He came closer, raised his hands before him and laid his palms high on my chest, quiet and heavy, setting my heartbeat staggering.
‘I want to ask you to reconsider,’ he said. ‘You are not that person, I know you’re not. The kind of woman who is like, I was bored, no one sees me, all that crap people bring to your office every day. This isn’t in the abstract. This is real. We are talking about our children’s lives. Are you ready to rip this down?’
‘It doesn’t have to be like that, Stef,’ I said.
‘Will you really leave our children?’ he asked.
‘I would never leave the kids.’
He laughed then, a short hard laugh and raised his hands from me.
‘Well, what do you think we’re going to do?’ he said. ‘All live here together happily? I’m asking you to think again.’
‘Stefan, I know this is sudden, but I’m worried that you’re not really hearing me—’
‘I’m not in shock, if that’s what you mean. I’m hurt. Of course I am. But I’ve thought about it and I know it will take time, but what we have in this family is more important —’
‘Stef, I’m sorry. I don’t understand—’
‘Oh, Nancy,’ he said, in a pitying kind of voice. ‘I know,’ and for an insane moment I thought: Adam.
‘It was your brother,’ he said.
‘What? When?’ I asked.
‘In the car, when I took him home. He couldn’t wait. I don’t know if he thought he was acting on your behalf, I’ve no idea, I’ve never understood that man, but, you see, I have had time and I believe, no, I am sure, that we can still make this work.’
Stefan took a step away. He was utterly familiar now. Steady and lucid. Firm and eternal.
‘You know me, Nancy. I can put this aside, if that is what is needed. We can start again. No harm done.’
*
As a child I had dreamt of an old age with my brother, unborn children grown and gone, unmet spouses swept aside. In my vision, I would look after us, I wouldn’t ask questions, and he would stay. I pictured fun, and that part was feasible – we have always laughed – but also ease and comfort, as though these were our ways and his love didn’t come with teeth. I’d thought that I was wishing for nothing to change, for one strong unbroken line stretching from childhood to the end. But that was a little girl’s fantasy. I saw, now, that I had been dreaming of the opposite; a laying down of weapons, of truce.
31
Midsummer and my office was full of a hard white light, sharpened through the wet glass of the pane. Simple refraction – I’d been through it the night before with Jake, who had come to me reluctantly, in need, thanks to a pressing test. I touched the back of his neck, hot and damp, as he turned to his work, and he let me. Louisa seems OK and Frieda is lost to Brandon for now. It will out in its own good time.
I visit them in my old home, a guest, ringing the front doorbell again and again when no one comes, with the anticipation of a lover. I had to bang on the sitting room window the other afternoon; I could see Jake in there, on his feet, with his headset on and a console in his grip, lurching around and calling out. The brief lift in his face when he saw me gave me hope. The girls came downstairs dreamily, their heads still in whatever they’d left behind upstairs.
The house is subtly changed. It is cleaner, for a start. Stef has someone new who comes in twice a week and the place smells strongly of her bleaches and sprays, chlorine and pine. It is neater, too. He seems to have subdued all the crap that I could never quite keep down.
Something was altered at the back when I followed them through, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. He saw me looking and said: ‘It’s the garden. Do you see? I’ve only just begun, but there’s been a lot of cutting back. It’s completely changed the light.’ And he is right. The eye falls differently; the shape of the room, and its emphasis, has shifted. Even the dog has noticed and moved his spot. It wouldn’t support the old life, I wouldn’t know how to be in this new space, but that is fine, for I am just a visitor now. Stef took me through his plans and I listened with affected interest. He treats me with a kindly sort of sympathy. I feel like a tolerated but disappointing child. After that, he left, and I was free to enjoy the children as best I could for the hours meted out, though I will see them again tomorrow and on my weekend, which falls in just nine days. Then I will stay two nights in the house, in the spare room that I furnished over a decade ago, stranded in the wreckage of my own outdated taste.
David phones and phones, he wants to see me, at least to speak, but I’m holding him off. He will expect thanks, I imagine; his part in all this to be recognised. He thinks I’ve learnt from him, at the feet of the master; he doesn’t see the cost. He’ll be missing our games and will know that he’ll never replace me. I am his only worthy opponent. We were so perfectly matched. Not any more, though. He may want to spar but I find I’ve lost the taste.
Lynn buzzed to tell me that my client had arrived, speaking her name with a roll, like a compere; her most winning habit. Nicola Strode. The syllables scanned beautifully.
I had been back at work for a couple of months. There will be no court case though there was a moment when it looked as if the mother might proceed. Mark became my ally in the end. He saw his wife far more clearly than she or I ever did. I swear I will work harder next time. I will not give up.
I met Nicola at the threshold of the room and we turned inside together, taking our corresponding places in my chairs. I looked at her properly, then, for the first time, my very best part of the process. This is ancient circuitry doing its thing. I’ve seen the moment that it happens on a screen, the almond shape of the amygdala lighting up with a gentle flickering, tentative and careful, nothing like the absoluteness of its verdict. I sat back and let impressions hit. I am an empty vessel. But the sun was in my eyes and Nicola’s face was nothing but a brilliant vacuum. I looked away and refocused on what was close, the bookshelf, the painting, my own naked hand. There was a glare in the room that made everything savage and perfect. Someone slammed a door in a neighbouring room, my coffee shuddered in its cup and I felt like Peter Parker at the first effects of the spider-bite. The beginnings of a change, subtle and monumental.
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘the light in here’s blinding. I’m going to have to shift my chair.’
It was heavy and took a number of shoves. She watched me from her seat. The wheels had left deep rust-stained dents in the carpet, but that could wait.
‘Much better,’ I said and the room resettled. I saw a young girl, a little face beneath huge hair, presenting cynicism, lip and isolation. She was as brilliant as the day, as exposing and relentless, but there was joy in her too, which leaves its mark as surely as pain or age.
‘I have your doctor’s referral here, and I can certainly help with your symptoms but what we’re really trying to do over the next few months is get beneath all that and understand the reasons why you’re feeling the way you are. We need to address the root cause. Does that make sense?’
She nodded, and took a thick wedge of hair and flicked it across.
‘They will have told you, too, that everything you say in here is confidential. It will remain between us. So the more honest you can be, even about the most difficult things, the better.’
She wore the same boots as Frieda, I recognised the stitching on the sole.
‘I should mention at this point that I’ll be off for the next week, which is bad timing, I know, but I won’t be away again during our first chunk of sessions.’
I felt her withdrawal. ‘Off somewhere nice?’ she said, jerking her head towards my suitcase, tucked away as best I could behind my desk.
So, an observant girl. A person who needs to feel in control of her environment. Or somebody attuned to threat.
‘It’s not a holiday actually,’ I said. ‘I’m moving.’
‘Oh,’ she replied, and her attention focused. What kind of woman moves house with one old bag she’s dragged into work?
‘You’re not leaving me again, are you?’ Adam had asked, when I went to go this morning. ‘Not a second time.’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘but thanks for having me. You know it was never permanent.’ I turned back to kiss him goodbye.
‘Won’t you reconsider?’
‘In a while, perhaps,’ I said.
‘Will you write?’ he asked. ‘Will you call?’
‘Come over this evening,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll cook.’
‘Can I stay over?’ he asked.
‘We’ll see. Bring pyjamas. Just in case.’
My new house is small and unimproved. I got a builder in to pull out the vile fitted wardrobe and found a strange green corrugated wallpaper behind it. When the plasterer stripped that back, there was another layer of paper, satinette this time, a spray of red roses on endless repeat. ‘Give up, love,’ he said, ‘we’ll be here until we’re old,’ and he was joking but when he’d finished with the walls, I sent him away, and now plan to leave the elaborate cornicing and the rest of it, and try to live around these things instead. There are two bedrooms only and we will see how the children feel about this place, but it is not my intention to build a replica home around myself. They have one already, which they love and which works, and I plan, instead, to help to keep that standing. For me, now, this will do.
‘OK,’ I said to Nicola. ‘Shall we begin? Do you want to tell me, in your own words, why you’re here?’
Acknowledgements
First and profound thanks to Antony Topping, my agent, who sees where I’m going long before I do, nudges me gently that way and waits patiently while I get there. Also Judith Murray and the team at Greene & Heaton.
Next Louisa Joyner, my editor. She lifted this story pretty much clean from amongst many more thousand words. And Sophie Portas, for helping it find its audience.
Thanks to all at Faber, in particular Samantha Matthews, Dominique Enright, Alex Kirby, Paul Baillie-Lane, Sarah Barlow and Anne Owen. The estate of Derek Walcott for allowing me to quote his beautiful poem ‘Love After Love’.
Then my early readers, Dorothy Hourston, Rosalind de Haan, Shiraz El Showk and Kirsty Negus for their honesty and insight.
Toby Wiltshire, Ollie Waring and Sarah Libbey for advice on matters youth-related.
My writer friends, Jo Bloom and Rebecca Whitney for their wisdom, perspective and company.
Christina Harris, my mother, for emergency childcare and more. And last, Neil, Martha and Archie, for all the rest.
About the Author
After fifteen years writing strategy for advertising agencies, Alex Hourston took a break to go back to university and her first love, books. In My House was published by Faber in 2015. Alex lives outside Brighton with her family. This is her second novel.
Also by the Author
IN MY HOUSE
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2018
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2018
All rights reserved
© Alex Hourston, 2018
Cover design by Faber
Images © Gary S. Chapman/Getty; schankz/Shuttershock
‘Love After Love’ from The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948–2013 © The Estate of Derek Walcott, 2014 Reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd
The right of Alex Hourston to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31694–6
Love After Love Page 25
