The Life We Almost Had

by Amelia Henley

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Anna asked now but I was one step ahead of her, guessing that the salmon on the shopping list was meant to be our dinner.

  ‘Sweet and sour chicken?’ I waved the menu in front of me, a white flag of sorts.

  She placed a hand on her stomach. ‘I don’t know if I fancy Chinese tonight.’ She often felt bloated when her period was due. She was wearing her time-of-the-month pyjamas. All baggy and worn. I didn’t like to ask her if she had started yet. Didn’t fancy getting my head bitten off again.

  ‘What do you fancy?’ I wiggled my eyebrows alluringly but she didn’t laugh. She didn’t rip my clothes off either. She wouldn’t until the bloody app told her to.

  ‘Curry?’ she asked.

  Garlic breath and raw onion salad.

  ‘Perfect,’ I said.

  After I had rung the order through, I quickly showered, scrubbing my hands that still smelled of oil – I was late home because I had stopped to help an elderly couple change a flat tyre. Ridiculously it was virtually outside of Tesco, but by the time I had sent them on their way the shopping had slipped my mind.

  Rummaging for a pair of clean socks, I noticed that one of Anna’s drawers wasn’t properly shut. There was a piece of tissue paper poking out. My shoulders deflated even further. She had been sitting here alone, looking at the sleepsuit we had bought. No wonder her mood was so foul. I wished we could talk, but what would we say? I felt to blame. She felt to blame.

  The best thing I could do was act normal, knowing that the tension would pass. It always did. I changed into my jogging bottoms and sweatshirt stained with bolognese sauce. Anna wasn’t the only one who had stopped making an effort. Is this how all marriages ended up? Comfort clothes. Comfort food. Finding comfort in everything but each other.

  Perhaps tonight would be different. I splashed some hopeful aftershave on my cheeks as the doorbell rang. By the time I was back downstairs, Anna was spooning korma onto plates.

  ‘Movie?’ I scrolled through my tablet for something to cast.

  ‘Nothing too slushy.’

  ‘Up?’ I knew it was corny and I should probably choose one of the Bourne films or a Dan Brown, something infinitely more masculine anyway, but I loved the Disney story of Ellie and Carl and we hadn’t seen it for ages. There was also a small part of me that wanted to remind Anna that a couple could live a long and happy marriage without children.

  ‘Okay,’ Anna sighed and I knew she only agreed because she thought she needed to make up for her snappiness to me and I didn’t disagree. I took what I could get. ‘Just don’t ask for a dog this time.’

  ‘Fine. But if I ever find a talking Golden Retriever like Dug, he’s ours.’ I smiled but it made me sad we had bought a hamster rather than a dog. We had planned to get a puppy after we’d had a baby, when Anna was at home and the dog could join the household knowing where he stood in the pecking order. I already knew my place.

  The movie began. I turned up the volume as Hammie spun endless turns in his wheel that squeaked with every rotation. I passed Anna the tissues because, no matter what she said, the opening scene got her every time. The lonely old man grieving for his lost wife. She snuggled up to me and I loaded another poppadum with mango chutney before I passed it to her.

  As we watched the house tied with balloons soar through the sky, I stole a glance at Anna. She was my Ellie. The one true love of my life. Was I her Carl? If I was ever without her, I didn’t know what I’d do. I would be the one sitting in the chair, crying over our photo albums.

  ‘Adam?’ Anna asked as Carl abandoned his quest to visit the place he and Ellie had dreamed off, instead building a new life for himself.

  ‘Yeah.’ I pulled her close to me.

  ‘Do you still believe that if you love someone you should set them free?’

  My stomach twisted. What was she asking? Why was she asking?

  ‘I think…’ I considered my words carefully before I replied. ‘I think… yeah.’ In the swarm of profound words and phrases in my mind, I could only say yeah. No wonder we ate in front of the TV every night.

  We went to bed and I watched her sleep because, sad as it was, I still did that.

  If you love someone, set them free.

  The thought of being without her formed a hard ball in my chest.

  Did she want to leave?

  I didn’t know how to fix this. I didn’t know how to fix us.

  You can’t, the night-time said softly in my ear.

  I turned away from it. I turned away from her.

  The moon fell steeply through the window onto our wedding photo, which had once made me happy to look at but now made me sad and despairing. Frustrated and angry.

  It made me all of those things, and more.

  You know what to do, Adam, whispered the darkness once more.

  And I did know.

  But could I really do it?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Anna

  The alarm shrilled seven o’ clock. It felt like the middle of the night. Adam stumbled over to the window and yanked open the curtains but the dark winter sky outside did nothing to improve my mood. I had a raging headache from too many glasses of Malbec. The bitter taste of garlic lingering in my mouth.

  ‘I’ll go and make some tea.’ Adam whistled as he pulled on his slippers. His morning cheerfulness infuriated me.

  ‘Yeah, like tea’s going to help,’ I snapped.

  ‘Hangover? I told you not to have that last glass.’

  It was precisely his telling me this that had led me to defiantly finish the bottle. Half the time I behaved like a rebellious teenager rather than a wife but I couldn’t seem to help it.

  ‘Yes, well, if you had bought milk like you promised, we wouldn’t have opened a bottle at all.’ I couldn’t seem to let anything go.

  ‘My fucking fault! I should have known. Everything is.’

  ‘Not everything.’

  Most things.

  He stormed out of the bedroom, swearing as he stubbed his toe against the flat-pack bookcase on the landing that had gathered a layer of dust as it waited to be built. We bought it six months ago. Our tiny house was full of half-finished projects and we argued about them endlessly, Adam insisting he would get around to things ‘in his own time’, but he never did. He’d rather spend his weekends ‘relaxing’ like he was the only one working full time. He was either sprawled on the sofa watching football on a Saturday afternoon or off playing it with Josh on a Sunday morning. After a match he would wallow in the bath, groaning each time he moved. It was me, of course, who washed his sweat-damp kit. Picked the clumps of mud up from the floor.

  I had grown up and Adam hadn’t. Or perhaps we had just grown apart. Perhaps that was what happened when people got together in their early twenties. I had no idea at that age that one day I would enjoy meandering around art galleries, visiting stately homes. Longing for a garden I could landscape rather than the small, square box we had. I had no idea that Adam wouldn’t have developed any different interests to the ones he had when we met. Sport. Dreaming of all the places he had always wanted to visit but never had. Perhaps now never would. It had appeared incredibly romantic, him putting our relationship before his own ambition, but now I wondered if we were an all-too-convenient excuse for staying. Easier. Adam had never been good at arranging things.

  That wasn’t quite true. On our first Valentine’s day he had a star named after me – I had laughed that he had called it Star – and that night we’d trudged up the hill, wellington-booted and huddled under layers, and he’d showed me, through a borrowed telescope, my gift.

  ‘How will I know which is mine?’ I had asked.

  ‘Because you always shine brighter than the rest.’

  Was it wrong to have wanted life to continue like that, to have expected it? I knew it wasn’t about big romantic gestures, it was about the small things. But Adam didn’t seem to bother with those anymore either. His list of things to do pinned to the fridge had grown so long
I had screwed it up and thrown it away in frustration, unable to bear looking at it anymore.

  The clock glared 7.15. If I didn’t hurry, I’d be late. In the bathroom mirror, my hair was a matted mess. I’d been tempted to cut it over the years, tame my curls, but each time I suggested it, Adam was so upset that I’d kept it long. It was silly, but part of me felt that if I cut off my hair, I’d be cutting off some of his love for me. Shearing away more of the girl he fell in love with.

  Grey morning light spilled in through the bedroom window as I sat at my dressing table, carefully selecting my make-up. I had taken more care over my appearance since the appointment of our new head teacher, Ross. He was young and dynamic and in his last post had turned a failing academy around. It was the thought of his deep blue eyes that studied me so intently that caused me to contour my cheeks. To cover my lashes with two coats of mascara rather than one. To blend my eye shadow, my blusher, so my look was natural. Barely there. It took ages.

  Downstairs, I scooped last night’s curry-stained plates from the coffee table in the lounge; Adam had walked straight past them. On our wall was the framed map of my star. Every day I was tempted to take it down. It was a painful reminder of the way we used to be. But I knew if I removed the frame from the wall, I would see how the wallpaper had faded around it, the way the girl on a beach in Alircia, barefoot on golden sand, had faded away from me, and there was a part of me that wanted to cling on to her. Wanted to hold on to Adam – my boy from the bar – otherwise I’d have left by now, wouldn’t I?

  After the final bell had rung and the kids had rushed outside, Ross sauntered into my classroom. Instinctively I smoothed my hair.

  ‘Are you rushing home?’ he asked. ‘Pub?’ We had progressed from sharing coffee breaks in the staff room to casual lunch-time paninis in the coffee shop near the school. We had grown close but this was the first time he had suggested something out of hours.

  ‘I’ve got a stack of marking to do.’ I patted the English books piled on my desk, aware I hadn’t answered the question. I busied myself tidying away my pens, straightening papers, my head and my heart battling. ‘A quick one won’t hurt.’ I didn’t know if I was trying to convince him or me.

  The pub was quiet. I couldn’t help glancing around while Ross ordered at the bar, afraid I might see somebody I know. Guilt pulsed that I was doing something wrong, although strictly speaking I wasn’t. But over our lunches we had stopped talking about work and begun to talk about ourselves; we weren’t just colleagues now but something else. Friends? I was kidding myself. It was a slippery slope I was skidding down.

  ‘What shall we drink to?’ Ross poured from a bottle of Merlot.

  ‘Surviving another day?’ I raised my glass.

  Ross laughed. ‘Yes, you know what they say about teaching?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It would be a perfect job if it weren’t for the bloody kids.’

  I scanned the menu, playing it cool. ‘Do you want them? Kids?’ I knew he didn’t have any.

  ‘God, no. I don’t. I think we see the best of them – the ambition, the curiosity – but we also see the worst too. I feel privileged to help shape futures but when I go home, I want to switch off. Is that horribly selfish?’

  It was horribly alluring but I didn’t tell him that. Imagine being with somebody who didn’t want a child. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty then. I drained my glass and held it out for a refill. ‘We’re all entitled to be a little selfish sometimes, aren’t we? Not everyone wants a family.’

  ‘How about you, Anna?’ He paused until I met his gaze. ‘What do you want?’

  It was a loaded question.

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘Are you coming to the conference in Derbyshire next week?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to Adam about it yet.’

  ‘You don’t need his permission, do you? It’s an education seminar. Work, Anna.’ But we both knew it was more than that. There was an undeniable attraction between us. An attraction that meant two nights away in a country hotel was a terrible idea. The conference was for head teachers, deputies. Not for staff at my level. He wanted me there because he wanted me and, if I’m honest, I wanted him but…

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea.’ I had told myself it was a line I wouldn’t cross but since he had asked me two weeks ago, I had shopped for new clothes. New underwear. Revelling in the what-might-be.

  ‘It could be good for you. Us.’ Ross placed his hand on mine. It was too heavy. Too hot. Too everything that wasn’t Adam, but I didn’t move it. Knowing that even if I did, I would still feel it there.

  ‘Anna,’ he whispered. ‘Anna. Why are you so unhappy?’

  I found myself opening up to him. Not about my infertility or about Adam – that would have seemed disloyal – but the about the pressure I felt to look out for Mum since Dad died. To live up to Dad’s legacy as a head teacher. The worry that my nan was becoming more and more forgetful. He listened. The way Adam used to. The way he did in Alircia on the beach.

  Ross wiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘This was supposed to be fun.’

  ‘I know! Fuck me, it’s the last time I ask you out. It’s old Maude the dinner lady next time. She looks like a riot.’

  I laughed and that was something that didn’t happen frequently.

  ‘I’d better go.’ I stood and looped my handbag over my shoulder.

  ‘Stay for another?’ He waved the bottle. It was dangerous. I should go home. ‘I can’t drink it, I’m driving. It would go to waste otherwise.’

  ‘Okay.’ While Ross went to the loo, I rattled off a text to Adam, telling him there was a staff meeting after work. I had almost convinced myself it was true until Ross sat down again, not in the chair opposite me this time, but next to me. His thigh pressing against mine.

  ‘This is nice,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I love living alone but sometimes I go back to an empty house and it feels so lonely.’

  ‘Have you dated? Since your divorce?’

  ‘No. I was holding out until I met the right person – it’s soul-destroying being with the wrong person.’

  ‘Was holding out?’

  ‘We can find happiness in the most unexpected of places, Anna. It’s a question of being brave enough to let it in.’

  I downed my wine. The warm bloom of alcohol loosened my tongue. ‘I want to be happy but I’m not brave enough.’

  ‘I think you’re stronger than you think.’ Ross placed his hand my knee.

  Was I?

  It would take courage to leave. Courage to stay.

  Thinking of Adam, I stood. I was lost, lonely, desperately unhappy, but lying to my husband was a new low.

  ‘I should go.’ I meant it this time.

  ‘Can I drop you home?’ he asked.

  ‘Please.’ I directed him, not to my house but to the neighbouring street, asking myself why, if it were nothing more than a friendly drink, I didn’t let Ross drop me home. But I knew why.

  As I unclipped my seatbelt, he leaned across and cupped my face in his hands.

  ‘Anna.’

  He kissed me.

  And I let him.

  Adam was sprawled on the sofa, ‘How was it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The staff meeting?’

  ‘Oh, that.’ I was caught in my web of deceit. Unsure what to say but he had turned his attention back to the TV. I curled up on the armchair, watching my phone screen illuminate as Ross texted me over and over.

  I’m sorry.

  I’m not sorry.

  I shouldn’t have kissed you.

  I had to kiss you.

  I want you.

  I think I’m falling in love with you.

  Do you want me?

  It was the last one that threw me into a tailspin. Did I want him? Or was it that I didn’t want this – my eyes flickered to Adam. He was fixated on the screen.

  My mind strayed to Ross. His hands. Hi
s laugh. His lips. He wasn’t my boy from the bar. He would be different.

  But it might be better.

  In the kitchen, while I waited for the kettle to boil, I splashed cold water onto my face, which was burning with the shame of my illicit kiss. The fact that I had wanted it. The fact that I had enjoyed it, entwining my fingers in his hair as I returned his kiss.

  Back in the lounge, Adam held out my phone. ‘You got a text.’

  I snatched it from him, studying his face for signs he had read it, shoving my handset into my pocket like a dirty secret I was trying to hide.

  Do you want me? Ross had asked.

  Later, in bed, I was still examining the questions from all angles when Adam reached across to me. My entire body immediately tensed.

  He pressed his lips against mine but all I felt was Ross’s lips. His hands caressed my back but all I felt were Ross’s hands.

  ‘I’m not in the mood, sorry.’ I gently pushed Adam away. He muttered under his breath. I couldn’t make out his words but I probably deserved them. The truth was I didn’t want Adam unless I knew I was ovulating and even then it lacked any passion. Sex now a task to be checked off from a never-ending list of mundane things to do.

  Empty the dishwasher – tick.

  Try to make a baby – tick.

  Was it wrong to yearn for something exciting?

  Someone who excited me?

  I thought about everything until Adam fell asleep and then I reached for my mobile.

  Do you want me? Ross had asked.

  I gave him my answer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Adam

  Dawn was pushing the darkness aside when my phone vibrated under my pillow. I hadn’t risked the alarm, not wanting to wake Anna. Not wanting her to know. Not yet. I watched her sleep, her face unguarded.

  My certainty of the previous night dipped and swelled. I was changing my mind about four million times a minute.

  Could I do it?