The House Swap(4)

Francis looks vaguely jaded, as if I have reminded him of something unpleasant. ‘No.’

‘OK.’ I hesitate, knowing I shouldn’t continue. It’s too late; the words are rising to the surface and pushing themselves out of my mouth. ‘So what are you going to do, then? Any plans?’

He slams the laptop shut, and with it the light snaps out of the room, plunging us into near-darkness. ‘No,’ he says again, after a while. I watch his profile for a few minutes, willing him to turn his head and look at me, but he doesn’t move, and in the end I just get up and leave.

In the bathroom, I clean off last night’s make-up and put the new day’s on. I focus on my face in fragments, minutely scrubbing and rebuilding one small area after another. I smear foundation thickly over my skin, trace shadow carefully over my eyelids, run black liner to the corner of my eyes. Last, I choose a dark pink lipstick and apply it slowly across the width of my mouth, pressing my lips together to set the colour. Only then do I step back and stare at my reflection. I look good. Better than I should. Even so, I don’t like looking myself in the eye. I’m afraid of seeing something there that I don’t want to transmit. Disappointment, maybe, or sadness. Anything at all.

‘Mummy, Mummy.’ Eddie’s voice drifts from down the hallway, amicably querulous. I glance at my watch. Already half past seven, and only an hour to get us both ready and out of the house. Then the hurried journey to nursery, the bus back into town to the office, eight hours of sitting at my desk, turning over the mental picture of Francis on his own in the house and wondering what he is doing, what he is thinking. The thought of it all is exhausting.

I could go back to bed. The idea falls into my head, clear and sweet as water, as I walk down the hall and push open Eddie’s bedroom door. Call in sick, pull the covers over my head and sleep for another eight or nine hours. But I won’t.

‘Good morning!’ I sing, drawing back the curtains. I bend down by his bed and pull him into a hug, feeling his hot little fingers closing around the back of my neck.

I start the routine. Clothes, breakfast, teeth-brushing. First one thing, then the next. This is how you get through life. This is how it goes.

‘Nursery today,’ I tell Eddie. ‘What do you think you’ll be doing?’

He cocks his head to one side, an exaggerated parody of thoughtfulness. ‘Don’t know,’ he says slowly. ‘Playing, I think.’

‘That sounds about right.’ I smile, and he beams at me, aware he’s somehow made a joke. ‘Well, make sure you have fun,’ I add.

At half past eight I brush his blond hair carefully twenty times, counting each stroke in my head. He is murmuring quietly to himself, moving two plastic animals across his lap in some complicated game. ‘What are they doing?’ I ask, but he doesn’t reply, swivelling his grey eyes up to mine and narrowing them in what looks like amused mistrust. Sometimes, his expressions strike me as oddly mature, brewed for far more than the two and a half years they have had to arrange themselves on his face.

I finish the brushing and straighten his T-shirt. ‘Go and say goodbye to Daddy,’ I say, and he trots eagerly off to the living room. I hear Francis’s voice, complimenting him on his smartness, advising him to be good and have a nice day. He sounds pleasant, doting even. Completely normal. The thought lifts me, and I hurry down the hall to join them. Sure enough, he’s smiling, stroking the top of Eddie’s head with the flat of his hand.

‘We’ll be off, then,’ I say. Eddie slips out of the room, knowing the drill, clattering down the hallway towards the front door to wait for me. The instant he is gone, the atmosphere drops and folds in on itself. Francis sits down again, wrenching the lid of the computer up and intently focusing on the screen.

‘Yeah,’ he says.

‘You won’t forget to pick Eddie up? I’ve got that work party tonight, remember?’ I ask.

He glances up, irritation flashing across his face. ‘I know,’ he snaps. ‘You told me already. Three or four times.’

I bite back the retort that springs to my lips – the accusation that what he remembers these days seems to be entirely arbitrary, filtered through some invisible system that can hang on to the slightest perceived misdemeanour or thoughtless word for years but let dates, times and appointments drift through it like clouds of finely spun sugar. ‘Fine,’ I say, knowing my voice is harsh and unkind. ‘Well, don’t wait up.’ The petty cliché falls uselessly between us.

Francis leans back in his seat and sighs, a short, defeated exhalation that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. ‘See you,’ he says flatly, and all at once I’m thinking about touching him, wondering how it would change things if I walked over and knelt in front of him and pressed my hands to his forehead, smoothing his hair and kissing his lips. The idea is strangely compelling, but I don’t move.

I tell him goodbye, and search my head for something else to say. But there’s nothing.

The bar is hot and dark, its walls prickled with flashing Christmas lights. Glancing at my watch, I realize it is already almost ten o’clock. I’ve been dreading this party for days, unable to imagine getting into any kind of festive spirit, but now that it is here I am flooded with relief. Lately, it seems that I have shuttled between the house and the office like a rat on a wheel, the cycle broken only by the odd half-hearted dinner with a friend filled with platitudes and lies that ends by 9 p.m. It has been a long time since I have been out with a group, and dressed in the short, sparkly dress I brought with me to change into.