by Adele Parks
Michael took hold of Martha’s arms and slowly, carefully, put them back by her sides. He wasn’t looking at her. ‘I’m leaving, Martha.’
‘We’re going out?’ she asked, hesitantly, because there was something in Michael’s voice that didn’t say celebration. In fact, his body screamed hostility, frustration, shame and solitude.
Michael sighed very deeply and stared at his mobile phone. He had been fiddling with it for a while and had finally plugged it into the re-charger. ‘I’m leaving you, Martha. I’m moving out.’
The world stopped orbiting.
Martha stopped breathing.
Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it beating in her skull.
She’d heard his words, or thought she had, but she couldn’t have. They were all wrong, they didn’t make sense. They swam in front of her but still eluded the part of her brain that might decipher them, the part that could reassure her heart that she must have misheard Michael.
‘Isn’t it good news about the house?’ stuttered Martha. She waited for his beam, his nod. She wanted to tell her heart, ‘False alarm, just a joke.’
‘It’s over.’
‘What are you talking about?’ The voice didn’t sound like Martha’s. It was high pitched and very frightened.
‘I… I…’ Michael hesitated. He looked around the room and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m going to a hotel.’
‘A hotel? But I don’t understand.’ And she really didn’t. ‘What’s wrong?’
Cough. ‘It’s… it’s difficult to say–’
Suddenly Martha didn’t want to hear – hard as it might be for him to say, she had the feeling that it would be much, much harder to listen to. She had to stop him. ‘Well, don’t say it. Don’t say it. Stop being silly. Let’s get on with supper,’ she said quickly. She picked up a tea towel and started rubbing the already immaculate kitchen surfaces. Silly was one of the words Martha often used when talking to the children; the inadequacy of it suddenly hit her.
Michael ignored her interruption. ‘It’s not you, it’s me. I just…’ He couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘Just what?’ she asked automatically, as a result of years of self-training in taking a polite interest. In fact, she didn’t want to know.
‘I need some space,’ he stumbled.
And Martha thought all the clichés were true after all. ‘You’re going to get space. There’s plenty of space at the Bridleway. What are you talking about?’
‘I can’t do this any more.’
‘What? What can’t you do?’ Martha demanded. Her voice was now even quieter than usual. ‘Live happily with your wife and children?’
‘I’m not happy.’
Martha swayed. She felt behind her and lowered herself into a chair. He’s not happy. He’s not happy. But she was always asking him if he was happy. ‘Are you happy, darling?’ she’d sing. ‘Of course I am, which man wouldn’t be?’ he’d reply, often accompanying his words with a quick peck on the cheek. She tried hard to make him happy. ‘Aren’t we lucky,’ he’d volunteer. Often. He often said, ‘Aren’t we lucky.’ Lucky was like happy, wasn’t it? Or at least part of it.
‘I realize this must be a shock.’
Michael’s lips moved and Martha watched them, but she didn’t know who was talking. Not Michael, that’s for certain, not her Micky, not her sweet Mikey. The intruder was wearing Michael’s shirt and jeans, admittedly. And he was wearing Michael’s watch but not his smile, and his eyes, which occasionally flicked over Martha, were dead. There was no love in them, and Michael’s eyes had always oozed love and concern. What was this imposter saying now?
‘I’m not in love with you any more, Martha. Feeling as I do, I think it would be unfair to commit to the new mortgage.’
Martha’s head exploded. She felt an intense pain inside her brain, and she thought that her head would split wide open, shatter into splinters, and tiny shards of skull would lodge in the kitchen walls. It wouldn’t be a loss. It was a useless head, anyway, and a pointless, hopeless mind that hadn’t seen this coming, hadn’t suspected a thing. Indeed, quite the opposite. Martha had thought, believed, that she was safe from such excruciating, searing, clear pain. Because they were happy. Happily married, and that was like an insurance policy, wasn’t it?
‘But you’re already committed to me. Mortgage or no mortgage. I’m your wife,’ Martha insisted. She was desperately trying to be logical, but she felt like Alice in Wonderland, confused, shrinking and falling.
‘I know that,’ sighed Michael, and then he too flopped back into a chair. He obviously couldn’t get comfortable, or maybe he wanted to make it clear that he really was going, because he immediately leant forward and perched on the edge of the seat. He held his head in his hands.
Martha thought, as she often thought, that he had beautiful hair. Blue black. His eyes were his best point, the eyes that had shone with love and concern, but his hair was lovely too.
They sat in silence.
After an eternity, Michael scraped back his chair and made to stand up.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Martha quickly.
‘A local hotel. I’m booked in for a few days, and then we’ll think of something more permanent.’ He left the room.
‘Don’t go. Don’t,’ said Martha, but she wasn’t even sure if she’d said this out loud or just in her head.
11
Nothing was certain any more. Everything she believed in had dissolved. Martha had not slept. She’d spent the night sitting bolt upright in bed. She had not cried either. She had simply stared at the spot where Michael should have been in their bed. She touched the pillow, it was cold. No one had slept there. There had been no tussle over the duvet last night. No one to cuddle her to sleep.
Her husband had disappeared.
He wasn’t happy.
Not happy? Well, couldn’t he be happy again? Of course he could. He should have just said that he was unhappy and they could have fixed it. She could have fixed it. Why had he left? People, married people with children, didn’t leave just because they weren’t happy. Did they? What had made him unhappy? What could she do to make him happy again?
Why hadn’t she asked him any of this last night?
You can’t just say, ‘I’m unhappy’, and then leave. You have to try a bit harder than that. How could he be unhappy and she not have known?
Martha felt stupid.
There had been rows, not that many – although thinking about it, recently the rows had been more frequent. She had been very tired, Maisie’s colic had taken it out of them both, as had Mathew’s jealousy and tantrums. But Maisie had started to sleep through now, and Mathew was becoming more confident again. They were just children; no one could blame them.
And so Martha and Michael had started to blame each other.
The imminent move had been a bit of a strain too. Spending every weekend searching for the perfect house hadn’t exactly been a bundle of laughs. They had nagged, bickered, picked at one another. They were both weary, harried, spent, but they had been working towards a joint future. And that demanded effort. That’s why he always worked such long hours. He was ambitious and wanted to build them a future; that’s what he always said he wanted more than anything. That couldn’t have changed, could it? Not just like that. Was he overworked perhaps? It could be that, yet he always said he loved his job.
But, then, he’d always said he loved her – until last night.
House moving is stressful, everyone knows that. But now they’d found the house they wouldn’t have to spend weekends dragging the children around estate agents. They would be OK. They were through the worst. He couldn’t leave. He was her husband.
She loved him.
He was not in love with her.
The words whipped her. Scorched and branded her. She was so ashamed. Martha wished she smoked, or drank, or shouted, or had some sort of refuge. Somewhere to hide from her own stupidity and shame.
What did
he want? She’d give it to him. Whatever it was, she’d do it. She’d make him happy again. He just had to come home. They just had to forget this silly spat.
Martha reached for the phone and for the hundredth time that night she started to dial the number of Michael’s mobile. For the hundredth time, she hung up before she pressed the last digit. She looked at the clock. 5 a.m., too early to call. He was never at his best in the mornings.
It was all a silly mix-up. He would come home today. Best not call him, best not make too big an issue out of it.
‘Mama, Mama.’ The tinkling voice drifted from the nursery.
‘I’m coming, Maisie.’ Martha swung her legs out from under the duvet; she was still wearing the dress that she’d put on for the dinner party.
‘Mummeeee, I need a wee-wee.’ Mathew’s voice this time, more insistent.
‘Good boy, Mathew. Well done for telling Mummy, let’s get you to the toilet.’
See, even toilet-training was working. Everything was getting easier. It would be OK.
Michael didn’t call during breakfast. He missed seeing Maisie put her bowl of Coco Pops on her head. Martha had dashed to the garage to buy Coco Pops. They didn’t normally have sugary cereals, but Martha thought they were all in need of a treat. She’d never have thought of buying cereal at a garage if it hadn’t been for the conversation she’d had with Eliza the day before. She hadn’t even taken the time to shower, or change out of her little black dress. She just popped the children into the double buggy and dashed to the garage, without so much as brushing her hair. She didn’t stop to consider the possible catastrophe of meeting other mummies from Mathew’s playgroup whilst she was in this state of disarray. Odd, because this was normally a major concern of hers.
Mathew couldn’t believe his luck that he was allowed Coco Pops – it wasn’t even a holiday. Martha also bought doughnuts, and some magazines, like the ones that had intrigued her in the supermarket. Could it be possible that it was only yesterday when Martha had thought that these messy lives were irrelevant? Now the headlines seemed to have been written just for her: ‘Male Midlife Crisis Happening Earlier and Earlier’; ‘My Husband Went to the Newsagent’s and Never Came Back’. There was also another article on Liz Hurley and other celebrity single mums – not that Martha was going to be a single mum, this was just a silly spat. No, that article was definitely not relevant. Martha quickly put the magazine back on the shelf, as though by holding it she were risking catching a divorce.
Then she picked it up again.
She bought the magazine.
Martha never shouted when the children made a mess eating. She’d read in one of her many books about children’s behaviour that if you did so, they started to associate stress and anger with mealtimes, and you’d end up with picky eaters. Michael wanted the children to eat at restaurants and try different delicacies when they were on their foreign holidays; he definitely did not want picky eaters. He didn’t like mess, though. He’d have scowled if he’d seen Maisie’s hair dripping with chocolatey milk. He’d have told Martha that her laughing was encouraging bad behaviour, that she was too soft.
Mathew didn’t ask where his Daddy was, although he did ask to go to the park.
‘Not today, darling.’
‘But we always go today,’ argued Mathew with a child’s logic. It was true that Martha took the children to the park every Sunday morning. Church, then park. It wasn’t really that she was particularly religious, but church had become somewhere to take the children (before the shops opened) in order to allow Michael some peaceful time to himself. And church was quite a pleasant place to be. The old dears always seemed delighted to see Mathew and Maisie, they often amused one or both of them, giving Martha free hands, if not free time.
But this Sunday she couldn’t risk going out in case Michael called. It was unlikely that he would sleep in today. He was bound to call and, no doubt, he would be feeling really silly and would need Martha to be in and to be bright and breezy. If he called and she was out and he had to call again, he might lose his nerve. So although it was a lovely day for a visit to the park, a blustery, bright day and they could have fed the ducks – which they loved to do – they all stayed at home.
In the morning they painted.
‘Who’s that, Mathew?’
‘You.’
‘And who’s that?’
‘Me, and that’s Maisie.’
‘Where’s Daddy?’
‘He’s not in my picture. He’s at work.’
‘I think we should draw one for Daddy.’
Michael didn’t call whilst the children were having their afternoon naps, which would have been a good time because they could have had an uninterrupted discussion. He didn’t call at tea time, or bath time or story time.
Michael didn’t call.
Martha opened herself a bottle of wine. She chose one of the very best bottles on the rack. She felt in need of another treat – the Coco Pops seemed an age ago – and it certainly felt indulgent opening a bottle of wine just for herself – especially as she knew she wouldn’t drink it all – but then what choice did she have, since there was no one to share it with.
It was ten past eight. He’d left twenty-four hours ago. He hadn’t called once, not even to ask after the children.
The magazines were perhaps an ill-advised move. Martha wasn’t used to their gossipy, irreverent tone and so had read them as gospel. She was now petrified that as nearly half the marriages in Britain ended in divorce, hers was also bound to. Before reading the magazines she’d thought she was in the middle of a tiff; now she was sure she was at the start of an acrimonious custody struggle that would probably culminate in her having to kidnap her own children and run away to stash them in a foreign country. There were numerous articles about struggling or dying relationships: ‘How to keep the Zap in the Sack’;‘The Break-up, Make-up Cycle: How to Avoid it’; ‘Why Men are Genetically Inclined to Wander: The Hunter-gatherer Syndrome’.
Was there someone else?
It was possible.
Martha didn’t want to think it, but she didn’t know how to stop thinking it. Michael was always at some function or other in the evenings. To be honest, she’d quite lost track of where he went and who with. She used to know the name and birthday of every person in his department; she used to buy their birthday cards. She still did the same for all Mathew’s little playschool friends. Michael’s department was too big now. Since he’d been promoted, Martha couldn’t keep up.
No, don’t be ridiculous. Of course Michael isn’t having an affair. This is Michael, for God’s sake.
Were they in debt? Would they overstretch themselves with this new house? Perhaps Michael simply didn’t dare tell her that they couldn’t afford the Bridleway. Silly man, that didn’t matter to her. Not really, not now. She didn’t need five bedrooms. Not as much as she needed him.
Perhaps he’d been made redundant? Every time she put on the news there was some report about the oil industry and cutbacks management were having to make. Could Michael be one of those men that got dressed for work every day, left with his laptop, and then went to sit in the park until home time? No, he couldn’t be; he always worked late, that didn’t make sense at all.
None of it made sense.
What should she do? Should she ring him and tell him that it was OK? Whatever it was, it was OK. That they could fix it, that they could work on it and that they could have a better, stronger marriage?
Or should she tell him to piss off?
Martha winced. She never swore, not even in her head. She looked at her glass. It was already empty, which explained the outburst. She was aware that it was at times of crisis such as this that women turned into alcoholics. You heard about it all the time.
Sod it. She poured another.
Martha’s hands felt heavy, her back ached and her legs were dead weights. Eyes open or closed, she couldn’t focus. She couldn’t move. She had no idea what to do. Her life, which had always been
full and busy and purposeful, had lost all its clarity.
12
‘The doorbell keeps ringing, Mummmmmeeeee,’ yelled Mathew. He was sat at the kitchen table employed in helping to feed Maisie. A messy, counter-productive exercise, which he largely neglected in favour of running his toy motorbikes through the pools of chocolatey milk decorating just about every surface in the kitchen.
‘I know,’ said Martha. ‘I can hear it.’
‘Answer it. Answer it, Mummy,’ yelled Mathew again, taking on a persona not unlike the Last Emperor of China. Martha looked at her son and could see a lot of Michael in him. She didn’t move towards the door.
Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnngggg.
Someone was persistent. Martha thought it must be the postman; it couldn’t be Michael as he had a key and no reason to ring. She didn’t want to see anyone else at all.
Rrrrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnggggg.
Martha thought she might cry. Instead she dragged herself from the table and went to answer the door. She felt she had no choice.
‘Sorry for arriving unannounced,’ said Eliza. ‘Can I leave that there? There’s more in the cab.’ Without waiting for a reply, Eliza galloped down the front steps, two at a time, and dashed towards a waiting cab. Martha looked at the suitcase in the hall. She hadn’t slept for two nights so she was too tired to compute the information.
Eliza paid the cabby, and hauled a number of what appeared to be dead bodies in sacks up towards Martha’s doorway.
‘I’m so sorry, Martha. But I’ve been at mum and dad’s since Saturday tea time. That’s what, how many hours?’
‘About thirty,’ said Martha, as she’d been counting her life in hours all weekend.
‘Really? Seems a lifetime.’
‘Doesn’t it,’ agreed Martha.
Eliza bustled past Martha, dragging her luggage behind her. She was too engrossed in her own problems to wonder what Martha meant. ‘I did spend Sunday afternoon at the estate agent’s trying to find somewhere to rent. But what a disaster. They all wanted to knock off at three and I’d had a heavy night the night before, didn’t get there until two. There’s not much you can achieve by way of renting a flat in an hour.’
