Page 7 of A Midlife Marriage

‘No.’ She put her finger to her lips. ‘No,’ she said again.

‘Then I have upset you?’

‘No.’

‘Then what?’

But she didn’t know what. First Helen in Cyprus with her holiday fling, then Marianne in Vegas and now Caro, content with that most vital thing, sex, companionship …a cuddle. Even Alex whose life was lived within in a five-mile radius of home had found himself someone to hold. ‘I’m not upset,’ she managed, ‘and I’m not offended. I suppose,’ she said quietly, ‘I’d like a cuddle too.’

7

Standing in front of her three colleagues at Rosehill Heath Centre, Helen felt removed from reality. Firstly, Tina, Daisy and Anne had formed a welcome line-up more suitable for a royal visit, than a co-worker returning from a six-week break. Secondly, absolutely nothing had changed. The poster on the door with ‘new’ opening hours still peeled back from the top-left corner, the same loneMeasles Aware!leaflet, still spilled from a plastic holder on the table in reception. And thirdly, Tina had just handed her a Tupperware box containing a huge slab of lemon drizzle cake.

Smiling, Helen looked at the box, the dense round contained within. She was thinking about the women with honey-coloured highlights and matching blouses on Saturday. She was thinking about her Instagram feed. The constant stream of adverts for special diets and special training methods and special coaches, all designed to get rid of that specially problematic midlife belly. Which she did have once but now didn’t. Oh yes, this time last year and the linen trousers she wore would have been slicing her belly in half. By coffee time she’d have given up and undone the button, all the better to enjoy a slab of cake which she wouldhave eaten to stave off boredom. The thing was, she wasn’t bored anymore.

‘I know it’s your favourite!’ Tina giggled.

Helen’s smile faltered.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Anne said. ‘We can have a piece now.’

‘I’ll get some plates.’ Daisy grinned.

Hadn’t they noticed? Caro and Kay had. Didn’t her colleagues also see the difference? Dazed, she watched them scuttle off, full of all the anticipated excitement a tea-break still mustered. The problem was she didn’t feel the same. The problem was, while Daisy and Tina and Anne had been drinking tea and eating cake, she had sat under canopies of stars and lain under skins of canvas, listening to the scratching and snuffling of creatures to whom the darkness belonged. And when the light had come back, she had woken to azure skies, sipping coffee from a tin mug as she watched the sun lay a rosy mantle over mountains that straddled countries. She hadn’t been afraid, and she hadn’t been bored. Not once. She’d trekked empty crevices gouged by glaciers that had melted in her own lifetime, filled with wonder and sadness for the world her children’s children would live in and she hadn’t – not once, not even in her deepest dreams – given a single thought to cake. Couldn’t they see this?

In the back kitchen,she took off her jacket and hung it on the rack. ‘It’s still here then,’ she said, lifting the sleeve of a pale green cardigan.

‘What is?’ Anne didn’t turn from the sink where she was filling the kettle.

‘This.’ Helen held the sleeve high. ‘I think it’s been here as long as I have. So that would be ten years?’

Daisy bustled past, a cup in each hand. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Really?’ she said, letting the sleeve drop.

‘She doesn’t say anything now.’

‘Who?’

‘Dr Ross.’ Tina peeled the lid from the Tupperware box. ‘We were a bit worried she might start again, what with you not being here to organise us, like last time.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You know.’ Anne grinned.

‘No.’ Helen shook her head. She had no idea what they were talking about.

‘That time she tried to stop us drinking coffee at the desk?’ Tina said. ‘I do it all the time now, and she doesn’t say a word.’

‘Me too,’ Daisy added.

‘Oh.’ And as Helen looked at the expectant faces in front of her, her jaw dropped. Coffee-gate? The rebellion she had led – and won – against Dr Ross’s rule that coffee cups were not to be bought to the front desk was something she had forgotten ever happened. What did they want her to say? It had been a tiny event, in a long-ago day of what now felt like someone else’s life, but her colleagues were looking at her now as if they expected a speech.

She laughed, turning away to busy herself opening her handbag. She’d been back at work for less than fifteen minutes and she had another three hundred to get through, but already the ground beneath her feet felt unstable in a way it never had fourteen thousand feet up the Rocky Mountains. She knew why. Up there, where the sky was close enough to touch, she had felt anchored to a world that was tangibly real. Here, it was going to be a battle to stay standing, to stop herself getting dragged down by the undertow of banality.

‘She’s started something else now.’ Anne groaned.

Helen turned.

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