Page 66 of A Midlife Marriage

‘I can manage, mum.’

‘I know that.’

‘I have to. For Ben’s sake, I have to.’

And what could she say? Libby did have to manage. There was no choice now. No parties to get back to.

‘Everyone,’ Libby whispered, ‘thinks I’ve messed up my life.’

‘Libby,’ Helen sighed. ‘You had a baby early on. That’s all.’

‘I won’t get anything else wrong.’ And as Libby stood, one step lower, her hands clenched to fists and her chin wobbled.

Helen let the door go, her arms reaching for her child. ‘You will always get things wrong,’ she whispered. ‘And that’s OK. And maybe I should have let you see this before.’ She could feel Libby’s back move up and down as she cried, the knuckled bones of her shoulders, where there should have been wings. Because this was girl who was going to fly. Everyone had said it. The child who had insisted on pairing her own socks since she was eight. That was the family joke. On the straight and narrow, striving toward the best grades in every exam she ever took, with Helen always one step behind. When maybe she should have stayed back. Lingered out of sight a while and allowed Libby to wander off the track now and then. ‘It’s OK,’ she whispered, as she always had. ‘Everything will be OK.’

‘I’ll miss you, Mum,’ Libby sobbed. ‘But you need to go.’

And because it was too hard to say what she was thinking, to echo Libby’s words and say,Yes, I need to do this, Libby. I need to go, she didn’t say anything. She kept her arms around her child and held her as close as the day she had been born.

44

‘Nearly there, love.’

‘Thank you.’ As Caro glanced out of the window, she was just in time to see the classical façade of Brackenford station pass by. Another two minutes then. She looked down at her bouquet. It was a tall and striking arrangement, to suit a tall and striking bride. Red and fuchsia pink gladioli, those last sentinels of summer, filled out with silver-green eucalyptus. Not once had she considered the softer blousy heads of a hydrangea, or the traditionally safe lily. The bouquet she’d had in mind, and seen through to completion, was bold and modern; they would see her coming a mile off: this middle-aged, jilted, bride.

Chin tilted, head pushed back against the seat, she watched as the car passed a park where a man and a woman played tennis, and dogs strained on leads. Where children ran in and out of a playground, spilling apart like the beads of a broken necklace, shrieking and calling. She kept watching until the last moment, until the car turned left and the park disappeared and the wide steps leading up to the town hall came into view.

It had been a quiet journey. ‘No-one riding with you?’ had been the driver’s first and last question. No jovial banter. Perhaps, she thought as she looked up at him, he had sensed nerves? Although she didn’t feel nervous. The taint of tragedy then? She didn’t feel tragic either. It didn’t matter, she had been glad of the space, twenty minutes with the camphor scent of eucalyptus slowly drawing her back to the surface. Because although the car had only travelled only a few kilometres, Caro had dived deep. Without forethought, without planning, without courage or cowardice, she had trawled in the depths for answers to this oddest of mornings, and these oddest of feelings.

‘I don’t think you even know yourself, what you want.’

When the needle hits true north, it doesn’t wobble and so it was with Tomasz’s words. He was right. One day she’d been entranced with the serenity of Hollybrook, another day she’d been Queen of London. The only constant, the love that had never wavered, was her love of the idea of love. Romantic love. Ideal love. Tomasz had ridden into her life at her lowest ebb, scooping her into his arms and rescuing her from a place and time that had felt un-survivable. What he offered, just hadn’t been enough. Or it had been too late. Or it had never been needed in the first place. She looked down at her engagement ring, the diamond daisy, still waiting for its promise to be fulfilled. She was thinking about the day Tomasz had first shown her the ring, how happy she had been to finally feel she belonged to someone. And then she was thinking about something Helen had said, just a few months ago, at a pavement café in Cyprus.You never waited for a hero to turn up.The irony! She almost laughed. On this oddest of mornings, she almost laughed. The irony was as inescapable as the archetype itself, because when her hero had finally turned up, she had allowed herself to be rescued when she had never needed saving.

Oh, it had been lovely. He had been lovely. The warmth of his body at night, his companionship in the evenings, his care of her, running a bath, massaging her feet, mixing a drink. No wonder so many desired and needed it, settled for it. But Helen had been right, and now she felt as if she was waking from what had been a long and comfortable dream. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. This had been the closest she would ever come, and as the car glided to a halt, all she was wishing for, all she hoped, was that it wasn’t the same for him.

‘Here we are.’

She looked up to see a wide, red-bricked building with rows of symmetrical sash windows. An imposing façade, a design that spoke of important decisions and memorable moments, which was exactly why they had chosen the venue and thinking this, Caro released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Tomasz hadn’t chosen the venue. He would have married her in a field, had she wanted. It was her that had chosen, as if at some level she had understood that her belief in what she was doing, needed underpinning with Portland stone and Doric columns, when all he had ever needed were daises. He was right. It would never have worked. What had started out in such happiness, would have ended in misery. She leaned forward. At the top of the steps, she could see two figures. Helen and Kay, waiting where they had said they would.

‘It’s going to rain,’ the driver said as he opened the door. ‘You want to get inside quickly.’

‘It’s going to rain.’Helen was waving her arm, urging Caro in. ‘We need to get inside.’

But she didn’t rush. She couldn’t have rushed if she’d tried. Her feet were heavy, the air she walked through, dense. She reached the top step and looked up and as she did, Helen’s armdropped. She knew. One glance and Caro saw that Helen knew. She turned to Kay.

‘We need to get inside,’ Kay said, she had her palm up, ready to catch the first fat raindrop.

‘It’s not happening, Kay.’

Another raindrop fell, equally as fat. And then another and another and another …

‘Your flowers,’ Kay said.

Caro looked down. Even the robust stems of the gladioli were no match against the weighty punches of this rain, already the top petals were folding in, giving up. ‘Kay,’ she said. ‘It’s not happening.’

‘What’s not happening?’ Kay turned to Helen, who shook her head. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We … I …’ But it felt to Caro as if suddenly, without any warning, she had turned a corner only to discover that she had reached the end of a very long journey. Her knees buckled. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, ready to fall to the floor, to sleep a thousand years. And she would have, if Helen, and then Kay hadn’t stepped in and put their arms around her and held her upright. The three of them together, rain bouncing off shoulders and arms, running down the back of necks, staining dark the toes of Helen’s neat liner sock.

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