Chapter Seventeen
Joe
Freya was sitting at a table in the corner of a quiet pub in Hove, and I walked across with our drinks, placing them down on the table. She had come straight from work and looked smart in a flower-print shirt and a navy skirt. Her hair was straight and tucked casually behind her ears, and despite everything, I still found her stunningly attractive. Physical attraction had never been a problem for me, although the slow death of our sex life suggested it was potentially an issue for her. The notion she had been more attracted to my sense of humour than my looks had popped into my head from time to time, but was it true? She had never been shy about telling me how handsome I was, even though clearly I was no Ewan McGregor or Jude Law. I think, in my eyes at least, she was out of my league, but I just happened to have the one thing she couldn’t resist – jokes. The thing was, when all you had was one outstanding quality, when that stopped working, you were left with nothing else. Maybe our relationship had just run out of laughs?
‘Thanks,’ said Freya, taking a sip of her wine.
‘You’re welcome,’ I replied, having a sip of my beer. ‘I called this meeting, so I guess I should start.’
There were two things on the agenda that we needed to discuss. The first was our upcoming annual summer party we threw every year, which we hadn’t yet cancelled, and the second was my sitcom. I had to tell Freya about it because it was going really well, and I knew I couldn’t stop now. I had already written the first episode, outlined two more, and I thought it could really be something. I had an upcoming meeting with Carl and we were going to delve into it and so I knew it was time to tell Freya about it. I hated lying to her, and it felt wrong and duplicitous not to discuss something so important with her. Also, things between us had been going so well recently, I felt sure she would understand.
‘Do you mind if I say something first?’ said Freya.
‘Umm, no, of course not.’
‘I know we’re here to talk about the summer party, and whether we should cancel or not, and I know it’s going to be a little weird this year with everything going on, but I think we’ve been doing so well recently, Joe, and it’s probably going to be the last one, so I think we should go ahead with it.’
‘Oh, right. Okay.’
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to steal your thunder.’
‘It’s fine. Thunder not stolen. Although slightly curious. I was coming here to argue for going ahead because I thought you’d be against having the party, given our current sticky wicket—’
‘Sorry, but do we have to call our separation and living situation a “sticky wicket”?’
‘What do you want me to call it?’
‘I don’t know—’
‘Let’s go to VAR on this one. Yes, it does appear that “sticky wicket” is just on the wrong side of appropriate, and has been ruled out. The referee is pointing to, what’s this? A new term for Joe and Freya’s house-shared living arrangement, and it’s… tricky sitch?’ I looked across at Freya, who was shaking her head but smiling. ‘Sorry, but VAR has ruled that “tricky sitch” has been accepted and will be used going forwards.’
Freya laughed. ‘Still just a massive knobhead.’
‘I take that as a compliment. So, back to the summer party, you want to go ahead?’
‘I do. Plus, with Dolly getting into Durham, and us probably selling the house soon after, I think it will be good to have one last party there. Like a final goodbye.’
Just hearing her talk about selling the house was jarring. It really brought home that within the next year, all of this was going to be over. Freya and I living together, our lives still connected, living with Dolly, it would all soon be gone and we’d both have to forge new lives alone. How had it come to this? It felt like we were on a ride, and I wanted to say stop, I want to get off. I wanted to have a break and make sure I was actually on the right ride, but I couldn’t because it had already started and was gathering speed. Was it that long ago that Freya and I were still trying to save our marriage? It didn’t feel like it. When exactly did we give up and why? I still wasn’t completely sure I knew all the answers. There had been times when I had sleepwalked through the turmoil of our marriage, and looking back now, I wasn’t always proud of myself.
‘What’s happening with you?’ I asked after a moment of silence.
It felt like weeks since we had really spoken at length, and I had no idea what was happening in her life. She excitedly told me all about the cold water swimming club she had been going to with Lucy. She explained about how incredible it felt afterwards, and how much she enjoyed the camaraderie she felt with the other women. When I asked her how painfully uncomfortable it was being neck deep in freezing cold water, she said it was worth every second of it, then she took a sip of her drink, looked at me, and said, ‘What about you? What’s new?’
This was the part of the conversation where I would have to tell her that I was writing a sitcom about the break-up of our marriage. That I was using the heartbreak, our ‘tricky sitch’ and Dolly’s life to create a laughter-fuelled thirty-minute comedy that could potentially save my career. I played the conversations I’d had with Karen over and over in my mind – the therapist that Freya also knew nothing about. How had I woven so many lies into the fabric of my relationship with Freya, and why? I could do this though. I could tell her now and get everything out in the open.
‘Oh, you know, just working,’ I said tentatively.
‘What are you working on? Is it still the one about the media agency?’
I had to just say the words. Tell her. It was time to man up!
‘No, actually. That one didn’t work out. This is just a family comedy thing.’
You absolute fucking coward. Why couldn’t you tell her? You know at some point you will have to tell her and the later you leave it the worse it will be, right?
‘Oh, okay, and does Carl like it?’
‘Yes, he does. It’s still really early on so, you know, we’ll see.’
‘Good luck with it,’ said Freya with a smile.
‘I just need to use the toilet,’ I said, getting up quickly and walking off.
Since the beginning of my career, Freya had read all my scripts and she had been the sounding board for most of the work. She had been an integral part of my process because she would often give me feedback before I even approached Carl. Most ideas would bubble away in my head for months before I jotted down notes, ideas, and then Freya would get a first look at it. Now she was literally one of the lead characters in my latest sitcom, her whole life was the subject matter, and she had no idea. I didn’t even need to go to the toilet, and so I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror above the sink. Middle-aged, on the verge of separating from my wife, my daughter on the cusp of leaving home, a vaguely successful comedy writer, and I still didn’t have the balls to tell my wife the truth. Was I ever going to be a proper grown-up? I looked in the mirror and the old man that stared back at me was definitely veering dangerously close to fifty and surely should have his shit together by now. But then again, being a comedy writer since university definitely hinted at some sort of Peter Pan complex.
‘I suppose we should discuss the details of the summer party?’ I said, sitting down again.
‘Then perhaps another drink?’ replied Freya.
‘Okay, I’ll get these,’ I said, and I was about to stand up when Freya stopped me.
‘Joe, can I say something?’
‘Of course. Unless it’s something awful. Is my receding hairline getting worse because I’ve been thinking about using a cream I saw on Amazon, but do I want to be that guy because it’s a slippery slope? You know today it’s cream for male pattern baldness and then tomorrow I’m injecting Botox into my eyeballs.’
‘No, Joe, it’s not about your hairline, which is fine by the way, and do people inject Botox into their eyes? I don’t think that’s a thing. Anyway, I just wanted to say how proud I am of us. When we agreed to this house-share situation—’
‘You mean the tricky sitch?’
Freya giggled. ‘Fine. When we agreed to the “tricky sitch” I genuinely didn’t know if we could do it. Whether it would be too much, and we’d end up constantly arguing. I know it’s been a little uncomfortable at times, and it’s required some adjustments, and I really wish you hadn’t walked in on me naked, but I think we’ve done ourselves proud. We’ve been honest, open with each other, and I’m really thankful we’ve been so mature about all of this.’
‘Wow, well, thank you?’ I said, feeling an uncomfortable and yet familiar stab of guilt, that I was a lying piece of shit, creeping up and through my body.
‘With that, let me get the drinks and we can finalise the plans for the party,’ said Freya with a bright, warm smile, before she hopped up and off towards the bar.
Could I feel any worse? Freya was so proud of us for being honest, open and mature, and yet in the background I had been lying to her the whole time. If she knew about the sitcom and that despite refusing to see a marriage counsellor I was visiting a therapist on my own, she would go fucking ballistic. The only thing that Freya had done since our separation was take up cold water swimming. She was wholesome, perfect and mature, while I was literally the exact opposite. Watching her standing at the bar, looking so lovely in her work clothes, I had the sudden feeling that I didn’t deserve someone as incredible as Freya. Perhaps I never had.
She returned to the table and we made our plans for our annual summer party. We agreed upon a smaller than usual guest list, I ran through my ideas for the menu, and Freya chipped in with some ideas of her own, until eventually we had everything in place. When it came to party planning at least, Freya and I were still a well-oiled machine.
‘Do you think it’s going to be weird?’ said Freya when we were all done, and our glasses sat empty on the table.
‘Oh, it’s definitely going to be weird, but I think we can pull off weird.’
‘I mean, you can definitely pull off weird,’ said Freya, standing up, and grabbing her bag.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I said, standing up, too.
‘Even though you know it’s definitely not a compliment, right?’
‘It’s all subjective,’ I said, walking out behind her. ‘Many of the best actors I’ve known over the years have been batshit crazy, and most of them are routinely on national television earning large amounts of money.’
‘I guess defining weird is a bit of a tricky sitch,’ said Freya, and I couldn’t help but laugh as we walked out of the pub towards home where we would be soon hosting our summer party.
Perhaps things were looking up and maybe the party would bring us back together? Was that what I wanted? Was that what Freya wanted? I was proud we had somehow managed to patchwork our lives together without really fucking anything up, but sat there at the back my mind, lurking in the background like a giant fucking storm cloud, were my lies that seemed to be just waiting for their moment to explode upon us, and fuck every single thing up.