Page 58 of A Midlife Marriage

Five minutes later,and the first thing she saw as she wheeled the bike into the driveway was the blue and whiteFor Salesign stuck amongst the roses. So, it was true then? Although she’d had no reason to doubt Libby, she hadn’t contacted Lawrence to confirm the news that he was selling. Why should she? It wasn’t, strictly speaking, anything to do with her. And yet here she was, evident in every flowerbed and every window. Those lemon curtains, the magnolia tree she had planted when Libby and Ben were still in primary school. These colours, these living things, framed her as well as any photograph could.

She parked the bike and walked to the door, the gravel (as it always had been), painful through the thin soles of her sandals. As she raised her hand to knock, the door swung back.

‘Helly!’ Lawrence was in his running gear (unspeakably tight Lycra shorts over pale hairy legs and a neon green vest), hands on hips, panting like a Labrador. Grinning, he leaned in to plant a sweaty kiss on her cheek. ‘You look marvellous,’ he said. ‘Big day today!’

Helen nodded. There was a wet patch on her cheek now, messing up her make-up.

‘What’s this?’ He pointed at the bike.

‘An electric bike,’ she said tightly. ‘I bought it before I went to the states.’

‘An electric bike!’ Lawrence guffawed. ‘That’s not cycling, Helly! You should have asked me. How much did it set you back?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Come in! Come in!’ And as he raised a sweaty arm to let her in, Helen felt wobbly, stepping over the threshold, back in the scenery of what had been her life.

‘Look at you!’Lawrence exclaimed, as they entered the kitchen. ‘All that walking has done you good, Helly. You look wonderful.’

Walking?A three-day hike across Yellowstone:walking?

‘Libby’s upstairs changing Ben.’

‘OK.’ Helen nodded. She hadn’t seen her daughter since the evening at Libby’s flat, and she felt a sense of dread at their imminent meeting. At some point, Libby would be expecting a conversation, a dialogue between them that would include Helen confirming the fact that she wasn’t going anywhere. Something she hadn’t managed to say to either Fiona Chambers, or herself. ‘And you’re sure you’re going to be OK with him?’ she said, more to distract herself than anything else. The arrangement couldn’t be changed now anyway, Lawrence was taking Ben for the day, while Libby accompanied her to Caro’s wedding.

‘Of course.’ Lawrence smiled. ‘Me and babies, Helly. You know me and babies.’

Did she? Helen frowned. The baby years she remembered were the years Lawrence had left the house at seven and come back at seven. They were the years of extended trips every summer when he went off to climb a mountain or cycle the length of a country. ‘Well.’ She smiled and left it at that. It was all water under a distant bridge now and there was no point in trying to scoop even the smallest bucket back. If he was proactive in his grandson’s life, that was only good. Besides, she was increasingly distracted by the smell of something cooking, something delicious. She turned to look at the Aga where Lawrence now stood, pulling on a floral oven glove she recognised as hers. An everyday item she had used on an everyday basis, for years. Something she hadn’t taken with her and hadn’t missed! In fact, it was possible to go further. Until this moment, she had forgotten the glove even existed. ‘You made a casserole?’ she said, staring at the glove.

Lawrence grinned. ‘It’s pretty easy, Helly. You just throw it all in. I thought Ben and I would have it later with these.’ He heldup a clear plastic bag of green beans. ‘I found them at the bottom of the freezer.’

‘Right.’ Helen nodded. She’d grown those beans herself, in this garden. Seeded, harvested and frozen them. Turning away, she grabbed a tissue from her handbag and held it to her nose. She should have taken a taxi directly to the town hall, she should never have accepted Lawrence’s offer of a lift, never have come back into a house that was no longer hers. A house she had brought her children home to as new-born babies. The house where she had sat with a three- day-old, Jack, that long sunny afternoon Libby and Lawrence had made the biggest mess over a ham salad dinner. The afternoon, she’d been painting the French windows and turned to see Libby crawling towards the road. The winter of heavy snow when they had pretended to be snowed in. The Saturday, Libby had sulked up the drive having failed her driving test. The watermelons she had tried and failed to grow. And those darkest times when her first born hadn’t come home, when her mother had died. Days and weeks in which she had closed her door on the world and this house had been her sanctuary. As she pressed the tissue harder, her eyes stung. She didn’t want to cry, she didn’t want to spoil her make-up, but leaving was a river in flow. It was not an action that could be completed in one step. Things got left behind, things she hadn’t even known she’d left. Like that stupid oven glove, those beans, the pieces of her heart she had painted and nailed and dug into this house. ‘So …’ she said as she pretended to blow her nose. ‘You’re selling the house?’

‘I am.’ And reaching to a cupboard, Lawrence pulled out a tin of protein powder. ‘Excuse me a minute. I need to get this down quick while the muscles are still warm.’

Numb, Helen watched him scoop powder into a glass of water. She used to do this for him. His power drink, or recoverydrink, or whatever it was. ‘You could have told me,’ she said. ‘I had to hear it from Libby.’

‘Oh.’ The slackness of surprise on his face was genuine. It hadn’t, she realised, even occurred to him. ‘Should I have?’

Helen shrugged. No. Legitimately speaking he had been under no obligation to inform her about the sale of a property she had no interest in, the sale of a property where the roses and clematis that she had planted still bloomed, where the bones of two cats, and at least one gerbil whose burials she had overseen, now decomposed. Unable to stop herself, she shrugged again.

‘I thought it was time,’ Lawrence said. ‘Lib has her own place now.’

‘And Jack?’

‘Jack’s due back three days before university starts.’ Lawrence took a spoon and stirred his drink. ‘And then he’s talking about a gap year.’ He dropped the spoon in the sink, raised the glass and swallowed the contents in almost one gulp. Job done, muscles still warm, recovery in progress.

‘I was surprised,’ she said as she watched him. ‘That’s all.’

‘Well to be fair, Helly,’ he said as he put the glass on the counter, ‘we haven’t been in touch much, have we?’

‘I suppose not,’ she said. She used to do that do as well. Move the glass from the counter to the dishwasher, move it back from the dishwasher to the cupboard. ‘No,’ she said, looking at the glass, wondering how long it would sit there. ‘No, we haven’t.’ Since she had left, Lawrence had periodically sent her an email with news about the kids (of which she was already aware, and to which she had responded, because it was polite). But over time even this communication had tailed off; something Helen had taken as a good sign. A signal perhaps, that he was beginning to accept his new reality. It had after all been nearly a year since their divorce was finalised, and, as the hardest part of leaving had been knowing how much she was hurting him, shehad remained alert to any signs that might begin to relieve the guilt. Snowdrops of hope that he was recovering, maybe even meeting new people? So how ironic. How strange that far from a snowdrop, this oak tree of a sign that he was moving on, should feel less like a blessing and more like a wound.

Lawrence raised his hands, a genial gesture. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I’m rattling around like a spare part in this place. And it’s not as if anyone will ever be homeless. The kids will always have a bed at yours or mine.’

‘I suppose so,’ she conceded.

‘Besides,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’m thinking of doing the same as you. It’s one of the reasons behind all this.’ And he turned and waved an airy hand at the kitchen, the hall beyond, the house in general.

‘The same what?’

‘A gap year, Helly!’ He grinned. ‘I’m thinking of taking a gap year. Like you.’

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