The Marriage Act(75)

She was unaware of him standing beyond the glass doors to the entrance, quietly watching her. Sometimes he recognized traces of Jem Jones in his wife, from the way her nose crinkled when she smiled to the line between her eyebrows that appeared when she frowned. But since Jem’s death, the similarities were becoming clearer. Or perhaps he was searching for them more frequently. Because if pieces of Jem were alive in his wife, it might go some way towards minimizing the impact of her death on him.

‘Bright summer morning,’ Jada spoke. She was giving an instruction to the glasses to visualize a room she was planning. ‘Now give me a dark winter afternoon.’

‘Hi,’ Anthony said and knocked on the wall as he approached her.

‘Jesus!’ she yelped and removed her eyewear. ‘What are you doing here?’

It was a valid question given they’d barely spoken in a fortnight. Anthony tried and failed to remember the last time he had visited her interior design business: another example of his neglect.

‘The calendar said you had a meeting in New Birmingham today?’ she continued.

Anthony cleared his throat. ‘I lied to you, I’m sorry. There was no meeting.’

‘Then where were you?’

‘At home, emailing my resignation letter to work.’

Jada rose to her feet. ‘You did what?’

‘I quit my job.’

‘Without discussing it with me first?’

Anthony nodded.

‘Why?’

‘There’s a new project I’ve been asked to work on that in good conscience, I cannot be a part of.’

‘Couldn’t they move you to something else?’

‘It doesn’t work like that. We don’t question orders.’

Jada bit her lip. Jem did the same when she was perplexed. ‘I thought you’d be pleased?’ Anthony continued. ‘It means

I can spend more time with you and Matthew. We don’t have to wait before we move to Saint Lucia. We can go whenever we want, this month, this week even. Let’s just put the house on the market and book our flights. What’s stopping us?’

‘Anthony, baby, slow down. I am pleased, I’m just confused, that’s all. You keep reminding me we only have three more years to wait before you can retire and now you’re saying that’s it, it’s all over.’ Jada moved towards her husband and entwined her fingers around his. It felt good to be touched by her again. ‘Are you okay? Are you in trouble?’

‘No, it’s not like that. I’ve done things in my job that I’m not proud of. And stuff has happened recently that’s made me realize that, for too long, I’ve been fighting for the wrong side. Last week when I said I was going out for a run, I went to a Freedom for All meeting.’

Jada’s eyes opened wide. She didn’t know the details of what his career entailed, only that he was a Government employee. ‘You can’t be doing that given who you work for!’

‘I had to. And it made me understand something I haven’t been ready to admit. The Marriage Act destroys as many lives as it makes. And I’ve been a part of it.’

Jada held her index finger up to his lips. Her hands were long and slender like Jem’s. ‘You know you can’t be talking about this to me.’ She pointed to her watch.

Anthony gently pushed her finger away. ‘Aren’t you sick of living in fear, Jada? Because I sure as hell would be if I were you.’

‘We knew we were going to be monitored when we upgraded. But without the Act and the new business tax breaks, I couldn’t have started all this.’

‘And is “all this” worth not being able to speak your truth? Of constantly self-editing? Because I don’t think it is. It’s wrong and I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you.’

Tears drizzled down his cheeks as they had on hearing Arthur Foley’s story at the FFA meeting. They took Jada by surprise: she had never seen him cry, not even at his mother’s funeral. ‘Babe,’ she said and tried to put her arms around his waist. He took a step back.

‘I’ve been such a bad, bad husband to you,’ Anthony wept. ‘I’ve lied to you and I haven’t allowed you to be who you really are.’ He closed his eyes and thought about all the ways he had manipulated Jem too. He couldn’t control his chaotic relationship with his mother, but he could dictate the parameters for everyone else in his life.

‘The Audite isn’t monitoring our conversations, it never has been,’ he revealed. ‘We are exempt because of who I work for.’

Jada hesitated before her hands fell to her side.

‘That isn’t funny.’

‘I know, but it’s true.’

‘Are you saying that for three years you’ve let me believe that in any given moment we could be recorded but, in reality, it was never going to happen?’

‘Yes.’

Censoring Jada was up there with some of Anthony’s biggest regrets. He had fallen for her the day he’d watched from the audience in the hall as her university debating team argued why bioengineered meat made from animal cells should replace farm meat on campus menus. She was a skilful orator, using wit and wisdom to put forward a case so compelling, he hadn’t eaten meat from a slaughtered animal since.

Throughout their marriage he had enjoyed deliberating with her over everything from politics to movies. But when his relationship with Jem had escalated, he’d realized how much her needs were going to overtake his life beyond that office. And he’d feared Jada would not sit silently by as his career took him away from his family. Upgrading their marriage, however, might offer a solution, he’d thought. They could afford a larger home and she could set up the business she had always dreamed of, all under Big Brother’s ear. At least that’s what he’d led her to believe. Because the sensitive nature of his job meant his home was exempt from being recorded. Jada’s name translated to God’s gift, which is exactly what she was to him. And now he risked losing her.