Page 5 of A Midlife Marriage

‘Let me ca … catch my breath.’

‘Why don’t you ring me back,’ she said. ‘Find a seat, catch your breath and ring me back. I’m not in any hurry.’

A weak wave from Marianne signalled her agreement and propping her phone on her kitchen windowsill, Kay turned to look at her own sky, which was steel grey not blue. Soon, she really wouldn’t be in any hurry, ever again. Today was the last day of her working life. The last day she could legitimately callherself a teacher and it had come around so fast that from her toes upward, she felt the surge of a worry that left her weak as a kitten.

Her phone rang. She jumped, stared at the screen and realised it was Marianne calling back. How lost she’d been, swamped with an apprehension that was sudden and blinding. Taking a breath, she swiped the screen and Marianne’s face came into view.

‘Ok. I’m ready, Marianne gasped, ‘Just a mo ...’

‘Catch your breath.’ Kay waited. Behind from where Marianne sat, she could see tendrils of fuchsia pink bougainvillea scrawled across a white wall. Everything else in the picture was a soft blurry ochre, from the scrubbed slopes of the Kyrenia mountains, to the rocks beyond. It was a view she remembered well, a view that offered a beautifully simple contrast: a strike of colour from the bougainvillea, a muted, quiet background behind. Just as her decision to take early retirement and move to Cyprus had once been beautifully simple. Those days felt far away now, days when watching the ceiling during radiotherapy sessions, her prayers had been the prayers of a woman with few options.If I get a second chance, I will do this…If I’m lucky …Now she watched the ceiling and tortured herself in other ways and the more she did, the more Cyprus was beginning to feel difficult. The weekend in April had brought home just how far from home she would be, had her thinking that it was all just a morphine-induced pipe dream she had perhaps smoked too much of. She picked up her mug and blowing air to cool her tea down, glanced across at the package on the kitchen bench. It had been there since Saturday. Her leopard-print bikini still unwrapped.

Looking at it, Kay felt her shoulders drop. It was astonishing to her now, the small amount of consideration she had given to how hard this was going to be. No, she wasn’t selling thehouse. No lampshades to stuff into her luggage. No tables and chairs strapped to a wagon, pulled by a weary donkey, a fiddler on the roof playing a mournful lament.I’m looking at it as extended holiday,rather than anything permanent,she’d begun explaining to everyone who had never asked. Including her father, who had asked. But how on earth could she have contemplated leaving him for months at a time so soon after her mother had died? He’d been like a ghost lately, every time she saw him, he seemed to have diminished in height, in energy, in sheer physical presence, as if one by one, all the ties that tethered a being to this life were being snipped away. She had hoped that after the last few years of caring for her mother, the opposite would have happened. That he would have started living again. She’d even gone so far as sign him up to a seniors’ social club, but without her mother by his side, in sickness and in health, he seemed directionless: a boat without a rudder.

Hands wrapped around her cup, she took a long contemplative slurp. And then, of course, there was Alex. Although since he had gone out and got a girlfriend – something she had never even tried imagining he would do, she’d hardly seen him. Her awkward, painfully shy, often mono-syllabic son had a girlfriend. Emmy-Lou. Or was it Emmeline? She wasn’t sure, having met the girl only once, and then for not more than a few brief seconds as they had crossed paths on the doorstep. Alex seemed determined to keep her under wraps.

‘I’m ready now!’ Marianne sat upright. ‘I wanted to ring and wish you all the best for today.’

‘Oh.’ Tears smarted. Kay put her cup down and covered her mouth.

‘I hope you have a wonderful day, Kay. You deserve it.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t cry now,’ Marianne scolded. ‘Chin up. It’s the start of something new. I’m wishing all good things for you.’

Unable to speak, Kay nodded. If she had a pound for every good wish she’d received ... So many texts, so many students popping into her classroom all week long, bringing her gifts, shyly handing over cards. The mantle in her living room overflowed. It was overwhelming. Thank goodness there really was no party planned, all she wanted to do was make a quiet exit before her cold feet turned to ice, dropped off and she changed her mind.

‘Well then. I don’t have long I’m afraid, eyebrows, wants to go through our new customer satisfaction forms.’ Marianne’s face pinched in disgust. ‘If they’re satisfied,’ she snorted, ‘they come back. It’s simple. No forms, no stupid smiley face, no,what could we have done better?Why do they make it so complicated? Nothing is simple anymore.’

Kay smiled. If Marianne could read her mind.

‘She must justify her degree I suppose. They all have to justify their expensive educations. So,’ brushing dust from her skirt, Marianne leaned forward. ‘Do you have a date for your flight yet? I know it will be after the wedding.’

‘I’ve bought a bikini!’

‘But no flight?’

‘Not yet and speaking of which, the wedding I mean, I saw Caro and Helen on Saturday. Helen’s back from America.’ Her voice was bright, the swerve of direction deliberate. The last few times she had spoken with Marianne she’d managed to avoid talk of dates altogether, falling back on the fact that with the end of term and retirement approaching, she simply had too much to concentrate on. Which was true. But the excuse was reaching its expiry date. ‘They look so well,’ she added, before Marianne could speak. ‘They have great tans. Helen from hiking and Caro, I suppose from all the work on the farm … smallholding, I mean. She has chickens. Can you imagine?’ She was garbling and sheknew it, but at least it was steering the conversation away from where she didn’t want it to go.

And it worked, because now Marianne laughed. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I can’t imagine it. Caro a farmer? With chickens!’

‘I find it hard too,’ Kay murmured.

‘So how is she in her farm, that is not a farm?’

Kay opened her mouth ready to speak.

‘Having second thoughts?’ Marianne said, filling the gap.

‘No.’ She glanced to the window. She was searching for the right word. It was hard, almost impossible to imagine Caro with chickens, but there hadn’t been any second-thought vibes at the weekend. If anything, Caro looked … ‘Content,’ she said, as she turned back to her screen.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I think that’s the right word.’

‘It’s the sex.’ Marianne nodded.

‘Sex!’

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