Five minutes later Matthew and Scarlett pass the door. Matthew’s taking Scarlett home apparently and is telling her to get her things when the doorbell rings.
It’s Kaye. I listen from the landing.
‘You didn’t say you were coming here,’ Kaye’s scolding Scarlett, who’s still sniffing as she gathers her things. ‘I’m fed up with this running around.’
‘Ah, leave her be.’ Matthew sounds exhausted.
‘Where’s Jeanie?’ I hear Kaye ask.
Matthew says, ‘Not feeling too good. Having a lie-down.’
‘Still not well? Poor woman,’ Kaye says. ‘Is she often ill then?’
I stay safely upstairs; I don’t want to see that woman now, her perfection in my face. And I don’t want her near my son; I don’t want any more blame on us.
Matthew leaves soon after.
I’m so tired: bone weary suddenly. I’ve been fighting all my life, and this was meant to be the good bit – but it’s not. It’s stressful and fraught and full of emotions that fracture us and swarm the sky unspoken, and I can’t take much more.
I force myself off the bed. I wash my face and go downstairs and into the garden. I walk down to the woodpile, and I pick up the axe.
* * *
8 p.m.
* * *
When Matthew returns an hour or two later, I am calm again.
But one look at his face tells me he isn’t.
‘So you bothered to get up again,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t want to tire you out.’
‘Sorry,’ I say quietly. ‘I do feel particularly exhausted today. I’m not sure why.’
‘No, I’m not sure either when you just sit on your backside all day.’
His words don’t even shock me any more. ‘But you know I’ve been looking for a job. I think I might have—’
‘I wouldn’t bother. I mean with your past, it’s hardly surprising you’ve not found one, is it?’ He slams the kettle on. Then he changes his mind and opens the fridge, pulling a bottle of beer out and slamming the door so hard everything rattles. ‘You’re almost as bad as Kaye.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I protest, reeling slightly from the savagery of his attack. Kaye had never worked properly from what I understood – or at least I vaguely recalled there was a brief stint as some kind of TV extra or catalogue modelling: something like that. But really she just produced children and shopping and went to the gym.
‘Fair? Fair?’ Matthew’s going puce again. ‘Whoever said life was fair?’
‘Matthew,’ I say quietly, ‘I’m not one of the twins. Please don’t speak to me like that.’
‘I don’t actually.’ He glares at me. ‘I wouldn’t talk to my kids like that, because they don’t need it. And you…’ I sense him deciding whether to say it.
‘What?’
‘I don’t think you should be near my kids at the moment.’
As soon as it’s out, he looks abashed – but he obviously needed to say it.
‘Is that really what you think?’ I’m wounded, but I’m also not thinking straight. I’m not sure what to say.
‘I don’t know what I think any more.’ He’s quieter now, and he looks terrible suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, Jeanie. It just feels – horrible.’
‘I want to ask two things, if I may, Matt.’ I place my hands flat on the table to steady myself. ‘One – why keep Kaye’s room like that? And two – who is Lisa Bedford?’ I look at him squarely.
‘Who?’
‘Lisa Daisy Bedford.’
Unusually for him, colour stains his face. ‘Daisy?’
‘Yes, Daisy. You let me think she was a pet dog.’
He looks embarrassed. ‘Well – it – was just easier.’
‘Why?’
‘I just – I didn’t need any more complications.’
‘So who is she?’
‘She’s a – family friend. She looked after the kids for a bit when Kaye and I first split. I mean I employed her.’
‘I see.’ I try to absorb this. ‘Was she good with the kids?’
‘Yeah, she was absolutely great. They loved her – she was a natural – unlike some…’
‘Please, Matt, don’t say anything you’ll regret.’
‘Who are you, fucking Oprah Winfrey?’ he yells at me. ‘Don’t be so paranoid. And fuck knows if I mean it. I don’t know what I mean any more…’
‘Well don’t say it then.’ I do sound like a teacher. Like the teacher I am. Or was anyway.
‘Oh why don’t you just fuck off!’ Without warning he lobs the beer bottle; it smashes on the wall behind me. Beer froths and trickles down the tiles, drip-drip-dripping onto the floor.
I’ve been holding on so hard for these past few weeks, but it’s like our marriage has a life of its own now; a horrible being in its own right – an ugly little beast, scuttling around, scratching at everything, not satisfied by anything…
The truth is I’m not sure I even want to hold on to it right now.