The Passion Play (3 page)

She could make better at home herself.

But it wasn't a date night unless you did something special, Dan always said. Special like go to the exact same place for an unsatisfactory dinner every fortnight for five years in a row. Where other regulars would call out to him, tell him how great the team was going and how much they had enjoyed watching the last game. Or where he would spend most of the hour they were there talking on his mobile phone.

One night he was on the phone from the moment he put on his jacket to leave the house, right through their meal – where he had no need to order because he ate the same thing every time – talking and listening in between bites. She watched him in fascinated incredulity. Would he really say nothing to her
the whole evening? Would he not even realize? She paid the bill and drove them both home, where he gave her a brief kiss, patted her shoulder and turned and walked away to his study, still talking.

Of course she should have stood up for herself. Should have snatched the phone off him and told him where to shove it. Should have made a fuss, made a scene, let him know he had crossed the line. But where
was
the line, when it moved slowly over a span of years, from romantic enthusiasm through polite consideration and on to disregard?

If she got angry he would either tell her it was her fault he did these things – her lack of interesting topics of conversation – or blame work.
One or the other, occasionally both. She did not like to be angry; never lost control or said something unplanned. She should have. Perhaps she was not made for the cut-and-thrust of a marriage, or romantic relationships of any sort. A woman should know how to defend her boundaries and teach a man how to treat her. She was woefully inadequate at that, or any conflict. A pushover or the next thing to it: a doormat.

On silent, stocking-clad feet she trailed through the house, one empty room at a time, aimless and drifting. All her foundations were gone. Work had allowed her to ignore the sensation for several hours, but solitude brought it back. What was she if not a dutiful wife, staid and settled?

There was a knock on the door, and she could hear shrill voices. Caroline and the boys. When she opened the door the kids streaked inside, right through the lounge to the French doors that let out onto the back yard.

"Hi Auntie Felicity!"

"Hi!"

"I've put the balls away in the garage, guys," she called out to them. "Help yourselves."

"Cool."

They were gone, voices faded behind the closed door.

"Sorry about all the yelling," said Caroline.

Felicity waved a hand in dismissal. "You know I don't mind. Can I get you a coffee?
Tea?"

"Green tea would be great.
That one with lemon. So what's this 'not physical' emergency, then?"

Felicity filled the kettle and set it to boil, then came slowly across the carpet to the living room, her appointment book in one hand. She put it on the side table, and sat on the sofa, her feet tucked up under her. "Dan's leaving me. Actually, he's left. He's already gone."

"I . . . whoa. What? Where did that come from?"

"I have no idea."

"God, I'm so sorry." Caroline's screwed up her bare face in disgust. Her dark curls were winning the battle against the hair tie that tried to tame them and her skin looked a little gray as if she was short on sleep. Still her eyes immediately brightened with anger on Felicity's behalf. "That guy really is an ass. What's he thinking? You're the best thing that's ever happened to him. And he didn't even tell you why?"

"Yeah, he said . . . oh . . . oh, hang on . . ." Felicity looked at the ceiling and fanned her hand back and forth in front of her chest, feeling that dreadful ache again. "This is going to make me cry. He said he wanted kids and since I couldn't have them he was leaving me."

"Oh my God! That bastard." Caroline fished around in her purse and found a crumpled but clean tissue.

Felicity took it and blew her nose. "I can't believe it's just over, so quickly."

"It's a big deal. I mean, you've been together, what, ten years?"

"Twelve." The number made her feel sick when she thought about it. Such a chunk of life energy and potential to waste wrapped around a marriage that faded into nothing. She had thought of it as an investment in their partnership. To Dan it was all disposable.

"What will you do now?"

"I don't know."

"Do whatever you want," said Caroline. "Seriously. Anything. Run away from everything. Take off overseas. Blow your savings. Convert to some strange religion, or foreign mysticism."

"Can you imagine me blowing my savings?"

"Alright, maybe not that. But definitely do something. Make this a celebration." She nodded in determination. "Whatever you want. Anything you've always wanted and told yourself you couldn't have. You're completely free."

"You know what I want?" Felicity sat forward suddenly and put her feet flat on the floor, as inspiration clicked into place. "I want to have a baby."

"Whoa! Hang on." Caroline gripped the arm of her seat. "That's huge. Are you . . . I mean . . .  with whom?"

"I don't know. It's not like I've got a candidate. I was married this morning." She stared out the window, not seeing the lawn and trees beyond it. Seeing instead all those imagined moments of parenthood she had kept locked away inside her head, forbidden to herself, for long years. They tumbled out one after another, like a montage of joy and
fulfillment. Catching a running child up in her arms. Tucking them into bed. Sharing a pillow and a storybook. Playing catch and dolls and brushing hair and baking together-

A hundred
things, that could be hers.

"No, of course not.
Right." Caroline looked at her as if she were crazy. "But how?"

Felicity staggered over the thought. "The usual way, I suppose."

"Like, just by a stranger?"

"I don't know." Felicity shook her head, her hands clenched into fists. "That's not important. I don't even know for certain I'm fertile. I'll have to get checked out."

Caroline puckered her face doubtfully. "Honey, there are good reasons for waiting until you've found someone to be a dad. Single parenting is difficult."

"Motherhood was my top goal. Then I set it aside for my marriage. Now I've got nothing to show for it. I've got this big, empty house and the giant garden and savings in the bank and I'm alone. Who knows if I'll meet someone else, or want to get married again? I can't even imagine it. I hate even the idea of it. I'm not waiting anymore."

The kettle clicked off and the sound of boiling water died away. Felicity stood and walked to the cupboard that held three different designs of teacups, arranged in tidy rows. She poured boiling water into two and set them precisely onto saucers on a small tray, and snuggled a teabag onto each saucer. "Plenty of women go ahead and have babies without a dad involved." A delicate slice of lemon went into each cup. "Women with less life experience, less knowledge than me. They manage. They do it. I just . . . I'm so sick to death of trying to get it all right, you know?" She put the tray down on the coffee table. "I've done everything I was supposed to. I found a really impressive man I loved and respected. We married; we have a nice home with the mortgage paid off. We tried to have kids. We failed. It's not like I was happy about it but I'd accepted it. I did my absolute best and-"

"You'll find someone else. There's no need to rush into anything."

"I don't want someone else." She threw her teabag into the hot water, picked up a spoon and stirred it fretfully. "I don't want to be married again. I don't even want to date."

"Give it a few weeks. You'll feel differently when some time's gone by."

"I don't want to date. There's no way I'm going to get emotionally involved with someone."

"Well everyone needs sex. Eventually start to feel like it's worth pursuing some-"

Felicity laughed wildly. "Eventually? Dan and I haven't had sex for more than a year now. Don't talk to me about
eventually
. Yes, sex would be great, but it comes with so many complications.” She shook her head in wonder as she heard her own words. “How can I even say that? How can I think about having sex with someone else? Dan broke up with me only this morning. There is something so
wrong
with me.”

"Oh my God.
A
year
?" Caroline's eyes were wide with horror. "How did you survive? Why are you even still married? You can't go a whole year without having sex! How did this happen? How did you not leave him?"

"Dan and I kept different schedules this last – oh, ages. He's too busy at work. He'd get home at two or three in the morning. I almost never saw him, and when he was home he was never in the mood. One only has to be turned down a few times before one decides
he
can make the moves when he's damned well ready."

"Oh. My.
God. That's not marriage. That's purgatory! I can't believe you didn't thump him," said Caroline, miming the action.

"I'd never be violent," Felicity said, though she could not help picturing it.

"Hell, honey, neither am I. But that's a special case if ever I saw it. What was the man thinking? A year. That's just unnatural. Okay, it's clear this is an emergency case. Get yourself some sex and just . . . don't do anything hasty about babies, will you?"

"I'm not promising anything," she said darkly. "I am not feeling sensible. I feel like I want to break something." She picked up the day planner from the side table and threw it straight across the room. The leather-bound square hit one of the windows with a sharp crack and a web of lines appeared around the impact point. The clasp on the planner flew open and it fell to the floor and landed open in a crooked pyramid, two loose pages beside it.

"Ooookay," said Caroline dubiously, her gaze flicking between the window and Felicity. "Possibly not the best state of mind to make life-altering decisions."

"Do you ever get sick of being good? Do you ever get sick of following every rule till you just want to scream?"

"Moderation is good. And giving yourself breathing space. You'll be ready for a relationship with time, and-"

"I can't do marriage." Felicity buried her face in her hands, her elbows propped on her knees. "I failed. I don't even kno
w what I did wrong; when he made the decision, or even why. And now I'm thinking I was an idiot not to realize how empty it all was. When your husband says he's leaving and you realize you're happy to see the back of him, that's a wake-up call. I've refused to listen to my instincts. I chose a path and stuck to it even though it was wrong. I'm not an idiot. I just . . . doesn't everyone live with compromise? People don't turn out the way you thought they would. You don't know when you meet this great guy who's all charismatic and lovely that he picks his nose and tells lies. You don't know one day he's going to get over you and all the flowers and compliments will go away. And then he says 'we don't have long conversations because you never talk about anything interesting, Floss,' and he never has time for you because, 'you know work has to be a priority'. I mean, when does it cross the line? When do you go from acceptably civil to just plain worthless? But you stick at it. Marriage is supposed to be forever. When I made those promises I meant them."

Caroline shuffled forward and rescued Felicity's tea bag from the cup of darkened water, put it on the saucer, then rested a hand on Felicity's knee. "I know you did. I know. You don't have to tell me."

"He trained me." She was disgusted by the idea. "He used to say such nice things every time I did stuff for him. I was 'so loving' and 'so nurturing' and he adored how I took care of him. He called me his angel. Then after awhile all that stopped and it was like it was normal that I did everything."

"You were like a maid. Every time Mark and I come over here and he watches you run around fetching stuff for Dan and tidying up after him he starts giving me these speculative looks like he's wondering how to get me to do that."

"I don't even feel like a woman anymore. No kids, no sex, no attention, nothing. I've just been a servant, telling myself at least I was being nurturing. That's womanly, right? I like to take care of people. But I'm just so- Unh!" She made a gesture as if she was tearing her hair out by the roots, her fingers stopping just short of her chignon.

"There's nothing wrong with that if they take care of you too. But let's face it, Dan was a leech. He took what you gave him and virtually ignored you. I hated to watch it."

"Did you? Why did you never say anything?"

"What could I say? It wouldn't have suited me of course, but you always seemed cheerful enough, running around with all your projects and your house to tidy and decorate. And at least he took you out on dates. I have a hard time just scraping Mark off the couch for long enough to put his pants back on, let alone getting him out of the house and into a restaurant."

Felicity smiled, bitter and humorless. "Make a standing reservation at the restaurant and give him plenty of warning. If he's not ready to leave on time, go by yourself, invite a friend and pay for her out of your joint account. That's how I got Dan to start going."