by Fiona Gibson
I feel light-headed as I peer at my haggard reflection in the toaster. It’s partially obscured by a dollop of jam which Toby flicked onto it, and which has been there so long, I suspect it might have to be shot-blasted off. Do people ping jam about in Naomi’s house? Of course not. I peer closer, tilting my head to avoid the smear. Just as I thought. A hint of recent snog activity around the mouth and jaw region. There are pink patches, which feel hot to the touch and are clearly punishment for my sin. I can’t remember ever having snog burn before. Maybe I’m allergic to Danny?
I dampen a tea towel under the cold tap and dab at the pink bits, trying to soothe them before Jed notices anything. The TV burbles on. Maybe I’m being paranoid, and he’s just tired from the bathtime-and-story routine. Or perhaps this is his normal response to me and I’m reading too much into everything.
‘Hi,’ he says lightly, appearing in the kitchen doorway.
‘Hi.’ I muster a smile and drop teabags into two mugs. ‘I take it you’d like one?’
‘Yes please.’ He looks tired and sad, and a little older than when I left him earlier this evening. I take in the soft brown eyes, the thick wavy hair I used to love to bury myself in, as I breathed in his warm scent. He’s still handsome, still the man I fell in love with. For a moment, I’m back at that party, aged twenty-three, spotting him nursing his bottle of Becks and plonking myself on the stair beside him.
‘Um, is everything okay, Jed?’ My voice sounds oddly detached.
He pauses and looks at me. It feels as if our house, which normally creaks and murmurs like a living thing, is standing deadly still. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says.
‘What about?’
‘What you wrote on that note.’
‘What note?’ I ask, frowning, then feeling sick as I remember the note I wrote late at night at Kate’s. Reasons to stay with Jed. Reasons to split. Surely I didn’t leave that lying about? I desperately try to think where I put it, and vaguely remember reaching down for my toilet bag on the floor by my bed, and dropping it in there. ‘Oh, that was just silly!’ I say with a ridiculous guffaw. ‘I didn’t mean it at all.’ My kissing rash throbs urgently, or maybe I’m just imagining it. I can’t believe he can’t see it, doesn’t know.
‘Well, I’ve thought it over,’ he says levelly, ‘and I think it’ll help all of us.’
‘You . . . do?’ It slips out in a whisper.
Jed nods. ‘It’s a mad situation and it’s time we did something about it.’
‘I really don’t think we need to, Jed. I mean, we all write daft things when . . .’
‘It’ll be more practical,’ he cuts in.
‘Do you think so?’ My lip is starting to wobble.
‘It needn’t cost a lot,’ he adds.
Great! Unravel our lives, break up our family for a fancy French bit and what’s he concerned about? Money. ‘You’re probably right,’ I splutter. ‘I’m sure you can do it cheaply online.’
‘Sorry?’ He frowns, causing furrows to appear on his forehead.
‘I imagine it’s easy if you want to go through with it . . .’
‘Laura, why are you crying? I thought you’d be pleased. I assumed you wanted . . .’
‘Of course I don’t,’ I wail. ‘I only did it because I was trying to decide what to do. That’s why I took the kids up to Kate’s. I had to get away, you see. I couldn’t deal with being around you any more.’
‘What on earth are you on about?’
‘So I thought I’d write a list of all the reasons,’ I charge on, ‘then I’d know . . .’ I fade off. Jed is staring at me uncomprehendingly.
‘What list of reasons?’
‘The, the . . . list of why we should, er, stay together. Or split up . . .’
‘Split up?’ He looks aghast.
I nod.
‘Is that what you want? You want a divorce?’
‘No. I really don’t, Jed . . .’ I swipe a sleeve across my face. Jed lowers himself onto a kitchen chair on which someone has left a solitary oven chip.
‘But you thought about it, obviously.’ He fishes the chip out from under his bottom and throws it angrily onto the floor.
‘Well, yes, but only because of . . .’
‘The thing I was talking about,’ he adds in a resigned tone, ‘is that note you wrote about us needing a new bathroom. Reasons why we had to have it. You stuck it on the door, remember? I know you haven’t been happy and I decided, when I was doing bathtime with the kids tonight, that that’s probably the reason. That’s what I meant.’
I gawp at him. ‘Oh.’
‘And I spoke to Celeste about it – she popped in while you were away – and she said she could see your point.’
‘Right,’ I say tartly. ‘So you’ve decided we need a new bathroom and then, when we’ve got that, everything will be all right.’
‘Well, um . . . I hope so.’ He smiles weakly. I wonder why I’m experiencing a distinct lack of excitement at the prospect of new bathroom fittings.
‘Where would we put it?’ I ask.
‘Well, at first I thought we could carve a bit off our bedroom but then, Celeste said—’
‘What is it with you and Celeste? Don’t you see, Jed? We can’t even talk about bathrooms, and God knows I don’t even care about bathrooms, I’d be happy to pee in a bucket actually, if it meant her name didn’t keep popping up . . .’
‘Yes, but—’
‘As if it’s not enough,’ I rant on, ‘being subjected to you two pawing each other and sneaking off for cosy drinks in the country together, now I can’t even go away to visit my sister without her dropping by!’
‘Shouldn’t I be the one worrying about what you’re up to?’ he snaps back. My heart thuds with alarm.
‘What . . . d’you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Your cosy little runs with that . . . that man. That’s if you even do go running, which I doubt . . .’
‘Of course we do, Jed . . .’
‘Didn’t think I knew, did you? Sorry, Laura, but when you’re a teacher, the kids take great delight in telling you all kinds of things.’
‘What things?’ I say faintly.
‘Things like, “Saw your wife in the park, Mr Swan, with a man in a tracksuit. Got a personal trainer, has she?”’ He emits a bitter laugh. Hell. Who spotted us? Those snogging teenagers on the bench, all those weeks ago? So Jed’s known all along. Not that I have anything to be ashamed of, apart from a little kiss, and stripping naked in front of Danny, and that was only to benefit the artistic community . . .
‘And where were you tonight?’ Jed thunders on. ‘You weren’t really at Naomi’s were you, discussing the athletics club?’ He spits out the words.
‘Yes I was!’
‘You don’t even like her, yet you pop over to see her and you’re gone for hours . . .’ I take in the furious dark eyes and the bitter, downturned mouth.
‘It’s written all over your face,’ he adds.
We fall into silence, and I pray that the children won’t have heard us, they’re all fast asleep, dreaming about Kate’s chickens or drum patterns or Ted. ‘You’re right,’ I murmur, studying a mysterious yellow splodge on the floor. ‘I . . . I went to see him tonight.’
‘Who?’
‘Danny. The man I’ve been running with. You’re right, Jed, and I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you the truth.’
‘What did you go there for? Or needn’t I ask?’
‘I, he . . . he wanted to take pictures of me. He’s, erm . . . a photographer.’
‘Oh. Right. And what kind of photos did he have in mind?’ Jed narrows his eyes at me.
‘Just a portrait,’ I murmur. ‘He, um, works for newspapers but likes doing portraits and he thought I’d be good for that.’
‘Sure, bet he did.’ Jed swings around and storms out of the kitchen. I want to follow him, to say I’m sorry and that, whatever he’s been up to, it doesn’t matter any more because I’ve hardly been the model wife. I’ve lie
d, I’ve sort of cheated, if kissing counts. Now I want to take it all back and do whatever I can to make things right again. But I can’t, because when I find him in the hall, he’s pulling on his jacket, and opening the front door, and leaving me. ‘Is that why you’ve lost all that weight?’ he snaps. ‘Because you wanted to make yourself slim for . . . for him?’
I shake my head. ‘There’s no reason. It just sort of happened . . .’
‘Because when we first met, you said being in love stopped you eating, that you were too excited for food . . .’
‘That was different!’
‘How was it different?’
‘Because I was with you, Jed. And this is nothing, okay? I promise you . . .’
‘Are you in love with him?’ His face seems to crumple as he stands at the open door, and I want to put my arms around him and pull him close.
‘Of course I’m not,’ I cry. With a weird kind of snort, he turns away. ‘Jed, please don’t go. Listen to me . . .’
‘You’re a bloody nutter,’ he barks, then steps out into the cool night and into our car which he revs far too aggressively and drives away.
I stand, watching it grow smaller as he drives away from me. Then he’s gone, without a bag or anything. I stand on the pavement for a long time, waiting for our car to reappear and Jed to tumble out and hug me and say it’s okay.
But he doesn’t come back. Slowly, shivering now, I turn back to our house. Somehow, I decide, glancing up at our dangly gutter, I probably deserve this.
Chapter Forty
I try calling Jed at 1.30 a.m., and 5.17 a.m., but he doesn’t pick up. I wake up with a deep crevice running across my cheek from the rumpled sheet. ‘Seen my trainers?’ Finn asks as we meet on the landing. If he’s noticed my haggard state, he’s chosen not to comment upon it. Perhaps I always appear like this to him – pale and gnarled with bloodshot eyes, like a Halloween ghoul.
‘I’ve seen them lying around,’ I say distractedly. ‘Maybe in the living or the kitchen. Or try the bottom of the stairs . . .’
He clucks loudly. ‘Could you be more specific?’
‘Finn, I’m sorry. I have other things on my mind right now . . .’ That slipped out. I made a mental note early this morning not to tell the children anything about our little tiff. I’m trying to convince myself that that’s all it was – otherwise I’ll never get through the whole breakfast, cajoling-kids-into-uniforms routine. And I don’t want them going to school and nursery and informing some concerned adult that Mum lied and Dad was furious and stormed off into the night.
‘Well, I can’t go to school in bare feet,’ Finn says, crossing his arms confrontationally.
‘No, love, I know you can’t.’
‘So . . . what . . .?’ He shrugs dramatically.
‘Keep looking,’ I say in as sweet a voice as I can choke out, ‘while I get breakfast together.’
‘Can we have eggs?’ Grace shouts from the bathroom where she’s trying to construct a complicated up-do.
‘Yes we can, if you hurry. Leave your hair, though. I’ll do it for you. It’s almost impossible to do it yourself at the back.’
‘I can do it,’ she snaps as I go in to help her.
‘Grace, it’ll only take a minute . . .’
‘I said I can do it!’
‘Fine.’ I march out to the landing where Finn is still standing in stockinged feet, blinking into the middle distance as if expecting the elusive trainers to float towards him, perhaps on a flying flannel. I am unreasonably irked about Grace’s hair. Surely, as a hairdresser, it would make sense for my children to request my hair-related services occasionally?
Finn tails me downstairs. ‘Heard you and Dad shouting last night,’ he growls.
My heart judders. ‘Did you? It was nothing really. All couples have silly squabbles sometimes. I know it’s not very nice, love, but it is completely normal.’
He squints at me. ‘It was about shopping.’
I frown at him as we reach the kitchen. ‘Was it? Yes, you’re probably right. It was so silly and trivial, I can’t actually remember what it was about . . .’ I chuckle pathetically.
‘It was about butter,’ Finn says.
‘Was it?’ I busy myself by taking the milk from the fridge and sniffing it.
‘Yeah. Dad said, “There’s no butter”.’
‘Did he?’ I say with a small laugh. What did he really say again? The words are etched into my brain. You’re a bloody nutter . . .
‘You should get some,’ Finn adds, ‘next time you’re shopping.’
‘Yes, I will. I’ll make a note of it. In fact I’ll do it now.’ I feel pathetic, going through the charade of rummaging through our junk drawer, with its balls of string and crumpled Chinese takeaway menus in search of a pen and a scrap of paper.
‘Here’s a pen.’ Finn hands me a Biro from the floor. It’s cracked, I notice, like most things around here. Someone must have stood on it.
‘Thank you, love,’ I say pleasantly. Shopping list, I write, aware of his caustic gaze. Butter. Then, because I feel I should write something else, I add: Salted and unsalted.
‘Where’s Daddy?’ Toby has appeared in the doorway wearing an old, faded Pokemon T-shirt that used to be Finn’s, and nothing else. He scratches his blond curly hair and gives his willy an absent-minded tug.
‘He’s . . . out,’ I say, scuttling towards the toaster where I attempt to scrub off the hardened jam with a pan scourer.
‘Is he at work?’ Toby asks.
‘Um, yes, probably. I think he went in early, had loads to do. Er, now, d’you want toast or . . .’
‘You said you’d do eggs,’ Grace declares, marching into the kitchen with her hair pulled back into some kind of mangled bun that’s not befitting the daughter of a hairdresser.
‘Oh yes,’ I murmur, fetching eggs from the fridge and wondering what Jed’s doing right now. Is he wandering the streets, berating himself for wasting fifteen years of his life with a nut-job? I open the egg box. One egg.
‘Can I have it?’ Toby asks.
‘I want it,’ Grace protests. ‘I asked first.’
‘He should have it,’ Finn breathes, proceeding to swing on the fridge door. ‘He’s the youngest and needs to grow more.’
‘Thanks for your input, Finn. But I don’t think swinging on the fridge door will help you find your trainers.’
‘Unless they’re in the fridge,’ Grace adds.
‘You borrowed them,’ Finn declares, ‘so you must know where you put them last.’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but that was weeks ago when I’d just started running. You’ve worn them loads since then. You’ve even had new ones – they were forty-five quid, don’t you remember?’ I take the solitary egg from the box, momentarily enjoying its soothing coolness in my palm. I’m not sure who’ll have it. Why are mothers expected to make seemingly minor but potentially life-shattering decisions about 500 times a day? I pull out a frying pan and heat the oil, deciding that the problem will sort itself out, in the way that Jed and I will sort ourselves out, and everything will come right in the end.
I crack the egg into the pan, wincing at its murky grey hue and distinctly off smell. ‘Uh, it’s farty,’ Grace squeals.
I look at it, grey and flaccid in the pan, and check the box. The date’s fine, and it should be okay, but inside its fragile shell things have clearly gone wrong. ‘Sorry, the egg’s off,’ I say.
‘Awww,’ Grace groans.
‘Hey, Mum!’ I swing round to see Finn actually smiling, and for a moment it’s as if my old, sunny-faced boy has reappeared. The boy who’d drink milk and loved Lego and would snuggle up to me in his pyjamas. ‘Look,’ he says, brandishing a silvery block of Lurpak. ‘We do have butter, Mum. It was here all the time in the fridge.’
*
After dropping off the children I head straight to work, having only briefly considered throwing a sickie. What would I do at home all day anyway? Constantly phone Jed and worry like mad a
bout his whereabouts? Or pace around our bedroom, burying my face in his slightly stale (gag) pyjamas? In fact work is good, because I’m rushed off my feet from the moment I walk in. Jess is off sick, so Simone and I are on shampooing as well as cutting duties. Head after head, without a break, right through until lunch. I switch to autopilot, making bland conversation about jobs and holidays whilst slathering soapy heads.
‘Where’s the girl who usually shampoos me?’ asks the head from the basin.
‘Jess? I’m afraid she’s off sick today.’
‘Oh. That’s a shame. I like her. Don’t you do a head massage?’
‘We normally do,’ I explain, ‘but we’re pretty pushed today. I’m sorry, I’m sure you’ll be able to have one next time. In fact I’ll make a note of it when you book.’ I can sense vexation radiating from her scalp.
‘Jess does a lovely head massage,’ she adds. ‘It’s my favourite part of coming here. Most places, you get some bored teenager giving your head an idle little poke, but with Jessie it’s so deep and relaxing . . .’
Oh, all-bloody-right. I start massaging, but can sense that service is still being regarded as substandard. This is what happens when you go upmarket. Clients expect massages, lattes, seventeen varieties of herbal tea – even food, for God’s sake, in the form of chocolate-drizzled macaroons which Simone picks up by the hundred at some bleak industrial unit outside York, pretending they’re flown in specially from Paris. ‘That’s a bit too firm.’ The woman squirms in her seat.
‘Is it? I’m sorry. Is that better?’ I work the pads of my fingers and thumbs rhythmically across her scalp, thinking it’s hardly surprising that my massage technique is a little on the firm side today. Hers would be too, if her husband had walked out on her. My mind drifts to Jed, and whether he’s shown up for work today, or is huddled on a damp bench somewhere, covered in newspaper, weeping for me.
