The Things That Matter

by Andrea Michael

  I blinked, trying to figure out if my father-in-law had really just said that, or if I’d imagined it.

  ‘Yes, darling, now you can focus on what matters.’ Miranda did that thing where she picked an invisible piece of fluff from Daniel’s top, a power move that I’d hated since the first time she’d done it. ‘And really, maybe it’s all for the best, you know? Babies can complicate things.’

  I coughed, a dry, sharp sound that sounded like choking. It felt like choking. Choking down every terrible thing I’d ever wanted to scream at this woman who seemed so capable of dismissing my pain. My husband’s pain.

  ‘Complicate things,’ I tried to keep my lips pressed together but I couldn’t. I took a shaky breath. ‘Complicate things?’

  Miranda turned towards me, and I could tell she wanted to roll her eyes, but that wouldn’t be polite. She always spoke more slowly to me, letting me know she thought I was stupid. ‘Now don’t be overly sensitive Natasha, I just meant…’

  ‘You meant that a baby would have tied Dan to his trashy wife forever,’ I said, smiling through clenched teeth. And maybe now he’ll see sense and leave me for one of those trust fund Barbie dolls you’ve been parading around him ever since he came back into your life.

  We had laughed about it, at first, Dan and I, when she started turning up with these women. Young, successful women with tailored clothing and job roles just high up enough to be impressive, but not so high as to intimidate the menfolk. They would quit their jobs to raise their kids, and think nothing of throwing away a decade of work. They were a particular type, and I often wondered if Miranda was growing them in her greenhouse.

  But I wasn’t laughing today. Babies can complicate things. Good God.

  Miranda curled a lip. ‘You’re being incredibly vulgar, though I don’t know why I’m surprised.’

  ‘Yes, I never did manage that way you people have of hiding a snide comment behind a smile.’ I looked to Daniel, who seemed to be on the verge of tears. ‘I assume you have nothing to say about this?’

  Dan looked between us. I waited for him to back down, to take their side, the way he always did. He’d been so desperate to please them, to make up for disappointing them. The number of times in the last two years that he’d asked me to be patient, to be understanding, to let his family do what they wanted. To do it for him. I’d lost count.

  There was the fake second wedding that his mother organised just so she could be in the photos; the new flat that was so big, it made me uncomfortable when I was there alone. The big fancy job that meant he was never around. These last couple of years had been about what they wanted for us, and I had bitten my lip and stayed silent, because I owed Dan everything, and this was what he wanted.

  I was waiting for him to take their side again.

  Instead, he smiled at me and reached out a hand for mine, before turning to face his mother. We were united, and I could have cried in relief.

  And then he spoke.

  ‘Mum, we’re incredibly sad about what happened, and I’d like you to be a bit more sensitive please.’

  Oh wow, you told her.

  I felt my stomach dip in disappointment.

  His mother was right, of course, I’d never managed their lingo, their way of pretending to be interested when they were laughing at you. It was a particular skill and I figured you probably had to grow up hearing it to recognise it. Like Morse code or a certain frequency. ‘Oh, how riveting.’ ‘Oh you really are the most interesting person.’ ‘I’m so pleased you actually managed to make it. I thought you’d be too busy.’

  I’d never caught on. I said what I thought or, more likely, I said nothing at all. And that marked me out, more than the way I spoke, or my distaste for caviar and macarons or bottles of wine that reached triple figures.

  ‘Oh darling, you know I only want what’s best for you. Daddy and I are just so pleased you’re back to focusing on work and building up your career.’

  Instead of focusing on the family we’re so disappointed by. The woman who begged you to save your child instead of her.

  It was no one’s fault, obviously, and nothing we’d done would have made any difference, the doctors were eager to make that clear. But there was a brokenness in me that hadn’t been there before, like I was a walking bruise being bumped by every single thing or person I passed. Dan had been there, a vague outline in the greyness. It was like those visiting hours. He came and he talked, he held me and he gave me hope.

  And one day I woke up and I could see things properly again. I could shower and dress and make breakfast. I could eat lunch and watch television and think about something other than this huge festering wound of loss.

  But now we were meant to be back to normal, and I was letting the side down.

  I had carried my baby inside me, all those months, and then he was gone and I was so very unused to being alone in my body. It was a loneliness that I couldn’t explain. Almost like still expecting a flash of tail or a twitched ear from a pet you’d always had, and finding the house empty.

  Angela raised her eyebrows at me from across the room, and when I made a face she bounced over, drinks in hand. ‘Sorry ladies and gents, I’m going to have to steal the birthday girl here, you’re hogging her. Toodles!’

  As we escaped into the garden, I kissed her on the cheek, ‘You are a goddess. A jail breaker, my knight in shining armour, whatever, I love you.’

  ‘Wicked Witch of East Hertfordshire causing problems again?’

  ‘Oh, she’s still waiting for Daniel to wake up and realise he never loved me, that I was a gold-digging bitch who tricked him into staying with her, and I only got knocked up to spite her.’

  My voice broke a little as I reached the end of my sentence, so I sucked down half the glass of Champagne. Angela handed me a cigarette and I paused.

  ‘I quit.’

  Angela’s warm brown eyes were frank, ‘Yes. You quit because you needed to, and now you don’t need to, so you may as well.’

  ‘Or I’ve quit, so I may as well carry on with it. You’ve always been the devil on my shoulder.’

  ‘I’ve been the antidote to the bullshit in your life, sweetcheeks,’ she flicked her dark hair back, those gold hoops getting caught again. ‘But do as you like, it’s nothing to do with me.’

  I looked through the window as yet another swishy brunette was introduced to my husband by his parents, exactly the kind of woman they’d wanted for their son. Someone with airs and graces, or at the very least from good stock. Someone who knew when family came first and when to step back. Someone who would shut up and do what they were told.

  ‘Ha,’ I pointed her out to Angela, ‘called it.’

  We got married when we were twenty years old. It’s been ten years. And still, still, they just can’t comprehend why their son would saddle himself with someone like me. Someone who didn’t go to university, who came from nothing. Who worked for a charity, ‘begging people for money all day’ (Dan’s dad referred to charities as ‘useful for reducing taxes but not much else’). What could I possibly have had to offer him that would make him give everything up for me? That would keep him here all these years later?

  The answer was simple – devotion. And gratitude. Daniel had saved me at the worst moment in my life, and I’d saved him during his. Those months and years after, when we’d lived off dented tins of beans and tuna pasta bake for weeks on end, they weren’t a hardship. Not for me. I just got to be with him, wake up to him, spend my life loving someone who loved me. Poverty didn’t even touch the sides, I was happy.

  But I’m starting to wonder if Daniel wasn’t. He never complained, never said anything. But when his parents offered him this job two years ago, he took it and ever since then it’s been a steady stream of corporate bullshit. They’re grooming him to take over, and when he does, I half expect them to offer an ultimatum: You’ve had your fun now Daniel, but it’s time to grow up. Leave Taz, she’ll be just fine without you, her kind always is.

 
; I didn’t know what bothered me more – that they still thought I wasn’t good enough for their son after all these years, or that one day soon Dan might think it too.

  I held my hand out for a lighter and lit the cigarette, ‘Fuck it.’

  ‘Atta girl.’ Angela nudged me, ‘Vices are important.’

  ‘Hmph,’ I replied, non-committal. I watched Dan smile at people, shake hands and slap backs and raise his glass in greeting. He was so good at all this, as much as he professed to hate it. He was a natural. He belonged in this world.

  ‘So, are you going to try again?’ Angela said lightly, and I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. I stubbed the cigarette out on the wall, and buried the butt in the soil of the planter behind me.

  ‘None of your fucking business,’ I felt myself harden.

  ‘Good,’ Angela nodded, unruffled, ‘no one else has asked that yet then. I wanted to prepare you. These people have absolutely no tact.’

  ‘And you do?’

  ‘When it comes to the people I care about, sure.’

  ‘Are any of them here tonight?’ I nudged her, half-smiling and Angela leaned against me.

  ‘I’m just looking out for you kid, I don’t know why you put up with these people. This is my livelihood, I need them, you don’t.’

  But I needed Daniel. And no one told me at the beginning that this life was part of the deal. This privileged, perfect life.

  I paused. ‘They’re not gonna ask me when we’re trying again.’

  Angela raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It would be tacky, these people aren’t tacky.’

  She snorted, ‘You were at that Christmas party at the Ivy last year, right?’

  ‘I love that you’re such a snob.’

  She rolled her eyes and stubbed out her cigarette, ‘Well I wouldn’t mind if they weren’t all so dreadfully dull, darling. You’re the only one here who ever does something I don’t see coming.’

  ‘I don’t do anything! I sit quietly and nod and let people look at my boobs, like you said. Although apparently they’re less impressive these days.’

  Angela’s grin was wicked, ‘I think you’re rewriting history a bit. What about when you cornered that MP who voted against the homeless bill? And the summer party when you tore that private school headmaster a new one when it came to charitable status? And that time you got every woman in the room to calculate how much they’d spent on their periods in the last twenty years and made the bosses donate the equivalent to charity?’

  ‘Ah, the Looney Tunes Leftie Wife, I guess I did give them a run for their money at the beginning.’ I had a lot more energy back then. I’d still been working at the charity and I was strong-willed and confident. If I riled up the right old man at the right party with the right journalists present, I could raise more for charity in that night than I did in a month. It was like a game, and I’d loved to play it. I was good at it, too.

  ‘You have never been boring, and it’s why we’re friends. Also I’m hoping if I hang around you long enough, your morals will rub off on me.’

  ‘Oh no, don’t bother, they’re terribly inconvenient. Especially in this crowd.’ I clinked my glass against hers, and then rested my head on her shoulder. ‘Thank you for being here. I know I haven’t been… I haven’t been right for a while.’

  ‘You never have to apologise for that sweetcheeks,’ I felt her rest her head on top of mine. ‘I just miss Taz the fighter. She made me hopeful.’

  I had been so tired, so very tired. Too tired to fight about anything. All I’d wanted to do was lie in bed every day staring at the ceiling. Ignoring the voicemails Miranda left for Dan (never for me) and avoiding that grey and yellow bedroom at the end of the hall with the mural we’d painted so beautifully.

  ‘I miss her too,’ I said, tapping my fingers until Angie handed me the remains of her cigarette.

  ‘So… what’s the plan to get her back?’ she asked, and I sensed the hesitancy. Tread carefully Ange, don’t spook her. She spooks easy these days.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Angie exhaled and leaned back so she could meet my eyes. She looked scarily sincere. ‘Babe, your birthday present from me is some tough love. I adore you, you went through shit, it’s okay to wallow and take time to heal…’

  ‘But?’ I could feel it coming.

  ‘But I’m worried you’re getting bitter. You’re like… clenched. A waiting fist. But you never punch. You just stay there, frozen. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, right, sometimes you’ve got to take responsibility for some healing.’

  ‘Wow,’ I croaked, looking up to try and avoid my eyes filling with tears. But I thought I was doing so well. I was trying so hard to seem happy. To seem okay.

  ‘But… but you told me I didn’t have to pretend with you.’

  ‘Oh darling, no, you don’t. That’s not what I’m saying. You can be sad. You can be quiet and hurting or raging or whatever you like. But you’re not being any of those things.’

  ‘I am!’ I sniffed, embarrassed at how weak I sounded, like a child scolded and trying to reason with the adult.

  Angela smiled kindly, and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. Even that caring gesture made me want to burst into tears. ‘You’re not expressing anything, Taz. I asked you to come to that yoga retreat, I invited you axe-throwing, and to that therapeutic writing class. Gong baths and weekends away, you didn’t want any of it. You won’t even talk to that helpline you’re so attached to. You’ve got all this pain and you’re not putting it anywhere.’

  I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t. I desperately searched for something that I’d done in the last few months. Something to show I was trying to get better, trying to find myself again.

  Instead, I just met her eyes and nodded, and we sat silently, clasped hands as I tried to compose myself.

  ‘I knew you were pissed off about bloody axe-throwing,’ I grumbled, smiling at her. ‘Who drinks a bunch of cocktails and then throws sharp objects?’

  ‘Well-adjusted people, apparently,’ Angie grinned and stuck out her tongue, before pausing. ‘So, we’re okay, right? It’s okay that your birthday present was a kick up the bum?’

  ‘From anyone else, no. From you… maybe,’ I nudged her. ‘I know I’ve been stuck. I’m just… I’m working up the energy, you know?’

  ‘It’s why you need the axe-throwing,’ she grinned. ‘I’ll even print out a photo of your mother-in-law’s face for the bullseye, I bet that’ll motivate you.’

  I snorted, ‘Why didn’t you say? I’d have been there in a flash.’

  Angela pulled me into a hug, brief and rough. ‘I love you, little one. And if you ever tell anyone that I said that…’

  ‘I know, I know, you’ve spent years cultivating an image of a bitchy entrepreneur and you’ve got to protect it.’ I kissed her cheek. ‘But I love you too, you softy.’

  I watched as Angela’s body language changed, how she peered behind me into the pub and looked suddenly alert.

  ‘Come on, we better get inside. Here, drink the rest of mine,’ she switched our glasses as she hustled me up.

  ‘I’m sure I can wait the five minutes until we get to the bar,’ I snorted. But Angela’s eyes were trained on something inside, and she shook her head.

  ‘I have a feeling Dan is making a speech, and he’s missing the guest of honour.’

  ‘Oh shut up, he wouldn’t make a speech. It’s my thirtieth, not my hundredth.’

  Angela tapped the glass in my hand, ‘Think of it as one of those things American girls get, cotillions? Coming out parties? You’re being reintroduced to society as Natasha “I’m completely fine, really” White.’

  Angela was right. Daniel was standing at the raised edge by the bar, microphone in hand and tense smile on his face as we walked in. ‘Ah there she is, finally, the birthday girl! Call off the search party!’

  Oh no, he was annoyed. I knew that fake smile and clenched look around his jaw. He wanted his moment and I’d embarrassed
him.

  ‘Taz, come on up babe,’ Daniel beckoned me, holding out a hand as if knowing I wanted to scarper, and the crowd seemed to part for me, all those smiling faces with flitting eyes, scanning to see what I’d do.

  He positioned me awkwardly next to him, slotted into his side, and I just watched him, wondering how much that expensive suit cost, and how much this party had cost, and whether the ornamental bird cage that I bought online at midnight last night had been dispatched yet. And where the hell I’d hide it when it arrived.

  ‘Now, as most of you know, it hasn’t been the easiest year for us…’ Daniel started, and I had to stop myself from physically wincing. Oh please don’t. Please don’t put all my pain and shame out in front of these people. These awful, awful people.

  I pasted a vacant smile on my face and let Dan squeeze my hand, even as I searched in the crowd for Angela’s eyes with a kind of panic. She looked outraged, mouthing ‘What the fuck?’ as my husband continued.

  ‘But we’re really happy we’re able to celebrate Taz’s birthday with you all, and we appreciate all your support and patience over the last few months as we get on with everything. And well, I basically just want to say that my wife is amazing.’ He turned to me, beaming. ‘A lot of people said we wouldn’t make it, getting together so young, getting married so young, but I always knew we were meant for each other.’

  One of Dan’s banker bros imitated vomiting loudly and everyone laughed. I suddenly really wanted to cry. I wasn’t Fighter Taz anymore, I was just a very tired woman who wanted to be at home, eating ice cream in her pyjamas.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose that was a bit sappy,’ Dan smiled at me as though he didn’t care, and I desperately pushed down on my irritation. He was trying to do a good thing, he was trying to make me feel better, be better. ‘But I don’t care. Here’s to my wife, the one and only Taz White, fearless, brave and a survivor, always, no matter what. Happy birthday, sweetheart.’

  ‘To Taz!’ someone in the crowd yelled, and they raised their glasses to me, my husband kissing my cheek as I realised this portion of my life had been closed without my permission.