The Things That Matter

by Andrea Michael

  That’s what this whole night was for, to tell me I’d had my time. Now I was just being selfish. I was stopping my husband from focusing on his career. I was costing all of these people money because they had to cover his work when he couldn’t leave me, just lying on the floor staring at the ceiling, because I hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours.

  I had been given my grace period and now I was taking the piss.

  No more grieving, Taz, no more just surviving. It was time to get on and feel better. Not just pretend but actually be better.

  I’m not sure I’d ever hated my husband before.

  I took the microphone, and Dan looked a little surprised. They were expecting me to nod and smile and accept my accolades, my congratulations on making it through another year, for surviving. I was meant, like the other wives and girlfriends would have, to take this graciously, sip my expensive Champagne, nibble at the sushi platter and blush prettily when people said nice things to me.

  But I was Taz White and like fuck was I from this world.

  ‘I’d like to thank you all for coming. Well those of you I know, not so much, but those of you I don’t know, you might be alright, so cheers to you!’ I held up a glass and there was a brief tittering, but the flash of panic in Dan’s eyes told me I was onto the right track.

  ‘Daniel’s right, we’ve had a bit of a shitty year, and definitely your main priority when you’ve been unhappy and unwell and generally drowning in your own grief is to have a big knees-up with a hundred and fifty of your “nearest and dearest”… or “nearby and alrightest”.

  ‘I’ve got the message, loud and clear. You love Daniel, just like I do. And you need him, just like I did. So, yes, he will 100 per cent be back at work making you all lots of money in that way you like!’ I laughed drily and there was actually a hoot and some applause at the back. I was sure it had to be Paul. ‘His top priority will be the business, and you don’t have to worry about me getting in the way anymore, I promise. Scout’s honour.’ I held my hand up to my temple. ‘So, let’s get this party started, shall we? That thousand pounds of sushi isn’t going to eat itself!’

  I stepped down through the crowd, hearing Miranda tut as I walked past. I made a beeline for the toilets and when I got there, Angela was already waiting with a bottle of wine, and led me out into the garden, right at the back, hidden by the shrubbery. I didn’t really say anything, Angela just held my hand and filled my glass and told me funny stories about going on tour with a band when she was nineteen, and living in Greece, and the artist she was in an on-again-off-again relationship with. She didn’t say anything else about taking control or channelling my anger. Because at least I’d done that, finally. Angie was kind, and funny and full of stories. I didn’t smile, but I felt better.

  At least until Daniel came to get me and said it was time to go.

  We sat in silence in the car, the back filled with balloons and flowers and presents, colourful ribbons contrasting with the dark mood in between us. God, I was the worst.

  ‘I really screwed up, didn’t I?’ I said.

  Dan didn’t say anything, just stared straight in front of him, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He hadn’t even turned the engine on, so I knew he wanted to do this now.

  ‘Come on, let it out. I know you’re angry with me.’

  ‘I’m not…’ Dan took a breath, clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘Do you now how hard I work not to be angry around you, ever? Not to shout too loudly or get too close? I need to prove that I’m still the good guy. I’m not some thug who ended up in prison, I’m calm and kind and in control. All the time.’

  ‘I… I hadn’t thought of that.’

  He turned to me, and I was almost ashamed to look at him.

  ‘You really embarrassed me tonight, and I don’t understand why.’ Daniel ran a hand through his hair, ‘This was a chance to show we were okay, we were back on the right path…’

  ‘What path, Dan?’ What path is it that you and your parents are constantly talking about, like there’s only one way to live?

  ‘I was just trying to do something nice and you just… ruined it. Threw it back in my face.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t honestly believe any of those people were there for me tonight,’ I scoffed, and watched as he clipped in his seatbelt. Apparently he was calm enough to have this conversation whilst driving. I hated being a passenger at times like this, it felt like a hostage situation.

  ‘They were there for us.’

  ‘Oh yes, every woman’s dream, a “we’re sorry you lost your baby” party,’ I snorted. ‘And your mother! Your mother said to my face that it was a good thing our son was dead, and what was your response?’

  ‘I asked her to be more respectful!’

  ‘Oh, please be nicer to my wife, Mummy. It’s not her fault she lived on the estate and doesn’t know how to act,’ I mimicked like a child.

  ‘Well you proved her right, didn’t you?’ he spat back and I felt a frustrated growl escape my throat.

  ‘You shouldn’t be driving.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You were drinking.’

  ‘You want me to leave forty portions of fucking birthday cake in the car? All your presents bought by people that you just belittled? We can park the car here if you want, leave it on the side of the road?’

  I took a breath, ‘Fine, let me out. I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

  Dan laughed, that hollow, sarcastic chuckle that I hated. ‘God, how can you be so incredibly selfish? I put a lot of time and money into arranging this party for you—’

  ‘This party was for you,’ I snorted, ‘for you and your family and your family’s friends to tell everyone that Daniel White and his wife are just fine and that everything’s okay and you won’t be distracted any more! What is it with you people and what other people think?!’

  ‘You people?’ Dan laughed again. ‘And if we’re going to talk about people pretending to be okay…’

  ‘I’m trying to be okay! I’m trying my best! I didn’t need to be paraded in front of strangers like a fucking show pony tonight. What did you have to prove? Got tired of defending your working-class wife who didn’t go to uni?’

  ‘Oh, right, you’re so much better than these people, just because they’ve got money and like skiing and fly first class? That’s what this is?’

  I took a breath, trying to bring down the argument. I hated yelling, I hated loud noises and big emotions and the way Dan’s driving became more erratic when he answered me.

  ‘I don’t know what this is,’ I said quietly, ‘but clearly it’s not working.’

  We sat in silence for a few moments, the traffic trundling along. We wouldn’t have long before we were back home, and somehow I didn’t want this argument to escape from the car. Once it was out there, it was in the real world and we’d have to deal with it.

  ‘I’m sorry I was embarrassing. I’m sorry I seemed ungrateful and I was rude. But this party wasn’t really about me, Daniel, be honest.’ I made my voice soft and sweet, I reached for his hand on the gear stick. ‘I know you were trying to do a nice thing for me, I get that, but this was about painting a pretty picture for everyone.’

  Dan didn’t talk for a moment, just breathed deeply, slowly, and I knew he was gathering his thoughts, finding a way to say what he really meant. It was only in these times, just us, that I managed to find him again. But they were becoming fewer and farther between.

  ‘You’re acting like you’re the only one who lost a baby.’ His voice shook and I loved him and wanted to hold him, but I also wanted to scream.

  Because yes, he’d lost a child. He lost the hopes and dreams he had of a family. Something to stop it just being us anymore, tangled up in a complicated past. He’d lost the chance to see a version of himself in a new life, a new chance with none of our bullshit.

  But he doesn’t know the pain of your body turning on you, betraying you. The life you’ve carried all those months suddenly gone, the fr
iend that doesn’t talk to you any more.

  ‘You never want to talk about it…’ I said gently.

  ‘And you always want to talk about it, Taz. It’s too much. You want to talk about whether he looked like me or you, or if he would have grown up to like the same stories you loved as a kid, or if he would have been a painter or gone to private school, and it’s just too much! It’s like you want to jump head first and just swim around in it all. I don’t want to do that. It hurts. It fucking hurts.’

  ‘You want me to shut up and pretend to be okay?’

  ‘I want you to be okay. That’s it, that’s literally it.’ He huffed as he pulled up in front of the flat. ‘And I don’t know why that makes me a monster.’

  ‘Because I’m not ready yet. And this, tonight, it was you telling me, telling all of them, that I had to be! That’s not fair!’

  Dan looked at me, frustrated, like I was a child who didn’t understand the adult world. Those blue eyes that I had so fallen in love with when we were sixteen, the eyes I searched for whenever I needed someone to ground me, they were disappointed.

  ‘Life’s not fair, Taz. It’s important to get on with things, and I’ve got to show them that I’m on top, that I’m capable of being the boss. They’re looking to me to step up, and I haven’t been able to…’

  ‘I’m sorry your wife and her miscarriage were such an inconvenience to you,’ I spat out, crossing my arms.

  ‘Now you’re not being fair.’

  I didn’t know how to argue with my husband anymore. I didn’t know how to talk to him beyond this big wall of hurt.

  Dan took a breath, ‘You’ve changed. I don’t know if it was the baby, or before then, but it’s like you’re full of poison now. Always thinking the worst of people, always ready for drama and trauma. You don’t forgive. Everyone’s always out to get you… I know you went through stuff as a kid, but it’s like you enjoy it. You enjoy the drama. Your fucked-up family are gone and it’s like they’ve still got power over you.’

  I blinked. Dan looked straight ahead, as if he wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Was he afraid of me?

  I enjoyed the drama? The drama that stuck him in prison and left me homeless. That left me with a runaway mother and a dead father. I thought I might explode with rage, my veins thrummed with it. Full of poison, indeed!

  The problem was, I’d been raised to survive, no matter what. And when you’re backed into a corner, the only way out is to scratch and bite. No matter who you hurt.

  I made my voice calm and collected.

  ‘You do realise, babe, no matter how good you are, however many promotions or title changes you get, it’s never going to make them forgive you? You do understand that, Daniel? They wrote you off the minute you were in trouble, and giving you a fancy corner office, or throwing us a stupid second wedding doesn’t undo that. They didn’t love you enough to stay. All this is shit rolled in glitter, a decade too late. The minute you step off the path they want, they’ll leave you again.’

  Daniel looked like I’d slapped him, but his voice was calm, soft, muddled with hurt and loss.

  ‘You knew what you were getting with me, Taz. I don’t know why it suddenly makes you unhappy. I’ve given you everything I had.’

  He simply shook his head, gave me the keys and got out of the car, walking into the flat. When I followed him ten minutes later, I found a glass of water out on the side waiting for me, and the door to the spare bedroom closed.

  No matter what argument we’d had, if we were both home we hadn’t slept apart in thirteen years. Most of the time because we hadn’t had the luxury. When we lived in the studio there was nowhere to go. If you had an argument you had to get in the damn bed and try to radiate irritation whilst sleeping.

  And somehow, in the night, our bodies would take over, pulling each other close, enveloping the other with love, and by the morning it would be hard to stay mad, because touch reminded us how much we needed each other.

  Another reason this big stupid flat was bad for us.

  I padded along to the bedroom and paused at the door to the spare room.

  ‘Thank you for the water.’

  There was no answer, not that I expected one.

  ‘I’m sorry. I love you,’ I tried again, whispering. ‘Goodnight.’

  I tucked myself up in that beautifully heavy duvet and snuggled down into the pillows, trying to figure out how the hell to fix my marriage and myself.

  It hadn’t always been like this. We had lived an entirely different life. One that wasn’t opulent or filled with fancy dinner parties and expensive mini-breaks. When Daniel got out, we started with nothing. We crashed on sofas for a few weeks, and then I managed to wangle jobs, and got us a small studio not far from Tufnell Park. It was damp and little more than a room with a microwave, but it was ours.

  I worked at a café during the day, and at a bar in the evening. I was in my element, I knew how to survive, I knew how to work hard. Daniel struggled a little more, mainly because his record now made work more difficult, even if he had been a minor when he was convicted.

  However, he had savings and he was learning to be thrifty. He got work with a painter and decorator at the weekends, a friend of my boss at the bar, and whilst it wasn’t the kind of painting he’d dreamed of doing, he liked it. He was achieving something.

  Those were honestly the best times of my life, curled around Daniel in the evenings as we ate tuna pasta bake or three-bean chili for the third night in a row, watching VHS tapes that we used to find at a little shop on the corner for 50p. He drew in his sketchbooks, and I learnt to sew, fixing our clothes to keep them in good condition. I brought home leftover cake from the café, read every book I could from the library, and life was good. We’d book days off and go walking through London, visiting art galleries and eating our pre-made jam sandwiches in front of monuments.

  We were surviving, all on our own. We didn’t need anyone. And it was wonderful.

  We got married on a Wednesday, skipping down to the registry office and paying our thirty quid. I wore a white Oxfam summer dress that I sewed daisies onto, and Daniel wore a blue blazer over his nice shirt and jeans with a ridiculous top hat, perched slightly askew. He picked flowers from the grass verge near our flat and we asked two strangers on the street to be our witnesses. We took photos on disposable cameras, and when we were done, we walked around Camden Market, bought a bottle of Cava and some Chinese food, and sat by the river, toasting our own brilliance. We were twenty years old, and it was the best day of my life. I’d never been so sure of things being right before. But I had this person and this life, and we were happy and strong, working towards our dreams.

  It was another eight years before Daniel’s parents reached out, and by then we were actually doing really well. We’d moved into a slightly bigger (but still damp) flat, and had actual furniture. I had a job at a charity, starting out as a fundraiser on the street but quickly moving into their in-office department, working in comms. I loved it, feeling like I was doing something good every day, helping people. I’d never dreamed of doing anything like that, and I was good at it. Telling a story, grabbing attention, tugging at heart strings. I still worked in the bar a couple of nights a week, because being scared of being without never quite leaves you, no matter how well things are going.

  Daniel had been able to work on his art alongside the decorating – he’d been creating murals and feature walls. He’d decorated a café on our street, painted the entire wall in a scene of local people and worldly adventures, and I was so proud of him. He was starting to get commissions, and the decorator he worked for suggested setting up his own company. He even had a small exhibition of his line drawings in a space in Camden. He was at the beginning of his career.

  And that’s where his parents found him.

  They didn’t even look at his artwork. There was no apology, no ‘we missed you’ or ‘we were wrong’. The Whites didn’t do that, they were too cold for all that messy emotion. The le
ast they could have done was nurse some tepid wine from plastic cups and tell their son they liked his drawings. Instead, it was a simple command:

  Enough of this silliness now, it’s time to come home.

  Oh, when they realised we were married they hit the roof. Even Miranda broke the ice queen persona long enough to start a screaming match. Daniel was tied to me now, and they realised what a mistake it was to have let him go. Their baby boy, not only with a criminal record, but a wife like me?

  But Daniel couldn’t see that, he saw only the family he’d lost suddenly back again. He heard stories of his brother and sister, and what everyone was up to. The school friends who went to uni and were now in graduate schemes or high-flying jobs. They talked of the holidays they went on, and the people they spoke to. The things he’d missed and people he’d never even mentioned to me.

  But more than that, I realised, he missed the comfort of not having to worry. Living like poor artists was fine for someone like me. This was the best I’d ever had – savings in my bank account, food in my belly, no fear of the flat being taken away at a moment’s notice. A safe, loving home. But that wasn’t enough for Daniel.

  His dad offered him a job. He said he’d still be able to do his murals, work on his art in his spare time. Dan said it was an olive branch, and he should take it, show he accepted their apology. He wanted us to get along, it was the right thing to do.

  He’s always been quicker to forgive than I have.

  So Daniel got the little office, started wearing suits to work and I didn’t need to keep sewing up jeans or darning socks. We started to go to fancy networking events, and at the beginning it was fun, so fun.

  We’d see how many spring rolls and cheese puffs we could fit into my handbag, and drink their free drinks and mock everyone. We’d pretend to be different people, joining in conversations about holiday homes and tax brackets. We’d jump into talking about ridiculous things we knew nothing about, and then disappear before anyone could question us.