After You Left(83)

I imagine telling him about Evelyn, the gallery visits, the discovery of my real father: he would love this. It’s so odd to think he doesn’t already know about such a significant change in my life. The reality that I can’t really say any of this hits home with full force. We have passed the stage of sharing life’s dramas, great or small. I don’t want to do anything that will re-attach myself to him, now that I’m feeling a modicum of distance. So I tell him a bit about work, but it’s too strange to try to talk to him the way I always used to. Even casual conversation is a sore reminder for us.

‘How is Dylan?’ I ask.

I’d hoped he might look positive for a second, but instead he says, ‘He came through his surgery fairly well. But we still don’t know. He has another hospital appointment next week.’

If he knew I’d seen them . . . ‘Well, I will definitely keep my fingers crossed.’

‘Alice,’ he says quickly, so I know the real reason I am here is coming. ‘I wanted to tell you face to face. I’m looking into getting an annulment.’

He lets the word sit there for a moment, scrutinising me for my reaction. ‘This way, we don’t have to wait a year before we can divorce. If we both agree to it, it can take between six and eight months. But the grounds aren’t always straightforward, so I’m having to seek advice from a family lawyer to see if we qualify.’

Because I am so motionless, he says, ‘Are you following?’

I stare at him, blankly, then say, ‘Yes. I mean, I’m not sure. No – I don’t really understand. Why the rush?’ Because he wants to marry Lisa soon, to make it all neat and official?

‘There’s not a rush on my part. But I thought, perhaps . . . I thought you might want to be free sooner so you can . . .’

‘Run out and bag someone else?’ I almost laugh.

‘That’s not exactly what I was thinking. No.’ He looks almost annoyed and slightly hurt. ‘I was meaning . . . I don’t know. Just that maybe you wouldn’t want it hanging over you. The reminder.’

‘And an annulment is going to make it cheerfully go away, is it?’

I take a sip of my drink, and stare at the nuts we haven’t touched. The word keeps writing itself across my vision. I can’t meet his eyes, even though I know he is waiting for me to. When we quarrelled in the past – though it was never over anything much – and I refused to look at him, he would tilt my chin with his index finger until I did. It was his way of finding out if I was really upset with him, because he said he could read just about everything in my eyes. I never really was, of course. I imagine him doing this now – and him smiling, and us acknowledging that we are fine again: that all this was nothing. But, of course, it doesn’t happen.

‘Isn’t an annulment a Catholic thing? So that you can marry again in a Catholic church?’ It’s snarky, but I can’t resist it. ‘I think your mother once talked of someone getting one . . .’

‘It’s not that kind of annulment. Not to do with the Church. It’s simply a declaration by a court that the marriage was not legally valid, or has become legally invalid.’

Not legally valid.

I only ever want one wife.

The words become bold and underlined in my brain. How impersonal we are. The way he’s talking, it’s as though I’m a solicitor he’s consulting. I can’t drag my gaze away from a fixed spot on the table. It’s perhaps the cruellest thing anyone has ever said to me, and the fact that it’s Justin saying it makes it agonising on a whole other level.

‘I thought it would be better . . . Sorry. If you prefer it, we can wait for a divorce. It won’t be complicated. It’s not as though we own property together, or have children.’

I look up now.

‘Sorry,’ he says again. ‘I’m not doing too well here, am I?’

I’m not even sure I believe him, and I have always believed him. Maybe Lisa put him up to it. I stare at his upper body. The wide shoulders. The blue-grey shirt, open at the neck, with the red tie yanked midway down his chest. He’d do that the moment he stepped out of his office. I once asked him about it, and he said, ‘Do you ever feel like work has got both hands around your neck and is strangling you?’ I’d smiled. I’d never felt like that.

‘Do what you have to do, Justin.’ I say it quietly, flatly. ‘Whatever you want, I won’t stand in your way. You’re the lawyer. You just let me know what you need from me.’

‘Are you sure?’

I nod.

‘Thanks. I’m . . . I suppose I’m grateful for that.’

And I suppose he’s finished now.

I stare out of the window, calmly picturing us divorced, or annulled. It actually doesn’t seem so huge. Mainly because I don’t feel married. Maybe he was thinking of me, not himself, when he thought of an annulment – to give him the benefit of the doubt. As if this isn’t ironic enough, tomorrow will be Saturday, a full month since our wedding day. The fact that we are initiating ending our marriage a month after we confirmed it is nothing to do with me, as I once – or a million times – feared. It’s a product of Justin’s complex moral character. His burden, not mine.

My mind skips forward to Christmas. If we do get this annulment, all this will be over for us. I’ll spend Christmas with my father and Evelyn, and Justin will be with the son he only recently learnt he had. This puts it into perspective.