Out of Love

by Hazel Hayes

  We worked all weekend and by Sunday night the house was unrecognisable: anything we didn’t need had been boxed and stored in the spare bedrooms or the garage; Darren finished painting all the skirting boards; I hung all of mine and Theo’s framed pictures; we turned Jocelyn’s old room into a cosy spare bedroom; and Augusta’s room was now very much our room. I made sure to keep all the photographs of Theo’s family dotted about the place, as well as any special items he was fond of, like his gran’s serving dishes or his grandad Jim’s leather armchair. The armchair was still nestled in the corner of the conservatory, Jim’s favourite spot in the house, and next to it was a mahogany bureau full of his notebooks and ancient gardening magazines. I remember sitting on the floor, flicking through a fifty-year-old article about daffodils, and deciding to plant some in the garden this winter so that they’d bloom in spring.

  We capped off the weekend with a late Sunday roast – which Theo cooked by way of thanks – and as the five of us sat down to eat, I realised our efforts that weekend had not only restored the house physically, they had imbued it with an intangible sense of home, the kind which comes not from a place itself, but from the people in it.

  Theo and I returned to work on Monday morning and left my mother to relax back at the house. She called me at around 3 p.m. and the first words out of her mouth were, ‘Everything is fine,’ which meant something was terribly wrong.

  ‘Jocelyn’s here,’ she said. ‘She’s going a bit ballistic.’

  ‘About what?’ I asked – I honestly thought Jocelyn would be delighted when she saw what we’d done with the place.

  ‘I don’t know, love, she’s not making much sense. But she’s really pissed off. And I think she’s been drinking.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Grand, yeah. Just speechless, to be honest.’

  If my own mother – who we frequently call ‘Meryl’ because of her Oscar-worthy histrionics – was rendered speechless by Jocelyn’s display, it must have been quite the meltdown.

  ‘Where is she now?’ I asked.

  ‘Upstairs. Going through the boxes we packed. She kept saying her things had been stolen. I told her it’s all there, safe and sound, but she wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’m on my way. I’m so sorry about this.’

  It was the first time our mothers had met and I was mortified. My plan was to call Theo straight away, but before I could dial his number I saw him come marching towards my desk, his face turning slowly purple.

  ‘My mother just rang,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, so did mine.’

  By the time we got back to the house, Jocelyn had made a list of all the things she maintained had been stolen, and the only way to alleviate her fears was to empty out every single box until she had marked each item as present and accounted for. She was only doing this to flex her control over us, but we went along with it. After that, she stalked restlessly about the house, silently selecting her next target. She kept mumbling under her breath, ‘Everything is different.’

  ‘We’ll put everything back where it was,’ I said. ‘This is just temporary.’

  Jocelyn eyed me up and down sceptically.

  ‘You did this,’ she said. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave things the way they were?’

  ‘Mum,’ said Theo, ‘it’s not her fault. I thought you’d be glad we sorted the place out for you.’

  ‘She’s no good for you, Theodore.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Theo said, but Jocelyn wasn’t listening to him, she was staring at the pictures I’d hung on the wall.

  ‘I didn’t say you could hang those. Take them down right now.’

  ‘No,’ said Theo.

  ‘Take them down!’ she screamed.

  ‘I think you should go home, Mum. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’

  Without warning, Jocelyn leapt at the wall, trying to remove the pictures herself. When Theo stepped in to stop her she shoved him out of her way. He stumbled backwards and smacked his leg on the table.

  ‘I SAID GO HOME!’ he shouted.

  ‘I AM HOME!’ she roared like a petulant child.

  ‘If you don’t go, right now,’ said Theo, gathering himself, ‘I will leave and I will never come back.’

  The threat of losing her son was the only thing that kept Jocelyn in check, and while that was undoubtedly a pretty fucked-up dynamic, it worked; she went straight home and the next day, when Theo went to see her, she apologised profusely for the way she’d behaved. Theo told her that we’d stay – we had worked too hard on the house to leave it now – but he reiterated that one more outburst like that would mark the end of this arrangement.

  Jocelyn kept her distance after that and we had a few months of relative peace and quiet. The shower was eventually installed and the gaping hole in the bathroom got tiled over. One by one things got sorted, although new problems presented themselves all the time. Jocelyn told us to pay for them ourselves and invoice her later, which we agreed to, and slowly but surely we settled in.

  I was right about the splinter; weeks after we moved in I could still feel something under the surface of my skin, and I tried just about everything to get it out – I went at it with a needle and tweezers, I wrapped my finger in duct tape and ripped it off after half an hour, I even soaked the finger in baking soda overnight to try to draw out the splinter – but nothing worked, the skin had grown over it. I kept meaning to register with a doctor in the area but just hadn’t got around to it and then one night, when my finger swelled up and started oozing pus, Theo insisted on taking me to the hospital.

  We waited for hours to be seen – I obviously wasn’t a high priority – but eventually a doctor took me to a small examination room where she cut open my finger and pulled out a centimetre-long splinter.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said, dryly, ‘it’s a piece of wood.’

  She held it up with her tweezers and we both leaned in to look at it.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ I said, then I immediately apologised for my language. The doctor just laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve heard worse,’ she said.

  She stitched my finger up and sent me home with a course of antibiotics for the infection, and a small test tube with my splinter inside, still covered in blood and resting on a piece of gauze. Theo gagged when he saw it.

  When summer came we cut back all the overgrown plants and bushes in the garden and made a little haven for ourselves outside. On weekends, I’d sit on the patio and write while Theo lazed in his grandfather’s old armchair and read the newspaper from cover to cover. Sometimes we’d have friends around for games nights in the garden; we’d eat and drink and play games, and soak up the balmy evening air till it got dark. Things felt almost normal for a while.

  But winter brought with it a whole new set of problems; the pipes froze and burst, and the garden needed to be dug up to fix them. Only the garden was frozen too, and for weeks nothing could be done about it. We soon discovered that the window frames had warped over time, leaving massive gaps between the wood and the glass, so that even with the central heating running constantly, it was impossible to keep the house warm. It was so cold that I could sometimes see my breath as I lay in bed at night. I hung heavy curtains in every room and sealed up all the gaps I could with insulation tape, but it still wasn’t enough; the windows needed replacing.

  Theo approached Jocelyn about all these things, but she had fallen back on old habits and was refusing to make any further changes to the house. I tried to stay out of it, but inevitably I wound up pestering Theo to sort things out, then he’d pester Jocelyn, she’d break down in tears, he’d end up comforting her, and it wouldn’t get done. A few days later I’d pester him again, and round and round we went until he resented the both of us equally.

  More and more, Jocelyn came around uninvited, always smelling of booze and always with some weak excuse like needing to borrow the hoover or return a casserole dish. One ti
me we got home to find her in our kitchen and she claimed she’d seen a burglar trying to break in.

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t think they’d get here on time,’ she replied.

  Theo knew she was lying but I could tell he felt guilty anyway; she had changed tack once she realised her tantrums weren’t getting her anywhere, and started projecting a sort of saccharine submissiveness instead. I found this emotional manipulation transparent and grotesque but Theo fell for it and, as December rolled in, I sensed his resentment of me growing. After all, if Jocelyn was the victim now, then someone else must be the villain. We were fraying around the edges; I could feel it.

  I found myself thinking about Christmas the previous year, how perfect and peaceful it all had been. I suggested that we host Fakemas again, knowing full well we could never recreate the magic of last year, but hoping, I suppose, that it might remind Theo how good we had been, how good we could be. We invited Maya and Darren to begin with, then Theo invited Isaac without realising I’d already invited Trinny and her new boyfriend, so to avoid any awkwardness, we asked a few more people to come. Before we knew it we were throwing a full-blown party.

  We decorated the tree the night before and hung decorations everywhere, and on the day of the party we baked tray after tray of mince pies and gingerbread biscuits. I piled them high on silver plates and dusted them with icing sugar, then we got to work on a huge pot of mulled wine. The whole house looked and smelled divine. Theo and I got ready together in the bedroom, dancing around to Christmas music, and by the time our guests started to roll in, we had reverted to a former version of ourselves.

  ‘The place looks amazing!’ shrieked Trinny as she took off her coat. Her new boyfriend, Flaubert, stood beside her, nodding his agreement. Darren and Maya arrived soon after, followed by our friends from work, then a bunch of Theo’s uni mates, including Gemma – I wondered who had invited her. Isaac showed up late, drunk and with a noticeable lack of hot young model on his arm. After him came some friends from my writing class. They all brought extra red wine for mulling, which I was very grateful for, since we were already running low.

  Theo and I circled the room introducing people – it was heartening to see the different factions mingling with one another – and occasionally handing out more food and drink. I noticed Theo seemed a little tense, but every time I tried to talk to him, one or other of us would get distracted. At one point I saw him in the back garden talking to Gemma, who was laughing wildly at something Theo had just said. She shoved him playfully in the chest and left her hand resting there. Isaac caught me watching them.

  ‘They used to fuck, you know,’ said Isaac far too loudly into my ear.

  ‘I’m aware, thank you.’

  ‘Best sex of his life apparently,’ he added.

  ‘She’s also a—’

  ‘Crazy bitch?’ said Isaac, cutting me off. ‘Yeah, they all are once you’re done with them.’

  I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t find any words. Isaac held his hands up and shrugged.

  ‘Just sayin’,’ he said.

  I turned to leave and bumped into Trinny. She could tell I was upset.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, then she noticed Theo and Gemma outside, and Isaac standing behind me, and she joined the dots herself.

  ‘What did you say to her?’ she demanded. For such a waifish woman, Trinny’s voice really carries. People turned to look at us.

  ‘Just dropping some truth bombs,’ said Isaac, with a stomach-churning smirk.

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ she said.

  ‘Hey, I’m not the one dating a tiny magician,’ said Isaac.

  To be fair, Flaubert was quite short and was wearing a shiny burgundy suit. Also his name was Flaubert. But he seemed like a nice guy in spite of all that.

  ‘You’re not dating anyone,’ said Trinny, stepping forward and glaring straight into Isaac’s eyes. ‘You’re mounting anything in sight and claiming to be happy about it. You love no one. And no one loves you back. You’re a joke, Isaac. Only it’s not even funny, it’s just sad.’

  The room grew silent and still as Isaac stepped towards Trinny, squaring up to her almost. Theo appeared beside me.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked, and without looking at him or anyone else, Isaac stomped out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.

  Theo took me and Trinny to the kitchen for a debrief. He was shocked by Isaac’s behaviour, but he was the only one; everyone else was pissed off but unsurprised. Afterwards, Theo pulled me aside and assured me he had absolutely no interest in Gemma.

  ‘She does my bloody head in,’ he said. ‘There’s a reason we never properly dated.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  I was still a little unsure. Isaac had a way of getting under my skin.

  ‘Her laugh alone is enough to drive anyone mad,’ he added, and I smiled.

  ‘It’s like a machine gun,’ he said.

  Around twenty minutes later, I was taking a bag of empty bottles out to the front garden when I found Isaac standing alone outside the house.

  ‘I thought you’d left,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ he sneered, angrily wiping his face with the back of his hand. He’d been crying. I leaned against the wall next to him and he rolled his eyes.

  ‘Why do you hate me so much?’ I asked. ‘Is this some kind of Love Actually thing? Are you gonna turn up with cue cards some night and tell me I’m perfect?’

  Isaac scoffed.

  ‘Is every one of your home movies just creepy close-ups of me?’ I continued.

  ‘Please shut up,’ he said.

  ‘What then? You’re angry I took your friend away?’

  Isaac said nothing.

  ‘You’re angry I took your wingman away?’

  Still nothing. He just stared at me, unimpressed.

  ‘You’re secretly in love with Theo!’ I said, and Isaac rolled his eyes again.

  ‘It’s all right if you are, you know.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake!’ he snapped. ‘I’m not gay.’

  ‘Look, I know you’re upset about Trinny …’ I said, and at the mention of her name, a look of guilt swept across Isaac’s face. Suddenly it dawned on me.

  ‘Oh my God, you still love her.’

  ‘So?’

  He said it so quickly and defensively that it almost made me laugh.

  ‘So why did you break up with her?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘What’s the plan, then? Keep acting like a dickhead around her until she falls back in love with you?’

  ‘She was never in love with me.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ I said, and he just stared down at the ground.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘that was mean.’

  ‘Don’t you have a party to get back to?’ he asked, without looking at me.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, and I took a step towards the door.

  ‘That’s why you didn’t bring a date tonight, isn’t it?’ I asked over my shoulder. ‘You were hoping Trinny would be here alone.’

  Isaac looked up at me and I saw more honesty and vulnerability in that look than I ever thought him capable of. There was fear too, real, raw fear, and it reminded me of the way Jocelyn had looked at Theo when he threatened to move out.

  Theo once told me that when he was offered his first job in Dublin – a well-paid accountancy job for a reputable company – Jocelyn turned her nose up at it and told him he should hold out for something better. This happened in the midst of an economic crisis, however, and Theo had been out of college for over nine months already without a single offer, so he took the job in spite of her advice.

  She refused to see him off at the airport, she said she was busy that day, and after he moved she would call him a lot – usually late at night and after a few drinks – to cry down the phone at him about how lonely she was. For days after these calls, Theo seemed completely dejected, and I woul
d help as best I could to convince him that his mother’s loneliness was not his fault. It was as though Jocelyn had poured all her problems into him and I was left to scoop them back out again.

  Suddenly it was clear that, to Jocelyn, that job represented the same kind of unknown factor that I represent now: she doesn’t see an opportunity for her son to thrive and be happy; she sees something that threatens to take him away from her. Back then, I was just some girl he was dating, not worth worrying about, but as soon as I moved to London to be with him, I became a threat.

  Isaac was no different, I thought. They both held people back out of fear of being left behind and when that didn’t work they lashed out, desperate for any kind of attention. I wasn’t sure if either of them knew what they were doing or why, but I suddenly felt very sorry for them both.

  ‘You could come back inside with me,’ I said to Isaac, ‘and sort things out with Trinny. You can still be her friend, you know, even if she’s in a relationship. Same goes for Theo.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll follow you in,’ said Isaac, but I knew he wouldn’t.

  Theo and I were gathering up the empty bottles and cans after the party when I told him about my conversation with Isaac, and the revelation I’d had about both him and Jocelyn.

  ‘You think my mother would rather I was miserable with her than happy without her?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t say that exactly,’ I said. ‘I just understand it better now. She’s scared. They both are.’

  Theo mulled this over for a moment and then plonked himself down on the sofa. I could tell he was deciding whether to tell me something, so I stopped what I was doing and waited.

  ‘I was afraid she might come over tonight,’ he said, finally, then he looked up at me for a reaction. I sat beside him and took his hand.

  ‘That’s not normal, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m hardly an authority on normal parent-child relationships, Theo.’

  He smiled and nodded, then we sat in silence while he fidgeted with his sleeve like a little kid. I so rarely saw this side of him. It made me want to wrap him up and protect him from the world.