Chapter Nine
February
Carly
Six weeks have passed since Eddie left home. Now, I’m not saying it’s great being empty-nesters.
No, actually, I am! It’s bloody brilliant! There’s been no gathering up dirty plates and bits of crust from Eddie’s room. No constant veering between frustration and worry at the sight of him rotting away in that robe – which, incidentally, he forgot to take to Edinburgh. I offered to bring it over when we visited, but he politely declined. I took this to mean that he can now exist quite happily without it, which had to be a positive sign.
On top of that, a blissful sense of calm has settled over the house. There’s no muttering and whispering when we hope he’s out of earshot – and now Frank and I can happily stroll about in our pants, simply pleasing ourselves. The sense of freedom is almost dizzying. All that trying my utmost to be patient and supportive, because maybe Eddie was depressed? I love my son dearly but Christ, it was exhausting by the end.
Plus, for over two decades Frank and I have managed to just about keep our sex life going, albeit hanging by a thread at times. Because the kids have been here, and Eddie’s room shares a wall with ours, we’ve learnt to be incredibly quiet. Not that we’re yelling the house down now, or throwing each other around the room – but we’re certainly freer and, frankly, it’s more fun. A knock-on effect is that we’re more affectionate, even as we’re doing ordinary things like cooking together or watching a film. It’s almost like being a new couple again, when those passionate reunions were all we had.
My God, how I loved Frank then. I yearned for him. If I could have jumped into the sea and swum to Portugal, I would have.
Of course I still loved him once we’d tumbled into a world of nappies and night feeds and daubings of baby sick on our shoulders. But somehow, it was never quite the same again.
Until now.
Now Frank comes home from work, and the sight of him all oily and mussed up gets me going again.
Or I’m about to head off to work in the morning, and our goodbye kiss quickly turns into something else. And I no longer head off to the library early, just to snatch that little bit of peace for myself.
I want him more than I want to be in the library alone.
Frank Silva, you crazy man, taking over an ice cream shop with malfunctioning fridges. I still love you so very much.
Then one bright, crisp Friday morning we are that speck in the colourless winter sky. We are on a plane heading for Paris, a city we’ve only ever seen in films. It’s not quite noon, yet Frank and I are drinking wine. ‘This is all right, isn’t it?’ He smiles.
‘It is,’ I say. ‘So, d’you think we’re managing on our own?’
‘It’s hard,’ he teases, ‘but yeah, just about.’
In fact, I’ve stopped fretting that Eddie will sever a finger in that restaurant kitchen. I’ve learnt how to let go – and about time too, Frank reckons. It’s just taken a little getting used to as, unlike Ana and Bella, Eddie never calls. It’s me who’s been keeping in touch, mainly through messages, and Eddie’s replies are brief:
Yeah all good Mum.
Or, more often: All fine.
He hasn’t come home yet and we’ve only visited him once, when he could squeeze us into his packed schedule. In his flat, while he and his dad chatted over coffee, I snuck into his room and speedily measured the window so I could surprise him by ordering a blind. The nailed-up towel just seemed so depressing. Then we took him out to a café where he wolfed a panini, a slab of chocolate cake and a doughnut, as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. But he also seemed happy, and I realised, this really is it. Eddie moving out wasn’t a mad experiment that was bound to go terribly wrong. Frank and I really are on our own now.
And as the days unfold in Paris, it’s no longer Eddie who’s at the forefront of my mind, but the two of us. All the years seem to fall away as we stroll around the Musée D’Orsay and the Petit Palais and a delightfully ramshackle flea market. Some afternoons, instead of sightseeing, we nip back to the hotel and fall into bed.
A middle-aged couple having sex in the daytime? I’d never imagined that that would be me and Frank. But something has reignited in us. Afterwards, we lie together in a tangle of crisp white sheets in our little top-floor room with the wrought-iron balcony and the whole of Paris going about its business below.
On our last night we celebrate Frank’s fiftieth birthday in a cosy bistro. The girls have called, and Eddie managed to fire off a text (admittedly, I sent him a firm reminder). Five days have whipped by in a delicious whirl, and all too soon we’re up at dawn to catch our flight, and touching down at Glasgow airport.
Coming home from a trip can be a real downer. Maybe the house smells bad, as if it’s soured, like milk. Does it always whiff like this and people are too polite to say? However, this time there are no nasty surprises, because it’s only us. Nothing terrible has happened to my Bathsheba rose. Nothing ‘just fell’, or smells terrible, because I did a thorough clean before we set off. Seeing that everything is as we left it triggers a surge of happiness in me, and I kiss Frank on the lips.
‘Hey, what’s that for?’ He grins.
‘I’m just happy, Frank. Paris was wonderful, wasn’t it?’
He nods, smiling. ‘Yeah. It was brilliant, darling. I had the best time with you.’
After dumping our bags in the hallway, we head through to the kitchen where I fill the kettle. This kitchen – in fact, this house – seemed so poky when there were five fully-grown people here. Now it feels perfect.
‘Never mind tea,’ Frank announces. ‘How about a glass of wine?’
I set down the milk carton we picked up at the airport. ‘In the daytime? You are feeling wild, Mr Silva!’
‘Well, why not?’ He lifts out the bottle of chilled sauvignon that’s been sitting there untouched. We’ve been away for five days and no one’s guzzled our booze! My God, I reflect, as he pours two glasses, and we head through to the living room. We’ve entered the era when we can trust that a bottle of alcoholic beverage hasn’t been topped up with water.
We sip our wine and snuggle up on our saggy old corduroy sofa. ‘I loved our family holidays,’ Frank says, ‘but I think this trip’s been my favourite.’
I smile. ‘Mine too. You know what that book would call it?’ I indicate it sitting there on the coffee table.
‘No, what?’
‘“An empty-nester marker trip”.’
‘What on earth’s that?’ He laughs.
‘You know! To celebrate a new chapter in our lives.’
‘Right.’ He smirks, bemused. ‘But I thought we just … went to Paris ?’
‘Oh, we did,’ I say quickly. ‘We absolutely did. We just went.’
He grins, squeezing my hand. ‘So what else does your book advise, now we’re all washed up and redundant?’
‘Hang on.’ I reach for it and flick through it, stopping at a random page. ‘“Redecorate your house,”’ I read aloud. ‘“Splash new colours around to cover the scuffs and scrapes of family life. It’s time to reclaim your home as your own personal space …”’
‘Can I just unpack my bag?’ He chuckles.
‘… Or how about this? “Now you’ll have time to pursue your own interests, why not take up a new hobby or plant a rose garden?”’
‘You have a rose garden already,’ he points out.
‘Yes, and now I’ll be able to lavish all of my maternal love and care onto it …’
He winds an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. ‘We don’t need instructions, do we? On how to survive without the kids?’ Frank doesn’t turn to books for answers. Ideas simply ping into his head.
‘No,’ I say, setting the book down, ‘we don’t. In fact … d’you fancy coming up to bed?’
He laughs. ‘What, at four o’clock in the afternoon?’
‘Well, we did in Paris.’
‘This isn’t Paris,’ he says in a mock-stern voice. ‘You’re wearing me out, Carly. I’m fifty, remember? An old man now—’
‘Hardly!’ I laugh and jump up, pulling him up by the hand.
‘Is this in your book too?’ he asks as we scamper upstairs.
‘Might be …’
‘“Keep the flame alive by seducing your man in the middle of the day when he’s been up since six”—’
‘Hey, I was up then too!’ Then we’re in our bedroom, tugging off our clothes and laughing at how deliciously naughty it feels, to be slipping into bed together. I still love Kilmory Cottage, but all the graft and struggles of our family life are embedded in these walls. Maybe we just needed a little break from the everyday, to remind us that we still love each other.
My phone trills, cutting into my thoughts. ‘Shit,’ I mutter.
‘Leave it,’ Frank says, and it stops. We kiss some more, and his body feels so good against mine; warm and taut, smelling delicious. And now his leg hooks over mine, and I want him so much, deep inside of me, and it makes me so happy that we still feel this way, even though we’re gnarly and old and he leaves beard trimmings in the sink and wears flattened old leather slippers that are frankly hideous and—
My phone rings again. ‘Oh, God. I’d better get it.’ I peel myself away from him and reach for it on my bedside table.
‘Your dad?’ he suggests.
‘Probably.’ It stops ringing as I pick it up. The two missed calls aren’t from Dad, but Eddie. Eddie who never calls. Bolt upright in bed now, I call him back. ‘Hey, love. Everything okay?’ Instinctively, I tug the duvet up to my neck as if he might be able to see his parents naked together – in the daytime! – and this’ll make it less disgusting for him.
‘Yep. I’m all right.’ His voice is tight. ‘How’re you?’
How am I? He never enquires about my wellbeing. ‘Fine,’ I start, uneasily. ‘We’re just back from Paris. It was lovely, really beautiful—’
But my son jumps in, cutting me off.
There are some things a parent never wants to hear. Mum, please don’t be mad, is one – usually when something’s been broken.
Eddie doesn’t say that now. Because it’s not about a broken thing or anything that can be fixed. I know him well enough to be sure of that. My heart is thumping hard as he clears his throat and says, ‘I have something to tell you.’
‘Oh, what’s that?’ The silence stretches, chilling my blood. He makes a terrible gulping sound and, oh God, I think he’s crying. ‘Eddie!’ I exclaim. ‘Are you okay, love? What is it?’
‘Just … this thing, Mum. This thing that’s happened. Are you sitting down?’