Page 75 of Where Do We Go From Here?
‘I might! Jesus, Fiona! I can never say anything right, can I? I was merely imparting a bit of information. I suppose I was thinking that the not drinking, not smoking thing was even more unusual because she’s gay. But I guess that’s my own silly prejudice in assuming the gays are more fun. Now, can we move on?’
‘Because drinking and smoking arefun?’
‘Well, most of the Western world certainly seems to think so.’
‘OK, fine. Whatever, Mum.’
‘So is that what you wanted to talk to me about?’ Wendy asks. ‘Are you gay, sweetheart? Is that it?’ She’d intended it as a tease, but once the question is out there she finds herself holding her breath.
‘No, Mother!’ Fiona says icily. ‘That was not what I wanted to talk to you about. Forget it. I can see there’s no point even going there today.’
‘Going where?’ Wendy asks, genuinely confused.
‘No… forget it. Here’s another one for you instead. Are you and Dad getting a divorce?’
‘Oh!’ Wendy says, feigning surprise. ‘Gosh!’ She’s not sure quite why she’s feigning surprise. After all, it’s the exact question she’d been expecting. Perhaps she thinks that revealing she’d been expecting it might affect the believability of whatever she says.
‘I mean, you’ve hardly lived together for years, really. Not properly. Not permanently, anyway. You must have thought about it, haven’t you?’
‘Um, no, honey, I haven’t. Not really. Not in those terms.’
‘Hum. I’m not sure I believe you, Mum.’
‘Has your father said something about it? Is that why…?’
Fiona shakes her head.
‘I…’ Wendy shrugs, twice. She sips her port. ‘I don’t know what to say, sweetie. I know that’s not… I mean, things have obviously been… difficult. But you know that.’
‘Yeah,’ Fiona says, with meaning.
‘But I’m not sure we necessarily… I mean, most couples go through rough patches, you know. At some point they do, anyway.’
‘So this is just a rough patch?’ Fiona asks. ‘And you haven’t thought about splitting up once. That’s your honest answer?’
‘Yes. No. No, I really haven’t. Not in any concrete way. Because we still… Well, I do, anyway. I still love him.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why are you here, Mum? Why is he there?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that one.’
‘Right,’ Fiona says. ‘Great.’ She sips her tea and sighs deeply, then puts the mug down and raises her fingers to her temples.
‘What?’ Wendy asks. ‘Tell me.’
‘I just don’t believe you. Not after all this…’ She gestures at the room as if it sums up the state of their marriage, which in a way, Wendy supposes, it does. ‘I mean,’ Fiona continues, ‘I get that you might not want to tell me about it. And that’s fine. But?—’
‘Honey,’ Wendy says. ‘That’s not what’s happening here. These things… they aren’t easily explainable; they aren’t black and white like that. The truth is… I don’t know. Whatisthe truth? I suppose the truth is that I don’t know what’s going on in my own head, let alone what’s happening in your father’s.’
‘You know there’s a thing for that,’ Fiona says. ‘They invented this thing for working out what’s going on in someone else’s head. It’s called?—’
‘Conversation, yes, I know. And we will. We’re going to. We’ve even talked about having that big conversation. But weneed time to… to… I don’t know… To sort our own heads out first, I suppose. That’s what I’m trying to do by being here.’
‘So this isn’t a trial separation?’ Fiona asks.
