Page 8 of Cuckoo

5 October 2024

Dear Diary,

Noah and I are still dating. He came over last night and I attempted to cook him dinner. I would love to be the type of woman who has a signature dish, who can rely on this one singular, phenomenal taste sensation on a plate for their first time treating someone to a meal. But I’m not. I don’t think I ever saw Mother cook a meal for a man, so I’ll blame it on her. When she used to go out and forget to feed me, I’d make myself a meal that was basically just mashed potato with cheese and bacon bits in it. God, I forgot about that. Delicious. But sadly, serving Noah a plate of cheesy fork-stabbed mash probably wouldn’t be too impressive, and I no longer have the metabolism of thirteen-year-old Claire, so I went with spaghetti Bolognese.

Big shock, Noah is a great cook and ended up helping me as I went along. Not in an annoying, patronising way. We just fell into sync quickly after he offered to help cut up the peppers and I found him sort of cooking alongside me. It was nice. I’d bought a bottle of wine to go with it as it was a special occasion, and we had a couple of glasses. I’m not used to drinkingon weekdays and ended up getting quite tipsy from just the two little glasses, then I started telling him about the girl who bullied me in secondary school. How embarrassing is that?

I hadn’t thought about Laura in years, but he’d asked about what I was like at school and it was as if all these memories were released. I didn’t tell him the most embarrassing parts, of course; the nickname they made up for me or the chunks of time spent hiding in a stall in the girls’ toilets while Laura and her little gang threw wet balls of toilet paper at the ceiling above me. But I gave him an overview, about how school was tough thanks to one girl in particular and her band of friends.

After we’d been talking for a while we put on a film. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up it was the middle of the night and he’d turned the TV off and thrown a blanket over me before leaving. Beside me, he’d left this note made out of scrap paper that had been lying on my coffee table– he’d somehow folded it up into a little tortoise.

It was almost too beautiful to touch, until I saw the paper had been written on and obviously I had to unfold it to read the message.

Slow and steady wins the race, as it says in ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. You’re beautiful and Laura probably peaked at school. You’re my cute little tortoise.

I laughed out loud and texted him. He said it was origami, and that next time he was over he’d show me how to re-fold it back into shape.

Tell me this: isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard?!

Claire

Chapter Ten

Inside the drawer are hundreds of paper animals, swans and turtles, butterflies and squirrels. Tiny, carefully folded pieces of paper, each carrying a message for me. They’re the notes that Noah leaves for me, dotted around the flat at random.

You look beautiful!

I’d found that one beneath the bathroom mirror one morning, on a small origami bird.

Happy wife, happy life!

That one had been a tiny fox, placed on top of a box of chocolates I’d returned home to one day when I was on my period, shortly after our engagement.

I love you!

An origami rabbit I’d found left on my bedside table. So many messages of affection, of kindness and caring, all kept lovingly in this drawer.

Have an amazing day!

Good luck with your work presentation– you’re a star!

Popped out for a pint, home soon– can’t wait to cuddle!

Date night tomorrow? X

I stare at them, trying to work out how these beautiful little relationship receipts can come from the same man wholies about going to work every day. But I can’t connect the two. There must be a rational explanation for why he hid the news about his job from me. Perhaps he was having problems at work that he didn’t want to worry me about. Maybe he’d even been fired and that was why he was on gardening leave. But then why would he not just reply to my calls and texts, let me know the reason why?

With a sigh, I scoop all the notes up and out of the drawer, dumping them onto the kitchen table.

Another piece of paper in there catches my eye. It’s the ad for my job, which Noah had found and printed out for me, left unsubtly on the kitchen table all those months ago. I scrunch the ad up in my hands and throw it towards the bin, not checking if it meets its target.

Peering into the drawer to check it’s totally empty, I see a little figurine stuck right at the back. I reach in and carefully prise it out, realising that something must have spilt onto it at some point, because it’s all tacky and sticky to the touch. It’s a lizard made out of clay, all wonky and out of shape, with cracks in the surface and bits of fluff stuck to it.

I smile and put it by the sink so I’ll remember to try and get it clean again later.

I was twelve years old when I made that silly little figurine. While Mother was going through a real Frida Kahlo phase, she decided that I had ‘artistic flair’ and found me a private art tutor. It was one of the best things she ever did for me. I adored going to this bizarre, flamboyant woman’s home once a week, ogling her collections of jewels and trinketswith amazement. Her name was Katya, and she was both wondrous and inspiring to my shy, pre-teen self.

‘What bold use of lines, Claire! Bravo!’ she exclaimed one day when I took a stab at acrylic paints for the first time, swooping my brush across the canvas with a newfound confidence nurtured by her encouragement.

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