone, a woman, telling her that things have changed. That there’s a vacancy.
‘Kate,’ he says. ‘I’m not having an affair. I have never, through our whole marriage, ever even considered having an affair.’
‘You’re always on the phone.’ It sounds so small and inconsequential when I say it out loud.
‘Everyone’s always on the phone. There’s no escape, work is. . .’ he sighs. ‘Work is horrible. It’s fucking horrible and I hate it and I have to—’ He stops. ‘I’m not having an affair.’
‘I’m sorry.’ What else can I say?
‘Do you believe me?’
Paul would handle my dying better than my dad handled my mother’s passing, I tell myself. It becomes a mantra for a little while in my head. Amazing how your own mortality can be reduced to a logistical panic when you have children to consider.
‘I don’t think it matters now,’ I say.
‘Stop thinking that,’ Paul says suddenly.
‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’ I say a little snappily, my chest hurting with the sudden expulsion of air.
‘I know exactly what you’re thinking and you don’t need to. It’s not going to happen, we’re all going to be fine.’
I feel the warmth running down from my temple. I feel the skin numbing under my hair, my stomach grows nauseous.
I think about them letting themselves into the cottage. Paul packing up my things, taking them back to London, even though they’re no longer needed. I think about him finding the letter. He’d find the copy of Under Milk Wood and that might even make him smile whimsically, and then he’d be buoyed on to keep looking at my things. Oh fuck. Despite my worries, I feel my eyelids growing heavy until Paul starts to talk again.
‘Soon we’ll be back at the cottage and everything will be the same as it always was,’ he says, but there’s an edge to his voice.
‘You want everything to stay the same?’ I ask, my voice quivering through my chill-shaken jaw. Does he think I’m dying? Do you think I’m dying, Paul?
He’s quiet for a long time and then he starts to wince and I realise he’s trying again to release his seat belt.
‘What are you doing?’ I whisper hard. ‘You can’t go anywhere.’
I hear the buckle spring eventually and see him struggling to get his hand into his pocket.
‘Kate, I’ve not been distracted by a fucking affair. I don’t want an affair, I, it’s not that at all. I’ve been trying to work out if I have the nerve to go through with something.’
‘What?’ I say, left eye blinking away the blood that’s trickling onto its lashes.
‘Look, there’s something I need to give you,’ he says with a new urgency. ‘It’s something of yours.’
The airbag has started to sink and shrivel and Paul manages to put something on top of it, in my eye line. I can hear the effort it takes.
Of course, I know immediately what it is as soon as I focus my right eye. The original letter. I recognise it just from the colour of the paper and the way it’s folded, the same creases it had when it was tucked in its hidey-hole. ‘You should have had this a long time ago,’ he says quietly.
I don’t know what to say, I just squint at the paper.
‘I was going to give it to you later. I was trying to force myself to give it to you later, anyway. It doesn’t make sense on its own, but here we are. It’s the most important thing I have to give you, but if I tell you there’s a beautiful platinum bracelet at home with emeralds in it, would you believe me?’
I laugh a little, despite myself. ‘I believe you.’
‘It’s true,’ he laughs too. Gallows humour.
He stretches and unfolds the letter with two fingers.
‘It’s two years too late,’ he says. ‘And I know that.’
‘Oh fuck, Paul,’ I say. I read the familiar words as if it’s the first time.
Dear Katie,
By the time you read this, I’ll have passed. You’ve always been like a daughter to me and I’m so sorry that you’ve lost two mums now. I hope you know that I’ve always been proud of you. I’m delighted with the wife and mother you’ve become and I couldn’t want for more for my son. But Katie, I want more for you. If you want or need more, that is.
My girl, there’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you eight years ago. I’ve thought about this so many times over the years but P
aul begged me not to say anything. He’s always looked out for you and always will.
Katie, I talked Paul into marrying you. It wasn’t his idea and he didn’t think it was the right thing to do. He didn’t think you loved him, not like that. He thought you were in a rough spot and that you’d bounce back and find someone new. But I knew how you felt, I knew how lonely you were, how much the loss of your baby hit you. I knew that you wanted a family, and that no-one had shown you how to make one.
He’s loved you since you were little. And he told me about your promise to each other and I told him that he had to honour it. That together you’d be stronger. He thought you’d say no and it would ruin your friendship. He wanted to wait for someone who really loved him, but I knew that deep down, you could be that person. I didn’t let up. Every time we talked on the phone, every time he text messaged me and in person.
He turned up unannounced, you know. Just before he proposed. I know he told you something different, that I’d asked him to come down at short notice. But he turned up, he needed advice he said, he was beside himself about how to help you.
Over that weekend I convinced him.
I know it will hurt you to know this, but I should never have played God like that.
I didn’t really know your mum but we did talk sometimes, while she was on my ward. I’ve been thinking about her a lot recently, after my diagnosis and especially when I came here. She told me that her greatest fear was you keeping yourself small, settling for less than you really wanted. I should have listened but I didn’t really understand it until now.
After you and Paul got married, I watched and waited for you to become yourself again. But I’m still waiting. I worry that all I did was give you a placebo, and I don’t want either of you to live like that. I was selfish to meddle. I’m not superstitious but maybe this is my punishment.
I love you like my own, Katie, you know that. You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you but remember what I always say: nothing is ungetoutofable. If either of you regret this, if this is holding either of you back, it’s not too late.
I’m sorry.
All my love,
Viv
In my heart, I’d suspected that things happened too conveniently. As soon as I could look in the mirror and take stock a little. I could see too many planets that were knocked into alignment by the big fucking snooker cue in the sky.
Paul changed towards his mum after the wedding. At the time I thought it was because he was busy, or maybe that the apron strings just slacken for everyone in their thirties – I had no personal experience to draw on. But I looked back with fresh eyes after I found the letter. Did he change because he was angry for the life she pushed him into? The life with me. Our family.
There was a strained Christmas visit a few months after we got married, which Paul cut short early to go into the office for an apparent emergency. I clung to Viv as we left, feeling guilty as her face had dropped when Paul said we had to go.
We drove down for her birthday the year after. We talked about visiting during my pregnancy with Harry the year after that. Paul was a fretful father-to-be, worrying about the effect the journey would have on me and my sickness, then worrying about the effect it would have on my back and then worrying about premature labour in the countryside miles from our nominated hospital.
And then Harry was born and we were immersed in him, holed up at home.
I was upstairs when the doorbell rang, feeding as usual. Harry was two weeks old and we’d found a kind of rhythm, a kind of path through each day, which wound around feeds and nappies and cups of cooling tea. I heard Mick’s voice first, Paul shushing him and his voice lowering. I heard Viv’s apologies and Paul’s restrained manners, offering tea and showing them around the downstairs of our new house.
They couldn’t wait any longer for an invitation, they said. They were sorry but they just had to meet him. Viv, of course, was the ringleader, Mick the designated driver.
When they held Harry, my son, their grandson, I saw them smile in a way I’d not seen since Paul was a kid. They were totally smitten.
After they’d left a few hours later to drive all the way back to Somerset that same day, Paul was quiet. Then he started to pace and fume. He complained about the imposition, the lack of respect for our bonding time as a new family.
Looking back through the lens of the letter, I wonder now if he was terrified. Terrified that his mum would give away what thin ice our family was built on. Terrified that we’d made a huge mistake, the consequences of which were deepening.
I’d been glad to see them and moved by their determination to meet our little boy. Because that’s what grandparents should want to do and that’s what they did and wasn’t Harry lucky?
After that, the visits got further and further apart. Christmas and birthday cards were always sent, calls were always promised. I sent flowers from both of us every Mother’s Day, I sent thank-you cards from Harry and Izzy, after Christmas and birthdays. But Paul would quieten at the mention of his mother’s name in a way he didn’t when I mentioned Mick. With Mick it was more of a sigh, an ‘Oh well, that’s Dad.’ With Viv, it was a scrunching of the shoulders, a furrowing of the brow, a silence.
Angry at the life she’d nudged him towards or anxious that she might burst my bubble by confessing my husband had never really wanted me? I’d planned to find out tonight. And to set him free, if he wanted. But not like this.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say eventually.
‘I had the best intentions, Kate. You have to know that. And my mum did too, she just. . . you know what Mum was like. She fretted.’
‘How did you know I’d found the letter?’ I say, flatly. This is not how this was supposed to go. Not any of it. He’s stolen my anger, just like he stole Viv’s last words from me.
‘You already found this letter? What? When? Why didn’t you say anything?’ He looks genuinely shocked, the colour draining from his cheeks in thin light.
‘I saw it and you know what I thought?’ I wheezed, furious that he can keep secrets for years but I’m supposed to have admitted finding the letter immediately.
‘I thought there it is. Proof. Proof that none of this is real. That you just wanted to claim a prize and your mum just wanted to save a waif and stray. Proof that the two people I trusted above all else manipulated everything. That you didn’t fall in love with me, you didn’t make a romantic snap decision, you were ground down and eventually just did what your mother told you.’
‘Manipulated?’ Paul sounds aghast. ‘No, Kate.’ I can hear him shaking his head against the headrest.
‘And,’ I hiss, ‘I think it’s proof that you were jealous. That you didn’t want me to share your mother’s love. How could you keep this from me otherwise?’
‘You make it sound like I trapped you.’ He sounds close to tears. ‘Like I locked you up and threw away the key. You wanted us to get engaged, Kate. Don’t forget that. You were desperate to be saved.’
‘Why did you start this conversation now, like this; do you want me to die knowing you never really loved me?’ I say. ‘We could have kept this pretence up for a few more hours. It’s all a bit pointless if I’m not here anyway.’
‘You are not going to die,’ he says, quietly and urgently. ‘But what you’re suggesting isn’t true and it’s not fair, Kate.’ The airbag slackens a little more and I can turn slightly. He looks older than he did earlier this evening.
‘You act like you were this amazing career girl but it was a house of cards,’ he says. ‘And when it was already crumbling you set fire to it for good measure. Look, this isn’t what I wanted to say, I don’t want this to be a row, that’s not what this—’
‘And every step of the way you were there in the background, Paul, helping it along.’ I whisper hard, panting, my teeth still chattering. ‘You got rid of Lucy so I had no hope of rekindling that friendship and having someone on my side, you—’
‘What are you saying? That I di
smantled your life? How, just, I just, fuck. I can’t get my words out, how can you say that to me? Here, like this? You and Lucy were barely on speaking terms. How and why would I get rid of Lucy?’
‘The pictures. And because you wanted me isolated. You wanted to take advantage.’
‘You were already isolated! You isolated yourself!’
Harry stirs in the back and Paul takes a deep breath then lowers his voice.
‘She showed those pictures to everyone. I’d seen them! And so had one of the juniors she went out with for a couple of weeks. He stole them after she dumped him. Everyone knew that.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Of course not, you didn’t talk to anyone to find out. I was the only friend you had in that place, and I was your friend because I knew how decent you were underneath all those clothes and heels and attitude. You were a mess after the ectopic, that wasn’t me!’ He thumps his chest and tears spring in his eyes again. ‘I just wanted to look after you. And before you say it, I didn’t take advantage of you. Sleeping together was your idea.’
‘Sleeping together,’ I pant, quietly.
‘Making love. We made love, and I meant it, even though you were a total mess.’
‘I’m sorry it was so awful for you,’ I say.
‘No, it wasn’t awful, that’s not what I mean. I made love to you because I loved you. I loved you at your worst and your best. And I finally had a chance to believe that you loved me back, a chance to make you happy, I couldn’t walk away. I was too weak, I had to take it.’
‘I wanted to make you happy, too,’ I hear myself say quietly. ‘All I do is try to make you happy. Try to create the world you expect, the house, the kids, all of it.’
‘Exactly. My mum was right.’
‘You’re angry with me for trying to be a good wife?’
‘I’m not angry with you for anything, it just upsets me. Even after all this time, it’s an effort, it’s not natural. You’re not yourself, not really. Still.’
‘And that’s why you’re giving me the letter? To get yourself out of this?’