by Adele Parks
Eliza had never had to have intimate contact with estate agents in the past. She had travelled too much ever to need a permanent base. And whenever she did need a pad in the UK she was the type of girl that people wanted to share a flat with, so friends, or friends of friends, had always had a spare room that she could rent or doss in. Then she’d hooked up with Greg and moved into his place.
‘D’you know, I’ve never met an estate agent before. Not even on a social basis. Not one, not in any of the numerous countries I’ve visited, or parties I’ve been to. But then, thinking about it, this isn’t such a surprise. It’s unlikely that anyone at a party would own up to being an estate agent and still expect to be offered a glass of punch.’
‘So, erm, what’s the problem? Has your washing machine flooded your flat again?’ asked Martha politely, interrupting Eliza’s prattle. She had no real interest in it. It was clear that this conversation didn’t relate to Michael or, most particularly, his whereabouts, but Martha was sensible enough to know she had to ask, if only to momentarily interrupt Eliza’s chatter.
‘No. I’ve – bloody hell, Martha, what’s happened here? Have you been robbed?’
Whilst they’d been talking, Martha and Eliza had automatically gravitated towards the kitchen. As a rule, Martha’s kitchen was a haven of comfort and cleanliness. It was beautifully fitted with Poggenpohl units and stainless-steel surfaces, and neatly stocked with a state-of-the-art cappuccino machine, juicer, bread-maker, pasta-maker, grinder and multi-function food processor. Most unusually, every gadget was regularly used. Martha’s kitchen was the best-stocked kitchen in W11. Usually everything had a place and there was a place for everything.
Right now, as far as Eliza could make out, that place was on the floor.
There were at least twelve dirty coffee mugs lurking on the surfaces; there was Lego, paint, Meccano and squashed banana on the floor; there were handprints on the fridge, the windows, the cupboards; there was a sinkful of pans encrusted with baked beans; the usually concealed rubbish bins (of which there were five: paper, biodegradable food waste, tins, bottles, other) were all overflowing; the hamster’s cage was rancid and its water bottle was empty.
‘Oh God, what’s that?’ asked Eliza in fear, as she pointed to a brown, sticky mess that stretched right across the floor.
‘Coco Pops,’ sighed Martha.
‘Thank God.’ Eliza dropped all her bags (aware that she was adding to the chaos, but calculating that her contribution would hardly be noticeable). She turned to Martha and noted that she was wearing a little black dress, one she often wore for dinner parties, despite it being just after 9 a.m. on a Monday morning. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Michael’s left me.’
All Sunday Martha had tried to pretend this wasn’t the case. Saying the words aloud made them real. Michael had gone. He’d left on Saturday and this was Monday and she hadn’t even heard from him.
The enormity of the situation suddenly slapped Martha and shocked the first tears from her. ‘He’s le… le… left me,’ she sobbed, as she held up her arms and waited for her sister to scoop her up and make it all better.
Eliza did at least scoop. She held Martha tightly and stroked her hair. ‘Don’t worry, shush, don’t worry,’ she cooed. ‘It’s OK, it’s going to be OK.’ She thought if she said it often enough she had a chance of convincing herself at least.
Maisie and Mathew looked on, wide-eyed. Mummy was funny today.
‘It’ll be OK. You’ll see, it’ll be OK,’ repeated Eliza, firmly, trying hard not to sound as helpless and hopeless as she felt.
13
Eliza couldn’t hear Martha’s crying through the bedroom wall, but she sensed it. She wearily got out of bed and staggered on to the landing. She knocked at the door. Martha mumbled something. It could have been ‘Come in’, it might have been ‘I want to die.’ It was impossible to tell because Martha had pulled the duvet over her head to hide her tear-smudged face. Eliza opened the door and asked the dark room, ‘You OK?’ Eliza was very aware of how ludicrous the question was.
‘Oh fine,’ replied Martha, using her Women’s Institute voice. Eliza had never thought the voice, or for that matter joining the WI, had suited Martha. ‘This is nothing, you know. Just a silly spat. It will all blow over,’ Martha said in her singsong voice; she had repeated the same thing all day and night.
Eliza didn’t know much about married life but she didn’t think that this was just a tiff. ‘Can I do anything? Get you anything?’ In the shadowy light thrown from the landing, Eliza just about made out Martha shaking her head. It was obvious she couldn’t trust herself to say anything more. Eliza quietly closed the door and went back to her bed, or more accurately, Mathew’s bed. Mathew had been shoved in with Maisie. Martha, ever the hostess, had tried to make Eliza comfortable. She’d dug out a comfy duvet, Egyptian cotton sheets and numerous duck-feather pillows, but Eliza couldn’t fall asleep. The silence of subdued tears kept her awake.
Eliza couldn’t understand it. She thought she was pretty good at people, relationships, intuition and stuff. She could, for example, always spot a pregnancy, often even before the expectant mother had skipped. She could identify a philandering husband at a twenty-metre range. In a crowded room of strangers, she could match people with their other halves as easily as if she were playing a game of snap. And yet her own brother-in-law, whom she saw at least once a week, sometimes two or three, had managed to fall out of love with her own sister, without Eliza so much as sniffing that there was anything wrong. How could she have missed the imminent catastrophe looming on the horizon?
Why had he left?
God, if Martha and Michael weren’t happy, who the hell was? Martha and Michael had it all. Each other, healthy, beautiful kids (one of each flavour), good prospects, lovely home, plenty of money, fantastic holidays, great family and friends. Did this mean everybody was entitled to be unhappy?
Everybody was doomed to be unhappy?
No. She didn’t like the direction her mind was drifting in. She couldn’t face that possibility. What a ridiculous thought. You have to look on the bright side. No point getting depressed.
But how? How had Michael fallen out of love with Martha? Martha was gorgeous, and kind, and generous, and trusting. It wasn’t just that Eliza was biased, everyone thought the same. Martha seemed to have forgotten, but when Martha and Michael got together it was generally conceded that Martha was the real catch and Michael had ‘done well’. Martha was funny, and although it was difficult to believe at the moment, she had a mischievous side to her that made her the life and soul of the party. Or used to. She hadn’t been much of a life-and-soul of late. Life-and-souls rarely fretted about orange-juice spillage.
Martha was so in love with Michael that she had automatically and honestly sung his praises to anyone who would listen. She was his very own portable PR machine. He obviously believed her hype. Had Martha forgotten herself in her enthusiasm to promote her love? Admittedly, in the last year or so, Martha had become a bit obsessive about the kids’ safety, and about cleanliness, and about what the neighbours thought. Which was quite irritating – but, generally, Martha was lovely. Martha was… well, Martha. The woman Michael had married. The woman he’d promised to love for ever; in sickness and in health; for richer, for poorer; for better, for worse.
Bastard.
The phone rang once and then stopped. Eliza knew that Martha had snatched it up, hoping against hope that it was Michael. The phone had rung four times that day and every time Martha had run, at breakneck speed, to answer it. ‘Yes,’ she’d answered breathlessly, expectantly. Each time she was crushed, it was never Michael.
‘It’s for you.’ Martha tapped at Eliza’s door. Her voice was thick and heavy with disappointment. ‘It’s Greg.’
Shit.
Greg.
In all of this chaos Eliza hadn’t given a thought to her own domestic crisis.
She jumped out of bed and ran to pick up the phone in the hall
downstairs. This was not a conversation she wanted to have in front of Martha.
‘It’ssss me.’
‘You’re drunk,’ she said, grumpily.
‘Of course I am. I have feelings, you know.’
Eliza smiled. He had a point. She’d been trying to force alcohol on Martha all evening. ‘What do you want?’
‘What do I want?’ He was astounded at her stupidity. ‘I want you to come home and tell me what this is all about.’
‘I have told you,’ said Eliza. She sounded more impatient than she was, because she felt the sting of guilt. She hadn’t really explained anything to Greg. How could she try to get him to understand that his biggest fault was his lack of a pension policy? ‘Look, this isn’t about you, it’s about me,’ she added.
Greg let out a laugh that was at once amused and insulted. He could only be amused because he was an extremely easygoing bloke.
‘Sorry,’ said Eliza, kicking herself for resorting to a cliché. ‘What I mean is you haven’t changed or done anything wrong.’ True, he was the same irresponsible, fun-loving, free spirit that she’d fallen in love with four years ago. ‘I’ve changed.’ She didn’t add that the characteristics that had once attracted her now repelled her. ‘Go to bed, Greg. Sleep off the whisky.’ Eliza hung up. Her feet were icy. She ran upstairs and threw herself back into bed. She snuggled under the duvet and tried to will away that nagging thought that a pension policy hadn’t protected Martha anyway.
October
14
As Eliza put the key in the lock she could hear the now all too familiar sound of Martha’s howling. She quickly pushed the door open, not pausing to take off her coat or drop her bag. She charged at Martha and started to wrestle the phone out of her hand. For such a small bird Martha was deceptively strong, and clung tightly to the handset.
‘Put the phone down, Martha.’
‘Please, please, please come home. We need to talk. I love you, Michael,’ Martha begged.
‘I’m going to switch my phone off now, Martha,’ said Michael calmly.
‘No, no, no, you can’t switch me off just like that. I’m your wife.’
‘Look, I’m sorry.’ He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded angry. He just wanted to get her off the line.
‘I’m your wife. I’m your wife. I’m–’
‘Put the phone down.’ Eliza snatched the phone from Martha and stabbed the off-button. ‘Haven’t you any self-respect?’ she demanded furiously.
‘No. Not any more.’ Martha slumped against the hall wall and started to sob loudly.
Eliza wrapped her arms around her sister and rocked her gently to and fro. God, she’d like to kick the shit out of that bastard Michael. Martha’s face was twisted, almost beyond recognition; as she exhaled, she spat the air out: it stung Eliza’s cheek like pinpricks. Martha’s pain was so visible that Eliza wondered whether she might be able to catch it, box it up and throw it away.
It had been a little over four weeks.
Even Martha was beginning to understand that this was more than ‘a silly spat’.
‘Where are the kids?’
‘Maisie is taking a nap, Mathew is in the garden.’
Eliza was relieved. Martha was at least ensuring that the children didn’t witness her collapse.
‘I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to call him,’ said Eliza. She knew that Michael wouldn’t have called Martha. He never called. He’d walked away from his wife, his children and his home without, as far as Eliza could see, as much as a backward glance. He’d only visited the children four times in the four weeks. All communication (usually frenzied, irrational and often drunken) was precipitated by Martha.
‘I had to call him. The estate agent rang.’
‘So you’ve told them that you won’t be taking the Bridleway?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Martha, you have to tell them,’ Eliza insisted with exasperation. She broke away from her sister, walked through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. She’d made hundreds of cups of tea in the last four weeks. She wasn’t sure if they helped any, but it was something to do. She felt useless. Having something to do, even something as trivial as putting the kettle on, was necessary. Sometimes Martha drank the tea; sometimes it went cold because Martha ignored it. Eliza made the tea and carried it back to her sister, who hadn’t moved an inch; it was beyond her. Eliza was struck again by how small Martha looked. Always a slim woman, she was disappearing before Eliza’s eyes. Sometimes Eliza was nervous of holding her too closely in case she snapped.
‘Do you want me to call them? You can’t keep them hanging on thinking they have a sale, honey. It’s not fair on the vendors.’
‘It’s not fair on me,’ exhorted Martha with a surprising measure of bitterness. ‘None of this is.’
The last four weeks had been total hell. For four days, Michael wouldn’t even speak to Martha. He didn’t take or return her calls.
Initially she had left bright and breezy messages:
‘Darling, are you there? This is so silly. Call me. Let’s sort this out.’
‘Are you picking up these messages? The children are in bed, it would be a good time to talk because it’s peaceful here. Have you eaten? I’ve made a lamb casserole, your favourite.’
The casserole went uneaten and her tone became more concerned:
‘Michael, please call me back just to tell me you are safe and well.’
She had nightmares of him doing something terrible to himself. She couldn’t sleep because she fell into panics, imagining him lying prone in some seedy hotel room, next to empty whisky and aspirin bottles. When by the Wednesday following his walkout he still hadn’t called, she rang all the hospitals in the area. At this point, Eliza suggested trying him from a phone whose number he wouldn’t recognize.
He answered immediately. ‘Michael West here.’
‘Eliza Evergreen here. Not dead, then,’ Eliza muttered dryly. She only just resisted adding ‘yet’ as she handed the phone to her sister.
Eliza listened as Martha pleaded, cajoled, reasoned and implored. It took Martha three quarters of an hour to persuade her husband to meet her, just for a talk.
‘It’ll be fun,’ Martha had said, rather unrealistically, ‘like a date.’
Their first meeting was in some ways like a date. One of Cilla Black’s less successful Blind Dates. Martha had barely waited until they were shown to their table in the restaurant before she blurted out, ‘But what’s making you unhappy?’
They were at the local Italian, one of Michael’s favourite places to dine. Martha didn’t really like it at all. She thought it was overpriced and, anyway, they’d visited it a lot throughout her pregnancy with Maisie. She always associated the yellow walls with feelings of overwhelming nausea, but she’d made the reservation regardless as she hoped to please Michael. She’d bought a new dress for the occasion and, most unusually, she wore full makeup.
But her lipstick couldn’t shield her.
‘Can’t we just order the food first, before we start the big talk?’ Michael asked with ill-disguised irritation.
‘Oh, of course, if you like.’ Martha hated herself for sounding so stupidly servile but then again she was used to following his suggestions. How could he think of food right now? But she realized that she had to be very careful, very careful indeed. Michael had left on Saturday evening; it was now Thursday evening. Five days, nearly an entire week. How had the days slipped by like that? How had the clocks managed to tick? Martha certainly hadn’t. She was immobilized.
Martha had always believed that two people together were greater than the sum of the parts. That was one of the joys of marriage. It protected you. You were never alone. She and Michael used to say that even when they were apart they were looking out for one another, somehow joined, perhaps by an invisible piece of elastic. If they needed each other, they could call or simply think of the other and their worlds would be better, safer, warmer. They’d said such romantic stuff a
nd Martha, for one, had believed it. With him Martha was enormous, positive, possible. Without him she was microscopic.
Martha still could not believe that this was happening to her. Michael could not mean that he really wanted to leave. Could he? Why would he want that? It was all a terrible misunderstanding. Until Saturday they’d never gone to sleep on a row before. Yes, they’d had rows, but they always made up afterwards. They’d reaffirmed that they would love each other for ever and then, if there had been time and the children were both asleep, they’d make love just to prove it.
Even if it wasn’t a Friday.
Now they’d lived apart for five days and Martha hadn’t got a clue why. She had to get Michael home. She had to be very careful.
She stared at the menu for an age but she had no idea what was on offer. Michael ordered calves’ liver and seared tuna; as usual, he chose the most expensive things on the menu. As usual, Martha ordered a green salad and pasta, the cheapest things on the menu.
‘Mathew drew a picture for you. A farmyard – we went to one on Tuesday.’ Martha scrabbled about in her bag and pulled out the picture. In fact, it had been given to Eliza, but Martha had taken it off the fridge and brought it to the restaurant. She didn’t want Michael to forget he had children. ‘Maisie walked three steps today – holding on to a chair, admittedly,’ she gushed.
‘That’s great. Really good. Send them my love. Give them a big kiss from me.’
Martha’s heart sank, as it was clear that he wasn’t planning on coming home with her that night. She just wanted things to get back to normal. She wanted them to eat this meal together, and at the end of the evening for them to get their coats and him to come home with her. She wanted him to spend ages in the bathroom as she chatted and called through to him from the bedroom. She wanted him to set the alarm on their bedside clock. She wanted him to get into bed next to her. She wanted to put her cold feet on his warm legs.
