Chapter Three
Freya
I was standing outside of Mum’s house in Preston Park. The ominous gunmetal clouds that had been gathering all morning had finally relented, and it had started to spit with rain. A full stop on what had already been a pretty shit morning. After crying in The Lanes, I pulled myself together and dragged myself there for a cup of tea with Mum, or in reality probably something a little stronger. She had texted on the way over.
Are you coming over this morning? Martin has a doctor’s appointment.
Haemorrhoids. I have a hair appointment with Angela at two. Hope
everything is ok. Mum x
After Mum and Dad got divorced and Dad disappeared to Jersey, Mum moved down from Surrey and bought this house to be nearer to me and Dolly, where she had lived alone until Martin entered our lives. They met in Waitrose and, according to Mum, they both reached for the same jar of marmalade and the rest as they say is history. After hearing that story, Joe and I had given him the nickname Marmalade Martin or more commonly just Marmalade.
I suppose I had always known my parents weren’t the happiest of couples, but I was still shocked when they finally announced the break-up of their marriage. I was eighteen and had just left home for university when it happened and my biggest takeaway from their split was how it made me feel. They had clearly been waiting for me to finish sixth form, and so all I could think was that they had obviously been unhappy for years and I was the only thing keeping them together. If that was the case – and they insisted it wasn’t – surely they would have been better off breaking up and being happy much earlier. I also made a pact with myself that I would never do that to my own child, and yet here I was doing the same fucking thing. I hated myself for it. Joe and I were no better than my own parents, which was a thoroughly depressing thought because they had set a pretty low bar.
I pressed the shrill doorbell, waited, and then after a moment the door opened and Mum appeared.
‘Oh, Freya, darling, there you are, you poor thing, come in, and you can tell me everything over a glass of wine,’ said Mum, who despite being home alone was dressed in a gorgeous sequined dress, had her blonde hair styled as if she was going out somewhere nice and a full face of make-up. Mum lived her life by one simple rule: Always be ready to go out!
Mum knew why Joe and I were meeting. She was the only person I had confessed everything to because, well, she was my mum and it was impossible to hide it from her. She could see the cracks in our marriage, the stunningly low disappointments, the long silences when she would come over for a Sunday roast, and the obvious air of tension between Joe and me that had become increasingly tense. She had lived that life, knew the signs to look out for and recognised exactly what was happening. She had questioned me over and over again when I had insisted my marriage was fine, and she made me tell her everything. Mum was many things, but persistent and nosy were definitely in the top five. At least with Mum, I knew that however intrusive she was, it was all wrapped up in love and good intentions.
‘Oh God, Mum, it was awful,’ I said, walking in and falling into her arms for a hug. The moment I felt her body pressed against mine, I felt a few tears loosen, escape and then slide down my face and onto Mum’s dress, but I quickly pulled myself together. Mum wasn’t much of a crier. She was solid, strong and always in a positive mood. Growing up, I hardly ever saw her cry. It felt like she didn’t believe in sadness in the same way that some people didn’t believe in God or election results. If only I had her classic English stoicism, and point-blank refusal to mope no matter what. Her upper lip was perfectly stiff, while mine often wobbled and waned.
‘Come in, sit down, and tell me all about it. I have two glasses of wine, chilled and ready to go. There’s nothing in life that can’t be sorted out with a good chat and a nice glass of Chardonnay, darling.’
I laughed. ‘I’m not sure that’s true, Mum,’ I said, walking along the hallway with the refinished oak flooring, and then into the vast glass-and-brick extension at the back of the house that contained the kitchen and dining room. After her parents had passed away, Mum had inherited some money, which she had ploughed into the house.
‘Remember Gloria Parker? Drives a Range Rover and has two cocker spaniels? She found her husband, Roger, trousers around his ankles behind a Pizza Hut with a girl half his age. A Pizza Hut, darling! She was a mess, but came over. Two glasses of wine and a few choice words later, she was like a different woman. It helps, trust me.’
‘Fine, I’ll give it a go,’ I said as we reached the kitchen, and I sat down at the island.
‘That’s my girl!’ said Mum, passing me a chilled glass of French Chardonnay. ‘Cheers!’
‘Cheers,’ I said, knocking my glass gently against hers.
‘Right, so how did the big marriage summit go?’
‘Honestly? Pretty shit. It felt like he didn’t care enough, Mum. The old happy-go-lucky, passionate Joe, the man I married, would have done more. He would have fought for us, gone to couples’ counselling at least, but he just accepted everything and agreed to move into the spare room with barely a whimper. It’s like all the failures with his writing, all the rejections, the bad reviews, each one has stripped away layers of him, and now he’s just fragments of the man I fell in love with.’
‘People change,’ replied Mum. ‘I would never have imagined that your father would have become the man he did when we walked down the aisle. Not that he cheated on me or did anything particularly awful, but he just became boring. He stopped living, stagnated in his shed, while I took care of everything. Although he seems happy now with whatsername in Jersey, so maybe it was just me. People do strange things when they get older and realise they’re far closer to death than they’d like. Middle age is a weird time, darling.’
‘I know, and I’m to blame, too. I could have done more. Tried harder. Maybe I could have gone to couples’ counselling on my own, but I expected more from him. It’s like he’s wilting, and it’s sad to see, but I can’t make him care. I can’t make him better.’
‘It isn’t your job, either.’
‘It also just feels like over time we simply changed, and the newer versions of us weren’t as compatible as the older ones. It’s like when you upgrade your iPhone to the newest iOS and realise some of the old apps don’t work any more. The old us when Joe was successful, when The Mornings was flying high in the BBC ratings, was perfect. Then when Loosely Translated flopped, and his career fell off a cliff, we sort of did, too. All the years of financial pain, living mainly off my income and some residual payments from The Mornings , all of it took away small chunks of our relationship, dug into it and scooped out bits of our happiness.’
‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry, but I’m sure you did all you could.’
‘Then why do I feel like a complete and utter failure, Mum?’
That was the crux of the issue for me. Since I was a little girl, I had always been a high achiever. I hated failing at anything: school, sports or keeping plants alive. I was captain of the school netball team, and my desire to win and hatred of losing were my key attributes. My parents always said I was the little girl who never gave up on anything, illustrating this with the family myth about our guinea pig, Nutty. Apparently, when I was eight years old, I found him dead in his cage one morning, and tried to resuscitate him – mouth-to-mouth because I had seen it on Blue Peter , although obviously not with a small hairy rodent. Determination was, and had always been, my biggest personality trait. I wasn’t the most intelligent pupil in school because that award always went to Nicola Birch, but it didn’t stop me from trying to get better GCSE results than her. I ultimately failed but I never gave up and only missed completely straight As by getting that one bloody B in geography – thanks, Mr Morgan! When we had Dolly, and with Joe doing so well in his career, I stopped training to be a solicitor to stay at home and raise Dolly. I hated stopping my training, but it was for the best job in the world of being a mum. However, the minute Joe’s career started fading, and Dolly was in school, I returned to the world of law and became a paralegal. Now, with my marriage all but over, and Dolly moving away to university, I was exploring the possibilities of becoming a full-time solicitor once again. I hated failing at anything, but the problem with marriage was that it needed two people to believe in it, and not give up.
‘Trust me, darling, the last thing you are is a failure!’ said Mum with a sort of Blitz spirit in her voice.
‘Thank you,’ I said, reaching across the island and placing my hand softly over hers.
‘You are welcome, and if you need anything, you know I’m here for you. Me and Martin.’
‘Oh, right, yes. How is Marma, I mean, Martin and the haemorrhoids?’
‘He’s been better, but he’ll be fine. He’s got a classic car show in Gloucestershire next weekend, so hopefully he can drive to that. His old Austin-Healey has about as much suspension as a cheese grater, so it’s a bit of a sore ride at the best of times.’
‘Poor old Martin.’
‘Poor old me. He wants me to apply the haemorrhoid cream!’
‘Oh, Mum,’ I said, laughing, and then taking a sip of my wine. Maybe Mum was right and a good natter and a glass of wine were helping. Mum fetched a bowl of olives, some crackers and cheese, which she put out on the island for us to nibble on, before she looked across at me.
‘Are you one hundred per cent sure you and Joe are done? Are you completely convinced your marriage is over?’
‘I fear our marriage is like one of Martin’s old cars.’
‘Cars? Sorry, you’ve lost me.’
‘You know how some cars gradually get worse over time, slowly bit by bit they break, you try and fix them, but one day you realise you’ve done your best, but it’s time to trade it in for a newer model? Other cars have a massive crash, and they’re immediately a write-off. I think Joe and I just gradually came to a halt, and despite having a good look under the bonnet, we’ve both realised it’s probably just fucked.’
‘You’re sure there’s no chance you’ll be able to get it back on the road?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said glumly because it made me incredibly sad. ‘And the worst part is that we’re stuck together in that house. We can’t afford to sell it at the moment, we can’t afford to rent something else, and so we’re just stuck together.’
‘What about when Dolly is gone?’ said Mum, before she popped a large green olive in her mouth.
‘I have no idea.’
‘You do know I’m more than happy to help. I could give you some money, we have the spare room here, so you can always stay with us, and—’
‘Mum, we will figure this out, but thank you.’
‘Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am.’
I appreciated Mum’s offer, but the truth was I would need a lot of money to get back on my feet, and I didn’t want to burden her with that. Plus, I was an adult, I had got myself into this situation, I would somehow get myself out of it. Despite Joe’s lack of concern and emotion when it came to us, I was still a fighter with a career in law, and I would find a workable solution because that’s what I was good at. I was a problem solver.
‘We’re going to tell Dolly tonight.’
‘How do you think she’ll take it?’ said Mum, a look of concern on her face because she adored Dolly. She was her only grandchild. Marmalade had been married before but had no children of his own.
‘Not sure. She knows things between us aren’t great, obviously, she isn’t stupid, but separating is something else. I hope she’s okay, and it isn’t like someone has cheated or that Joe and I hate each other. We’ve just fallen out of love. Hopefully it makes things easier.’
‘Hopefully,’ said Mum. ‘But then again, when your father and I broke up, under similar circumstances, I remember you were angry at us for years.’
‘I don’t think it was years, Mum.’
‘Trust me. It was years!’
I ended up staying at Mum’s for lunch. She had some leftover pizza, which she heated up with a small salad, before I had to head home. I said goodbye to Mum on her doorstep with hugs, but before I left I had one last question for her.
‘Whatever happened to your friend, Gloria Parker? The one with the cocker spaniels. Was she okay in the end?’
‘Eventually, yes. After “trousers-around-ankles gate”, it took her a little while to get herself together, but now she’s living in Broadstairs with a woman.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘So, you see, darling, there’s always the chance for a second bite of the apple, or in Gloria’s case, a change of fruit completely!’
We said goodbye, and I started walking. The rain had eased off, and I always loved the smell of the air after rain, and the way everything seemed fresh and new. Maybe I would get my second bite of the apple like Gloria, and who knew, perhaps it would be even sweeter than the first. Although, as I put my earbuds in and listened to some music, all of that felt like years away.
I took my time and slowly weaved across Brighton back towards Seven Dials, where our house was. I was listening to a Spotify playlist and ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol came on, and I was instantly transported back in time.
The year was 2006, and the second series of The Mornings was on, and doing better than the first. Joe and I were living in our flat in Archway, I was pregnant with Dolly, and Snow Patrol released ‘Chasing Cars’. It became the song of that part of our lives, and seemed to always be on no matter where we were. Whenever I heard it now, I was back in our old flat with its crap furniture, and the view of the church out of the bedroom window. Joe and I had been so happy, still in our twenties, and living the London dream. We had only just begun talking about the possibility of moving to Brighton once Dolly was born. As I was walking home, listening to ‘Chasing Cars’, I couldn’t help but cry, the weight of tears behind my eyes desperate to escape, because the song that had been so much of us when we were happy now felt like the death knell of our marriage.