November
Angela stopped the car at the bottom of the track that led up to the farm. She closed her eyes and let out a long, weary breath. She sighed a lot these days, mostly when she was trying to calm herself, and especially when she was returning to the farm. There was nothing rude about her sighs, unlike her mother-in-law, who since the death of Ed’s father had mastered the art of speaking without words. Clever, she thought, all the woman had to do was put her scrawny hands either side of her plate, close her eyes briefly, and let out the foul air for a deliberate length of time. It was just enough to give her son the impression she was tired and full after the meal; almost like a reminder to him to devote his time to her rather than his wife or himself. To Angela’s ears, it was scalding criticism, directed at her and most likely at her cooking, or something she’d said, or not done in the ‘right’ way. Oversensitive and exhausted from holding back, she knew it was only a matter of time before the tiniest thing would trigger a flood of emotion that quite possibly might drown them all.
Later, as she cleared away the evening meal, she could hear the TV blaring from the front room, where they typically spent their evenings. Usually the sound irritated her further, but tonight her mind was still down at the lake with Holly and Stevie. Those women only sighed in mock anger when she said something silly or naive. She remembered her attempt at a joke about the colour of swim trunks. Poor Holly. Imagine feeling suspicious about your husband; you wouldn’t be able to believe anything he said after a while. Ed couldn’t hide his emotions, so she doubted he’d be able to keep an affair a secret for very long – certainly not from his mother!
They still didn’t have a dishwasher, even though she’d once ordered one from the Internet. When it was delivered, Ed had refused to sign for it, so the delivery guys had taken it away. He said they didn’t need one. Angela suspected it was more likely that his mother, who was too mean to spend any money, had been behind it.
Angela’s mouth set grimly. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Ed had had a laugh together. She knew farming wasn’t the easiest of professions, or lifestyles, but there were fun moments to be had if you shared the work, dealt with the ups and downs together, and took everything in your stride. The paperwork got her down, but now that she dealt with most of that, it offered her an escape from her mother-in-law’s post-tea grunts in the permanently fetid atmosphere of the front room. Ed’s father’s gruff but gentle presence was sorely missed. It would have cut through the wall of silence that had fallen on the family; the trauma of his violent death had changed everyone.
She heard someone come into the kitchen, but didn’t turn away from the drying rack where she was sorting out Ed’s socks, rolling them into matching pairs. She felt strong hands grip either side of her waist and pull her gently back until she met the large warm body of her husband. He wrapped his arms around her and held her, nuzzling gently into her neck. It felt safe and good. And made her want to cry.
‘Ed—’ she started to speak, but his nuzzling had got more persistent, less loving, and his hold around her felt restrictive. One of his hands had moved down to her crotch and he was pulling her hips back and bending her slightly over. She could feel he was hard and pressing himself into her. And then he let her go. This was as far as it went these days, what their love had become. He was frustrated because he wanted her and didn’t understand why she pulled away all the time. She needed him and loved him, but just didn’t feel any sexual urge whatsoever. And they didn’t talk about it, but left the subject to grow like a barrier between them. She saw him readjust his trousers and look up at her sheepishly, almost apologetically.
‘Ed?’ she tried again. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ Come on, be strong, she told herself. Look at him, he’s suffering. You both are. He loves you. He’ll listen.
‘Angie, love,’ he said, ‘what’s wrong?’ His hugs were always comforting, but this time it was not enough. She knew that if they continued to ignore their lack of physical intimacy because it felt reassuring just to hug each other and too scary to open the can of worms that was festering within, nothing would change.
She virtually forced herself to start trying to explain, to open up a conversation about how she was feeling, how she’d been feeling for months now. Each day, her inability to think clearly and focus on tasks grew worse and her anxiety levels shot higher. She found herself reflecting more and more on her darkest moments, which she thought she had buried forever. She really was beginning to feel overwhelmed by it all.
‘Here, sit down, I’ll make a pot of tea and we can talk.’
‘Right-o, let’s do that. Mother’s got her telly, so you and me can have a chat.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down, arms folded across his chest, legs stretched out into the kitchen.
Angela sorted out the big brown teapot, two mugs, and sugar bowl. Then she sat down herself, bolt upright, legs tucked under her chair, and busied herself with pouring the tea.
‘Go on, then, what’ve I done? Get it off your chest. You’ve obviously got things on your mind.’
‘Well, you know I’ve been having trouble sleeping – too hot, not wanting to be, you know, physically close, well, I think it’s the start of the menopause.’ There. She’d said the word. The one that was forbidden in this house even though there was another woman present.
‘Women’s troubles, Mother calls it,’ responded Ed. He helped himself to sugar and stirred it into his tea vigorously. He picked up his mug. ‘Ahh, that’s good. The first sip is always the best.’
Angela’s temper flared and she banged her hand down on the table. ‘Never mind what your mother thinks, Ed, this is me. I want to talk with you about it, how it makes me feel, why everything feels so difficult all the time. And there’s something else I need to tell you, something really serious—’ Her words trailed off as she saw Ed’s mother standing in the doorway. She must have heard everything. Angela winced.
‘Go on, tell me, love,’ encouraged Ed.
‘Son!’
Ed jumped and spilt his tea over his lap. Ouch, that must have hurt! thought Angela as she watched this grown man turn into a guilty boy, caught by his mother doing something naughty and forbidden.
‘Mother.’ He used a tea towel to wipe down the worst of the tea. ‘Angela and I were having a chat. I’ll be through in a minute.’
‘I heard. Load of nonsense. Forty-two is far too young! And, anyway, if it were true, you’d just have to get on with it, Angela. I never had any problem. It’s a fact of life; no one wants to know about it. Ed, I need you to fix the telly, it’s gone again.’ She turned and walked slowly back down the hallway towards the front room, but Ed didn’t follow immediately.
He turned back to his wife, who still sat at the table, her face white, her eyes staring right through him to the woman who did everything she could to control their lives.
‘Don’t be hard on her, love.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘She’s not been the same since Father passed.’ He paused and closed his eyes as if trying to compose his own thoughts. Pushing his dinner plate-sized hands down on the kitchen table and pushing himself up from his chair signalled the end of that conversation, Angela realised. As always, something, or someone, got in the way of them having a real conversation these days.
‘I’m sure she’s right, though. Everything will sort itself out, you’ll see.’ He kissed her gently on top of her head and followed his mother down the hallway.
Angela could hardly breathe. Her chest was tight, her neck taut, her fists clenched. The back of her neck ached and she was grinding her teeth. But the tears wouldn’t come. It was true that grief changed people. She’d changed when her mother died a few years ago; she’d allowed herself to be swallowed up by Ed, his family, and the farm, and now it was all she had left. The outside world meant nothing to her with the last of her own family gone.
Stunned by the woman’s words and total lack of empathy, Angela sat on that hard wooden chair until her bones felt cold and her knuckles had lost all colour. The inside of her cheek was bleeding from where she had been vigorously gnawing it. Her head pounded and her throat was dry.
What was there left to say? What was there left to stay here for? Would Holly or Stevie let her move in with them? They were the only flash of colour in her monotone world, like a lakebed jewel glinting in the shivelight. She dived down to reach for it in the silt, feeling her body pulsing strongly through the water. A mermaid’s long auburn hair and bubbles of human breath trailing behind her in the green-blue depths.
She felt herself stand up, push back the chair, walk from the kitchen and down the long, cold, stone-floored passageway towards the front room. She stopped at the dark stained doorframe to the sitting room and forced her fingernails into the palms of her hands as she scrunched them up into angry fists. She opened her mouth, but instead of the pent-up words she’d been trying to suppress, out came a simple, honest fact. ‘I go swimming in the lake.’ And then, just in case they hadn’t heard it, she repeated it. ‘I swim in the lake with my friends.’
Two shocked faces turned to stare at her.
‘Yes, that’s right. With friends. Several times a week. It makes me feel good,’ she continued.
Nothing could have stopped her, but almost as soon as she’d said it, she regretted it. Her beautiful sanctuary of friendship and nature was now lying exposed and vulnerable on the grim-patterned carpet of this fart-filled over-lit chamber of grief.
If she could have morphed into a tiny spider and scuttled away into a dusty corner, Angela would’ve gladly done so, but her feet were rooted to the hideous swirls and lines of fake Persia and her trembling hands were the only things that held her upright in the slightly sticky and grimy architrave between escape and death by stony silence.
‘It’s okay, Mother,’ said Ed, gently patting his mother’s knees as he stood up. Angela noticed that the old woman tried and failed to grab at his huge hand with her own frail, claw-like one before crumpling down into her own body like a paper bag that was no longer needed. Then Angela’s eyes flickered to Ed, who appeared to loom over both women. She’d never seen him look so massive and angry before. Silence held them all, like three stone statues.
Who would speak first? Ed or Angela? The wounded or the knife-bearer? Angela wasn’t sure who was who anymore. She frowned, and from somewhere deep within her body, she felt a bizarre rush of energy over which she had no control. It released her from her state of uncertainty and she heard her own slow but steady words stride into the room.
‘When I am in the water, nothing else matters. For those brief moments, I am ageless and fearless, capable of being the best I can be.’ Her voice grew stronger, which seemed to be having an effect on her mother-in-law, who withdrew even further from them both as if she was scared or maybe had even finally realised that this was a conversation between her son and his wife. Angela took one, two, three steps towards her husband and then she spoke again, this time in a quieter, more intimate tone.
‘Ed, my love.’
He tensed up again, so she took another step towards him.
‘I need you to hear me out. The two women I swim with are my friends. We look after each other and help each other. I need to do this thing with them because it will make me more able to help you and your mother here on the farm. But I would like your blessing, so that I don’t have to hide it anymore.’
This time, Ed’s stance seemed a little less defensive and Angela dared to walk near enough to be able to reach out and take both his hands in hers. Without casting a glance anywhere else in the room, Angela placed his hands on her hips and encouraged him to pull her body towards him. It was an awkward moment, but something within her spirit needed physical contact to melt the cold distance between them.
He didn’t respond, so she put both her hands up on his shoulders and pushed her hips towards his at the same time as sliding one hand up to the back of his head. A yearning to be enfolded within his arms compelled her to act as if they were the only two people in the room, naked and ready to gorge on each other. Her rational self shook its head and shouted, What on earth do you think you are doing? And the woman who bathed like a selkie in the cold waters of the lake felt her husband’s body beginning to respond to the connection she was creating. Love wasn’t dead, but it had been crushed beneath grief and jealousy. She felt it stir and for the time being that was all she needed to know.
As Ed clamped her in his arms, she felt his body shake as painful groans rose up and out of his belly and chest. He’d kept it all locked in so that he could focus on his mother and the farm, but instead of giving him the strength to step into his father’s boots, it had been a barrier to love and healing.
‘You can’t swim, Angela. I won’t permit it.’ His words felt like needles jabbing into the back of her neck. She pulled away from him as if she’d received an electric shock. Words crashed through her head, but even as she tried to form them in her mouth, he’d already pushed her away and was walking back towards his mother, who wore a flicker of a smile across her tight lips.