by Adele Parks
Martha missed Eliza; she wanted to talk to her. She scrambled in her bag and found her mobile. ‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘Hi Me. Where are you?’
‘I’m in that café opposite the Esso garage.’ Martha glared at the branding. She used to feel a little glimmer of pride every time she passed an Esso garage. She used to think, That’s who my husband works for, that’s how he spends his days. Michael thought that Esso was important, so Martha did too. Now the branding simply looked grubby, an eyesore.
‘Order me a full fried, I’ll be there in less than ten. Onions, mushrooms, the works. OK?’
‘OK.’
22
Eliza saw the remnants of Martha’s breakfast. ‘Feel better?’
‘Feel rotten.’
‘Hangover, or life?’
‘Not sure I know yet,’ muttered Martha. ‘S’pose Mum’s filled you in with the details?’
‘Yeah, Babes, she has,’ sighed Eliza as she plonked herself into the seat opposite Martha.
‘He wants a divorce.’
‘I know.’
‘Why? Why is he doing this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I don’t know either.’ Martha fell silent and stared at her empty teacup. She wanted to be brave. She really didn’t want to embarrass Eliza, whose breakfast had just arrived; she didn’t want to put her sister off her food by crying and making the toast soggy, but being brave wasn’t easy. ‘I feel so ridiculous, so stupid. As though I’ve been caught sleeping on duty.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Eliza.
‘I thought we had a good marriage. I thought we were happy. He said he was happy.’
‘When?’
‘When I asked him.’
‘Oh, you had to ask him.’ Eliza took a hungry bite of her sausage, chewed it thoughtfully, then probed, ‘D’you think there’s someone else?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know. I keep asking him.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘There is one woman in his office who he used to mention all the time; Karen.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘Well, that’s the odd thing, I haven’t met her. He was always doing things with Karen and her mates but I was never invited along. Do you think he’s having an affair with this Karen?’
Eliza thought it was more likely to be one of Karen’s friends. Karen was an alibi but she didn’t say anything. It was just a gut feeling, she had no proof. Instead she asked, ‘When did he last make you happy?’
‘Well…’ Martha wasn’t sure what to say.
‘What was the last nice thing he did for you?’ pushed Eliza.
‘He’s always doing nice things.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. He took the children to the park last week so I could get to the gym.’
‘They are his children. He did that for them and for himself, not you.’ Eliza enthusiastically cut into her egg. Martha felt tempted to order yet another. ‘When was the last time he asked you how you were?’
‘Don’t be silly, he always asks.’ She leaned over and stole a sausage from Eliza’s plate. Where had her appetite come from?
‘And listened to your reply?’
Martha didn’t answer and Eliza took this as her conceding the point.
‘Why are you being cruel about him?’ asked Martha with genuine bewilderment.
‘Because he’s treated you so badly over the last few months. He’s been mind-blowingly selfish. He’s not so much a product of the ‘Generation X’, more of the ‘Generation I’. And he’s been lazy and irresponsible. He’s hurt you and you’re my sister. I could rip his head off.’
‘Oh, I see,’ commented Martha.
Both the women fell silent and looked out of the window. London was, as ever, teeming with life. The traffic was already heavy. Café owners stood in the doorways of their premises, smoking cigarettes, assessing the weather, wondering if it was worth unstacking the metal bistro chairs for lunch. The streets were full of pedestrians walking their dogs and hurrying their children, scooters, people on skates, boards, bikes. Everyone was in a hurry.
Martha loved this time of year; it was possibly her favourite. As a child she remembered it as one exciting event followed by another. Half-term, Hallowe’en, Guy Fawkes Night; before you knew it, it was Christmas. Martha still found autumn exciting. She loved the cold, crisp days. The shockingly bright, cobalt-blue skies. It was fun to walk in London parks kicking leaves and hearing them crunch underfoot. She never worried about dog muck. Unearthing a shiny, fat conker still seemed like finding treasure to her. She liked the gaudy displays of witches and fireworks that littered shop windows; she liked bobbing for apples on Hallowe’en, and the smell of fried onions and burgers and hotdogs, smouldering fires, and burnt-out fireworks five days later. For Martha, autumn was the season of new beginning, even more so than spring. It was probably something to do with a new school year. Autumn was full of small pleasures. These small pleasures added up to something much bigger. They were all pleasures that were independent of Michael.
Eliza reached across the table and squeezed her sister’s hand. Was it the right moment? Did she dare? Maybe it was what Martha needed to hear. ‘He wasn’t perfect, you know.’
The words sat between them. Eliza waited to see if she’d just chucked a hand grenade into their relationship.
‘Didn’t you think so?’ sighed Martha. It was odd how they’d both started talking about Michael in the past tense.
‘Did you think so?’
Martha opened her mouth to say ‘yes’, but the word never emerged. She was so used to singing Michael’s praises, finding the good things to say about him. Telling everyone – including herself – how lucky she was to be married to him. But was she?
For ten years she’d let the platitudes roll off her tongue. ‘I couldn’t be happier, he’s everything I ever dreamed of, and more, and he is so kind, so responsible, such a good husband.’ And he was. He really was.
Or rather, he had been.
She tried to think of the last time he’d behaved like an Action Man. She couldn’t remember. Lately, he hadn’t even been helping her carry the shopping into the house from the car. He was always tired, always napping. She was the one that behaved like a superhero – juggling endless tasks, tantrums, jobs and jinxes.
He never made her feel fascinating any more; he made her feel boring. And sometimes she was a little bored of him.
They’d both changed.
She believed in marriage. She really did, and she hadn’t expected it to be easy. Nothing that was worth anything was easy, but she’d thought that they’d make it. He’d promised to love her and be with her for better, for worse, in sickness and in health. It wasn’t even such a bad worse. A couple of lovely kids that ate up her time and energy, how bad was that?
Martha had always thought that Michael was the ambitious one. The one that hated failure. But no, it was her. She hated the fact that their marriage hadn’t worked. Recently she’d wanted to tell him to pull himself together, to make more of an effort, to have some backbone.
She hated his lack of backbone.
Maybe she didn’t want him around any more?
She’d sacrificed a lot to make this marriage work. She’d curbed her career and agreed to live in London, when really she’d have preferred to be the other side of the green belt. And whilst Michael’s view was that no one sacrifices anything if they are truly in love, she’d thought that immature. As she’d thought his inability to forgive her tiredness, her distracted state of mind, her frustrations and her anger, was immature. No one came without baggage. You would have to be shallow and dull to have travelled to adulthood without acquiring a few battle scars.
Michael had turned out to be more ordinary than Martha had thought. She felt duped.
‘He wasn’t always perfect,’ she admitted. Immediately a spasm of guilt swept over her. She felt miserably disloyal so quickly added, ‘But no one is. Marriage is about compromise.’
Not that Martha could remember the last time Michael compromised on anything.
Besides the extra wardrobe space and the liberation from the ironing pile, there was something else that suggested to Martha that there was a distinct possibility that Michael wasn’t perfect, at least not for her or with her. Over the last few weeks Martha had felt just a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more at ease with herself. Not all the time, obviously. A lot of the time she’d behaved like Attila the Hun, and she’d often felt like the brokenhearted bird in Swan Lake. She’d been nearly paralysed by the chilling loneliness ebbing into her body. She’d felt small and vulnerable and completely alone. But there had been the odd moment, the odd glimpse of a more confident and engaging Martha emerging. Like when she was buying the pumpkin, or the first time she went into a chat room, or when she’d eaten fish fingers and chips for tea – then she had felt fine.
Really rather good.
And sometimes she felt horrible. Indescribably vile. Ruined.
‘You’ll meet someone else,’ said Eliza.
Martha looked up sharply. She was aghast. ‘I don’t want anyone else. How can you talk about meeting someone else less than twenty-four hours after talking about the probable success of Project Disney?’
‘No, not right now, obviously,’ Eliza rushed. She wished their mother was here. Eliza seemed to have a gift for saying the wrong thing at the moment.
‘God, Eliza, next thing you’ll be telling me to wear bright colours. Red or pink – cheerful happy colours – and to think sunny thoughts. Look in a mirror and tell myself I’m wonderful.’
‘I’ve heard that works.’
Martha glared at Eliza across her teacup and hoped her look of anger would be enough to silence her sister.
It wasn’t. Eliza continued, ‘I’m just saying that eventually you will meet someone else, you’re lovely and –’
‘But Cinderella doesn’t end with: “And they lived happily for a certain period of time, until they each moved on to a new partner,”’ snapped Martha.
‘Yes, but Cinderella is a fairytale. Life isn’t a fairytale,’ argued Eliza. ‘You don’t believe in glass slippers, they’d be lethal. Or Fairy Godmothers, or choosing your wife after three dances, or virgins marrying.’
Martha allowed herself to grin at the last example. ‘True,’ she admitted and then added, ‘but I did believe in the happily-ever-after.’
Both girls sat quietly for a moment.
‘Me too,’ confessed Eliza.
More silence.
‘I still think that there is a happily-ever-after out there for you. I know it,’ urged Eliza.
‘What, with two kids?’ asked doubting Martha.
‘Ideal if the chap is infertile,’ encouraged Eliza.
‘And a stack of baggage?’ worried Martha.
‘Don’t talk about it – be silent, deep and interesting.’ Eliza caught and held Martha’s eye. It hurt both of them to look at each other. Martha felt so ashamed, such a failure. Eliza felt miserable on her behalf.
‘But Michael was the culmination of all my dreams since Bodie, through John Travolta and Paul Young.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I just wanted to be loved. How hard can that be? I’m not so bad, am I?’
‘You’re cool, Babes.’
‘Then why didn’t it work?’
‘I don’t know. Life–’
‘Sucks.’ Martha sighed again but she couldn’t expel the sadness that lingered inside. ‘Eliza, who will I chat to about stuff? About the silly things? Like what I’ve bought for tea? And what the window cleaner charged?’
‘Me.’
‘What will I do if I have a flat battery?’
‘Ring a garage.’
‘But he’s a man, car mechanics tell him the truth.’
‘Join the AA, or the RAC.’
‘What about sports days?’
‘D’you really think he’d ever take time off to go to one?’
‘Well no, but… Who will I show Mathew’s paintings to?’
‘Me. Like you always have.’
‘Right,’ agreed Martha.
She took a deep breath and thought of Mathew and Maisie. She pictured them on the swings at the local park. Red-cheeked and chubby. Cocooned in half a dozen layers, smiling, laughing and kicking their legs. Her two children were such a responsibility. But then she’d always believed that responsibility was a good thing.
They loved her and needed her and depended on her. There was no time for self-pity or self-indulgence. Even if she longed to fling herself into bed and bury herself in the duvet (quite literally) it was not an option. Nor was crying in a greasy spoon café.
Last night when Michael had asked for a divorce, Martha had felt her heart crumble to dust. She was scared. It was possible – she’d seen countless examples – that her heart would be replaced by a ball of miserable, aching cynicism. A cynicism that, over the years, would be inflamed by countless unfairnesses, unfairnesses that until now she had let slip from her like water from a duck’s back. Now she feared she would become vicious and twisted. How was she going to be able to shrug it off when short-changed by fifty pence? Now it was possible she’d storm back to the shop to rip the thieving bastard’s head off. She might become the type of woman who hooted her horn repeatedly and stuck up two fingers when another driver pinched the space she’d been patiently waiting for. She might end up hating traffic wardens like everyone else, instead of defending them and saying, ‘Well, someone has to do it.’
She wondered whether she’d ever find the energy to be kind or optimistic again. Whether she’d find it in her heart to invite the boring neighbours in for drinks. Would she become one of those women who made tasteless gags at friends’ weddings? Jokes about it being good whilst it lasts, but in her experience that wasn’t very long.
She didn’t want to be this angry.
It was time to stop blaming, complaining and regretting. It was time to reclaim her life and decide what she wanted. Who she wanted to be, where she wanted to go, how she wanted to live.
Martha was going to let go. More, she was going to be as elegant, charitable and generous as she possibly could be.
Martha was going to get on with her life.
It might even be fabulous.
23
Eliza had been right: Martha did feel better once she started talking openly to her friends about her split from Michael and, well, the possibility – no, the probability – of an imminent divorce. No one gloated. No one sighed audibly with relief, grateful that Martha and Michael had fulfilled the statistical quota for this group of friends. No one thought that her divorce made them safe. Martha was reassured to note that all of them were as stunned by the news as she had been. Everyone assumed that a reconciliation was on the cards, as Martha had. When Martha gently but firmly explained that this was no longer an option, not what she wanted any more, her statement was quietly accepted.
It was an enormous relief.
Admitting your life wasn’t perfect.
In fact, admitting your life had gone – what was Eliza’s expression? Tits up, that was it. Admitting your life had gone tits up was an enormous relief.
Martha suddenly found that she was entirely released from the tyranny of housework, timetables, cookbooks, starch bottles, the gym, educational and development books about children – and from Michael’s expectations.
Expectations that she’d always had the feeling she’d failed.
Martha would no longer host elaborate dinner parties. Instead she started having impromptu sleepovers, when her friends were too smashed to drive home. Martha couldn’t imagine there being a similar scenario when Michael had lived with her; the idea had never crossed her mind. Slowly Martha had come to the conclusion that it was ludicrous to run around in a frenzy, wiping sticky hand prints off surfaces at night time; they were always back again by 8.30 the following morning. She soon found out that, after the children had gone to b
ed, it was a pleasure to stick a simple meal in the microwave. There was less washing up and shopping and cleaning to do.
There were fewer rows. There was less tension, anxiety and irritability.
But there was no less love in the house, which made Martha wonder when the love had left. Obviously way before Michael had.
Martha began writing herself lists of the things she hoped to achieve over the next few days. That way, if she had any free time and was in danger of thinking – which inevitably led to crying – she could consult the list and find something to do with herself. Sometimes the lists included the smallest of tasks (buy cards, write cards, buy stamps, post cards). Simply writing ‘send cards’ would have earned only a single tick, and it was satisfying to see four small ticks on the list. A tick signalled a sense of self-approval, which Martha wanted to believe in.
The problem with self-worth was that no one else could do the job – although, in fairness, everyone tried. Her friends and family amazed her with their level of support; they called and talked and listened and encouraged and affirmed. They didn’t comment when she insisted that as the father of her children he deserved her respect and kindness. Nor did they comment when she vowed to sniff him out, track him down, and cut off his bollocks.
A surprising number of people suggested that Martha hire a private detective, because no one understood why he’d left. Everyone agreed that ‘not happy’ was an inadequate explanation for deserting your family. Martha was tempted. It would almost be a relief if a detective handed over a set of black and white photographs showing Michael leaving a flat and a woman at the door, who was clasping her frilly dressing gown to her heaving bosom and looking both delighted and dishevelled. Martha just wanted to understand Michael, which at the moment was impossible because she didn’t even know him. Not any more.
The birthday party was an enormous success. There were balloons and bubbles and prizes and music and laughter. Nothing was missing. Michael wasn’t there and yet nothing was missing.
After the final party bag had been given away, all the discarded tissue and wrapping paper collected into large black sacks, and exhausted Maisie and Mathew tucked into their beds, Eliza and Martha kicked off their shoes and prepared to enjoy the silence.