‘Fuck you,’ I hiss, ‘you useless tosser,’ and then I’m turning on my heel and leaving the room, shaking with the adrenaline of it – the way it happens so fast now, the split seconds it takes for any prospect of civility to vanish. My own ugly words are beating in my head, and behind them, the nasty little thought lurks that maybe he’s right. Maybe in some way it’s my own stress that is seeping out, throwing everything out of kilter. I stare around at the chaos surrounding me and I’m filled with hopelessness; the knowledge that the family we have tried to build is all distorted and wrong, and that I don’t know how to fix it.
I calm Eddie down in the end and take him through the ritual of dinner, bath and book, snuggled up with him on the sofa and reading him a favourite story. He’s docile and placid now, watching the pictures intently and cocking his head to soak up the words. It’s as if Francis isn’t in the room at all. With a little tremor of shock, I realize that Eddie’s ignoring him; that, on some level, he knows there is no point in trying to engage.
‘Goodnight,’ I whisper, as I tuck him into bed, switching on the blue nightlight. I linger in the doorway for a few moments, watching as he rolls on to his side and his body heaves in a small sigh. One thing I have never doubted is Francis’s love for him, but I know that the reason I always come back to put him to bed is not simply to see him. I don’t fully trust his father with him on his own. I don’t want to leave him here, not until he’s safely asleep. The realization is bleak and fathomless.
In the bathroom, I have a quick shower, then sit in the bath and shave my legs carefully from top to bottom, rubbing in strawberry shower gel and stroking the razor over my skin. I’ve almost finished when he comes in. When he sees me, he just stands there for a few moments, arms folded, looking at what I am doing. His face is twisted with contempt and disgust. My eyes meet his, and for the first time it hits me that he knows exactly what is going on and exactly why I’m keeping myself smooth and scented. At the very least, he knows it isn’t for him.
‘I hope your friend Milly appreciates the effort,’ he says at last.
I want to say something in return, but I have no idea what, and after a few more beats of silence he turns and leaves the room. My hand is shaking, and when I pull the razor down the length of my leg the blade twists and grazes my skin. I stem the blood with my finger, my head lightly swimming. I need to get out.
Forty minutes later, I’m running up Carl’s road, my new silk underwear sliding beneath my clothes and my phone switched off. He opens the door to me, and the sight of him works faster than any drug. I’m crazily happy, throwing myself into his arms and winding myself around his body. He kisses me hard and I know that tonight is the night. I’ve had enough of agonizing over whether or when it should happen. I want it now and I draw in a breath to say so, but my eyes lock on his and I realize that I don’t need to.
He carries me through to the bedroom – pulling at my clothes and throwing them to the floor, unbuckling his trousers and shrugging off his shirt, until we’re naked on the bed together, entangled in a sudden, hot mess of limbs and sweat – and his breath is warm against my neck as I open my legs and clasp them around his waist. He’s inside me in an instant and I barely have time to register the shock of its rightness, the incredulity that we spent so long not doing this. I’m clutching at him, gasping for breath as we kiss, waves of heat breaking over my skin. He fucks me hard and fast, and I’m arching my back underneath him, almost screaming because I want this so much that, even now, when we’re right in the middle of it, I’m thinking about wanting to do it again.
He’s talking to me, whispering things that drive me over the edge into some place I’ve never been, and we’re staring into each other’s eyes and he’s coming inside me, and the thought hits brutally hard and without warning, for the first time – I love you, I love you, I love you.
Afterwards, neither of us speaks for a while. We lie together on the bed. He’s stroking my hair again, in a soft, soothing rhythm. I could so easily fall asleep here, but I know I can’t, and the thought brings tears unexpectedly to my eyes and running down my face.
‘Don’t,’ he says, but when I look up I see that he’s crying, too.
We lie there for a few more minutes. I watch his tears falling and put out my hand to touch them with my fingertips, stemming the flow. And in that moment I realize that he loves me, too, even if he doesn’t know it himself. I’ve never known anything so deeply. I’ve never felt so sure.
‘God,’ he says after a while. ‘This is cheerful.’ And despite it all, we both smile.
We don’t talk much more that night. When the clock hits eleven I get up and get dressed, and he comes with me to the front door to kiss me goodbye. Outside, it’s colder than I expected, and I’m shivering without a jacket as I walk to the station. I put one foot in front of the other, and with every step I’m thinking: I could leave. I could end my marriage. The idea is new and overwhelming. In all this time, I’ve never seriously considered it as an option. But now it’s out of its box and, as I’m getting on the train and straightening my crumpled clothes, reapplying my smudged lipstick, it’s flooding every inch of me and suddenly I’m filled with fierce certainty and I know that I could do it.
She’s found out about Amber and my inbox is full of her. Her name repeats itself down the page, again and again. Some of the messages are brief and tragic, helplessly posing questions I know she doesn’t expect to get answers to. I’ve just been having coffee with your girlfriend. Is this some kind of sick joke? Others are longer, haphazardly designed to try to provoke some kind of reaction. If I ever meant anything to you at all, then you need to answer me and tell me what is going on here. I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do. Please, you have to get in touch and explain this to me before I go completely insane … They ramble on and on in this vein. There are a couple of references to Amber herself and how pretty she is, thinly veiled pleas for reassurance. There’s no control, no thought. Just the contents of her head splashed out messily on to the screen in the hope that I’ll clear them up.
When I read these messages I can’t help but be angry. She’s expressing all this doubt and confusion, but it’s founded on beliefs and judgements she’s made without even stopping to consider. She’s so sure of how it is, so used to seeing the world through her own particular prism, that it doesn’t even enter her head that things may not be as they appear.
I nurse this anger for a while until it threatens to explode, and then I take the long, sharp kitchen scissors again and go to the rows of photographs in the hallway. One by one, I take them down and prise the backs away, lifting out the sheets of glass. My hands are trembling, but this job needs precision, so I sit and wait until I’m steely and focused, my concentration narrowing to the small pocket of carpet before me with the photos laid out in rows. I take each one in turn and I cut carefully into them, digging the points of the scissors into the centre of her face and then snipping outwards until I’ve removed her from the picture.
At the end of it, I lay the glass gently back on each one and replace them in their positions on the wall. Standing back, I see how it looks, and I like it. A series of small black ovals popping out from the frames, conspicuous only by their absence. She’s gone. All that’s left of her is the small, mangled pile of photo print at my feet. I think about throwing it away. But then I remember what she’s said, about how if someone cares about you at all, then it’s their duty to engage with you in some way, and in the end I just leave it there.
Away
Caroline, May 2015