Julia and James had come to an uneasy truce. Resenting, fearing, longing for the extra hour away from Gwen, Julia thought they should save time and drive, but on James’s insistence they had instead walked in late summer dusk across the bottom of the Heath, keeping pace in a silence that might have been lingering animosity, or new shyness. They went to the Bull and Last for smoked salmon, warm soda bread, and sharp, strong gin and tonics; for space, for fresh air, and above all else for respite from the house, which hummed with steady and claustrophobic tension. Julia had steeled herself for protest, and had been unprepared for Gwen simply saying, “Okay, Mummy,” in a small, dull voice, and then subsiding back onto the sofa with a look of such blank and eloquent wretchedness that Julia had immediately opened her mouth to say that she wouldn’t go. The next moment she’d caught sight of James’s grave, tired face and had bitten her tongue.
“I know, I know, we need to talk about the children,” she’d said earlier, when he told her he’d made a reservation, and he’d looked hurt and said, softly, “We need to not talk about the children.” He was right, but knowing it hadn’t eased her conscience as the front door closed behind them.
How good it would be to walk away. What a relief, not to see that flushed and tear-greased pleading resentful face. What soothing music the silence would be, free from Gwen’s petulant, disconsolate voice; what restorative paradise away from all the weeping. To be alone with James. Julia ached to stay, and longed to flee.
She must not forget that Gwen had chosen this relationship with Nathan. Yet who would choose this? A hurt and angry little girl couldn’t know what she had fought for, and those who understood should have tried harder to stop her. It’s my fault, but then again, Gwen had stamped her feet and demanded adulthood. And on and on, tramping the same tight and tedious circuit over old, worn ground, the same regrets unending, unresolved.
Julia refused a starter and then, barely settled at the table, they almost rowed. James said irritably that they may as well get a takeaway and a taxi home if she had only allowed twenty minutes for the meal; they’d better start back now, in fact; it had been a wonderful evening and, after all, they’d exceeded their yearly allowance of fun. He looked cross and flushed, and he was in the right once again. She noticed that he had shaved and put on a favored, dry-clean-only white shirt. He had come home that afternoon with a bunch of creamy white and violet-streaked Lisianthus, now in a vase on the piano. She said, quickly, it had only been that she wasn’t that hungry but of course there was no rush, she’d have a green salad to be companionable if he was getting two courses, and she watched him decide to believe her, electing to avoid the fight. “And maybe some olives first?” she added as the waitress moved to leave them, returning her small notepad to the pocket of her apron. When their drinks came Julia raised her glass and said, “To us,” and saw relief in James’s face. Across the table his aftershave reached her, lime and faint, spiced wood smoke. She began to feel lighter, threw her shoulders back, pushed the candle aside, and reached for his hands.
“In this family we are the original couple,” James told her, clinking his highball glass against hers again. Beneath the table his knees closed around her own and squeezed, gently. “We need to remember how we all got here. It’s us. Everything else can be figured out.”
“The original couple? You mean, like in the garden?”
“Right. You’d better Adam and Eve it.”
“I don’t know this is Paradise, at the moment.” She intended to say this playfully but it had sounded bitter and she arrested her own train of thought before she could pursue the analogy any further. She did not want either of them hunting for serpents. “London’s rubbing off on you, very impressive,” she added quickly, changing the subject.
James rattled through his brief Cockney lexicon—“apples and pears,” “Sherbet Dab,” “septic tank” (this one, meaning “an American,” was new to her)—and concluded with a demand for another butchers at the drinks menu. Another pitfall dodged, and she relaxed again. Their food came. Julia found that she was ravenous, and took pleasure in a meal for the first time in months.
She had no conversation, could think of nothing to say except to express over and over her disloyal relief and gratitude that they were not at home. Whenever she attempted to speak it was this that rose to her lips: thank God we’re away. But each felt the other’s child had done theirs damage and so had fallen naturally onto the enemy team. James was her best friend, yet could no longer receive such confidences. How she longed for the release: I can’t bear it any longer; Gwen’s passive misery is suffocating me, I’ve worried myself sick about her, lifelong, I am tired.
For a while they ate in silence, until James clattered down his knife and fork, dropped his head back, and said, addressing the ceiling, “God, it’s good to get away with you, I’m sick of those fucking children. We need to do this more often, seriously. For God’s sake, let’s go to Milan for longer; let’s make it a week. I need you. I miss you. I know they’ve needed us but it’s relentless and never-ending—they’re like, they’re like vampires.”
Julia’s eyes filled. “I miss you, too. I can’t bear this. I know, you’re right, I feel bled dry.” That was the way back—not my child to blame, not your child. A safe, bland plural. The children. She risked a question, though she feared the answer: “Do you ever feel like we’re being punished for being people? Instead of parents? I kept telling myself it was for Gwen, too, that it would be good for her to have a man in the house, have a father figure and a family and—but it was because I wanted it so much. I wanted you so much. You came along and changed everything and I was just drunk on it. I was thinking like a person, instead of like a parent. I let myself want.”
“You should want,” he said, fiercely. “Christ, Julia, you are a person.”