The Things That Matter

by Andrea Michael

  Then we’d sit on the tube home and eat our stolen snacks, and laugh until our stomachs hurt:

  ‘Did you see the guy who looked like Winston Churchill?’

  ‘The one who breeds Arabian horses?’

  ‘No, the one who went to the Playboy Mansion back in the seventies and couldn’t stop staring at the lady in the black sparkly thing.’

  ‘Did you speak to the woman who’s made her entire house gold leaf? She says she’s inspired by the works of Gustav Klimt and might get a column in Home and Country.’

  ‘Her dog was wearing a gold headpiece!’

  ‘Yes!’

  It was play-acting. We’d go into their world briefly, us against them, and then retreat back to our little flat, entirely sure of our place in the world. We were living right, with soul, with purpose. Their lives were trifles, basic and ridiculous.

  They must be such unhappy people, we used to say.

  But the lines became blurred over the next two years. The play-acting became harder to stop, because Dan so very much wanted to please his father. After all, he had more than enough to make up for. Dan stopped making up stories. He’d frown if I said something outlandish, and when I tried to mock them, he’d say, ‘Oh well, he was actually very nice, if you gave him a chance.’

  Sometimes he’d say, ‘This is important to my family, Taz, please just go with it,’ and I’d struggle not to remind him that I was his family, that was the deal we’d made. They’d abandoned him and I’d been there. But no, he felt that he’d deeply disappointed them and wanted to fix it.

  And everything that happened was because of me, so I had to go along with it. Had to play the happy little wife to the big-shot banker. He rose through the ranks (largely through nepotism) and we had to go to more parties, more galas, more charity events. I still insisted on buying my dresses from charity shops in fancy areas of London, but Dan bought expensive suits. He got comfortable with money again. Once at a charity auction he spent two thousand pounds on an ugly vase and I didn’t talk to him for a week.

  We were losing ourselves. We’d become the lie.

  And somehow, time had passed, and we were here. In a fancy Hampstead flat financed by Mummy and Daddy, and a second wedding that was befitting for their baby boy.

  It meant more to Daniel than he’d admit. But I’ve known women like Miranda White my whole life, doesn’t matter if they’re on the estate or in an ivory tower – they never do anything unless something’s in it for them. It was more than just being in the photos or inviting great-aunties. It was about controlling the narrative.

  I remembered hearing someone say, ‘And who are the bride’s people?’ during the reception, and snorting to myself, almost hysterical with giggles before I walked myself down the aisle. My people. The notion of it!

  I had a person. I had Daniel. And he was all I’d ever wanted.

  Lying alone in bed whilst my husband slept next door, it was hard to remember a time when he might have felt the same.

  Chapter Two

  When I woke up the next morning, Dan was already at work.

  Most mornings he woke at five, and went down to the shed in the thin patch of garden we owned to use the punch-bag he’d set up. In the summer I’d look out of the window to see him doing push ups and burpees on the grass, and watch with this sort of wonder before rolling over and going back to sleep. Then there’d be shower, breakfast, prepping paperwork and off he’d go to the tube, returning anywhere from eight p.m. until midnight.

  These days, it was more often the latter.

  I padded downstairs and found he’d left me a mug and the remains of a cafetière of coffee. It was still warm. No note this morning, but still more kindness than I deserved. I’d been awful last night. I’d embarrassed him. I’d been so incredibly ungrateful.

  He was right. He was right about so many things.

  My fucked-up family.

  That he’d given me everything.

  I knew exactly who he was when I’d married him.

  Except… well, I hadn’t signed up for this life. I know it’s the one everyone aspires to, but the money was never what it was about for me. I need a little hunger to get out of bed in the morning, a reason, a use. Dan’s family and friends will say differently, of course. I’d never stop being the girl off the estate with the greasy hair and the thumb-holes in her jumper who won the lottery the day Daniel White saved her life.

  At school, we seemed an unlikely pair. He was the perfect son with the good grades and the easy laugh, who everyone wanted to be friends with. Yet he used to hide out in the library after school to avoid going home, just like me. He’d sit and draw these cartoons, things that had happened, funny stuff teachers said, or arguments his parents had.

  Then after about an hour he’d run his hand through his beautiful dark hair, scrunch up the papers and throw them in the bin on the way out. And I, like the little creep I was, would go and rescue them, because they were wonderful and deserved to be seen.

  This carried on for weeks, watching him draw as I pretended to do my homework, or read the same page five times over from across that huge table in the library. It was like I had an insight to him that no one else had, I knew him, the real him. Not the boy who laughed so easily, or played the clown or kicked a football around at lunch. We were from different worlds in that school, but in the library, we were the same.

  The arguments his parents had, in those cartoon strips, they’d been so similar to the ones my parents had before my mum left. Sure, my dad held a beer and his mum had a martini. Mine swore in ways I was used to, and his speech bubbles used words that sounded posh and sharp, like bah-stard and ahrsehole.

  He discovered my snooping, in the worst possible way. He bumped into me in the hallway and his sketches fell right out of my bag. I stood there, waiting to be shamed, accused of being a freak, a stalker. Instead Dan just smiled, asked if I was okay, and how I’d found his drawings. Speaking in that spooked animal voice he still uses on me. No fear, no worry. Always assuming the best.

  I opened my mouth and I spoke, more than I ever had before. About how beautiful his drawings were, how they deserved to be seen, how I related. An embarrassing spew of word vomit and I got redder and redder until eventually I turned on my heel and ran.

  After that, Dan always sat next to me in the library. He started asking for my opinion, sliding the cartoons across so I could fill in the speech bubbles, writing me notes, drawing me unicorns and sassy dragons smoking cigars, wizards DJing supernatural parties. He made me laugh so loud that the librarian glared. He said he was collecting my laughs and counting them.

  And that was it, that was the beginning of us. The girl who was always hungry, growing out of her uniform, itchy from being soaked in washing-up liquid in the sink. And the boy from the nice bit of town who only went to the comprehensive because his dad thought it would ‘build character’.

  I caught sight of a photo of us in our early twenties on the fridge, sticking our tongues out. We grew up together. There are no photos of us in our teens, but it’s probably better that way. Dan likes to pretend that time didn’t exist. This version of Daniel White is not the sort of man who went to prison for manslaughter.

  At the time he said he didn’t regret it, but I think he’s changed his mind. Last night he looked at me like I was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

  That’s more true than even he knows. There are secrets about back then that I can’t ever tell him.

  Some things become unforgivable the moment they’re said out loud.

  My phone buzzed, making me jump, and I leapt for it, hoping it would be him. But no, it was Angie.

  ‘Alright princess? Did he lock you up in the tower for being bad?’

  ‘Oh don’t. Why didn’t you stop me from being an absolute dickhead last night?’

  ‘Um, because you didn’t say anything that wasn’t true?’ Angela’s voice softened, ‘Come on now babe, you were fine. You were being funny. It maybe missed the mark
a little, but most of those arseholes were so plastered, I bet they didn’t notice.’

  ‘Dan noticed.’

  ‘Well, yeah. I imagine he would. But maybe he should have focused on what you needed rather than what he wanted?’

  I considered it. The problem was, Angie was always on my side. And she had no problem being ruthless when the occasion called for it. So who was right? Was I the ungrateful wife addicted to drama, or was he the workaholic husband bored of his wife’s grief?

  Or were we just two people who got married too young and grew up suddenly?

  ‘So he’ll be hiding himself at work the next couple of weeks then? Do you want to go away? I’ve got to go supervise an influencer shoot in Milan, you could tag along?’

  I frowned, ‘I thought you made an app?’

  ‘Yes,’ Angie said, ‘and now we’re marketing it.’

  ‘Why do you need a photoshoot for a non-physical thing? In fact, why do you need a shoot in Milan for a British app?’ I felt suddenly incredibly old.

  ‘Babe, why do you ask me questions like you think I’m lying about my life? Believe me, I’d rather not fly for a couple of hours to watch some twenty-year-old pout at a screen with two hundred euros’ worth of balloons, but it’s my business and I take it seriously.’

  ‘I know you do, sorry, that wasn’t…’

  ‘I thought you were going to start saying yes again?’ Angie prompted, and I remembered her words from last night. Start feeling, start doing.

  ‘Yeah but…’ I started, and Angie laughed. ‘No, let me explain. If I go now, I’m running away from a fight. And that’s not fair on him.’

  ‘Because you have to be here to show you’re miserable? You have to be waiting for him whilst he gets to stay at work and punish you?’

  ‘It’s my marriage.’ I wanted to explain that it was the longest thing in my life, the thing I’d cultivated and cherished from the moment it started. I was going to be a brilliant wife, I’d decided from the moment he asked me. I wore the title like a crown.

  We did that thing everyone does when they first get married, calling each other ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ all the time like you’re getting the pronunciation right, getting used to the taste of the words you’ll use for the rest of your life.

  But we still did that now, still cherished those names because they meant something.

  ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about what you said last night and I’m going to take action.’

  Angie’s voice rose in surprise, ‘You’ll see a therapist? I can recommend a couple.’

  Fear clutched at my chest, ‘No, but I’m going to sort my CV out and start job hunting. Maybe start something different. Or go back to school? I can now, can’t I? Might as well take the opportunity to get my degree, do what I couldn’t do before.’

  Dan had attained his degree eventually, but I’d been focusing on making money, and by the time I fell into charity work, I didn’t need to go to uni.

  I loved feeling like I was doing something useful, helping people find housing. And I was good at it. My education didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I could explain exactly why a human being should help another, and I could get that through to someone in under thirty seconds. Sometimes, they’d even thank me for it.

  They’d said my job was there for me whenever I wanted, but the idea of going back, of people asking how the baby was, before they realised… or worse, not asking because they’d all been briefed about my ‘situation’. I spent nights imagining interactions with my colleagues. The pity, the awkwardness. I had to start fresh, stop looking back.

  ‘Well that sounds good, what do you want to study?’ Angela’s voice cut through my pointless imagined scenarios. She thought I was just telling her what she wanted to hear. Another half-hearted attempt to seem better.

  ‘I… honestly? I have absolutely no fucking idea.’ I’d never really thought about it before.

  ‘Well lucky you, about to find a new passion!’ Angie teased. ‘Though I bet you could moon over syllabuses on a flight to Milan?’

  ‘Next time,’ I said, and the silence at the end of the line told me she didn’t believe me.

  I paused.

  ‘Hey Ange?’ I asked. ‘Don’t stop asking me, okay? I know… I know what I’m like right now, but please keep inviting me places?’

  She was quiet for a moment, but when she finally spoke I could hear the smile.

  ‘You know me, your friendly neighbourhood pitbull. I won’t let go. Love ya, kid.’

  ‘You too. Safe flight.’

  When she hung up, I wondered where to start. I was going to make her proud though. I was going to do something. I had to do more than just put on a good show. I wanted to be able to look at this day and say I did something.

  Today, I decided, was going to be a good day.

  In the world of business, as Dan had so recently learnt, there was the idea of ‘eating the frog’. Whatever the hardest, worst task you need to do is, you get that done first. Which was why I was standing in my hallway, grasping my cup of coffee like a lifeline, staring at a closed door.

  The room needed to be emptied. I hadn’t been in there in months, not beyond dumping the useless pieces of tat I’d bought online and throwing the door closed behind them, like the room was haunted. But today was the day. My husband thought I was poison, and my best friend thought I was lost, and as much as I regretted the argument I’d had with Dan, it had felt so good to finally say something. To finally take the mic and tell those people what I thought.

  So, I was going in.

  I watched as my hand trembled on the door. I shook out the tremors, clenching and unclenching my fist, annoyed at myself.

  ‘Oh come on, you stupid woman,’ I muttered, and threw the door open.

  Silence.

  It was just a room. A beautiful room with light streaming through the window, the grey striped walls like something out of a magazine. And then that perfect back wall that we’d painted the mural on. Well, Dan had painted it obviously, but he’d let me help, didn’t mind when my messy brush strokes went outside the lines. It was a lush jungle, so beautiful you could almost walk right into it.

  ‘I want him to crave adventure, right from the beginning,’ Dan had said when he finished sketching it out, and I’d kissed him, so thrilled, so excited to see him be a dad. I was quite far along by then, and I had these dungarees and a pink bandana to cover my hair, and it felt like we were in a movie, having this perfect moment. We blasted the radio and sang along, and Dan hovered when I got on the stepladder, even though he pretended he wasn’t worried. That night we ordered pizza, and he rubbed my swollen feet, and we kept going back to the hallway and opening the door to look at our work.

  ‘We are really doing this, it’s really happening,’ Dan had whispered, hugging me from behind, his hands on my stomach.

  ‘It’s happening. And no matter what, even if we absolutely suck as parents, we know that our kid is gonna have the best-looking nursery ever. I mean, look at it. We’re already doing an awesome job.’ I patted his hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, kissing my neck. ‘None of this would have happened without you.’

  ‘Well, you had a rather important role to play too,’ I laughed, twisting to kiss his cheek.

  ‘No, I mean… I mean our life. I’m just really grateful.’

  I’d probably made a snarky comment, or said something stupid, but after that he tucked me in bed and he went back downstairs to do some more stuff for work. I remembered falling asleep noticing how much my face hurt from smiling, and thinking how lucky I was.

  I was still lucky.

  That’s why I had to clear this room out. Paint it over and start fresh. It was meant to be his room, it didn’t seem fair to save it for another baby. Even the thought of that felt sharp and painful.

  I started with all the stuff I’d bought, dragging it out into the hall and assessing what I could do with it. Some of it wasn’t even opened, forgotten about as soon
as it was ordered. Efficiency and action was the key here, so I got to work sorting them by date. If they were unopened I checked the order details and made arrangements to return them. The ones that were opened, I checked the same, and if it was too late, I put them up for sale online.

  Within minutes I had people on local groups buying things and by midday I’d had more people at my door than I’d seen in six months. Friendly faces, perhaps a little worried that the price was too good to be true. But I just wanted the stuff gone. I wanted Dan to come home and see how much I’d done, how hard I was trying.

  By early afternoon the nursery was empty of all the boxes and rubbish and everything else I’d stuffed in there. It felt like I’d pulled a dead body out from under the bed. Something in my chest was lighter.

  But now I was left with the perfect nursery we’d worked so hard on. I didn’t have the heart to dismantle the beautiful crib, or take down the mobile with the felt sheep I’d spent hours sewing and stuffing. I’d stabbed my fingers so many times with the needles that I kept smearing blood on their little white bodies, and I had to keep starting over. At one point I even wore gloves, and Dan had laughed at my dedication. I’d put all the love I had into that mobile, even if it had none of the skill. I couldn’t throw it away.

  What I could do, was bag up all the beautiful baby clothes in the chest of drawers and take them down to the charity shop. And then cover the furniture in dust cloths and get the white paint out. I picked up a new paint roller and a pot of paint on the way back from the charity shop on the high street, feeling buoyed by purpose.

  Painting was therapeutic, making everything blank again. A new start. I worked hard and didn’t stop until late afternoon. The only thing I left was that jungle wall. I couldn’t cover it over, it was just too beautiful. I tried to tell myself I could use it as an office when I decided what I wanted to study, that I wanted to turn it into something new.

  By the time I collapsed onto the sofa with a cup of tea and a sandwich, it was 4 p.m. My first truly useful day in a long time. No calls on the helpline, no feeling sorry for myself. Just action. I liked it.