Our House(60)

(If that sounds smug and entitled, then just remember why I’m here talking to you now. There are no millions in my bank account, I can assure you.)

‘Was that an estate agent I saw at your place the other day?’ Kirsty asked me.

‘No, you must mean the Reeces’,’ I said. ‘I think they’ve changed agents.’

‘Theirs has been on the market for a while, hasn’t it?’ Alison said. ‘I wonder what the problem is?’

‘Sophie Reece told me they’ve turned down three low offers,’ Merle said. ‘They’re holding out for two point three.’

‘Where are they going, Sophie and Martin?’

‘Just to the other side of the park,’ I said. ‘A garden flat. They want to downsize.’

‘Downsize’ had to be one of the most feared words in the Alder Rise lexicon, associated as it was with divorce, empty-nesting, financial hardship – perhaps all three at once.

‘It will happen to us all sooner or later,’ Merle said, ‘and from what I’ve seen, when it’s time, you don’t fight it.’

She might have been talking about death.

‘Well, I can’t accept that,’ Alison said.

‘Funny, but I can. That must make me more middle-aged than you.’

Of course, Merle looked good enough to be able to make these remarks without a smidgen of self-doubt. Once upon a time, I might have had doubts enough for the two of us, but these days, what with my Pilates and the general overhaul involved when sleeping with someone new, it was different.

‘I agree with Merle. I dream of downsizing,’ Kirsty said. ‘Or at least my house with less stuff in it.’

‘Maybe that’s why you were the one who got burgled,’ Alison laughed. ‘They sensed your inner minimalist.’

‘Well, they won’t dare do it again, not with the nice yellow neighbourhood police signs up everywhere,’ Merle said. ‘They’re definitely working because there hasn’t been anything since.’

‘Fi’s car,’ Alison reminded her. ‘How long ago was that now?’

‘Almost a month,’ I complained. ‘We’re still waiting for the claim to be processed.’

‘The words “blood” and “stone” spring to mind,’ Kirsty said. ‘I told you we got nothing, didn’t I?’

‘And Carys said her son is still in dispute with the bank about her fraud,’ Alison said. ‘The police have said the money’s untraceable, so it’s down to whether or not the bank agrees to reimburse her.’

‘Bet they don’t!’

‘It’s almost reached the point where they’re more likely to pay out to the criminals than the victims,’ Alison said. ‘They probably have the unassailable human right not to be made to feel guilty.’

On it went. To the casual ear it was the same-old same-old, the relaxed banter of friends growing steadily tipsy, but I couldn’t help being sensitive to a new hairline fracture between the others and me. I was different now, single – or half single – a woman who had been humiliated and deceived. When they quizzed me about Toby, which they would soon enough, it would be with that vicarious relish that disguised real fear – fear of their own kingdoms crumbling. There but for the grace of God.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that critically. All three have been great friends to me. It’s just that I’m the odd one out and I see now that it was a process that began not when my house was stolen but when my trust in my husband was.

‘So, to get this straight,’ Alison said, ‘we’re not talking about schools, we’re not talking about property, we’re not talking about ageing . . .’

‘What is there left?’ Kirsty giggled. ‘Men?’

Here we go, I thought.

‘More gin?’ Alison’s eye swept the room’s surfaces, a searchlight exposing empty glasses.

In sloshed the rest of the gin. It wouldn’t be long before the bottles began to amass and we joked about how it might look to a child protection officer stumbling across us. Maybe when the kids were back inside waiting for their supper, occupying themselves as they had one year by lining up the empties and blowing across their tops. Making music out of their mothers’ ruin.

‘So, Fi, give us an update on your traffic expert . . .’

#VictimFi

@alanaP Sounds like she’s as big a boozer as the ex.

@NJBurton @alanaP Wonder what he’s doing back home?

@alanaP @NJBurton Party time in the bird’s nest! Did you notice they joked about kids being murdered?

@NJBurton @alanaP Don’t! The house thing is enough to cope with without someone dying.





Bram, Word document

Survival, however temporary, owed a lot to compartmentalization, and I was becoming adept at sealing every last edge and corner of those compartments. The alternative was to lose my mind, take myself to the psychiatric ward, or to Waterloo Bridge, whichever happened to be closer. Even as Rav arrived with a colleague from Challoner’s to set up for the open day, I was picturing my own body falling, watching its unstoppable trajectory into the river, the greedy swallow of the water. And the spectators to this suicide: did people call for help any more or did they just film death on their phones and tweet it?