by Fiona Harper
‘Are you OK?’ I ask, and Dan runs a hand through his hair, which is shaggier than it’s ever been. He doesn’t speak, just shakes his head and that makes me worried. ‘What is it? Are you ill?’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s work.’
‘What about it?’
‘You know I’ve been Acting Head of Department for the last half-term?’
I nod. I didn’t know, and I’m really pleased for him. I’d been hoping they’d offer him the post when I heard the current Head of Department was going on maternity leave.
‘Well, Mrs Shroffield let them know she’s not coming back. They’re looking for someone to take on the role permanently.’
I look at Dan, his dejected expression. This can only mean one thing. ‘They told you they don’t want you to apply for it?’
‘No, that’s just it! They’ve offered me the job.’
‘But, Dan! That’s great!’
He looks at me as if to say, Really? Is it?
‘But – ’
‘More paperwork, more hours at the school? I’m not sure if that’s what I really want.’
I’m trying not to let my frustration grow, but I don’t get it. When Dan got this job at Swanham High School, all he could talk about was his dreams of being the youngest Head of Department they’d ever had. ‘Then what do you want?’ I ask. That would be a step forward, at least, from the Dan I knew. Some kind of goal.
He nods, more to himself than to me. ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking about. Them offering me the post just made me realise how much I didn’t want it, and since then I’ve been piecing together what I do want.’
‘Hang on … “since then”? How long have you known about this?’
Dan has the grace to bow his head and look sheepish. ‘Two weeks.’
My mouth drops open. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me? To discuss it with me?’
He looks up at me from under his shaggy hair. ‘I needed to get it straight in my own head, first. You know what I’m like.’
I sigh. Unfortunately, I do. And this is classic Dan. ‘So have you now?’
He nods.
‘Feel like clueing me in?’
‘What I really want is to write. I need to find more hours in the week to do that because I never have time for it any more. Taking the Head of Department post would erase any chance of that.’
I feel tears welling up against my lashes. I don’t know why I’m getting so emotional. Maybe it’s because I’m just so tired all the time. I don’t know if Billy sleeps better now he’s four months, but, even if he does, I was still on the newborn sleep schedule last night. ‘But if you take more time to write every week – don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to stop you – I’ll have to pick up your slack, and I’m exhausted enough as it is!’
He looks me in the eye. His gaze is steady. He’s made up his mind about something. Finally. ‘That’s why I’m thinking of handing in my notice and doing supply work. It pays well and it’ll give me more free time.’
‘Yes, but it’s not regular, is it? It’s not guaranteed. How are we supposed to last through the school holidays, or when the jobs don’t come in?’
His mouth thins into a grim line.
I don’t care. There’s another reason too. Something I’m better off not saying: in the long run, this won’t help Dan at all. It won’t help us. Future Dan lacked ambition, direction. Just doing supply work, tinkering with his poems and stories on the side, isn’t going to give him that. He’ll just be bumming around aimlessly, no career path, no nothing.
‘I not happy, Maggie. Neither of us are. And I don’t know if it’s the sleepless nights or we’ve got ourselves in a rut, but I feel like I’ve got to do something to change that. Can you understand? Can you at least try?’
I look back at him, helplessly. I do understand. It’s just that he’s going about it totally the wrong way. ‘Do you think I want to be stuck at home cleaning up poo and sick all day? We don’t always get what we want! Now is not the time to be selfish, Dan. We need to work as a team!’
Dan grunts. ‘Some team …’
‘What does that mean?’
He gives me a scathing look. ‘It means it’s not really a team if there’s always the same leader and always the same follower, and I know which role you cast yourself in!’
‘Only because of your chronic lack of motivation! If I didn’t take charge, no one would. It’s so unfair you’re blaming this all on me!’
Dan stands up. ‘I’m going out,’ he says.
‘Where to?’
‘Dunno. Just out.’
And before I can ask him if he’s going to be back for tea, he jogs downstairs, throws his coat and shoes on and stomps out the door, slamming it behind him, which wakes Billy up and he starts to wail.
Once I’ve soothed Billy, I order a takeaway. I honestly can’t be bothered to cook after this. It takes ages to get Billy down for the night and when I check the clock and see it’s past nine, there’s still no sign of Dan. I’m tempted to scrape the rest of the Chinese into the bin, but I resolve to be the bigger person and grudgingly shove it in the fridge and then I go in search of the phone so I can call Becca to vent.
I dial her number and wait. It rings six times and goes to the answerphone. I leave a message – nothing too ranty – and then I place the phone back in its cradle. It’s one of those massive cordless things we all thought was the height of technology at the time but is five times the size of my home phone in my future life. I stare at the handset. Not just because of its historical interest – ha! – but because I’m thinking. I’m trying not to read anything into Becca not answering.
She could just be out.
She could have stayed late at work. She could be out having fancy dinner with Mr Scum. She could be in the bath, up to her earholes in Fenjal.
But I’m worried it’s none of those things. I recognise this behaviour, you see; this cutting herself off and hiding away. This is what she does in the aftermath of one of Grant’s rages.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I think this is where I’m going to stay. I’ve been here with Dan and Billy almost a year now. I’ve jumped a couple more times, but always in this timeline and only skipping weeks, mostly. Once, I just missed a few hours and woke up later the same afternoon.
Dan and I have just had another row. The same old things. He didn’t take the head of department job, but he didn’t leave his job to do supply work, either. A compromise, we both said. Somehow I know he’s blaming me for it. I see the resentment in his eyes every time he’s home extra late because he’s been blackmailed into helping with a school function or supervising a trip.
I’m upstairs and I hear rustling down near the front door. He’s putting his coat on. He always seems to be putting his coat on these days, escaping the house – escaping me – whenever possible.
It’s soul destroying. Not just because of the sting of rejection, but because I really have tried in this life. I’ve tried to help him, tried to encourage him to grab life by the horns, but every suggestion is an accusation. Every helpful idea, judgement.
We’ve proved it, I think to myself. We never should have got married. We’ve tried it in two lifetimes now and it hasn’t worked. We were obviously never meant to be more than college sweethearts. I should have had the guts to walk away on our wedding day.
‘You’re going out?’ I ask, appearing at the top of the landing.
He nods as he winds his scarf round his neck. ‘I fancy watching the match, but thought I’d go down the pub, leave the telly free for that thing you like that’s on tonight.’
I frown. I wasn’t aware there was a match on, but I have little interest in football. ‘Which match?’
‘Oh, it’s the … the Sunderland versus, you know … um … City … one.’ He shuffles about putting his coat on.
I nod. ‘OK.’
‘Won’t be too late,’ he says, not quite meeting my eyes before he heads out the door.
I slum
p down and sit on the step I’ve been standing on. So that’s it, then. It’s started again.
I sit there, staring at the plain white back of the front door. And when I get up I don’t run after Dan and demand to know where he’s going and who he’s going with – I go and check on my sleeping baby.
I pass the study on the way back downstairs to put the dishwasher on and I stop. I wait a few moments and then I nudge the door open. I stare at the pile of papers on the desk, the vague mess created by someone who’s not particularly untidy but never cleans the clutter either, so it ends up slowly eroding the free space, like a coastline losing centimetres each year as it’s nibbled away by the waves.
I step inside the door and close it behind me, holding my breath. I’ve done it now. I’ve committed. I know I’m going to snoop. Something inside feels dirty and unclean, but another part of me feels strangely exhilarated.
I start with random bits of paper on the desk, things that were put down last so might be current. Nothing. Not unless you count marking, run-of-the-mill work stuff and bills Dan said he’d pay and obviously hasn’t got round to. So I open the top drawer of the desk. It’s filled with stationery and other junk: batteries, rubber bands and film canisters from our holiday last summer that haven’t been developed yet.
The bottom drawer is just filing by the looks of it. School stuff. I have better luck with the middle drawer. Underneath all the letters and scraps of paper is a narrow box file, the sort of thing you’d keep important stuff in, special stuff.
I lay the rest of the paperwork carefully on the desk, ready to put it all back in so it looks like nothing’s been disturbed. Then, after staying completely still for a few moments to make sure I can’t hear Dan’s key in the door, I carefully lift the file out, release the elastic keeping it together at the corners and look inside.
I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relieved not to find love letters or receipts from hotel stays inside. That’s bad, isn’t it? If your marriage is really going well, the reaction to finding out your husband isn’t cheating on you should pretty much be a slam dunk.
It’s just the usual keepsakes in the file – his degree certificate, some old school reports, birth certificate and passport. But under that I find something of interest. Something unexpected.
Tucked away inside a huge Valentine’s card I sent him our first year together, I find both one of our wedding invitations and a matching order of service. I turn to the order of service, curious to know what’s inside. I honestly don’t remember much about that day.
I liked the reading his dad suggested both times we got married. It outlined everything I thought love should be, even if I’m not sure about the existence of the God it represents. One Corinthians thirteen, verses four to seven:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
While the promises we made to each other that day were all about sickness and health, riches and poverty – practical things – these words were the silent promise I thought we were making, but just look at where we are now. Are we capable of doing any of these things for each other? Dan isn’t patient with me. He isn’t kind. When I open my mouth, he always expects the worst to come out of it and, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, I’ve started to oblige him more often than not.
I sigh as I fold the order of service and put it carefully back in the folder, replace everything else in the drawer. We had so much potential, Dan and I. At least I thought we had. How do we manage to keep getting it so wrong?
And now I worry that not only having welched on this part of the bargain, Dan might be on the road to dismantling the other promises we made too. Specifically, the one about keeping himself only unto me.
Suddenly, I can’t face just my own company any more. I need to talk to someone. I put Dan’s office back the way I found it and tread lightly downstairs and pick up the phone. I need my best friend. At least in this life she’s actually talking to me.
But the phone rings and rings. I stare at the handset. It’s really unlike her not to be in on a Thursday evening, all set up to watch ER. We usually talk about the episode the following day, deconstruct it and argue about which doctor is the sexiest – she’s for George and I’m Team Noah.
I wonder if she’s OK. I decide to phone her at work tomorrow – that is, if I can co-ordinate Billy’s nap with Becca’s lunch break. She’s got a new job as Assistant Front of House at the Orchard in Dartford and has more regular hours now.
I’d be worried that it’s something else, but since that time after I last jumped when she just didn’t pick up for three days, everything’s been fine with her. She and Grant had a row, but he apologised and he’s been on his best behaviour ever since. They’re all loved up still and I’m starting to eat humble pie, albeit secretly and silently, about him. Compared to the Grant I knew in my other life, this one is attentive and courteous to his girlfriend. A complete turn-around.
I put the phone back in the cradle, walk over to the kettle and turn it on. More for something to do than because I really want a cup of coffee. And that’s when it hits me. Becca is forgotten and Dan comes sharply back into focus.
ER.
It’s Thursday night.
My husband, once again, is lying about Thursday night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Dan comes in before eleven, a very respectable hour, given the fact he was lying to me about where he was. I checked the TV guide and couldn’t find a hint of a Big Match anywhere, unless he was talking about Swanham Town playing Outer Mongolia. Not.
I know I need to make some decisions about this life. I can’t spend the next twenty years in this purgatory. I don’t want to do it to Billy, but maybe Dan and I would be better apart? I need a man who can fulfil me emotionally, not a husband who grunts and hides away in his study, who makes me feel as if I’m invisible.
The next day, I phone Becca at work, only to be told that she isn’t in today. She’s off sick. OK, I think. If she’s ill, she probably just went to bed early last night. I ring her house but there’s still no answer there, either.
By four o’clock, I’m imagining Becca collapsed on the kitchen floor, what she thought was a bit of a sniffle having turned into something life-threatening. By four-fifteen, I’m strapping Billy into his car seat and we’re making the drive from Swanham to Sidcup, where she’s taken advantage of the current slump in property prices and bought a three-bedroomed house.
I arrive at her deceptively spacious 1960s townhouse just before five. I park my car behind hers in the drive, leaving Billy strapped in the back seat, and ring the doorbell. I think I can hear a television murmuring away to itself but then it goes quiet.
‘Becca?’ I call from outside, loud enough to be heard, but not so loud the neighbouring net curtains will twitch. There’s no answer. Just in case the doorbell’s not working, I knock. Loudly. And then I ring again, just to make sure.
I glance back at Billy in the car. I’ve left the door open and I can hear him chattering away to himself, which means he’s happy at the moment but that might change at any minute. You don’t get much of a build-up with Billy. One moment he’s all sunshine and the next the world is ending.
And then I realise … Becca’s got to be in. Her car’s here.
I knock again and then, when there’s no answer, I bend down and push the letter box up with my finger. I’m relieved I can’t see any legs, any limp form sprawled in the hallway. ‘Becca? It’s Maggie. Are you OK? I’m getting really worried about you!’
The house seems to hold its breath along with me for the next few seconds and then I see movement. Moments later, Becca opens the door. She’s wearing tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt with a stain down the front and her long hair is messy, hanging down over one side of
her face. ‘You’d better come in,’ she says grimly.
I nod. ‘I’ve got Billy in the car. I’ll just …’ I run off as she leaves the front door open and slopes back to the living room.
Hangover? I think, as I lift Billy from his car seat and sling the nappy bag over my shoulder. I can’t think of anything else to explain it. But Becca’s usually sheepishly funny if she’s had a bit too much to drink the night before, or moaning loudly about being in pain and never touching a drop of tequila again.
I close the door behind me and walk down the hall into the living room, which spans the back of the house. The curtains are drawn and Countdown is playing on the TV at low volume. Becca is slumped in an armchair. I take one end of the sofa, with Billy on my lap, and I let him play with my keys, a rare treat since he threw my last set down the toilet.
I feel a tremble in my throat but I manage to keep it out of my words. ‘Work said you were ill. Are you?’
And by ill, I mean, really ill. Not the kind of ill that lays you out in bed with the curtains closed, but the kind of ill that makes you sit in a room with the curtains drawn, looking as if the world is about to end, because it is. For you, anyway.
‘No,’ she replies hoarsely. ‘It’s …’ She trails off, unable to speak, and that’s when I see it. Her hair moves as she silently shakes her head, revealing a bruise the size of a closed fist on her temple.
I pop Billy down on the sofa beside me and I’m up and across the room. ‘My God! What happened?’
She looks at me, her eyes full of knowledge, and the truth sinks through me like a lead weight. I hug her hard, holding her to me, as if, by the sheer strength of my love for her, I can suck the colour out of that bruise and make it disappear. ‘No, no, no, no no …’ I chant into her ear. She begins to cry softly.