My Husband Next Door

by Catherine Alliott

  We breathed at each other at the end. Met one another’s eyes, relieved, but didn’t say a word. Finally we went to bed exhausted, and slept. Well, he did, for hours and hours, the sleep of the utterly burned out and spent, but for me it was a new domestic day and the children were waking. I remember being shattered: physically, but emotionally too.

  The Pont Street exhibition was almost upon us. It was terrifying. There still weren’t enough pictures. Press releases had been sent out and previews were appearing in newspapers full of expectation: a lengthy piece by Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard wondered what we would be seeing from the young gun? Something to stun a generation, perhaps? A generation. Christ. So we did it a few more times. Always in the dead of night, always at four in the morning, as if we were burglars. Or traitors. We never named it. Never spoke of it. Just went back to bed, exhausted.

  And the exhibition was deemed a success. Perhaps not as explosive and headline-making as Cork Street a few years back, but Sebastian was established now and could afford to deviate from his traditional path. Even have a few duffs. I was secretly pleased that the ones I’d done fifty per cent of were the declared duffs.

  ‘Odd, how he’s slightly lost his touch in that one,’ I heard Simon Monk murmur to Brian Sewell as they stood shoulder to shoulder that night in the gallery, regarding a canvas.

  ‘Mmm … Almost as if he’s lost heart. Or changed his mind. Changed horses mid-stream.’

  I passed on behind them with my drink, my heart pounding.

  ‘See?’ I said to Sebastian while we read the papers avidly the next morning, as soon as the newsagent’s was open and we could run down and get them. ‘They love yours, think they’re terrific. And they hate the ones I’ve … you know …’

  We did.

  After the show we were both utterly exhausted. So, sensibly, we went away. We took the children out of school – they were so tiny it didn’t matter – and we went to Portofino for three weeks. No one mentioned painting, or art, or exhibitions, and we swam and sunbathed and let the glorious Italian heat and light filter right through us, right down to our very bones: nourishing us, restoring us. Actually, I lie. Sebastian did sit on the cliffs one day and paint the most beautiful picture he’s ever done, the one of the boats in the bay which is still in my cupboard. We had a lovely villa, right up in the hills with a view of the sea – we deserved it, we felt, and hang the expense – and it was probably the most luxurious holiday I’ve ever had. We made love a great deal, whenever the children weren’t around – as soon as they’d gone to bed at night, or for their afternoon naps – but, if I’m honest, there was a desperation to our lovemaking: as if we were hungry for something from each other. I think we both longed for another baby: an Italian-holiday baby, something a world away from the pressure of work and the art world. When I miscarried three months later, we were devastated. His face collapsed as I wept silent, shivering tears.

  After that, Sebastian couldn’t do it. He couldn’t paint. And we’d have the most terrible rows. I’d try to bolster him, cajole him. I’d tell him he was the most talented person I knew, the most talented person anyone knew, and that he just had to believe in himself. I said anything I could possibly think of to make it better, but, somehow, it made it worse. Sebastian would put his head in his hands. Then he’d put his hands right over his ears to shut me out. And when I wouldn’t stop, would still be there talking when he’d withdrawn his hands, he’d turn terrible eyes on me. Eyes that said: ‘Go away. You’ve stolen my soul.’

  Only then did I shut up.

  Eventually we ran away. We fled the circling, curious critics, the newspaper reviewers who wanted to know what had happened to Sebastian Montclair, the supremely talented art sensation, the golden boy? Why he’d dried up? We fled the gallery owners who hadn’t been lucky enough to stage his exhibitions: Ah, they’d say privately, we wondered if he could keep it up.

  We thought the change of scene, the slower pace of the countryside would do us good. Do the trick. Any trick. It was desperation. More than anything, though, we were desperate about ourselves. About what was happening to us.

  We still loved each other passionately, but it was driving us apart. We drank. We rowed. We behaved badly. I, in particular, behaved very badly. I wouldn’t leave him alone. Kept pushing him to have another go. I created the studio upstairs at vast expense, with money we didn’t have. He rejected it. When he set up in the Granary I constantly roused him from where he slept on the sofa during the day and told him he had to get up, keep going. I was like a mother pushing a stubborn child through hated exams. I should have left him to his own devices: let him work his own way through it, even if it took years. But I was desperate for him to regain his self-esteem, for us to be happy again – to be normal. But what is normal?

  I was full of guilt, too. Brimming with it. I knew that if I’d never showed off that night after the party in San Lorenzo’s, if I’d kept to myself the knowledge that I could paint like he could, not been some ghastly little confidence-basher, the muse might well have returned a few days, or perhaps weeks, later, of its own accord. And even if it hadn’t – so what? It would have been Sebastian’s business, not mine. Nothing to do with me. It was that terrible fear that I’d ruined everything which compelled me to make him paint. And, in actual fact, to ruin things entirely. Finish the job. The marriage, the art, the whole shooting match. Sebastian was essentially a kind, sensitive man, but through sheer force of will, and to assuage my own shame, I succeeded in turning him into another person. I’d messed with his mind.

  Years later, as I stood with my back to the Granary wall, the building I’d yet to go inside now that it was empty, deserted by Sebastian, I raised my eyes to the middle distance where the ewes were contentedly licking their empty trough, replete. The years had flashed past me at the rate of knots, but now it seemed the brakes were well and truly on and everything was screeching to a shuddering halt. Right where I stood. Outside an abandoned studio, on a deserted farm. Everything was about to disintegrate for ever. With, no doubt, a pen in hand, a signature apiece, and a document called a decree nisi.

  I turned my gaze from the ewes and sought out Ottoline, on the horizon. Her small, solid figure was administering to the goat now, remonstrating with him, unravelling Curly, from the hedge where he’d got stuck, freeing his horns, his bell tinkling. So she’d known all along. From the very moment we’d arrived. But had loved us enough to stay silent. Had never mentioned it to me. Had hoped we’d work it out. Alone. Which was all we could do. She’d known why Sebastian had derided me as I’d copied her bohemian style in the house. Known why he’d screamed at me to stop as I helped Josh with his homework. Had known, as she’d kindly posed for him, why he could never finish a picture. Why I couldn’t work in oils ever again; kept a secret cupboard, where, very occasionally, I’d dabble at night, unable to stop myself, while he was blind drunk and comatose. She knew why I was an illustrator and, as I laughingly once admitted to her after a long day, not a very original one at that, but an illustrator after a long-dead French one I’d discovered in a Provençal bookshop, whose style I admired. She knew where Josh got his acting skills from. She knew why Sebastian and I couldn’t live together and why we couldn’t live apart and why neither of us painted properly and why he drank. And yet she’d never said a word. Not one. For some reason I found that astonishingly lovely.

  Yet there’d been real and rare anger when she’d turned on me just now. As if I’d betrayed Sebastian, somehow. As if I’d left him, rather than the other way round. What else could I have done? I’d have done anything, surely she knew that? My heart was in pieces, surely she knew that too? I’d tried everything to claw our love back. What hadn’t I tried, for heaven’s sake, over the years? I almost said it out loud, incredulously, to her back, as she straightened up from disentangling Curly. It was as if she’d been forced to say something – finally – by me. By my treachery. Treachery to love, she seemed to suggest.

  But what on earth d
id Ottoline know about love? I watched her squat, solid figure stomp away from the goat, pail swinging from her hand, trudging off into the distance.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A week passed. Two weeks. Ottoline and I lived politely and silently side by side, each in our separate houses. I thought she’d break the ice and come to me, have a cup of tea, talk about the animals; I thought we’d move on, but she didn’t. And I didn’t quite know what to say to her. Was unnerved by her silence. I could have gone across and helped with her pottery group – it would have been the natural icebreaker – but something stopped me. If I’m honest, I was a little afraid. Instead I pretended I was busy. Even to myself. I took the lid off the tin of paint and told myself I’d paint the sitting room, as Becks and the gang appeared. I quietly replaced the lid on a full tin that evening. Not a word of reproach was exchanged between us, not a sullen look, but not a particularly jolly one, either. Thus, we quietly coexisted. Meanwhile I bought a new sim card. I texted the children, telling them I’d dropped my phone, broken it and bought a new one, and gave them my new number. I asked how they were getting on.

  ‘Fine!’ they enthused. ‘Really good!’ And they’d so meant to come back last weekend, they said, but there’d been this concert, at the Round House, on Saturday, and then they’d totally overslept on Sunday, but they’d be back this weekend.

  ‘Not for me, you won’t!’ I laughed, doing rather well on the phone to Tabitha when she rang. ‘I’m fine, my darling, honestly. And so pleased you’re having fun.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s not all fun. Daddy makes us work,’ she told me quickly. ‘He’s really strict about homework. I promise you, I’m never allowed to go anywhere until I’ve done it.’

  ‘Good. That’s brilliant, Tabs, I’m pleased.’

  ‘And Josh is out tonight, he’s gone to Henry V, but he’s going to ring you tomorrow. He said.’

  I couldn’t speak. Told her the dogs were barking at something and I’d better go. Said I’d see her very soon. I put the phone down and tottered to the bathroom, wondering if I was going to be sick. I wasn’t. I just sat on the closed lavatory seat holding my knees, knowing I was a responsibility now. That my daughter was reminding her brother to ring me. That they were looking after me. That the roles had reversed, as they did in every parent–child relationship at some point, just a little early in mine.

  In the sensible, rational part of my head, though, I knew this wasn’t true. Flushed with the euphoria of city life, of being at the centre of things, away from the mud and isolation of our village, they were just busy. It had nothing to do with me. If I’d gone with them and Sebastian had been left here, they’d be the same. Reminding each other to ring him. But they’d be back. My children loved me very much, I knew that. I wasn’t going to overdramatize here and think they’d defected or rejected. They wouldn’t be back for the mud and the isolation – that, they could do without – but they’d be back for me. One day. I got up stiffly from the loo and told myself to stop feeling sorry for myself and go and feed the chickens.

  My mother was still with me, of course, in the cottage, but even she – the one I’d been afraid would be welded to my side for ever – was only around in a very temporary fashion. A few days after her second lunch with my father, she came to see me. She wasn’t wearing the dungarees and the knotted hanky she’d been affecting recently, but neither was she in a Jaeger twinset and pearls with her hair blown terrifyingly off her face as if she’d been caught in a jet stream. She had on a loose blue cotton shirt, which hung outside grey linen trousers, and her hair was done differently: not glued into position with hair spray, but very definitely styled in soft waves round her face. No colour, though: she was letting the silver shine through.

  ‘You look terrific, Mum,’ I told her as I opened the back door to her. She’d knocked, you see. Hadn’t barged in, as usual. ‘And how was lunch with Dad?’

  ‘Very good, actually.’

  I smiled. Had sort of thought it might be. Had indeed spoken to my father the other day. She sat down and told me what I already knew: that they’d stayed for hours in the restaurant, until they were politely asked to leave by the waiters and staff.

  ‘Honestly, Ella, I felt about nineteen.’

  ‘Good.’

  She looked so well. Obviously not nineteen, but younger: lighter.

  ‘We both brought our lists,’ she told me, ‘as I’d asked your father to do, although he’d originally said, “Yes, all right, Sylvia, but as long as that’s not an order.” ’

  ‘Oh!’ I laughed, wondering how she’d take this.

  ‘I know,’ she told me, cradling the mug of tea I’d handed her. ‘I am rather bossy and I can’t change that overnight, but I can try. It was top of his list, of course.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘But then, at the top of mine was: “Stand up to me a bit” – which took him by surprise.’

  I smiled. Sat down opposite her with my mug of tea. ‘I like “a bit”, Mum.’

  ‘Well, I know.’ She looked sheepish. ‘As I say, we can’t either of us change our spots just like that, we’re only mortal. But, d’you know, Ella, we don’t need to. I don’t want him to turn into a sergeant major. I know he’s a kind, gentle man. I just don’t want him to be meek. It brings out the worst in me. And he knows I’m strong and sparky; it’s why he married me.’

  ‘He just doesn’t want you to be domineering,’ I said, mentally ducking: couldn’t believe I’d said it.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said calmly. ‘And as you get older, traits you had when you were younger, ones you’ve always had, get exaggerated. You need to watch that,’ she told me as she regarded me beadily over the rim of her cup, briefly reverting to type.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ I agreed, for once meaning it. I knew I was inclined to get things out of proportion. Needed more perspective. Was prone to being oversensitive, too. I did need to watch that. Amongst other things, of course.

  ‘Like that famous blind eye of yours.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ She busied herself brushing imaginary crumbs from the table. ‘How you and your father push things underground. Pretend they’re not there.’

  ‘Right.’ He did. I didn’t. And I wasn’t sure I wanted a pep talk. This was her coming-of-age story. Old-age story. Not mine. I told her so – rather bravely. Well, not in quite so many words. But, to my surprise, she laughed.

  ‘Yes, well, that was number three on his list. Don’t lecture. Or preach. Be less of a know-all. Even if it’s something I reckon I know a lot about.’

  I grimaced. ‘Well, that’s got such deep roots, Mum, how are you ever going to dig those up? Those go right to your very core. What else was on his?’

  ‘Oh, more important things, actually, which seem tiny, but are the stuff of life. Don’t brag about the children – that’s to me – it’s embarrassing. Don’t crack your knuckles in public – to him – I can’t bear it. I suppose it sounds trivial but it’s about respecting one another. Or at least, one another’s wishes.’

  ‘Right. And where are these wish lists going to be, by the way? On the fridge door? Presuming there is going to be a shared fridge door?’

  ‘Yes, there is. But not at the Old Rectory.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I can’t go back there, Ella. Not after … you know. Everything that’s happened.’ She meant Maureen.

  ‘Mum,’ I said gently, ‘I don’t think Maureen was ever anything more than a friend. A good friend.’

  ‘No, maybe not. I don’t think she was, either, actually. But it’s not just that. Not just the neighbours. It’s the huge-empty-house-in-the-country bit. Although I love it – have loved it – I feel … we feel that it’s time to move on. I know it’s your childhood home, Ella, yours and Ginnie’s, with so many memories, but it’s dragging us down. Has dragged us down terribly, recently.’

  It had been my home as a child but it hadn’t felt like that for many years. Guiltily I realized I hadn’t felt pangs o
f nostalgia or longing for it, even when I was little. Coming home from school with my satchel I remembered a sense of dread, wondering how tight-lipped she’d be. What I’d be told to do. Happy days, too, of course, but not Home Sweet Home. As a teenager I’d definitely been dying to get away from its echoing, draughty rooms. Did my own children feel like that, I wondered with a lurch? About Cold Comfort Farm? Probably. These days, I went to the Old Rectory dutifully, on high days and holidays, to see my parents. Not nostalgically. Did Ginnie? I wasn’t sure.