Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
‘What, no picnic this time?’ Patch joked.
It was Saturday afternoon and we were on Hampstead Heath, sitting on a bench overlooking the London skyline, the world literally at our feet. I knew he was remembering, as I was, the time we’d come here years ago, on one of our first dates as an official couple. We’d sat on a rug in the May sunshine and eaten smoked salmon sandwiches and drunk champagne, and he’d told me he loved me for the first time.
It had been one of the happiest days of my life. It was still right up there with the day Toby and Meredith were born, the day I graduated from uni, and the day I got cast as Desdemona in the school play.
The memory of that happiness was almost physical, as real a thing as the wisps of cloud in the sapphire sky and the shrieking parakeets wheeling overhead, and as impossible to capture. I wondered if Patch felt it too.
But I didn’t ask him. I just said, ‘I’ve got a couple of packs of those dehydrated carrot puff things the kids like in my bag. They might be a bit squashed.’
‘Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.’
We’d dropped the twins off at Imogen’s daughter’s birthday party, with a clear two hours before we needed to collect them (no doubt hyper and exhausted after too much cake), so I’d suggested a walk.
Not that I wanted to walk, particularly – but I did need to talk. The blindsiding shock of my meeting with Zara had gradually left me, replaced first with fury and now with a kind of leaden dread.
I knew what I needed to do, but that didn’t make doing it any easier. Looking at Patch’s face, the familiar lines of his half-smile, the threads of grey in his hair, the deep brown eyes the children had inherited, I felt overwhelming sadness.
When we’d come here all those years ago, I’d been filled with desire for him, leaping joyfully into our future together like a swimmer on a hot day. Now, I was living that future. We had our life together, our home, our children – all the things I couldn’t have dreamed of back then.
And I was about to throw it all away – dismantle it, somehow, untangle the very fabric of what we’d created.
Are you sure? I asked myself. You don’t have to do this.
I didn’t, of course. I could just put the past behind me, look to the future, move on. But it didn’t feel like it would be moving on at all. It felt like it would be taking a step back, far into the past, making myself revert to the person I’d been then, denying who I was now – older, sadder, perhaps stronger.
Only I didn’t feel strong. I felt more weak and fragile and alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
Unexpectedly, the image of Andy’s face came into my mind – not as he’d been when I first met him, the party boy whose yearning for fun and freedom had trapped him in the darkest of places, but the man he’d become before his relapse, strong and serene.
You’ve got this , Naomi, I imagined him saying. One day at a time, as they never stop fucking telling us in the programme.
Andy was gone. He’d died because he’d let his past reclaim him. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen to me.
‘You look glum as hell, babe,’ Patch said. ‘What’s up?’
‘I was just thinking about Andy.’
‘Andy? Poor sod. I still miss him, you know. We had crazy times.’
‘I know. It’s like he packed loads of lives into just one, like a cat or something.’
Patch laughed. ‘You say the daftest things sometimes, Nome.’
I laughed with him, but my laughter soon died down. Remembering Andy had made me even more conscious of what I’d brought my husband here to do – choosing this place, with its memories of the past and its promise of the future lying before us, hazy and glimmering in the sunshine.
‘It’s made me think, though. Really, you only get one life. When you make mistakes, like Andy did, you don’t get to unmake them. You can only live with them, or change what you do next.’
‘That’s all very profound, Nome. Not sure I’m up for such deep thinking on a Saturday afternoon. How about we head back and have a pint before we collect the kids?’
I remembered Zara’s words – subtle as a brick. It was true – for all his amiability, I realised, I’d never really been able to talk to Patch about the things that mattered most.
Now, I was going to have to.
‘We can have a drink later, maybe,’ I said, thinking that what I was going to need most in the world before this day was out was an enormous gin, tonic optional. ‘First, there’s something I need to talk to you about, and I don’t want to do it in a pub with loads of people listening.’
‘Look, is this about you going back to work? I want to support you, Nome. Maybe in a couple of years…’
‘It is, and it isn’t. That’s part of it. But, Patch…’
I stopped. Now’s your last chance, Naomi. You can not say it – not now, or even not ever. You can keep what you’ve got in the present and make the most of it.
‘What is it, babe?’ He reached over and took my hand. ‘If something’s bothering you, you can tell me, you know.’
His kindness was like a knife in my heart. What if I never find someone this nice again?
I forced air into my lungs past the lump in my throat. ‘I want to split up.’
‘You want what? Hold on, run that past me again.’
‘I want to end our marriage. I’ve been thinking and thinking about it. I don’t like what my life’s become and I can’t see another way to change it.’
‘This is about Zara, isn’t it? A couple of sympathy shags, years and years ago, and you’re jacking in our marriage and breaking up the kids’ home over it? Have you lost your mind?’
Already, I could feel my calm deserting me. ‘It wasn’t just a couple, years and years ago. It was a couple more, months after that. After Abbie’s wedding.’
‘Who the fuck told you that?’ His face was blank with shock, as if I’d slapped him.
‘Zara did.’
‘Zara’s a bullshitter.’
‘Yes, she is. But I think she was telling the truth about that.’
‘Right. So you’d rather believe that crazy woman over your own husband? She always had it in for you, you know. She never wanted us to be together even though she was fucking other men while she was seeing me.’
His words shocked me – the casual admission of the secret I thought I’d kept to myself all these years. ‘You knew about that?’
‘I found out a few days before you and I went to that gig in Camden.’ He sighed, as if remembering pain that was so distant it had become nothing more than a theoretical concept. ‘She sent me a text meant for some other guy. Maybe she did it on purpose; I don’t know. She’s crazy, Nome. She’s a loose cannon. And you’re seriously saying you’re going to let her get her way over some casual, drunken thing that meant nothing?’
His sudden belligerence alarmed me, then amused me. What did he think I was going to say? Oh, now you put it that way, of course I’ll change my mind?
It had been a pattern in our relationship, I realised: Patch holding out for whatever he wanted, me going along with it for the sake of a quiet life, conscious that I was so lucky to have him, I was punching, I mustn’t do anything that could drive him away, back to Zara.
Well, that ship had sailed. He’d been lured back to her without me having to do anything wrong at all.
‘I don’t really care what Zara wants. Honestly, this isn’t about Zara at all – it’s just that she sees things for what they are. I love the children and I love your mum and I love you – I really, really do, and I always will – but I can’t keep putting myself last. I’ve lost myself somewhere along the way, and I need to?—’
‘To “find yourself”? What is this, Eat, Pray fucking Love ?’
I forced a steadying breath into my lungs. ‘Take the piss if you want. I don’t mind. Here’s the thing, though, Patch. You want your life arranged to suit you. Your work, your hobbies, even your sleep. Even sleeping with Zara. It’s not so much that it hurts me, although it does. It’s that you went ahead and did it because it was what you wanted to do, and you didn’t care that it would hurt me and hurt her.’
He turned to me, his mouth twisting with anger that I knew was a mask hiding pain. ‘Oh, so it’s not about you finding yourself, after all. It’s about me being public enemy number one.’
‘You are the person you are. I knew from the get-go – I can’t blame you for it. But it’s because of who you are that I can’t get to be who I want to be.’
‘Lots of women would kill for your life, Naomi. Look at it – great house, lovely kids, not having to go to work, husband who loves you. You don’t know you’re born.’
‘I know. I know I’m lucky and plenty of people would want what I’ve got. But that doesn’t mean it’s all I want. It’s not, and I’m allowed to make that choice.’
‘And anyway, what about the kids? How the hell do you think would work? Because I’m not going to let you have them full time and never see them. They’re my children.’
‘And you’re their father, and they love you. I wouldn’t dream of not letting you see them. The more time you can spend with them, the better.’
He flinched, as if realising he had fallen into a trap. ‘Fine. Then move out if you want to. I’ll keep the children with me and you can rent some poky flat somewhere and live on benefits. See how you like that.’
I sighed. ‘Patch, we’ll have to work all of that stuff out. It isn’t going to be easy, I know. But we both want what’s best for the children.’
‘What’s best for the children is having their mother and father living together under one roof with them.’
‘Not when their mother doesn’t want to be there.’
He stood, the muscles in his legs propelling him powerfully upwards. For a second, I wondered what I’d do if he hit me, but I forgot the thought immediately. Patch had never raised a hand to me and I knew he never would. But his anger was still frightening.
‘I’m not going to stay here and listen to this. You need to get your head straight – get over whatever this craziness is and come to your senses. And then apologise to me.’
I watched as he turned and strode away down the hill, feeling the breath release from my body in a long, weary sigh. It had gone both as well as I’d hoped and as badly as I’d feared. But it was done – I’d taken the first step on the path that led to my future.
And the first step, Andy had always said, was the hardest one.
I waited a few minutes, imagining Patch leaving the park, finding a pub, ordering a pint of Guinness and sitting alone, drinking, calming down, waiting for me to text and say I was sorry, it had all been a mistake.
The grass felt springy under my feet, as if I’d shed a heavy load, as I walked down the hill to fetch my children from their party.