The Couple at No. 9(18)

At the hospital he’d looked broken. Diminished and old. What am I going to do? he’d said over and over again, his face grey. What am I going to do now?

Theo never went back to finish his medical degree. Instead, for the remainder of that academic year he stayed with his dad in the ugly mansion he’s always hated and tried to find memories of his mother in its every corner. But all he could see when he closed his eyes at night was the image of her falling down that fucking elaborate oak staircase, then lying crumpled and broken at the bottom. She’d been there all day, apparently, until his father came home from work and found her. His dad said she’d died instantly, but to this day Theo doesn’t know whether to believe it. He still tortures himself that she lay there, on that beeswaxed parquet, in pain and unable to move to get to a phone for help. She’d died while Theo was busy shagging his first girlfriend in his cramped room in a shared student house in York. That September he changed his course to catering and hospitality, much to the derision of his dad. But he knew his mum would have been happy for him, would have told him life’s too short.

The cemetery is quiet but Theo still lowers his voice as he talks to his mum. He describes the article he found in his dad’s study two days ago. ‘I think Dad is trying to find someone,’ he says, picking at the grass with his fingers. It feels like straw. He’s been unable to stop thinking about it. He’d memorized the two names from the paper. Saffron Cutler and Rose Grey. Find Her. But which one and why?

For the years after his mother died his dad has remained an enigma to Theo, hiding part of himself, refusing to talk about anything important. In those months after her death the two of them had rattled around in that house and he’d thought, naively he realizes now, that they could provide comfort to each other. Maybe even become closer. But instead, after that first night at the hospital and his dad’s rare outpouring of emotion, there had been nothing. Just silence. His dad had gone back to work after the funeral, leaving Theo to wallow in loneliness and grief.

He knew his parents’ marriage had been far from perfect. Looking back now, he can see his dad was possessive. The way he demanded his mum change her outfit if he thought she was wearing something ‘too tarty’ as he put it. Theo had never thought his mum looked tarty. Jen would, quite rightly, slap Theo’s face if he ever said anything like that to her. He smiles at the thought of his feisty wife. His little firebomb. But his mum would just sigh good-naturedly, then go and change into something more nun-like to please her husband. She very rarely went anywhere with friends – in fact, he can’t remember her having any female friends. His parents would go out to dinner with other couples – older couples from his dad’s work – stuffy galas and dinner parties. But his mum never went far without his dad.

What she did in the house all day while his dad was at work he doesn’t know, but she never had a job. Once, when he was about sixteen, he came home from school early to find her crying at her dressing-table. Her eyes were all puffy and he was sure he saw an angry bruise on her shoulder that she hurriedly covered with a cardigan when he walked into her bedroom. When he asked if she was okay she’d said, in a rare moment of honesty, ‘I feel like a prisoner.’ And then she’d given him a watery smile and told him she was just being silly, that it was hormones and to ignore her. But it had left Theo with an uneasy feeling for days. He’d watched his parents more closely. They were so unlike how his friends’ parents were with each other. It’s just his way, sweetheart. Your father is a brilliant man. He works so hard. He just gets a little stressed sometimes. But he never saw his dad raise a hand to her. If he had he would have thumped him.

‘There is so much I wish I could ask you,’ he says now. ‘And I promise, if I’m ever lucky enough to be a dad I won’t be emotionally cut off, like him.’ He stands up and dusts off his jeans. ‘See you next week. Love you, Mum.’

Then he strolls off to find Jen, who is standing by a huge tombstone dating back two hundred years with about ten members of the same family inscribed on it. He comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. ‘All done,’ he says.

‘Shall we go and get a coffee now?’ she says, turning to him. She frowns. ‘What is it? You look … worried.’

‘I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. About Dad. About that article.’ He’d told Jen all about it after his shift that night.

‘Why don’t you just ask him about it?’

‘My dad isn’t like yours.’ His father-in-law is the polar opposite: warm, kind, fun, loving.

‘I know, but if you confront him about this he can’t wriggle out of it. Theo,’ she says softly, ‘you know I love you, but where your dad is concerned, you … I don’t know … pussyfoot around him.’

He laughs. ‘Pussyfoot!’

‘Yes, pussyfoot. It’s like you’re scared of him.’

‘You’ve met my father!’

‘Yes. He’s formidable. I’m not gonna lie.’ His wife is being diplomatic. Even Jen’s effusive and bubbly personality couldn’t win his father over. He’s never told Jen this but after he first brought her home his dad said she was common. It was the only time Theo had stood up to him after his mum’s death. He told him he loved her, and if he ever heard him say or do anything nasty to her he’d never speak to him again. His dad had looked shocked, then muttered something about it not lasting. But here they were, five years later and married for the last three.