Page 67 of Not Moving Out
‘And what about Dolly? Is she in the show, too?’ I said, looking at him, and without a second passing, I could see from the expression on his face that he had something else to tell me. ‘What did you do, Joe?’ Then it came to me in a blinding flash. ‘Please tell me you didn’t use her coming out as gay in the show. You didn’t, did you?’
I couldn’t believe Joe could be that cruel. Despite what he had done to me, to us, I knew how much he loved Dolly. He wouldn’t use our daughter’s sexuality in a fucking sitcom without discussing it with us first. It was one thing to lie to me, but to use our daughter like that would be truly unforgivable. He looked at me, an expression on his face like a child that had been caught with his hand in the sweet jar or perhaps something far more serious.
‘I won’t deny I thought about it, Freya. I actually discussed it with Carl and he thought it was a brilliant idea, but when it came to write it, I couldn’t do it.’
‘So you aren’t a complete fucking monster then.’
‘I couldn’t do it because I knew it would mean that any chance we had of working things out would be gone, and I couldn’t do that. I had to know that you and I were still on the table.’
‘Yet, when it came to writing about us, you had no such problem. Fuck, Joe, I can’t believe this,’ I said, feeling another flash of anger burst inside of me like fireworks cracking against the dark night sky. ‘I know you have always used things from our life in your writing, but I always thought there was a line. I thought this would have been the line.’
I looked at Joe and I had never been angrier with him. He had lied about seeing a therapist, but at least once he had explained about the panic attacks I understood. Despite the disappointment of finding out he’d been seeing a therapist in secret, I could sympathise with him, but this wasn’t that. He had purposely lied, used the pain of our separation, the story of the break-up of our marriage, and was going to serve it up to the world in a thirty-minute sitcom. If trust was one of the key pillars of any good marriage, then Joe had just burnt that pillar to the ground. Joe stood up and walked towards me, a look of desperation on his face.
‘Freya, I’m sorry. I know what I did was wrong, but—’
‘What did you use in the script?’ I said suddenly, and he stopped and looked at me.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What exactly did you use in the script? How many of the conversations did you turn into jokes? What about you seeing a therapist or everything that happened with your dad? Did you use all of that great material, Joe? Did you use the night we slept together?’ I said, and when I said it, I knew I had hit on something. A momentary expression of guilt flashed across his face. ‘You did, didn’t you?’
‘I, umm—’
‘Fuck!’ I shouted at him. ‘No, Joe. You aren’t doing this. You aren’t going to parade our whole fucking life on the television for cheap laughs, and I’ll take you to fucking court if I have to!’ I was so angry at him, and also at myself for not seeing what sort of man Joe had become. Success at any cost, even if that cost was our marriage. ‘You know, Joe. After we slept together, and after our chat at Devil’s Dyke, and even this fucking morning, I did think that maybe there was a chance for us. I thought we might be able to salvage our marriage, but now… I don’t know you. I can’t even be around you.’
I took one last look at him, and then I walked out. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t be in that house with Joe for a second longer. I grabbed my coat, my hair was still wet, but I didn’t care, I just had to get out, and I felt tears rushing down my face as I opened the front door and then slammed it behind me. I had never felt so much anger before. Joe had betrayed me, and he wasn’t the man I had married.
I walked away from our house, and I just kept walking. I had nowhere in mind, I just had to keep moving, get myself further and further away from him. I walked, cried, unable to believe what had just happened. How could he have used our marriage like that? I knew how much he loved me, or at least said he loved me, and yet he was prepared to use our pain for some sort of professional gain? I was dumbfounded the man I thought I knew had turned out to be someone else entirely. A man who had turned our marriage into a fucking comedy, and maybe he was right, because it seemed that, after everything, we were nothing more than a fucking joke. Joe and I were done. Our marriage was over, and Joe had been happy to burn it to the ground, just to keep his dwindling career afloat. At that moment, I never wanted to see his face again.
I finally stopped walking, wiped the tears from my face, and took out my phone. I was going to call the one person I probably shouldn’t have called at that exact moment, but I didn’t care. Joe had hurt me in ways I didn’t think were possible, and I was going to hurt him, too. The phone rang and then after a moment was picked up.
‘Hello, Sam,’ I said. ‘Are you busy?’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Joe
Karen was sitting across from me, and today she was in a white linen dress, she’d had her hair cut shorter, and she had on a little more make-up than usual. Perhaps she had a date straight after work or something, but I wouldn’t know because I was never allowed to ask her questions about herself. It wasn’t how therapy worked. I wasn’t allowed to know anything about her, and she had to know everything about me. It was very much a one-sided relationship, which made me a little uncomfortable, but that was the deal for better mental health. Although with everything that had happened with Freya, it was hard to see how any amount of talking could fix it.
‘So, Joe, tell me what happened.’
I explained everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours from the conversation with Carl about the show to telling Freya about it, and how that conversation had ended with Freya walking out on me. I was still reeling from it, and I hadn’t seen Freya since. Dolly was working at the language school, and barely made it home these days, and Freya had, I think, been staying with her mum and Marmalade. I had tried texting her but she hadn’t replied. I understood how Freya felt, and she was entirely justified in how she responded, but I couldn’t believe I had let it get to that point. I should have told her sooner because now I had truly fucked everything up, probably for good. When I finished speaking, Karen took a moment before she responded. She was obviously carefully constructing her response. I imagined it would be difficult to just say:It’s clear you’ve been a massive fuckwit, Joe, and Freya has every right never to speak to you again, you complete and utter arsehole.
‘What do you think about it now?’
‘I think Freya has every right to ignore me. I can’t believe what an enormous idiot I’ve been, and I just want to fix it.’
‘Do you think that’s possible?’
‘I don’t know but I have to try. Freya is my wife, and she deserves better than I have given her. Dolly, too. I’m meeting Dolly for lunch today and I’m going to tell her everything.’
‘How do you think she’ll take it?’ said Karen, jotting something down in her notepad.
‘Honestly, I have no idea. The thing is, I’ll change the show if I have to. I’ll rewrite the whole bloody thing if it means making Freya and Dolly happy. I just can’t stand the thought of losing them.’
‘What if Freya asked you not to make the show at all? To scrap it completely. Would you?’
This was the hardest question because clearly Freya and I were headed for permanent separation and eventually divorce, and if that was true, what was I going to do? I needed this show to work because I needed the money. It felt like when it came down to the nuts and bolts of the issue I had little choice.
