It feels like they have everything to look forward to.
Ian has told me that she wants kids.
The other day, I somehow found myself mournfully looking through Sam’s old baby clothes in the attic. Pathetic, really.
I’m not friends with Laura on Facebook – even I’m not that much of a mug – but she hasn’t made much effort to keep her profile private. She is an enthusiastic selfie-taker, and her timeline is packed with images of her and various friends gurning into the lens against a variety of backdrops. She’s ten years younger than me and Ian, whose birth dates are only a few months apart, and has some sort of job in marketing for a sports clothing chain.
I scroll to a picture of Laura and Ian at a skating rink with a group of other people who are clearly Laura’s friends. Ian looks a bit sheepish. Skating, for heaven’s sake …
Then I click on the photo to enlarge it, studying my husband’s familiar face.
Ian used to claim that I was ‘at least two leagues’ above him when we were young. His mates would tease him he had struck lucky. Pretty ironic.
Something seems to have shifted now we are middle-aged. All I can see is the weight that clings to me now; the wrinkles and the sagging bits. He, on the other hand, has grown into his age. His short grey hair suits him, more than it ever did when he was young and strawberry blond. He’s comfortable in his skin, the angular gangliness of youth replaced by a sturdier build.
The gym membership had been one of the changes he made after his mid-life epiphany, or whatever it was. I get to the swimming pool now and then but that’s about it. I know I should do more. Would it have made a difference, if I had joined him at the gym? Or had he been unhappy for years? These are the questions that plague me in the middle of the night. Trying to find the piece of thread that came loose and unravelled a whole life.
Was it as obvious as last year, when Ian had a semi-breakdown? Or earlier?
Ian’s depression was precipitated by the death of his long-time boss and friend, Adam, whose cancer took only weeks from diagnosis to his death. Ian works for a medical software company that sells packages to the NHS and other healthcare providers and he and Adam had worked together for over ten years. I never got on that well with Adam’s wife, who seemed to have stepped out of the pages of a 1950s housewife manual. She was one of those competitive mothers, always banging on about tutors and violin lessons and asking my advice ‘as a professional’ about whether the expensive school their child attended was basically ruining him for life. We didn’t tend to socialize as a foursome much, but Ian took Adam’s death very hard. After he had lost weight and not slept well for several weeks, I suggested he try some counselling.
It had worked, at least in terms of helping him get through his depression. Unfortunately, it also prompted him to decide that his life was too short to – what was it again? – ‘Waste it in a marriage that isn’t working any more.’
I genuinely never saw this coming. When he said it, I actually burst out laughing. It sounded so fake. So staged. Not like the things people really say. Married people. Friends.
Maybe that was the trouble. OK, so we spent a fair bit of time apart, and we didn’t have sex that often any more. But wasn’t that like most marriages, when people had been together half their lives? Well, clearly it was more. I hadn’t realized the cracks were signs of serious stress until the marriage broke in two.
Oh damn it, here I go again. My eyes are leaking all on their own, without any warning that it was about to happen. Was this what Ian was like, privately, in that dark time? Maybe I’m having a breakdown too.
I picture Sam, my quiet, serious boy, lying in his unfamiliar bedroom. He had been quietly fretting in his usual way about the upcoming holiday. Even with the promise of access to a dog, he’d been worried. It had taken some gentle cajoling to get him to talk, then I’d been able to reassure him that the boat wouldn’t sink, and that Laura’s parents wouldn’t force him to eat frogs’ legs. He’s always been a worrier, ever since he was a tiny boy who would stand watchfully at the playground while others climbed like happy monkeys. For a hot, shameful moment, I hope he will be too upset to go tomorrow and that Ian will bring him home.
This feels like a new low.
My arms prickle now and I look up, aware suddenly I’ve been out here for some time. The air feels alive with the prospect of rain. The setting sun has disappeared behind a dark band of gathering cloud. For a moment, I contemplate stripping all my clothes off and standing in the coming rain to feel the cool freshness on my skin. It would be wonderful after all the nights I’ve spent lately, twisting in sweaty sheets.
I could do it if I wanted, too. The house next door has been empty and for sale since my elderly neighbour died. No one would see me. Isn’t this the sort of thing I should be relishing now I’m alone? Dancing naked in the rain? Not giving a shit?
But I’m already starting to feel a little cold, so I gather up my things.
I’m stepping through the back door as the first fat drops begin to fall, releasing the sharp smell of ozone, hot brick and parched earth.
Inside, I tip the last of the wine into my glass before curling onto the sofa and turning on Netflix on the telly. There’s a trashy American comedy I’ve become mildly addicted to.
We used to hoover up all the crime series and Scandinavian dramas but now, alone in the house, stories about murder are less appealing. There are enough shadows in real life.
It feels like this is yet another thing that has been taken from me. Ian is no doubt enjoying ‘educating’ Laura, whose tastes had previously, he once let slip, extended only to reality TV and soaps.
Without even knowing I’ve slept, I’m somehow being pulled awake. Groggy and confused, I squint at the clock on the mantelpiece and see it is two am.
For a moment, I think I’m hearing the sound of thunder.
Then I realize someone’s hammering on my front door.
Rain dashes into his eyes and mingles with tears and blood, stinging his cheeks and dripping off his chin. The burden he carries seems to be getting heavier by the minute. Sometimes, though, he imagines there isn’t anything there at all and his chest swells with panic. This doesn’t make any sense. But he stops and checks anyway, peering awkwardly inside the neck of the coat that’s sucking in water like a sponge and making him move twice as slowly as usual.
Reaching a brightly lit mini roundabout he stops, disorientated, and has a moment of confusion about which way to go. Right? No, left. It’s left here. He’s sure of it.
He hurries on but this place is not designed for pedestrians. He is forced to huddle at the side of the slip road, his stomach swooping as a car blares an angry horn, and then he reaches the narrow grass verge. Lucas stumbles along next to the main road, cars roaring past, so close he could stretch out his fingers and lose an arm.
But he welcomes the terror, the biting cold and the pains in his face and ribs. These sensations are too powerful to allow contemplation to creep in. He almost wants to keep moving forever but the tiredness is getting to him now. For a second he pictures himself taking two steps to the right and stopping it all, but he knows he can’t do it. And it’s not just about him, is it?
Not far now. But what will happen when he gets there? Lucas stops for a moment, breathing hard.
This whole thing is a terrible idea.
But it’s the only one he has right now so he stumbles onwards.