by Billy London
“It’s lovely,” Alwine said, approval muted in her tone. She strode to the window which overlooked the large garden. “It’s a very quiet area you’ve chosen.”
“We got more bang for our buck here,” Stella said with a shrug. “Bit more space for us.”
“And children?”
“If and when they come, yes. There are some great schools in this catchment area. It’s easy for Niels to commute to his office and for me to get to my salon.”
“Oh, that’s doing well?”
“Keeping me busy, yes. I’ll need to go soon, and you and Niels will have lots of time to yourselves today.”
Alwine twisted her lips, and looked out of the window once more. “Are you sure you want to be working so much? You’re only just married. This is the hardest year.”
Lord. She’d endured the same lecture from her own mother. “Have to. We’ve got plans together. Doesn’t happen without money.”
“You know how traditional Niels is…”
“Yes, but he didn’t marry a fembot. He married me. Working me. Driven me. Want everything I can possibly give my family… Me.”
Alwine clasped her hands in front of her primly. “I know my son. When you have your own children, you’ll know them in a way no one else ever will. He will want to look after you. He will want to feel needed. Like the man. Trust him, that you don’t have to do everything yourself. No, Stella. As a woman who has been married for almost forty years, believe me. A husband and wife each have their role to play. Like a fulcrum. If you don’t do what you are supposed to, it will all fall apart. There’s no shame in a little dependence.”
Niels walked into the room and embraced his mother. They spoke in Danish, their words floating over Stella’s head. All Stella could think of, was how little Alwine understood Stella. Dependency could never be an option. Watching her mother’s marriages fall apart one after the other only ever taught her to have an exit strategy. A plan should she ever be husbandless. Her friend Eden told her of all the horror stories of woman who relied on their husbands for everything and once he left, they were at a loss of what to do with matters as simple as utility bills. Niels appreciated her independence. Of course he did! Why else would he marry her, unless he wanted to break her?
Niels edged his mother out of the house. “Do you want a drink? Stella’s going to work and we can have brunch.”
“Yes, I’m just going to get changed.”
“We’ll finish that discussion later, Stella,” Niels said, his voice full of promise. It made her giggle. Moreover, it made her forget her mother-in-law’s words of warning.
How those words would seek to haunt her in nine years’ time…
***
“This is a joke. It has to be,” Stella fumed, thrusting the divorce petition towards her friend. She’d always amused herself about the fact that she’d surrounded herself with professionals for close personal friends, but she never once considered she might need any of them.
Eden held up her hands for patience. “Just calm down there. Let me read through and I’ll explain it to you.”
As if Eden could be rational about what was happening to Stella. She’d just met the One. Some sleepy-eyed bloke called Henry. He sounded like a right barrel of laughs. Reclining on her cloud of love, Stella fully doubted that Eden would display objectivity–or rather for Stella’s bruised and battered ego, female solidarity.
“Okay, well, Stella, it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Why? He’s saying I was emotionally unavailable. That I eliminated him from my life. That I, me, his wife, made him feel unwanted and unable to meet my expectations of him and our family. Is he fucking joking?”
Eden once again pleaded for calm as the rush of fury began to sweep Stella into a second wave of frenzy. The minute the papers arrived, she became a tornado of emotion, spitting bile and bursting into tears. In black and white for the world to see—her husband’s damning assessment of their marriage. Everyone would see. The humiliation competed with grief, shaking her from the inside out.
“There’s no such thing as a no-fault-based divorce in this country. It’s just a matter of who gets in there first to push the blame.” Her friend gazed at her with sympathy. “When did you two stop talking?” Stella immediately opened her mouth to launch a full-on Iraq War protest, but had to stop.
She couldn’t say. But then again, Stella had never been the type of woman to wait around for things to be done. If a tap leaked, she’d get out her own tools and tighten it. She arranged their mortgage payments, building insurance, and dental insurance for their children. It fell to her to remember when their cars needed their tax renewal, joint insurance to be paid. Mattresses? Flipped. Cleaning? One hired, twice a week, to meet Niels’ exacting standards. Fridge stocked with everything and anything he and his refuse sack sons wanted? Naturally.
What did she need him for? They didn’t talk. Even if he began to talk, she felt instantaneously resentful. He didn’t understand how exhausted she nearly always was. The boys ran her ragged. Work drained her, physically and mentally. Every day. In the midst of a recession, she dragged clients in with promotions and discounts, to make up numbers and to keep her staff intact. Each word felt like a criticism. Avoiding talking altogether seemed the best way to sidestep arguments. Not as an excuse to hand in her “wife” card and privileges.
“Do you remember the last time you asked him how his day was?”
“Well that’s not a reason to divorce me! I was in labour with his sons and heirs for twenty-three hours, I don’t owe him a how’s your day darling!”
Eden twisted her lips. “I’ll be honest with you. The majority of marriages I deal with are people who married on the spur of the moment and they realise two, five, ten years down the line that they have nothing in common with the person they married. The worst of it starts from that very same point. Do you know what it means for someone, your spouse, the person who promised to love you in sickness and health, to ask you the simplest of questions that shows you give a goddamn and a half? The world, Stel.”
Oh God. Oh good God.
“If they don’t even care about the eight to ten hours you spend away from them, or if very simply if you’re okay, then what’s the point? If they don’t care if you’ve had a client rage at you, or a business deal fall through, or if you’ve monumentally fucked up and they don’t want to share the bad with you, then why are you married? If you break everything down to a point score—I did the dishes, so I’m not making the bed. I had the children, so we’re square for eternity. I’ve worked since before I could walk, so I don’t owe you a thing—then that’s not a marriage. It’s a war zone. I wouldn’t expect anyone to live like that, I know that man, Stel. He loves you to bits and pieces. I can only think it’s a last straw thing.”
Stella’s gaze travelled between Eden’s sympathy-filled ones to the divorce papers. But what effort had he made to change her mind? To get her on side? To explain how he felt? No, he just walked off, bought a house and served her with divorce proceedings. Why wouldn’t he open his tight, thin Danish lips and say what the fuck was going on with him?
“He never said,” she whispered. “What do I do?”
“One thing at a time, Stel. Do you want to offer mediation? Counselling? Try and sort this out between the two of you?”
She sat back. He’d given up on her. He’d sworn on everything going that he never would. The bastard even teased her that she’d be the one to walk away from them first. What would she be fighting for? The frail piece of hope, the one where Niels took it all back and said let’s try again, that sickly emotion Stella had clung to curled up and died. He didn’t love her any more. How could he and put her through this?
“What’s the point? He’s made his decision, hasn’t he?”
Eden stood up and collected some papers from her printer and sat next to her. “Remember how bad you felt when your mum was in hospital? Times it by ten, extend it by months to maybe years, and that is what a divorce is. Really. If
you can avoid this, if you and The Strøm can work this out? Do it.”
Ice wormed its way through her veins; freezing every part of her, until she felt numb. “He’s done this, Eden, not me. He wants something else entirely and I can’t give it to him apparently. I’m not available for his wants and needs. So fuck him. And the plane he rode in on.”
Her friend put the papers on the desk and rounded it to reach beneath. “I’m obviously not allowed to drink on premises, but this constitutes an emergency.”
“It’s eleven in the morning.”
“And?” Eden put two plastic cups on the desk and from a sterling silver flask, poured out tea-coloured liquid. “It’s my Dad’s thirty-year-old whisky. I nicked it when I went over for dinner the other day. He keeps the good shit in his study.”
Stella touched her cup to Eden’s. “To stealing from our parents. At this age.”
“To not giving up. On anyone.”
Stella threw back her drink and winced at the instant burn. She was sure Eden’s father would curse her for mistreating such expensive liquor that way, but such was her need for comfort. “If you say so. What do I need to do?”
Eden blinked several times and lobbed her cup into the bin. “Okay. Acknowledgement of service. Straightforward enough. You can contest the divorce if you want to…”
“Nope. Let him fuck off and see how many other women will put up with him.”
The lawyer made a face and Stella’s eyebrows peaked. “What’s that for?”
“If you didn’t want me to make that face, you shouldn’t have told me all the BDSM stories about you and him sexually. It’s taken me a long time to look your husband in the eye without thinking about his packaging.”
Stella snorted. “Sometimes I have to share.”
“No, darling, you really don’t.”
That had been the last thing on her mind, but to think about it… No more hugs from those wonderfully thick arms. No more fumbles in the middle of the night. No more offensive pyjamas to induce a sex-fest lasting hours, or teasing calls, text messages, emails in the middle of meetings that made her cross her legs and beg God for time to move faster just so she could rush to find him, make everything he’d promised come true… Coldness, and paperwork and “emotional unavailability” would now be her bedfellow.
“What else do I need to do?” she asked, determinedly topping up her paper cup with more whisky.
“Do you agree with the arrangements for the children?”
“Fuck, no. They’re staying with me. Full time.”
Eden winced. “That’s going to be a battle.”
“I’m their mum.”
“And he’s their dad. This isn’t the eighties. The courts are daddy-friendly now. Especially with boys. Split it between you. One week on and one week off. Alternative Christmases and New Years’.”
“No,” Stella flatly refused. “Doesn’t work like that. We flip a coin and I don’t see my children over Christmas? Fucking Christmas? No. They’re staying with me and he sorts himself out.”
Eden drank straight from the hip flask. “All right. I’ll fill out a residence order application.”
“And make sure he can’t just ship them off to Denmark as well.”
“And a specific issue application.”
“And I’m keeping the house.”
Eden’s head thumped against the desk. “Jesus. You know this is going to be dirty? Guerrilla-warfare dirty?”
Stella lifted her cup. “That’s the only way I play.”
Chapter Three
Three years married
Stella closed the door behind her and rested against the wood. Last time she did a long shift. Ever. There was no way she could sustain it. Her life had changed beyond all recognition from the woman of three years ago establishing a salon. She had a husband. Two babies to come home to and a quarter of the same energy. You’re old, bitch, she told herself.
“Stella?” her mother’s voice hissed from the living room. She put down her bag and toed off the orthopaedic shoes she wore to do massages and popped her head around the door. Niels had hold of both babies, nestled in each arm and all three of her men were fast asleep. Stella’s heart melted into utter goo. Judith Burnham opened her mouth to continue talking and Stella put her finger to her lips, beckoning her to the kitchen instead.
With six-month-old boys, Niels and Stella agreed for Stella to return to work. The salon fielded complaints from usual clients not getting their tip-top service. Her worry between what that sound meant when either Will or Danny moved strangely and her assistant calling and asking what she should do about Mr. Macclesfield who needed his traditional shave for his wedding the next week, boiled over and pushed her to the brink of a mental breakdown.
Niels told her simply, “Choose one. You can’t do both from here. In your pyjamas. By the way, you need to get rid of those.”
She tugged at the hem of her rabbit-printed cotton shirt. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Notwithstanding it is covered in young William’s vomit, it is by far the most unattractive thing you have ever deigned to dress yourself in.”
“Cheers for that. Anything else?”
“You look beautiful today,” he said with a smile, leaning over Will’s head to kiss her on the lips. “The pyjamas have to go. I can work from home for the next few weeks. If you’re ready and your mind is half in the salon, go.”
With that she’d packed herself off to work, asked her mother to pull a shift so Niels didn’t end up putting one or both their children into the washing machine through tiredness. Like she almost had… My God, she’d been so close to unbundling Danny from his caboose and slotting him into the machine with his poop-splattered blanket. So scarily close.
Stella’s mother took it with pride that finally, Stella of many badges to her uniform, needed her help.
“Have you eaten?” Judith asked, tapping the oven door with acrylic nails. Stella looked down at her own. Bare of any colour and simply buffed by the lovely Becky from East Anglia, looking for a job in beauty. Maybe in a few months, when the twins didn’t insist on putting everything available in their mouth, she could upgrade to a nice simple polish.
“No, Mum. Barely had time for a sandwich and most of it’s in the bin at work. How was it?”
Judith eyed her beadily. “You’re lucky. Do you know how many men would have sat at home with one baby, let alone two, so you could go to work?” Stella opened her mouth to answer and was overridden. “None. Don’t take advantage of that.”
“It’s been one day,” Stella argued. One very long, very fractious day. She’d sent Niels text messages throughout her shift, at every single free minute she had to whip out her phone, she contacted her husband. How are you? How are my little monsters? Have they eaten? I left some chicken and tomato in the fridge for them. There’s some hock ham as well for you. I miss you all. This was such a bad idea. Are you okay? Do you hate me?
To which Niels replied, calmly and swiftly to ease her concerns, every single time. We’re fine. We love you. They’ll never remember this, they are far too concerned with what everything tastes like. They have eaten. I have eaten. Your mother is here. Don’t worry. I still love you. This is important. Everything you’ve worked for. Don’t feel even a bit guilty. I love you. Go back to work. We’re absolutely fine.
“As I said,” her mother continued, taking the remnants of a roasted chicken from the oven. “Don’t take advantage. I can warm up some potatoes for you?”
“Mum, don’t worry. Do you want me to drive you home?”
“No, your stepfather is on his way to come and collect me in a minute.”
Stella looked at the counter longingly. She could sleep right there. And wake up the next day. Had work ever been so hard?
Judith folded her arms. “If you’re not hungry, then if I were you, I’d make sure you’ve got some food ready for tomorrow. Niels found it easier if food was ready prepared.”
“Mum, I said it’s been one d
ay. And he’s a better cook than me, especially where the twins are concerned. It’ll be fine.”
Her mother tutted. “Your father wouldn’t put up with that.”
“Really? Which one?” Stella sneered, referring to her mother’s three marriages. “My husband loves me and our kids. I’m not going to push him away to anywhere if, after a fourteen-hour day, I don’t stand up and cook, all right?”
The doorbell rang and Judith picked up her coat. Both boys decided the doorbell was their ultimate enemy and only by screaming could it be defeated. For God’s sake, Stella thought, sending her mother a disgusted look. “You should have told him to call your phone.”
The older woman shrugged. “Not my fault. Should I come back tomorrow?”
“Let me talk to Niels, see what we want to do,” she interrupted, before her mother could set up camp in the spare bedroom.
“I’m serious, Stella. Don’t take any of this for granted. As much as he’ll help you now, if you don’t show any gratitude, it’ll come back on you. Then you’ll remember you should have listened to me.”
Stella nudged her toward the door. “Thanks, Mum, see you!”
Without ceremony, she edged her outside into her husband’s arms and closed the door. She turned back to the living room where both Danny and Will looked at her, accusingly. Where the hell have you been, their big dark eyes demanded.
She leaned down and kissed them on the top of their overly curly heads. “Hello my darlings,” she murmured, kissing them again and again until the wailing stopped and the cooing began.
“Just as I was about to tell your mother how well we coped today,” Niels murmured to his sons. “You betray me.”
She glanced up at him. “Did I say thank you for doing this?”
He shushed her. “I’m their father. I’m supposed to look after them.” He beckoned to her and she leaned down to receive his most welcome and soothing kiss. “You’re my wife. I’m most certainly supposed to look after you. Put them in their chairs, and I’ll get you something to eat.”