‘He can’t go skiing.’ Patrick was surprisingly firm.
‘Oh. OK.’ Silence fell between us again. The wine was gone, and I felt the loneliness settle on my shoulders again, like a cat that had been lurking on a wardrobe all day (bad memories). ‘You could come to some of it,’ I heard myself say. ‘When we do the dancing and the comedy and all that. Not the sleeping with strangers part … er, that’s a joke, but the rest. I mean, if you want to.’
He turned from the sink, leaning on it for a moment, and I thought how sad he looked, how tired. I wondered if I looked the same, after years of trying and failing, trying again, failing differently.
‘Maybe,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a long time since I did things like that. And there’s Alex.’
‘Does he have a regular babysitter?’
Again, Patrick looked annoyed. ‘There are a few people, but … I don’t like to leave him. It’s … Well, it’s a little complicated.’
I knew enough about dodgy emotional situations to recognise that ‘it’s complicated’ meant ‘please stop asking about that, you nosy cow’. I stood up. ‘Right, better go to bed. I’ll be working here tomorrow if you need me to do anything. Housework, that sort of thing.’
He started out of whatever he’d been brooding about. ‘You could hang out some washing, if you don’t mind. Alex will be at school, and then after-school club. I pick him up at six.’
That seemed a very long day for a four-year-old, but it was none of my business. ‘Should I walk Max?’
‘Would you?’
‘Of course. I love dogs. You know those crazy women who hang around outside shops and nick babies from prams?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘Dan—my husband, my ex-husband—he used to say I was like that with dogs. He was afraid he’d come home one day and there’d be hundreds, like in Dr Doolittle. So yes, I’d love to walk Max.’ Sometimes, I found if I ended the speech on the right note, it left people with the impression I’d said something vaguely sensible.
‘That would be great. I’ve been trying to cut back on work, but they keep really insane hours at the partnership. I’ll put out his lead and things. Just keep him on it, he’s a bit overexcitable.’ Max peeked over the basket again at this, as if he understood he was being slandered.
‘Why’d you get a dog?’ I asked. It was late and I was so tired and drunk I felt I could ask anything. ‘I mean with you working so much.’
‘I thought it would make us more of a family, I suppose. We were both so busy at work, and trying to look after Alex. She’d cut her hours way back at the bank, but she wasn’t coping well. It was supposed to be a compromise, but of course that just means no one is happy. She hated Max. Didn’t like his mucky paws and hair all over her beige furniture. But I wouldn’t get rid of him—I think once you take something home, you’re responsible for it.’
I wondered if he would feel the same about me. ‘Have you never had a nanny or au pair or anything?’
He clammed up slightly. ‘No. We never left him with anyone. It … We just decided not to.’
‘Oh.’
He hesitated. ‘Can I ask, what happened with you and … what was his name?’
‘Dan. What happened?’ God, not this question. ‘I …’
I paused for too long, and he began to talk over me. ‘Sorry, sorry, none of my business.’
‘It’s OK. It’s just that I …’
‘No, no, I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll let you get to bed.’
‘OK. Goodnight. Thanks for the wine.’
‘Goodnight, Rachel.’ The use of my name was jarring, after we’d talked so frankly. It felt almost as if he was trying to remind me I wasn’t his wife, and he wasn’t my husband. We were just strangers, sharing the same space. I went to bed, taking out the list book again to read in the pool of lamplight.
It seemed a paltry lot of things when set against the list of things I’d just lost—job, house, probably the chance of ever having a baby or dog, car, Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker … I put it aside and turned off the light. In the night I woke up, lost, somewhere halfway down the big bed. ‘Dan,’ I whispered, to the empty dark. I’d been looking for his warm back, snoring away, but it wasn’t there, and it never would be again.
Things that suck about divorce, number thirty-eight: there’s no one there. Not to tell you off for being late, not to cuddle you close and warm your cold feet, not to snore and keep you awake. There’s just you, alone again. Naturally.
The next day I woke up alone in Patrick’s house. Because I had to think of it that way, even if I lived here too. It was very definitely not my house. There were traces of other people all over the place—the old brass clock someone had placed in the bathroom, the candles clustered on the living room fireplace—Diptyque! If I ever had a Diptyque candle, I wouldn’t even take it out of its packaging. They’re about £1 a whiff. In the hall was a wedding photo, Patrick looking stiff and formal in a top hat and tails. Since he was already a head taller than anyone else in the bridal party, the hat just made him look ridiculous. He was frowning into the camera, as if the light was in his eyes. On his arm was a tiny, beautiful woman—she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. Patrick had mentioned that Michelle’s mother was Chinese, and it meant her daughter had been blessed with poker-straight dark glossy hair and a pretty, heart-shaped face. Her wedding dress had been an enormous meringue of lace and tulle, almost but not quite hiding her slender arms and neck. This, then, was Michelle, whose house I was living in, whose dog I was walking, whose husband I was chatting to at night.
The rest of the house was beautifully decorated—arty photos in shabby-chic frames, expensive patterned wallpaper in the bathroom, polished wooden floors, a beige sofa that seemed a startlingly impractical choice with a small child and a dog in the family. There was an astonishing lack of clutter, no dishes left out in the kitchen, no toys on the stairs, no crumbs on the table. I began to feel guilty about the explosion of clothes and books I’d left in my third-floor turret. Even Alex’s room was perfectly neat, his toys put away in blue boxes, his Thomas bedspread pulled straight. Patrick had already given me a list of ‘house rules’, mostly about what went in which recycling bin and how to sort the laundry correctly.
Luckily, Max was just as messy as me. I found him sprawled in his basket, with several chewed socks in there for company. He peered back at me, giving out a vague whiff of damp, ageing dog. Bless him.
I trailed around the kitchen, opening cupboards and trying to orientate myself. It was so strange being alone in someone else’s house. Like having a good poke about inside their heads. They never kept anything in a logical place—the tea beside the kettle, surely? The vegetables in the salad drawer? Patrick—and Michelle, the ghost in the house—had a bread bin shaped like a cat. I wondered how Max felt about this. He seemed to be staring at it sadly, as if to say, Oh, stationary cat, why do you taunt me with your stillness?
There was a whole cupboard of herbal teas, and that’s how I knew Michelle and I would never get on. I liked my tea the colour of brick and with a biscuit dunked in. I suspected she was the type of woman who considered ‘celery with a dab of almond butter’ to be an acceptable snack. I wasn’t even sure what almond