Page 23 of Not Moving Out
‘It makes me wonder.’
‘What?’
‘If there is a version of this world where my dad lives in France and runs a bed and breakfast with a French lady called Juliette, perhaps there is a version of life where you and I are happy again.’
I could just about make out the shape of Freya in the dark, but I couldn’t see the details of her face. She didn’t say anything and then, after a minute, she rolled away from me again, so she was on her back looking up at the ceiling.
‘Night, Joe,’ she said quietly.
‘Night,’ I replied, and then we both tried to get some sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Freya
I was waiting for my toast to pop out of the toaster, sipping on coffee, while the morning show on Radio 2 played in the kitchen from the old radio we had bought years before. Dolly was at the table, munching her way through a huge bowl of Crunchy Nut, although nowadays she preferred almond milk to regular milk, and Joe was sipping on a cup of tea, while doomscrolling through his phone. Outside it was a bright morning, and inside our kitchen this was a perfectly regular family morning getting ready for the day ahead. The sort of morning we’d had a thousand times before when it used to be me telling Dolly to hurry up and get her stuff ready for school, while Joe made us breakfast, before I dashed off to work, dropping Dolly at school on the way, both of us saying goodbye to Joe at the front door with hugs and kisses. It was routine and it had felt during those days, in the middle of it all, like they would go on forever. But that was then, and this was now, and things had changed so much they were barely recognisable.
Whereas then the atmosphere had been familiar and comfortable, now it was riddled with excruciating awkwardness, each of us second-guessing what to say, how to say it, and what to do next. Before, we would move around the kitchen with a synchronicity, each of us doing something different, but it worked, and we knew the patterns of our morning routine. Now it was mumbled apologies for bumping into each other or for getting in the way, almost like strangers inhabiting the same space for the first time. It was like the early days of university when you were just getting to know people, but at least then we had alcohol to soften the blow. For so many years, it had felt so natural, but now just making coffee, toast, and trying to have a vague conversation about the day ahead felt like the most complicated thing in the world.
My toast popped, and I put it on my plate, and walked across to the side to add butter and marmalade, as Joe got up to fetch himself a bowl of muesli. Just the simple act of the two of us in close proximity to each other, moving about the same space, caused both of us to tense up like a couple of teenagers on a first date.
‘Sorry, I just need to grab a spoon,’ said Joe, reaching towards the cutlery drawer.
‘No worries,’ I replied, stepping aside, and Dolly looked up from the table. I’m sure she could feel the tension that sat heavily in the room the way cigarette smoke used to be in pubs before the indoor smoking ban.
I glanced at Joe, he looked at me, and I thought about the conversation I’d had with Lucy about Joe and me not really arguing. Did I want to scream at him and tell him exactly how I felt? A part of me did, obviously, but it wasn’t something that came easily to us. We had been together for so long, and enormous, ugly arguments had never been a part of us. The very fabric of our relationship had been founded on something much more congenial, and much like the US Constitution, it felt like once it had been written it was impossible to change without some serious fucking work. I smiled awkwardly at him, he smiled uneasily at me, Dolly glanced across and slowly shook her head, and then we both continued on, trying to act as normal as possible, as though everything was perfectly fine, when it really wasn’t.
‘How are you doing, love?’ I said to Dolly, sitting opposite her with my toast.
She was on her phone, and she glanced across at me for a moment, a face full of ambivalence. She had never been a morning person.
‘Like you care,’ said Dolly, her voice sharp and pointed.
‘What? Of course I care, love.’
I saw Joe out of the corner of my eye, and he had stopped what he was doing and was looking across at us like someone who had just witnessed a minor car crash. Dolly huffed and stood up, her bowl of cereal unfinished. She slipped her phone quickly in the back pocket of her jeans.
‘Whatever,’ she said, and then she walked out of the kitchen, along the hallway, and I heard her feet loudly on the stairs. I glanced across at Joe and he shrugged his shoulders and screwed his face in a sort of ‘what was that all about?’ way before he continued doing what he was doing, while the radio was playing ‘2 Become 1’ by the Spice Girls, and the irony wasn’t lost on me. Our household had very quickly turned from one family into three separate people uncomfortably occupying the same space, all wondering where the hell this was going to end. Our party line that it was ‘business as usual’ was quickly being picked apart as the lie it probably had been from the start.
I was worried about Dolly because one of my big fears was that my separation from Joe would permanently harm our relationship. She was leaving home soon, and I had recently heard a statistic that by the age of eighteen we had already spent ninety per cent of the time we’ll ever spend with our kids. That meant that after she moved to university, our relationship would be forever changed. I would only see her fleetingly, and the relationship we had when she left might be set in stone for the rest of our lives. It terrified the life out of me, but at the same time I felt almost helpless to stop it from happening, in the same way I felt helpless about the state of my marriage to Joe. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t go back to how things were when Dolly was young and innocent, and Joe and I were happy. It was like that version of us was behind a wall, and I could hear it, almost feel it, but I couldn’t get over or around that wall to actually see it or be close to it again.
I closed the front door behind me, stepped outside and took in a deep breath of fresh air, and I almost wanted to cry. It was such a relief being outside because the morning had been awful. Dolly didn’t say another word to me before I heard the front door slam shut and she was gone and off to college. Joe and I didn’t speak either, tiptoeing around each other, neither of us sure what to say to the other. All our relationships were strained, and I just wanted to fucking scream, but I couldn’t. I had to keep it inside, push it down, because I didn’t have a choice. I needed to speak with Dolly, but she was an adult, and I couldn’t force her. Joe and I were in such a strange place that I didn’t even know what to do with him, or what to say, and so I said nothing. Instead, I started the walk to work where at least I could bury myself in my cases, and hopefully for eight hours forget about everything. Work had become the distraction I needed to stay sane in a world I barely recognised any more.
It was the end of the day, and I was heading out of the office, not overly excited to get home, when I walked outside and there was Sam Becket, Brompton bicycle in his hand, readying himself to head home. Trousers clipped at the bottom, he looked in many ways so old-fashioned, or classic, it depended on how you looked at it.
‘Freya. How are you?’ said Sam brightly.
Today he was in a grey suit, black shoes and a navy tie. He looked, as always, remarkably handsome. He was always so clean-shaven; it was almost impossible to imagine him with any facial hair at all. Joe always had a certain amount of beard, no matter how often he seemed to shave. Although being a stay-at-home writer had given him the little encouragement he needed to grow a beard. He kept it reasonably short, but was never clean-shaven like Sam.
‘Good,’ I replied, although clearly a lie. ‘Heading home on the bicycle?’
‘You can’t beat it after a day in the office. It’s nice to feel like I’m doing something slightly physical. Brush away the cobwebs.’
‘Totally understand. I walk, which is something. Well, have a—’
‘Do you mind if I walk with you?’ said Sam suddenly, and I was momentarily unsure how to reply. Sam and I had a good relationship, friendly, professional, but once outside of the office, it ended. In all the years I had worked at Becket, Godwin & Anderson, we had never walked home together. It felt like something was definitely afoot, or amiss?
‘Sure, great,’ I said far too excitedly, before I added with a touch more poise, ‘Is there something you wanted to discuss?’
