Page 37 of A Midlife Marriage

‘John?’

‘Why on earth has he chosen that photo?’ She leaned forward to look closer at a profile picture that showed a heavy-set man striding out of the waves, a la Daniel Craig in James Bond.

Craig laughed. ‘Oh, you have so much to learn, Mrs B. That is very tame.’ And he swiped left. ‘How about Tony? He’s looking for thatspecialsomeone.’

Again, she shook her head. She was just looking.Specialwas an adjective too far. Plus, Tony’s profile picture showed himclutching a cat. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed to the cat, as Craig swiped left.

Handing her phone back, Craig stood up. ‘We’ll have to carry on tomorrow.’ he said. ‘I’m going to be late. My five-thirty is grumpy enough as it is.’

Distracted, Kay nodded. ‘This one is funny.’ She was reading the profile of someone who had called himself Goose.

‘Goose?’ Craig wrinkled his nose. ‘What kind of a name is that?’

‘Goose was the sidekick inTop Gun.I think he’s trying to …’ But before she could get any further Craig had leaned in.

‘Oh no!’ he said. ‘A definite, massive no! Anyone who’s anonymous is a big no. Swipe left.’

‘Really?’

‘You can’t see his face! He’s reading a book called ––’

‘How to be an Extrovert,’ Kay said. ‘I thought that was funny.’

‘Mrs B.’ Craig straightened up. ‘Why would anyone stay anonymous?’

She didn’t answer, watching instead as Craig rinsed his cup and put it in the dishwasher. There were, she knew, a myriad reasons why people stayed anonymous. Her thirteen-year-old-self would attest to that.

After sayinggoodbye to her father, she idled along the street toward her own house. Mid- July and the sun was high in the sky. She was reluctant to go home. What was there to go home to? Alex was out with his girlfriend again, and although the fact that he now had a social life, was, as Helen had said, brilliant, it was also a shock. One day it was her and Alex, trundling along together like a set of parallel lines, the next he’d taken a suddendetour. She’d looked up from her book one evening to find him gone. Or that’s how it felt.

Stopping outside her neighbours, the Khans’ house, she took her phone from her pocket and checked the time. What to do? The thought of going home to sit in an empty house on such a beautiful evening was intolerable. Forehead creased in thought, she sniffed the air. Someone was barbecuing and she knew it would be the Khans. They got their grill out on the first of April and didn’t put it away again until mid-November, and if she had the kind of extended family they had, she would do the same. She’d long since lost track of who was living in the house now, but there was never a shortage of comings and goings. The children had grown, but judging by the car park that was the front garden, all of them were still living there and all of them had cars. Mrs Khan’s mum had moved in a couple of years ago, and Mr Khan’s brother, who she knew by sight, was a frequent visitor. He had grown children as well and one of them must have a baby, because this summer she’d seen a pram parked by the front door. Either way, there would never be a shortage of company in that house and as Kay put her phone back, she allowed herself to drift into a fantasy world. A world in which she hadn’t got divorced and had instead gone on to have more children, who had also grown and settled nearby, who also came home frequently, off-loading tricycles on the front lawn and car-seats in the hallway. A world in which Martin’s family had stayed her family too. Thinking this she pressed her lips together. Divorce. The very word meant a turning apart, a parting of the ways. Not just the couple, not just the estate, but the families which the marriage had joined. Reaching the junction halfway along her road, she stopped at the kerb and looked up. Martin’s father had died last year. She’d sent flowers but she hadn’t gone to the funeral. At the time it hadn’t felt right, now it didn’t make sense. A man who, half a lifetime ago had welcomed her into hishouse with a plate of jolly rice and an insistence that she watch the Arsenal game with him. What friends they might have been had they stayed in touch. Stayed family. She should have gone. She should have thrown convention to the wind and just gone, and as she stood blinking, she didn’t know if it was the smoke from the Khans’ barbecue or the breeze in her eyes or the idea of her lonely house waiting.

She did another walk around the block. If there was no company at home, there might be company to be had on the street: a wave, a passing greeting. But the tables outside The Carpenter’s Arms,her local for so many years, were filled with people she didn’t recognise. Men who wore cricket shirts, Summit Electronicsemblazoned across the front. She didn’t recognise the name of the sponsor either. Head down she gave up and walked home, stopping only to look across at the darkened windows of Mrs Newall’s bungalow. Mrs Newall, who had been her longest standing neighbour had also died last year, and Kay had gone to her funeral. Which is where she had met a daughter and son-in-law, she’d never seen before and why she recognised them a few weeks later carrying out box after box to a smart SUV. Including, she’d noticed, the leaf-blower Mrs Newall had bought, and which she’d used just once before she fell over, broke her hip and never really got up again. As the bungalow got cleared and put on the market, she’d seen the daughter and son-in-law more times than she ever had in all the years Mrs Newall had lived opposite. Then theFor Salesign went up and she never saw them again. A couple of weeks later aFor Rentsign went up, and since then Kay had lost track of who did, or didn’t live there. A young man who left early and came back late, a couple in their thirties who never seemed to go anywhere and didn’t talk to anyone. Right now, it was empty and had been for a few weeks and it made her sad to see the garden so unkempt. She stood looking at the cluster of leaves under the Japanese mapletree, the limp gladioli Mrs Newall had been so assiduous with, supporting them with trellis and bamboo, talking and tending to them as if they were children.

Taking her keys out, she looked up at her own house. This was the house she had grown up in, the house she had moved back to after her divorce, when her parents had taken the bungalow at the end of the street, and she had needed to be close to them. Like, she had once thought, Alex would always need to be close to her. Unwilling to contemplate the idea that she might have been wrong, that her son was more than capable of the separation, that it might be something he was actively moving towards, she put the key in the door and turned the lock.

Inside on the kitchen table lay a package and a note from Alex.

This arrived.Out with … Eme …

The end was sucha scrawl she still couldn’t make it out.Emmeline? Or EmmyLou?

Frowning, Kay turned the package over. The postmark was local, but it wasn’t her birthday, and she couldn’t think who would be sending her something. She tore it open and pulled out a white box, with stylish lettering.

Magic Wand.

Butterfly wings swirled; her knees went to water.Use it or lose it,Caro had said. But Caro had always had a gadget for everything: electric toothbrush, face massager. As if it were wired, Kay eased a hand into the envelope and pulled out another two small rectangular boxes, around which a piece of paper had been folded.

Dear Kay,(she read)

Estrogen cream, (topical HRT) and lubricant. Start with the lubricant. The topical HRT will take a few days, especially as yours is vacuum-packed!

Lots of love,

Helen and Caro xxx

PS. There are three settings on the vibrator, we recommend you start slowly, with number one.

PPS. We charged it for you.

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