Good to see you, the message reads. You’ll be glad to know I decided to go home soon after you left. Got to stay sensible, right?
I try and think of something to reply, but my thoughts slip through me and I can’t hold on to what I want to say. I throw the phone on to the bedside table, roll over to turn off the lamp, then lie back and close my eyes, feeling my head swim. It’s not unusual for us to text each other, but it’s rarely so late at night. In light of my fantasies on the way home, it feels significant. It isn’t, of course. It won’t change anything. All the same, as I lie there in the darkness and think about him, I do something that I haven’t done for a long, long time, and when I wake up hours later, dragged out of sleep by dreams I can barely remember but which leave me hot and frustrated and confused, I do it again.
It’s another day and a half before I look at the photographs in the hall. They are what I expected: luminously filtered snapshots of marital and familial bliss. Caroline holding Eddie and laughing against a sparkling, snowy backdrop, both of them wearing woolly hats and gloves; Caroline and Francis strolling hand in hand down a sandy beach and squinting amiably into the sunset, the photo presumably taken by some roped-in onlooker; the three of them seated in the chaos of what must be Christmas morning, surrounded by the debris of multicoloured wrapping paper and ribbons. Eleven photographs. They are all showing different moments, different landscapes, but they have one thing in common: they all seem to have been taken within the past year. There’s no progression, no sense of history. Everything that came before is a blank.
I don’t spend as much time looking as I had thought I would. When it comes down to it, they’re just pictures. They don’t hurt in the way I thought they would, either. The happiness in them doesn’t feel real, and whoever said the camera never lies has clearly never set foot in this place.
I go back upstairs to her bedroom, and look around at the mess I’ve created. Anyone walking in here would be forgiven for thinking it had been the victim of a senseless raid – possessions thrown helter-skelter across the floor, cupboards and wardrobes stripped and gutted. I haven’t bothered to clear up after myself, but I’ve been very thorough. Any fool knows that if a woman has things she wants to keep secret, she hides them where she sleeps. So far I haven’t found much, but I know that will change. I know in my gut that Caroline isn’t the type to erase the past, despite the image she tries to portray. She isn’t the type to make a choice. She wants it both ways.
You can’t have your cake and eat it. Strange expression. It makes no sense, unless you know that, in the past, ‘have’ was used to mean something more like ‘keep’. You can’t keep your cake and eat it. You can’t hang on to something and destroy it, too. Wanting to keep your memories safe and at the same time wanting to wake up one morning and find that they’ve been wiped out of your head … Wanting to nurture what you’ve got, and at the same time wanting to light the blue touch paper and stand back to watch it burn and explode … yes. That’s something Caroline and I can both relate to.
Away
Caroline, May 2015
I GET UP early and make breakfast in the gleaming show-kitchen. Its emptiness is surprisingly restful; at home, I can barely move for clutter. Sometimes, I fantasize about doing what I occasionally read about in magazines and throwing out everything we own, starting over again with an entirely clean slate. The people who put themselves on record to talk about this kind of thing always look liberated to the point of insanity – smiles manic, eyes wide and evangelical. When it comes down to it, though, I can’t imagine doing it. Francis is a hoarder, and I wouldn’t even know where to start.
There are eggs and milk in the fridge, if nothing else, and a quick scout through the minimalist kitchen cupboards reveals a bag of flour, so I make a pancake batter and heat a frying pan on the hob. I’m keeping myself busy, but as I stir and pour I can’t help thinking about the flowers on the windowsill in the bathroom. Their image hangs there like an eye-mote, glimmering pinkly at the corners of my mind.
This sort of thing happened a lot, in the early days. I’d be caught out at almost every turn by a song playing in a shop or an idle turn of phrase from a stranger. Everything reminded me of you, because it was so easy to make the connections – you were at the very top level, all the time. In the same way, back when Francis and I first got engaged, I found myself noticing other newly engaged women everywhere I went. They were easy to spot, because they only wore one ring on that finger, and often it was slightly too big or too tight, so they would fiddle with it. It was like that, only it wasn’t a good feeling. It was like it in the worst possible way.
I thought I’d got past that. It was because it was unexpected, I suppose. As I prod at the edges of the batter in the frying pan, watching it bubble and harden, I’m thinking of that afternoon in the market, and the way you grabbed the roses from that stall, saying you wanted me to have them, even if I couldn’t keep them. The way the petals felt on my fingertips. Cool and soft. And the scent of them that lingered on my skin, long after I’d left them lying on the station platform and taken the train back home.
I’m still staring at the frying pan, turning the memory over in my head, when I become conscious of a creeping sensation across the back of my neck – a wordless warning. I glance around me, registering the bare, blameless surfaces, the evenly spaced spotlights. There’s nothing here to unsettle me, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being observed; the instinct urgent and strong, in the same way that the presence of a stranger in the house at night might be sensed, even through closed eyes.
Outside. I swing round to face the window, and it’s barely half a second – the smooth gliding of a shadow, something half seen and snatched away. It could be a trick of the light, but it’s enough. I peer out, looking for something, anything. The neat little square of lawn is empty, but I think I catch the faintest ruffle of the leaves at the far side, the kind of tremulous movement that could be the aftershock of someone pushing past and through.
‘I was going to do that!’ The sound of Francis’s voice makes me jolt. He’s suddenly behind me, putting his arms around my waist and briefly kissing the back of my neck. ‘I don’t want you to be slaving away over a hot stove all week.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I thought I might as well.’
‘Something on your mind?’ His expression is anxious, solicitous. ‘You look a bit rattled.’
My eyes stray back to the kitchen window. The garden is empty and the leaves are still again. I shake my head. ‘No. It’s fine.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘If you’re sure. Well, shall we have these and then go into London in a bit, when we’re ready? I thought maybe we could go to a museum or something, have some lunch out, then, I don’t know, do something else. Is there anything you fancy doing?’
‘Not sure … I’ll have a think.’ Even a year on, it feels new to hear him making plans and suggestions. It has the curious effect on me of wanting to relinquish responsibility completely and be borne along on the tide of his enthusiasm. There is no need for me to steer and control our days now. I don’t want to decide what we do or where we do it.
We eat the pancakes at the wooden breakfast table, joking about how Eddie would commandeer them all if he were here. I miss the sound of his voice, and I think about calling Mum, checking that he is all right. I’ll do it this afternoon; he’ll be at school now, anyway, and I’m supposed to be relaxing and enjoying myself.