‘I don’t know,’ Marcelle whispered. ‘Isn’t that funny? I’ve no idea what I’m doing.’
Her head fell forward, and the cords in her neck tightened as her mouth gaped and she began to cry. Appalled, Michael stared at her.
‘You haven’t been to the conference,’ Marcelle said.
Michael thought of the volleys of accusations and lies that would follow if he attempted a denial.
‘No,’ he agreed.
‘Where have you been?’
‘In London.’
‘Why did you lie to me?’ The knifelike accusation had gone from her face. It was contorted with pain instead. Michael hunched his shoulders to protect himself against it.
‘Because I didn’t want you to be hurt.’
‘Who were you with?’
‘Marcelle, do you have to know that? Does it make any difference?’ He took two steps across the immensity of space that separated them and tried to touch her arm.
Marcelle put her head on one side, as if giving the question due consideration.
‘I suppose not. Not to the fact that everything has ended.’ She lifted her hands and the flour puffed up again, as if it could whiten the blackness. ‘This is how marriages end, isn’t it? Ever since I met Caroline Keene on Wednesday and she told me how generous she and David thought you were to let him go in your place and present the paper, I’ve been thinking, so this is how it happens. Even to us. It just finishes.’
Michael tried to think back to a time when he and Marcelle had been happy in this house. He knew that there had been such a time, but he could not locate it now by a date, a particular year. Had it been when the children were smaller? Before they were born? It seemed that his feelings of tenderness as he drove down from London had been no more than post-coital sentimentality.
‘If you say so,’ he answered tonelessly.
‘I telephoned Wilton,’ Marcelle went on. ‘Cathy told me that Hannah was in London for a couple of days.’
Caroline Keene, Michael reflected. It must be a year since she and Marcelle had last met. Why should they encounter each other on this particular, critical day? Then he was surprised by his own resentment. It was, wasn’t it, inevitable that they should have done?
‘This isn’t anything to do with Hannah. It’s to do with you and me, first, Marcelle, do you understand that? Hannah is only what happened next.’
Marcelle was crying again. These were not pretty, photogenic tears that asked to be brushed away, like Hannah’s.
‘What do you want to do?’ Michael asked.
‘I want you to leave. You can’t come back here, strolling in with your bag and your fully-fucked smile expecting to be fed and fuelled and serviced ready for the next adventure. What happens is that you lose me and your children and your home. But you’re half-gone already. Why not the whole way?
‘You can find out how it is without us. See if you like it better out there. Perhaps Hannah will be able to do everything for you. If she can stir herself. If it doesn’t mean she might break a red bloody fingernail.’
‘You’re angry. Don’t be angry with Hannah. She has enough difficulties of her own, whatever you think of her at this minute.’
‘Yes. I’m angry.’
There were white flecks at the corners of Marcelle’s mouth and she ran her powdered fingers through her wild hair. He was afraid of her.
‘I’m so angry that I want to kill you. I want to hurt you. I want it so that …’ The words evaded her, and she licked her smirched lips and then clenched her fists, staring at the knuckles as if they belonged to someone else.
‘… I want it so you know what it feels like.’
Then she turned her back on him. She stumbled away to the window and stood there, her face hidden and her whole body stricken with her crying.
‘I’m sorry it’s such a shock. I’m sorry for what I did,’ Michael said helplessly.
Marcelle turned once more. ‘I want you to go,’ she screamed at him. ‘Get out of here.’
‘What have you told the children? What do you think it’s going to mean to them, if their father suddenly isn’t here any longer?’
‘Why didn’t you think about that?’ She ran at him, with her arms swinging, and struck at his face and head with her floury hands. He had to struggle to hold her, to keep her at bay.
‘Stop it. Marcelle, fuck you!’
They were both shouting. The front doorbell rang.
‘It’s the children. Janice brings them home on Fridays.’
Marcelle stepped back from him, panting. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and pulled at the whitish horn of hair that sprang from her forehead.
Michael walked down the hall to the front door. Through the frosted glass panels he could see the dark heads of his children and the comfortable bulk of Janice behind them.
‘Hello,’ she called. ‘All well?’
Jonathan and Daisy sidled past him, pale-faced.
‘Yes, thanks, Janice. Have a nice weekend.’
He closed the door against the bright outside.
‘Hi, kids. Had a good day?’ His voice sounded as false as a clown’s red nose.
‘Where’s Mum?’ Jonathan asked.
In the kitchen the two of them stood on either side of Marcelle. Trembling, she put her arms around their shoulders.
‘What is this?’ Michael asked, seeing how they ranged themselves against him. He was rebuffed by the stares of his children.
‘Daddy wants to tell you something,’ Marcelle said.
‘Marcelle,’ he warned her. ‘Don’t do this in front of them.’
‘Why not? Why not this? Are you ashamed now? And don’t you think they have a right to know what their father does?’
The rounded eyes glanced from one parent to the other.
‘It’s okay,’ Jonathan said. His mouth was tight with his efforts not to cry.
‘Why do you always have to be like this?’ Daisy burst out. Jonathan kept his anxiety within a shell of control but his sister was accusatory.
Michael wondered, are we always like this? He didn’t even know how much of the discord between himself and Marcelle had seeped into the children’s lives. He felt vanquished, defeated by the impossibility of trying to reassure them.
‘Come here.’
He opened his arms to encourage them, but they stayed at Marcelle’s side. Michael hated her for forcing this division on them, but then he thought that she would claim he had created the divide himself, long ago. Yet it seemed that Jonathan and Daisy had always belonged first to Marcelle, and to him only secondarily. That was the way Marcelle had ordained it.
Michael let his arms fall to his side. He said quickly, to get it over, ‘Your mother is very angry with me, and she’s right to be. I told her a lie about where I have been for the last two days. But that isn’t the only trouble between us. We haven’t been making each other very happy. I’m sure you know that, in a way.’
‘So what’s going to happen?’ Jonathan asked, out of his tight mouth.
‘I think