The Marriage Mender (13 page)

I lay there in bed one night and I tried to remember the last time he’d said something to make me laugh, or smile even. The last time he’d done something which had made me feel a bit special, a tiny bit warm inside.

I couldn’t think of anything. Not since we were married. And that isn’t very good, is it?

Not very good at all.

Bob was early. He was also on his own. As he was my first client of the morning I showed him in straight away. His face was pale and his eyebrows heavy.

‘Is everything OK?’ I asked as he sat down.

He shook his head. ‘Jayne’s taken a turn for worse.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s in floods of tears. She’s shut herself in bathroom and said she’s not coming today. That she’s not coming back here at all. Says she doesn’t think it’ll do any good and we’re wasting our money.’

‘Is this because Cassie’s gone?’

‘I don’t know. To be honest, I were going to tell you that she dealt with Cassie going better than I thought. She went out for lunch with her WI friends, managed to keep herself busy with this and that. Didn’t speak about it all the whole day.’

‘And how’s she been since?’

‘Quiet. She’s not been as chatty as she usually is. But she’s not been upset like this, like she is today.’

‘And there’s nothing you can think of that’s set it off?’

‘No. She spoke to Cassie on phone last weekend, but she seemed fine afterwards. Bit subdued, but that were all. And then I woke up this morning and the bed were empty, like. Went to see where she were, and that’s when I heard her crying in bathroom.’

‘Did you ask her what was wrong?’

‘Of course. She just said she hadn’t had much sleep and were feeling a bit emotional. That were it.’

‘You didn’t, er, forget Valentine’s Day, did you?’

‘Oh, it’s not that,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t do that. Hates it actually. She’s always made me promise not to buy her a card, right from the start.’

‘I understand. My husband’s the same. Not one for all that commercial nonsense. Well, anyway, I’m happy to see you on your own today. Just so long as you’re OK to do that. If you want to get back to Jayne, I totally understand.’

‘No,’ said Bob. ‘You’re all right. Jayne said she wanted to be on her own. I may as well stay now that I’m here. Not sure what else I can tell you that will help, mind.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘It will all help me build up a picture of what’s been going on. We’ll talk about your family and your upbringing, and maybe you can tell me a little bit about Jayne’s.’

‘There’s nothing to tell there,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She hasn’t got a family.’

‘What, no one left alive?’

‘She lost touch with them years ago, before she even met me. Some big fallout it were. She says she wanted nowt more to do with them. Simple as that.’

‘And she’s had no contact with them since?’

‘Not that I know of. I don’t think they even know where she lives.’

‘And does that bother her?’

‘She says not. Reckons it’s best that way. It can’t be nice, though, can it? Not having your family around you. Not having any sense of your roots.’

‘No,’ I said, scribbling some notes on Jayne’s file. ‘It can’t.’

* * *

I felt an odd churning sensation inside me as I packed our case for York. It was wrong to feel like that when you were preparing to go away for the weekend with your husband. But then again, it was so long since I had been away with my husband that maybe it wasn’t surprising.

Chris didn’t even know yet. I’d asked him not to work on his birthday, but he was probably expecting a family meal or something. Not a weekend away for two. There was also something faintly sleazy about even the sound of it. The element of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, we know what you’ll be up to. Which maybe explained why I was feeling so unsure about it all. At home you could blame work and the children and being tired for not having sex. A weekend away left you no room for manoeuvre.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. Simply that I had to believe that he wanted to as well.

And still it refused to go away. This image of him and Lydia together; the hunger in his eyes, the undoubted spark between them. Whereas with us it had been Josh who had brought us together. There had never been just the two of us. The job description had changed by then. I’d fitted it, obviously. Although I still wasn’t sure I’d have fitted the original one.

I opened my nice lingerie drawer. It was a long time since I’d worn some of this stuff. I was lucky if I got out of the house in the morning wearing matching underwear, let alone having time to put stockings on. I dug out a Rigby & Peller ensemble from the back of the drawer. Debbie had got it for me for my fortieth birthday the previous year. I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that the thing about big knickers from M&S was that they were safe and comfortable and could hide all sorts of misdemeanours.

She hadn’t forgotten, though. It was the last thing she’d said to me when I’d dropped Matilda off at her house earlier. ‘Don’t you dare leave the posh knickers at home, OK?’

I popped them in the case, alongside the camisole that it was always too cold to wear at home and a couple of pairs of Chris’s boxer shorts. It was so much bloody easier for men.

* * *

‘Where is everyone?’ asked Chris when he got home, dumping his photographic bags in the hall.

‘Matilda’s at Sophie’s. She’s sleeping over.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know.’

‘And Josh is at Tom’s. He’s staying over too.’

Chris raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve blown their girlfriends out on Valentine’s Day?’

‘Nope. They’re going out as a foursome, apparently. Some rom-com at the cinema and then Pizza Express because they’ve got an offer on giving out free roses to the ladies.’

‘Now there are a couple of lads who have got it sorted,’ said Chris.

‘I know. All very grown-up and civilised. Then Caitlin’s mum’s dropping the boys off at Tom’s and taking the girls back to their place.’

‘Right,’ said Chris.

It was only at that point that he glanced down and saw the suitcase in the hall.

‘So whose is this?’ he asked. I hestitated for a second, still unsure how he’d respond.

‘Ours,’ I said. ‘We’re going away for the weekend, for your birthday. Just me and you.’

‘Are we?’

‘Yeah. I thought it would, you know, do us good.’

He nodded again. Neither of us was going to mention her by name, but he clearly understood.

‘Where are we going, then?’

‘You’ll find out when we get there.’

‘Do I need my passport?’

‘Don’t worry.’ I smiled. ‘We’re not even leaving Yorkshire.’

* * *

The hotel was one of those boutique places: beautiful building, contemporary touches and rooms that were classy without being pretentious. It was quiet in the foyer. I was conscious of my heels clicking on the dark, wooden boards as we walked in.

‘Hello,’ I said to the woman in her fifties behind the desk. ‘We’ve got a double room booked, it’s Bentley.’

‘Ah, yes,’ she smiled, checking on her computer screen before handing me a key card. ‘First floor on the right. It’s a lovely room, plenty of space for you to spread out.’ For a second, I wanted to grab hold of her hand and squeeze it. Have her see us up to the room and give me a ‘You’ll be fine, dear’ pat on the hand, as if I was some virginal newly-wed, about to be carried over the threshold. I wasn’t, though. I was a forty-year-old mother and stepmother who’d been married nearly ten years. It was simply that the man standing next to me, the one who was looking particularly dapper in his overcoat, felt more like a stranger at that moment than my husband.

I thanked her. Chris picked up the case. He took the stairs and I followed him, my footsteps silent now on the patterned runner on the wooden staircase. Chris put the case down and opened the door. It was a big room, twice the size of the box-like ones you get in the big chains. There were two large sash windows to the front. I suspected we’d be able to see the top of York Minster through them in the morning. An antique brass bed dominated the room. That was the thing about hotel rooms. There was no getting away from the bed.

‘Do you like it?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Chris, slipping off his coat and walking round to the far side to run his fingers along the marble mantelpiece. ‘It’s great. Thanks. I really wasn’t expecting this.’

‘I know. You don’t mind, though?’

‘Of course I don’t mind. I could get quite used to this, actually,’ he said, sitting down on the bed and lying back, his hands behind his head.

‘Don’t get too used to it,’ I said. ‘Back to reality on Sunday, I’m afraid.’

‘Were the kids OK about it? Didn’t complain or anything?’

‘No. Although I made sure I told Matilda she was having a sleepover at Sophie’s first. So I’m not sure she even registered the part about us going away, she was that excited.’

‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ said Chris. ‘Not having her around.’

‘It’s certainly quieter.’

‘Not for Debbie and Dean, it isn’t,’ he said.

‘Don’t feel too bad. I told Debbie we’d return the favour sometime.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Remind me of how nice this was when that happens, will you?’

I smiled. He patted the bed next to him. I walked round to his side of the bed, slipped off my shoes and lay down next to him, the two of us staring up at the ceiling.

‘Lovely clear sky. Isn’t that the Plough over there,?’ said Chris, pointing at the light fitting.

I laughed. ‘Remind me to get a room with a retractable roof next time,’ I said.

‘So there’s going to be a next time?’

‘I hope so. Depends how this goes, I suppose.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ he said, turning to face me. ‘Better than fine, even.’

* * *

I’d booked a table at a restaurant a couple of roads away, somewhere Chris had once remarked looked nice when we’d walked past it with Josh in tow, on our way to indulge his Viking fascination at the Jorvik Centre.

Chris leant over to me as we waited to be seated. ‘I think I forgot to say how great you look,’ he whispered.

I smiled at him and looked down. I’d worried the dress was a bit too ‘autumn berries in a blender’. Apparently not. They suited me, plums and dark reds. Which was a bit of luck as I was one of those rare women who didn’t look good in black.

A waiter showed us to our table and gave us the menus. Chris opened his and started reading.

‘I think there’s been a mistake,’ he said after a few moments.

‘What?’

‘This is grown-up food. And nobody’s whining that they don’t do pizzas.’

I laughed. ‘And we won’t have to spend the entire meal reminding her not to talk with her mouth full.’

‘No one will end up nicking most of my pudding either.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ I said.

Chris smiled. ‘You’re right. We should do this more often. Make it happen. It’s what other people do.’

‘Well, it’s getting easier now Josh is older. We’ll be able to leave him on his own soon.’

‘I’m not so sure. Not now he’s got a hot girlfriend.’

‘How do you know she’s hot?’

‘What, a violin-playing grammar school girl? I can picture her now, one of those willowy blonde sixteen-year-olds the
Daily Telegraph
always puts on the front page the day after GCSE results.’

‘She’s got brown hair, actually.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Josh told me.’

‘As in he volunteered the information or you winkled it out of him with the use of Guantánamo Bay interrogation techniques?’

‘It came up while we were watching the news. He said people say Caitlin looks a bit like Kate Middleton.’

‘Well, at least the boy’s got taste.’

‘I thought you were a Republican?’

‘I mean, to go for a brunette rather than a blonde.’

He appeared to realise almost as soon as he said it. He at least had the good grace not to dig himself any further into the hole by saying something complimentary about women with mousey-coloured hair with highlights.

The wine waiter arrived at our table during the silence which followed. Chris ordered a bottle of white before I could say anything.

‘You should have ordered a red,’ I said. ‘It’s your birthday.’

‘Not till tomorrow,’ said Chris. ‘It’s fine, honestly.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. The waiter came back and poured. Another came over to take our order. I wished there was some background music on. The sound of conversation from other tables always seems louder when yours is quiet.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I think Caitlin’s the best thing that could have happened to Josh. It’s so good to see him smiling again.’

‘I know,’ said Chris. ‘Let’s hope it lasts a while before they split up.’

I shook my head. ‘I know where he gets it from now,’ I said. ‘He told me not so long ago that all relationships are doomed to failure.’

‘Well, at least his expectations are realistic.’

‘Come on, give them a chance.’

‘Look, it might last a year or so at best. Then she’ll go off to uni and meet someone else and he’ll be gutted.’

‘When did you become such a cynic?’ I asked.

Chris raised his eyebrows. I looked down at the table, wishing I’d engaged my brain before opening my mouth. Our starters arrived. They looked great. But I couldn’t help wondering if the spectre of Lydia would hang over us all the way to the bitter-chocolate torte.

* * *

Chris held my hand as we walked back to the hotel. He was trying. I really appreciated that. I was trying too. And yes, we’d still managed to talk about the children for pretty
much the entire meal. But lots of parents did that. It wasn’t that we had nothing else to talk about, simply that they were the most important things to talk about. I didn’t have a problem with that.

What concerned me more was what we hadn’t talked about. Not because I desperately wanted to spend our weekend away discussing my husband’s ex but because I couldn’t see how we could move on until we did. Lydia was the elephant in the room. A skinny one, maybe, but an elephant none the less.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Chris asked when we got back to the hotel.

‘I think I’ve had enough, actually,’ I said. ‘Haven’t got the tolerance levels I used to.’

‘You would at least be able to have a hangover in peace tomorrow morning,’ said Chris.

‘Thanks,’ I said with a smile, ‘but I’ll still pass on it.’

‘Another coffee?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘We’ll just go up, then, shall we?’