Our House(90)

Soaked to the bone by then, I went back inside and arranged for the last contents of her bedroom to be boxed and removed.


‘Fi’s Story’ > 02:44:36

It was a nicely traditional dirty weekend in Winchester, albeit midweek: sex and room service, punctuated by visits to the cathedral and strolls through the old streets with half a mind on Jane Austen and half on each other.

I was tempted to tell Toby about the prescription pills, but I reminded myself that Bram was entitled to his privacy and, in any case, this of all times was not the right one to share with Toby my concerns about the mental health of the man who’d attacked him.

When I spoke to the boys on the Thursday after school, I thought nothing of it when Harry said he had a secret.

‘A good secret or a bad secret?’

‘A good secret. A surprise.’

‘A surprise for Leo?’

‘No, not Leo, you!’

‘I’m intrigued.’

‘Daddy’s—’

‘Don’t tell me!’ I said, laughing, but in any case Bram had cut him off at the other end.

Of course he had. In my naivety, I assumed it was some sort of ‘Welcome home’ cake – Bram was surprisingly willing to supervise baking – probably with blue icing and Maltesers, or failing that a portrait one of them had done of me at school, all sausage fingers and ears down by my shoulders.

I imagined the swearing of secrecy as a lesson in trust, not an abuse of it.


Bram, Word document

Even for those who aren’t preparing to abandon their family to the wolves, there is a particular bittersweetness to the act of picking up your children from school.

I discussed it with Fi once and she said that not only did she know the feeling but she felt it even more keenly than I did (she always said this: it wasn’t that mothers had the monopoly on parental devotion, they just felt it more keenly). She said it’s because small children are so unconditionally happy to see you at the school gate and yet you know, even as they’re bowling into your arms and nuzzling for treats, that one day, maybe not this year or the next but definitely sooner than you’d like, they will be embarrassed to see you there, or angry, or even fearful, because why would you come when you’ve been expressly forbidden unless there’s bad news of one form or another?

She said, at least it wasn’t an abrupt or vicious blow, but an incremental detachment: every day they need you less until the moment when they don’t need you at all.

If only Mike had come along later rather than sooner. If only he’d come when my sons no longer needed me, when saying goodbye was not the worst crime of all.

On our way to my mother’s on the bus, I took a photo of them together and then a second with me between them. Though I’d be destroying the SIM, I planned to keep my phone for music and the small depository of images of the boys. As I took the picture, cajoling Harry into the smile that Leo delivered obediently, I was aware of a young woman watching us from across the aisle, thinking, no doubt, I hope I get a husband like that, a great father.

Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart.

I couldn’t stay at Mum’s long because I was meeting cleaners at the house at 6 p.m. Believing they would see me soon enough, the boys tried to dash off, groaning when I reeled them back for a last hug.

‘Come here. Before you go in, I want to tell you something.’

They waited, only half-listening.

‘I love you and I will for ever. Never forget that, okay?’

Then I kissed them in turn.

They were puzzled, distracted, though the word ‘forget’ sparked an association in Harry, at least: ‘Dad, I forgot to bring my spelling book! I have to learn two from my list every night without fail.’

I kissed him again. ‘I’ll find it for you and you can catch up at the weekend, okay? And if you can’t, just say you’re sorry and tell Mrs Carver it’s my fault.’

I could tell he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t want to get me in trouble.

‘Can we go?’ Leo said, hearing his grandmother open the biscuit tin in the kitchen. And then she was there in the hallway with us, the open tin angled towards them, and they turned from me and I mouthed my last goodbye and closed the door and that was it.

The last time I saw my sons.

As I travelled back to Alder Rise, my brain wouldn’t allow itself to process what this actually was. To do so would be to render myself incapable of fulfilling the rest of the duties before me.

I had planned to sleep at the flat, but in the event I stayed in the empty house, a sleeping bag spread out on the carpet in Leo’s room. I felt an irrational compulsion to guard it from intruders, though of course none were coming – at least not until the next day, when the legally sanctioned ones would be here. (They would meet their own share of agony these next days and weeks, I suspected. I understood about ripple effects, even if I had no emotion to spare for the outer rings of my own.)

There was no satisfaction to be had from touring the denuded rooms, no avoidance of the reality of my asset stripping. If anything, staying overnight was a punishment; maybe I hoped I’d die of a broken heart in that sleeping bag on the floor.

Enough wallowing.

At ten, I phoned my mother to check that the boys were in bed.

‘You’ve just missed them,’ she said. ‘I let them stay up late because they don’t have to get up for school in the morning, but they’re asleep now.’