Chapter 15
Diane was sitting in darkness in the lounge apart from the fairy lights flickering on the tree. She was nursing a glass of whisky, rolling it round and round in the cut-glass crystal, a wedding present from Leon’s aunt and uncle, occasionally taking a sip.
There had been an awkward dinner with Chloe and Bertie. Not that they were awkward, but she certainly felt like she was intruding on a couple’s meal. She didn’t know her place without Leon there to balance things. She was a third wheel, a gooseberry, a pity guest. Chloe laughed and giggled and occasionally invited her into their world, but Diane had struggled to engage as she considered the imploding of all her Christmas wishes. Which were simple, after all. To spend time with her family.
They’d offered to clear away but Diane had shooed them off, telling them to go and meet their friends. She slowly loaded the dishwasher to the background noise of Radio Four until the kitchen was spick and span, all was in place and yet nothing at all was where it should be.
She’d then poured herself a large glass of whisky and proceeded to the lounge, putting on a vinyl LP of Bing Crosby on Leon’s vintage record player, which sat in the corner.
It was an hour and a half before she heard a key in the lock. She wasn’t sure what she had been thinking about. It was as though her mind was suspended, frozen, awaiting a seismic shift that would unlock it again.
‘Hello,’ she heard Leon call. She couldn’t even respond. She heard him traipse to the kitchen, switch lights on, bang cupboard doors, open the fridge, the tinkling of ice in a glass and then finally footsteps back down the hall and into the lounge.
‘Oh good God, woman,’ he said, jumping when he turned a table light on to reveal her sitting there. ‘What are you doing in the dark?’
She turned to look at him slowly. ‘Perhaps it’s where I’ve always been,’ she replied.
‘What do you mean?’ he said, sitting beside her on the sofa.
‘In the dark.’
She felt him swallow and take a fortifying glug of his drink.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked, biting her lip to stop the tears, watching the lights twinkle incongruously cheerfully in the mirror opposite them.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I had to do something.’ He took another glug.
‘What did you have to do?’
‘Oh, just a work thing. You know how it is. Nothing really.’
Diane paused. ‘No, I don’t know how it is. How is it, Leon?’
‘How’s what?’
‘How is it that you can clearly turn up for someone else but you cannot turn up for me or your daughter on the first night she’s home from college? How is that, Leon?’
He shifted on his seat. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I made a meal, I bought a tree, I decorated it before I went to work. I bought your favourite wine – not mine, not Chloe’s, yours. You see, I mistakenly thought this would be a special night. The three of us together after ten weeks. But no. You had to do something. Something so casual, so insignificant that it was really nothing.’
‘I didn’t realise that tonight was going to be such a big deal,’ he said. ‘You never said.’
‘First night our daughter’s home from uni. And you’re not working. It’s not rocket science, Leon. Surely it’s obvious that tonight was going to be a big deal. Why should I have to tell you that?’
‘You’re right. You shouldn’t have to tell me. Sorry.’
‘And you told her it was OK to go to her boyfriend’s for Christmas. Have you any idea how much I’ve been looking forward to spending Christmas with her?’
Leon shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t think. I’ve just been a bit distracted.’
Diane let out a deep sigh. ‘You’re always distracted. Always. And do you want to know what I think you’re distracted by?’
‘What?’ asked Leon, looking alarmed.
‘You,’ she replied. ‘Always you. You are so focused on whatever is going on in your life that you fail to notice anything that’s going on in mine – or anyone else’s, for that matter. It’s all about you, Leon. It’s always all about you. You couldn’t give a shit about what I’m doing. And what really gets to me is that you couldn’t give a shit about what I’m doing for you.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Leon. ‘I really appreciate everything you do for me.’
‘Bollocks!’ shrieked Diane. ‘I showed you all the Christmas presents I’d bought for your family the other day and you couldn’t care less. No thanks, no nothing.’
‘I thought you liked shopping.’
Diane thought she might scream. ‘I hate Christmas shopping. Everyone hates Christmas shopping.’
‘I didn’t realise,’ said Leon.
‘You never do. Because you pay absolutely zero attention to me.’
Leon looked down. She thought he might be crying. Good, she was glad.
‘I just facilitate your life,’ she said. ‘That’s all I am to you. I do everything so that you can focus on you.’ She felt herself close to tears now.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.
‘Do you have any idea how jealous I am of you?’ she said.
‘Jealous?’ he said, looking up.
‘Jealous,’ she repeated. The tears were flowing down her cheeks now. ‘You get to go to the theatre every day to work. You get to do something that you love, every single day.’
‘I know I’m very lucky,’ he nodded.
‘I used to have that,’ said Diane, her voice trembling.
Leon didn’t say anything. Tears were pouring down his face now, too.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I feel like I’ve really screwed your life up. I don’t know what to do to make it better.’
Diane wasn’t sure either. This was the most honest conversation they had had in for ever. She didn’t know what the answer was, but she knew that getting her innermost feelings out was at least making her feel better.
Diane considered her next question carefully. ‘Are you seeing somebody?’ she asked.
There was a slight pause. So small and yet so significant.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I mean, are you seeing somebody? Are you having an affair? Do I really need to spell it out?’
Leon said nothing.
‘Is it Amy?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said immediately. ‘No, not Amy. No.’
Diane turned to look at him. ‘But it is someone?’ She watched as his mouth slightly dropped but no sound came out, no words of denial. Just shock that she’d asked the question he didn’t want to be asked.
‘Look, it’s so not what you think,’ he said. ‘Really it isn’t.’
‘Isn’t it?’ asked Diane. ‘Tell me. I’ll decide that for myself, shall I?’
He turned to face her and took her hands in his. ‘I have had feelings for someone, but I can absolutely tell you that I’ve done nothing about it. Absolutely nothing at all. Until tonight …’
Diane closed her eyes; she could not bear to look at him.
‘Tonight … I told them that nothing could happen between us. That’s where I was.’
She opened her eyes. He was looking at her sincerely.
‘I told them that we shouldn’t see each other again. That’s what I went to do.’
‘Why tonight?’ she asked.
‘Things had come to a head. It was about to go further and I had to do something about it.’
‘You left me and our daughter to go and tell someone you couldn’t have an affair with them?’
‘I didn’t realise. I didn’t think. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what to think any more.’ He looked scared and confused.
‘Sounds like you cared more about letting this person down than being with us.’
‘I was trying to do the right thing,’ pleaded Leon. ‘I’m trying to do the right thing. That’s all I’m trying to do. I’m here now, aren’t I, with you?’
Diane swallowed.
‘Are you?’ asked Diane. ‘Are you really? I don’t think you’ve been here for some time.’
They were looking each other in the eye. Leon was breathing very heavily; Diane was holding her breath.
‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘What are we doing?’ asked Diane.
‘I don’t know,’ said Leon. ‘I really don’t. I feel terrible. Awful. I just don’t know what I want. I really don’t.’
Diane looked at him. His expression implied he was expecting some kind of sympathy for his predicament. She wanted to strangle him with the red scarf he was still wearing around his neck.