by Poorna Bell
We continued our wonderful, sedate life for a few months. Christmas came and went and it was the best one we had as a family. Leela was gurgling in her stroller, Daisy was lolloping around, Rob cooked the most spectacular leg of lamb.
Nearly five months in, he looked as though he was going to make it to his six-months-clean mark – which is when I said we’d try for a baby.
While shopping one day in Boots, he pointed at some prenatal vitamins. ‘Are you sure we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves?’ I asked.
‘Ah, go on, we’re nearly there. Also, they’re the gummy bear kind so they taste good too.’
I picked them off the shelf reluctantly; it was hard to shake the worry. My body drew itself into a tight line and avoided sex; it already knew what my mind didn’t want to accept – that we were nowhere near ready. That our newfound stability was still only a shell, barely strong enough to contain the both of us.
The background to all of this was that Rob had lost one of his contracts and was finding it hard to secure more work.
I was also aware that he hadn’t been applying for jobs. By now I understood that, although my husband appeared confident, the prospect of rejection had been crippling him in the last few years. I knew the loss of the contract had knocked his confidence, and, if we weren’t careful, it could knock his recovery off course too.
A week later, we moved again, to nearby St Margaret’s – the Hampton house we’d been renting had endemic damp, and our landlord was being an arsehole about it. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going wrong with Rob.
His eyes seemed dead again – he said from the exhaustion of moving things around. Then he caught a cold and assured me it was definitely a virus. He asked to borrow some money while he waited for some jobs to come through.
When I asked him if he was all right, he said he’d just found the change of environment a bit stressful. ‘But it’s all okay,’ he reassured me. ‘You’re being a bit paranoid, honey.’
It wasn’t until we went to Martin’s that I knew something was very, very wrong.
Martin has a wonderful, restful house in the south of France. I met him through Mal, and Mal met him through work; they’re both in finance. At least once a year, Mal and I visit him there and we talk trash and unwind from city life.
Martin is beautiful, Scottish and about fifteen years older than us. He was sensible with his money and invested some of it in this magnificent stone house with green shutters. If I close my eyes and think of Martin’s, I can see a bright blue sky, fields of sunflowers stretching towards it, the orange canvas of his poolside umbrellas, a pale pink, cold, glass of wine, and a sense of peace and relaxation I simply don’t get anywhere else.
Summer is our favourite time to go there. We lie by the pool until we turn into dark chestnuts; the wine sends us to a place perfect for afternoon naps and Martin takes care of everything. His preference for taking charge is our gain – we don’t cook, we just clean and help clear the tables after meals of beef Wellington, mozzarella and tomato salad, croissants and ham, slow-cooked lamb and slabs of cheese. There is Kylie, Glee and Michael Jackson on rotation, as we are all lazy and forget to bring CDs, and in the evening we flop on white sofas and watch the latest bad box set.
In winter, the fire comes on and, after long walks in the snow, we uncurl amid the crackle of logs, cosy blankets and glasses of red wine.
For Mal and me, Martin’s place had always been a little haven, and it was a big deal that Rob had been invited.
But Rob ruined it. The weeks leading up to the trip had been fraught. I was feeling the strain of paying for everything and we’d been fighting over his inability to find new work.
The weekend break started promisingly, however. On the flight over there, Rob was on top form, asking Martin if he wanted to join the ‘Silverback Club’ which was ‘for men whose ball hair was starting to go grey’.
‘We Silverbacks have to stick together, Martin,’ he said sagely.
But the morning after we arrived at the house, it became clear that everything was not all right. He made Martin buy calamari and prawns with the grand promise that he was going to cook them. They sat untouched and rotting in the fridge.
He spent almost the entire visit in bed, sweating and tired, and by the time we got back to London, I was sick to my stomach. I was fed up; I felt trapped, tired and pissed off that my weekend had been spent worrying about Rob, whether he was okay, that he had spent no time with my friends, that I had to field questions about whether he was all right. Because something was going on and he still wasn’t telling me what it was.
All in all, a bad trip. When I came back, haggard and unrested, the first thing a work colleague said was: ‘Jesus Christ. You look like you’ve had whisky for breakfast.’
A couple of weeks later, I had to fly to a big summit in Munich, and was concerned when he didn’t answer any of my calls or text to see if I had arrived safely.
‘Rob – is everything all right? What is going on over there?’ I messaged. No reply.
My boss and I went out for bratwurst and pale beer under a grey wintery sky, while my insides furrowed with worry. I eventually got a text from him saying everything was good at home but he was feeling a bit fluey.
When I got home he was very chipper. ‘Baby,’ he said, bouncing around after he had shown me his NA chip for being six months clean, ‘I’ve got something to ask you.
‘I’ve been in a work rut and I think it would do me a lot of good to go to Sheffield to visit S. Go for a few walks and so on. I’ll take Daisy with me – you won’t have to worry about a thing, I promise.’
I went very quiet. This was starting to feel worryingly familiar. The exhaustion. The flu. The borrowing of money again. The ‘trip’ away, which in previous times had actually been withdrawal.
‘Rob,’ I said, trying to hide how upset I was, the dread filling my insides like cement, ‘have you relapsed?’
‘What? No! Of course not, honey. My recovery means everything to me, and I wouldn’t do that to you, I promise. I just feel like London has been crowding me in a bit, and I think it might do some good to get some space.’
‘It’s just that before when you went away, you know . . . ’
‘I know. And I’m so sorry for that. But honestly, I would say if something was wrong. I’ll call every day, and I promise I’ll be back in action when I come back. Clean husband, right? Babies, hmm?’ he said and nuzzled my hair.
So he went, and I visited my sister in Brighton while he was away.
As we sat around the table for dinner, my brother-in-law Shabby asked me a few questions. He had most recently seen Rob a couple of weeks ago, when he had taken our dishwasher over to them as we didn’t need it in our new flat.
Shabby is an exceptional cook, and I just wanted to concentrate on the incredible meal he’d prepared, of fried courgettes, orzo and pesto and chicken stuffed with goat’s cheese and spinach. No such luck.
How was he? Was he sleeping well? Had I noticed anything out of the ordinary? Why did he seem so out of it when he came over to drop the dishwasher off?
I grew irritated, thinking, Why the fuck is he interrogating me, I just want to eat!
He apologised when he saw how angry I had become, but said: ‘Poo, I’m really sorry but I’d be remiss in not asking you. Everything you’ve told me points to relapse.’
I put my head in my hands, and the full misery of the last few weeks, what I’d tried so hard to avoid, pressed down on me. On the one hand, I hoped against hope that he hadn’t relapsed. On the other, I knew that if he had, it would allow me permission to ask for a separation, to see through the ultimatum I had given him six months before. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this for. How much longer I can bear this. At least if he has relapsed I know what’s going on, and I wouldn’t be a monster for wanting to leave,’ I whispered, hating myself for it.
I didn’t know what to do. How on earth would I find the strength to break up wi
th the love of my life, if I had to?
They both hugged me at the dinner table. Later that evening, I called Rob. I kept asking him the same question over and over: ‘Have you relapsed? Just tell me the truth.’ He denied it, over and over.
Then finally, late at night, a text. ‘You’re right. You’re always right. When you think I’ve relapsed I have. I’m so sorry. I was in such a bad place. I’m so scared of losing you.’
This time, it was different. It wasn’t just that I’d been lied to again, made to feel paranoid, that he’d undermined all the trust in our marriage. It wasn’t even that he’d fooled the people at NA – the one group he was supposed to feel he could be honest with – to get his six-month chip.
It was the babies.
However noble the reasons, I couldn’t be with someone who would bring children into such chaos. And now that I had some notion of what it was like to feel protective over a child, in the way that I felt about Leela, it made me angry to think about these children who would have been conceived in a lie.
‘Poo,’ my sister said gently, ‘he sent me a text two days ago asking me if I thought it would be a good idea to have a vow renewal ceremony to celebrate him being clean.’
I read the text in horror. During his recovery, I spoke about how I wanted to renew our vows if we managed to get him sober, because I felt cheated of my wedding day.
The text revealed that Rob wasn’t just lying to me, he was lying to himself, and that, even with the threat of losing everything hanging over him, he would continue to lie. This was that ‘fixity’ Prof. Williams spoke about. How could he ever get real, proper help when he couldn’t fully acknowledge or accept his problems? When he believed, against all the evidence, that he could outsmart something that had beaten him over and over again? How could he even hope to break the cycle of destruction that had taken almost everything away from him?
And although I was in love with him, although I could never imagine loving anyone else as much as I loved him and would always love him, whatever our future together, I had reached the end of the road where I could help him – and, most importantly, where I wanted to help him.
Our marriage was over.
Desperation, when met with the possibility of hope, pushes people to do incredible things. Move cars with their bare hands, swim miles to get to shore, survive for days underneath earthquake rubble without food or water.
I’ve learned there’s a desperation that follows grief in a way like no other. So desperate are you, so hopeful for a snatch of the person you have lost, there are endless tricks your mind will play on you.
We wonder where they are. We wonder if they are the clouds smeared against the sky, the edge of birdsong filling the trees, in the radio waves that make a song they loved burst into sound.
On the day we buried Rob, when our eyes couldn’t quite believe he was lying still and silent on sheepskin, we said the rain was him causing mischief, the sun was him giving us lightness when we felt so dark.
In the back and forth of rain and sun, double rainbows lit the sky, arcs of fire sweeping across the broad Auckland blue. Back in England, a different continent, a different hemisphere and season, rainbows soared as well, the sky tracing a fingertip from its mouth to the earth.
In so many cultures and religions, a rainbow is the sign of the earth and sky connecting, otherworldliness meeting humanity.
In Greek mythology, it is the goddess Iris delivering messages between the gods and mortals.
In Maori culture, it is the god Uenuku, who fell in love with the mist-maiden Hinewai – a beautiful woman who would disappear in the morning dawn and who asked him to keep their relationship a secret but he broke his promise.
In Hinduism, it can represent several things. One is that it is the bow of Indra, the mighty god of thunder and war, and from it he shoots arrows formed from lightning. But the one I love the most is the ‘rainbow body’ that comes from Buddhism and Hinduism – a person who has died but achieved ultimate oneness and peace, and resides in the motes of colour straddling the atmosphere.
Rainbows may seem to come from the realm of unicorns and sparkles, but there is a metaphor more poignant, more truthful than any of those things.
A rainbow only ever appears after the rain, after the clouds have gathered. It is only ever called into being when darkness arrives and then departs. It is hope that the storm will pass; it is wonder in its simplest form.
We wish we could look at it forever, but its beauty exists because of its transience.
On that day it wasn’t physics. Indra laid down his bow, Uenuku had seen our pain and desperation. Iris stayed silent to allow Rob the chance to ease our misery. And for a brief moment, as we lifted our heads to the sky searching for the light in a storm of such sadness, he did.
Chapter Ten
It was Valentine’s Day, 2015. I remember each step on the staircase of the train station. I took each one with both feet, like a child who was unable to stretch their legs any further.
I passed the newsagent’s where Rob ordered his comic books, the greengrocer’s that sold freesias, his favourite flowers, in big buckets. Further along, the baby shop.
Fuck me, the baby shop. Mustn’t cry. Mustn’t cry.
‘I’ve put the breakfast bar chairs together,’ Rob texted while I was on the train, as if everything was normal, as if he hadn’t just told me he’d spent the best part of four weeks lying to me.
Rob had returned from Sheffield the night before, I was arriving from Brighton, strengthened by my sister’s love.
But it wasn’t enough. I knew when I arrived home, that was it. My life as I knew it was over. Our trips to the gym. Coffee at Gosia’s. Fighting over Terry Pratchett books. Watching Doctor Who. Looking at the bluebell patch near my parents’ house. Christmas dinners. Making the bed together. Saying I love you.
It was so much more than sadness and lost memories, it was the future dissolving at my feet.
I can’t do this.
When I stepped through the door, Daisy launched herself at me, wagging her tail and whacking me with it. Oh my God, Daisy.
Rob popped his head round the corner, his face filled with concern. But he also looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept in a thousand years. Heroin sick.
I looked at him. I placed the two of us and our dog, our unborn babies, all of the things we loved, in an imaginary snowglobe. I knew that once these words came out of my mouth, they would forever be preserved, but I could never touch or enter that world again. I let those seconds and minutes last as long as I could before I said: ‘We need to talk.’
We sat in the lounge. Me on the blue sofa. Him on the floor, fussing with his hands, one of his thumbs a blunt little mallet from when his mother accidentally shut it in a door when he was a child.
Thumbie, I love you, I once said and kissed the tip.
The three-quarter-length nude Balinese bust we bought on our honeymoon oversaw the proceedings with her one broken nipple. So much of our life in one tiny room, each object a story, a connection, guy ropes rippling back and forth to one another, two hearts connected by a million different things.
‘Rob, I love you,’ I began. ‘But we had a conversation last year where I told you that if you lied to me again, I would ask you for a separation.’
‘Honey,’ he began.
I held up my hand. ‘Please. If I don’t get the words out, I may never find the strength. I love you. So much. But I can’t live like this any more. I hate my life. I am asking you for a separation.’
I remember how his face fell. He closed his eyes and kept them closed. He had expected it to be different, I could tell that much.
I don’t remember the words, just the colours everything was painted in. So much red, our hearts bleeding for each other; my anger that he’d let me down, his anger that I couldn’t forgive him. Covered in blue, the sadness that washed over us in waves; it drenched our lives in ice water trying to stamp out the spark. Everything black, save for one gleaming strand
of gold, a tiny sliver of hope that Rob could somehow turn this around.
I asked for a three-month separation, and if in that time he could show me how he wanted sobriety and a better life for himself, not just for me, then I would consider taking him back. And in that time, there were no guarantees – I needed time to think, time I hadn’t ever had while ping-ponging between Rob’s recovery, hospital stay and constant worry that I’d return home to something horrific.
For so long, even during my heart surgery, our relationship had been about Rob’s ever-changing physical state and emotions – how he was feeling that day, his wants, his needs. I’m not saying he didn’t want to put me first; I’m saying he was often incapable of it because of the fluctuating nature of his illness.
I needed space to breathe.
During our separation, he was going to go to New Zealand. Many people wondered why, and whether it was the right thing to do.
At that time, it was the only thing to do.
When Rob was strong in his recovery, several months before the events that brought us to that terrible point, there was a guy called William who lived in a bus stop near our house. Rob knew him from NA and asked if this guy could come and stay on our couch.
‘I don’t want to seem like the biggest asshole,’ I said, ‘but no. This is some random dude and I have my wedding jewellery in the house.’
Later that day we drove past the bus stop and I saw a man sitting in it who looked like a university professor, reading a book. Neat with glasses, white and in his forties. ‘That’s William,’ Rob said. I looked closer and saw the sleeping bag next to him and a suitcase, containing presumably everything he owned.
William looked like your bank manager. The man who would teach your kids. He looked like every commuter you brush against on your way to work in the morning.
‘What happened?’ I asked Rob in wonder. ‘He looks so . . . normal.’
Rob shrugged. ‘He was an addict. He lost his wife and kids, and then he lost his job.’