The House Swap(51)

The shock of it stuns me for a second, my head reeling with sudden lightness. There’s something so systematic about it, the effort it would have taken. Sinister precision. I gaze at the photograph, trying to understand. Why would you do this? Something is troubling me about it, something beyond the obvious surrealism of the act. With a rush, it comes to me that it’s the fact that it’s my face that has been removed. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’ve still been clinging to the thought that whatever is driving you to conduct this whole performance, it must be underpinned by love. I could have understood a symbolic removal of my husband, a desire to cut him out. But this isn’t love; it’s the opposite. You’re telling me that you hate me.



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Caroline, June 2013


WITHOUT REALLY MEANING to, Carl and I have established a kind of rhythm over the past few weeks. We message each other sporadically throughout the day, just to share the odd funny story or moan about our workload, and in the evening he usually texts me at about eight, after Eddie is in bed, when we’ll chat for half an hour or more. I find myself waiting for these texts, compulsively glancing at my phone throughout the business of making dinner and navigating Francis’s unpredictable moods. When Carl gets in touch, I retreat to the bedroom and carry on the conversation there. Francis has generally passed out by the time it’s under way in any case, and even if he hadn’t, I’m rapidly growing to believe he wouldn’t care. The invisible lifelines of connection between us are shrivelling and draining. One by one, they’re dying and dropping away, and I’m not even sure if he knows it or not.

I’m at my desk, working on autopilot, shuffling rows of data and organizing figures. It’s brainless activity, leaving my mind free to wander. I flash back to the previous evening – Francis and me sharing the sofa, conversing amicably enough about the weekend ahead. These patches of normality, when we manage to get through a few hours of civility and he behaves in a way that passes for average, are few and far between now, and they don’t have the effect on me they once had. I used to clutch at them like the last clumps of grass and earth grasped at by someone tumbling off a cliff. I know they won’t last – that even as I hold them they’re crumbling into nothing in my hands and, like it or not, I’m still falling.

The messenger icon flashes at the base of my screen, and I smile, knowing what the message will contain. Sure enough, Carl is confirming the plans for tonight, telling me he can’t wait. Friday night is always reserved for the two of us these days and today is only Wednesday, but I’ve said that I need to work late, and he’s coming to the office to meet me after hours. It’s a risk, one we haven’t taken before. Coupled with the knowledge that I’ll be seeing him twice this week, it feels like a shift. I’ve been thinking more and more the way I felt the other week when I left his house, when I first tentatively started to consider the possibility of leaving Francis. I haven’t said anything to him – won’t do, until I’m sure I know what I want – but I can feel these thoughts within me every time I’m with him, a secret growing and blossoming out of a tiny seed. I can’t yet think about Eddie, or about sitting down in front of my husband and telling him I intend to walk out on him exactly when it seems he needs me most. But he has never not needed me, and he doesn’t seem to give a fuck about what I need myself. The thought gives me a surge of anger. I shake my head and, with a jolt, I realize I’ve been calculating the figures on my screen wrongly, not concentrating at all.

See you at half six then, I type back to Carl, pushing everything else out of my head. I’ll be waiting …

You better be, he writes back.

My fingers hover over the keys, and I think about saying something dirty, spilling out a fraction of what always runs hectically through me in the lead-up to our meetings, but in the end I just type a kiss and close the window. I can’t afford to get too distracted yet if I’m going to finish everything on my desk on time. Ironically, it’s him who has bred this self-control in me. He’s good at holding me off, making sure that we get through the week balanced on this delicate tripwire of desire, never peaking too soon. At first, it didn’t come naturally to me: I wanted it all, as fast as I could have it. Now I understand the pleasure of delayed gratification, and I find myself doing the same.

At six o’clock, people start to peel away one by one, calling farewells around the office and packing up their stuff. Soon, it’s only Steven and me left. As the boss, he’s often last to leave. He’s frowning over a presentation, clearly rehearsing it, lips moving soundlessly. Every so often, I glance at him, wondering if I should text Carl and tell him to wait somewhere nearby.

‘Should I lock up this evening or are you staying late?’ I ask him at last. With a start, he looks up, noticing the empty desks.

‘Oh. No, I didn’t mean to stay late,’ he says vaguely, and starts collecting paper into piles, pushing down the lid of his laptop. ‘You’re not coming, then?’

‘No, I’m staying on,’ I say quickly. ‘Got a bit to get through still.’

‘OK.’ He pulls on his jacket, then stands looking at me, bag slung over his shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ he asks.

‘Yes!’ I look up, smiling brightly, looking straight into his eyes. ‘I’m fine. Why?’

Steven scratches his chin. ‘I’m not sure. You just seem a little – I don’t know. Nervous. Not yourself.’ The words fall awkwardly from his lips, and his face clouds in embarrassment. We don’t have the sort of boss-to-employee relationship that generally covers personal observations and, when I think about it, I’m not sure that he knows who ‘myself’ really is, not on any deep level.