Page 96 of The Last Train Home
He holds the door for me and then says goodbye, giving me a look of deep regret. And then he closes the door, holds his hand up to me and answers his phone. The taxi hasn’t even left.
I want to be strong. I want to hold my head up high, but I can’t. The taxi starts off. I’m having a baby in a few short months and I’ve walked away from my marriage. My heart hurts so much and the tears won’t stop streaming down my cheeks.
Chapter 61
Abbie
June 2010
Today is my mum’s birthday. I’ve missed celebrating her birthdays since we left London. I’ve missed celebrating so much. We spend the day at the RHS garden at Wisley and it’s nice, walking around together and admiring the flowers and plants, the architecture of the buildings, the enormous glass hothouse. I’m going at a slower pace than usual, as the bump is enormous now. I look like I’m about to drop at any minute, but I’ve still got weeks to go.
Last month I walked out on my husband and I wish I could say that I regret it. But I don’t. We’ve spoken, each telephone call laced with regret, all of our words never feeling final enough to have truly nailed the coffin lid down on our marriage. But I get off the phone each time to Sean and I know I’ve done the right thing. Each phone call makes it clear that he’s not found the mental headspace to be part of our family. And I can’t be with a man who is only ‘there in spirit’.
I don’t miss Sean because he wasn’t there for a long time before I left. He’s been asking me how I am over text messages, but these have dropped down to almost none per weeknow. He never asks how the baby is doing. He still doesn’t see it as an actual being. To Sean, the baby robbed him of his wife.
I need to focus on myself and the baby. I need to be two parents now, and I’m OK with that. Or at least I will be, even if I’m devastated for the baby that it won’t have a father who is present – who wanted to be present. But that is Sean’s choice. I can’t coerce someone into being a family man.
I can’t talk about it to my parents any more because they are so angry at Sean’s attitude to being a father. My dad wanted to book a flight and have it out with him. Behind my back, my mum even phoned him. But she got nowhere, a fact that surprised her. But not me. I’m resigned to it now.
We find the café and sit outside while my dad queues inside and loads up the tray with various cream-tea items. I need to work out my next plan. At least I can still freelance from here, but being the Asia editor means I’m going to be working in a strange time zone, trying to catch interviewees at the end of their working day the moment I’ve sprung out of bed in the UK. Once I’ve had the baby I’ll hopefully get back into the swing of things.
I’ve been staying with my parents for about a month. I can’t move back in and then force a baby upon them. That’s not fair.
I tell my mum this and she sits up sharply. ‘Don’t you dare suggest moving out!’ She speaks so loudly that pensioners enjoying a cream tea at the table next to us look over. ‘Our house is far too big for the two of us, rumbling around in it. And we’ve only just got you back home,’ she says. ‘We missed you, Abbie.’
‘I missed you too.’ The fact that I get to see my mum on her actual birthday was something I thought would probably never happen again, if Sean had his way. ‘But a baby … It’sgoing to be noisy and stressful at night for a while, and you and Dad have to get up so early for work.’
‘Yes, but we’ll also be there to lend a hand. And you’re going to need some help. You aren’t being forced to do this alone. There are many women who, through no fault of their own,areforced into being a new parent alone,’ my mum says. ‘You are fortunate that youaren’tin that position. So don’t volunteer.’
I nod. ‘OK. Thanks.’ I’m sure we’ll talk about this again, but I’m not going to argue now, on her birthday.
Ihavevoluntarily put myself in that ‘new parent alone’ position by leaving Sean, haven’t I? But in recompense for the way we ended, he has at least transferred about £30,000 into my bank account. For now, I’m going to take his money and keep it safe because when the guilt wears off, that money will stop. I know it. And then it will, unavoidably, lead to divorce. I can’t imagine the ugliness that will bring. Sean isn’t the kind of man to go down without a fight, but at least if he’s on the other side of the world I won’t actually have to see him. I don’t understand how we got here. Or, rather, I do understand it. I can’tbelievewe ended up here.
‘Have you thought about catching up with some friends while you’re here?’ my dad prompts when he returns with the tray of sugary goodies.
‘Not really,’ I say, reaching for a scone and the mini pots of jam and clotted cream.
‘Why not?’ my dad asks, shooting my mum a look.
‘I’ve seen Natasha,’ I tell him.
‘But no one else – in four weeks?’
I shake my head, slather on the clotted cream. ‘You guys put jam on first, but I’ve always appreciated the structuralstability of cream first, jam second. It means I can get more jam on this way. This baby is making me ravenous. I’m sure I’m putting on more weight than is normal. What do you think?’
‘Why haven’t you seen any other friends?’ my dad persists, refusing to be drawn into my clumsy attempt to change the conversational direction.
‘Just haven’t,’ I say.
I open the mini pot of Tiptree jam. ‘Every time I went out for breakfast in Singapore these little pots of jam found their way onto the plate,’ I remark in an effort to change the subject again. ‘It was like a little piece of England followed me around from café to café.’
My parents watch me.
I sigh, knowing I can’t avoid it. ‘I’m embarrassed, OK? I’m humiliated. My marriage has collapsed. I’m heavily pregnant and I now live with my parents. I’m living the dream,’ I say, trying to make light of it.
‘You aren’t living the dream now,’ my mum says sagely. ‘But you will be soon enough. You have a job, a family who loves you, a baby on the way and you’re home, where you want to be and where you belong. This is where your friends and family are. Very soon, Abbie, this will feel like the dream.’
I’m unconvinced, but my dad spares me from answering as he says, ‘Also, you left him. You made a brave decision to walk out on a situation that you knew wasn’t going to get better.’
