Page 1 of Thirty Days in Paris

1

Juliet stood in the middle of the kitchen, overwhelmed by its emptiness. There wasn’t a single appliance out on the worktops. There wasn’t a cup or a plate in the sink or an empty bottle waiting to go into the recycling box. There wasn’t a jar of Marmite or peanut butter cluttering the island; no crumbs or circles of red wine or damp teabags.

It felt almost funereal, with no smell of toast or percolating coffee to soften the edges, just the faint whiff of Cif. Every surface shone, from the granite to the blank blackness of the induction hob. It was pristine, silent, with the perfection of a kitchen catalogue. Just like the picture Juliet had found on Pinterest when they did the extension. A Shaker kitchen painted Mizzle by Farrow and Ball, with vintage knobs Juliet had sourced from a reclamation yard so that it didn’t look like every other kitchen extension in Persimmon Road, with their skylights and bi-fold doors out into the garden.

The four of them had practically lived in the kitchen. They would sit there for hours over a platter of nachos, with a raggle-taggle assortment of multigenerational friends and neighbours, debating politics and the issues of the day, as well as more trivial dilemmas. Should Juliet get a tattoo? A unanimous yes. She hadn’t. Should Stuart? A unanimous no. He had: a Celtic band around his upper arm, to show off his newly toned bicep. Juliet had to admit it looked good. He looked good. Though it was strange. The fitter he had got, the more she’d drawn away from him. This sculpted, streamlined, sinewy version of him felt like a stranger.

Which was one of the reasons they were in this situation. Packing up nearly twenty-five years of life together in order to be apart. Last Saturday, they had thrown a farewell party for all their neighbours and the pair of them had sung along to ‘Go Your Own Way’ by Fleetwood Mac, seaweed arms waving, pointing at each other. But smiling. It was an amicable separation. There was no animosity between them at all.

They had both agreed it was the right thing to do.

Now, however, there was a lump the size of a squash ball in Juliet’s throat as she stared at the door jamb that led into the utility room. Dozens of names and dates written in pencil wormed their way up it. The highest was Nate, at least a head taller than she was, the details inscribed over four years ago. The ritual had started when he was a toddler and had his friends from nursery over for tea and it had ended on a pre-university pizza night when it had become clear they had all stopped growing.

What she wouldn’t give to have them here now, wrestling to be measured, Izzy worming her way among them and elbowing them out of the way.

‘We can’t leave this,’ she said, running her fingers over the ghostly names.

‘Just take a photo,’ said Stuart, who seemed to have lost every vestige of sentimentality along with his weight.

Her chin wobbled at the memory of a tiny Izzy stretching herself upwards as high as she could manage while Juliet rested the pencil on the top of her head and carefully drew a line, then wrote in her name and the date. It was more than just a growth chart. It was a diary. A guest book. Proof of the sanctuary this kitchen had provided to an endless stream of youngsters. A reminder of the meals she’d supplied to all and sundry, from turkey dinosaurs (she knew the other mothers judged her for them, but she didn’t care) to pasta puttanesca. The advice that had been doled out, the homework agonised over, the birthdays that had been celebrated. But now, Izzy and Nate were both away: Izzy on her gap year, somewhere in South America (terrifying), and Nate in the third year of his four-year business degree, in Copenhagen (not so terrifying).

Juliet flipped open the lid of the toolbox on the kitchen worktop and pulled out a screwdriver.

‘Oh no.’ Stuart knew her well enough to see where she was going with this.

‘They’re doing a complete refurb. They’re ripping everything out. I heard them when they came to view.’ Juliet started trying to prise the door jamb off.

Stuart took the screwdriver out of her hand and put a kindly hand on her shoulder. ‘They’ll complain to the solicitor.’

‘I don’t care. This is part of our family history.’

Tears blurred her eyes and she pushed the heels of her hands into her sockets. Stuart looked down at her.

‘I’ll take it off for you. I’ll nip out and get another one from Homebase and stick it on.’

She smiled up at him. He still couldn’t bear to see her cry. He still indulged her. And she still felt the overwhelming urge to look after him in return. How were they going to work without each other? Their life together had been a seamless partnership, each one supplying what the other needed without any fuss or debate.

Were they making a terrible mistake?

Or was this separation a sensible, mature, considered decision that gave them both the freedom to do what they wanted with the rest of their lives? A modern decision, and one that had been greeted with curiosity, if not envy, by many of their friends. Couples who had also drifted apart, whose differences became glaringly apparent once the nest became empty, but who tolerated each other because the alternative seemed too brutal.

There’d been no transgression. No infidelity. There weren’t even many arguments.

Juliet could track the fault line, though. It started when Stuart signed up for the charity marathon six years ago, press-ganged by some youngster in his office. The furthest Stuart had run before that had been to the off-licence at the end of the road, but something in the challenge had appealed. Perhaps the fact that he had gone from a thirty-two- to a thirty-four-inch waist of late and was mildly appalled by his middle-age spread. Juliet had caught him looking at himself sideways on, his face crumpled with anxiety.

‘I’ve got a paunch,’ he’d sighed.

‘It’s a beer belly,’ Juliet had told him. ‘The sugar turns to fat. Knock the booze on the head for a bit and you’ll be fine.’

She’d written enough articles about weight gain and miracle diets to know the science. It was, to her mind, pretty simple: eat less, move about more, cut out rubbish. She managed, just about, to hover between a twelve and a fourteen by being mindful about vegetables, avoiding bread and cakes and swimming twice a week. And giving her liver a break every few days. They drank too much. Everyone their age did. Making a decent inroad into a second bottle of wine (between two) on a ‘school’ night was the norm. It had an effect, on weight, on skin, on temper.

Stuart had let the side down by going over to the dark side and giving up drink completely. The marathon had kicked off an obsession. Parkrun every Saturday. Intense cycle rides every Sunday, whatever the weather; scantily clad, looking like an alien in his shiny Lycra and helmet. And now climbing, his latest passion, the thought of which turned Juliet’s insides to ice. What with keeping fit enough to haul his own body weight up a sheer cliff face, and monitoring his heart rate every second of the day, he really didn’t have time for anyone or anything else.

They never saw each other. Stuart went to the gym in the evening. Juliet went to private views, restaurant openings and book launches, an extension of her job as a freelance lifestyle journalist and ghostwriter. And when, just over a year ago, they began to talk about selling Persimmon Road – it had shot up in value because of the schools in the area, so it seemed the right time to cash in now that Nate and Izzy had left school – they both wanted something completely different.

Juliet wanted small, period, characterful.

Stuart wanted sleek, spacious, uncluttered.

---