‘I want this. I don’t just say I want this.’
A small girl tried to straddle the swaying seat of the zip line.
‘You can do it, darling,’ her mother said encouragingly.
But she did not go forward to help.
At her ankles a toy poodle yelped.
‘You know how hard this is.
Stop pretending it isn’t hard.
And stop pretending you’re free and single.
You’re trapped too.
You make out this mess is my doing.’
‘The indecision is your doing,’ I said.
You stood. Your shoes were dusty.
The sun was on your face, but I didn’t find you handsome –
I thought you looked pathetic,
like so many of the men
I saw traipsing through the office to meet with Tanya:
Help me help me I’ve fucked up my life
Help me help me to win back my wife.
‘I have to go to back to work. If you want to talk, call me later.’
‘But not at the weekend and not after five.’
My voice was as light as the afternoon birdsong.
It was the way to anger you
and anger was better than indifference.
‘Stop trying to bully me,’ you said, and walked away.
The small girl had abandoned the zip line.
She climbed the stairs to the slide.
Some things are unconquerable alone.
Rebecca Didn’t Love You.
She told you so.
And you believed her.
She said, ‘I don’t love you either, Connor.’
But
you believed your mother, who said,
Marriage is work. That’s the point.
It isn’t meant to be easy.
And
you polled your friends,
who all had different opinions:
If you aren’t in love, leave.
Sex isn’t the be-all and end-all of things.
So you stayed,
returned from days of passion
to nights of silence
and convinced yourself it was
normal
and enough
and at the very least
what you deserved.
But did you ever ask yourself
what I deserved?
‘It’s chocolates,’ I say.
The caretaker
shakes his head.
‘Can’t you take them as a holiday gift?’
The snow has turned to slush.
The car park is empty.
The children are already in assembly
and I am running late for work.
A silver Nissan is stuck in the school driveway,
all available men
helping haul it over stubborn ice
along with Miss Roach the nursery teacher.
‘Are you Muslim?’ I ask.
‘I’m Jehovah’s Witness,’ he says.
‘I’m not offended, but I can’t take it.’
I’m surprised he doesn’t mutter this.
‘What about New Year?
Do you celebrate that?’
Another mother steps in beside us –
Lycra leggings, body warmer, bright new trainers.
‘Can we get your help, Sammy?’
She points to the car,
the men straining against its metal body.
She doesn’t say,
I’m already late for yin yoga, hun.
‘It’s just sweets,’ I continue.
‘Can’t your kids eat a few sweets?’
The head teacher smiled at her bottle of wine,
the class teacher did the same,
chocolates for everyone else –
office staff, kitchen,
Mr Syed the caretaker.
I didn’t forget you! I want to yell.
None of these parents give a shit
but I got you truffles.
‘It’s a kind gesture.’ He moves away.
The yoga-mum pokes his arm,
says something and he laughs.
The present is still in my hands.
Nora and Phil are wearing matching jumpers and
keep touching – hands reaching, eyes dancing.
‘You shouldn’t get pissed if you’re pregnant,’ I say.
‘I think three kids is enough, don’t you?’ she says.
‘I know this is going to sound tragic, but he’s being so nice.
I can’t help liking him when he’s, well, not a cunt.
He made dinner last night.
And he’s booked for me to have a massage on Thursday.’
‘Is he seeing escorts?’
Nora reaches for a handful of Quality Street.
‘Why are you the way you are?’ She is not annoyed.
The turkey is resting. I take out the potatoes.
Paul and Phil have gone to the park with the kids.
The dinner will be cold if they don’t get home soon.
‘But I mean, genuinely, what’s with you lately?
You’re too distracted to even put me down properly.’
‘Have you any more Valium?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Paul and I are splitting up.’
Nora hands me a hard caramel.
‘That isn’t it,’ she says. ‘That isn’t what I mean.
Are you cheating on him?
Are you having an affair?’
It is in the pause
following a simple question
where the liar is uncovered.
We met to exchange gifts.
In Cherry Tree Wood again,
a place we knew wouldn’t end with us in bed.
It had been three weeks since our last contact.
Your jumper was thick with cat hair.
You were carrying a duffle bag.
I didn’t feel I could ask where you’d been,
where you were going.
You weighed my present on your knees.
‘Can I unwrap it later?’
‘Sure.’
But I did open the gift you’d given me.
A bracelet. Gold with one enamel heart charm attached
like an afterthought.
I didn’t know what it meant.
And I wanted it to have meaning.
‘How’s the counselling going?’ I asked.
You shrugged. ‘Hard. She cries through most sessions.
I’ve taken on the role of Chief Bastard.
She can’t understand what’s happened.’
‘Wouldn’t it be kinder to just tell her?’
‘Ana.’
‘Did the counsellor give you homework?
Have you been told to go on some dates?
Have more sex?’
‘Ana.’
‘Are you staying with her?’ I asked desperately.
‘Do you still love her?’
You opened your mouth to answer but
nothing
came out.
Nora and Phil have done their January sale shopping
online.
It is not even nine o’clock.
Paul is humming, keeps asking who’s up for Monopoly.
He has had too much beer.
The five cousins are piled together on the sofa,
trying not to sleep. The bickering has simmered.
In the loo I check Rebecca’s Instagram.
She is not at home.
She is somewhere sunny,
has taken a picture of her toes in the sand,
a Christmassy cocktail in hand.
She is trumpeting her joy.
‘I’m popping out for a bit,’ I call out.
Nora rushes into the hall.
‘Where the fuck are you going? It’s Christmas Day.’
‘I’m taking Tanya her present.
I haven’t been drinking. Check my breath.’
I exhale into he
r face.
She shoves me.
‘I’ve made up the beds if you’re tired,’ I say.
Christmas is over and
I am no longer responsible for anyone’s seasonal good cheer.
I have made mince pies and
the stuffing was my best yet:
fresh cranberries and hazelnuts.
The children still believe in Santa Claus.
Driving away in Paul’s car, I call Tanya.
‘If anyone asks, I’m at your house.’
In the background, slurred singing.
‘Roger that. Hope you’re up to no good.
God, you are always so good.
I bought you perfume but I opened it.
Smells gorgeous on me.
Happy Christmas, my sweet.’
I drive up and down Devon Rise,
past your house several times before parking.
Your driveway is empty.
In your neighbour’s window,
a cat is sleeping next to an electric menorah.
A streetlight flickers, hasn’t the will to remain.
All else is darkness.
I cut the engine, watch for movement, step out of the car.
I am still wearing a paper hat.
If you were to appear in your office window and see me now,
what would you say?
But seriously,
what would you say?
Your gate groans.
The neighbour’s cat raises its head, its tail.
I slip the card for Rebecca through the cold brass letterbox.
Don’t worry, it isn’t the sort I threatened to write,
to expose you. Unleash chaos.
It is an ordinary Christmas card,
The Madonna Suckling the Christ Child, Carlo Dolci,
the message cool and kind.
I trace the glass panel in the front door.
Did you ever touch that part?
Where do your fingerprints persist?
On the painted grey woodwork?
The side gate next to the garage is open.
Instead of closing it, I go through.
Fog loiters above wet ground.
I rest on a rattan seat and light a cigarette.
The lawn is untidy.
Your sons’ football goals have collapsed into the grass.
A broom is prostrate on the patio.
A fox cuts across the garden,
spotting me, stopping,
staring into the night, at the indecisive glint
at the end of my cigarette.
Paul texts.
Enough is enough, Ana.
And he is right.
Enough is enough.
The only time you ever visited my home
you treated it like it was your own:
boots off at the door,
grubbing in cupboards for a cafetière.
I couldn’t sit comfortably on the sofa
in case someone saw us through the window.
I wouldn’t open the back door
in case we were heard
by the neighbours.
I pretended to be ashamed of the mess –
‘Try not to look,’ I said;
I’d spent a full week
clearing out, cleaning up, erasing evidence of my living.
Even the wheelie bins got a bleachy rinse out.
I wanted my domesticity to seduce you,
but hadn’t counted on you being hungry,
wanting something hot.
I sliced a farmhouse loaf for toast,
made loose-leaf Earl Grey,
which you found hilarious.
You reminded me of my meagre offering
often –
letting me know
I wasn’t as perfect as I pretended.
Thing is, that day I found out you like
pale toast with margarine.
What the fuck does that say about a person?
Mum spent Christmas in Bruges,
so it’s lunch in Crouch End for New Year’s Day.
‘It’s so noisy,’ Paul complains. ‘And pricey.
Couldn’t we have eaten at home?’
Ruth and Jon flank my mother,
holding out their chocolatey hands as she pulls surprises
from a carrier bag,
none of them wrapped:
football stickers for an album no one owns,
liquorice and Bic biros,
Uno.
Nora catches my eye.
It was the same when we were kids.
A Mr Kipling birthday cake and a kiss.
‘I love you, my feather,’ she’d say.
Mum stares at the iPad we got her
as though I’ve bought her a can of tuna,
then sets it aside, unopened,
to concentrate on her raspberry torte.
‘I’ll have it if she doesn’t want it,’ Ruth says.
‘I bloody will,’ Paul says.
Phil is flirting with a woman by the bar,
a blonde.
Nora pretends not to see.
The kids pound on a fruit machine.
It is time to go.
I order another bottle of wine for the table.
Mum moves her chair close.
‘If only he’d be more blatant with his cheating,’ she whispers.
‘Then Nora could leave. No blame.
I felt the same way for years about your dad.
Finally he put me out of my misery.’
‘You’re drunk,’ I say.
‘He cheated a hundred times and you allowed it.’
‘You’re always so sad, Ana,’ she replies.
‘What you don’t realise is that nobody wants that for you.
And you shouldn’t want it for yourself.’
We had fallen back into togetherness
and I knew every argument you were having with Rebecca,
every unkind thing she’d said.
I was back to knowing your movements –
the day you were at the dentist,
the times you had to collect the kids,
the mornings you had meetings.
It was a Thursday.
You had a couples counselling appointment for eleven
so I fasted until twelve thirty,
until I was sure it was over,
knew no one was encouraging closeness,
reminding you how to connect,
asking you to pause to see one another
and forcing
me out.
How did you meet?
How did you fall in love?
Tell me about those first days.
I imagined the room’s wide windows,
Somewhere looking on to a lake.
Ferns outside – wet with raindrops.
Whatever it was
it was not a box of lies,
like our hotel rooms,
small and smelling of other people’s mornings.
I imagined Rebecca’s tears without sympathy,
hoping you’d see through her
and finally
say,
‘It’s someone else I love.’
At two o’clock you messaged.
I’d eaten a grapefruit by then,
written up a couple of wills.
Hope you’re keeping well today,
was all you wrote.
Hope you’re keeping well.
Mum reads The Cat in the Hat aloud to the children. Drinks gin.
Watching her, Nora says, ‘She fell over in Belgium, you know.
Claimed a bat attacked her. She was pissed.’
‘Naturally.’
Nora tuts.
‘Right, you lot, we have a tree and a whole heap of
Christmas spirit to take down tomorrow.
I’m not waiting until the sixth. Christmas is done.
Come on, let’s go.’
Paul chases Ruth and Jon upstairs, runs the
bath.
Mum waves to Nora from the window
as my sister’s car pulls away.
‘I’m dating,’ Mum says,
collapsing again into the sofa.
‘He’s Dutch, but he lives in Islamabad.’
‘What are you talking about, Mum?’
‘My boyfriend. He grew up in Amsterdam.
He’s an American Navy Seal now.
Do you have any Jaffa cakes?’
‘Ana!’ Paul calls out. The bath is run.
It is my turn to attend to the children.
‘Where did you meet him?’ I ask.
‘I haven’t yet. He’s coming to visit in the spring.
He’s gorgeous. Much younger than I am.’
‘From Islamabad?’
‘Yes, Ana, from Islamabad.’
‘So basically you’re dating an online scammer.
How much money has he asked for?’
She sits up.
‘What did you just say to me?’
‘Holy Christ, Mum. How much have you given him?’
‘You know what?
I’m lonely and you and Nora don’t seem to care. He does.
He messages every morning and every night.
He wants to know how I am and where I am.’
I shake my head.
‘I’m not allowed to be in love.
Is that what you’re saying, Ana?’
‘He doesn’t even exist!’ I shout.
Paul is in the doorway.
‘Who doesn’t exist?’ he wants to know.
We were two weeks late for Hogmanay
but took a celebratory trip to Edinburgh nonetheless.
Our three-year anniversary.
Three years.
While you slept,
panic filled my throat.
I furled myself into a juddering ball
at the edge of the bed
until the shaking got so bad I woke you,
begged you to take me to the hospital
because I was dying.
‘I’m sure it’s a stroke,’ I said.
I couldn’t see, had no feeling in my hands.
I was thinking of Jon.
How likely it was I wouldn’t even be a memory to him
if I died that night.
You’d have been fine without me.
You pulled me into you,
used your arms to press out the pain,
assured me nothing fatal was happening.
‘This isn’t forever, Ana,’ you told me.
And that was the crux of it.
We were never forever.
Always in a place of
passing.
Everything that mattered happened in locked rooms.
Nothing came out of them.
You didn’t call an ambulance but
got up and arranged for an early
flight to take us home.
Leaving, I said, ‘I survived the night.’
You hitched up your jeans,
Here is the Beehive Page 12
