The House Swap(77)

It took hours to persuade her not to go. Hours of talking in the grey dawn, convincing her that now was the time for change. But as soon as we began to speak I could tell that, although the decision was made, it could be undone. She hadn’t managed to sever the bonds as entirely as she thought, and I could see almost at once that, even though she didn’t really believe what I was saying, she wanted to, and that was half the battle.

Six a.m., and I had unfolded myself as much as I could physically bear. The pounding in my head, the weird starkness of the objects in the room around us, revealing themselves to me after weeks of sitting amid them and seeing nothing but shadows. And when I had finished talking, she began. If there’s any chance of us doing this, then I need to tell you something, too.

The affair with Carl was hard for her to speak about. I’d never seen such sadness in her eyes, such reluctance. It was more serious than I had thought. It had been months, and in her head she’d worked it up into a grand passion. I didn’t know – still don’t – how real it was. But I knew she felt it was, and that was enough. It had ended, though she wouldn’t tell me how, but it was clear she wasn’t over it. It didn’t matter. There was no pain, no anger. That came later but, in that moment, there was nothing but the sweetness of revelation. We had spent more time talking to each other in those few hours than we had in months, maybe years. The facts were out on the table for inspection and our marriage was a fucking mess. But the air was sharp and clean and I was breathing in and out and we were both still alive.

I’ve been so lost in thought it comes as a surprise to find that I’m sitting on the train and we’re pulling away from the platform. The sun against the window shines on to my hands folded in my lap. My wedding ring is much too loose now, but I’m still wearing it. For now, at least, we seem to have survived.

The woman who enters the counselling room is in her late forties: dark hair cut into a bob, a slight, narrow frame, smart, neutral clothes. I’ve had barely any chance to skim the notes I’ve been sent from her assessment. It sounds like fairly standard depression. And yet as soon as I see her I get a strange feeling that nothing about this is going to be standard at all.

Maybe it’s the way she stops when she’s halfway across the threshold, looking intently at me, and then around the room. People don’t usually focus their attention on these things. They’re driven by their own suffocating concerns – that’s why they’re here. But she looks around so carefully, and her gaze lingers on my desk: the small, red-flowered pot plant, the framed photograph of Caroline and Eddie. I keep it turned inwards towards me, so all she’s staring at is the back of the frame, but she looks at it as if she really wants to know what’s on the other side. Her hands are twisted together in front of her and I can see the tension in her jawline, like she’s gritting her teeth.

‘Good morning,’ I say. ‘Sandra, isn’t it? Come in. Take a seat.’

She edges further into the room and her gaze flits around the couple of chairs available to her. At last, she chooses the one closest to mine and draped with the purple throw, next to the window. She slides into it in silence. Her eyes are dark blue and unblinking, steady as glass.

‘If it’s OK with you,’ I say, ‘I like to start by just letting you talk. Telling me a bit about yourself and what’s been going on.’

Almost imperceptibly, she nods, as if this has reconfirmed what she expected to hear. When she starts to talk, I have to strain to hear her at first. Her voice is level and soft, almost hypnotic. She sketches a picture of a fairly unremarkable life. She and her husband were divorced several years ago, but she speaks about it without passion or regret. Since then, it’s just been her and her daughter, Robyn.

It takes a while for me to realize that the way she speaks about her daughter is strange. She refers to her at times in the present tense, at others in the past. She slips between memories, blurring the years. When she tells me that Robyn has been dead for over a year, it’s almost like an afterthought. She doesn’t think she needs to spell this out, because to her it’s part of her DNA. It’s written across every second and every breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, to fill the brief jagged silence, but she doesn’t respond and she begins to tell me how her daughter died. I’m listening, but at the same time a trickle of panic is slipping down the back of my neck, stiffening my muscles. I’m not a bereavement counsellor. I specialize in relationships, family tensions. How the hell has this woman been assigned to me? I’m almost certain there was no mention of any of this in the assessment notes I hastily scanned. But it seems hardly conceivable that she wouldn’t have mentioned it in her first appointment. Clearly, this is why she’s here. Why would she hide it?

‘I spent a long time looking for sense in what happened,’ she’s saying. Flatly, without apparent pain. ‘But I was looking for something that wasn’t there. The car had been coming too fast around the bend. It must have been. But there was no reason why Robyn was there at that precise instant. No reason why a few moments of inattention ended up destroying her life, and mine. You can only go so far down that road. It leads nowhere.’

I nod. I think about saying something around the idea of acceptance and how this realization can be part of it, but something tells me to stay quiet. Besides, whatever she’s feeling, acceptance isn’t it. I can see it in the set of her muscles, the strange way she’s half bent forward, as if she’s poised for flight, and in the haunted look in her eyes that seem miles away from me, even as they’re looking straight into mine.