Chapter Thirty-Two
Freya
I opened the front door, and walked into the hallway, wondering if Joe was home. Maybe we could have breakfast together. I knew Dolly was already at work, and so I called out Joe’s name, but when nothing came back except silence, I knew I was probably home alone unless Joe was still asleep. I wanted to have a shower before breakfast, and so I skipped up the stairs, quickly checking Joe’s room, but the door was open, the bed was made, and so I assumed he must have gone out, before I walked into my room.
I got undressed, and turned the shower on in the en suite. I wasn’t sure where it had come from, but I had this overwhelming feeling of optimism and joy as I stood in the shower, and I found myself smiling. Having a warm shower after Cold Water Club always felt incredible, and I really made sure to enjoy it today. I washed my hair, my body, and scrubbed my face, and then stood under the lovely warm water for an extra few minutes, letting it cascade over my head and then down my back. Eventually I got out and stood in front of the sink in just a towel, brushing my teeth, and then my hair before I put it up in a loose ponytail while I got ready. I applied some moisturiser to my face, neck, arms, and I was about to put on some deodorant when I heard the front door open and then close.
‘Freya?’ I heard Joe say from downstairs.
He was home. I imagined perhaps having breakfast together or just a coffee, and talking. No drama, no deep conversations about us , just a nice, normal chat and spending time together. Was that possible? I quickly got myself dressed and made my way downstairs. The hallway was empty, and so I walked into the kitchen, where I found Joe sitting at the table.
‘Oh, hi, morning,’ I said with a bright smile. ‘I’m glad you’re home.’
‘You are?’ said Joe, and I could see that he had an edge to him. His face was never very good at hiding his feelings, which I always felt was sort of ironic because the man who had such a hard time expressing his emotions also couldn’t hide them.
‘Is everything okay, you seem a little flustered?’
I looked at Joe and he looked back at me, and he was definitely looking more and more uncomfortable.
‘Maybe you should sit down,’ said Joe.
I walked across and sat at the table, and now I was starting to get worried. I literally had no idea what he was going to tell me, but I hoped it wouldn’t destroy my good mood. In fact, I hoped it wasn’t going to mess up our entire lives. Had someone died? Was Dolly okay?
‘There’s no good way to say this and so I’m just going to say it,’ said Joe, his face teetering on the edge of complete and utter collapse. He looked so uncomfortable, so completely and utterly terrified of whatever it was he had to tell me. ‘I had a phone call with Carl this morning, and the BBC wants to get me into a meeting about the new show I’ve written. Carl thinks there’s a really good chance they want to commission it.’
I wasn’t expecting that. It was good news. Really, really good news, which begged the question: Why does he look so scared?
‘That’s brilliant, Joe, I’m so happy for you,’ I said, and I wanted to get up and give him a hug, open a bottle of champagne and have a Buck’s Fizz for breakfast, but he still looked quite sombre. ‘But why do you look so sad?’
Joe took a deep breath and then he looked at me. ‘There’s something I have to tell you, Freya.’
‘Okaay, I’m getting worried now. What is it?’
‘The umm, script.’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s all about us. When I went to see Carl months ago, just after we had officially separated, we talked, and I mentioned our situation and he thought it was a great idea for a sitcom. At first I wasn’t sure, but after I started working on it, and I wrote the pilot, I knew it was good. It’s called House Shared .’ Joe stopped talking and just looked across at me.
‘Wait. You’re telling me you wrote an entire show about the break-up of our marriage without thinking to at least tell me about it? Without asking if it was okay?’ I said, a flurry of anger suddenly filling my mind. My good mood was wiped away in a second, like a tidal wave crashing through a small village.
‘I’m sorry. It was wrong of me, Freya. I wanted to tell you, but I don’t know, I was worried you’d hate the idea and I was already committed to it, and I had nothing else, and—’
‘For fuck’s sake, Joe, what’s the matter with you? How could you use our pain, our sadness for cheap fucking laughs? I just, I don’t know what to say,’ I said, standing up and pacing around the kitchen, rubbing my forehead with the tips of my fingers. Trying to massage the pain and the confusion away.
He was a writer, and I had made my peace years ago with the idea that he would occasionally use something from our life in a show. He had borrowed dialogue from conversations we’d had, stories I had shared with him, and he had definitely taken characters from real life and put them in a script, but to actually use something that was so heartbreaking and turn that into a whole show was something else.
‘I didn’t mean not to tell you, Freya. I just started it, not knowing what it would be, what it would become, and then Carl loved it, the BBC loved it, and—’
‘So you traded success for our marriage?’ I said, turning to look at him.
‘No,’ said Joe, standing up, too. ‘I would never do that. I loved you, still love you, Freya, and this, it just sort of happened—’
‘Like you seeing a therapist without telling me about it just sort of happened?’
Joe looked at me, his face contorted and screwed into confusion, and I could see his sadness, his pain, but the thing was, he had caused it. He had made the choice not to tell me about his therapist and his sitcom. Everything he had done had been on purpose and with intent, and it was hard for me to see beyond that. He had intended to deceive me and he had lied to me, and that wasn’t the man I had married. I suddenly felt tears sting my eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Joe. ‘Really, really sorry.’
‘And what about Dolly? Is she in the show, too?’ I said, looking at him, and without a second passing, I could see from the expression on his face that he had something else to tell me. ‘What did you do, Joe?’ Then it came to me in a blinding flash. ‘Please tell me you didn’t use her coming out as gay in the show. You didn’t, did you?’
I couldn’t believe Joe could be that cruel. Despite what he had done to me, to us, I knew how much he loved Dolly. He wouldn’t use our daughter’s sexuality in a fucking sitcom without discussing it with us first. It was one thing to lie to me, but to use our daughter like that would be truly unforgivable. He looked at me, an expression on his face like a child that had been caught with his hand in the sweet jar or perhaps something far more serious.
‘I won’t deny I thought about it, Freya. I actually discussed it with Carl and he thought it was a brilliant idea, but when it came to write it, I couldn’t do it.’
‘So you aren’t a complete fucking monster then.’
‘I couldn’t do it because I knew it would mean that any chance we had of working things out would be gone, and I couldn’t do that. I had to know that you and I were still on the table.’
‘Yet, when it came to writing about us, you had no such problem. Fuck, Joe, I can’t believe this,’ I said, feeling another flash of anger burst inside of me like fireworks cracking against the dark night sky. ‘I know you have always used things from our life in your writing, but I always thought there was a line. I thought this would have been the line.’
I looked at Joe and I had never been angrier with him. He had lied about seeing a therapist, but at least once he had explained about the panic attacks I understood. Despite the disappointment of finding out he’d been seeing a therapist in secret, I could sympathise with him, but this wasn’t that. He had purposely lied, used the pain of our separation, the story of the break-up of our marriage, and was going to serve it up to the world in a thirty-minute sitcom. If trust was one of the key pillars of any good marriage, then Joe had just burnt that pillar to the ground. Joe stood up and walked towards me, a look of desperation on his face.
‘Freya, I’m sorry. I know what I did was wrong, but—’
‘What did you use in the script?’ I said suddenly, and he stopped and looked at me.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What exactly did you use in the script? How many of the conversations did you turn into jokes? What about you seeing a therapist or everything that happened with your dad? Did you use all of that great material, Joe? Did you use the night we slept together?’ I said, and when I said it, I knew I had hit on something. A momentary expression of guilt flashed across his face. ‘You did, didn’t you?’
‘I, umm—’
‘Fuck!’ I shouted at him. ‘No, Joe. You aren’t doing this. You aren’t going to parade our whole fucking life on the television for cheap laughs, and I’ll take you to fucking court if I have to!’ I was so angry at him, and also at myself for not seeing what sort of man Joe had become. Success at any cost, even if that cost was our marriage. ‘You know, Joe. After we slept together, and after our chat at Devil’s Dyke, and even this fucking morning, I did think that maybe there was a chance for us. I thought we might be able to salvage our marriage, but now… I don’t know you. I can’t even be around you.’
I took one last look at him, and then I walked out. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t be in that house with Joe for a second longer. I grabbed my coat, my hair was still wet, but I didn’t care, I just had to get out, and I felt tears rushing down my face as I opened the front door and then slammed it behind me. I had never felt so much anger before. Joe had betrayed me, and he wasn’t the man I had married.
I walked away from our house, and I just kept walking. I had nowhere in mind, I just had to keep moving, get myself further and further away from him. I walked, cried, unable to believe what had just happened. How could he have used our marriage like that? I knew how much he loved me, or at least said he loved me, and yet he was prepared to use our pain for some sort of professional gain? I was dumbfounded the man I thought I knew had turned out to be someone else entirely. A man who had turned our marriage into a fucking comedy, and maybe he was right, because it seemed that, after everything, we were nothing more than a fucking joke. Joe and I were done. Our marriage was over, and Joe had been happy to burn it to the ground, just to keep his dwindling career afloat. At that moment, I never wanted to see his face again.
I finally stopped walking, wiped the tears from my face, and took out my phone. I was going to call the one person I probably shouldn’t have called at that exact moment, but I didn’t care. Joe had hurt me in ways I didn’t think were possible, and I was going to hurt him, too. The phone rang and then after a moment was picked up.
‘Hello, Sam,’ I said. ‘Are you busy?’