by Fiona Gibson
‘He’s not into music!’ I hissed to Sinead later. ‘Isn’t that like saying, I don’t like food, or air?’ She muttered something about trying to be less judgemental, and everyone being entitled to their own personal tastes – or did I think a liking for Crocodile Shoes warranted a custodial sentence?
Well, yes, in actual fact, I did.
The guilty party is in his kitchen now. I keep glimpsing him bobbing about, being his usual all-round, excellent self – no doubt listening to Katrina and absolutely not taking her for granted, ever. Monty is out in their garden, sniffing around. If he were to crouch in readiness for doing a dump, Howard would be out there in a jiffy, poo bag in hand. It’s a wonder Monty even shits at all.
Aware of my anxiety building, I tug out a clump of ferns, shake the earth off them and plonk them in the bucket with the flowers. But it still doesn’t look right, and now Howard and Katrina’s back door is opening. It’s Katrina who appears – a tall, powerfully-built woman with a penchant for tight jodhpur-type trousers, despite having no contact with horses, ever. She strides towards me and beams over the fence.
‘Hi, Nate.’ Her gaze drops to the bucket. ‘Aw, are you throwing out those flowers?’
‘Erm, no – I’m arranging them,’ I explain with a strained smile.
‘Wow. With ferns, I see. Very inventive!’ Katrina laughs and tosses back her glossy brown mane. ‘You’re obviously a man of hidden talents.’
Not according to my wife. ‘Ha. Well, um, I’d better get on …’
Aware of her bemused gaze, I hurry back inside and summon Flynn, as if, yet again, he’s been the one delaying our departure.
We set off in my car. ‘Are you really giving that to Mum?’ Flynn asks, swivelling to frown at the bucket of blooms, which is resting on a protective newspaper layer on the back seat.
‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘I thought I’d surprise her.’
‘I think you’ll do that,’ he exclaims.
I glance at him and clear my throat. ‘We haven’t sat down and talked about the whole Mum thing, have we?’
‘No, we haven’t,’ he replies dully.
He turns to look out of the side window, as if something fascinating is happening in Hesslevale town centre on a rather dismal Tuesday evening. I suppose I should be relieved that he seems reasonably accepting about our new situation. Maybe he assumes his mother and I are having some kind of blip, and everything’ll be back to normal pretty soon. In more optimistic moments, I can almost convince myself that that’s the case – and she’ll be home again before the tofu she left in our fridge exceeds its expiry date.
‘D’you want to talk to me about anything?’ I ask.
‘No! No, I don’t. It’s nothing to do with me.’ He shudders visibly.
‘Okay, but if you ever feel you need to—’
‘It’s all right, thanks,’ he says quickly.
I’m about to add something else, along the lines that I’m always here for him if ever he needs to talk – but he’s made it quite clear that me being ‘always here’ is not exactly a positive for him. I know it’s ridiculous to feel spurned over this, just as it is to envy the forthcoming movie-and-pizza scenario with his mum. And I know it’s quite mad of me to try and think of ways to make our evenings fun … but how about a horror night? Sinead hates scary movies. That’s something Flynn could only do with me. We could order in a Deliveroo; we’ve never done that before. That would be fun, watching our creepy film and waiting for our burgers and fries to arrive! On second thoughts, maybe he regards every evening with me as a horror night. So, how about playing some games together? If I dug out Pass the Pigs, would he find that fun in a nostalgic way? Or would it just remind him of all those Christmases when we were all together, and his beloved maternal grandparents would be visiting from Cornwall, and there’d be a constant flow of drinks and chocolates and laughter?
Oh my God, Christmas …
I am blinking back actual tears as we turn into Aspen Grove, where Abby lives. Hopefully Flynn won’t notice as he’s still gazing out of the passenger side window. So this is where my wife is staying now: among the primped gardens with their box-fresh tables and chairs. The lawns are all mown, their edges clipped, barely a blade out of place. You could eat your dinner off these sparkling patios. We have visited Abby before, when she moved in in December – but it didn’t strike me then how sterile this estate is. For one thing, it was dark, and the occupied houses had fairy lights and Christmas trees twinkling in their front windows. I told Sinead that I could see the appeal of a brand new house, as opposed to a shambly Victorian terrace, as bits wouldn’t keep pinging off it. But of course, that was different. Back then, my wife didn’t live here.
I pull up outside Abby’s yellow-brick semi and look at Flynn. ‘Well, here we are!’ I announce, as if he is nine years old and I am dropping him off for an exciting sleepover.
‘Yeah,’ he mutters, clambering out of the car and heading for the door, which has already opened. Sinead is standing there, smiling expectantly, and wearing an extremely pretty blue fitted dress that I haven’t seen for ages. Having wiped at my face, I climb out too and shove my hands into my jeans pockets, not knowing what to do with myself.
Now Sinead is hugging Flynn, as if I am not here. ‘Hey, darling, so good to see you! I’ve been looking forward to this all day.’
‘Hey, Mum …’
I open the back door of my car and lift out the bucket. Loitering a few feet away, I clutch the unwieldy receptacle crammed with flowers and ferns to my chest. At least there’s no sign of Abby. That would’ve been even more awkward, considering that I regard her as my friend too (what’ll happen there? Oh, I guess she’s made it quite clear where her allegiance lies).
Flynn and his mother pull apart, and she smiles and pats his arm. ‘In you go, sweetie. I won’t be a minute …’ She glances at me. I’ll just deal with this bucket-wielding nutter who’s lurking here …
Obediently, and without so much as a nod goodbye, he heads into the house.
‘Hi,’ Sinead says, possibly trying for a smile, although her mouth remains flat.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Um, I just thought I’d bring him over …’
‘Yes, you said you were going to. That was nice of you.’ Her gaze drops to my love offering. ‘What’s this?’
‘I, er … bought you a present.’ I step towards her, lifting it so she can fully appreciate the spectacle of jarring red, orange and yellow flowers and a load of bedraggled foliage.
Her blue eyes look pained as she blinks up at me. ‘Wow. They’re quite, um …’
‘I realised I couldn’t remember the last time I bought you flowers,’ I add hastily. ‘I’m sorry, love. I haven’t been very good at that kind of thing. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to do nice things for you. Just that it hasn’t crossed my mind. But, you know – now you’ve made it clear how you feel—’
‘Nate, I—’
‘I really will try and be a lot more thoughtful and considerate from now on.’ I swallow hard and hold out my gift to her, which she takes, wincing, then places carefully on the flagstone.
She straightens up and looks at me. ‘Nate …’ She pauses, as if struggling to find the right words. I glance down at her present. Some of the carnations have already started to droop over the sides of the bucket. ‘Where did you get these?’ she asks.
‘From, um, the petrol station,’ I mutter.
‘Right.’ She presses her lips together. ‘Thanks, Nate. That was very … thoughtful of you.’
Did she mean that, or is she being sarcastic? I study her face, trying to read her expression. ‘Well, um … I’ll come back later and pick up Flynn …’
‘No, don’t worry about that. I’m not sure what time that’ll be …’
‘You could call me, though, couldn’t you? When he’s ready to come home?’ When you’ve had your pizza and movies and fun …
‘It’s fine, Nate,’ she says firmly. ‘I’ll bring him home. Bye for now. And … tha
nks again.’
And with that, Sinead carries our dented old bucket crammed with undergrowth into Abby’s house, and firmly shuts the door.
Chapter Thirteen
Sinead
‘He brought you petrol station chrysanths in a bucket?’ Rachel exclaims.
‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘It was so bizarre, but, you know – also sort of touching, although not in the way he intended. More like a child’s Mother’s Day gesture gone terribly wrong.’ Rachel nods, but looks rather blank. ‘You know how kids present their mums with wonky presents?’ I add. ‘One year, Flynn brought me breakfast in bed of buttered digestives garnished with slabs of apple—’
‘And did you appreciate the gesture?’ she asks.
‘The apple biscuits? Yes, of course!’
‘No, the bucket …’
‘Oh. Well, yes, I suppose I did, but it also seemed kind of … sad, you know? For some reason, he’d also stuffed in some weeds that he’d torn up from God knows where …’
Rachel nods gravely. ‘His presentation skills could have been better.’
‘Yes, I suppose it’s not a particular skill of his. I mean, he probably hasn’t wrapped a Christmas or birthday present in about a decade … what is it with men and this unwillingness to acquaint themselves with scissors and Sellotape, like it’s some kind of logistical nightmare that only women can deal with?’ I pause. ‘So I’m not sure why he tried his hand at flower arranging …’
Rachel raises a plucked brow. ‘So, did you feel Nate was mocking you by bringing you those chrysanths?’
‘Mocking me?’ I exclaim. ‘No, of course not. Why would he do that?’
She looks taken aback. ‘Erm, well, you’ve talked a lot about being overwhelmed by domesticity, and feeling that you’ve lost your identity as a creative person. You’re grieving, in a way …’
‘Grieving? What d’you mean?’
‘Grieving the loss of your old self,’ she clarifies. ‘For the person you once were – fun, youthful, showing great promise, heralded as a future star with the world laid out before you …’
Christ, and seeing her is supposed to make me feel better?
‘… and understandably, that’s caused a deep sense of resentment,’ she goes on. ‘Perhaps you’ve interpreted the bucket – and its association with cleaning – as being integral to domestic drudgery …’
‘No,’ I say emphatically, ‘I haven’t interpreted it as anything. Nate’s not the kind of person to give me a present with an underlying message. I mean, when he gave me an awful skirt for my birthday – a skin-tight, leopard-print mini – he wasn’t thinking, “I’ll buy her this to signify that she looks a bit cheap …”’
Rachel blinks, clearly confused now.
‘He probably just thought it was sexy,’ I add.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, and with the flowers, I’m sure he was just trying to be kind and make things right.’
I run my tongue around my dry mouth, wondering now whether I did the right thing, in keeping tonight’s appointment after seeing Rachel on Monday too. However, I needed someone to talk to after that awkward evening with Flynn. The whole day, I’d been desperate to see my boy. However, it had felt so forced and contrived, sitting there in Abby’s living room, eating pizza together. Abby was working at the pub, and I’d found myself almost wishing she was there with us, diffusing the tension. Flynn was quiet and gloomy, responding to most of my questions with monosyllables and shrugs.
He doesn’t want to be here, I decided – a realisation that made me feel as if I’d been kicked.
‘So,’ Rachel continues, ‘it’s now a week since you left Nate, is that right?’
‘Yes.’ God, a week. It’s been terrible, frankly: keeping up a chirpy facade in the shop, and trying not to drone on too much to Abby, who’s been lovely – but I know she has her own life too.
‘Shall we go back to the list you wrote?’ Rachel suggests. ‘We haven’t really talked about that in much detail.’
I nod. ‘Yes, okay.’
‘Did you find it … cathartic, to put it all down on paper?’
‘Erm, I’m not sure.’
‘Well, how did you feel?’
‘Pretty angry, I suppose. As I told you, I left Nate straight afterwards—’
‘And do you feel that was the right thing to do?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, yes – when I saw it all written down, I knew I couldn’t stand it anymore. But I thought I’d feel better by now, in that at least I’d made a decision.’ I push back my dishevelled hair that’s at least two months overdue a cut. I look a fright these days. Even Abby has started giving me worrying looks.
‘What about the good points you’d put on your list?’ Rachel asks.
I stare at her. ‘The good points?’
‘Yes,’ she says briskly. ‘Remember we talked about you writing down all the negative and positive aspects of your marriage?’
I twist my fingers together, feeling like my teenage self, who’d just been told by a friend that there was another exam question on the reverse side of the paper – one I hadn’t noticed, which meant an automatic fail. ‘Yes, I do remember that now,’ I murmur.
Rachel shuffles on her chair. ‘But you just focused on the negatives.’
‘Yes. They, erm, kind of ran away with me …’
‘You didn’t put down any good points at all?’
‘Um, no, I didn’t.’
‘Ah.’ She nods. ‘Well, okay, that’s how you were feeling that night. You were upset and angry – and that’s fine …’
I glance at the school-style wall clock behind her. Somehow, it seems to beam the time into Rachel’s brain via the back of her head as, without ever turning to look at it, she always knows precisely when our hour is up. Right on cue, she says, ‘So, that’s the end of our session today, Sinead. Would you like to meet next Thursday? Or something sooner, perhaps?’
I hesitate. ‘Can we leave it for a little while? I think I need time to mull over a few things.’
‘Of course, yes,’ she says in a clipped tone. ‘Just call me whenever you’d like another appointment.’
‘I will, thank you.’ I pay and thank her again, sensing a certain coolness emanating from her as I leave, as if I have somehow disappointed her, either by ballsing up the list exercise, or ducking out of our regular sessions.
Out in the street, I pass the restaurant of a faceless hotel, in which a cluster of besuited men are all gathered around the salad bar. Flynn was obsessed with salad bars as a little boy: being allowed to heap his plate with potato salad and sweetcorn and sprinkle bacon bits all over the top. Why is everything making me nostalgic these days? Next thing, I’ll be welling up when I spot a can of Ambrosia Creamed Rice in the supermarket – another childhood favourite of Flynn’s.
My phone rings, and I pull it from my bag, expecting it to be Nate; however, it’s Michelle, my old college friend. ‘Hey,’ I exclaim, ‘are you back already?’ For the past six months, she has been on an artist’s residency in New York. To my shame, I’ve been terrible about keeping in touch. Chatty texts have remained largely unanswered, Facebook rarely checked.
‘No, not until next week. You’ve been awfully quiet, hon. I’ve been worried about you. Everything okay?’
I hesitate. Whilst I’d rather not break the news about leaving Nate right now, I can’t pretend everything’s okay either. I haven’t even told Vicky, my boss, yet. My own parents don’t even know. They’d jump into Dad’s knackered old pick-up truck and descend to fuss over me, and that’s really not what I need. They’d also tell Marie, my sister, who has always been of the opinion that, as a high-ranking nurse, she knows absolutely everything, whilst I am merely an arty, ditsy jewellery person, barely capable of locating a matching pair of shoes.
‘Not so good, actually,’ I start. ‘I’ve … well, I’ve left Nate. I’ve moved out and left Flynn with him. Things just weren’t good, so I’m staying at Abby’s—’
‘Oh, m
y God. What happened?’
By the time I’ve climbed into my car, I have spilled it all out: about fuelling myself with lady petrol, writing that list, Nate coming over with the bucket of flowers – and the worst part, feeling as if I’ve walked out on Flynn too (which, of course, I have; never mind my clumsy attempt to make things right with a crappy movie and a pizza). ‘Sorry to splurge all this when you’re away,’ I add, sitting in the driver’s seat now.
‘Don’t be crazy. I mean, I knew you were unhappy. I just didn’t realise quite how bad things were. Why didn’t you say? You could have called or messaged me—’
‘I know, but it just happened. It wasn’t really planned. Anyway, I didn’t want to heap all of that on you.’
‘Well, I need to see you. I’m back a week today, so how about the Friday?’
‘Won’t you be jet-lagged?’
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll have to be anyway. There’s a bit of a gathering with the old gang and we’ll need you there, okay?’
‘A gathering?’ I almost laugh at her suggestion.
‘Look, I know what you’re thinking, but it won’t be a huge night, I promise. Just a bite to eat in Fletcher’s for old times’ sake …’
Ah, Fletcher’s: purveyors of murky bean dips and fierce Argentinian reds, and our beloved haunt as students. ‘Who’s “we”?’ I ask cautiously.
‘Just George, Aisha and Brett.’
‘Brett?’ I repeat. ‘You mean Brett O’Hara?’
‘Yeah! C’mon, it might be just what you need.’
No, I think: if I needed anything, it would be to see you on my own. But then, Michelle was always like this: the organiser and fixer, grabbing at any excuse for a party. She’d never have let her own life slide, the way I have. ‘You do remember how lovely they are,’ she adds.
‘Yes, of course I do …’
An image swirls into my mind, of an evening – no, many evenings, all rolled into one – with all of us sitting around Michelle’s scruffy oak table in her basement flat close to our college in Leeds. Cheap wine flowed, someone was usually playing guitar, everyone was smoking copiously and Brett would be holding court. We were all platonic friends, really, although Michelle and George had a fling that fizzled out after one term, and Brett and I had one of those marathon snogs at a party once, never to be discussed, and certainly never repeated. Everyone fancied Brett, as I did, although never in any serious sort of way; he was too flighty, too in demand – I couldn’t have coped with the competition. In contrast, my college boyfriends were more the quiet, unassuming types. But those nights – with the five of us gathered around Michelle’s table – were the highlight for me really. Barely out of our teens, we still had that unshakeable belief that the world was ours for the taking. Since then, Michelle’s career has flown; she’s had numerous exhibitions and prestigious commissions. I’ve heard through the grapevine that everyone else is doing pretty well too.
