2

Michele – One Week Later

I take a pencil and snap it in half, just because I have to do something. I can’t sit here and do nothing. Then I am still, and the house is still, and I know it wasn’t enough simply to break a pencil. I want to do more. So I take the metal pen holder, turn slightly on my chair and throw it straight through the open door across the balcony and into the garden. The clattering noise as it hits the patio tells me I have achieved my aim. I get to my feet and pick up the two cushions from the chair and fling them into the garden too. Then I stop and consider the neighbours and wonder what they must be thinking, seeing our stuff flying through the air. Then I shrug my shoulders. What they are thinking is probably exactly right, namely that their neighbours are a middle-aged couple whose children have now left home, that she works far too hard and loves her job and the status and the illusion of power that it gives her far too much, that he is an attractive man whose career has stagnated over the last however many years, but actually he is the one who knows that there are far more important – or, at least, other equally important – things in life, that he has been such a great father to his kids and such an accommodating husband . . . No. Stop it. He hasn’t been such an accommodating husband. He cared for the children while I went to work, but that had nothing to do with being accommodating, which suggests an element of sacrifice. Far from it. It suited him perfectly. He doesn’t like to work 24/7, is happy with his part-time teaching, loves his cricket and fishing and fresh air far too much. Not to mention his naps during the day. I look around the room. I want to throw more stuff out of the window. My eyes are scanning the bookshelves. I can already see my arm stretching out and emptying the shelves with one huge sweep. No, not the books. Definitely not the books. I would regret it and have to spend hours afterwards putting them back. It’s not that I am out of my mind with rage. I am simply angry and want to throw a fit. Like a toddler who hurls herself to the floor to show the whole world how angry and upset she is. And since I am too old to throw myself to the floor, I might as well throw something else. My eyes move across the desk. Paper, Sellotape, nail varnish. Too light, too inconspicuous. It needs to feel solid when I hurl it. There is a small coffee table in front of me. From the table my gaze goes down to my feet. I slip out of my sandals and fling first one and then the other into the garden. There and there. You’ve got it.

I am no longer worried about the neighbours. To tell the truth, part of me wouldn’t mind them seeing my display of anger. Yes, in fact I have a right to be angry if my stupid husband goes and fucks a woman probably half my age, and, for that matter, his. What am I supposed to do? React with understanding? Show sympathy? Compliment him first, then give constructive criticism? Fuck him. No way. I storm out of the study and into the bedroom. I theatrically tear open the doors to his part of the wardrobe, both sides at once. My arms are open wide, the doors are open wide. There are a couple of suits hanging on the rail. Wonder when he wore them last. On the shelves underneath are his shirts, his thick woollen jumpers, his T-shirts, his sports clothes. I scoop up his beloved cricket whites and carry them to the balcony. I stand at the railings with the whites in my arms, as if holding a baby. I see my sandals on the grass, a couple of pens on the grey stone of the terrace. I lift the clothes over the railings, ready to drop them into the garden. For a few seconds I don’t move. Then I turn around, go back into the study and sit down on one of the chairs – only to jump up again the next moment. If I remain sitting I will start to analyse what’s happening and the anger will abate. But the sudden adrenalin rush was doing me good. I enjoyed it.

I shake my head. All my life I’ve been able to control my anger. That’s why I am successful at my job. I have never lost my temper with anyone. Even the most useless people. I have learned to avoid them or, if I can’t avoid them, to do their job for them. And nowadays I am in a position either to delegate their jobs to someone more efficient or to move them on. Nicely, kindly, even with a few compliments on the way. A lot of people don’t want to get better at their jobs, aren’t humble enough to improve, to learn. There is no point losing my temper. You run a business despite all the obstacles and inefficiencies of other people. It’s a game. A mind game, a chess game, a game of endurance, an exhilarating game. Most difficulties you face aren’t personal. And even the betrayals, the jealousies, the back-stabbings – you just have to try to see them coming and manoeuvre your way through; or forgive yourself if you don’t see them coming, draw your lesson from them and move on. I sit down again.

But this is not business. This is personal. I look at the cricket whites in my arms. When he stood in front of me naked, I wanted to touch him, to run my hands over his body, feel the hair on his torso, his softness, his hardness, his arms around me, his body on top of me. There was a voice inside me that wanted to stop accusing him, tried to persuade me that the man had done nothing wrong, the man who was standing in front of me naked, defenceless. That there was probably a very good reason why he hadn’t come home last night. Why there was the smell of another woman’s perfume on his body. And that all he wanted was for me to touch him too. But that split second passed. I shake my head. And it is good that it passed. Women forgiving their treacherous men. Treacherous middle-aged men. How fascinating. Nothing has really changed. We might earn our own money, run a company, share the childcare and the household chores with our husbands, but when it comes down to the basics, the most fundamental thing – sex – nothing, absolutely nothing has changed. He goes out to prove himself, like a testosterone-driven monkey, and she is willing to forgive him. Why? I get up and the clothes drop from my lap on to the floor. I stand in front of the mirror. Because I too am middle-aged and no longer twenty? I take off my T-shirt and my bra. I let my skirt drop to the floor and take off my pants. Because I haven’t shown my naked body to any other man for over a quarter of a century? I turn to the side. I have a good figure. Slightly more rounded than twenty years ago. And there is a tiny belly. But not much. No, it’s not my body. I put my pants back on. When I look at my naked body, I feel happy with it. When I look at myself dressed I feel happy about it.

Of course, when we lie in bed I rarely feel a desire to make love to him. But that is not because of my body, or his body; it is because of my head. It’s sometimes difficult to get my head around it. I can’t switch my mind off. But that’s always been the case. We’ve always gone through phases when we made either more or less love. This idea of regularly having sex x-number of times a week, ideally on the same days, never seemed to work for us. And it never bothered us. I put on my bra again. Should I feel guilty? Blame myself for my husband’s lack of self-control? For his middle-aged man’s fear of death, which he then tries to forget in the arms of a younger woman? I pull up my skirt. What am I supposed to do? Go down on my knees, fling my arms around his legs, cry and beg him not to leave me for a younger woman? And say that I am so sorry and will promise to spread my legs every evening? Anything to keep him . . .

I walk back into the study. Ridiculous. My thoughts are ridiculous. My behaviour is ridiculous. Jim is ridiculous. And I won’t run after him. I pick up the whites, carry them back into the bedroom and leave them on the bed. I could, of course, wait and see if he comes back and asks for my forgiveness. Crawls back under Mama’s warm wings. We had a contract. An implicit contract that related to trust and sexual loyalty. At least that was my assumption. He has broken that contract. And if there is one thing I have learned in business it is that if people break a contract knowingly and wilfully once, they will break it again. No need to be angry or upset. It’s human nature. I fetch the roll of black bin liners from the kitchen drawer. Only I didn’t have Jim down as a contract breaker. And he probably wasn’t. But we are in a different phase of our lives now. New phases bring different stresses. I walk back up the stairs. But Jim’s stress is his problem. At least now. If he had come to me and said, Can we talk? But he didn’t. He acted his stress out and is probably still acting it out.

I am back in the bedroom and rip one plastic bag off the roll. I open it. His children have now left home. And suddenly he sees a long empty road at the end of which lies death staring him straight in the face. He is lost. And scared out of his mind. I put the whites into the bag. Then I turn to the wardrobe. For a moment I hesitate. I could just sweep all these clothes into the bin liners in no particular order. But I don’t yet know what I am going to do with the bags, so a systematic approach is more sensible. I pull the drawers with his pants out, followed by his socks. I lift the plastic bag. It’s not too heavy yet and there is still plenty of room. I fit his T-shirts in too and close the bag with a knot. The next bin liner will contain his jumpers. I make sure that they remain folded, putting two piles next to each other at the bottom of the bag first. The anger has gone. The clearing out calms me. I keep focused on the task in hand, avoiding any thought of what it is exactly I am trying to achieve. I close the second bag and take the third, then drop it to the floor so as first to remove trousers and suits from the hangers and neatly fold them. I place the suit jackets flat on the bed, the front face down. I fold the sides and the sleeves over, ensuring that there aren’t too many creases. I always felt lucky to have Jim as the father of my children. I carefully place a jacket on top of the clothes pile already in the bag. And I shouldn’t denigrate our relationship. We have had many good times over the last twenty-five years. We share a similar sense of humour. We enjoy walking and hiking together. We talk well. He is intelligent, caring, good-looking. But. I have knotted the third bag. For a moment I stand still.

The three bulging big plastic sacks are leaning into each other. They might rip when I carry them down the stairs. I should put each one into another bin liner. I pick up the roll, rip the next bag off and then another two. I manage to stuff each full bag into another empty one. Yes, that’s better. Though I should nevertheless hold them from underneath while carrying them downstairs. I look at the empty wardrobe. His shoes on the bottom shelf still need to go. I open another liner. I should use a double bag straight away. It’s not easy pulling a second bag over a full one. I might have been able to deal with Jim’s reluctance even to contemplate having Mum move in. He has a point, as I have in fact admitted before. I have always found it difficult to be around Mum and I understood – and even shared – his fear that living together would not be a smooth ride. Even though she now needs our help, I could have excused and respected his point of view. But this immature, crude way of asserting his independence by going and fucking the first woman who comes his way is unacceptable, hurtful and degrading. End of discussion. Four bags. I carry them downstairs, line them up in the hallway. I fill the plastic bowl from the kitchen sink with water and wipe the shelves and empty drawers. There is a surprising amount of dust. I close the doors.

‘Stephanie, it’s Michele. Jim and I discussed the basement conversion. We think it’s a brilliant idea and would like to go ahead with it as soon as possible. Please call me when you get this message.’

I watch my hand lowering the phone on to the table and hear Helen from next door laughing in the garden. I turn my head. Through the open door I spot a white sock on the balcony. It must have fallen out from among the cricket whites.