Love Will Tear Us Apart

by Holly Seddon

  ‘Oh God, Kate. That’s not it at all. I want you to know everything. I want you to know what went into my decision to propose, and I want you to know that I loved you so much that I hid that letter when Dad gave it to me. I didn’t want you to leave me on Mum’s encouragement. It was selfish, I know. I know it wasn’t mine to keep but—’

  ‘Your dad?’

  Paul exhales. In the back, I can hear Izzy snoring and Harry breathing loudly through his mouth. Our babies.

  ‘It was after the funeral, when Dad and I went to see her. . .’ he falters. ‘Went to see her grave. Mum had written us both a letter each and I think Dad was supposed to give them to us separately, but you know Dad.’

  I smile despite myself. Who fucks up a dying wish?

  ‘What did yours say?’ I ask, my eyes sliding closed again.

  ‘Pretty much the same. That she loved me and was proud of me but that she was sorry for playing God. Hey, don’t go to sleep. Don’t give in to it.’

  I breathe in raggedly, feeling icily sober but desperately tired.

  ‘Which book did you keep your letter in?’

  I didn’t stay awake for the answer.

  Paul shakes me awake, I don’t know how much time has passed. It could be seconds or hours.

  ‘It was Emma,’ he says. ‘Jane Austen.’

  ‘Huh,’ I say. ‘Right.’

  I reach up to touch my head. The blood has stopped dripping but it’s sticky and makes my stomach flip. I’m so cold I can no longer feel the pain in my ribs.

  The airbag sags even more and I turn awkwardly in my seat. Something tears in my chest and I gasp.

  ‘Oh God, Kate, your head.’

  Paul can see the blood dripping down my face now. I nod, carefully, my left eye closed shut with crusted blood.

  ‘Kate, don’t worry,’ he says, but he’s saying it to himself, not me. I’ve made my peace with this. I just want to sleep. ‘Someone will be along soon,’ he says. His own airbag has loosened a little and I can see him desperately trying to find his phone.

  ‘Where the fuck is it?!’ he cries.

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Yes?’ he says but he’s still desperately feeling for his phone, trying to reach my bag, checking on the kids. He’s wild with panic.

  ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be okay.’

  ‘You are,’ he says, with fake jollity. ‘Of course you are! You’re going to be absolutely fine but after this holiday, things need to be different.’

  I open my mouth but don’t know what to say. Eventually, I whisper, ‘You mean you’ll leave me?’

  ‘Leave you?’ He stops searching and looks at me. ‘Is that what you want?’

  I don’t know what I want. I want to sleep again, I know that.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep,’ he pleads, shaking my shoulder until I cry in pain. ‘Sorry, but please, stay awake. We need you. They need you.’

  I sob quietly; I’m so tired but I know he’s right. Children need their mother alive.

  ‘You’re going to be fine!’ he announces loudly. ‘But we should have been honest with each other. I need to be honest with you. About everything.’

  I force myself to open my eyes and look across at him, unsure if this is a trick.

  ‘I need to tell you something about your mum too,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t cancer.’

  My heart beats faster but I have to close my eyes again.

  ‘She caught HIV and she died of AIDS,’ Paul whispers. ‘And I shouldn’t have known that and you should.’

  ‘I know she died of AIDS, Paul,’ I whisper back. He’s unburdening himself before the end, and I want him to stop. I want to sleep now. I want someone to tuck me in.

  I hear him breathe big, slow breaths.

  ‘You never said.’

  ‘Nor did you,’ I say, my eyes still closed.

  ‘But how did you know?’ he asks. ‘Everyone told you it was cancer. You always tell people it was cancer.’

  ‘Viv told me when I turned eighteen.’ I feel another prickle of anger. At him, at her, at all of them.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you knew? At the time, I mean.’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to,’ I say. It’s the truth, but it’s obviously not enough. ‘And I didn’t want it to be true. I asked her not to tell you either.’

  ‘She’d already told me by then.’

  ‘When did she tell you?’

  ‘At the time.’

  ‘So everyone knew except me. Why? Did they think I couldn’t handle it? That I was too weak?’

  ‘Your dad refused to let anyone at the hospital tell you but I always wanted to. And then after Will. . . The way you fell apart, how quickly you unravelled, I thought maybe they were right. Your mum didn’t even know how she got it, Kate. There were men – men plural, Kate – and there were drugs. Your dad didn’t have it, she caught it after they got married and had you.’

  ‘And?’ I say, quietly. ‘I don’t care how many guys she slept with.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’ I heard him trying to twist in his seat.

  ‘She was just unlucky,’ I say. ‘She was so young and all alone in a loveless marriage. She just wanted some fun. It wasn’t her fault.’

  ‘I’m not saying it was her fault, I’m sorry. I’m not blaming her, I was just—’

  ‘You were though, and your mum did too. That’s why I don’t tell people, I don’t want to give them the chance to judge her. She was a shit mum but she loved me, she just didn’t know how to do it and then she didn’t get the chance to put it right because she got unlucky. That’s all.’

  It still sits on me, this realisation. It’s lain heavy and cold over my chest ever since I was a teenager, but mostly I’ve been able to lock it away. I had no idea that Paul had too.

  I hear him exhale. ‘It was probably wrong to keep it from you but what would you have done?’

  I don’t answer. Instead I think of my mum’s friends at her funeral. The skinny man trying to apologise to me. I’ve thought about him a lot over the years, wondering if it was him that gave it to her or the other way around.

  ‘Your dad tried to buy my mum’s silence, you know. It would have ruined him, apparently. His foreign contacts wouldn’t have dealt with him if they knew he was an AIDS widower.’

  ‘You should have told me as soon as you knew, Paul,’ I mumble, the words hard to form. ‘It wasn’t your secret to keep. I trusted you.’

  ‘I trusted you,’ he says. ‘I lost my virginity to you, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I lost my virginity to you too,’ I murmur.

  ‘And then you just left, you just left me not knowing what had changed or what it meant.’

  ‘And you’ve stayed angry with me all this time.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘I’m not angry with you, Kate.’ I feel his free hand on my arm. My eyes close again.

  ‘How did Viv know about our vow to get married?’ I ask, coming to abruptly, the whistling cold wind waking me.

  ‘How?’ he repeats, and I can hear him trying to move more in his seat. ‘Because I told her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just before your father’s funeral.’

  ‘Huh,’ I say. ‘And that’s why she invited you down?’

  ‘Maybe. Probably.’ I prise my eyes open and I think I see tears forming again in the corner of Paul’s eye but I can’t keep mine open long enough to focus.

  ‘I was visiting a few weeks before and I was having such a shit time. I got really down and Mum and I had some wine. I was feeling really maudlin and. . .’ he snorts a little laugh ‘. . .at the same time dangerously nostalgic. I told her about that night. About our vow, about the fact that nobody I had ever met in my life had more of an effect on me, that I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else by my side. And bear in mind, Kate. . .’ I hear him shift around uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Bear in mind that you were gone from my life, you were not by my side, you were off doing whatever it was that you were doing and
I don’t think you thought about me once.’

  ‘Not true.’

  ‘That’s not an accusation. You didn’t owe me anything. And even when Mum meddled and invited me down to see you after your father’s funeral, you still didn’t owe me anything. I ended up owing you something. I’ve worked so fucking hard, Kate. For you, for those kids, for us. But it was built on a debt and that debt started that weekend. When you lay down in that bedroom and changed my life. Again.’

  I realise that I haven’t heard thunder for a while and the little hairs of lightning have moved further away. In their place, fat raindrops start falling onto the car and I imagine them collecting in a big puddle in the dip of the roof, it helps to calm me. I listen to Paul’s voice and it seems to wave in and out in time with the drips and drops overhead.

  ‘When it all started to crumble for you, Mum was desperate for me to honour our agreement, to propose, to prop you up, to pay you back. To give you the stability you needed and contain the explosion. But I couldn’t do it. What was I going to do, walk in waving a contract around on your thirtieth birthday demanding you come good on our deal? I wasn’t going to mention it at all. I was just going to let it lie and just try to be there for you while you patched yourself back up but you just kept spinning your wheels spraying mud everywhere and making things harder and harder for yourself. And then when you’d really fucked everything up, you brought up the vow.’

  This wakes me up a little. ‘I didn’t,’ I say indignantly, and try to sit up in outrage but the pain in my ribs pushes me back down and I wince, my breath reedy.

  ‘Don’t move, Kate, please.’

  ‘I said I missed you, Paul. I didn’t say anything about our promise.’

  ‘You did,’ he says firmly. ‘You brought it up that night we were listening to old music at the table, remember? We were drinking red wine and you started dancing around and mucking about and asked if I remembered the night of the storms. And I said that of course I did.’

  ‘I don’t remember that, that’s not how I remember it at all,’ I say but even as I’m protesting, I can feel the memory of the night he’s talking about appearing in a dark corner of my mind.

  ‘It was you, Kate. And it was you who texted me to say you missed me. It was you who made that step. Not me. Never me. And fool that I am, I couldn’t resist. I walked in to a marriage with my eyes wide open knowing that you didn’t love me. I couldn’t even pretend that it was one of those “well, we’ve been together three years and we want to settle down so we may as well” marriages. No, this really was a loveless marriage of convenience from the start for you.’ He’s ranting, nervous and filled with adrenaline. The rain drums relentlessly on.

  ‘But it wasn’t convenience for me,’ he says. ‘For me, it was everything I ever wanted, and it was broken from the beginning.’

  ‘Paul,’ I say, trying to grasp a handle on my thoughts. ‘I’m so sorry that I haven’t been the wife that you deserved but I’m so cold. And I’m so tired and scared but I need you to promise me that you will love our children with everything that you have. That you’ll love Harry like I love him and that you’ll—’ My voice is raspy and it takes longer than I expect to make the sounds I’m trying to make. Paul cuts me off.

  ‘Nope,’ he says. ‘Nope. I’m not doing this. This isn’t what this is. We’re all going to be fine. And when we’re back, and everything’s okay, I want to, things need to—’ He stops and takes a deep breath. I hear him breathe it out one, two, three, four.

  ‘Be my friend, Kate. I wasn’t joking about the bracelet, it really is back at the cottage and you can see it when you get there. You’ll get there.’

  I start to cry and the tears sting in the cold.

  ‘I bought you a friendship bracelet. That’s my ten-year gift to you and I know that’s not tin and I know that’s not romantic but when we got married, I gained a wife but I lost my friend. And it’s been ten years now, and you’re still not my friend again, you’re just my wife. My bored, small, resentful wife.’

  I sob and shiver. Not because he’s wrong, but because he’s right. I am resentful and I am small. I don’t see him as a friend, I see him as benefactor, boss and co-parent.

  ‘We have to try so hard to be married but we didn’t have to try to be friends. I’d rather you risk upsetting me, risk making me angry, than pussyfoot around me.’

  ‘I don’t—’ I start to deny, start to follow my usual line and then, maybe it’s the cold or the pain, I just stop. ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ I say. ‘I still don’t know how to do this, not really. And it’s not enough. It’s not enough at all.’

  ‘I know,’ Paul says. ‘Kate, I love you. I’ve loved you since we were eight years old but I miss you. We were best friends. And maybe finding someone you love that much, finding a best friend for life, a true “other half”, maybe that’s what it’s all about. Maybe that’s the vow we should have made.

  ‘So here it is,’ he says, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m not my dad, I’m not going to storm off and flit in and out of Harry and Izzy’s lives. We’ll always be their parents but if you want to be free, you’re free, but I can’t lose you as a friend. I need you to take the piss out of me, to love me like you used to, not like you tried to.

  ‘Fucking stamp all over the eggshells you walk on around me. Piss me off, I’ll still love you. Say no to me, stand up to me, get a job, if that’s what you want. Or don’t. Get fat, get old, laugh, take risks, have adventures. Let the kids see us argue and the kids see us joke. Let them see what love looks like for us.’ His voice breaks as he speaks. ‘So what about it, Kate? Will you be my friend?’

  ‘Paul,’ I stumble on his name as I feel myself slip into an icy sleep.

  When I open my eyes, there are lights shining in them. A gloved hand on my temple, my door off its hinges. How did they get that off without me hearing? I turn my head and cry out to get away from the sudden light, which hurts my eyes. I can hear beeps of machinery, see the blue light of the ambulance pulsing pointlessly in the corner of my eye.

  They help the children out first, leading them carefully to the ambulance, Harry calling for me and Izzy dumbstruck in the green uniformed arms of a paramedic.

  The rain has died down and the air lies heavily all around the car. Paul is watching the children helplessly from the driver’s seat as they’re placed in the ambulance like precious heirlooms. In the distance, I hear more sirens. Police, maybe. Now I know the kids are safe, I can feel my eyes closing again.

  They’re trying to get Paul out and are preparing a stretcher for him. He’s protesting but I can’t make out what he’s saying over the sound of machinery cutting through his door.

  As he’s helped out, I reach for his hand.

  Our fingertips touch and I manage to open my eyes properly one last time. His face is a mask of worry.

  ‘It was always you,’ I say, my voice barely there. ‘It was always you.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  November 2017

  I take the stairs carefully; the timed light has already clicked off and I have to use the banister to steady myself, my other hand struggling to grip the suitcase. I still get a little breathless. It’s pretty unedifying. The big brass key opens the room and I step into the sunlit room.

  It’s a disquieting feeling to be able to slip, alone and free, into this new place. No kids trying to burst through before me, no noise, no chaos.

  And the room is lovely. Far nicer than I would have predicted when I first knew this building, when my life was so very different.

  There’s a big bed bursting with bright white linen, two tiny folded towels on top which, maybe because of their size and maybe because emotions bubble up unbidden so much more for me now, make me tearful.

  The bed takes up most of the room and there are two cottage windows cut out of the deep walls with wooden shutters over them.

  I place my suitcase down and step into the bathroom. It’s surprisingly large with a walk-in shower and huge designer basin.
I catch my breath for a moment and step back out into the main bedroom.

  Outside, there are children playing in the beer garden. I peek out and see the small clutch of kids, their parents drinking nearby.

  A bang on the door makes me jump and I pull it open cautiously.

  Once inside, he passes me the other case in silence. I line them up like little soldiers.

  I think of the kids. There’s no way to ignore it, they’re being looked after by a man who has never had to look after children by himself, not really.

  ‘Do you really think they’re okay?’ I say, trying to sound light but not managing it, obviously.

  He steps forward, puts his hands on my waist and yanks me to him like a rag doll. I look down but I can’t help but smile. He presses his mouth onto mine, I move my hands up to his hair, weave my fingers into it and tug just a little. He releases me, just briefly and says, ‘No, I don’t think they’re okay. I think they’re probably having to listen to the Barron Knights and put up with my dad’s jokes.’ Paul grimaces. ‘Which are probably pretty blue.’

  I laugh.

  ‘They’ll be fine, won’t they?’ I ask, but instead of answering, he pushes me so I fall onto the bed.

  ‘Happy anniversary,’ he says, pulling his jumper over his head.

  We drove down after work yesterday, our colleagues waving us off as we skipped out early to collect the kids from their schools, a little giddy with it. I started there first, a bijou agency literally called The Bijou Agency. But I’m jumping ahead.

  When I woke up after the crash, the first face I saw was Paul’s. True to form, he’d not left my side. The kids were dusted off and treated for shock but then Mick had been brought down to Cornwall by Tina, a particularly understanding old girlfriend, and the two of them had kept the children occupied at the Mousehole cottage, which was luckily still available for another few weeks.

  I was transferred up to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich when I was strong enough to handle the long ambulance transfer. While the kids were at school, Paul would come and sit with me, nominally checking in with work on his phone but mostly reading with me, playing Shit Head with rules we found online and a deck of cards from the hospital shop.