‘Let me take him to the airport. That at least gets Ant out of the equation.’
‘His wife, Amy,’ I said. ‘You’re forgetting his wife and his daughters.’
‘He’s leaving her,’ Amy said quietly. ‘She doesn’t know that yet, but he’s leaving her. And they’re not actually married anyway.’
‘Oh Jesus . . .’ I said. ‘You two really are best mates, aren’t you?’
‘So let me get rid of Ant, have a day to clear my head, and then you and me can take it from there, OK?’
I frowned at her. A thought was manifesting with sudden clarity. ‘You’ve discussed all this, haven’t you?’
‘Discussed what?’
‘The state of Ant’s marriage.’
‘Of course,’ Amy said. ‘Otherwise how would I know?’
‘Have you discussed ours, as well?’
‘No,’ she said. I didn’t believe her.
‘Are you leaving me, too? Is that it?’
‘No,’ she said again, and I managed for the first time in a minute or so to take a gulp of air. But then she continued, ‘Maybe. Look, I don’t know, Joe. That’s why I need some time alone.’
‘Wow,’ I said, whispering through my hand. ‘Just wow.’ Suddenly it was all too much for me. My rage was submerging every other emotion and I needed this exchange to be over, otherwise I was scared I might lose control completely. ‘You know what, Amy?’ I said. ‘You’re right.’
‘Right about what?’
‘You should go. You should definitely go.’
‘Oh, OK,’ she said. She looked disappointed, and I wondered what she’d hoped I would say.
‘Because if you don’t leave, right now, I . . . I’m not sure what might happen.’
‘Listen, Joe,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve listened to enough of this shit.’
‘No, seriously, listen,’ she started.
‘No, seriously. Stop talking!’ I told her. ‘And go.’
‘OK, but . . .’
‘GO!’ I shouted. ‘Just . . . GO, Amy! GO!’
It was after eleven by the time Heather returned. She was soaked in sweat and seemed changed, somehow. Her manner was surprisingly brusque.
‘Well, that’s done,’ she said, on entering the courtyard. ‘Where are the kids?’
I twisted in the hammock to face her. ‘They’re inside,’ I said. ‘Playing. I made them a tent out of sheets.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Good.’
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘Define OK,’ she said, then started towards the house, so I rolled inelegantly from the hammock and called her back. ‘You said it’s done,’ I said. ‘What is? What’s done?’
‘Oh, I just mean he’s gone,’ she said. ‘At least I don’t have to look at him now.’
‘And you?’ I asked. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to get a drink,’ she said. ‘I’ve been walking, and sweating, and I’m parched.’
I sat at the tiled garden table and listened to her talking playfully with the kids indoors, and then after a minute or two of silence, she returned with a jug and two glasses.
‘Sorry I was so long,’ she said. ‘Coming back, I mean. But I had to go for a walk and collect my thoughts before I could face the girls.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘It’s fine.’
‘I suppose you’ll be wanting us to leave,’ she said as she poured the lemonade. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all, and that seems the most logical thing. We should never have come here anyway.’
I’d been thinking about it as well, and it seemed to me that though I had no great desire to hang out with Heather, and though I did feel a quite compelling desire to be alone with my own thoughts, her immediate departure wasn’t perhaps ideal. Right now, for instance, neither Ben nor the girls had noticed anything was awry, and that was entirely due to the fact that they had each other to play with. If I suddenly found myself alone here with Ben, then not only would he be understandably upset about the loss of his play friends, but he’d immediately know that something was wrong. What’s more, he’d focus all of his attention on me, and right now I desperately needed some downtime.
‘Maybe once Amy comes back?’ I said. ‘If that works for you, maybe you could hang on until then.’
Heather nodded.
‘Things might be a bit electric between you two, otherwise,’ I said. ‘I mean, that’s why it’s best you don’t hang around too long once she’s back.’
‘Of course,’ she replied, sipping her drink. ‘Though if you could drive us to the airport, or wherever, when we get to that point, I’d be grateful. I’m not sure I want to spend three hours in the car with her.’
‘Shit, the car,’ I said. I’d momentarily forgotten about our lack of transport.
‘I checked the fridge,’ Heather said. ‘We’re OK for today, and maybe lunch tomorrow, if we’re creative. But I think then we need to get to the shop, at the very least. Do you think there’s maybe a taxi?’
‘Around here?’ I said, glancing around. ‘I doubt it.’
‘Those French lads have got a car. So maybe we could ask them.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, that could work. Let’s see what time Amy arrives tomorrow. See what she says . . . But yeah, if need be, we can get them to drive us, or I can rent something.’
Heather nodded. ‘I’m not much help, I’m afraid. I can’t even drive.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Luckily, I can.’
She chewed her lip for a moment and then said, ‘Look, you don’t have to answer this. You really don’t.’
‘OK,’ I said doubtfully.
‘But, what did she say? What did Amy tell you? I mean, do you think you two are going to be OK?’
‘I don’t know,’ I told her honestly. ‘It’s all a bit out of the blue. I wasn’t even aware that we had a problem, so . . .’
‘Right,’ Heather said. ‘OK.’
‘And you?’
‘What did Ant say?’
When I nodded, she surprised me with a little laugh. ‘He said things haven’t been right between us for ages.’
I nodded and sighed deeply. ‘That’s what Amy said. Her exact words, actually. It sounds like they’ve been comparing notes.’
‘It does a bit,’ Heather said. ‘But it’s true. Well, in our case it is, at any rate.’
‘That things haven’t been right?’
She nodded. ‘They’ve not been right ever, really. Ant’s, you know . . . a difficult character. And I’m a bit useless. That’s sort of our deal, if you know what I mean? Those are our roles: me being useless, him being difficult. So it’s been a strange set-up, really.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Gosh.’
‘But you really had no idea?’
‘No. Maybe I should have, but no.’
‘You think you’ll be OK, though, don’t you? You think you can get through this.’
I shook my head and sighed. ‘Shit, I don’t know, Heather,’ I said. ‘Ask me tomorrow, OK?’
Seven
Heather
Because the majority of food items left in the cupboards were vegan, I struggled a bit to make lunch. Amy had brought tofu, egg replacer and ‘seitan strips’, whatever those might be, from England. There were cartons of hemp milk and packs of lentils and chickpeas. I thought Joe would be able to help, but it transpired he wasn’t much of a cook. ‘Amy makes a quiche with it, I think,’ he said, when I asked him about the squidgy block of tofu. But he had absolutely no idea how she did this and in the absence of a recipe book and without Internet, I was pretty sure that was a mystery that would never be resolved – or not on my watch, anyway.
In the end, I made us a pasta salad and mixed in chunks of the harder tofu as a replacement for cheese. As everyone pushed these rubbery cubes to one side, that was clearly not one of my better ideas.
Joe was sullen during lunch, which was understandable but challenging, and though I did m
y best to put on a brave face for the kids, my turmoil must have been visible too, because afterwards Lucy and Sarah were unusually clingy, even insisting to the point of tears on sleeping in my bed at siesta time.
When I woke up just after four, it was a second or so before I could work out why I felt so strange – before I could remember what had actually happened.
I got up quietly and crept outside. Joe and Ben were still sleeping, so it was just me, the chirping cicadas and the gentle thrum of the pool pump.
I was glad. I needed this time to think. I needed time to try to feel something.
I sat beneath the olive tree and did my best to consciously reflect on it all, but it was like trying to grasp a handful of that toy slime we used to buy for the kids. The whole subject was an amorphous lump with no hard edges I could grasp it by.
I ran my conversation with Ant through my mind.
It had not been the angry screaming match I’d feared – in fact, it had been quite shockingly calm. Ant had made a series of statements and I’d listened almost entirely without intervening. He’d said that things had not been right for ages and that he’d been feeling, for a while, for years even, that something needed to change. He hadn’t been happy and he didn’t know why that was, but he felt that what had happened, no matter how unwelcome, had created an opportunity to rethink things.
I’d sat and listened and nodded, and during the silences, which were long, I’d simply waited. I hadn’t said anything, partly because, as was typical, Ant hadn’t asked me for my opinion anyway. But everything he’d said had struck me, for once, as true. It was rare that he spoke so honestly. Things had never been right between us. He wasn’t really happy, anyone could see that. And things would have been horrifically awkward had he stayed on at the villa with Joe and Amy present.
The only question he’d asked was if I wanted to fly home with him that afternoon – if he could manage to change all our tickets – or if I wanted to stay on for a bit and make the most of the time alone ‘to think about things’.
I’d said, ‘Whatever you think is best,’ and he’d replied, ‘OK, then, we’ll do that,’ and I hadn’t known which of the two options he meant until he was gone.
Right then, beneath the olive tree, despite the trauma of it all, and despite the difficulties of staying there with Joe, and even despite the fact that I was going to have to lie to the kids again, I found myself feeling relieved.
Travelling home with Ant right then would have been traumatic. But perhaps worst of all would have been finding ourselves back together in the middle of the life we’d built. The momentum of our lives, I was sure, would have taken over, carrying us beyond this crisis and on through middle age and retirement and ultimately to death. And neither of us would ever have had the courage to ever question anything again.
I was surprised to have had this thought – it wasn’t, logically speaking, what I’d expected of myself. It reminded me a little of when I’d found out I was pregnant, how I’d been convinced that I would be horrified, then that I should feel horrified, only finally managing to accept that what I was really feeling was joy.
Of course, there was no joy to be found that day. But I was feeling a bit relieved – and what was that sensation deep down, that butterfly just behind my heart?
When life is awful, it’s a terrible thing to live without hope. There’s nothing worse than to believe that nothing will ever change – that every day will continue to be like every other.
And as scary as it might be to peer into the abyss of the unknown – and as a financially dependent mother with two children, it was truly terrifying – it’s a very different kind of feeling to hopelessness, precisely because it isn’t hopeless at all. It’s fear, it’s dread, it’s terror, but sprinkled with the stardust of hope born of an infinite number of possible futures.
Half an hour later, Joe appeared in the doorway, blinking in the sunlight.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
I nodded vaguely.
‘Drink?’
I raised my full glass by way of reply. I was so lost in my thoughts that speech seemed difficult.
A minute later, he returned with a can of Coke and sat opposite. ‘So, how are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Hot,’ I said, to avoid the complexity of answering the question honestly.
‘Huh,’ Joe said. ‘Me too. Ben’s still fast asleep. I’m assuming your two are as well?’
I nodded. ‘It took them ages to get off.’
‘Ben too,’ Joe said.
‘They pick up on things.’
‘They pick up on everything,’ Joe said, sipping at his Coke. ‘Have you thought what you’re going to tell them? Because they’re bound to ask what’s going on.’
I shrugged and shook my head. ‘Maybe the same as last time. Or something similar. Malaga. Tickets . . . something like that.’
‘That will only work for so long. I mean, if Ant’s gone home . . .’
‘Maybe Daddy had to go home for work. They’re used to him working all the time.’
‘Will they mind about cutting the holiday short, do you think?’ Joe asked. ‘Will they give you hell?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘I’m not sure they have that much understanding of how long we’re supposed to be here, really. We had to cut our holiday short last year because of . . . stuff . . . the weather, mainly. And they didn’t seem to mind much then.’
‘Right,’ Joe said. ‘Good.’
‘But I’m not sure I’m going to, actually.’
‘You’re not sure you’re going to what?’
‘Cut it short. I think I might just book us into a hotel if I can find one. I could do with the time alone. And I do love a bit of sunshine, so . . .’
‘You’re not, you know . . . having doubts, are you?’ Joe asked.
‘About my marriage?’
‘Yeah.’
I laughed sourly. ‘Honestly?’ I said.
‘Honestly.’
‘I’ve been having doubts since the day we met.’ I was shocked at the phrase I’d just uttered. I’d never let myself think it that clearly before, let alone express it out loud.
‘Oh,’ Joe said. ‘Wow.’
I sighed. ‘It is what it is,’ I said. ‘Actually, I hate it when people say that, don’t you? It means nothing, does it?’
‘Amy said you—’ Joe started. But there was a sudden shriek of ‘Dad!’ from indoors. ‘Sounds like someone’s awake,’ he said, standing.
We did our best to keep the kids entertained all afternoon and on into the evening, splashing around in the pool and involving them in the preparation of dinner – more pasta with some vegetables and a sauce made out of tasteless vegan ‘cream’.
‘It’s a good job she’s bringing the car back tomorrow,’ Joe said, while we were stacking the dishwasher. ‘I think they’re going to get a bit stir-crazy otherwise.’
‘Do you know what time she’s arriving?’ I asked. ‘Because if you need us to leave right away, well, it might be complicated if she arrives late.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Joe said. ‘We’ll just play it by ear. No one’s kicking anyone out. And I can keep you two from each other’s throats if necessary.’
‘I really don’t think it will come to that, Joe,’ I said. ‘Not from my side, anyway.’
‘That was a joke, Heather,’ Joe said. ‘I was joking.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Good.’
After dinner we played snap with the kids, finally putting them to bed about ten thirty. These late siestas were playing havoc with their bedtime rhythms.
‘I might go myself, I’m shattered,’ Joe said, on returning from fetching me a fresh bottle of wine – I’d been getting through it at quite a rate.
‘It’s all the emotion,’ I said, refilling my glass. I was feeling pretty tipsy, and it felt surprisingly good.
‘Yeah, that’s probably what it is,’ Joe said. ‘The emotion.’
‘Is it tough?’ I asked, emboldened by the
wine. ‘Are you having a hard time?’
Joe gripped the back of the chair and stared at me. ‘Honestly?’ he asked, mimicking my own reply at lunchtime.
‘Honestly,’ I said.
He glanced back at the house, visibly hesitating, and then pulled out his chair and sat back down. ‘I had a weird moment the other day,’ he said. ‘You know, when you were all out at the pool?’
‘A weird moment,’ I repeated. ‘Go on.’
‘I had a flash of illumination.’ He mimed a lightning bolt from on high with his hand.
‘About your marriage?’
‘Not really,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe a bit. It was more just a sensation, really. Like a feeling that everything needed to change.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘That sounds weird, I guess.’
‘Not at all,’ I reassured him. ‘I think everyone feels like that all the time, don’t they?’
‘Do they?’ Joe said. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘I’ve been feeling like that since . . . well . . . for ever, really,’ I told him honestly.
‘For ever?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Even before you got married?’ Joe asked. Then, ‘Oh, sorry, I, um, don’t know if this is right, but Amy said you’re . . . er . . .’
‘No, we’re not married,’ I said, interrupting his stumbling. I wondered how Amy knew that. I could only assume Ant had told her.
‘That surprised me,’ Joe said. ‘Was that, you know, a conscious decision or . . . ?’
So I told him how my mother’s death had interrupted our marriage plans.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, once I’d finished.
‘It’s fine,’ I told him. ‘Well, it’s not fine, obviously. I just mean that it was a while back, so . . .’
‘So you’ve managed to get over it.’
‘Yes, as much as you ever can with that sort of thing.’
‘And you never wanted to get married since?’
‘Not really,’ I told him. ‘The whole thing seemed sort of . . . I can’t think of the word . . .’
‘Tainted?’ Joe asked.
‘Yes, that’s exactly it,’ I said, surprised that he’d understood what I was trying to say so quickly. ‘As if the two were somehow linked. And so it just never happened. Marriage had a bit of a bad smell about it after that.’
From Something Old Page 19