If I’m being completely honest, I’d have to admit that I continued to fantasise about Jake for a while, but thinking about him always made me feel sick, too. It was a very complicated set of feelings. I sometimes thought about getting a taxi over there again. I once looked up his phone number on the computer at work, but I never used it.
When Mum died, the shock killed off, for a while, any remaining desire I had for anyone at all. And it threw you and me back together, too.
But I’m too tired to go into all that today, sweetheart, so that’ll have to wait until next time. I am sorry, though, that I broke my marriage vows. I love you so much. It lasted less than ten minutes out of thirty years of marriage, but I broke them all the same. It was short and stupid, and by the time it was happening I understood that I didn’t want it anymore, but I know that won’t help. But what can I say? Humans are human, desire is desire, and life’s life, isn’t it. And you know what? Now I know that I was right, now that I know that I really was going to die one day, and sooner than I thought, I don’t regret the Jake thing at all. It just feels like something I needed to experience, and I’m glad that I gave myself that leeway. Because, for a while, it was fun. Actually, it was more than fun. It was a passion that came and made me realise that I was alive again, before vanishing, just like that.
I bumped into Jake only once after that. I was in the Grafton Centre, and he asked me to have a coffee with him. I felt I owed him that, at least.
I didn’t feel any danger in doing so because whatever had drawn me to him – the beginnings of love, or just empty lust, perhaps – was gone. I explained, over coffee, that I was sorry but I was married and I loved my husband and I loved my daughter, and that was all there was to it. I said that what had happened had been a terrible, terrible mistake. I told him lots of wonderful things about you for some reason. I think I was brandishing you like a crucifix to keep the vampires away. I told him that some other woman would be very, very lucky to snag him, but that woman wasn’t me. I thought, too late, of Mags. It seemed such a waste that I had used Jake for myself rather than introducing him to Mags.
Poor Jake. He was so sure of his irresistibility that when I told him it was over, it was as if he couldn’t even understand the words I was saying: he made me repeat it three times. And then he straightened his tie, buttoned his jacket, did that Prince Charles thing with his cuffs, pecked me on the cheek and stood and walked away.
• • •
Sean is angry. Sean is so angry that he can’t think, he can’t eat, and he isn’t sleeping properly, either. His mind obsesses about Catherine, about Jake; it creates visions of their entwined bodies that are so real and so painful, that he finds himself wincing.
When he opens the laptop of a morning, the previous evening’s Google search is there, full screen, waiting for him. “My dead wife cheated on me: About 3,230,000 results.”
He moves the pointer so that it hovers over the little cross that will close that window, but then he clicks on one of the links instead. He has found an entire forum of people who discovered that their partners cheated on them, but the fact that out there, in the myriad randomness of humanity, someone, somewhere is feeling the same as he feels, doesn’t seem to help either. It doesn’t seem to help at all.
He asks himself who he hates the most – smug, suited Jake, who shagged his wife, knowing that she was married, or Catherine herself, for cheating on him, for breaking her marriage vows, or perhaps, above all, for having waited until now to tell him, for waiting until she was no longer present to bear the weight of his anger.
His memory of her is sullied – that’s the thing – and he can’t see how that can ever be undone. He hates her. And the reason he hates her the most is because he had been happy to have spent his life loving her. Even if it was over, at least his life had been built upon that rock of certainty. And now she’s taken even that away from him; she has retrospectively made their years together seem false and stupid and cheap.
His anger comes and goes like ripples of red-hot energy from an unpredictable nuclear reaction and, because he can’t think what to do with all that heat, he punches a wall and hurts his knuckles; he throws a chair, albeit feebly, across the room. And then finally, on Wednesday evening, after pacing around the suddenly hated house for an hour, he pulls on shorts and trainers and goes running.
It’s drizzling outside, but he doesn’t care. He imagines the rain sizzling against his angry skin as he runs and runs, driven by the spiritual pain borne of this anger that’s too big to even be thought about. Eventually, after almost an hour, he finds that he has been lost to himself for the last mile or so, and when he takes stock of the sensations within his body he finds that the fizzling molten heart of the pain has gone, that the fire has died. He discovers that his anger has been consumed and transformed into a different physical pain in his legs, in his chest, in his lungs. And where the anger sat, only emptiness remains. He turns and starts to walk homeward.
By the following weekend, Sean’s feelings towards the house have morphed so radically that his thoughts from the previous weekend – that the house was a shrine to Catherine, to their daughter, to their life together – seem little more than sour, slightly embarrassing memories. The house, now, feels like salt to a wound, so much so that he can hardly bear to step through the front door of an evening. But autumn is closing in fast, the evenings are cooling, the Cam is punt-less and the drizzle almost constant, so he finds himself forced indoors, angry and resentful as he looks around, scowling, at the many reminders of Catherine’s long shadow.
On Saturday morning, a young, smooth, estate agent named Irvine arrives, as requested. He has a Scottish accent and is wearing a tonic grey suit and a hugely knotted tie. Sean wonders if this is what Jake looked like and has to fight his desire to slam the door in the poor guy’s face.
Irvine wanders around opening cupboards and taking measurements with his laser device, before sitting at the kitchen table and, after tapping away at his smartphone screen, announcing a price bracket. The house is worth a little more than Sean had thought, but still not enough to buy and renovate the apartment in Cantabrigian Rise.
“You’re thinking of selling up soon?” Irvine asks.
Sean sighs. “My wife died,” he says, and he hears that he has said this without sadness, without kindness, and feels suddenly scared of himself, feels unexpectedly frightened by the power of his own anger. “And my daughter’s moved out, too. So yes, I’m toying with the idea of a riverfront bachelor pad, actually.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Irvine says unconvincingly. “Do you have a property in mind?”
Sean shakes his head. “I’m really just at the start of the whole process,” he says, scratching his ear.
Irvine nods thoughtfully.
“I looked at a place out at Cantabrigian Rise,” Sean explains, “but it was too expensive and needed too much work, so…”
Irvine laughs. “That’s funny,” he says. “I valued that place yesterday. 4A, was it?”
Sean frowns. “No, actually. 3F.”
“Ah,” Irvine says. “They’re two-beds on the third floor, are they not?”
“That’s right,” Sean says, suddenly intrigued. “So how much is 4A going for?”
Irvine laughs again and fiddles with his tie which provokes, in Sean, an unexpected shudder of disgust. “Aye,” he says, “that would be telling. It’s not even been listed, I don’t think.” He pulls a business card from his pocket and writes Bonnie Fleetwood on the back. “I just do the valuations, but you should give Bonnie, here, a call. It should be in your price range. Well, if they listen to me it should be, at any rate. Anyway, I’d better be off. I’ll get this typed up and posted to you by Wednesday, OK?”
Despite his aching legs, Sean goes jogging again on Saturday evening, and it seems to do him good because on Sunday morning he wakes up feeling calmer. It’s as if he has managed to place Catherine, Jake and even this damned house in a box labelled The Past. It’s probably on
ly temporary respite, but that is at least something.
He makes a pot of coffee and opens The Guardian website on his laptop. “Let’s have a calm day today, shall we?” he mumbles as he opens the kitchen cabinet and pulls out the box of muesli. He has exhausted himself with his own anger, he realises. But then his eyes stray to the shoebox, there, on the top shelf. And it’s Sunday, of course, isn’t it. Is he going to listen to another tape? Does he have any spare capacity for further sordid revelations? He hears Maggie’s voice, saying, “They’re not doing you any good, you know.”
“No, Mags, they’re not,” he mumbles, answering her out loud as he stares at the box. “You’re right. They’re not doing me any good at all.”
He reaches for the box. He looks down at it in his hands. He traces the curve of Catherine’s handwriting with his eyes, and his lip curls. And then after less than a second’s hesitation, he exhales deeply and strides to the back door.
Outside, in the wet, cold garden, he lifts the lid on the wheelie bin. He holds the box over the opening and hesitates anew. “Freedom,” he says, forcefully, as if trying to convince himself. And then he drops the box into the void.
He swallows with difficulty, then peers down into the darkness and sees that the box has landed straight, has fallen intact. The envelopes and tapes and photos of his life with Catherine have remained inside. He thinks of the photos, photos that feature not only Catherine’s life, but his and his daughter’s, too. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he mutters, as he reaches down to retrieve it.
He shakes his head and places it on top of the bin. “Take your time,” he tells himself. “You’ll know when you’re ready.” And then he picks it up and walks back indoors.
• • •
Despite everything, the fact of not listening to this week’s tape leaves a gap in Sean’s life that he struggles to fill. The box of envelopes plays constantly on his mind, but he remains steadfast. He’s unsure, for the moment, if he’ll ever be able to listen to the remaining tapes, but for now, at least, it’s an impossibility.
Finding nothing of interest on the television that evening, he phones April for a chat instead. “Time to concentrate on the living,” he murmurs, as he dials her number.
April is in fine form. She tells Sean that her morning sickness, which she has never even mentioned before, is now over. She tells him excitedly that she is only going to work for another six weeks before going on maternity leave. They have painted the lounge and she’s going to do the bedroom once she’s off, she says. She refuses Sean’s offers of help, reminding him that Ronan is at home all day working if she does need another pair of hands. “But you can buy us a crib once the monster arrives,” she tells Sean. “How does that sound?”
“That sounds lovely,” Sean says. “I’d be proud to.”
April is just about to wind up the conversation when Sean says, “Can I ask you a serious question, Little Daughter?”
“Sure, Big Daddy. Fire away.”
“How do you feel about your room here?” Sean asks tentatively.
“My room?”
“Yes.”
“How do I feel about it?”
“Yes. How attached to it are you, I suppose? To still having your own room here, I mean. Be honest.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” April says. “A bit. Not much, I guess. But a bit. Why, are you thinking of getting a lodger to keep you company?”
Sean laughs drily. “No, no, nothing like that. I just… I mean… Look, it’s early days, OK? Very, very early days. And I’m really only just beginning to think—”
“Oh, God,” April interrupts. “You’re moving house, aren’t you?”
“No… Look… Yes… I might be, perhaps. But only if you’re OK about it. And as I say, I’m really not even at the beginning of anything yet.” Sean hears her sigh deeply, causing him to prompt, “April?”
“Oh… I knew this was coming,” she says. “Of course I did. I even discussed it with Ronan a few weeks ago.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. And we both agreed that it makes sense, that it would be good for you, that it would be healthy, I mean. We both see that you need to move on with your life at some point. And part of that is… part of that has to be moving out of that house. There must be so many memories tied to the place, Dad. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“So you don’t mind?”
April exhales deeply again. “Look, I’m going to be honest, Dad, if that’s OK? I didn’t think I would mind. But now it’s happened…” She pauses for a moment, then continues, in a far more up-tempo voice, “You know what, Dad? Don’t listen to me. I’m talking bollocks, here. Absolute bollocks. Of course you should move. If you want to move, you absolutely should. The house will still be there. I can go and stand and look at it any time I want to. But ultimately, it’s just a house, isn’t it?”
“Hum, you don’t sound very convincing. Or convinced.”
“No, really. I’m certain. You won’t be leaving Cambridge, though, will you? You’re not going to move to London and live in a squat and be a DJ or anything scary like that?”
“Well, maybe,” Sean jokes. “I was thinking about a sect, actually. Scientology seems quite groovy.”
“That’s a fabulous idea,” April says. “You can introduce me to Tom Cruise.”
“But, no. Just a flat, I thought. Something on the riverfront, maybe. One of the places in a building I designed is up for sale, so I may go and look at that for starters.”
“Cantabrigian Heights or whatever?” April says.
“Rise,” Sean says. “Cantabrigian Rise. Yes, that’s the one.”
“Gosh, I remember you taking me to the building site when I was little. You’ve always had a thing for that place.”
“I know. I still think it’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever done. That’s all it is, really.”
“You should go for it, Dad,” April says. “Really. Mum would totally approve, too. She once said it was a shame you didn’t have the wherewithal to live in your own buildings. Maybe I’ll come down and we can go to see it together?”
“That’d be nice. But anyway, if you’re sure you’re OK about it?”
“I really am.”
“Then I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you pregnant lassies do on Sunday nights.”
“We’re just binge-watching something on Netflix. The Bridge. It’s Swedish. Or Danish. A bit of both, actually. Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“It’s brilliant. We’re both addicted. Go watch it now. Oh, before you go, Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Have you heard anything from Auntie Maggie?”
“Mags?” Sean says. “No, I can’t say that I have. Why d’you ask?”
“She’s gone quiet, that’s all. On Facebook. I mean, she never posts much, but she still likes stuff, especially baby stuff. And anything with animals. But for the past month or so there’s been no reaction to anything. Zilch. Nada.”
“You could phone her, maybe?” Sean offers.
“Yeah,” April says doubtfully. “Yeah, I suppose I could. It’s just we don’t tend to do that these days. It’s not, like, our usual mode of communication. But you’re right. I’ll give her a ring.”
The call ended, Sean struggles to remember his last interaction with Maggie. It’s as if his internal filing system has been shaken up by the trauma of Catherine’s revelations. But eventually it comes back to him: his call asking Maggie if Catherine might have had an affair and Maggie’s text informing him that such a thing was an impossibility. If only she knew the truth.
Wondering if he might have upset her by not answering her call, by not replying to her text either, he reaches for the phone. Maggie answers immediately.
“Hello Mags!” Sean says, trying to sound chipper and, he suspects, probably overdoing it a little.
“Hi Sean,” Maggie replies without enthusiasm. After a pause, during which Sean waits for her to become her usual voluble self, she
adds, “Yes?”
“I just… I was wondering how you are, really,” Sean says.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Maggie says. “I’m OK, really. Considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Oh, nothing much,” she says, sounding falsely disinterested. “I split up with Dave, that’s all.”
“Oh, no!” Sean says. “I had no idea, Mags.”
“It’s no big deal; really it isn’t. I’m getting quite good at it these days. Hardly makes a ripple, really.”
“I doubt that’s true,” Sean says.
“No, no I suppose not.”
“What happened, Mags? I mean, if you want to talk about it… Perhaps you’d rather not talk about it.”
“Girls always want to talk about it, Sean,” Maggie says, flatly. “Do you not know that yet?”
“Apparently not.”
“Not wanting to talk about things is a boy thing.”
“OK,” Sean says, sounding dubious. “So, what happened?”
“He wasn’t very nice in the end. Like you said. You spotted that before I did. We were having a row the last time you called, actually.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mags. And that call… it was… I know I was strange. I was just having a bad day.”
“I don’t even remember what it was about, to be honest. What was it about?”
“Nothing,” Sean says. “Nothing that matters.”
“No? Anyway, we were in the middle of a shouting match. So if I was a bit weird, I apologise too.”
“What about? The barney, I mean. That is, if you’re sure you want to go–”
“Money,” Maggie interrupts. “It was about money, mainly.”
“Money?”
“Yes. I was paying for pretty much everything. Which I honestly didn’t mind. Dave’s not, as I’m sure you spotted, very wealthy.”
“Neither are you, are you?”
“No. Well, quite. But we went to the pub and I paid for the food and drinks, as usual. And then I went home – I had an early start the next day, you see. Only after I’d gone, Dave bought everyone drinks.”
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