Sunny Days and Sea Breezes

by Carole Matthews

  He runs a hand through his hair, clearly exasperated that he hasn’t had the reception he anticipated. ‘You owe me an explanation for your sudden disappearance, at the very least.’

  ‘I needed to get away.’ I’m aware how lame that sounds. ‘I wanted time to myself to think.’

  ‘You couldn’t have “thought” while you were at home?’

  ‘You, of all people, know what I’ve been through. I couldn’t handle it any more.’

  ‘What we’ve been through,’ my husband corrects, coolly.

  ‘If you’ve only come for an argument,’ I say, wearily. ‘Then you might as well leave. I don’t have the energy.’

  Chris takes in my appearance. ‘Where the hell have you been? You look terrible.’

  In fairness, he isn’t used to seeing me muddy and bedraggled – or in clothes that teenagers and hippies favour.

  ‘Is that glitter on your face?’

  I have to supress a smile at that, despite the gravity of the situation. ‘I’ve been to a festival,’ I explain rather grudgingly. ‘For the weekend.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he exclaims as if I’ve told him I’ve just flown to the moon and back on a unicorn.

  ‘It was fun. And now I’m dirty, tired and want nothing more than a hot shower.’

  Chris steps forward and holds out the enormous bouquet of red roses that he’s had behind his back. ‘I brought these.’

  My heart sinks at the sight of them. Does he think that a bunch of flowers will make it all right again? Quite obviously. I take them and put them on the table. ‘Thanks.’ But my tone lacks grace. ‘I’ll put them in water in a minute.’ Assuming Bill has a vase in his cupboards. ‘Who told you I was here?’

  ‘I managed to get it out of Della.’

  Thanks, Chummie.

  ‘And how did you get in?’

  He looks slightly abashed. ‘There was a key under one of the pots by the front door.’

  Was there? Who knew?

  ‘I just came on the off-chance,’ he continues. ‘I’d waited long enough, Jodie. I’ve booked a couple days leave from work. I thought we could talk. Try to sort things out. I’m hurting too, you know.’

  He comes to me and pulls me close. I don’t want to be held. Not by Chris. I don’t protest, but I feel stiff and unresponsive in his embrace.

  It is, however, at that point that Ned knocks lightly on the front door before pushing it open.

  On seeing us in our clinch, Ned recoils in horror and, not knowing what else to do, I stand frozen in Chris’s arms. I’m all too aware what this must look like. Ned’s expression darkens and he looks from me to Chris and back, stunned.

  ‘Ned . . . ’ I eventually offer, but that’s all I can manage. What do I say? What do I do?

  ‘Hey,’ he replies crisply when there’s nothing more forthcoming. ‘I’m obviously interrupting.’

  ‘No... no...’ But we both know that he is.

  Chrisand I break away. Now I feel as guilty as hell. My brain is in freefall and, while I stand there still not knowing quite how to deal with the situation, Chris steps forward and holds out his hand. Still confused, Ned shakes it.

  ‘I’m Chris,’ he says. ‘Jodie’s husband. I thought I’d surprise her.’

  He’s certainly done that.

  Ned looks to me for an explanation. ‘Husband?’

  What can I say to defend myself? In the heady atmosphere of the festival, it was all very well to think of myself as free and available, that I could love Ned without thinking of the consequences. But I’m not. No matter how much I wish that to be true, no matter how much I believe that our marriage is over, Chris is my still very much my husband. I can hardly deny it. Oh, fuck.

  ‘I’d say it was a big surprise.’ Ned’s tone is sharp, hurt. ‘You didn’t expect this at all, did you, Jodie?’

  ‘No,’ I admit. ‘I didn’t.’ What else can I say?

  ‘Looks like your plans for the evening have changed.’ He backs towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Ned,’ I say and I hope he hears all that I mean by those words. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m busy tomorrow,’ he bats back. ‘Have a great time together. Nice to meet you, Chris.’

  Chris comes to me and slips his arm round my waist, possessively. His smile is chilly. ‘Nice to meet you too, Neil.’

  Ned throws me a look before he leaves. It’s disappointed, crushed, angry and I don’t know what to do. I’m distraught and want to rush after him to explain all that has happened, all of it. But I can’t. I’m frozen, physically and mentally, and don’t know what I can do to make right this bloody mess.

  Chapter Sixty

  ‘I need a shower,’ I say to Chris. I don’t want to face this situation at all and I definitely don’t want to do it covered in mud with hair like rats’ tails. ‘Make yourself useful and put the kettle on. I won’t be long.’

  But I am a long time. I linger in the shower, washing the muck from my feet, scrubbing the remains of my once-beautiful glitter daisies from my cheeks, listening to the steady rhythm of the pump chugging the water away. In the bedroom, my festival gear is thrown on the floor and it looks silly, girlish. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll wash it and put it straight in a bag for the charity shop. I look out of the porthole and see the lights on in Ned’s boat. Should I go round there now and explain? I couldn’t care less what Chris thinks. He doesn’t have the moral high ground here.

  I drag on my jeans and go to face him. Upstairs, Chris has set the kitchen table. The roses are in a vase and he’s lit two candles. Chris never does this. I want to throw the roses into the sea.

  ‘I’ve ordered a takeaway,’ he says, overly-bright. ‘I found a menu in the drawer. Chinese. Your favourite dishes.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I don’t tell him that there’s enough food to feed a dozen armies in the fridge and freezer.

  ‘You must be hungry.’

  I realise that I haven’t actually eaten since breakfast, but I’ve not much appetite. I feel sick to my stomach. This takes me right back to the days after the baby. That gnawing, empty feeling has returned with a vengeance. How quick it is to re-surface.

  ‘Bill’s boat is amazing,’ Chris says, talking as if nothing has happened. He pours me a glass of wine and I knock some back. It tastes like vinegar even though it’s a decent bottle. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘He’s worked hard on it.’

  ‘You look very comfortable here. You might never have come home.’ He glances across to Sea Breezes. Ned is pottering about in the kitchen, but he doesn’t look our way. ‘You’ve made friends too?’

  ‘Yes.’ No point denying that either. ‘Everyone has been very kind.’

  Chris’s expression says some more than others but he doesn’t voice that opinion. I wonder if he can sense that Ned and I have been intimate – much as I could tell when he’d been sleeping with another woman?

  The doorbell goes and I flinch, but it’s just the takeaway delivery. Chris pays and dumps the carrier bag on the counter. I pull out two plates and put them on the table along with the cartons. The food smells delicious, but the thought of it makes me want to hurl.

  We sit at the table like two strangers and the irony of how we first met isn’t wasted on me. How did we come to this, I wonder? I glance at Chris and can tell that he’s thinking much the same. We lost it all along the way and, for a moment, my heart tightens, craving the love it once knew.

  For something to do, I spoon some fried rice and black bean chicken onto my plate, but push it around with my fork. The atmosphere is, needless to say, strained. Even James Bay on the iPod does nothing to soften it. I’m here with my husband yet, all I can think of is the look of disappointment on Ned’s face.

  We both pick at our food until Chris slides his hand across the table and covers mine. ‘I know that I’ve messed up. We didn’t talk enough after . . . ’

  He can’t even continue. He can’t say our baby’s name bec
ause there wasn’t a name given.

  ‘ . . . but I want to get back to how it was before.’

  ‘How were we?’ I genuinely want to know. ‘How long before? Were we really happy then?’

  Chris looks shocked. ‘I think we were. This has taken a terrible toll on both of us. Understandably.’

  ‘Yet, while I was grieving for the loss of my child, you were sleeping with someone else.’ It’s the first time I’ve said that aloud and Chris looks taken aback.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Chris. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ he says and makes a point of looking towards Ned’s boat again.

  He’s right. Neither of us are innocent now. So what does that mean? Should I be more understanding about what he’s done? There’s no doubt that I pushed him away. I couldn’t bear for him to touch me. I could hardly bear to look at him. Is it any wonder that he sought solace elsewhere? I know from how Ned made me feel that it’s a heady mixture.

  ‘I was grieving too, Jodie.’ His face is sad. ‘No one seemed to notice that.’

  ‘You hid it well,’ I spit back.

  ‘All the focus was on you and how you’d suffered. Everyone turned away from me. Including you. What was I supposed to do?’

  ‘Stick by me? Support me? Love me?’

  Chris drops his fork to his plate and rakes his hands through his hair. ‘Don’t you think I’d do that if I could turn back the clock? I handled it badly.’

  I tut at that.

  ‘Very badly,’ he continues. ‘But I was in uncharted territory too. I was floundering as much as you were. But men are meant to pull it all together. Well, I couldn’t. I’m sorry about that.’ He gets up and slams his chair in. ‘I wish I still smoked. Fuck.’

  He gave that up when I found out I was pregnant. Chris marches to the back of the boat and goes out onto the deck, slamming the door behind him.

  I sit there, head in hands, and, when I glance up, Ned is staring back at me. Our eyes meet briefly and then he closes his blind, shutting me out. I deserve no better. There’s a headache forming above my eyes and I massage my forehead which doesn’t help at all, so I swallow down what’s left in my glass of wine. I follow Chris out onto the deck. I stand beside him and we both look out to sea.

  ‘It’s beautiful out here,’ he says, leaning on the rail.

  The sun is gone and the very last vestiges of light are fading. The clouds are dark,

  bruised after the rain. The sea in the harbour is still, smooth, like black velvet. I’ve got used to how wonderful it is since I’ve been here and I try to see it again through Chris’s eyes. As I should everything else.

  ‘I can see why you came,’ he says.

  ‘I didn’t know where else to go,’ I offer.

  ‘I wish you’d been able to turn to me. I didn’t realise how bad things were.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I say, softly. ‘We do need to talk. I don’t want all our memories of the baby to be ones of pain and heartache. We have to remember some good.’

  ‘We were so full of hope for the future.’ Chris’s voice breaks with emotion. ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘We lost our child,’ I say.

  Then we hold each other tightly and cry.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  We should talk now, I suppose, but Chris and I are both too emotionally exhausted, so we go to bed. A few hours ago I would have told you that the chances of us sharing a bed were somewhere between slim and remote, but here we are. I consider sleeping on the sofa, but I think we’re both just too weary to consider making up a bed.

  When I turn off the light, he moves towards me and tries to kiss me, but I say, ‘Nothing has changed.’

  So he sighs and turns over. With minutes of his head hitting the pillow, Chris is fast asleep. No matter what is going on in our lives he’s never lost the ability to sleep heavily. Worry doesn’t keep Chris awake at night. He calls it ‘the sleep of the just’. I’m not so sure.

  Despite not having slept much in the last couple of days, I’m wired and wide awake. My brain refuses to turn off. Even though I’m lying next to my husband, I’m thinking about what I was doing last night and can still feel Ned’s hands on my body. If it’s shown me one thing, then it’s that I understand now why Chris was tempted to have an affair. It doesn’t mean that I like it, but I can see how it might have happened. Should we talk about that or just leave it unspoken between us? Do I need to know details or would that simply make it worse? I’m assuming that it’s someone Chris works with – the most likely candidate being Meg – as he doesn’t have time to meet anyone anywhere else. She’s the one he goes away with when his job requires it. She’s the one who stays overnight in luxurious hotels with him. I suppose the temptation and the opportunity is always there. One too many drinks at the bar, a willing partner – I understand that now.

  Chris needed someone to comfort him and I was so consumed with grief that I couldn’t do it. I get that. I found no comfort in counselling but maybe we should have gone together. Perhaps that would have helped. Yet I realise now that we have very poor communication in our relationship. We’ve jogged along happily enough, but as soon as something like this has hit us, we’re thrashing around, helpless.

  I listen to the rise and fall of Sunny Days as it shifts with the incoming tide, the creaking of its hull against the mooring posts, until the grey light of dawn peeps in the windows. The thoughts going through my mind are as restless as the movement of the ocean.

  When I can bear lying here no longer, I leave Chris sleeping and get up. I grab some clothes and, as quietly as I can, pull them on in the bathroom. I can shower later. I tiptoe upstairs, push my feet into the trainers by the door and slip on my jacket. So early in the morning, it’s still cold outside and the sharp air wakes me up in seconds.

  I glance over at Ned’s boat, but there’s no sign of life and I assume he’s still sleeping. I hesitate outside Sea Breezes. What if I knocked? Would he talk to me now? I walk up his gangway and dither for a few moments at the door, but can’t make myself do it. Instead, I slink away, defeated and desolate, and head down to the beach. I need to get up my nerve, as I’d like to see him today so that I can at least try to explain the situation with Chris. Actually, I’d just like to see him.

  The sunrise is beautiful, the sky washed with splashes of lemon, peach and blueberry. As I take the steps down onto the sand, I can see Ned on the beach ahead of me, just out of the reach of the waves. He’s standing in a warrior pose, feet planted in the sand, arms stretched out to the horizon. He looks strong, grounded, yet even from here, I can tell that his body is more tense than usual and this is very early for him to be out here. Though my heart lifts to see him, I hadn’t expected to find him on the beach and thought that he’d still be in bed.

  I shiver, wishing I’d put on my scarf and gloves. It’s so chilly that even Ned’s wearing a hoodie and joggers. The wind is ruffling his hair and I have the overwhelming urge to smooth it. I walk over the damp sand towards him and, as I approach, he turns.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, softly. ‘Early bird.’

  He relaxes his pose, but I notice that his familiar smile is absent. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to be here, but I’m glad that I’ve seen you. I went to knock at your door, but bottled it.’ I try a smile, but it’s not returned. ‘I wanted to explain about last night.’

  He looks at me, still cross. ‘A husband, Jodie? You didn’t think to mention that?’

  ‘It’s a difficult situation.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘Chris and I have been going through a very tough time in our relationship.’

  He raises his eyebrows.

  ‘I thought it was all over between us. Firmly believed it,’ I reiterate. ‘He’s been having an affair with someone else.’

  ‘So you thought you’d try it too? I’m a revenge fuck? Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.’

  ‘No, it’s not like t
hat at all. You misunderstand me. What happened between us is different. I hadn’t expected or planned for that to happen. For both of us, it was something spontaneous.’

  ‘It’s my golden rule, Jodie. I never mess with married women. Never. You made me break it unwittingly. That’s shameful.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I do have my reasons.’ All of them pathetic, though.

  ‘Have you told him about us?’

  ‘No,’ I admit. ‘We are the world’s worst at talking. There is so much unsaid between us. It’s not just the affair. There were other things.’

  ‘And now you’ve kissed and made up?’

  ‘Far from it.’ How can I explain that my husband thinks that a Chinese takeaway and some red roses will fix everything? He couldn’t be more mistaken.

  ‘I can’t be part of this, Jodie. My life is pretty uncomplicated and I’d like it to stay that way.’

  ‘Shall we walk to Ida’s and have a coffee? I can tell you more about it. I want to.’

  ‘No.’ Ned holds up his hands. ‘I’m out of this.’

  ‘But . . . ’

  ‘No,’ he reiterates. ‘Is your husband still here?’

  ‘Yes, but . . . ’

  ‘This is not my problem and I don’t want it to be. Whatever’s wrong, you need to sort it out between you.’

  I could tell him; this is another opportunity to let him know why I’m here, why Chris

  and I have fallen out of love, why I’m a shadow of the person I once was. But I can’t bring myself to voice it. I don’t know if I could hold it all together.

  Then Ned faces me square-on and adds in a softer tone, ‘I can tell that you’re hurting and I wish that we could be friends. I’d love to help you, but I can’t be in the middle of what’s happening with you and your husband. I’m angry at you for deceiving me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to . . . ’

  ‘I really like you, Jodie. For the first time in many years, I’ve let my heart get involved. I felt something for you. I thought that we could . . . ’ Like me, Ned can’t finish his sentence either. ‘I wish you well. You’re a wonderful woman. You just need to get your head and your life sorted out.’