Page 15 of A Midlife Marriage

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s a yes.’

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As the train began to slow, Caro stood and reached to take her wedding dress down from the luggage rack. She placed the bag on the empty table and laid a hand over the smooth white packaging,watching as the platform of Londale station slid into view and the dark peaks of the Lake District rose up like walls.I would have loved to.Why did she say that?I’m getting married in three weeks.Why didn’t she say that?

Off the train, she trundled her suitcase through the bricked archway of the station, parked it against the wall and opened her handbag. She’d had two percent left on her phone when she’d boarded in London which hadn’t concerned her until she realised there wasn’t a charging point to be found. Feeling the cool smoothness of glass, she eased the phone out, relief rising as she glanced at the same two percent. She tapped in her code, swiped to open and the screen went black. Exasperated, she squeezed the on/off button, put it back in her handbag, took it out … and it was still black.

In the pit of her stomach, panic unfolded. Which was ridiculous. She was a middle-aged woman, at a Cumbrianrailway station, in the broad daylight of a July afternoon. This wasn’t the wilds of Siberia. She wasn’t stuck in the Amazon. And anyway, hadn’t she spent the best part of the last thirty years getting herself halfway across the globe and back? Albeit in a lot more style than the scruffy, unconnected train carriage she’d just spent the last three and a half hours in. Still, a taxi would be handy. Pulling at her bottom lip she scanned the rectangle of cracked tarmac that passed as a carpark. Bar a transit van with a flat tyre and a sprinkling of decaying petals across the windshield, there wasn’t a vehicle in sight and the few passengers who had disembarked with her, had already vanished. So that left her alone with no taxis, no bus stop and no way of getting home … except. She lifted her sunglasses, frowning as she squinted across to the other side of the station. A phone box! Caro smiled. A good old-fashioned phone box. She hadn’t used one in years, but it was like riding a bike, wasn’t it? Once upon a time her wallet had been stuffed with phone cards: Singapore dollars, American dollars, Japanese Yen. She’d been a traveller of the world, prepared and resourceful and, she was sure, she had a few coins in her purse still. Light with relief, she trundled her case across, yanked the door open and went to pick up the phone. But there was no phone. The gap where it should have been had been covered instead by a crocheted teddy bear, with dangling pom-poms. Alongside sat a pile of mouldy paperbacks, an empty box and a hand-written sign:Donations welcome.

Donations welcome,Caro mouthed. What was she supposed to do? What was anyone supposed to do in an emergency? Drop a pound into the box and read themselves home? Fuming she let the door swing shut, the idiocy of decorating what should have been an emergency resource with pom-poms fuelling her as she bumped her case across the carpark and started an angry stalk up the rise towards the high street.

But it was hot. So hot she could feel it on her scalp, and her suitcase rattled, and the plastic of her dress bag kept sticking to the bare flesh of her arm. Sweat trickled down her spine and on the back of her right ankle she could feel raw skin, as her Manolo Blahniks scraped a blister. She reached the chemist and paused. The windows were dark, a yellowClosedsign in the doorway ending any thoughts she had about popping in to buy a packet of plasters. Head down, she pushed on until a few minutes later flashes of orange swung into view, and she looked up to see the hanging baskets of the pub. Another five minutes then and she would be at the top of the hill, on the road out of Londale, to Hollybrook, and home. As she passed, she nodded at the three men sitting outside. It felt like the polite thing to do. There was no one else around and she was pretty conspicuous.

One of the men nodded back. ‘Did some shopping in the big smoke?’ He was looking at her dress bag.

Caro stopped, glanced over her shoulder and then looked back. Was he talking to her?

The man grinned. He raised his pint, and the other two did the same.

‘Umm, yes, thank you,’ she managed. Obviously, he was talking to her. Even though she’d never seen him before in her life and it was none of his business what she’d done … in the big smoke.

‘Hard on the wheels,’ he said, looking at her suitcase.

‘I’ll manage.’ Her smile was razor thin. Was this what passed as entertainment? It must be, because besides herself, the high-street was deserted. She gave them another curt nod, tightened her grip on her case and rattled past, her dress bag, flapping at her side like a broken wing.

Ten minutes later,turning her key in the door, she was still sweating and still smarting about a telephone box covered in pom-poms, a chemist shop that kept archaic opening hours, and a stranger asking if she’d been shopping. She turned the handle, stepped inside and was instantly hit by the sweet and pungent punch of roasting meat. Thirty-degree heat, and Tomasz was cooking a roast dinner? She kicked off her pumps and turned to the mirror, the first time she had looked at herself since she’d left London. Her face was tomato red and her hair lank, semi-circles of sweat staining the arms of her blouse. It was hard to believe she was the same woman. The woman at the centre of a stage in the sky, the one who had said,I would have loved to.

‘Why didn’t you call?’ At the end of the hallway, Tomasz appeared. He was barefoot, his toes pale and hairy against the quarry tiling.

Caro stared. It hadn’t escaped her that here, at Hollybrook, Tomasz was always barefoot, whereas at her London flat (as if his clothing had been asked to reflect his status as a visitor), he’d keep both his socks and his work sweatshirt on. How quickly, by comparison, he had made himself at home. She smiled, remembering how after his last shift, he’d thrown all three of those horrible sweatshirts in the bin, which although it had been amusing, wasn’t something she intended doing with her Max Mara suits or her Manolo Blahnik pumps. It wasn’t the same of course. Tomasz had hated his job. Besides, he had no occasion any more for aFarmFreshsweatshirt, whereas a Max Mara suit? There would always be a place and time. Or there should be.

‘If you’d rung, I would have collected you,’ he said.

She looked up. ‘My phone went dead, and there were no chargers on the train.’ She dumped her handbag on the table. ‘And pom-poms instead of a phone.’

‘Pom-poms?’

‘Don’t ask,’

‘I’ll get you a gin and tonic.’ Spatula in hand, Tomasz kissed her cheek. ‘How did it go? Come and tell me all about it.’

‘It went really ––’ But she didn’t get to the end of her sentence because turning into the low beamed kitchen, she was knocked back by a wave of heat so solid she felt her earlobes tingle. A huge pan stood on the Aga, steam rising. ‘What are you making?’ she gasped. The kitchen table was covered with empty jars and in front of the sink, the compost bin overflowed with peelings.

‘Courgette and tomato sauce.’

‘More?’ Caro wiped her brow. She’d spent two days last week harvesting courgettes, chopping, sterilising, bottling.

Tomasz grinned. ‘They grow quickly, Caro. I’m using some for dinner, with pork.’

‘OK.’ She took a glass and filled it with water. She could barely look at a courgette, let alone eat one. ‘Can we turn it off?’ she said, nodding at the Aga. The heat was palpable, even from where she stood, six feet away she could feel it on her legs.

Tomasz shook his head. ‘If we turn it off, we’ll have to get it serviced to turn it back on again. That will cost hundreds, you know this.’

Hundreds.Caro gulped the water back. The skincare she had bought at the spa had cost three hundred pounds and a few hours ago she was mingling to the tune of millions. She held the glass against her cheek, its coolness stinging. ‘That would be OK, wouldn’t it?’ she said. ‘It’s just getting so hot in here and I don’t think the weather’s going to break anytime soon.’

Tomasz looked at her and as he did, they both felt the gulf. The difference between the person who would say what she just had, and the person who would never have said it.

‘We can’t. This needs to be done now. Nothing will keep, you know.’

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