The House Swap(47)
He makes some vague noise of agreement. ‘Our situation, certainly. But anyway,’ he says, ‘there isn’t much point going down that road, is there? Wondering about how we’d be together. As far as I’m concerned, you’re married, so there’s no decision to be made. That’s just the way it is, and I’ve always known that.’
His tone is without malice and the words are rational but, all the same, something in me rebels against the ease with which he seems to be able to shrug the thought off. I wonder, sometimes, if he even realizes how rare this dynamic between us is. He’s barely out of his mid-twenties, and he’s never had a serious relationship; a few months here and there with various girls, nothing that seems to have had a major impact on him. Unable to help myself, I sigh. ‘Well, that was easy.’
‘No,’ he says flatly. ‘It’s not.’
A cloud crosses the sun, and I press my face into his shirt, feeling suddenly cold. ‘Come on,’ I hear him say after a while. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
We stroll around the park, chatting, until it’s time for me to head back to the Tube and pick up Eddie from nursery. Outside the entrance he presses me back against the station wall and kisses me hard, biting my lip and thrusting his hips against mine. Our conversations are forgotten and we’re in the moment together, unable to see past it. ‘Three hours,’ he mutters. ‘Not sure I can wait that long.’
‘You’re going to have to,’ I say, but the truth is that I’m not sure I can either, and all at once lust is pulsing through me so powerfully I can barely speak. My hands are sliding up his back, exploring and teasing. I’m thinking about how it will be later, when we’re alone.
‘I want you so much,’ I tell him, as I curl my fingers around the loops of his belt and pull him hard up against me, and saying it out loud gives me a dizzying sense of pleasure. I’ve never been this honest with anyone. It’s shockingly addictive … so much so that, as soon as he’s released me and I’m walking away from him, all I want to do is run back and say it again and again and again.
Eddie is out of sorts from the minute I pick him up from nursery – scowling mutinously at the ground when I ask how his day has been, fussing on the bus for no apparent reason and dragging his feet all the way up the road. Five steps from the front door he trips and falls on his face, which sets him off into instant meltdown, screaming as if he’s being flayed alive. Bundling him through the front door, I examine his face, but there’s only the tiniest of red marks, barely visible.
‘It’s OK,’ I try to comfort him. ‘You’re fine. It’s all right,’ but it has no effect and he stomps off into the nursery, still wailing. Moments later, I hear the thwack of a toy being thrown against the wall, then a long, high-pitched scream of frustration before he calls for me, over and over. I hurry into the room, but there’s nothing to be done, and when I try to scoop him into my lap he almost growls, his little hands pushing me violently away. Breathing in sharply, I count to ten. My tolerance for these tantrums seems to be getting lower and lower, and my heart is thumping, warning me that I’m losing control.
Setting my teeth, I stride out of the nursery and into the lounge, seeking a few moments’ quiet. Francis is in his customary position on the sofa, slumped in front of the laptop with his headphones plugged in, barely glancing at me when I come in. He’s there, but he isn’t. His eyes are glazed and unblinking, hooded darkly in the light of the screen.
‘Good evening,’ I say sarcastically, though I know he can’t hear me.
With an expression of infinite weariness, he reaches slowly up and plucks the headphones from his ears. ‘What?’
‘That’s a nice welcome.’ In seconds, the relaxation of the afternoon has disappeared. I glance around me at the state of the room. There are toys everywhere, unwashed crockery piled up on the dining table, streaks of dust and dirt across the floor. I know Francis has had no appointments today. He’s simply sat here, surveying the carnage. ‘I’m so glad I came back,’ I spit.
‘No one asked you to,’ he points out, sighing, as if the five words are an unwillingly bestowed gift.
‘Yeah – because I’m sure you’d be coping really well with this situation if I weren’t here,’ I bite back, gesticulating towards the screams coming from the nursery.
He half turns his head, listening, his expression as vacant as if the noise were coming from another planet. ‘It’s you,’ he comments. ‘You make it worse. You wind him up.’ And with that, he screws the headphones back in and directs his attention to the screen again, the frown between his brows deepening as his lips silently move to the music, which must be so loud that it’s shattering his eardrums.
‘Fuck you,’ I hiss, ‘you useless tosser,’ and then I’m turning on my heel and leaving the room, shaking with the adrenaline of it – the way it happens so fast now, the split seconds it takes for any prospect of civility to vanish. My own ugly words are beating in my head, and behind them, the nasty little thought lurks that maybe he’s right. Maybe in some way it’s my own stress that is seeping out, throwing everything out of kilter. I stare around at the chaos surrounding me and I’m filled with hopelessness; the knowledge that the family we have tried to build is all distorted and wrong, and that I don’t know how to fix it.