A passionate devotee of decluttering, Fi had purged the house regularly over the years, but it was still a gargantuan job to pack and remove our possessions. Even with two professionals to help me, it took all day to relocate the furniture to the short-term storage unit in Beckenham and to box up and deliver to the flat all our clothes and personal items.
It was raining, of course, as if the gods were sobbing in protest at my wickedness – either that or they were helping keep the neighbours at bay. Very few came out into the downpour to ask what was happening and those who did swallowed my cover story with half an eye on their own dry hallways.
Only an early-afternoon encounter with Alison taxed my nerves to any dangerous extent.
‘Not at work?’ I asked her, concealing my horror at her approach. Rocky was by her side – she’d just been walking him judging by her rain-slicked mac and wellies – and rather than tug her towards her door he settled obediently between us as if for the long haul.
‘I only work Monday to Wednesday, remember?’ she said. ‘Or at least I only get paid for those days.’
Of course. She sometimes picked up the boys for us on Thursdays, Fi returning the favour on Fridays.
‘What on earth’s going on here then? You skipping town or something?’
I gulped. ‘I’m doing some decorating.’
‘Decorating? Does Fi know about this?’
I petted Rocky’s damp ears, praying I didn’t look half as stricken as I felt. ‘No, that’s the point. I’m surprising her.’
‘Looks like a serious job,’ Alison said, peering past her dripping hood to my removals van. ‘Why do you need to move stuff out?’
‘Because I’m doing the whole thing at once, we can’t move it from room to room.’
‘Can’t you just pile it in the middle of the rooms and cover it with sheets? That’s what we always do. Where’s it going?’
‘Just to a storage unit on the other side of Beckenham.’
‘Wow. This is quite an operation. When’s Fi back from Winchester?’
‘Late tomorrow night, but not back at the house until Saturday morning. It’s a very tight schedule.’
She narrowed her eyes, twisted her mouth to one side. ‘It’s not tight, Bram, it’s impossible. Something on this scale takes weeks. How have you chosen the colours without her input? You’ve gone for rich blues and greens, I hope? None of those greigy mushrooms?’
Was it normal to keep answering questions like this or would it be more natural to call her out on the interrogation? ‘Alison, you’d have been great in the Gestapo, has anyone ever told you that?’
She laughed. ‘Sorry. I’d like to think Fi would be on Rog’s case if he pulled a stunt like this.’
If she had any idea what a stunt it was!
‘She’s been wanting to redecorate for ages,’ I said, ‘as I’m sure you know, and an old colleague of mine is starting a new business, giving me a great rate. He’s inside now with his team, cracking on.’
At this show of enthusiasm, a trace of indulgence crossed her face and she put a damp-gloved hand on my arm. She thought I was trying to win Fi back, had heard about Christmas, perhaps. ‘Bram, I hope this isn’t out of line, but you do know she’s away with someone else right now?’
‘I do. M—’ I caught myself. ‘Toby. Have you met him?’
‘Not yet. I think she’s waiting . . .’ Tact prevented her from continuing, but she needn’t have worried. Waiting till she’s sure it’s serious, I thought.
That would be never then, because after tomorrow Casanova would be gone and the pain of a break-up would be lost in the horror of dealing with the loss of her home, the mystery of her children’s father’s disappearance.
‘I’ll let you get out of the rain. You want me to pick up Leo and Harry for you later?’ Alison offered.
‘Thanks, but I’m good. I’m taking them to my mum’s actually, it’s a bit chaotic here.’ I didn’t mention that I was keeping them off school the next day. The mothers of Trinity Avenue viewed a missed day of primary school as damaging to their offspring’s Oxbridge prospects.
‘Well, good luck. I hope it works,’ Alison said.
I had the (perhaps mistaken) sense that by ‘it’ she meant something more than my decorating project and I indulged in a momentary fantasy of how things might have developed in a parallel narrative. There were people like her and my mother, and maybe Fi’s parents too, who would have supported a reunion – or at least not actively opposed it. If I’d kept my head down and waited it out, if I’d shown Fi I could change . . .
Soaked to the bone by then, I went back inside and arranged for the last contents of her bedroom to be boxed and removed.
‘Fi’s Story’ > 02:44:36
It was a nicely traditional dirty weekend in Winchester, albeit midweek: sex and room service, punctuated by visits to the cathedral and strolls through the old streets with half a mind on Jane Austen and half on each other.
I was tempted to tell Toby about the prescription pills, but I reminded myself that Bram was entitled to his privacy and, in any case, this of all times was not the right one to share with Toby my concerns about the mental health of the man who’d attacked him.
When I spoke to the boys on the Thursday after school, I thought nothing of it when Harry said he had a secret.
‘A good secret or a bad secret?’
‘A good secret. A surprise.’
‘A surprise for Leo?’
‘No, not Leo, you!’
‘I’m intrigued.’
‘Daddy’s—’
‘Don’t tell me!’ I said, laughing, but in any case Bram had cut him off at the other end.
Of course he had. In my naivety, I assumed it was some sort of ‘Welcome home’ cake – Bram was surprisingly willing to supervise baking – probably with blue icing and Maltesers, or failing that a portrait one of them had done of me at school, all sausage fingers and ears down by my shoulders.
I imagined the swearing of secrecy as a lesson in trust, not an abuse of it.
Bram, Word document
Even for those who aren’t preparing to abandon their family to the wolves, there is a particular bittersweetness to the act of picking up your children from school.
I discussed it with Fi once and she said that not only did she know the feeling but she felt it even more keenly than I did (she always said this: it wasn’t that mothers had the monopoly on parental devotion, they just felt it more keenly). She said it’s because small children are so unconditionally happy to see you at the school gate and yet you know, even as they’re bowling into your arms and nuzzling for treats, that one day, maybe not this year or the next but definitely sooner than you’d like, they will be embarrassed to see you there, or angry, or even fearful, because why would you come when you’ve been expressly forbidden unless there’s bad news of one form or another?
She said, at least it wasn’t an abrupt or vicious blow, but an incremental detachment: every day they need you less until the moment when they don’t need you at all.
If only Mike had come along later rather than sooner. If only he’d come when my sons no longer needed me, when saying goodbye was not the worst crime of all.
On our way to my mother’s on the bus, I took a photo of them together and then a second with me between them. Though I’d be destroying the SIM, I planned to keep my phone for music and the small depository of images of the boys. As I took the picture, cajoling Harry into the smile that Leo delivered obediently, I was aware of a young woman watching us from across the aisle, thinking, no doubt, I hope I get a husband like that, a great father.
Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart.
I couldn’t stay at Mum’s long because I was meeting cleaners at the house at 6 p.m. Believing they would see me soon enough, the boys tried to dash off, groaning when I reeled them back for a last hug.
‘Come here. Before you go in, I want to tell you something.’
They waited, only half-listening.
‘I love you and I will for ever. Never forget that, okay?’
Then I kissed them in turn.
They were puzzled, distracted, though the word ‘forget’ sparked an association in Harry, at least: ‘Dad, I forgot to bring my spelling book! I have to learn two from my list every night without fail.’