Chapter 25
Outside we started to slowly walk towards the river. It was still cloudy but it felt warmer. I was busy unwrapping the snood around my neck when Noah moved me aside to allow a group to pass. The group members were all wearing masks as they followed their tour leader inside.
‘Does it freak you out that they’re wearing masks?’ I said, taking a wider berth.
‘I think that it’s probably more cultural,’ said Noah. ‘But yeah, I have noticed that I’ve moved away from people that have them on the Tube a bit more, just in case they’re wearing them because they’ve been in contact with someone rather than as a precaution.’
I thought about what Carol had said at the home and tried not to let the fear get hold of me.
‘This feels better,’ said Noah. It was almost as busy outside the galleries as it was inside, but I knew what he meant: it was nice to be out in the open. ‘I feel like I can breathe again.’
‘Those paintings really did a number on you, didn’t they?’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen them in books, but never in person. Amazing.’
I nodded. They were definitely my favourite things I’d seen on our visit.
‘You know, I’m working near here now,’ he said, walking along and pointing in the general direction. ‘Just past London Bridge.’
‘That’s a nice place to be. Close to Borough Market.’
‘Too close sometimes, far too much temptation,’ he said with a laugh. ‘But sometimes I run down here on my lunch break.’
‘Impressive.’
‘Well, when I say sometimes, I mean I’ve done it twice.’
I laughed.
‘Still more impressive than me. I tell myself every week I’m going to go out for a lunchtime walk, and I’m lucky if I even leave my desk.’
‘Sounds familiar.’
We walked along until we reached the railing and we stopped to take in the view. Although it was widely different from the view upstairs in the bar, it was still impressive in its own right.
‘What’s the story with Caz and Nick?’ he asked, leaning his back on the railings.
‘I’m not sure there is one.’ I’d of course been hoping there would be. I always liked him. ‘But I’m glad she’s at least talking to him; it’s always good to get things off your chest.’
‘Speaking of getting things off your chest,’ said Noah, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m not sure if you’ve already heard … ’
He turned and looked at me, and there was a strain on his face as if he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I nodded my head and automatically it tilted to the side.
‘Amy told me, about you and Mags.’
He let out another deep breath and looked down along the river.
‘I thought she would have done.’
It was getting colder, the chill starting to bite around us, but it didn’t feel like the type of conversation to interrupt to go somewhere warmer.
‘I was going to tell you, you know this morning, when you asked where she was.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
He shrugged and shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket.
‘I don’t know really’ – he paused and I looked away – ‘and maybe because it didn’t feel like the right time to talk about it on our birthday. I didn’t want to bring us down.’
‘Come on, why break the habit of a lifetime? Isn’t that our thing, analysing why we’re unhappy on our big birthdays?’ I said, thinking back to our phone call four years ago. Mum had seemed so distant then but I’d had no idea how much further she’d go.
‘Analysing all the decisions we got wrong.’ He looked up and into my eyes.
I stared back. The outside of the gallery was busy but I didn’t see anyone else.
‘Noah.’ The words barely came out of my mouth. I didn’t know what to say.
A large family group walked past, two of the children tugging at each other’s arms in a fight and their mum stepping in to separate them.
We watched them go and then I turned back to him.
‘I’m sorry, for what it’s worth, about you and Mags.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, nodding. ‘Things weren’t great for a while, so it’s kind of for the best.’
‘Are you sure you just weren’t working too hard? You know, not making time for each other?’
They’d always seemed like such a slick couple. Not the homely, bickering type like Amy and Paul. Just two people on the same page.
‘I think it was the opposite, throwing ourselves into the work to ignore what was going on.’
I turned to him and he bit his lip.
‘I guess I’ve known, for a long time, maybe even since before we were married, that it wasn’t right.’
‘Then why did it take you so long to figure it out?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, with a simple shrug. ‘Because I wanted to be who Mags saw when she looked at me.’
‘And what did she see?’
‘Someone confident. Someone that was going places. She’s been my biggest cheerleader; she helped me rebuild my life when I came back from Australia and I loved it. You know Mags, you know how great she makes everyone feel. And she could have picked anyone to date, and she picked me.’
I knew exactly what he was talking about. She was one of those people that always built you up. Always believed in you.
‘I’ve just been thinking so much lately about after I graduated, when I worked for that refugee charity, how I was making a difference. And I thought about my life now and I can’t remember the last time I did any good for anyone.’
‘I’m sure that’s true for most of us.’
‘Um, hello, you gave up your whole life in London to take care of your mum. You put someone else before yourself without even thinking. It’s you all over.’
I closed my eyes a little. I know that he was saying his words to be nice, but they stung.
‘Hey, why are you crying?’ he asked.
I dabbed at my eyes. ‘I’m not crying.’
‘Looks like it,’ he said, raising a sympathetic eyebrow.
‘It’s just … ’ I searched for how to explain my emotions. ‘You’re making me sound like some kind of saint.’
‘But you almost are. Not everyone moves in with their mum to look after them. I’m sure you could have put her in a home before now.’
‘I know I could have and I think that’s what hurts because maybe I should have. I think about it a lot; that maybe that wasn’t me being selfless. Maybe it was me being selfish.’
‘How could you moving back with your mum, possibly be selfish?’ Noah screwed up his face in confusion.
I looked around for a free concrete bench. I motioned to him and we headed over to sit down. I pulled down my coat and popped my hands into my sleeves to fight the cold.
‘I remember what she was like before the divorce. How she was when I was growing up and she was so … alive. All sparkly and magical. She had this huge smile on her face, most of the time, or at least she did when she was around me. She’d make us picnics to have on the carpet on rainy days and the day after my birthdays she’d let me have leftover cake for breakfast.’ I sighed.
Tears were starting to burn at my eyes but if I gave in to them, it would open the floodgates.
‘And even when Dad left, when she hit rock bottom, she picked herself up and dusted herself down. Still smiling. Always making the best of things. And I don’t know, I kept her at home for so long because of those rare moments where she smiled like that again.
When I saw snippets of who she used to be.
’ I shook my head. ‘God, this sounds so pathetic.’
‘It doesn’t at all,’ said Noah, seriousness in his voice.
A tear rolled down my cheek and I wiped it away quickly, trying to stop others from doing the same.
‘Weren’t you supposed to be the one having a moment?’ I said, trying to force a smile.
I held my breath, a pain burning in my chest. I knew I was powerless to stop the tears.
‘Hey, come here,’ said Noah, pulling me into him. My lip was starting to wobble and the tears were falling thick and fast. I could feel the puddle I was making on Noah’s coat but I didn’t want to move anywhere.
He stroked my hair and it only made me cry harder.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
‘Sshh,’ he murmured back.
It was like being in the gallery where time stood still. All I could do was cry, and when the tears gave way to the kind of silent sobs that took over my body, I pulled back and wiped my eyes.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from.’
‘I do,’ he said, pulling out what looked like napkins from a fast-food restaurant from his pocket. I took them and wiped my eyes anyway. ‘You’ve been holding all this in for years. And it’s not selfish to want your mum back. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been to lose her like you have.’
I nodded and scrunched up the tear-stained napkin. ‘It hasn’t been the best time. And now that I’m back on my own again, it’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’ve been caring for Mum for so long.’
‘Do you think that’s why you haven’t really let her go?’
I took a deep breath, rolling my lip over to bite it, the pain grounding me.
‘Maybe.’ I looked up at the bare branches of the trees above us. ‘But that’s what’s so scary. I don’t know who I am if I’m not looking after her. I think I’ve forgotten who I was.’
‘If it makes you feel better, I don’t remember who I really am either.’
‘You,’ I almost spluttered in shock.
‘Yeah, me.’ He ran his hands through his hair and looked out towards the river.
‘I spent New Year skiing, and we were in a bar in the middle of the afternoon halfway up a mountain. Beats were pumping out of the speakers and everyone was there drinking Aperol Spritzes in the sun, and there were these little wagons going over our heads on pulley systems taking magnums of champagne to the groups in the corners and it just hit me: what was I doing there?’
‘Yeah, sounds truly awful,’ I said, with heavy sarcasm.
‘I know, I sound like a dick. I get that. But everywhere I looked there was just so much money being spent and it made me feel sick. Like it hit me that this was our life. Holidays in the Maldives, skiing in the three valleys, the house in Surrey.’ He looked at me and there wasn’t a hint of a smile on his face.
‘I know that I’m living a dream life, and I sound so spoilt, but it’s not my dream. It was never my dream.’