Hopeallswell
Hi! A little bird tells me you’re walking coast to coast. Wow! Hopeallswell x
There was not much to go on. The ‘little bird’ was Cleo. His wife hoped all was well, meaning, he imagined, that she hoped all was well.
Still, it was something. Since Christmas, their main source of communication had come through the streaming accounts they still shared, a strangely intimate diary of the period drama she’d watched back-to-back, the arty film she’d abandoned. It was a diary written in code – should he worry about the serial killer documentaries? If she was watching sit-coms, was she happy or sad? – and in return, he curated his own viewing history, going easy on the zombies and the erotica, watching documentaries about deep-sea life and vulcanology. If he’s watching Master and Commander, she’d think, he must be fine.
Occasionally she’d get in touch to see how things were with the house. She had left quickly, promising to return for the rest of her possessions when she had her own place but he’d rather she’d disappeared completely than left him in that half state. She was everywhere at home, in the furniture and the pictures on the wall, the plates from their wedding list, the brush still matted with her hair, the roller she used to remove lint from her skirt (that swift, sweeping motion down, the twist in her hips), a tube of Canesten that he couldn’t bring himself to throw away. Two people had lived there, but it was hard to spot his influence, and even his watch had come from Nat, simple and elegant, a present for his fortieth. How many times a day did he look at his watch? He couldn’t tell the time without her. Without her, he ate standing up. Dust gathered in the empty fruit bowl. He ran the dishwasher once a week and watched TV, but it was always too quiet, no floorboards creaking, the air still, every room a spare room. He’d once returned from school to find an estate agent showing a young couple around their ideal family home with room to expand, and the sense of seeing his former self was enough to send him back to his car, marking homework there until they were gone. The house was a show-home for a life that had escaped them, and he wanted both to be rid of it and for things to be just as they’d been before.
For now, the anonymity of this three-star hotel room was almost a relief. He tossed the phone on to the bed and took in his surroundings, still standing in his sopping clothes, which he peeled off now, grimacing, then sitting on the edge of the bed to read it again. Hopeallswell, like a village in the Dales. What was there to say in return?
His eye snagged on an earlier exchange.
Let’s leave it for a while. It’s too much
The closing line from a flurry of dialogue, the post-mortem of a terrible phone call in which she’d revealed that she’d been on a few dates, early days, very casual, a colleague, Frank. Strange how you could hear a name all your life, only for it to take on some unexpected significance, so that he could hear it now only with a sneer. This Frank was a fellow English teacher, and he pictured the two of them lying head to toe on the sofa, quoting Wilfred Owen, chatting about An Inspector Calls. Are you moving in? he’d asked, and she’d said certainly not, early days, very casual, that terrible phrase I just thought you should know. He’d heard the teacherly tone in her voice and in return he’d been snappy and graceless, asking banal questions about the new job, the village, her parents’ health, straining for politeness. The clichés of the end of a marriage were in the air – no regrets, we had a good time, let’s move on but stay in touch – but there were regrets and terrible times and where could he move on to? They’d talked over each other, misheard or misunderstood, he’d clammed up, she’d felt obliged to fill the gaps, and it was all so different from the ease they’d once had, as if the phone was cutting out.
They’d resorted to the slow motion of texts, her thoughtful, kind messages stacked in grey boxes on the left, his terse blue monosyllables on the right, yes, no, not yet, I will, a visual representation of his petulant withdrawal. Awful to see it transcribed now, this bitter little two-hander, and he knew that if he pulled the screen down with his thumb, there’d be more, bare and bitter exchanges about solicitors and direct debits and forms that needed signing, then I miss you, I hate this too, please respond. Anger, confusion, admin.
He put the phone down once again. Why now? She must know that he’d be passing nearby in a few days’ time. Did she want to meet up? The message was meagre but also impossible to ignore, like catching the eye of someone you used to know on the street. Respond or keep walking?
He growled, dug his hands into his hair and used it to pull himself upright then set about untangling the sopping mass of clothes. A sign on the radiator politely asked guests not to dry their clothes so he arranged them on hangers on the shower rail. He removed his watch and put it face down by the basin. On its back, ‘To Mike, all my love always’. Hardly anyone called him Mike.
He smiled experimentally in the mirror, once, twice, in the same way you might test a car’s brakes before a steep descent. At least he wouldn’t have to think about what to wear.