Maddy drives along her lane on Easter Monday, wondering exactly what Trent’s going to propose at this ‘summit’. Because that was the subject header of his email. He’s told her that they have to talk about something urgently.
Hopefully he’ll have some good news about their financial affairs – at long bloody last. He’s been avoiding her probing questions and she resents the fact that she’s not only used the last of her savings, Jamie’s education fund, but also has had to borrow a couple of grand from her brother to pay for basic living expenses. It was so humiliating having to ask.
She’s assured Toby that she was only suffering a temporary cash-flow problem until Trent’s business gets back on track. She didn’t tell her brother that she’s left Trent. It would take too much explaining. Because if she tells her brother that they’ve separated, then her parents will find out too and there’ll be uncomfortable conversations. She’s not strong enough to cope with their upset or concern.
Seeing the sleek glass and steel lines of her house, she thinks of everything she’s built and how much it once impressed her family. She remembers posting a series of Instagram videos of the crane lifting the colossal joist into place and how it had felt so scary. She remembers how her sister-in-law had commented that Maddy really knew how to style-out a hard hat. She’d felt daring … important.
How full of dreams she’d been back then, she thinks. How excited about the home she was creating.
And this is her home, she remembers. Her self-inflicted exile has only made her see what a huge achievement and asset it is. Maybe now she’s clearer about her feelings for Trent, they can come to some kind of arrangement about the future of the house. As Helga told her yesterday when then all met for a late-afternoon swim, Trent was the one who did the dirty and so it stands to reason that he should be the one to move out. Maddy appreciated the wise counsel of her swimming friends. Once she’s found Jamie and brought him home, she’s going to miss them.
She thinks about going to the front door, but having not seen Trent for months, it feels too invasive to open it with her keys, so she goes instead to the side gate, like she always does when she comes back with the shopping. As she pushes through it, she notices that the small box hedges have yellow patches, and the grass is weedy and overgrown. Trent clearly hasn’t been doing much upkeep.
She sees him through the glass of the back door. He’s sitting at the kitchen counter, the reading glasses that he hates being seen in perched on the end of his nose. He stares down at a sheaf of papers. From outside, she notices that his face is more drawn and lined than she’s realised before. She slides open the door, surprising him. He snatches off his glasses and stands up.
‘You came,’ he says, as if he hadn’t believed she would.
The kitchen is unkempt, although it’s passably clean. He’s swept the white floor tiles, although leaving the mound of dust in the corner. One of his more annoying habits.
‘You said you wanted to talk, so I’m here,’ she says, walking towards him and standing against the end counter, placing her handbag on it.
Do they kiss on both cheeks politely like strangers? she wonders, but Trent doesn’t move and the awkward moment passes.
‘You look well,’ he says, as if this is a surprise. ‘Glowing.’
‘The sea air, I guess. And I’ve been swimming.’
‘In the sea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Alone?’ He sounds horrified.
‘No, I go with friends.’
‘What friends?’
The Sea-Gals have become friends, she realises, at the same time as she realises that she could never introduce them to Trent. He’s always striven to have friends who are the most similar he can find. Or, even better, ones he feels are similar and yet slightly aspirational. Maddy has found it a breath of fresh air to meet people with utterly different lives and backgrounds to her.
She tells him a few facts about her life in Brighton and he listens, as if he can’t quite believe she’s not been at home. He doesn’t ask about Jamie. His lack of curiosity speaks volumes of how much he doesn’t care.
Trent faffs around putting a Nespresso Pod in their expensive machine, although he hasn’t asked if she wants a coffee. He curses when the pod jams and she points out that he needs to empty the cartridge holder. Another thing she’s always done. She wonders how he’s coped without her and feels a frisson of satisfaction that he must realise now how much hard work it’s taken to live somewhere that looks this good.
When he’s made her the coffee, he retreats around the counter and hitches his buttock onto the white stool. He’s put on weight, she notices, seeing a bulge beneath his white shirt at the waistband of his jeans. In fact, those are his baggier jeans. He’s usually so put together and slick, but he reminds her of a teddy bear that’s losing its stuffing.
‘What have you got there?’ she asks, out of curiosity. He usually works in the study. It’s unlike him to bring papers through to the kitchen.
‘Oh, these, well, um, you know … stuff to do with Fairfax.’
His eyes dart towards hers then off to the side. His shifty look.
What’s he been up to? Trent has always insisted that once the Fairfax building contract came good, he’d re-fill the accounts and buy back the shares.
‘The contract’s through, right?’
He rubs a spot on the counter top and winces. ‘No, it’s all gone rather tits up.’
‘What do you mean, tits up?’
‘Just …’ He shrugs and she suddenly understands the magnitude of what he’s saying.
‘How long have you known? That it wasn’t coming good?’ she asks.
‘A while.’
‘And you haven’t said anything?’
‘I would have if you hadn’t have stormed out.’
He says ‘stormed out’ as if she’s flounced out on an unjustifiable whim and she remembers Tor talking bitterly yesterday about how her mother accused her of ‘stalking’ out of her twin sister’s lunch. Perhaps that’s why she likes Tor. Because she sticks up for what she believes in too and doesn’t put up with other people’s bullshit.
She glares at him. She’s not going to let him blame her. ‘What’s happened?’
He sighs and she sees he’s defeated. ‘I, well, the thing is, Maddy …’
She feels her throat go dry at his tone and the way he says her name. He twists his lips and then his voice catches as he starts to speak. She puts her coffee cup on the side.
‘I’ve tried, you’ve got to believe me, I’ve really tried, but … well, there’s no easy way to tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’
He shrinks, closing his eyes, as if he’s expecting a bomb to go off. ‘The house is going to have to go. I’ve got to repay the loan. It’s the only way.’
There’s a moment of silence, but it resonates like the aftermath of a bell being struck.
‘Go?’ Maddy asks, not quite understanding.
‘I put some … there was some legal clauses in the loan I took out and I used the house as collateral—’
‘You said that it was nothing. Just a formality. That there was no risk,’ she reminds him, her mind laser sharp now as she remembers him cajoling her into signing some papers two years ago, over a candlelit dinner. ‘You said …?’ She walks away, her palm on her forehead. She feels dizzy at the bombshell he’s just dropped. ‘Jesus!’
‘Maybe sit down—’
‘I don’t want to sit down,’ she screams at him. ‘You’ve fucking lost our house?’ She wants to throw something at him. She wants to hurt him. ‘After everything …’ The tears of outrage spring now and choke her.
‘Maddy,’ he says. ‘Maddy, please—’
‘I won’t let you,’ she snaps, cutting him off. She doesn’t want his pity. ‘I’ll find a lawyer and …’
Trent shakes his head and picks up the papers in front of him. ‘It won’t work. You signed these. We both did. I didn’t think—’
‘No, you didn’t think.’ She cries out now, an agonising, seething wail that seems to come from the pit of her stomach.
‘Being hysterical won’t help,’ Trent says. His shoulders slump and he mutters, ‘I knew you’d be like this.’
Even though she hates him in this moment, he’s right – being hysterical won’t help – but, even so, she feels better for screaming. She watches him, his head bowed like a little boy.
She forces herself to change tack. ‘OK, then explain.’
‘Explain?’
‘Yes, all of it. Explain it to me. Explain why we’re in this mess.’ She sits down opposite him at the counter. ‘Don’t leave anything out,’ she warns him. ‘Anything at all. I want the truth for once, Trent. All of it.’
She listens, shaking in stunned silence as he begins to tell her the debacle of the business deal that went wrong and, as much as she tries not to, Maddy can’t help being staggered at the series of thoughtless blunders that have led to this moment. She wants to know why Trent hasn’t told her, but, as he describes trying to shore things up in the background and to stop her finding out the truth, she suddenly understands what a toll having her Instagram ambitions tied up with the house must have taken on Trent. No wonder he couldn’t say anything, when she was spending all day bragging online about her perfect home. As his voice wobbles, she realises what a terribly big secret he’s been carrying around with him. As angry as she is, can she really blame him for it causing such a rift? They used to talk about everything, but, looking back, she realises that those conversations stopped long ago. Why hadn’t she noticed that he wasn’t sharing anything with her? Why hadn’t she questioned him more?
Because she’d been looking at her phone. That’s why. Because she hadn’t wanted to know that everything might not be perfect. She’d let herself believe that everything would be all right. That she was safe in the fortress of her home.
But that’s clearly all bullshit and now her mind is scrambling ahead, trying to find a solution, a way out, but when she studies her signature on the legal papers and the various letters from the lawyers, she can see that Trent is right. They have to repay their colossal loan. The only way to do it is to sell. And, as much as she knows she’s a little bit culpable in the whole disaster, it still feels like she’s been stabbed in the guts.
‘Jesus, Trent. I can’t … I just can’t believe it.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s not my fault. There’s been a pandemic and—’ She stares at him, aghast. How can he blame outside forces when this is absolutely his fault?
‘Are you not even sorry?’
‘God!’ Trent explodes. ‘How many times do I have to say it?’
‘Once,’ she shouts back. ‘Once would be nice.’
‘I’ve been doing nothing else but saying sorry to you for the past twenty years,’ he rails. ‘I’ve never been good enough for you. Never enough.’
This feels horribly close to the bone. They haven’t ever really had the vocabulary to talk about their relationship. At the beginning, when they were young, they used to talk about ‘them’ as an interesting subject, checking in with each other’s feelings, making sure they were on the same page. But then they got married and they stopped having any kind of conversation about their relationship. She just assumed everything was OK. But she’d been kidding herself. Everything was not OK. Especially if he’s been feeling like this.
‘That’s not true,’ she says, because it isn’t. Of course it isn’t.
‘Yes, it bloody is.’ His voice really cracks now and she can see tears in his blazing eyes. She’s only seen Trent cry once, at his mum’s funeral, and she’s startled by this show of emotion.
He growls with frustration, embarrassed. He wipes his face and composes himself, the barrier suddenly drawn up, this brief glimpse into his inner psyche back behind steel doors. He steps away from her, his face making it completely apparent that the subject is closed. The tense silence between them stretches and she imagines all the conversations stalled and trapped in it.
‘I’ve got a valuation happening on Wednesday. Then it’ll go on the market by the end of the week.’
Her house is being sold by the end of the week?
‘The estate agent says he’ll get a good price. He’s juicing up some cash buyers from London. A place like this will shift straight away. The market’s boiling hot. If it was ever a good time to sell, it’s now.’
It’s typical of him to try and put a positive spin on this.
‘You can’t ice a turd, Trent,’ she snaps, firing a phrase that Jamie used to say back at him.
They both realise the significance straight away. Of the ghost of their son being in this moment.
‘And then what?’ Maddy asks, her voice husky. Her chest feels tight with an emotion she can’t name. It’s too raw. Too new. ‘We’ll be homeless. Homeless.’
‘This isn’t exactly a home, though, is it?’ he says, his eyes boring into hers. ‘It’s just your backdrop.’
He says it in such a sneery, nasty way, she thinks he must have felt like this all along. He’s made noises about supporting her, but he’s been resenting her this whole time. This beautiful home. That he’s had the benefit of living in.
‘That’s mean.’
‘But true. You just posted away to impress your friends.’
‘The friends you shagged,’ she snaps back.
‘Oh, here we go,’ he says, throwing up his arm. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to bring that up.’
‘That? Your affair with Helen, you mean? Your ongoing affair? I saw her, you know.’
‘She said.’
‘So it’s still a thing? You two? You’re together?’
He shrugs. ‘At least Helen likes me,’ he says.
Maddy stares at him, her eyes filling with tears. Because with this irrefutable truth, he’s won the argument.