Surprise Me(82)

Dan doesn’t want to escape with me. He wants to escape from me. Maybe it was our session in the secret garden that triggered a sudden latent passion for Mary. Maybe this is all really new and exciting for him. Or maybe she’s the latest in a long line of extra-curricular affairs that I’ve been too blind to see. Either way: sixty-eight more years of marriage? Sixty-eight more years of me and Dan together? It’s a joke, a terrible, horrible joke, and I’m not laughing, I’m crying.

For a while I stand motionless, watching dust motes float by. Then I blink and half an hour has gone by, and I really should be getting to work. Not that this is the biggest priority in my life, quite frankly.

Like an automaton, I get my things together, double-check the hob is turned off (OCD) and even leave a jaunty Post-it for Dan with his keys, saying Found them!

Because what else am I going to say? Found them, and found your secret texts to Mary too, you cheating bastard?

As I shut the front door, I see Toby emerging from Tilda’s house in black jeans and a trilby. He’s holding a massive great laundry bag, spilling over with things, and has a magazine in his mouth, like a dog.

‘Toby, can I help you?’ I say.

Toby shakes his head cheerfully and heads down the street, unaware that he’s leaving a trail behind him of Tshirts, underwear and vinyl records.

‘Toby!’ Despite everything, I can’t help smiling. ‘Your stuff! It’s all falling out!’

I gather his things up and follow him along the street to where a white van is parked. He dumps the laundry bag in the back, where I see several more laundry bags, plus a desk, chair and computer.

‘Wow,’ I say in astonishment. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m moving out,’ he says, his eyes gleaming. ‘Mooooo-ving out. Oh yeah.’

‘Oh my God!’ I stare at him. ‘That’s incredible! Where to?’

‘Hackney. My new job’s in Shoreditch, so. Makes sense.’

I gape at him. ‘You’ve got a job?’

‘Job, flat, cat,’ he says in satisfaction. ‘Shared cat,’ he amends. ‘It’s called Treacle. It belongs to Michi.’

‘Michi?’

‘Michiko. My girlfriend.’

Toby has a girlfriend? Since when?

‘Well … congratulations!’ I say, stuffing his pants into the laundry bag and zipping it up. ‘But what about the start-up?’

‘It never did start up,’ says Toby frankly. ‘That was the trouble with it.’

We walk back from the van just as Tilda emerges from her front door and I wave to get her attention. She texted me last night, I suddenly remember, and told me her commute to Andover had finished for now, but I never texted back.

As I get near, I can see that she’s bright pink in the face and has a kind of suppressed energy about her. She’s actually quivering. Which makes sense. She must be so jubilant. At last. At last he’s going! And he has a job! And a girlfriend! No more noise, no more rows, no more midnight pizza deliveries … I mean, I feel quite relieved, let alone Tilda.

‘This is amazing news!’ I greet her. ‘Toby seems so together all of a sudden.’

‘Oh, I know.’ Tilda nods vigorously. ‘He just announced it, over supper two nights ago, “I’m moving out.” No warning, no build-up, just “Boom, I’m off.”’

‘I’m so pleased for you! God, it’s been a long time coming!’ I lean forward to hug Tilda – then look more closely. Is she quivering with jubilation? Or …

Her eyes are bloodshot, I suddenly notice. Oh my God.

‘Tilda?’

‘I’m fine. Fine. Stupid.’ She bats away my concerned look.

‘Oh, Tilda.’ I peer anxiously into her kind, crumpled face and of course now I can see it, beneath her bustly, energetic, Tilda-ish manner. Grief. Because she’s losing him. Finally.

‘It just hit me,’ she says in a low voice, perching on the garden wall. ‘Ridiculous! I’ve been begging him to move out, but …’

‘He’s your baby,’ I say quietly, sitting down next to her, and we both watch as Toby makes another journey to the white van, carrying a kettle, a sandwich toaster and a NutriBullet, all trailing wires along the street.

‘That’s my NutriBullet,’ says Tilda, and I can’t help laughing at her expression. ‘I know he has to move out,’ she adds, her eyes not moving from him. ‘I know he has to grow up. I know I pushed him to do all this. But …’ Tears start spilling from her eyes and she pulls a tissue from her pocket. ‘Stupid,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Stupid.’

I watch Toby returning to the house, oblivious of his mother’s grief, bouncing up and down in his hipster trainers, humming a happy tune, ready to start his proper life.

‘The girls will move out,’ I say, suddenly stricken. ‘They’ll move out one day, without looking back.’

I can suddenly see a grown-up Tessa and Anna. Beautiful, leggy women in their twenties. Brisk. Checking their phones constantly. Discounting everything I say because I’m their mother, what do I know?

I’m half hoping Tilda will say something comforting, like, ‘Don’t worry, your girls will be different,’ but she just shakes her head.