Is This Love?, page 7
I managed to record a voice message onto Rambo’s cat feeder – a stilted greeting that would activate when his food was dispensed – before abandoning him for the weekend. I crashed in like a juddering wreck on my parents’ suburban calm, to be greeted by my mother’s worried embrace, my father’s breathtaking insensitivity. Bloody hell, what a year this is. Your mother crashed her car, you know? Now you’re getting divorced, and Liverpool are top of the league.
I knew it was an attempt at a joke. It was the kind of humour I’d inherited from him. But it caused me physical pain to hear him so casually drop the d-word, helping move along what was happening to me from an idea into a reality. I didn’t want that. I wasn’t going to let it happen.
There were memories of you in every corner of my parents’ house. I hadn’t anticipated them, hadn’t expected that you’d invaded their territory, got behind enemy lines. I went upstairs to drop my bag off, and remembered the first time I’d brought you here.
I had been so nervous. It was significant, my bringing you to meet them, of course it was. But I don’t think you knew what it meant to me, to have you installed by my side for a family weekend. I had so often, in the past, been on my own. A bit of a worry, I knew, for parents who just desperately wanted their offspring settled. A bit of a misfit.
But, with you, I felt like I’d finally made it.
So I couldn’t wait to tell my mum and dad about our plans for the future, the house, the joining together of our lives. My mum had seen the besotted look in my eye, and had asked if I was sure about taking so much on. I had laughed, turning away from her hesitation. I think she saw through you, even then.
But you had been charming, laughing at my dad’s jokes, and being attentive to me so that they could see I was loved, I was wanted. I had been so proud: of you, of myself for finding you. We had sneaked in kisses as we moved between rooms, and I had gasped as you groped me, a grin on your face, as my mum stepped outside to check on dinner and just seconds before my dad returned from the bathroom to drop himself back down on to his spot on the sofa.
I’d shown you my old neighbourhood haunts, walking hand in hand with you around streets where as a teenager I’d imagined a lover like you. A love like ours. I felt bigger, more important, with you on my arm. I told you secrets about the dreams I’d had growing up there, the plans I’d always hoped to fulfil.
I thought all those dreams had come true.
That night, my mum listened quietly to my side of the story, and put me to bed early. Tucked in at 9 p.m. on Friday night in my old bed at home – I didn’t think I could be any sadder. My sister arrived the next day, looking worried but trying to rally me. She bit back comments about you. I overheard her saying something to my parents about seeing this coming, but mostly they just sat together, sadly. They worried. They wanted to help. They were as helpless as me.
I sat up late that Saturday talking to my sister, trying to answer her questions about what had gone wrong, why you’d left. I couldn’t, not really. I said you’d threatened to go before, but I thought we’d been working it out. I’d been doing everything you’d asked, including going to fucking therapy, even though I knew you were using it as a way to trap me into saying it was all my fault. Drawing on your supposed expertise in dealing with difficult pathologies, pathologising me, creating the monster you said I was.
My sister listened. She asked me what I had done that might make it my fault. And I was devastated. I felt the darkness at the side of my vision again, that she, too, was making me the problem. I suddenly realised that if she could ask me what I’d done wrong, others must be thinking the same. It was the first flash of insight into what was to come.
Don’t be such a fucking Alan, I said, summoning the worst insult I could muster.
Alan. The cartoonish goon of so many parties we’d staggered through in our twenties. Trying his handsy luck with all the women, succeeding with none. Donning a variety of hats – baseball cap, fedora, pork pie – to disguise his bald fucking head. Honestly believing that they would make him in any way acceptable to look at. Arrogant cock Alan, whom we all despised.
Imagine being as big a cunt as Alan, I said to my sister. That’s what you’re being right now.
It made her laugh. And I remember I laughed too. Then: the kids will miss her, she said, which devastated me all over again. I knew it was true. I wondered if you’d even thought about my nephews and nieces, or would ever again. It was just like you to wreak so much havoc, without a backward glance.
I told her I’d put the house on the market.
Oh wow. That’s really real. Are you sure you want to make big decisions like that?
No, I wasn’t. I had meant it as a punishment for you, a shock to your system that would bring an end to all this. But I’d got it completely wrong, and shot myself in the foot instead. I told her about the lawyer’s letter, and the terms you’d already set for leaving me. She was shocked, then, that you’d been so underhanded. So brutal. It was some comfort to me to see her react in the way I had. To see her start to shift her opinion of who you were, to move over to my side. I needed that. I didn’t know, then, how much more I would need it as things went on.
By Sunday morning, I gave up trying to speak, and spent the day sitting in silence. It was easier that way. I heard my sister talk to my parents about lawyers and the letter I’d been sent. They reminded me that I was clever, that I could manage this. I had to play by the rules, that was all, but I was good at writing letters and I had to make sure I was clear about my side of things. I wasn’t to let you steamroller me. Not any more. And my mum tutted quietly, and I felt ashamed that I had brought this to them. I had tried all my life to make them proud, and look at the mess I had made of everything.
After that first weekend with them, I had to promise my parents I’d come back for Christmas. I had a couple more weeks of work to get through, and then I was to leave London and head back north. I kept my head down at the office, and got through the days as best I could. Things at the flat stayed the same, so I worried less about you moving my things. I spent the last few days before the holidays camped at my friends’ place round the corner, watching them prepare for their celebrations. Two advent calendars, two stockings slowly filling with presents. It was a slow kind of torture.
For the first time in two decades I spent Christmas with my parents. A total loser, having failed so spectacularly to construct a family of my own to spend this most family of days with. Before I went, I travelled across Hackney to your sister’s house to leave you your Christmas present on the doorstep. I had no intention of seeing you, but I wanted to give you the present I’d been planning for you for weeks. It was agonising to imagine you opening it without me – would you? Or would you simply throw it away? I had to show you that I was still yours, still with you on the big days, still holding on for us.
I walked up the path to the front door and put the box down, hesitating as I thought about knocking on the door. I didn’t have to: not realising I was standing there, you opened it as I prevaricated, on your way out to… where? Your lawyer’s? Did they do Christmas meetings?
I started to speak but you turned back inside, slamming the door shut. I had looked you in the eye for the first time in weeks. In spite of your reaction, it was enough for me. I’d seen you jolt in response to my presence. I felt you reacting to me. And for then, for me, it was enough to realise I still had that power over you. Something remained.
Once at my mum and dad’s I drank, a lot. It was easy to do, arriving late on Christmas Eve, being handed a glass, then a bottle, of wine. Gin. Port. Beer. But still not enough that I could sleep, when I eventually made my way up to what used to be my bedroom. I self-medicated, swallowing down one of the sleeping pills a helpful friend had slipped me, just in case. Good ones; they’ve got me off to sleep after more than one big night, they’d said. And it worked, at first, but I didn’t stay under. Too-vivid dreams, too-vivid wakening, into a darkness I knew would remain even after the sun rose. Willing the sun to rise anyway, before falling back under the sheets. Falling back under.
Christmas morning. The best day of the year. My nephew once told me how unfair it was that there was only one Christmas each year, and when it was over you had to wait another 364 days for the next one. It had made me laugh, this impatient child, this fervour for the ritual and the excitement and the cloying closeness of a day spent with family. Consuming, compromising. This year, surviving.
My mum crept in to me at 9 a.m. to say that my siblings, nephews and nieces were arriving soon. I had to get up. I had to. Did I have to? She brought me coffee and worried looks, and I told her I’d be OK. What else could I say?
As soon as was decent I had a drink. 11 a.m. And so I got through the morning in stages, measured out in measures: one for the present unwrapping, one for the nibbles, one for the first go at new games, one for the chatting, one for luck. I was managing. I was numb. I was desperate to feel altered.
I thought many times of what you were doing, whether you wondered or cared who I was spending this day with. I knew the routine for Christmas at your sister’s, could imagine exactly what each hour would contain. I wanted so much to be there, although I’d always hated it. It made me smile, then, thinking that I was longing for the chaos and the coarseness of a day with your family. How low could I go?
I was drunk enough by the time my dad announced Christmas lunch was on the table. Which helped, I think, when I walked into the dining room and saw our wedding photo on the sideboard, among the other smiling couples, my siblings all proudly standing beside their other halves. I walked over to snatch it down, and – dramatically, I knew – marched out of the room with it, shoving it under a box in the utility room while my mother wrung her hands and apologised. I forgot it was there, I’m so sorry, I should have thought.
It doesn’t matter, Mum. It doesn’t matter now.
I don’t remember much more. I tried to call you, knowing I’d only get your voicemail. There was another humiliating moment over dinner when one of the kids asked where you were, and when they’d see you again, and I felt my face crumple, my bottom lip wobble like a child. Pathetic. In front of all of them. And no one knew what to say or what to do, no one made a move towards me. Until finally my niece looked right at my mum and said: Nana, you need to give J a hug. And so she took the prompt and got up from her chair and came across to put her arms around me. It was more than I could bear.
I left the next day, driving back down the motorway with a hangover and a boot full of presents I hadn’t opened. I felt like shit. I had the radio on loud, and I was driving fast, looking forward to getting back to the flat and barricading myself in against the world. It took me a minute or two to realise there was a policeman on a motorbike tailing me, flashing his lights. My heart jumped in my chest, and I raced through a mental list of what I had done. Was I too drunk still? What speed was I going? What the fuck else could go wrong?
I pulled over into the slow lane and was gestured off at the next exit, and told to stop the car. The officer got off his bike and came round to my window. Do you know you were speeding? he said. Actually I did, but I thought it best not to mention it. And I’ve run your licence plate and you don’t have a valid MOT. What? I don’t understand.
And then of course I knew: it was the one thing you insisted you looked after, the car, taking great pride in filling up the screenwash and checking the tyre pressure whenever we went away in it. We’d put it in your name when we bought it, since you had more years on your licence; you said it made sense. I was glad you wanted to be in charge of something. I should have fucking known you couldn’t do it.
Sorry, officer, my wife deals with all the car stuff and she didn’t let me know the MOT was due, because we’ve just split up and I…
My voice cracked, and I stopped talking, looking down at the floor and praying that this man would take pity on me. To his credit, he look horrified as I tried to get myself together, hiccuping back a sob and wiping my nose with the back of my hand. I’ve just spent Christmas with my parents and I can’t tell you how shit everything is. I’m sorry I was driving fast. I was just trying to get home and get away from everyone…
He was a decent man, I could tell. He took a step back and said he couldn’t do anything about the MOT but he wouldn’t give me a speeding ticket on top. Just the one fine to pay. He scribbled out a ticket and told me to get the MOT done as soon as I could. And not to drive again until I had. And then he sort of patted me, and said good luck with it all. Take care.
It felt like the kindest thing anyone had done for me for a long time. I got back into the car and watched him drive away, then put my head on the steering wheel and sat, motionless, for a long time. I didn’t know whether to start the car again. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I had nowhere I needed to be, after all.
Eventually I started the engine and pulled back onto the road. I thought about telling my friends about what had happened over a pint. That even after you’d left me I was still picking up the pieces of your ineptitude, your inability to keep on top of things. Or had you done it on purpose, knowing I was still using the car, hoping I’d get into trouble? I drove on, raging at you while wanting more than anything to laugh about it with you. To be heading home to you.
Instead, when I got back to the flat there was something else there to greet me. A fat brown envelope sat on the doormat. Hand delivered. By you? Or did you pay a bit extra so that I’d get it over the holidays? Merry fucking Christmas, wife. Here’s to a happy new year.
Friday 18 March
J lost it again last night. We went out after work, and I wanted us to have a quiet dinner, no fighting, maybe even sex if I felt like it. I wanted a chilled weekend, starting with some time where we could be nice to each other.
We met at a restaurant I wanted to try, and at first things were fine, because I worked hard to keep it light and not talk about any of the subjects I knew would spark an argument. I feel like I’m treading on eggshells all the time. I’m exhausted. J said sorry for being at work so much, but I didn’t believe it. J used to have all the time in the world for me, but since starting this new job, there’s so much less time for us. I feel like I’m an afterthought, an irritation.
I’m sure there’s something going on with someone at work. There are too many mentions of this same woman, a ‘good friend’, for it not to be more significant. I don’t trust that J won’t do something to hurt me.
Dinner was OK until I mentioned money. I was putting too much into our joint account, and never had enough for myself. I didn’t think it was fair. I said I wanted J to put in an extra couple of hundred pounds to get us back in the black. I don’t like being in debt, and I don’t know why we have to have payments set up for things I don’t use: Spotify, BT Sports, the Wi-Fi. I don’t think it should be up to me to pay for all this stuff. That was all it took to kick things off.
As usual, J got angry and said we should share everything equally, and there’s lots of things in the house one or other of us doesn’t use but still pays for. This isn’t true, but I got scared that things would get too aggro, even though we were in public. Sometimes it’s not enough to have other people around to stop it happening. Like that time when we were out near our house, and J grabbed me and pushed me up against a fence to ‘make sure I was listening’. I remember the grip of J’s hands on the waistband of my coat, either side of my hips, and trying to blank out what was happening by smiling, just a little bit. It felt safer to normalise the situation rather than shout back, or fight back. I didn’t know what would happen if I did.
By the time this argument started, we’d finished our meal and I was drinking a glass of wine. J wanted to leave, but I didn’t feel safe going outside. J paid the bill so we would be able to leave more quickly, and when we got outside, looked really angry. I was scared – as usual. I said I wasn’t going to go home if J was going to behave like this, which just made things worse. J screamed that I would come right now and we could talk about things there, instead of making another scene in the street. I was an embarrassment, apparently, and was acting like a mad person by refusing to go back to the flat.
I said I would rather go back to my sister’s house, and began to walk away towards the tube. The street was quite empty, and I was scared J would follow me. In the past, J has become furious when I make contact with my sister, saying I treat her like my lover and share secrets with her that shouldn’t be shared. I do tell my sister everything. Why shouldn’t I? She says that J is jealous, and tries to control me. I think she’s right, and I think it’s got worse over time.
I called my sister but I got no reply, which spun me into a bit of a panic. I didn’t want to go home – I couldn’t – but I didn’t want to walk the streets until I could get hold of her either. I wanted a good night’s sleep, and I wanted peace and quiet, without the drama of J’s anger. I am so tired of being made to feel like I am the problem. I used to feel like I was important, the centre of J’s universe. But that’s gone, I don’t know exactly when. I keep trying to bring the focus back to us, and what we both want, but J is becoming more and more distant. And more selfish. It’s all work, and making time for friends. It’s never about me any more.
I thought about my options, and decided that I would book into a hotel for the night. I could just sleep and chill out, and not spend the night being shouted at or cajoled into backing down. I would be safe. So I rang a couple of nearby Premier Inns and the one at Smithfields had a room free that wasn’t too expensive, so I said I was on my way. When I got there, the receptionist was really kind, like she knew what was happening to me. I wondered what kind of relationship she was in. When I got to my room, I turned my phone off, because I’d had eight missed calls from J and I didn’t want my sleep interrupted by any more.
