The Last Day

by Claire Dyer

  And Boyd knows it’s another probate job. He hopes it’s an elderly person who’s died. He finds it hard to cope when tragedy strikes the young.

  Houses are such emotive things. He and Vita had done nothing about theirs when he left, but he really should have gifted her his half; it would have been the honourable thing to do. He’d love to be able to do it now, if only his mother would … He can’t finish this particular thought.

  He waves to Trixie who waves back, and then catches sight of Honey who is watering the plants in the meeting room. She’s concentrating on what she’s doing and so hasn’t spotted he’s arrived and he takes a second to watch her.

  There is still so much about her he doesn’t know. And her dreams don’t help. Until this last one, she hadn’t had one for a while but, in their early days together he’d often wake to find her struggling against some unseen presence, her arms and legs twitching, her breaths coming in short, sharp bursts. But she never tells him what she’s dreaming about. Instead, she fobs him off with, ‘Oh, it was just a silly dream. Ignore me.’ But he believes it has to be more than that. Just a silly dream wouldn’t make her rigid and breathless with fear, would it?

  Boyd never used to be a patient man, but with Honey he has had to become one. He has a sixth sense that if he rushes her, he’ll scare her away.

  ‘Another probate job?’ he asks Trixie as she puts down the phone.

  ‘Yep. I’ll email you the details,’ she replies.

  ‘Thanks.’ He steps past her desk and taps on the meeting room door. ‘Hey,’ he says to Honey. ‘I’ve got the lock.’

  ‘Oh! You made me jump,’ she says, turning and smiling at him. She looks slender and brittle; it’s almost as though she could snap were he to touch her. ‘I’ll make us some coffee, shall I?’

  ‘That would be great, thanks.’

  Honey touches him on the arm as she walks by him. It feels like a blessing.

  It’s nice to say ordinary things to one another. Towards the end with Vita he’d had enough of stinging sentences and weighted silences to last a lifetime.

  It hadn’t started out like that. At the beginning it had been easy and simple. The two of them had fitted one another, like a hand in a glove.

  Take the day they first moved into Albert Terrace. They’d had so little it was laughable. The house had been dark and tobacco-stained. The old man who’d lived there before had gone into a nursing home and his daughter, a plump over-coiffured woman who favoured wearing lime-green leggings and bubble-gum pink tops far too small for her ample frame, had sold the house to pay for her father’s care. She’d seemed a nice woman but not one Boyd or Vita would have wanted to spend too much time with.

  They didn’t need to. They had each other.

  In those days Vita would stand, tucking herself up next to him, and he’d drape an arm over her shoulder. They were like a nest of spoons, a Russian doll, so they told one another. All the clichés.

  The day they moved in, it rained – thick rods of it – and so they’d had to run from the hired van to the front doorstep. The boxes they carried were soggy by the time they reached the house and they’d laughed because nothing had mattered. Anything that got wet would dry in time. Nothing they had would get spoiled because of the rain. The only thing Vita treasured was her art box. This she carried as though it were a religious relic. They’d covered it with a piece of tarpaulin to protect it and it had sat in the corner of the lounge as they ate fish and chips from newspaper and drank whisky from the bottle in front of the fire.

  Vita had undone her plait and fanned her hair over her shoulders to dry it. She’d taken her glasses off and her eyes had glittered and the skin on her cheeks was smooth and creamy. Boyd had never seen her look so beautiful.

  And outside the rain continued to fall.

  They’d been so young; had believed themselves invincible.

  If only someone had been able to warn him of what was to come. Maybe then they could have done something to protect themselves against it; done something to avoid it.

  So, on this Saturday afternoon in summer Boyd decides that now is the time to act on his idea for Honey’s birthday. He wants to know and he wants Honey to know. For all his patience, he wants some degree of certainty. Any amount, even the smallest fraction of it will do.

  At his desk he types what he’s looking for into Google and clicks on the first name that comes up. A little while later he says, ‘I’m off out for a bit.’

  Neither Honey nor Trixie look up from what they’re doing, but both raise a hand in farewell. The phone starts ringing again and he hears Trixie say, ‘Good afternoon. Harrison’s Residential. How can we help you?’

  Boyd steps out of the door onto the pavement. The heat hits him like a hand.

  He drives to a house on the outer edges of the town. He parks his car and walks up the path. He rings the doorbell. A woman in her fifties with soft, curly hair opens the door. She’s wearing jeans and a loose white linen top. She beckons him inside. He follows her. The door closes behind them.

  Honey

  Boyd’s gone out but didn’t say where. She’s not worried; he often does this. She knows she doesn’t, and assumes Trixie doesn’t either, want to make him feel accountable; it’s his business after all. And so she decides to do her weekly analysis of movements in the market by checking in with the websites of their main competitors. She has a spreadsheet where she collates information on what’s sold and when and she’s got some software that can translate the numbers into a pie chart showing market share and a graph showing sales over time.

  Needless to say, Boyd is very impressed by this but she’s not so sure Trixie is. Trixie’s always carried this information in her head or so she told Honey when she presented her first pack of information to Boyd. ‘All he needs to do is ask me, you know,’ she said. ‘No need for all this …’ She waved her hand dismissively over the folder. But that night, when Boyd and Honey were in bed, Boyd said, ‘Take no notice of Trixie. I love what you’re doing.’

  As Honey was stroking the skin on the underside of his wrist at the time, she’d wondered whether he meant that, or her work. But he’d turned then and kissed her and, after that, it didn’t really matter either way.

  Honey scrolls down the houses listed on one of their competitors’ sites; the work isn’t difficult and she can let her mind wander and so she thinks of Vita in her studio. She thinks of her small, strong body, her long hair, the faint lines around her mouth and, for the first time, she really wonders what Vita thinks of her and Boyd being in her house. Perhaps she should have thought of it before, but she’d been so caught up in the ‘them’ of her and Boyd and so absorbed by how she feels about their temporary accommodation that, to her shame, she hasn’t. Surely it must be awkward for Vita to have her space invaded? She would be used to living alone; it’s been six years since Boyd moved out. Honey can’t imagine why she agreed to them moving in.

  The first time she asked Boyd about his wife, he said, ‘Oh, we were married. It didn’t work out. We’re friends though still. At least we’ve managed that.’

  They were eating breakfast. It was a Sunday very early on. The sex they’d had the night before had been good, not wonderful, but good. After the novelty of the first few times had worn off, they were getting better at being with one another. Or rather Honey was getting better at being with Boyd. She’d never had sex with the same man as many times as she had with Boyd. Being in a relationship was a new experience for her, not that he knew this of course. It wasn’t something she ever wanted him to know.

  The table in his flat was strewn with sections of the newspaper. Honey was wearing one of his shirts and drinking chilled orange juice. She felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and, seeing where she’d come from and what she’d done before, it was awesome to be sitting opposite this kind bear of a man, with sunlight streaming through clean windows, the only sounds his contented breathing and the rustle of paper.

  She decided to risk another question
. ‘How long were you married?’

  ‘Fifteen years. I think …’ He paused, picked up the coffee pot and asked, with that kink in his eyebrow, if she’d like some. She nodded. He continued, ‘We got married too young. We thought we knew everything, but we were in our twenties. What does anyone know in their twenties?’

  ‘Um,’ Honey said, picking up a spoon and knocking it against the side of the cup. It made a ringing sound. ‘Excuse me. I’m in my twenties and I think I know …’

  ‘Oh shit, sorry!’ he said, smiling at her.

  Already she loved how he smiled at her but of course she really had no idea; she was running on empty, making it up as she went along.

  The second time she asked him about Vita they’d just had their first fight. It was about something small and stupid, as most fights are.

  Honey had gone for a run. It was an unusual thing to have done, she admits that now. But they’d been cooped up in the flat for the weekend because the weather had been shitty and she was going stir-crazy. There are only so many episodes of House of Cards you can watch in one go.

  There were times Honey wanted to rip out the dark wood shelves and ornate rugs Boyd favoured and replace them with something simple, light and bright. But it wasn’t her flat. She had no rights. She was still renting her bedsit so was strictly just a visitor at Boyd’s. They hadn’t sorted out any of the grown-up stuff about being in a relationship at that point; she’s not sure they have even now.

  She knows she veers away from making things official; she’s never shared a permanent grown-up address with someone else before. She is a superstitious soul and fears that were she ever to do so it would be to court disaster. Better to leave things fluid and flexible but, obviously, there are times when she hungers for permanence and for some kind of certainty and not to feel like she is just passing through. She knows it doesn’t make sense for her to feel this way, but it’s how she does sometimes and how she did on that particular evening.

  So she ran. She didn’t tell Boyd where she was going. She just wanted to be alone, to give herself what the trendy therapists call some headspace and heartspace. She needed perspective. She pulled on her trainers and coat. Hardly running gear, but she wasn’t going to let the lack of designer Lycra stop her. Boyd was in the bath when she left; she closed the door with the softest of clicks and the air in her lungs felt good as she started jogging through the rain.

  Perhaps she stayed out a bit too long, perhaps she should have left a note. She doesn’t know. All she knows is that when she got back and let herself in with the key Boyd had had cut for her only the week before, he was standing in the lounge, hands on hips, his mouth set to a grim line.

  ‘Where did you go?’ he asked, hardly moving his mouth.

  ‘For a run.’ She was panting and drenched in her own sweat and the rain. It was quite obvious where she’d been.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just felt like it.’ She looked at the odious rug and then back up at him. ‘I don’t have to tell you everything. You don’t own me,’ she said.

  And there she was being again the surly teenager she’d once been, the one who kicked out rather than being kicked down. Boyd had never seen this side of her before, but she knew this version of herself well. She’d been her many times: with her foster carers, at school. She’d always been on high alert, ready to defend herself.

  Boyd took a step towards her and, for the first time, she feared him. It was a knee-jerk reaction; she’d been threatened before. But, she was to learn, Boyd was different. He opened his arms and said, his voice soft and low, like a parent’s soothing a child, ‘No, I don’t own you. But I love you, and with love comes worry. I worry about you and for you. Can’t you understand that?’

  Honey was hot now and rain was trickling down the back of her neck. She wanted to hit out at him for being so reasonable. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve him. And so she hit him. She flailed her fists against his broad chest and he stood and took the blows until she was sobbing and he was kissing her and holding her, his huge hands on her back like folded wings.

  Afterwards, when she too had had a bath and changed and he’d made her a milky drink which he put on the floor by her side and she was curled up next to him on the sofa, she said, ‘How come you’re so good, Boyd? How come it didn’t work with Vita when you are such a good man?’

  There are some conversations you start that you wish you hadn’t, conversations that shift the goalposts. And this was one of them. She thought she wanted to know, but it was as though she was picking at a scab. She didn’t want it to come off but still she couldn’t stop herself from digging her nails underneath it.

  He stretched his long legs out; there was the smallest of holes in one of his socks. Honey could see a slice of his toenail through it.

  ‘You always start off,’ he said, ‘with the best of intentions. You never believe it’s going to fail. Otherwise, why would you start in the first place?’ He shifted in the seat a little and continued, ‘We met when I was showing a possible purchaser around a set of studios in London. They were crazy times, property was moving so fast, if you blinked you missed it. Vita and her colleagues were sitting tenants and came with the building. She was angry with me for being there because she was passionate about her work and the space she worked in. She was afraid of the coming change. I liked that about her, right from the word go. She believed in what she was doing whereas I,’ he paused to wind his fingers through Honey’s, ‘I wasn’t at all sure. I was making good money, but it was meaningless money. No one got emotional about what they were buying; it was business, pure and simple. I wanted more. I wanted to deal with real people, people who wanted forever homes. It was idealistic of me and perhaps I was too young to make the decision I made but, meeting Vita, seeing how much she believed in what she was doing, gave me the courage to jump. And she jumped with me.

  ‘And it was wonderful at the start. I had enough money to buy Albert Terrace. She had a few portrait commissions. We believed in the story of us. We thought we’d be young for ever. We imagined we’d be happy for ever.’

  He stopped talking and let his fingers slip from hers. She bent down to pick up her drink and took a sip of it. The warm liquid was soothing.

  She’d come this far. She couldn’t stop now. ‘So what happened?’ she asked. ‘Why last fifteen years and end it then?’

  ‘People change. Things happen to change people.’

  ‘Were you unfaithful?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘No. I don’t believe so. You always tell yourself you’d know, and I still believe that. No,’ he shook his head and stared hard into the middle distance, ‘no, she wasn’t unfaithful. It wasn’t that.’

  ‘What was it then?’

  Honey had finished her drink. It had stopped raining outside but it was dark now. She was getting too close to the truth, she thought, and suddenly, she didn’t want to know. She feared what he was about to tell her would change things; change how she felt about him, about them.

  ‘I haven’t spoken about it for a long time and I’m not sure I can. It’s pathetic I know, but some things go so deep …’

  ‘I understand,’ she said, reaching up and kissing him. She was relieved. It felt like she’d been given a get out of jail free card. The scab was still in place; whatever it was that was raw and pink underneath was still protected.

  ‘At least we’re still friends,’ he said, getting up and closing the lounge curtains in a move that told her the conversation was over. ‘That’s something I suppose,’ he added, before taking her empty cup from her and carrying it through to the kitchen.

  Honey clicks on the house in Eldon Avenue that one of the London agencies has just sold and adds it to her spreadsheet. She looks up from her screen and watches Trixie for a moment and she’s still watching her when Boyd strides back into the office carrying a white envelope. Trixie stands, then sits down abruptly, pats her hair with one hand and picks up the phone w
ith the other.

  ‘Hello there, ladies,’ Boyd says, grinning at them both. ‘Any messages while I was out?’

  Vita

  I’m in the park again. I was in the studio and then I left it. I remember walking out of it, through the gate and down the path.

  And now I’m here watching the weekend families. Some are at the swings – combinations of parents and children, the occasional grandparent; some are playing football – dads and sons, their dogs bounding in amongst their legs with a wild kind of joy. The grass is dry beneath my feet, the air hot, the sky a cloudless, cornflower blue. My bones feel heavy in my body. It is an effort to lift my feet and take the necessary steps. I know I should go back, back to the studio, the painting, to being the me I have become, the one who doesn’t mind, who doesn’t want any of this for herself.

  I text Colin. ‘You around later?’

  ‘Sure,’ he replies.

  ‘OK. I’ll be in touch.’

  Thank God for Colin I think as I turn and slowly make my way home. The children’s laughter follows me. In the horse chestnuts at the end of our road, a blackbird is shouting an alarm call. My garden welcomes me almost like it is a pair of arms wrapping themselves around me. I feel a strange sense of expectation at the thought of Boyd and Honey coming home here after work but am not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I think of the house now that the three of us are living there, how it seems both to have expanded to fit around us and contracted so that we constantly bump up against one another. Having them there is like having them grafted onto my skin and me being grafted onto theirs.

  Honey’s things are spreading around the house like ink on wet paper: tubs of ‘summer glow’ face cream nudge up to my creams which claim ‘to reduce wrinkles in five days or your money back’; tiny wisps of her underwear hang on the airer in the bathroom and seem to mock my sturdy M&S multi-pack knickers; her books, her bags, her laughter, her grace, her youth, fill the house as they fill Boyd’s arms, his mind and his heart.