The End of Men(72)
“So, you abandoned me, leaving me to single-handedly parent our daughters. It’s a good thing I didn’t fuck off when I got bored the same way you did, huh? Otherwise we’d have three orphans.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s far nicer than you deserve. Hang on, what have you been doing for the past three years?”
“After I left, I went up to the Highlands.”
“Of Scotland? During the Plague, you went to the one country on earth with more of the disease than England? You went to the Highlands to try and get yourself killed?”
He gets a bit defensive at that. “You’re making it sound stupid. It was a dream of mine for a long time.”
“To do what, look at some sheep on a hill?”
“No, I, you know, hiked about a bit. After a few months staying in a deserted hotel I traveled all the way down to London and lived there for nearly a year doing manual labor to make enough money for a hostel and food.”
“But why didn’t you come home? You preferred living in a hostel doing manual labor to being home?”
A remarkable list of excuses follows. He was scared we wouldn’t want him, he was still scared he’d catch it, he thought the girls would have forgotten him.
“After London, I went to the Southwest of England, lived by the beach in Devon and learned how to surf.” That, at least, I will accept is better than being an estate agent and doing the washing up.
“So, it took you how long to actually do something exciting with your fucking freedom?”
He rolls his eyes. “I went to Devon fourteen months after I left.”
“And why have you crawled back now?”
At that, he just looks at me with this expression of total incomprehension. “I missed all of you.”
He doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get the half of it.
“Can I see the girls now?” he asks plaintively, after my silence has clearly unnerved him. I call the girls down and they come in, silent and somber. A look of panic is starting to make its way across Sean’s face. I suspect he was hoping I’d fall into his loving arms and we’d announce to the girls that our family was complete once more and the girls would cry with relief that he’s alive, blah blah blah. It doesn’t work like that anymore.
Abi is clearly furious; she just glares at him. Hannah looks like she wants the ground to swallow her up; she’s never liked confrontation. Lola is the only one throwing him a bone, and it’s a small, knobbly one at that. A small smile but nothing more.
“I’ll give you all a minute,” I say if only to get out and get some fresh air. God, I wish we could grow tobacco in England, I miss smoking like a limb right now. Even without a fag, a few minutes outside clears my head a bit. The shock and anger were making my thoughts repeat themselves, going around in loops.
When I go back into the kitchen, the four of them are all sitting awkwardly around the table. Abi is furiously gnawing on one of her nails, which I would normally tell her off for but whatever gets her through this emotional whirlwind today is fine by me.
“We need time to process this,” Hannah says eventually in the calm, authoritative tone that she so rarely uses and that has all the more power for its rarity. “I think you should go and stay somewhere else and come back tomorrow.”
Sean looks like she’s slapped him. He looks at the others, clearly hoping that someone, anyone, will beg him to stay. Silence rings around the room. He looks devastated, but what did he expect? A hero’s welcome is what. The men that are left—no, that’s not fair—some of the men that are left have this weird complex. Just because they’re one of the “chosen few” they think they’re gods. You see so few men about that they’ve mistaken shock for awe, when they see women’s expressions. But they’re not better just because there’s fewer of them. We’re all human, man or woman, and just because some quirk of genetics or luck meant you were immune or survived, it doesn’t make you any better. Sean’s going to have to learn that, and fast.
The next day, he slopes back to the house. The girls are at school and I have a day off. I realize, belatedly, that if I didn’t, he would have arrived at an empty house. It didn’t occur to me to tell him my schedule. I just don’t think about him anymore.
“So, yesterday was challenging,” he says over a cup of hot water and berry squash I’ve grudgingly handed over.
“What did you expect, Sean? You left us. You left me. You left them.”
He exhales heavily. “I’m their dad. I’m your husband—”
I can’t help but interrupt. “Actually, I got a death certificate for you a few months ago on the basis you were dead, so no. You’re not my husband. Technically, I’m a widow. We’ll probably have to do some paperwork to change it so that we’re divorced instead, seeing as you’re alive and all.”
“I suppose that answers the question I was going to ask then, about us. About the future.”
“Sean, I will never forgive you for what you did.”
“Helen,” he says with this expression of disappointment that makes me want to throttle him until he goes blue, as though I’m the one who has been a disappointment here.
“No, no, no, Sean. You don’t get it. I don’t love you anymore, I don’t need you anymore. The Plague put things into perspective for different people in different ways. It made you think your life was a cage to be escaped, and congratulations. You’ve got more freedom than you had anticipated. I hope you fucking enjoy it.”