by David Evered
11
St Valentine’s Day started like any other working day. Peter and Ann left for work shortly before eight as usual. Jenny no longer lived in the flat as she had been offered a room in the house of a colleague from her office. Ann, despite earlier protestations, had made two visits to Newcastle combining these with trips she had been required to make to progress the Lunar Society project. She told Peter that it looked as though there might be possibilities for making further programmes based around some of the individual luminaries of the society. She had returned the previous day and Peter had booked a table for dinner at a restaurant in Barnes Village. She had been very reflective during the meal and attempts to get her to open up were met with an apology and an insistence that she simply had a lot on her mind about work at that time. They returned to the flat and Peter moved to switch the television on for the news.
‘I should prefer not to watch the news tonight. Do you think I could have a brandy?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Peter poured the drink and after a little hesitation poured one for himself.
‘Peter, I want to talk – I, we, need to talk.’
‘Fine, go ahead.’
‘Well, I really don’t know how to begin – just give me a moment.’ She sat clasping the glass in both hands, as if to administer the sacrament, looking down into the drink. She sat in this position for some time.
‘Well, what is it?’ Peter asked fighting to keep a note of irritation out of his voice after what seemed an interminable period of silence. She looked up and he saw that she was crying silently. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said more gently. ‘It’s just that you said that you wished to talk in such a doom-laden voice and then said nothing. I was trying to imagine what it was all about.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she sniffed. ‘Can you get me a tissue and I’ll try and straighten my voice and face and tell you.’
‘You’ve been through a lot during the last few months, providing a shoulder for Sue to cry on and much more with your father’s death and taking on responsibility for your mother. It’s inevitable that it has all been a bit overwhelming, particularly with all the times you’ve been away travelling.’
‘No, it’s not just that. I have another problem.’
‘Well?’
‘Peter, please don’t interrupt me. Let me finish what I have to say. This is going to be difficult enough. I’ve been thinking a lot about things while I’ve been away. There is no easy way of saying this. I want to leave you.’
‘Ann! What are you saying?’
‘Please let me go on. I’ve been thinking so hard about how I could say this to you. I finally realised that it could not be said in any other way. I know this comes out of the blue. I don’t expect you to excuse me but it would help if you could understand a little.’
‘But you can’t just sit there and say calmly that you are walking out. What is wrong? There must be some reason.’
‘Yes, of course there is, but please listen,’ she added more gently. ‘I’m sorry. I’m far from calm. I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so irritable, it isn’t easy.’ Peter leant forward resting his arms on his knees and gazed unseeingly at the floor. He found it difficult to comprehend and process the words he was hearing. It seemed he had wandered unwittingly onto the set of a play and was simply an observer of a dialogue which had no personal implications for him. ‘Peter, I don’t know what has gone wrong, or even if anything has gone seriously wrong, but something has changed. You’re not the same man that I married. You’ve altered so much and very likely I’ve changed too. Our lives seem different, separate and we no longer communicate so easily with one another. You seem to be so remote.’
‘But surely that is not a reason for walking out. It must be a reason for trying to improve our marriage, for sitting and talking about what either or both of us sees is wrong and trying to put it right. I see this so often at work where I sometimes feel that couples give up too easily on their marriage.’
‘Peter, you may be right and possibly I should have had the courage to try to do that some time ago. But now, I’m sorry, it’s too late for that because I have made up my mind and I cannot change it now. Please understand, it has not been easy. I think I want to marry someone else.’
Peter looked up frowning, puzzled and hurt. ‘You think that you want to marry someone else,’ he echoed foolishly and incredulously, ‘but who is it?’
‘Please listen, I’m trying to explain. I’ve become very close to Francis Carvalho, the director of the programmes we’re planning. I’ve known him since he joined the company three years ago but it’s only in the last few months that we have become close, very close. I’ve seen much more of him during the last two or three months and we have developed a very easy and comfortable relationship.’
‘Obviously,’ he said resentfully.
‘No, it’s not been like that. He was divorced before I ever knew him but we’re in love and just want to be together. I feel rotten telling you like this, particularly on such an evening, but I couldn’t go on saying nothing. I feel dreadful doing this to you. I can only say that it just happened. It wasn’t planned and I certainly wasn’t looking for an outside attachment or an affair. It started to become serious when we were together in Birmingham after Dad’s funeral. We had a couple of drinks together that evening and he provided me with some much needed comfort. I was feeling vulnerable after Dad’s death and guilty that I had largely written Mum and Dad out of my life for so long. It developed from there. Francis supported me through all that. He provided me with something I felt was missing when I was at home. He made me feel that I was the most important person in his life.’
‘But what was missing? I tried to give all the support I could. I was with you all the time through the funeral and our earlier visit to Newcastle.’
‘I know – but somehow with Francis it was different. Peter, I really don’t want to hurt you but we don’t seem to have the relationship that we had. In many ways you were, and still are, all that I dreamed of for a husband but somehow the chemistry has changed; with Francis, it’s just been different. It will be better for you in the longer run to be free of me and on your own to make what you will of your life now this has happened.’
‘That may be your view but it’s no more than a rationalisation, and what right do you have to decide what is best for me?’ he said angrily. ‘You’re only thinking of yourself. Those are simply words designed to exculpate yourself.’
She got up and walked across, kneeling directly in front of him and held his hands. ‘I really had not intended this to happen but people do fall in love.’
‘I suppose so,’ he said flatly, ‘but these things don’t just happen.’
‘It’s not your fault – if anyone is to blame it is me.’
‘That’s not the impression I got from what you’ve just said.’
‘Peter, I really didn’t mean it in that way. I have been thinking and worrying about this endlessly. People do change, sometimes in ways which are predictable and sometimes in ways which are not. Those changes may be convergent or they may be divergent. They are generally not planned. We may adapt or we may not. There are so many uncertainties in this life. You have a lot going for you. You’ll very likely meet someone who will really appreciate you.’
‘And I suppose you’ve got that all arranged for me as well,’ he said bitterly.
‘Please don’t, it’s difficult enough for me as it is.’
‘Surely you don’t expect me to try to make it easier for you?’
‘I suppose not.’ She dropped his hands, knelt lower and started to cry once more. ‘Peter, I hope we can still remain friends after this.’
Peter did not respond for some time and was suddenly ashamed. He stood up and said abruptly, ‘I’m sorry, Ann, I think I need to go out and take a walk.’
‘Please don’t do that, don’t leave me alone just now.
I haven’t any right to ask you that, but please don’t go out just now.’ She lay crouched, head on the carpet and the tears started to flow once more. ‘Oh God, I knew this would be awful but I didn’t realize quite how bloody terrible it would be!’
Peter sat down again and resumed his position staring blindly at the floor. He knew that he should offer some help, a hand, a voice to comfort and console but was unable to act. The scene remained fixed for seconds or minutes – neither knew for how long. Finally, slowly, stiffly, deliberately and self-consciously, Ann got to her feet and walked silently from the room. She returned a few minutes later carrying a tray with two mugs of tea. The banality and incongruity of the action provoked Peter to laughter. He laughed softly at first and then with an uncontrolled harshness as he recognised the irony of this commonplace response to an emotional crisis.
‘For God’s sake, stop it! What are you laughing at? Stop it!’ She shouted the last two words with such force that the laugh died in an instant.
‘I’m sorry, Ann, I couldn’t stop myself. The contrast between what you have just had to say and your appearance with the all-purpose British panacea was too much for me.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She smiled wanly.
They drank the tea sitting as silently and remotely as strangers in a station waiting room.
‘I think I’ll still go out for a walk,’ Peter said more quietly. ‘I need space to think things over. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll sleep in the spare room.’
‘You’re not going to …… do anything silly?’
‘No, I shan’t. Will you be alright on your own?’
‘Yes, don’t worry about me.’
* * *
Peter left and walked down to the street. The rain which had been falling had stopped and the streets shone wetly under the lights. He walked to the corner and was surprised to see from a clock that it was only 10.20. The whole scene in the flat had been over in twenty-five minutes. A number of couples were emerging from local restaurants holding hands after celebrating Valentine’s Day. Initially he had no clear idea where he would walk but headed up the broad expanse of Castelnau towards Hammersmith Bridge. He walked over the bridge, pausing for a few minutes to watch the dark waters of the Thames ebbing and carrying their regular load of debris towards the centre of the city. He walked on to the area around the Broadway and on an impulse pushed open the door of a pub. The noise from within escaped and washed momentarily over the pavement as he made his way in and edged towards the bar. The babel of voices enclosed and isolated him and the nauseous smell of damp clothing almost overwhelmed him. He ordered a brandy and turning uncertainly was unable to find an isolated corner to sit or stand in the crowded bar. He emptied the glass in two quick gulps and, creating a passage for himself through the crowd, walked directly back into the street again. He leant against the outer wall of the pub for a few minutes breathing deeply and then started to walk slowly and aimlessly along King Street looking at the shop windows, the advertisements and the pedestrians walking past in secure encapsulated pairs.
A brief flurry of rain drove him into a shop doorway and he stood there looking out. He heard a soft voice behind him and looked round to see a couple locked in an embrace. Apologising incoherently, he ran out towards the next doorway but was checked by a group of teenage boys with close-cropped hair, tight leather jackets and heavy boots. He moved on and eventually found cover under an arch, where a woman was also sheltering. Peter leant back against the wall to recover his breath. He was unaware that he was being inspected until her voice broke in. ‘You look a bit miserable, dearie. Why don’t you come with me? I’m sure I could put a smile back on your face for a bit.’
‘Oh God,’ said Peter as he escaped from under the arch and started to run down the street, a shrill laugh echoing in his ears. He tried to hail a taxi but despaired as all seemed to have been taken in the further outbreak of rain. He finally paused in his flight as he found his passage barred by a policeman.
‘Hold it a minute – and where would you be going in such a hurry at this time of night?’
‘I was trying to find a cab.’
‘It didn’t appear to me that you were trying to hail a cab. Perhaps, sir, you would step into the car here so that my colleague and I can have a word with you.’
He was about to protest but was suddenly overcome with fatigue and stepped into the car at the kerbside. The interior light was switched on. The constable examined him more closely and then said less abruptly, ‘You seem pretty upset, sir, and very wet without a coat on.’
‘Yes, I know, it must seem odd.’ He struggled to regain his composure. ‘The fact is I’ve had a bit of a shock and I went out for a walk to clear my head. When the rain came I sheltered in an archway and then I was approached by someone soliciting and I just ran to get away.’
‘And where was that?’
‘I’m really not sure – I was just trying to get away. I can’t remember and frankly I would prefer not to.’
‘Very well. I think we can guess where it was that you were sheltering. Now, I would be grateful if you would identify yourself.’
Peter did so. He declined a lift home and asked to be dropped at a cab rank. He took a taxi to his office and, letting himself in, stood at the window looking at the tall darkened offices around him. The lights of the street lamps and the passing cars reflected off the wet surfaces in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colour. The cars passed with a sibilant hiss over the wet road while the few pedestrians hurried by, keeping close to the sides of the buildings. Occasionally the bow wave from a car would generate an arc of spray and the walkers would press themselves even more closely but unavailingly against the walls of the buildings for protection while shouting angrily but impotently at the drivers. A figure ran along the opposite pavement swiftly and furtively. Remembering his own frightened run a little earlier, Peter turned away from the window and started to laugh.
Finally, he went across the room and sat at his desk. He had come away from the flat to allow himself time to think but his thoughts were dominated by the instinctive reactions of those who feel themselves betrayed – the reactions of the cuckold. He had resisted the instinct to strike out angrily and blindly. Reason reminded him that he himself had calculatingly contemplated some sort of disruption or even separation in his marriage and he had even considered how this might be contrived. He was ashamed of his instinctive reactions to Ann but knew he was unlikely to admit that thoughts of a radical change, even if only for a limited period, had been in his mind too and that he had not discussed these with her. He reflected that the separation might be liberating but remained uncertain whether he had the resolve to take the necessary steps to reorient his life. The events of the last few months, viewed in retrospect, could be seen as the prologue to a tipping point in his life and the events of this evening might set in train a sequence of changes which would acquire their own momentum – but only if he had the courage to allow them to do so.
Peter left the office and took a cab back to the flat. Ann was awake and looking anxious. He realised that he had been out for well over two hours. He replied gently to her enquiries that he was alright and, pleading tiredness, went directly to bed in their spare room.
12
The following two weeks were occupied with activities which precluded thought. Peter and Ann’s separation was scarcely mentioned as each started to adapt to a life independent of the other. They would meet briefly over breakfast and exchange the pleasantries and remote courtesies of those who are compelled to share a table in a dining car on a train. Otherwise they saw little of each other. They made their own separate arrangements for meals in the evening and they slept apart. At the weekends they both spent much of the day out of the flat by tacit agreement. The division of the acquisitions of the marriage was accomplished with the same politeness which now characterised all their exchanges. Neither volunteered information relating to
their personal plans and neither sought to interrogate the other. Ann had been insistent that she was not seeking support from Peter and that she was prepared to sign over her share in the flat to him.
Two weeks after Valentine’s Day Ann announced that she would be moving out the following day. She would be joining her new partner in his apartment. She suggested that they might have dinner together that evening. The conversation was slow and interrupted by many silences. Peter asked some questions about Ann’s future domestic arrangements and listened to the replies politely but with little interest. He tried to imagine Ann naked with another man but the image in his mind had a distant asexual quality and failed to arouse any emotion in him. The tensions and the passion had been dissipated and there was little for them to do but play out their particular roles in this everyday domestic drama and close the scene.
Ann’s departure from the flat left an unexpected void in Peter’s life. He felt deeply the loss of companionship, missing even the limited contact of the previous two weeks. He would leave the office each day long after his colleagues had departed. The evenings still seemed interminably long and he took to roaming the streets without any clear purpose in mind. He became increasingly depressed with his own company as he continued to wrestle with thoughts about his future. One Saturday, he went to his office and, after dealing with some routine paperwork, did some calculations which showed that he had sufficient resources to live simply, but not too frugally, if he were to take a year away from work. It occurred to him that he might approach his partners to ask if they would be prepared to permit him to take an unpaid sabbatical, although he condemned himself for his timidity in limiting his thinking to the possibility of no more than a year’s absence. Late one afternoon, three weeks after Ann’s departure, the prospect of another evening in the flat on his own seemed to be even more unappealing than usual. He decided he could no longer tolerate his own company. Prompted by musings on his own aspirations, the thought occurred to him that he would enjoy seeing and talking to Sally Dunham again if he could contrive another meeting. He was not sure how he could find her but started to call the newspaper offices. Finally he reached the features editor of the Daily Express. She confirmed that Sally did make occasional contributions to the paper but was emphatic that they would not reveal the address or contact details of contributors. Feeling frustrated and then, surprised by his own stupidity that he had not thought of this earlier, he looked in the telephone directory. It did occur to him that she might be ex-directory but was encouraged by finding four subscribers with the surname of Dunham and one with the correct initial. He noted down the address of a block of flats near Kensington High Street.
