Julia Gets a Life

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  As we thrust smoothly westwards, I’m nurturing, I realise, a rather optimistic assumption that as soon as I clap eyes on him, it will all become clear. Why on earth should I think such a preposterous thing? In fact, why think at all? Has it helped me thus far? I should cocoa, it has. Why can’t I just do a crossword or scrutinise the readers’ husbands’ bottoms in Coffee Time!, like everyone else does.

  There is an awful lot of sky between Swindon and Bristol. Big sky, in that shade that is so beloved of travel agents and which it is impossible to describe without resorting to cliché. I ponder for ten minutes and come up with Blue-Flush. But it is luminous today. And criss-crossed with pale quilts of cirrus and mares’ tails, and populated by high planes and solitary birds. Beneath these lie the soft curves of the Wiltshire fields. Like prairie, except they’re not waving or nodding. Many are already shorn of their wheat and sport black plastic bales, like blackheads among the stubble. Which seems early to me. It is still only mid-August. Or have I missed some profound change in agri-technology? Do short stalks take less time to reach harvesting ripeness? I don’t know any more. I only ever see sheep. I miss having arable farming nearby.

  It is early evening when I finally pull up outside Number seven Malachite Street. The sort of buzzy, scented, balmy early evening that makes you want to stuff your two boneless chicken breasts back in the freezer and go to a country pub with a garden, and sit at one of those picnic tables that have bird poo and ketchup splats on them, and say to yourselves ‘ah! Summer at last!’. And guess what?

  Butterflies. Small but robust.

  Richard answers the door in jeans and a T-shirt. His feet are bare and his hair is slightly ruffled. Like he’s been absently scratching an itch.

  ‘Oh,’ he says, not opening the door any wider. ‘Didn’t you get the message? The children aren’t….’

  ‘Here. I know. I came because I was driving by (Oh, yeah? Down a small residential street, off another residential street, off a road that leads to a community tip, a drop-in centre for the homeless and a place selling fireplaces and antique coal scuttles)....and I wanted to drop these off.’

  I brandish my carrier.

  ‘Oh.’ His eyes narrow a little, but he opens the door a fraction more. The smell of Italian cooking wafts along the passage. Great heavens, he’s not become another bloody pasta man, surely? I breathe in deeply. But no. It’s only frozen pizza.

  ‘So, can I come in?’

  ‘Um.’ Grudging. ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  For a moment I assume he must have a woman in. Rhiannon, perhaps? But then I realise the last conversation we had (bar arranging childcare logistics) involved him making a meaningful relationship declaration and me telling him in fairly unequivocal terms where he could shove it. No wonder there’s condensation forming on the letter box. It will take him some moments to recover his equilibrium.

  He stands aside politely and I move past him into the hall. My mother was right. It is mainly magnolia. With contrasting carpets. In a selection of colours to reflect bodily functions. Bile yellow, blood red, a distressing shade of brown. I have never set foot in this place and don’t know in which direction I should head. I am assuming (given the cooking aroma) that I should go kitchenwards. But there is carpet at every room threshold. So I hover with my plastic bag.

  ‘Straight on,’ he urges.

  I’m reminded of the strangeness of our territorial conversations back in April, and how all the simple host/visitor exchanges stuck in my throat. And I keep spotting items that belong to the children; Max’s baseball cap here, Emma’s slippers there.

  We enter the room at the end of the passage. The carpet had me fooled. This is the kitchen after all. Except it’s the dining and living room too. God knows why, but I’m shocked by its smallness. It makes me want to blush. All I can think is that Richard went on the TV looking like a big noise in civil engineering and unknown to all the millions of people who saw it, he lives in a poky little hovel. Except it’s not a hovel of course, because Richard is house proud and tidy and good at minimising clutter (much enhanced, of course, by my lack of input), but it’s bijou way beyond the point of being stylishly compact.

  I sense he is studying my discomfort so I make a noisy fuss of busying myself with my bag. He glances at his watch. Me, or the pizza?

  ‘So. What did you bring me?’ he says, not sitting down.

  ‘A present from Mum,’ I say. ‘She made them herself for you. Erm….’

  I pull out the bubble wrapped shapes and unwrap them. ‘They’re, erm …erm…well, see for yourself.’

  I laugh a little as he takes one. It’s only a nervous/embarrassed type laugh (even though they are grotesque) but he wastes no time in upbraiding me for it.

  ‘They’re very nice actually. It was a very kind gesture. You should try being a bit less….’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘A bit less critical of your Mother. How do you think she would feel if she knew you were standing here tittering about these?’

  He wields them aggressively.

  ‘I wasn’t tittering.’

  ‘Yes you were. You were taking the piss.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you were.’

  He is quietly insistent. How dare he?

  ‘I wasn’t taking the piss, as you say. Not at all. And anyway, are you trying to tell me you didn’t have a good laugh about the rotating hen egg holder?’

  We are squared up like duelling toddlers across a kitchen table the size of a monopoly board. Do the three of them sit around this to eat? Richard’s chin juts.

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because it was funny.’

  ‘Only because you painted nipples on two of the eggs. That’s not taking the piss at all, I suppose?’

  He carefully places the vases on the table. Like they were the crown jewels. And then looks at his watch again.

  ‘It’s not the same thing at all. Your Mother has made a point of making these for me. Of letting me know that she’s thinking of me. Of being kind. Of being thoughtful. And all you can do is pour scorn on her efforts and titter, like a…’

  I intend to interrupt with something placatory and Mother-friendly, and to steer the conversation away from what is rapidly turning into an extended dip into the cess-pool of my character. But then he looks at his watch again, and irritated, instead I say,

  ‘Spare me the pathos, please. And the lecture as well. And she’s my Mother, and just because I don’t think she’s Croydon’s answer to Wedgwood, doesn’t mean I don’t love her. Okay?’

  He picks up a tea towel. It is clean and has iron folds. Pizza time?

  ‘I’m picking the children up from the cinema in an hour and a half. It would be easiest if I dropped them back to you, wouldn’t it. All right?’

  I am being dismissed. I am being bloody dismissed.

  He doesn’t even offer me pizza.

  *

  Bastard.

  Making some sort of totally sleaze-ball comment about his catering arrangements I stomped out and down to the car.

  I heard the front door shut only inches behind me, so there was little point in making a histrionic departure. So, instead, I sat in the car for a few moments and wondered where precisely, precisely, our bizarre conversation had taken a wrong turn and ended up where it had.

  Then I did a new list, on the back of a Sainsbury’s receipt. I wrote;

  Richard

  Bastard

  Holier Than Thou (and then some)

  Dismissive

  Ungrateful (though did not know about me knowing about TV programme so slightly unfair)

  Suspicious (so, above)

  Unfriendly (so, above)

  A bit nasty

  ? Motivation

  Woman???

  All in all, I decided, he had only himself to blame if I just told him to shove it.

  By the time I got home I w
as so puffed up with righteous indignation that a stray pollen grain could have easily popped me. Just where did the toe-rag think he was coming from? There was I, all fired up to be friendly, even conciliatory, perhaps, and he threw it in my face with a barrage of sniper-fire. In fact, he may as well have gone the whole hog and just told me to sod off.

  Which was why, when the doorbell rang fifteen minutes later, I found myself saying exactly that to him.

  He blinked at me. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You heard me. Where are the children?’

  ‘I told you. I’m picking them up at eight-thirty. It’s now only…’

  ‘So why are you here?’

  ‘Look. Can I come in or are we to conduct this conversation on the doorstep while Mrs Buckley deadheads her marigolds?’

  I turned and glared but all credit to her. Though she had quite plainly heard she didn’t even break snip. I moved the glare back. ‘Which conversation would that be? I wasn’t aware we were having one.’

  ‘Oh, very droll. I’m coming in.’

  Which he did. With a well aimed left leg into the hallway. Followed by the rest of him.

  ‘I don’t…’

  He exhaled. ‘Can’t you stop that for five minutes? I came to ask you precisely why you turned up at my flat half an hour ago knowing very well that the children were not there and that you could give me those vases when I brought them back here. I could think of no plausible explanation other than the one that occurred to me while you were standing in my kitchen, which was that it must have seemed like a good opportunity to have a nose at my shit-hole of a flat. Except that you could have found an excuse to have a nose round my flat any time in the last few months, so it’s not a very plausible explanation at all. And I’m sick and tired of trying to work it out. So here I am. Well?’

  He folded him arms.

  ‘Wrong. For your information…..’

  ‘What’s all this for your information tone about?’

  ‘It’s not a tone. For your information, I came round to your flat because I saw you and the children on TV yesterday evening and I hadn’t realised that you’d got that backing you needed, and I wanted to let you know I saw it and to congratulate you on your success.’

  Hah. Point to moi.

  ‘You’re kidding, of course.’

  ‘I’m not kidding! Why should I be kidding? You must have been very excited about it.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So I thought I’d let you know I’d seen it.’

  ‘So why didn’t you just tell me when I dropped the kids off?’

  ‘Because I didn’t.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because I thought it would be nice to come round and tell you face to face.’

  ‘You could have told me face to face here.’

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘But what?’

  He sat down. Then stood up. Then said,

  ‘Why do I get this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that you came round to tell me something else? You did, didn’t you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Not as such, but…’

  ‘You want a divorce now, don’t you?’

  What?

  Which was the thing that did the trick for me really, because Richard’s stomach’s feeling hopped straight across to mine. Why bother being cerebral about affairs of the heart. Give me basic physiology any time you like.

  I said,

  ‘Richard, I did not come round to tell you I want a divorce. I came round because…well, because…because I was being nice. I saw you on TV and thought how you must be really proud and I thought how you had no-one to share it with and so I thought I’d come round and let you know I’d…’

  ‘You what?’

  I didn’t answer because I could see he was just pausing to gulp in another breath before saying, ‘You what? You thought you’d come round to be nice? Nice?’

  I tried a nod.

  ‘I see. You thought you’d come round to be nice to me, did you? Well, let me tell you, you can take your nice and shove it, okay? The last – the very last – thing I need right now is to have you coming round and being nice to me. Got it?’

  Did I imagine it, or was he shaking slightly?

  ‘I didn’t mean nice as in nice…’

  ‘Oh.’ He balled his fists. ‘As in patronising, then, maybe? As in – don’t tell me – compassionate, perhaps?’

  Which was the thorny one I’d been tussling with. And had dismissed absolutely. ‘No! None of those. I meant nice as in, well, as in….. because I wanted to. I wanted to…’

  He sat down again. ‘Be Mother bloody Potter, patron saint of sad gits.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘You are not a sad git.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that, thank you. But to you…’

  ‘Not to me.’

  I sat down as well. I felt faint. ‘I came round because when I saw you on the TV it made me wish I’d been there as well. That’s all. And because, well, you had that shirt on…’

  ‘You see?’ His hand slapped against the table. ‘There you go again! Julia, my shirts are no longer your concern. I think we’re both clear on that point, aren’t we?’

  ‘But that’s the point. I watched it and I wished your shirts were my concern.’

  Richard stared at me for some seconds. Then sighed, then began to look exasperated. Then angry.. Then was.

  ‘Well they’re not! You can’t have it both ways! You can’t just waft in dispensing pearls of benevolence, you know. You either wanted to stay with me or you didn’t and you didn’t. End of story.’

  I noted the past tense. And Richard’s behaviour at his flat became suddenly clear. I’d been so wrapped up in my own spin-cycle feelings that I’d entirely neglected to consider his.

  ‘Richard, I don’t want it both ways. I’m just trying to explain how I felt. What made me come round to your flat, and…’

  He stood up again, and this time walked to the other end of the kitchen. Where he turned, and, arms folded across his chest, said quietly,

  ‘I really couldn’t give a stuff how you felt.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘But it is. Don’t you realise? I’m sick of considering your bloody feelings, and I’m sick of trying to fathom how you feel about me. I’m sick of feeling guilty, of feeling bad about the children. I’m sick of hearing the children bang on endlessly about all the exotic and exciting things you’re apparently doing, and I’m sick of staring at my four crap walls every night. I’m sick, more than anything, of having to think about it at all.’

  He crossed his legs at the ankle and put his head on one side. ‘Got that?’

  He seemed calmer, at least. I nodded. He uncrossed them.

  ‘Good.’

  Which amounted to a bit of a conversational cul-de-sac, because I couldn’t think of single constructive thing to say. It was obvious that anything short of a no holds barred declaration of absolute unconditional love and forgiveness would represent a gross insult to his intelligence. And I wasn’t altogether sure I was ready to make one. I had been kind of hoping for a gentle slide into testing the water. Not to be chucked in the diving pool. While I silently cogitated, Richard uncrossed his arms and checked his watch.

  ‘I suppose I should go and get the children,’ he said.

  ‘Shall I come?’

  ‘There you go again!’

  God, this was hard.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just thought….’

  ‘I could have built the bloody Forth Bridge single handed in the time you’ve spent ‘just thinking’. What useful thought could you possibly have had then?’

  ‘I just thought we could go together. I thought..(deep breath, mantra; self helpinnerchildselfhelpinnerchild)...we could maybe discuss our, er… relationship on the way.’

  ‘Our re-lay-shon-ship?’ he said it in exactly that ma
nner. ‘Have we slipped into an episode of Neighbours suddenly?’

  ‘How we’re feeling about each other. You know, right now.’ Where the hell did I read that?

  ‘I can tell you how I’m feeling, Ju. Like you’re beyond belief.’

  Ju. He said ‘Ju’. I took a long, deep breath. ‘No, but really. How do you really feel about me, Richard?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Don’t retreat into sniffiness. You know you don’t mean that.’

  ‘Don’t start.’

  ‘But you don’t.’ I stood up. I had caught him on the squirm. Feeling empowered by this sudden shift in the dynamic, I said,

  ‘Look, when I saw you on TV, I was completely floored by how I felt. But I wasn’t sure if it was because of you, or me, or just rose tinted glasses, or wanting my cake and all that, or just a residual effect of having spent the last fifteen years of my life married to you. All I knew was that I didn’t expect to feel the way I did. So I thought if I saw you, spoke to you….then maybe I could sort out how I did feel and…’

  Richard shook his head, picked up his car keys and began to walk out of the kitchen. So I followed. We left the house, and I locked it. Then we walked side by side up the path to the car. I stood by the passenger door while he pressed the alarm key. Our gazes met, as it clunked, over the warm, dusty roof. His eyes seemed to glitter in the last coppery rays of the setting sun. Or was I just being fanciful? Probably. He sounded every bit the long married civil engineer when he said,

  ‘Do you want to know how I really, as you put it, feel about you? Then think back a way to when we got married. Remember how I felt then? Well that’s how I still feel. That’s how I’ll always feel. Boring, but there you have it. No blips, no changes, no crises of commitment. As you well know. Even if I did lose my senses for a while there. And even though you have become a bloody mad cow of late. Go on then, get in. And make sure you don’t sit on my Millennium plans.’

  I loved him for that. We got into the car.

  The End

  Almost….

  Sunday