Our House(89)

After breakfast, I suggested Leo and Harry pick their three favourite things to take to Grandma’s. ‘I’ll bring them after school with your pyjamas and a change of clothes for your day off tomorrow.’

Though it was an irregular request, they rose to the challenge, not noticing their father watching dismally from the door.

‘I need more than three,’ Leo complained.

‘I’ve only got two,’ Harry said.

So I said Leo could have Harry’s extra one, Harry protested that he’d use his selections after all, Leo called him a selfish pig and I brought a halt to the argument by proposing we leave for school immediately and call into the bakery on the Parade for chocolate croissants.

Just ignore how bleak and depraved and heartbroken you feel, I urged myself.

It’s not real.

*

A passionate devotee of decluttering, Fi had purged the house regularly over the years, but it was still a gargantuan job to pack and remove our possessions. Even with two professionals to help me, it took all day to relocate the furniture to the short-term storage unit in Beckenham and to box up and deliver to the flat all our clothes and personal items.

It was raining, of course, as if the gods were sobbing in protest at my wickedness – either that or they were helping keep the neighbours at bay. Very few came out into the downpour to ask what was happening and those who did swallowed my cover story with half an eye on their own dry hallways.

Only an early-afternoon encounter with Alison taxed my nerves to any dangerous extent.

‘Not at work?’ I asked her, concealing my horror at her approach. Rocky was by her side – she’d just been walking him judging by her rain-slicked mac and wellies – and rather than tug her towards her door he settled obediently between us as if for the long haul.

‘I only work Monday to Wednesday, remember?’ she said. ‘Or at least I only get paid for those days.’

Of course. She sometimes picked up the boys for us on Thursdays, Fi returning the favour on Fridays.

‘What on earth’s going on here then? You skipping town or something?’

I gulped. ‘I’m doing some decorating.’

‘Decorating? Does Fi know about this?’

I petted Rocky’s damp ears, praying I didn’t look half as stricken as I felt. ‘No, that’s the point. I’m surprising her.’

‘Looks like a serious job,’ Alison said, peering past her dripping hood to my removals van. ‘Why do you need to move stuff out?’

‘Because I’m doing the whole thing at once, we can’t move it from room to room.’

‘Can’t you just pile it in the middle of the rooms and cover it with sheets? That’s what we always do. Where’s it going?’

‘Just to a storage unit on the other side of Beckenham.’

‘Wow. This is quite an operation. When’s Fi back from Winchester?’

‘Late tomorrow night, but not back at the house until Saturday morning. It’s a very tight schedule.’

She narrowed her eyes, twisted her mouth to one side. ‘It’s not tight, Bram, it’s impossible. Something on this scale takes weeks. How have you chosen the colours without her input? You’ve gone for rich blues and greens, I hope? None of those greigy mushrooms?’

Was it normal to keep answering questions like this or would it be more natural to call her out on the interrogation? ‘Alison, you’d have been great in the Gestapo, has anyone ever told you that?’

She laughed. ‘Sorry. I’d like to think Fi would be on Rog’s case if he pulled a stunt like this.’

If she had any idea what a stunt it was!

‘She’s been wanting to redecorate for ages,’ I said, ‘as I’m sure you know, and an old colleague of mine is starting a new business, giving me a great rate. He’s inside now with his team, cracking on.’

At this show of enthusiasm, a trace of indulgence crossed her face and she put a damp-gloved hand on my arm. She thought I was trying to win Fi back, had heard about Christmas, perhaps. ‘Bram, I hope this isn’t out of line, but you do know she’s away with someone else right now?’

‘I do. M—’ I caught myself. ‘Toby. Have you met him?’

‘Not yet. I think she’s waiting . . .’ Tact prevented her from continuing, but she needn’t have worried. Waiting till she’s sure it’s serious, I thought.

That would be never then, because after tomorrow Casanova would be gone and the pain of a break-up would be lost in the horror of dealing with the loss of her home, the mystery of her children’s father’s disappearance.

‘I’ll let you get out of the rain. You want me to pick up Leo and Harry for you later?’ Alison offered.

‘Thanks, but I’m good. I’m taking them to my mum’s actually, it’s a bit chaotic here.’ I didn’t mention that I was keeping them off school the next day. The mothers of Trinity Avenue viewed a missed day of primary school as damaging to their offspring’s Oxbridge prospects.

‘Well, good luck. I hope it works,’ Alison said.

I had the (perhaps mistaken) sense that by ‘it’ she meant something more than my decorating project and I indulged in a momentary fantasy of how things might have developed in a parallel narrative. There were people like her and my mother, and maybe Fi’s parents too, who would have supported a reunion – or at least not actively opposed it. If I’d kept my head down and waited it out, if I’d shown Fi I could change . . .