‘No, no, don’t do that.’ She has to stem this flow of questions, more questions she can’t answer, and try to think. ‘You just carry on with whatever you’ve planned. Thank you. I’ll phone you later. Give my love to the boys.’
She hangs up. ‘She says you’re here to decorate,’ she tells Lucy. ‘There’s no other explanation for all our stuff having been cleared out. Where have you put everything? Why won’t you tell me?’
Abandoning her kettle, Lucy comes to sit next to her. Her movements and breathing are soft, as if she’s making herself as unobjectionable as possible. ‘I’m not decorating, Fi, I think you can see that. I’m moving in. As I understand it, you and your family moved out yesterday. It sounds as if you were out of town, were you?’
‘Yes, I’m not supposed to be back yet, but I needed my laptop.’ The sound she utters is supposed to be laughter but it comes out wrong, broken. ‘Pointless to ask where that is.’
Lucy just smiles, gentle, encouraging. ‘Look, your kids are safe, that’s the main thing, isn’t it? Let’s just catch our breath and think where else your husband might be. What about trying his office?’
‘Yes.’ Fi looks at Lucy, this stranger in her kitchen now guiding her thoughts and actions, and she thinks, What’s the connection, Bram? Why have you lied to Tina? To me? Where have you gone?
Her hands tremble as she takes up the phone once more.
What have you done?
Geneva, 2.30 p.m.
He cannot stay in the room a moment longer; if he does, he will hurl himself at the sealed window – over and over until he slumps to the floor. He’ll go out, find a bar, have a beer. Tomorrow, he’ll move on. He won’t risk staying more than a single night here. He’ll go to the train station and he’ll look at the departures board and take his pick. Cross into France, like he thought he might, to Grenoble or Lyon.
Good, he thinks, a plan. Or at least something better than this, this suffocating limbo.
Pocketing his wallet, he senses the lightness, the absence of counterbalance, the missing items he has carried habitually for as long as he can remember:
House keys.
11
‘Fi’s Story’ > 00:42:57
I haven’t said much about the boys, I know. I suppose I’ve been hoping I could keep them out of this. The thing is, I haven’t even broken the news to them yet about the house. My latest lie is that it’s been flooded after all the rain we’ve had, but I can’t expect to fob them off for much longer, especially once this is released and people start talking. Primary schools have grapevines too, pruned with dedication by the parents at the gate, which I’ve avoided since Bram disappeared. (Mum has been doing the school run.) I’ve avoided Alder Rise altogether.
Their names are Leo and Harry and they are eighteen months apart. Leo has just turned nine and Harry will be eight in July. They both have Bram’s dark unruly hair and pale gentle mouth and we all think they’ll have his height too. Being so close in age, Harry follows in Leo’s footsteps even while the prints are fresh. Harry’s Year Three teacher was Leo’s the year before; at swimming lessons, Leo moved from Dolphins to Stingrays the term Harry entered Dolphins. On paper, they look to be taking identical paths.
But they are utterly different in character.
Harry is bold. He makes eye contact with adults and his voice is a foghorn with a single setting. It’s a point of principle to him that he doesn’t seek consolation or comfort. He’ll injure himself, slip down wet steps or crash-land from the magnolia, and he’ll look for the exit through his tears, grimly resisting the outstretched arms, the offers of comfort.
Leo is the crier, the cuddler, the obliger. Inevitable, then, that I sometimes think my bond with him is stronger. He had quite bad allergies as an infant as well, which led to a couple of A & E visits before the right medication was prescribed. We still keep it to hand, in case of a flare-up.
I discussed the new living arrangements with him as we unloaded the dishwasher together. Harry claimed table laying as his chore, but the dishwasher was Leo’s department.
‘What do you think of our new plan?’ I asked him.
‘It’s okay.’
‘You understand how it’s going to work?’
‘Mmm, I think.’
‘Things aren’t going to be that different. We’ll all still live here, it’s just that Dad and I will take it in turns.’
How important was it to see your parents together? If we hadn’t announced it semi-formally as we had, how long before the boys noticed of their own accord that we were never in the same place at the same time? It was possible it might have been some time.
‘Do you have any questions for me?’ I saw him think, looking down at the last of the clean utensils in his hands. He was not the questioner, Harry was the questioner. Leo was the accepter. ‘Anything?’ I prompted. ‘Anything that doesn’t make sense?’
I could see him trying to summon something as he gazed down at his fistful of cutlery. Perhaps he just wanted to please me. I had no idea if he thought of me as being a victim to be supported or as an instigator to be resented. Neither, perhaps.
At last his face cleared. ‘Why do we have so many spoons?’ he said.
He was so happy when I burst out laughing.
Oh, Leo. My Leo. I pray he hasn’t been permanently scarred by all of this, though it’s hard to imagine how he hasn’t.
Bram, Word document Bless his heart, Harry cried his eyes out when I talked to him about the new set-up and he never cries. He’s the family Stoic.
‘Are you and Mummy still married?’
‘Yes, absolutely. For now.’
‘Then why won’t you be in the house together?’
‘It’s a peace process, mate. We will be in the house together, just not long enough to argue. Because arguing’s not very nice for anyone, especially you and Leo.’
‘Will we still go on holiday together?’
‘Probably not for a while. We won’t have as much spare cash.’
‘Mum said we can still go to Theo’s house in Kent at half term. We always do that.’
‘Well, there you go.’
Theo was Rog and Alison’s kid. It was inevitable, I supposed, that Team Fi was assembling, the women, the mothers, closing ranks around her.
‘Will you get a new wife?’ Harry asked. ‘Will she move into the house as well?’
‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘Mummy’s my wife. We’re not getting divorced.’
I should have said ‘yet’ out loud rather than just mouthing it when he’d already looked away. It was wrong to give him hope, but I couldn’t help it, because I was already suspecting that it was my hope too.
Which, if it’s true, may prompt you to ask why I destroyed my marriage in the first place. I suppose because I didn’t know how much I wanted it until after I’d destroyed it. I suppose I must have had a death wish.
Hence the suicide note.
12
‘Fi’s Story’ > 00:46:21
So, back to the bird’s nest.
The first Friday handover was casual to the point of anticlimax, especially as the main event appeared to all intents and purposes to be Bram moving back in. As if we were reuniting, not separating. The sight of his clothes draped on the gingham-covered armchair in the spare bedroom was not so different from the times when he’d slept there after a night out, not wanting to disturb me with his snoring.
‘Can we camp out in the playhouse tonight?’ Harry suggested, the new favourite way to mark a special occasion (they sometimes lit a campfire), and I saw the quick look Bram sent my way.
‘It’s a bit wet out there,’ I said. There’d been rain for days and by now the drains had overflowed, the lawn become spongy. Streams ran down the slide and puddled at its foot, and when the boys took off their shoes after playing outside their socks squelched on the kitchen floor.