Page 25 of Not Moving Out
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It’s nice to know I have your support.’
‘Always, and Freya, if you need anything, just fancy a chat, or maybe a drink, let me know,’ said Sam, and he reached across and put his hand on my arm for a moment. ‘Okay?’
I couldn’t help feeling a rush of excitement at his touch. Was he trying to convey something to me that perhaps in the future, when I was ready, that maybe he was interested in something more than just a friendly, professional relationship? Was that even possible given our current employer–employee status? Was I reading far too much into a simple friendly gesture?
‘Okay,’ I said, feeling my cheeks redden, as he got on his bicycle.
‘See you tomorrow,’ said Sam, and I smiled at him before he was off, and I walked the rest of the way home. As I walked, I couldn’t help but feel happier because, after such an awful day, Sam reminded me that I had people. I had friends like Lucy and perhaps the rest of Cold Water Club, Mum was close by, and now I had Sam, too. For so long I had been one part of a couple, and tearing myself away from that felt impossible – like a once great double act trying to forge solo careers – but Sam had done it and got the T-shirt, or in his case probably a very expensive and well-fitted shirt, to prove it. I had people and a career that would require lots of my time, and that was something to be thankful for. I smiled to myself because for the first time in a long time, I felt the exhilaration of possibility, and of potentially imagining a future beyond my current existence, and after that morning when I had left the house feeling like utter shit, it definitely felt like a bit of a win.
Chapter Twelve
Joe
I typed the title,House Shared, on the opening page, and then I added,Pilot EpisodebyJoe Wallace. I pressed enter until I had moved the cursor on to the next page. A blank page and the beginning of a new sitcom. Only this wasn’t just a sitcom, this was my life I was attempting to replicate on the page. It felt different to anything I had done before, and also quite duplicitous because I knew Freya wouldn’t appreciate me spilling the guts of our marriage on to the page for laughs. The thing was, though, I was desperate. This had to be a success, or I would be returning to education and becoming a teacher or perhaps a lecturer because that was literally the only other job I could see myself doing. I could write a novel, but that had about as much chance of success as writing a sitcom and even less financial gain, from what I had heard. No, I was putting all my eggs in one basket, and this was the basket. I was forty-five, recently separated from my wife, my daughter was soon leaving home for a town at the other end of the country, and I only had one fucking basket! A thoroughly depressing thought, but I had to get my head down and hope this worked because the alternatives didn’t bear thinking about.
I wrote for a few hours before I stopped typing and read it back a few times. Was it too close to the knuckle? Was it basically just repeating the same conversations I had with Freya verbatim but with a few jokes added to the mix? Were the characters too similar to Freya, Dolly and myself? Would she end up suing me for libel? I didn’t know, but it was just a first draft, and it would change anyway. The thing was, I liked it. It had a good ebb and flow, and the characters were already so real in my mind. They always say ‘write what you know’, but surely this was taking the piss. This wasn’t creating something based on something that had happened years before, or stories I had patchworked together, this was literally happening as I was writing it. It felt a little more than risky.
I wrote a few more pages before I took a break and made myself a coffee. While I was waiting for the kettle to boil, I had a look on the fridge door and saw the housework schedule Freya had made at work, printed off, laminated and then stuck to the fridge with a magnet. I needed to clean the floors, clean the downstairs loo and the main bathroom. I was a forty-five-year-old comedy writer, and yet I felt like a child being told what to do for pocket money. The irony was, I had done all those things for years without evening thinking about it, but now it was written down on a schedule, something about it just annoyed me. Why couldn’t she trust that I would do the jobs that I had already been doing for years without having to check up on me? Why did we need a laminated schedule stuck to the fridge? The kettle boiled and I made myself a coffee, before I headed back upstairs to my office to work. I would do my housework later.
After another couple of hours of writing, I felt the need to get out and see people. Since the separation, I had been largely wallowing, and apart from my visit to see Karen, which was not exactly an exercise in levity, I hadn’t done much else. I texted Stuart and Barney to see if they fancied a drink, which fortunately both of them did, and we arranged to meet at a pub in town later that night. Stuart would usually come for a drink if he wasn’t working or ferrying his boys around Sussex for cricket matches, which he often was. Barney was my token single friend, and generally up for a pint. I met Barney in London years before, as he worked in media, too, and he had moved to Brighton a few years ago to ‘escape the rat race’, he claimed, but I think also because he had dated every woman in London and needed a new pool to tempt into a relationship with him. I didn’t know what it was about Barney, but he could never seem to hang on to a woman for long. He dated but none of them stuck. He was a bit like Blu-Tack – a safe bet at the beginning, but you knew that eventually things would become unstuck.
We were meeting at the Mash Tun pub in The Lanes because it was a nice evening and we could sit outside and watch the world go by. It was always a busy area of Brighton, and the pub was packed as I walked up and saw Stuart and Barney already outside with a couple of pints.
‘Hello, chaps,’ I said, walking across.
‘Ah, there he is!’ said Barney with his usual enthusiasm.
‘Hello, mate,’ said Stuart.
I gave them both a quick handshake before I ducked inside, got myself a pint and then returned and joined my friends. Stuart was tall, burly and good-looking in a sort of dashing Emily Brontë way. He was originally from Yorkshire, so had a certain directness about him, a natural simplicity in the way he was and looked that I had always envied. He had played cricket to a high level, but now ran an English language school in Brighton, was married to Lucy and they had two boys. Barney was almost the exact opposite of Stuart. Whereas Stuart was tall and still in decent shape because he was a runner, Barney was shorter, squatter and did very little exercise as far as I knew. He had once mentioned a Zumba class, but that didn’t bear thinking about. Barney dressed smarter and was still a part of the London media scene, while Stuart was dressed in comfortable dad clothes. Two very dissimilar people but equally good mates.
‘How’s it going?’ said Stuart, an expression on his face and a tone in his voice that suggested he already knew that Freya and I were separated.
‘You know, don’t you?’ I asked.
‘Lucy told me everything.’
‘What’s this?’ said Barney. ‘Know what, exactly?’
‘Freya and I have decided to separate,’ I said, and hearing the words out loud still sounded strange and unfamiliar, like the time I tried learning Spanish on Duolingo.
‘Oh, mate, that’s monumental,’ said Barney. ‘Should I get shots? I’ll get shots.’
‘I don’t think we need shots, mate. It is sad, but I don’t think shots are the answer.’
‘Sorry I didn’t text or call. I thought I’d wait for you to mention it first,’ said Stuart.
‘No worries. Yeah, it’s strange, surreal, and honestly, I still can’t quite believe it.’
‘But you’ve been having problems for a while, haven’t you?’ said Barney. ‘I remember six months ago or more you mentioned something about going through a bit of a dry patch.’
‘Well, that dry patch became a fucking desert, and now we’re both just really thirsty. Unfortunately not for each other.’
‘Lucy said you were still living together,’ said Stuart, before he took a long pull of his pint.
‘We’re sharing the house until Dolly leaves for university because we didn’t want to unsettle her while she’s doing her A levels, and honestly, with the price of rent in Brighton, the idea of forking out for a flat didn’t make a lot of financial sense.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a giant bag of fun,’ said Barney.
