Missing You (12 page)

‘And you never used to be this patronizing.’

There is a silence.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks. ‘Are you having a holiday?’

‘We’re going to a writers’ retreat in Cephalonia. Lewis has been asked to help with the course. It could . . . well, he’s hoping it will lead to more work along those lines.’

‘More European travel, more retreats in the sun. It’s a hard life,’ says Sean.

‘I’m not sure how I’ll fit in. I’ve never done anything like it before.’

‘I expect you’ll cope.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘You love Greece,’ he reminds her. ‘It’s romantic. That’s why you chose it for our holiday the year Amy was conceived. Remember?’

‘Sean . . .’

‘Sorry. That was insensitive.’

There is a pause while they each take stock.

‘OK,’ says Belle, obviously committed to keeping the conversation civil, ‘well, look, I’ll send you an email with the exact dates.’

Sean scratches his head. The phone stays connected, but there is silence again at both ends. He knows Belle well enough to know that there is something more on her mind, something she wants to tell him, something she wants to have out in the open, have done with.

‘Is there something else?’ he asks.

‘There is something . . .’

‘What?’

‘It’s not important. It can wait.’

Sean’s heart beats in his chest.

‘What is it?’

She sighs. ‘I shouldn’t tell you over the phone.’

‘Tell me what?’

Another pause.

‘Lewis has asked me to marry him.’

‘Oh.’

There is a long silence as if it is a competition to see who can hold their breath the longest.

‘Sorry, ’ she says.

‘Why are you sorry? It’s what you want, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry because if Lewis and I are to marry, it means you and I must first get divorced.’

‘I suppose it does . . . What if I don’t want to?’

‘I know it’s going to be difficult, Sean, but if you think about it, it will make things better for you in the long run. You’ll get your share of the collateral from the house and you’ll be able to get out of that poky rented room and buy somewhere of your own. You’ll be able to draw a line under this, make a new start.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ he says, imitating the sympathetic tone of her voice, ‘you’re doing this for me?’

‘Sean . . .’

‘Why do I always have to do everything you say? Why is it all on your terms? And the room’s not “poky”, by the way.’

‘We’ve been separated for seven months now. It’s about time we—’

‘We’ve been married for eleven years, Belle.’

‘I know.’

More silence.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ she says quietly. ‘We need to get together and talk about it face to face, sensibly.’

‘Well, not right now, eh, Belle? Because I don’t want to talk about it or look at your face or be sensible. I’ll call you when I’m ready.’

‘Sean . . .’

He disconnects the call. He walks back into the car park. He kicks the tyre of his car, hard. He doesn’t like himself. He doesn’t want to be this angry, mean person. It’s not him. But it is what he has become.

fifteen

Fen asks: ‘Are you all right?’

He says: ‘Yep.’

‘Aren’t you going to fetch Amy?’

‘Nope.’

‘Isn’t she coming down this weekend?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Is something wrong?’

‘No.’

‘Are you hungry, Sean?’

‘No.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Is there anything to drink?’

‘There’s some wine in the fridge.’

‘No, proper drink. Vodka? Whisky? Beer?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’m going to the pub, then.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll tell you now, Fen, I’m going to drink until I fall over.’

‘Oh. All right.’

‘Don’t wait up.’

‘I won’t.’

Sean takes his jacket from the peg by the front door, hooks it over his shoulder and slams the door so hard behind him that the displaced air causes the curtains in the living room to float like ghosts, and Connor, who hates loud noises, bursts into tears.

sixteen

He walks – strides – down to the sports bar facing the London Road. It is packed with men and he immerses himself in male company and male conversation and the football highlights on the big-screen televisions, and drinks beer and then vodka shots.

He tells his troubles – a condensed and humorous version of his troubles – to a lorry driver with an accent he can’t place, and in return the lorry driver tells Sean some pornographic jokes. Sean thinks: Fuck you, Belle, I’m in the sort of pub you hate, getting paralytic with a misogynist lorry driver, listening to the most un-fucking-politically un-fucking-correct jokes you could ever imagine and I’m having the time of my fucking life.

‘Where are you from, mate?’ he asks the lorry driver.

‘Barry. ’

‘What are you drinking?’

‘Whatever you are.’

You see, this is how it is, with men, thinks Sean; it’s easy. It’s uncomplicated. You ask a simple question, you get a simple answer.

He stays in the pub until closing time.

Sean realizes he has had too much to drink when he bumps into both sides of the door on the way out, but that’s all right because that was the whole point of the exercise.

‘Mission successful,’ he says to the lorry driver, only that doesn’t sound right.

‘It’s mission fucking accomplished, mate,’ says the lorry driver, slapping him on the back, and Sean feels drenched with testosterone and affection.

He falls over twice on the way back up the hill. Once he simply misjudges the distance between the road and the kerb, and the second time he is startled to see a badger walking down the pavement towards him from the direction of the church. He has to hold on to a lamp post and narrow his eyes to check it definitely is a badger, not a more likely dog, cat or fox, but it
is
a badger, quite a big one, in fact quite a big, aggressive-looking badger. Badgers, Sean knows, are nasty buggers, with big teeth, strong jaws and rough arses. He peers forward. This one looks like it’s up to no good. It must be a new sub-species: urban, feral badger. Sean has a feeling the badger is out to get him, it reminds him of the sinister rabbit in
Donnie Darko
, so he turns and tries to run but stumbles and falls. He tears a hole in the left knee of his jeans and the palms of both hands are grazed. Feeling like the hero of an action film, he staggers to his feet and tries again. He does not look behind him because action heroes don’t. They make a decision and they stick to it.

It takes him a long time to get back up the hill because the pavement keeps tilting, trying to tip him off. Sean doesn’t give up. He perseveres.

Crofters Road seems to have become even steeper since the evening began, and Sean is panting by the time he nears the top. He stands on the pavement and stares at the front of Lilyvale. The hall light is still on, and the outside light, but Fen’s bedroom light is off and her curtains are drawn.

Sean has a feeling he owes her an apology, but he cannot remember why.

It takes an inordinately long time to get his key successfully into the correct slots in both the outer and inner doors. He holds his finger to his lips to ‘shhh’ himself when the key misses the lock and taps on the glass for the several-th time. The first thing he does, when he manages to make his way through, is go upstairs on his hands and knees (he does not want to risk falling backwards) and into the bathroom, where the relief of emptying his bladder is so great that he gives thanks to God. He splashes and makes a bit of a mess because Connor’s plastic trainer seat is still slotted in place on top of the normal lavatory seat, considerably reducing the target area, so he mops both seat and floor with a towel, and it’s only after he’s done this that he realizes he has used Fen’s towel, not his.

She won’t like that, he thinks. And there’s no chance she won’t notice because women’s noses are always disproportionately sensitive when it comes to the smell of inappropriate urine. Sean decides to put the towel in the washing machine.

He climbs down the steep stairs carefully, holding tightly to the banister, and goes into the kitchen, but the washing machine has finished its cycle and is full of clean laundry. Sean feels a little sorry for himself. Even the washing machine is conspiring against him. He looks for a place to hide the damp towel and eventually decides on the bread bin. It’s empty and so there’s no reason for Fen to look in there and he’ll put it in the washing machine in the morning.

After all this, Sean decides what he really needs is another drink. He’s already established that there are no spirits in the house, but there is wine in the fridge; even better, there is half a bottle of wine with a screw-top lid. Sean tells the wine bottle to ‘shhh’ as it clanks on the counter and he doesn’t trust himself with one of Fen’s nice glasses, so he unhooks a mug off the rack beneath the kitchen units.

Then he has another good idea. He’ll take some wine up for Fen, lovely Fen, who is so gentle, who is so devoted to her son, who works so hard. She’ll like that. It will make up for whatever it was he did earlier that is making him feel vaguely guilty.

He slots the mug over the top of the bottle, puts the bottle under his arm and goes back upstairs.

He stands outside Fen’s door and whispers: ‘Fen!’

There is no answer. So he taps on it with his knuckles. Still no answer, so he opens the door and goes in.

He knows he won’t find his way to the bed without the light on, so he pats along the wall until he finds the switch. When he turns it on, the room is filled with brightness, and he catches sight of Fen’s sleep-tangled hair disappearing under the duvet, its cover patterned with faded forget-me-nots. He has never been in Fen’s room before. It is smaller than his, warm and untidy with female clutter: a hair-dryer, bottles of moisturizer and cosmetics, mirrors strung with belts and beads, Connor’s drawings tucked into their rims, a baby shoe, a collage of photographs, magazines, sewing paraphernalia and a dressmaker’s dummy wearing a sparkly silver dress and a hand-knitted scarf.

‘It’s me,’ he says in what he hopes is a whisper.

He hears her sharp intake of breath.

‘Tomas?’ she asks, leaning forward, shielding her eyes from the light.

He goes over to the bed but sits down a little too heavily so that he falls backwards onto Fen’s legs.

‘Oops,’ he says. ‘No, it’s me, Sean. Sorry. Shhh.’

‘Sean . . .’ Fen sighs and slips back beneath the duvet. ‘I think you’re drunk.’

‘I think I’m drunk too,’ says Sean, manoeuvring himself up into a sitting position. ‘So that’s good, we have something in common.’

Fen puts the top half of her face above the covers, and squints.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I brought you some wine,’ says Sean, feeling pleased with himself. This was a good decision. It will clear the air. He holds the neck of the bottle over the mug, and tips it.

‘I don’t want wine. I was asleep. I brushed my teeth ages ago.’

‘Oh,’ says Sean. He looks at the bottle in his hand, poised at a tilt, and the empty mug. ‘It’s empty anyway.’

‘It’s not empty,’ says Fen, wiping her hair out of her eyes. ‘You’ve still got the top on.’

‘You see, I knew,’ says Sean, ‘I knew from the first moment I saw you that you weren’t just a pretty face.’

Fen smiles and wriggles further up the bed. She sits up.

‘Here . . .’

He passes her the bottle and the mug, which she fills and gives back to him, then she puts the top back on the bottle, and the bottle beside the bed.

‘Are you pissed off with me?’ he asks.

She shakes her head.

He reaches out his hand, meaning to touch her shoulder, but misses and gets her chin. She winces and backs away a little.

‘You see,’ he says, telling himself to concentrate because this has to come out right. ‘You may not realize this, but you are actually getting the best of me, Fen Weller.’

‘Am I?’

‘Oh yes. Because one of the reasons, and there were many reasons, but one of the predominant reasons why Belle stopped loving me was because of my lack of empathivity.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. She said I never knew what she was thinking. Are you with me?’

‘I think so.’

‘So now I have improved. Because I put myself in your position and I thought: If I was Fen, I would probably be pissed off with me.’

‘If that was an apology, thank you.’

‘I’m tired,’ says Sean. ‘It’s been a long day.’

He lies his top half down on the bed. Fen strokes his hair. Her light, warm hand on his forehead feels very nice, comforting.

‘Can I stay here tonight?’ he asks very quietly and the last word he remembers hearing for a long while is Fen saying: ‘Yes.’

seventeen

He lies on his back, on top of the duvet, his hands folded on his chest, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, and he talks. Fen lies beside him, beneath the covers. Her face is turned towards him and she sees him in silhouette. The diffused yellow light of the street lamp on the pavement filters softly through the curtains and, in the darkness, the shape of his face is outlined against them. Sean tells Fen how he met Belle, how he knew from the very moment he saw her that he would ask her to marry him. How, right from the beginning, he never doubted her, or their future happiness. He talks about the good times they shared. He describes Belle to Fen in loving detail.

Fen is half-listening, but he keeps repeating himself, and she suspects his more sentimental memories are coloured by alcohol-induced nostalgia. She does not particularly want to hear about Belle. Sean’s marriage is none of her business; it’s a private matter so she pays little attention to what he says. She is enjoying sharing a bed with Sean, though. She wants to remember every moment of this night. She watches his face and she is infused with warmth and affection towards this beautiful, gentle, well-meaning man. She wonders, for a moment, what he would do if she were to kiss him . . .