Chapter 16
16
‘H ere’s to Jack,’ Lawrence said and lifted a glass full to the brim of sparkling champagne.
‘Thanks, Dad.’ Jack returned the gesture, his face bright with happiness and, looking at him, Helen realised just how much of a strain the last few weeks had been. Because here was a glimpse of the old Jack, looking like his young self again. Handsome and lean. Clear skin, shiny hair, bursting to set sail upon his own personal epic. Her boy, the tiny boy who had once tripped down the stairs, half asleep, re-living his dreams of golden dogs and racing chickens between mouthfuls of cornflakes. She lifted her own glass, blinking away the tears that threatened. Two As and one A* he’d achieved. So he was off. In a few short weeks, he’d be off. Those cardboard boxes they’d picked up on the way back from their walk, filled with all he was going to need for his new life. And how was she ever going to bear him leaving? Then again, how could she bear him staying, with his huge hairy feet on the coffee table and his habit of drying hair-gelled hands on clean towels. ‘To Jack,’ she managed, caught up in the paradox of reconciling herself to something that she would never be reconciled to.
‘To Jack.’ Libby echoed quietly.
Helen turned. Libby wasn’t drinking champagne. She was drinking water, from a squat tumbler, and thinking perhaps of the day they had celebrated her results, in exactly the same spot, almost exactly three years ago. Helen held her glass at her lips, acidic bubbles tickling the inside of her mouth. Don’t think about it, she willed. Don’t think … But there it was! An image of Jack, trundling up the front path, a baby swaddled in his arms. Beaming. Look, Mum. Look what I’ve brought you. Imagine! And to stop herself imagining, she swallowed another mouthful of champagne. But the idea was so horrifyingly ridiculous it almost made her laugh and in trying to suppress the laugh she snorted, which drew a stream of bubbles up her nose, tickling all the tiny hairs, making her sniff and then sneeze and shoot nasal bubbles all over her plate. A wholly physical response to the idea of another baby in the house.
Across the table Lawrence glared. As if she’d done it on purpose.
She wished she had. ‘Inhaled it,’ she explained. ’By accident.’
He shook his head in profound dismay. (He did that a lot lately.) Then he raised his glass again and said pointedly, ‘ Anyway , I’m very proud of you son. I always knew you wouldn’t let us down.’
Ignoring him, Helen slugged back another large mouthful. What Lawrence meant was, you haven’t let me down… Unlike herself, of course, who having let the whole family down didn’t deserve an iota of sympathy. Well. She might have had a brief (and wonderful) affair, but she hadn’t secretly re-mortgaged the house… She stopped thinking, shifted her eyes left to Libby and instantly slapped a lid down on the pot of sour irritation Lawrence had stirred.
Because Libby’s head had dropped and no one had noticed. Her chin was on her chest and she was making a show of smoothing out Ben’s spit-bib, but her lips were thin with the strain of emotion and she was blinking furiously. Trying not to cry.
With dagger-eyes Helen turned back to Lawrence. She didn’t care what he thought about her, how unsubtle his subtle digs were. But to tar Libby with the same brush, or even for a moment to allow Libby to think she was being tarred… She sat there willing him to turn and face her, but he was still jabbering on to Jack, and Libby still had her head down. ‘Lawrence,’ she hissed through bared teeth.
Lawrence looked up.
She jerked her head an inch to Libby and to her immense relief Lawrence put his glass down.
And for a long awkward moment no one spoke.
Then, in a show of emotional intelligence that warmed her heart, Jack lined his knife and fork together and dipped his head, giving his sister all the time she needed to compose herself.
‘We need to forge a plan here,’ Lawrence said and leaned his elbows on the table, hands cupped.
Helen glanced at him, that we again. Never mind, they did need a plan. Or Libby did, and at least he’d gotten her hint.
‘Libby.’ He frowned at his glass. ‘You said before the… um, before… Yes, before everything happened.’
‘Baby?’ Helen offered. ‘Before the baby?’
He glowered at her and turned back to Libby. ‘You mentioned re-takes in January?’
Libby nodded. She was holding Ben’s hand in her own, his tiny finger wrapped around hers.
Ah… A rush of bubbly champagne love swept over Helen. She wanted to scoop them both up and pack them somewhere safe and warm. Like her pocket. Libby and Ben. They were both babies, the pair of them.
‘You see.’ Lawrence nodded. His features were heavy, as if his face was having trouble supporting them. ‘You see,’ he repeated. ‘That sounds achievable to me.’
No one answered.
Libby glanced at Helen. She looked anxious. The last time this conversation had been raised it hadn’t ended well.
‘Don’t you think?’ Lawrence said, looking at Helen.
Wary, Helen narrowed her eyes. It did sound achievable, of course it did. But then Lawrence was good at making everything sound achievable. Everest for example. What he wasn’t so good at was spelling out the price. Everest, FOR EXAMPLE!
Circling his glass on the table, he said, ‘I think you should aim for that. It’s always good to set yourself a goal. Get it done while the material is fresh in your mind. Do you think you could cope?’
Libby made the smallest of nods. ‘I think so.’
‘Your mother and I will support you.’
Again, Libby nodded.
‘I think that’s reasonable. Helen?’
‘That’s reasonable,’ Helen agreed. What else could she say? It did sound reasonable and after so much work, it would be ridiculous not to help Libby get past the finishing line.
‘What do you think, Libby?’ Lawrence pushed.
‘If Mum agrees?’
Tightly Helen nodded. She knew where this was headed and, once again, she had no idea how to stop it.
‘Good!’ Lawrence raised his glass. ‘So let’s get the re-sits done. We’ll wait until that’s all out of the way and then we’ll go from there. All of us. Little Ben as well!’
The net of tension that had so suddenly enfolded them had loosened. Libby smiled and raised her tumbler. The first time she’d smiled all through the meal. And Jack was smiling and everything was alright again and, not trusting herself to speak, Helen flashed a smile back at her family and reached across to begin scooping up their empty plates. We’ll wait until that’s all out of the way … We’ll wait until Libby’s had the baby … We’ll wait and wait and wait … Dot after dot after dot. If it was left to Lawrence, he’d lay out enough dots to take them all up to Ben's eighteenth birthday. Enough dots for that Juliet balcony she hadn’t stopped thinking about to crumble to dust. And actually, maybe even enough time to pay back the money he’d taken.
At the dishwasher, she dropped the knives in blades up. At the hob, she collected pans and lids and grease-splattered spatulas.
‘I’ll help,’ she heard Libby say, but she waved it off.
So Libby stayed seated. And with her back to the table, scrubbing fat from the saucepan, Helen listened to her family discuss their futures. And it was fine. It really was. Jack, so excited to be arranging a weekend to check out accommodation, Libby tentatively putting forward a schedule that would take her to the re-sits. Every now and then she padded back to the table and topped up her glass, ignoring every attempt by her husband to make eye contact. Eventually the chat died away. Libby went upstairs to bath Ben. Jack went out to celebrate and Helen picked up a tea towel and dried her hands. Where was her future in all of this?
Jack stuck his head around the door. ‘You sure there’s nothing I can do to help?’ he said, looking at an almost cleared table and an almost full dishwasher. (An old trick of his.)
‘We’re fine,’ Lawrence said.
No she wasn’t. She wasn’t fine.
‘Go and have some fun,’ Lawrence said. ‘We’ll sort it.’
We… we, we, we. That was it! The way that when it suited, he kept fusing them together like wire. She put the tea towel down. On one hand what Lawrence had suggested made perfect sense. On the other hand, it was pissing her off no end! Your mother and I will support you … Which she would. In her own time, in her own way and with her own choice of words.
Behind her, she heard a scrape as Lawrence pushed back in his chair. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he said.
(Even now! Even now, deciding her language.)
‘And I understand your frustration. But this is something we need to face as a family, Helen. I think we should?—’
And because she couldn’t bear to hear another we, she twisted to him and snapped, ‘When are you going to tell me why you re-mortgaged the house, Lawrence?’
He blinked.
‘How about now? Is now the right time for you? Because it certainly is for me!’
His mouth drew itself closed, like a small pink drawbridge. Everything else about him stayed rock still. It reminded Helen of Sasha earlier, petrified by his freedom.
She leaned back against the dishwasher and released her arrows. Precise, measured, very cold, as they should be, having had to wait in the freezer section of her mind these last few weeks. ‘I went to the bank,’ she said, ‘as I told you. The day Ben was born and Caro…’ Catching herself short, Helen drew a deep breath.
‘Why?’ Lawrence asked, his face open with confusion. ‘Why were you at the bank?’
Looking straight at him, Helen said calmly, ‘To open a personal account, Lawrence. To start the process of separation.’
His left eye made an involuntary squint. Like she’d hit her target.
Helen pushed back against the sink. She didn’t like doing this, she didn’t like hurting him. An image of that morning at the bank re-surfaced, the eyelash sat on the desk between her and the clerk. The ￡100,000 Lawrence had taken. Without so much as a word. She continued in a low voice, ‘When I tried to make a transfer, the balance was too low. So we went through the last twelve months’ statements. Me and a very helpful young lady.’
Lawrence's squint became a spasm.
‘And of course it wasn’t hard to discover.’ Helen shook her head. ‘You re-mortgaged the house, Lawrence. Without even telling me, you re-mortgaged this house.’
‘Have you ever been short of money?’ Lawrence said calmly.
‘What…?’ She was too surprised to finish.
So he jumped right in. ‘I’ll put it another way. Have you ever not been able to buy exactly what you needed? When you needed it?’
The air seemed to leave Helen’s chest, which didn’t matter because she was speechless anyway. She literally couldn’t find any words to answer him. Probably because it wasn’t a question that should have been asked. Her mind caught up with what he was doing. ‘This isn’t about me!’ she gasped. ‘Don’t turn?—’
‘Have you,’ he interrupted gently, ‘or the kids, ever gone short of money?’
Helen didn’t speak. She picked up the tea towel and twisted it into a tight snake. How, in the course of micro-seconds, had she lost grip of the conversation?
‘Exactly,’ Lawrence said. ‘So what is your problem?’
His voice was cold and, suddenly, so was she. In the heat of an August evening, Helen felt herself chill, as if she’d opened the freezer door to a blast of frigid air. He wasn’t even sorry and that lack of contrition had her doubting what had actually happened. Because wasn’t it his money anyway? Didn’t he earn it? ‘You used it for Everest,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you?’
He lifted his chin. ‘Yes.’
Her lips flattened out in disgust. At herself? Or him?
‘There’s a window of time in which I could have done it, Helen,’ he said, and his voice regained a transparent layer of warmth. ‘I can see why that might be difficult to understand. The climbing… And I agree, it’s an obsession. I tried to explain it in Cyprus, remember?’
She did. But hadn’t she also tried to explain something in Cyprus? And wasn’t there a window of time also for her? A window which right now felt as if it were closing fast. ‘You told me you’d sold shares, Lawrence. That’s what you said.’
‘Well…’ Lawrence leaned forward, twisting the stem of his glass. He shrugged. ‘Obviously I didn’t.’
And watching him, Helen took a much needed breath. Her whole body shuddered. Right now, in this time and this place, there wasn’t anything about him that she even liked. This man she had spent half her life with. ‘Why did you lie?’ she whispered. ‘I’m your wife. Why did you lie to me?’
He laughed. A low chuckle, reserved for harmless disbelief. As if a child had told him that reindeer definitely can fly. ‘Honestly?’ He looked up. ‘Not telling you was easier than having to explain it to you. You’re not exactly Caro are you, Helen? I didn’t expect you to understand the ins and outs of what at the time was the most financially astute decision. Especially when you didn’t need to know.’
Helen stared at him, such a storm of emotion going on she could not have grabbed any one feeling and pinned it down long enough to name it.
But he did. ‘Don’t look so outraged,’ he said gently. ‘You would never even have found out if you hadn’t…’ And here he trailed off, his hand releasing his glass as it fell back into his lap.
‘What?’ she said, and it was like poking a bear. A bear that had lied and deceived her. ‘What wouldn’t I have known… if I hadn’t what ?’
‘If you hadn’t gone and shagged that… that person,’ he spat. ‘If you hadn’t gotten all these stupid ideas into your head!’
‘Stupid ideas!’ And Helen nodded. His stupid ideas meant her life and her finally making a pro-active choice about how she wanted to spend it! She shook her head. How foolish she’d been. How utterly inept at playing this game between them. Thinking that he’d fall in with the flow, that they could be civilised, that he’d hand over the keys of this supremely comfortable prison that she’d allowed herself to be held in. ‘Stupid ideas,’ she repeated. ‘Is that what you think all this is?’
Now he looked at her. ‘It’s so incredibly selfish, Helen. Breaking the family apart like this.’
Her mouth fell open. Selfish? She couldn’t even get the word out. Of all the ways she might have imagined this conversation going, this wasn’t one of them. Lawrence defined selfish. Lawrence had selfish running through him like everyone else had blood. Months away climbing mountains, cycling the length and breadth of countries, while she waded through the long grass of domesticity, waiting years… no, decades, before she could even get five minutes to address her needs. And beyond that, was there any one thing they had done in the whole course of their marriage that had been Helen’s idea? That had been based on her needs ? She gripped the bench. Was there any one thing in the course of her whole life that had been solely her idea? ‘What’s selfish,’ she said, faint with the realisation that it had taken fifty years for her to even acknowledge that she might try to live her life based upon her needs, ‘is you, re-mortgaging our biggest financial asset without telling me.’ Because she had to get a grip on this, she had to keep this on track. ‘Just because you earn the money, doesn’t mean you get to control my life, Lawrence,’ she said, each word a glowing coal. ‘Not any more.’
‘That’s a bit dramatic,’ he said and laughed again. That same self-satisfied chuckle.
Helen stared at him. Now she was numb – with disbelief. Thirty years ago, she’d fallen in love with a man who would, one day, laugh at her. ‘Is it?’ she said, feeling dull as a dishrag. ‘Is it really, Lawrence?’
He didn’t answer.
‘How can you buy me out, when you’ve already climbed the money away? How can I leave?’
Still he didn’t speak.
‘It wasn’t your decision to make,’ she finished, turning back to the sink, because really, what was the point?
‘ Whose was it then? ’ Lawrence’s voice was so loud and so angry it had Helen turning back to him. ‘If it wasn’t my money, Helen, whose was it? And this has nothing to do with control. So don’t try and spin some sort of equality slant to this because I know one woman, for a start, who wouldn’t stand for anyone telling tell her how she should spend her money. Caro!’ Lawrence finished, as if he’d just produced a Royal Flush. ‘Caro wouldn’t let anyone tell her how she should spend the money she earns.’
Helen’s felt her shoulders fall slack. The depths of misunderstanding between them were suddenly fathomless. Wholly un-navigable. Who was this man in front of her? Why was he saying these things? ‘What are you talking about?’ she said quietly. ‘Caro’s never been married.’
‘I can see what’s coming next,’ Lawrence sneered. ‘You’ll be demanding half my pension next.’
Like a whip had been lashed across her toes, she flinched as she stared at him. Her husband, the stranger. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I will. And you know who advised me to make sure I do? Caro!’
The smile dropped off Lawrence’s face.
‘Do you know why, Lawrence?’
She didn’t wait for an answer.
‘Because,’ she continued flatly, ‘you’re right. The only one who spends Caro’s money, is Caro. So she knows how much it all costs. She’s paid a cleaner for decades. She has her groceries delivered, her windows cleaned and her suits dry cleaned. When she’s away, she pays someone to water her plants, when she had a dog she paid someone to walk it. At her last apartment she even paid an interior designer to design it! She even,’ Helen leaned forward, her face red, ‘has someone jet-spray her sodding bins.’
Lawrence shook his head. ‘Why do you have to be so vulgar nowadays?’
‘Maybe,’ she hissed, ‘I’ve always been vulgar and you just never noticed. And imagine, Lawrence. Imagine the cost if there were children involved. Or half an acre of garden. Dogs. Cats. Even a fucking rabbit! Imagine all those extra man-hours, the emotional energy of it all, never mind just the finance. Imagine that. So yes actually, that’s exactly what I’ll be instructing my solicitor to do. Because after all my unpaid work I deserve just as much of a sit down as you do. Although I won’t even need to bother doing any instructing. It’s standard practice this century.’
Lawrence’s face coloured several different shades – red, a blotched maroon-purple mix, then pale grey-white.
And if she’d had any energy left, if she’d felt she could get through to him, she might have screamed. Might have lunged forward and kicked the legs from under his chair. But, no. If she’d had any energy left she’d turn back, race through the decades and find her twentysomething self, shake her by the shoulders and tell her. Tell her that it’s OK to put herself first. That she should follow her dreams and everything else would surely fall into place, and if it didn’t… well, then it wasn’t meant to be and that was alright as well, because life was long and oceans were wide and there were so many more fish in the sea and the only person with the key to her happiness was her. She was the riddle-master, the knight in shining armour, the captain of her life. Utterly wrung out, the only thing she felt was a bedrock of sadness. Twenty-five years together and she’d had no idea how deep her husband’s vein of selfishness ran. ‘You went out to work,’ she sighed. ‘And I stayed home and worked. It’s what you…’ She stopped talking, folded her arms and looked down at the floor. ‘It’s what we both wanted, Lawrence.’
Lawrence was silent. His fingers twitched as he brought his hands to the table and folded them together. ‘I can afford the extra payments,’ he said. ‘On the mortgage. You don’t have to worry about it.’
‘But how can you afford to buy me out?’
He looked at her.
‘You’re still not hearing it, are you? I want to leave, Lawrence. I want?—’
‘But Libby.’ Helpless Lawrence looked towards the kitchen door, out to the hallway. ‘We said we’d?—’
‘You . ’ Helen said. ‘You said, we’d wait. And we did. But it’s time to stop waiting. Jack will be gone in a few weeks.’
Lawrence blinked.
‘I’m sorry.’
And he lowered his head and blinked again, his jaw held tight.
Helen pressed her arms against her chest, a self-imposed barrier to stop herself from breaking free and going to him. She was breaking his heart and it was happening right in front of her, in real time, close up. And the effort not to comfort him was superhuman. To inflict this pain on someone she had once loved and now didn’t was the cruellest thing she thought she’d ever done. No wonder women stayed. ‘Well,’ she whispered, her voice hollowed out with emotion. ‘Maybe you could stay and then the kids can also stay, as long as they need to. And in the meantime, you’ll have to somehow buy me out. Sell the shares you said you were going to sell for Everest.’
‘I can’t.’ Lawrence let his head fall to one side. He was staring off, midway across the kitchen.
‘Why not?’ she said. But already she knew why not. She wasn’t that financially inept.
‘They’ve… they’re not worth?—’
And Helen thrust her palm up to stop him from saying anything more. What was the point? The room fell very quiet as she stood, arms still crossed, processing and not processing what this meant. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said finally, because it was the only way out of this conversation. ‘One way or the other, Lawrence, I’m leaving. There’s a new development on the other side of town that I’m interested in. With my share of the house, I can afford a place. Libby… until she’s gotten sorted, can choose between us.’
Lawrence turned the fork over one last time. ‘Is that what the boxes in the hallway are for? For you to start packing?’
Boxes? A frown bloomed. Those boxes were for Jack. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly what they’re for.’ And there it was – the ball pushed, just as Caro had said. The rolling started.
* * *
The sound of a marriage falling apart could be heard throughout the house hours after Libby had retreated to her bedroom with Ben, and Jack had come home, heard the echo and, like Libby, closed his door on the corrosive aftermath.
Lawrence occupied the living room. Helen staked her ground in the kitchen, trying first Caro, and then Kay. Neither of them answered. Three hours passed with her padding between the fridge and the table, filling her glass an inch, scrolling through Rightmove, scrolling through stocks for beginn ers, scrolling through YouTube videos of Stevie Nicks and eighties hits and Live Aid. Crying for Freddie Mercury, crying because she couldn’t stay and crying because it was so hard to leave. Crying for Caro and crying for her children, the baby that never lived and the young adults, upstairs, barricaded in their bedrooms. And crying also for a man she’d once loved who was now shuffling around the living room.
Why was it so hard? She scrolled through to Coldplay and as Chris Martin sang his mournful best, set about unloading the dishwasher.
It was gone midnight by the time she went upstairs, straight into the spare box room that doubled as an ironing room. It took the last of her strength to yank the sofa bed out, throw a sheet down and collapse, half undressed, eyes as swollen as grapes.
* * *
The next morning she woke late, her mouth dry, her heart heavy, every muscle in her body stiff. The sofa bed was as comfortable as cardboard. From the kitchen she could hear the sound of someone moving around and when she tiptoed out to the landing, it was Libby’s soft voice that floated up the stairs. She was humming to herself. Helen turned away. The bedroom door, the room that until yesterday she had shared with Lawrence, was open. He was obviously up.
‘Libby,’ she whispered as she leaned over the banister.
No answer.
Cautiously she went downstairs. The hall cupboard was open, and looking inside she saw that Lawrence’s cycling shoes were gone. So he was out. A huge wave of relief swept through her; tentatively she made her way to the kitchen. She didn’t know what Libby had heard last night, but whatever she had was too much. Two or twenty-two, in this situation Libby and Jack were innocent bystanders. Easily bruised, in need of shelter, not stray bullets. It was hers and Lawrence’s battle.
Libby was at the sink.
‘Good morning,’ Helen said, almost shy.
Turning, Libby smiled. ‘Ben’s still sleeping,’ she said and nodded at the baby monitor on the table.
‘Oh.’ Helen stood listening to the raspy little breaths the monitor emitted.
‘I’ve got to get on. I’ve been expressing and I want to get it frozen.’ Picking up the kettle, Libby poured an inch of boiling water into a row of bottles.
‘What are you doing?’ Helen asked, a little dazed. The kitchen, her kitchen, seemed to be a hub of organised activity that for once she was not the centre of. Libby was.
‘Sterilising.’ Libby turned the tap on and refilled the kettle. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘I do,’ Helen murmured. ‘I would love a cup of tea.’ And she went to fetch cups. Autopilot.
But Libby was already there. ‘Sit down, Mum,’ she said, pulling out cups, easing back a chair.
Helen sat watching. And although Libby was humming again, she could tell now how forced it was. As if something had happened to set her daughter’s senses on red alert. Which of course it had. Last night, she’d had to listen to the sound of her parents hurting each other. She frowned. Was that it? Was it her presence now that had Libby so nervous? ‘Libby,’ she said. ‘What's the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ Libby answered and flushed bright red.
‘Something is.’
Libby shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she managed again, through tightly pressed lips. But her eyes were glassy as a mountain lake.
‘You heard, didn't you?’
This time Libby nodded.
Helen’s heart folded over. She dropped her head into her hands, her hair falling like loose straw. ‘I'm sorry,’ she whispered.
‘It’s OK, Mum,’ Libby whispered back. ‘Don't cry.’
Libby the busy bee, the little mum, playing mum to her own mum now was all Helen needed to come to her senses. She stood up, went over and threw her arms around her daughter, holding her tight, pressing her into her chest. ‘ It’s not alright .’
Libby couldn’t have answered if she’d wanted to, Helen was holding her so tight.
‘I don’t want it to be like this,’ she continued. ‘Stupid arguments and rows. There’s no need for it and I promise you…’ She pulled back, holding Libby’s face with both her hands. ‘We won’t do that. Last night won’t happen again. Me and your dad will get through this and somehow, we’ll stay friends. OK?’
Looking straight back at her, Libby sighed. ‘Are you going to tell Dad that?’
‘Of course I am! He won’t want—’ She stopped talking. ‘Why?’
‘The living room.’ Libby shrugged. ‘You should look in the living room.’
And because Helen didn’t know at first what she was looking for, she didn’t at first see. She stood in the doorway, like a cat at a window, scanning the room. And slowly they came into focus. One… then two… and then three, four, five, six. Like early primroses on a spring walk, with each one discovered, more and more came forward. Except she wasn’t looking at the yellow of spring flowers, she was looking at post-it notes, stuck to various ornaments and items of furniture. One word scrawled across each: Lawrence. Her initial reaction was to gasp, a reflexive response made up of equal parts astonishment and amusement that flowed seamlessly into a concentrated frown of such deep curiosity she had an instant in which to be grateful that she never had got around to Botox. What had her husband set about so fastidiously to claim? What, in Lawrence’s mind, remained, his ? She was suddenly and keenly interested.
The French carriage clock on the mantle that had been his grandparents’ own wedding gift. Fair enough, family heirlooms are family heirlooms.
On the top shelf of the display unit, the commemoration medal (mounted and framed) for his Five Countries, Five Months All-Road Cycle Challenge. Helen shook her head. Why would he think she had any intention of taking that? And anyway what about her commemoration medal? For twenty-five years of keeping-everyone’s-knickers-clean- challenge? What else?
She walked across to the window and turned to face the room. The very expensive painting they’d been given for their tenth anniversary. Mmm. It wasn’t that she wanted it, but it was valuable and why should Lawrence take it? Was that mean of her?
His favourite armchair. Fine, although the post-it note there had almost given up, hanging as it was by a curled-up corner.
And books… Lawrence seemed to want every book on the shelves. Fine. It was mostly a collection of books on mountain climbing anyway and she might have laughed! If what this sad display revealed wasn’t so bleak she might have thrown her head back and enjoyed the best laugh of the day. He was like a child, her husband. A child, hoarding the last of the sweets. He’d obviously done this last night. All the shuffling and moving of furniture she’d heard from the kitchen. Was this what was paramount in his mind? After everything that had been said?
And because she still couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing, she turned and took the stairs two at a time, up to the most useless and most precious things cupboard. It was a post-it note free zone. Of course it was. Helen leaned back against the wall and tipped her head to the ceiling. She would have walked out of her marriage with nothing more than Daniel’s birth/death certificate and the envelope that contained Libby and Jack’s baby teeth, which wouldn’t, when seen with a clear head, have provided her with much shelter. Time to get going, Helen, she breathed. Time to get busy.
She went back downstairs, peeled the post-it note off the tenth-anniversary painting, grabbed her handbag, and called to Libby, ‘I still want that tea! I won’t be a moment, then let’s sit down.’
‘That’ll be nice,’ Libby called.
And again, Helen took the stairs two at a time.
* * *
Emir’s number went straight to voicemail, with a message saying not to bother leaving a voicemail.
Danny Abbott answered on the first ring. ‘Helen!’
‘Danny…’ she said and failed to find an end to the sentence.
He chuckled. ‘What took you so long?’
Helen walked across to the bedroom window and closed her eyes. Danny was fun but this wasn’t a time for fun. This was a time for growing her building society nest. That little flat she’d seen? With the Juliet balcony? And if she wanted him to take her seriously, she had to keep it serious. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of Emir,’ she said. ‘I was wondering if you knew if he was around.’ If he was around. She sounded like a teenager ringing for a date.
‘Funny,’ Danny said. ‘I could say the exact same thing about Caro.’
‘Caro?’
‘Yep. You’re looking for Emir and I’m looking for Caro. Maybe we should get together and make up a search party?’
‘We…’ Helen paused, looked up and out of the window and frowned. ‘You’re looking for Caro?’
‘Yes. All joking aside,’ Danny said, ‘how is she? I don’t mind admitting, I’m a little worried.’
Helen gripped her phone. She had no idea how much Danny knew, if in fact he knew anything. It wasn’t her place to… and she wasn’t going to… ‘Caro’s fine,’ she managed. ‘She’s fine.’
‘Really?’ Danny fired back.
‘Yes!… Well, the last time I saw her. She’s fine, yes.’
On the other end of the line she heard Danny unpack her mumblings. Underneath his jovial exterior, she knew, worked a shrewd and diligent mind. She didn’t speak, and for a long moment, neither did he.
‘If you say so, Helen,’ he said finally. ‘It’s just I’ve known Caro for ten years and I did not see this coming. Not. At. All.’
The words thumped into her. He knew. She hadn’t imagined Caro telling anyone, let alone Danny Abbott. But maybe with the time off, she’d had to explain herself. And then again, maybe it was a sign of just how recovered she was. ‘Well,’ she breathed, ‘to be honest, Danny, I didn’t either. When it first happened.’
‘So what’s she going to do now?’
Do? Helen stretched her phone away from her ear and looked at it. Do? Why was he asking her this? And what was it to him anyway? Do? Kay and she had discussed this just once. What was Caro going to do? Adopt? Try surrogacy? Forget the whole idea? The subject was a wounded bird that they had tentatively placed in a darkened box and tucked away, fearful of opening the lid and hurting it again, deciding without ever saying so that it was best left to recover on its own. So. Do? Regardless of what Caro might decide, or had already decided, she wasn’t about to start discussing it with Danny Abbot. ‘I really don’t know,’ she said, truthfully.
Danny sighed. ‘Well, she blindsided all of us I can tell you, Helen. I mean, we all knew something was going on, that much was obvious yesterday. I don't know what planet she was on, but it wasn’t Earth. Matt is fuming.’
‘Matt?’
‘Her CEO. She’s given him a week’s notice. She didn’t give me any! I found out through Mel.’
‘Mel?’
‘You sound like my echo,’ Danny said drily.
And Helen didn’t speak. She felt a little disorientated, as if she’d been led to the edge of a precipice and left there.
‘Melanie,’ Danny said, laying emphasis on the name, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Caro’s secretary?’ He sighed. ‘Seriously though, Helen? I understand the news about her mother was a shock, but to quit? I thought Caro was a lifer.’
Slowly Helen lowered herself onto the marital bed she had so recently vacated. ‘What are you talking about?’ she whispered, and goosebumps raced along her arms.
‘Caro. Quitting.’
‘Her job?’
‘ Of course her job! ’ And finally Danny paused. ‘Wait a minute, wait… What are you talking about?’
He didn’t know! He didn’t know and she’d nearly told him and…
‘Helen?’
‘She quit?’ Now Helen was back on her feet. ‘When?’ Caro was her job, how could she quit when she was her job? ‘And what did you say about her mother?’
There was a long silence in which Helen heard Danny put two and two together and come up with four. But she wasn’t about to confirm it for him, so she made a fist of her hand and waited… Firstly for him to forget what she might just have been about to tell him, and secondly to tell her what the hell was going on.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Obviously there’s other issues?—’
‘I can’t?—’
‘I wouldn’t want you to, Helen. I’m just worried for someone I consider a friend.’
Helen was silent.
‘Her mother, apparently, has had a stroke. Caro got the news yesterday during a meeting, so obviously she left.’ Danny gave a dry laugh. ‘Not that anyone noticed – she was pretty spaced out… anyway, yadda yadda and then, next thing anyone hears, she’s rung Matt and told him she’s quitting. No explanations, no notice… nada !’
‘A stroke?’ Helen managed, grasping onto the only thread of Danny’s speech that made any sense at all.
Danny waited a beat. ‘Yes. And of course, in those circumstances, she’d want to take some time out. But she quit. And…’ Danny’s voice dropped a tone, becoming darker and slower. ‘The thing is, Helen, no one can get hold of her. Mel’s been trying every half hour since yesterday. She’s not answering her phone. I mean I’m sure she’s fine. I’d feel a bit easier if she checked in, that’s all. Know what I mean? As I said, she was definitely a bit off yesterday.’
Palm pressed to her cheek, Helen leaned against the bed. She knew exactly what Danny meant, times a hundred. Suddenly it was overwhelmingly clear that she too needed to speak to Caro. Yes, check in with her. Set a tab up and keep it going. Danny didn’t know the half of it and it was all too obvious now that Helen didn’t either, which made her feel ashamed in a way that was becoming all too familiar in this long friendship. What she did know was that Caro wasn’t OK, she wasn’t back to normal, she wasn’t over it, and now, her mother had had a stroke?
‘I’m sorry, Helen,’ Danny said, reading her silence. ‘I didn’t realise you didn’t know. I just assumed… You being friends and…’
As if he were in the room with her, Helen waved his words away. ‘Even friends,’ she croaked, ‘don’t tell each other everything.’