Clean Break

by Tammy Cohen

  ‘I was in here, preparing dinner and listening to music, and he walked in and turned it off. Just like that. Without even saying anything. I stood totally still for a moment, thinking, In a minute, I will carry on as normal. But then it was like a light going on in my brain, and I thought, Enough now. I’ve had enough. And I said, “I want a divorce.”’

  Mel nods over the top of her teacup and Kate feels something inside her grow looser, something she wasn’t even aware had been clenched. It is so good to see Mel here. She avoids the house if she knows Jack is going to be around.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ Mel tells her. ‘I know what a temper Jack has. It must have been scary to stand up to him like that. How is he taking everything?’

  Kate shrugs.

  ‘It’s weird. He is so calm. I keep waiting for him to blow up like he did when I first told him, but he hasn’t. He doesn’t say anything at all. It freaks me out, if I’m honest.’

  ‘Better than him ranting and raving,’ says Mel. ‘It must be strange, though, living in limbo like this. When is he moving into his own place?’

  ‘I don’t know. We keep out of each other’s way. His stuff is here but he is usually out at work or staying with friends.’

  ‘And how are the kids taking it?’

  ‘Oh, they are angry with me. And hurt. Amy is not sleeping and hearing noises in the night. Ben tries to wind me up. Nicking food from the fridge. Being rude.’

  ‘They will get over it.’

  ‘I just wish I could fast-forward six months and this bit would all be over with,’ says Kate. ‘We are going to counselling tonight. Me and Jack. I am dreading it.’

  Mel frowns. ‘I don’t get it. You and Jack have split up now. So why are you still going to counselling?’

  ‘I wanted to stop,’ says Kate. ‘But Julie, the counsellor, thinks it will help make the breakup smoother. And Jack wants us to carry on going. I think he thinks I will change my mind.’

  ‘Will you tell him about …?’

  Kate scrunches up her features, pulling her chin right back into her neck.

  ‘Course not. Do I look crazy?’

  ‘Yes, when you’re making that face!’

  As their laughter tails off, Mel looks serious for once.

  ‘Just be careful, hun. OK?’

  Kate nods, but fear, like the tip of an ice-cold finger, is running down her spine.

  Chapter Four

  JACK: Thursday evening,

  four days after the split

  I have dressed with care. I am wearing the shirt you bought me. Blue to match my eyes, you said. You like the way it is tight in the upper arms over my biceps. I keep myself in good shape. For you. All for you.

  I had a shower earlier this afternoon, and now I spray myself with the aftershave you like. At the top of the stairs I wait, listening for the television. Then I pad down in my socks, putting my shoes on by the front door before letting myself out. I need a drink before counselling. Just one. To steady my nerves.

  One turns into three. As it often does. But that’s all right.

  We meet outside the counsellor’s house. It’s a nice house. Semi-detached with purple slate gravel in the front garden and a wisteria plant framing the doorway. The first time we came here you said this was your dream house. That was when I still thought this was just a bad patch in our marriage. I watched you take in the wide hallway with the sweeping staircase, and the huge square living room with golden floorboards and a real fireplace. I knew you were comparing it to our small, cosy terraced house. I knew you were blaming me for not giving you what Julie has. A pain started in my head that still bothers me now.

  As always, Julie answers the door and leads the way past the living room to the little room at the back where she sees her clients. Clients. It makes us sound like we are at the bank asking about a loan, instead of trying to save our marriage.

  We sit down on the boxy blue sofa, one at each end. You could park a bus in the space between us.

  Julie sits in a chair opposite. She has brown hair that comes to her chin and swings when she talks, and her eyes are so close together she sometimes looks cross-eyed. Her tights always match her clothes. Today she has on a green jumper and skirt and tights of exactly the same colour. The first time we came she was wearing red all over, and you said afterwards that you thought she should have chosen a calmer colour.

  ‘How have you two been?’ Julie asks.

  ‘Great,’ you say, and I laugh.

  ‘Interesting that your response is laughter, Jack,’ says Julie. ‘Is that because it is funny or because you don’t see how Kate could be feeling great?’

  That is what she does. Picks apart every little thing you say or do like it’s a faulty seam.

  ‘I just can’t see there’s much that’s great at the moment,’ I say.

  There’s a low table in front of the sofa which is clear apart from a single box of tissues. Most weeks you make good use of that box.

  Now I stare at the tissue box long and hard to avoid looking anywhere else.

  Julie asks about the kids. You say they are angry with us both. But that isn’t true. They are angry with you, and I point that out. Then she asks about living arrangements and you say things are not ideal, but you hope we can sort something out that suits us both. I stare at the box of tissues and press the nails of my right hand into the palm of my left hand and say nothing.

  You say, ‘You see, Julie? You see how he is? Talking to him is like getting blood from a stone.’

  So Julie looks at me and asks, ‘How about it, Jack? Do you have anything you would like to say to Kate?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I would like to ask Kate if she is seeing someone else. I am not angry any more. I just want to know the truth.’

  You make a tutting noise and shake your head. You and Julie look at each other. ‘He’s like a stuck record,’ you tell her.

  Julie turns to me, and I look at how her hair is swinging by her jaw so that I don’t have to look into her eyes.

  ‘You bring this up every week, Jack,’ she says. ‘And every week, Kate denies it.’ Her voice is soft and she never raises it. Even when I lost it the first time we came here, she didn’t raise her voice. She just quietly told me that, though she could see why I was upset, she would not put up with threats. She said that, if I carried on, I would have to leave the room.

  She continues. ‘Do you think you are so fixed on the idea that Kate has another man, because it is easier to accept that, than to accept that she is no longer in love with you? It is very easy in cases like this to look for someone or something to blame, rather than have to look at our own behaviour. Do you see that, Jack?’

  She is looking at me intently with her nearly crossed-over eyes. I look back at the box of tissues so I don’t have to see her any more, or see your face.

  Because I know you are lying.

  I count to ten in my head, nice and slow, and I imagine throwing a coconut against a wall as hard as I can. I hear it crack as it hits.

  Chapter Five

  KATE: Friday afternoon,

  five days after the split

  Kate is called in to see Alice, the practice manager at the health centre where she works.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she says, even before Kate has sat down.

  Alice is sitting behind her desk. She has faded, strawberry-blonde hair, streaked with grey, which she is wearing in a plait. And pink cheeks that always look as if she has just come inside from somewhere very cold. She takes off her black-framed glasses and tips her head to one side. Her brown eyes are full of concern.

  ‘It’s so unlike you, Kate,’ Alice says. ‘All these years you have worked here, and this is the first complaint.’

  ‘She was being so difficult,’ Kate says. ‘I’d offered her a three o’clock with Dr Davis, or a three-twenty with Dr Patel, but she kept insisting that only Dr Fox would do.’

  ‘But Mrs Hayes is always difficult. And you are usually so good with her. What is going on? How
are things at home?’

  Kate can feel herself blushing. ‘Fine. Well, not fine. But OK. Jack seems to have accepted that we are splitting up. It’s just …’

  But she cannot think of how to finish the sentence. She cannot put into words the strange atmosphere in the house, the creeping sense she has of things not being right. It should be a relief, now that everything is out in the open, but instead they all seem so on edge.

  Tom calls her while she is waiting to catch a bus home from work. He wants to meet her.

  ‘I can’t. I need to be home for the kids.’

  ‘Can’t your husband …?’

  ‘He’s working.’

  ‘Come on. It’s Friday. They are old enough to do their own thing.’

  Kate hesitates. She thinks about spending another evening at home, arguing with Amy. Then she imagines how it would feel to have Tom’s arms around her.

  ‘You’ve twisted my arm,’ she tells him.

  But all the time they are out together she feels something nagging at her like a mild toothache. Tom is funny and kind, but one time when she goes to the loo she almost walks past him when she comes back. She is so used to Jack, Tom seems like a stranger.

  When he asks her to come back to his flat she says she has to get home. It is true, but it is not the entire truth. She has made excuses to her family in the past so she could stay out. She could do so again.

  She hears the music from way down the street, blasting out through her living room window. When she bursts through the door she finds Amy and four friends from school, including a boy called Max, who she suspects is Amy’s new boyfriend. She doesn’t trust Max. He has hair that he sweeps to one side across his eyes, and he grins at her as if he is part of some big joke that she isn’t in on. The place is trashed with crisp packets and Coke cans all over the floor, and even two bottles of beer. And when she goes into the kitchen Kate is sure she can smell cigarettes.

  ‘Time to go,’ she tells them, snatching Amy’s phone from the speaker so that the music cuts out suddenly. The silence is brutal and two of Amy’s friends giggle nervously.

  After the teenagers have left, Amy bursts into tears.

  ‘You just want to ruin my life,’ she says. ‘As if breaking up my family isn’t bad enough. Now you don’t want me to have friends either. I’m calling Dad.’

  ‘He’ll be driving,’ says Kate. ‘He won’t pick up.’

  Amy runs up to her room and slams the door. When Kate goes up to bed, Amy is still in there, refusing to talk. When Kate walks past the door of the box room, she turns her head away so she can’t see all Jack’s things. But she feels guilty all the same.

  In the doorway of her bedroom she stops. Something is wrong. She looks around the room, which still feels so strange without Jack’s shoes lined up neatly under the bed or a history book on the table on his side of the bed, with a bookmark keeping his place. Someone has been in here. She knows it.

  Kate looks closely at the bed. She is always careful about making it in the mornings, tugging down the bottom corners of the duvet so it is completely smooth. Neatness has become a habit, a result of living with Jack all these years. But though the bed is made, with the duvet pulled up, it is creased, as though someone has been lying on it, and there is a dent in one of the pillows.

  ‘Amy, get in here!’ she yells.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  Seconds later, Amy is standing in the doorway with her arms folded and a scowl on her face. She looks heartbreakingly young, and Kate is flooded with sadness and doubt.

  ‘Someone has been in my bed while I wasn’t here. I need you to be honest with me, Amy. Was it you and Max?’

  Amy’s eyes grow wide.

  ‘What? No. Ew. What do you take me for?’

  ‘Well, who then?’

  ‘No one. We stayed downstairs all the time. All of us.’

  For a moment Kate wavers. Amy’s outrage seems so real. Then she glances again at the dent in the pillow and her resolve hardens.

  ‘I don’t believe you. You’re grounded this weekend.’

  ‘You can’t do that! I haven’t done anything! It is so unfair.’

  Amy’s voice is becoming ever more shrill.

  ‘And if you’re not careful, you will be grounded the weekend after that, too,’ adds Kate.

  ‘You are literally the worst. I hate you.’

  After Amy has rushed back to her room and slammed the door once again, Kate lies in bed and thinks of all the ways she could have handled things better. She should have talked to Amy quietly and calmly. Made sure she knew she wasn’t in trouble. It was just such a shock, that’s all. Amy is a child still. To think that she might have … Well, Kate doesn’t want to think about it. That’s the thing.

  As the hours tick by without her being able to sleep, Kate lies in the dark and listens to the house creak and sigh. She tries to make herself think about Tom and how he looks at her, so she can find again the happiness of a few days ago. But every time she tries to picture his face, she sees Jack’s instead. She sees his expression when he turned to her in Julie’s counselling room and asked if she was seeing someone else.

  Amy isn’t the only one in the family telling lies.

  Chapter Six

  JACK: Saturday evening,

  six days after the split

  You are watching the television.

  And I am pretending to watch the television, but really I am watching you watching the television.

  Even from the side, I can see how hollow your cheeks have become, as if the air is being sucked out of them. There are black shadows under your eyes and you are chewing on a tiny piece of skin in the corner of your fingernail.

  You do not look good.

  There’s a stupid show on the television. About couples meeting up to go on dates. It is all set in a restaurant. I wonder if it makes you think about our first date. I took you to a French place that had just opened. I was shocked when I saw the menu. It was the most expensive restaurant I had ever been to, but I let you think it was all the same to me.

  ‘Have whatever you like,’ I said. ‘Have lobster, if you like.’

  I chose that because it was the most expensive thing and I wanted you to see I couldn’t care less about the price. Afterwards, you admitted you had never had lobster before and you only ordered it because I had suggested it. And you didn’t even like it that much.

  You can’t have forgotten it all.

  The ads come on and you jump up as if you have just thought of something. You go into the kitchen and I follow you there.

  You drag a chair to the far wall and stand on it so you can reach the high kitchen cupboard where we keep the alcohol. Where you keep the alcohol. You reach behind the collection of odd bottles we have built up over the years – vermouth, Malibu, a strange yellow drink we brought back from holiday one year. You bring out the bottle of vodka we keep in the cupboard for whenever people come round. You are not normally a big drinker. This is unusual for you.

  Getting yourself a glass, you pour a modest measure of vodka. Then you look at it for a moment and pour in a bit more. You open the freezer and take out an ice tray, which is mostly empty. ‘Typical,’ you say under your breath. Managing to get two cubes of ice out, you fetch a bottle of Coca-Cola from the fridge and pour some in. The bottle has been there a few days and there’s no fizzing noise when it hits the ice.

  You carry your drink back into the living room and sit back down on the sofa with your feet curled up underneath you. Then you take a big swig.

  You frown, and take another.

  Getting up suddenly, you storm back into the kitchen and get the bottle of vodka down again. You hold it under your nose and take a big sniff. Then you hold the bottle to your mouth and take a gulp.

  ‘Ben!’ Your shout is so loud your voice cracks.

  ‘Ben! Come here!’

  There’s the sound of something heavy thundering down the stairs and Ben appears in the kitchen. He looks c
ross.

  ‘I was in the middle of something,’ he says. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘This is what’s up,’ you say, pointing to the vodka.

  He shrugs.

  ‘I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Someone has drunk the vodka and replaced it with water.’

  ‘Well, don’t look at me.’

  ‘Are you really going to stand there and tell me it wasn’t you? Haven’t I raised you to tell the truth?’

  ‘Truth? That’s rich. Coming from you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Ben, come back here!’

  But Ben has already left the room. His feet thump on the stairs.

  For a second you stand there with your mouth open as if you are about to call after him. Then you slump down into the chair, put your head in your hands and sob as if your heart is breaking.

  Chapter Seven

  KATE: Thursday evening,

  eleven days after the split

  How is it possible that it’s Thursday again? The weeks seem to be rolling into one, and still nothing is getting better. Whoever said time is a healer was lying.

  Kate waits for Jack outside Julie’s front gate. The counsellor lives in the kind of house Kate has always dreamed of. She made the mistake of telling Jack that the first time they came here, when they were still together, still trying to ‘save the relationship’. He never stopped going on about it. How ungrateful she was after all that he’d done to make their house a home. He said that was her all over, always complaining about something, always thinking someone else had the life she should have had. ‘The grass is always greener somewhere else for you, isn’t it?’ he’d yelled at her on the way home.

  Is he right? she thinks now. Is she too hard to please? Should she have settled for what she had? Put up with Jack and his black rages? At least then the kids might still be speaking to her.

  She glances at Jack from the corner of her eye. He is wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans and his hair is neatly gelled. He has made an effort.