The House Swap(19)

‘I love her,’ he says, as he stands up to go. ‘I really do.’ There is something proud, almost defiant, in his tone. I want to tell him that there’s nothing noble about loving someone. It’s there, or it isn’t. It happens, or it doesn’t. And trying to talk yourself in or out of it is usually as futile as pissing in the wind. But instead I give a solemn, respectful kind of nod and tell him I’ll see him next week.

When he’s gone, I stand at the window for a few moments and Caroline comes into my mind again. This time, it’s as I saw her last night when I lay on the sofa half asleep: struggling to unzip her boots, steadying herself against the wall as she peeled them off. Afterwards, she stood in bare feet and looked at me for a moment in the dim light. I could tell she was trying to decide whether to wake me. I thought at first she would come over, but then she just folded her arms and leaned back against the wall for a few seconds, her head tipped up intently, as if she was listening for something, and then she left the room so quietly that, in the semi-dark through my closing eyes, I couldn’t even be sure she had gone until I felt the coldness and the stillness of the room without her. And when I slept, I dreamed of our wedding day. Her face clear and shining against the summer sky, her eyes looking into mine and the crack in her voice as she said she loved me. It was real, but it wasn’t. So little difference between dreams and memories.

These thoughts are rising up again, and I don’t want them here. Time to go home.

Caroline comes back with Eddie at quarter to six and makes his dinner, then sits down with him at the table to watch him eat it. Every now and then, she darts out of the room then returns subtly changed. New nail varnish, a cloud of perfume. She thinks I don’t notice these things about her, but I do. I always do.

‘Better get going,’ she says, looking at her watch. ‘Get him to bed on time, OK? I’ve got my phone, so call me straight away if there’s any problem.’

‘Where you going again?’ It’s difficult to get the words out. The fog is already starting to descend and my thoughts are gently squashed up against each other like cotton wool.

She wheels round, frowning. ‘I’m meeting up with Jess,’ she says. ‘You know that.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s right.’

‘I’ve told you loads of times,’ she says, and there’s something about the way she’s looking at me that makes me want to hurt her, the anger swelling from its readily tapped well.

‘Yeah,’ I say again, thoughtfully. ‘Well, I don’t listen to you that much. I guess a lot of what you say just isn’t that—’ I think carefully about the next word. Important. Interesting. ‘Worthwhile,’ I finish, and I can’t help but feel a little smug at the instant reaction she gives, the little wince that tells me the word has hit home.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘Thanks. Well, I’ll be off, then.’ She lingers a few moments longer, biting her lip, trying to work out if there is anything more to say. It’s unsettling looking at her, wondering what exactly she means to me. Sometimes, I think she’s so precious tears come to my eyes, make me want to protect her from the world and never let anyone hurt her. Other times, I can’t actually imagine giving that much of a shit if she died.

She drops her gaze, shrugs and crosses the room quickly to kiss Eddie goodnight, and waves vaguely in my direction before hurrying out. A few moments later I hear the front door slam.

‘Just the two of us,’ I say to Eddie in the silence. He looks up at me, alert and half smiling, unsure of my tone. I get him into his pyjamas and open his book where we left off last night. ‘“The prince drew his magic sword and made the castle sparkle,”’ I read.

‘“Sparkly”,’ Eddie says softly, correctively.

I look at the page again. ‘“Sparkly,”’ I say. ‘That’s right.’ The brightly coloured pictures and crudely formed words are blurring in front of my eyes and, all at once, I really need to sleep.

I stumble through a few more pages then wrench myself up from the sofa and take him through to the nursery, get him to lie down and push his favourite toy into his arms. ‘Goodnight,’ I say, and I bend down to kiss his forehead. He makes some little noise of acquiescence and curls himself tightly into a ball. It’s going to be easy tonight, thank God. I uncurl his fingers from where they have crept around my hand and, as I do so, I feel a rush of love rising up from somewhere deep inside, and it doesn’t feel great. It feels fucking painful, and I don’t want to think about why.

Back in the living room, I turn the main light off and sit down on the sofa, reach for the pill packet. Just one more tonight. The foil creases and splits under my fingernail – a tiny, almost inaudible sound that never fails to calm me. I ease the small blue pill out from its casing and hold it between the tips of my fingers. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the thought flickers that perhaps I don’t need this. Perhaps I can cut down, maybe cut them out altogether. But the fuzziness from earlier is already wearing off and there is a faint, sharp-edged nausea bubbling beneath the surface fighting to erupt, and before I know it I’m throwing the pill down my throat and swallowing hard without water, and following it with another, then another. And that’s it until tomorrow. Over and out.



Caroline’s laptop is red and shiny, covered with fire-engine stickers stuck on at awkward angles, presumably by her son. She keeps it in a drawer by her bed, and she’s helpfully written down the password in the back of the appointments diary she uses for even more mundane thoughts than the ones in the notebook I burned yesterday. I fire it up. There’s nothing much on the desktop, bar a few close-up photos of herself tucked away in an unnamed folder. I look at that inscrutable face for a while – her eyelids smudged with shadow the colour of gunmetal, her lips dark pink and slightly parted. I don’t think these are for the husband. Actually, I think they’re for her.