Our House(11)

7


‘Fi’s Story’ > 00:24:56

It was a strange separation initially, five weeks of limbo over late July and the entirety of August. Of course, given half the chance I would live it again and again, appreciate it for the mildly disruptive interlude it was, but at the time it felt like a bleak stretch to be endured.

No, I don’t mean the practical impact of our being apart. Though I worked in central London, a forty-five-minute commute that could take twice that on a bad day, and the school holidays added their usual complications, I had arrangements in place for that. My mother helped and there were friends on the street with whom I traded childcare.

No, I mean emotionally. My aim was to break even, to stay sane.

Bram was staying at his mother’s in Penge, awaiting my next move, his absence temporarily glossed over as far as the boys were concerned. ‘He’s away for work,’ I’d say. ‘We’ll see him on Saturday.’ When his Saturday visit arrived, it would extend to past bedtime and the boys wouldn’t know he’d left. In the morning, I’d say he’d had to get up early to go to the office. It helped that they were too busy cracking each other over the head with cereal bowls to question the deception, but, still, it wasn’t a sustainable tactic long-term.

We cancelled the family holiday to the Algarve and stayed in Alder Rise, upon which the whole city seemed to have descended. Thanks partly to a feature in the property section of the Standard, couples clustered around estate agents’ windows to see what the damage was for a one-bed, a terrace, a status family four-bedder like the ones on Trinity Avenue. They rarely come up, the agents would say, though there was a rumour the Reeces at number 97 had just had a valuation.

It was virtually impossible to park on the upper section of Trinity Avenue and I often forgot where I’d left the car.

‘This is the price we pay for our houses being worth so much,’ Alison said. ‘To complain would be unseemly.’

(‘Unseemly’ was a very Alison word.)

She was the first to visit when I let it be known that Bram had moved out. She came over with those stiff lollipop hydrangeas that dry so nicely. They’re hugely expensive – in Alder Rise you can only get them from the posh florists on the Parade.

‘Oh Fi,’ she said, hugging me. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘There’s nothing to say,’ I said.

Her sea-green eyes watered when she laughed – she was always wiping away smudges of make-up – but it was less usual to see them shine in sorrow as they did then. ‘Just tell me, do we have to choose between you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘No elaborate plan for revenge, then? Or even a basic one?’

‘Not every story has to be about revenge,’ I said.

‘True. But most of them are.’

Okay, I admit there’ve been times when I’ve fantasized about Bram meeting his match, a woman who would run roughshod over him – albeit in a fashion that had no impact whatsoever on the wellbeing of the boys – but I’ve never come close to seeking direct retribution. I suppose I of all people knew he was his own worst enemy, a man with a self-destructive streak. If I waited long enough he would take revenge on himself.

‘You know, I remember seeing an old interview with George Harrison,’ I told Alison. ‘It was after his wife had left him for Eric Clapton and you’d be expecting him to be spitting feathers, but he was so calm and philosophical. He said he’d rather she was with a friend of his than with any old Tom, Dick or Harry.’

She considered this. ‘He was probably stoned, Fi.’

I made the little exhalation through my nose that passed for laughter during this unfunny time. ‘My point is I’ve released him. We’ve released each other. What I want now is to put the boys first and find a way to live in perfect harmony. Like that old Paul McCartney song.’

‘You mean “Ebony and Ivory”?’ Her eyes widened. She feared I’d been bodysnatched by a Stepford wife with a Beatles fixation. ‘Well, I’m not sure there are too many precedents for that in the history of marital breakdowns, but if anyone can do it, you can.’

Like my parents, Alison had always adored Bram, seeming to understand instinctively that in spite of his drinking and his lies, the exhausting, cliffhanger nature of being with him, there was a goodness at his heart.

‘You’re staying in the house?’ she asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Good. That’s the most important thing.’

There were three hydrangeas, one for each of us remaining Lawsons, though I don’t think that had occurred to Alison when she bought them. She’d bought them because interior designers said you should always arrange things in threes. It was the rule of asymmetry, the same rule that made Merle dither constantly about having another child. Her existing duo neither matched nor contrasted. (‘There’s always the risk of a third,’ her husband Adrian said once, and I remembered it for the tone, as if he were talking about a world war, his borders to be defended by Trident.)

‘Just so you know,’ Alison said, as she left, ‘I would have chosen you.’

*

I’m sorry, do I sound a little too humorous? Was I not furious with the bastard? Of course I was. I despised him in a way you can only despise someone you deeply love. But I couldn’t bear to let him make me weak. It took strength to keep a lid on my anger, to put it on ice the way I did, and I was proud of that strength.