Page 49 of The Start of the Story
‘Lies that they were.’
We went quiet. The chops spat and sizzled a bit more, and I cooked the vegetables in water that roiled and boiled and added more atmosphere to the silence.
‘What about making new memories?’ Connor said eventually.
‘I’m starting to try. I know that I can’t live in stasis any more; I need to move on with my life, not despite Elliot, but because of him.’ I drained the vegetables while Connor ladled out the chops. ‘He loved me and I loved him and that’s gone now. But he left me with the memory of what love can be, and how much fun life is, so I should honour that memory and enjoy myself again.’
Even I noticed the hesitancy in my voice. I’d done the thinking and I was speaking the words, but I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to carry out the actions. Here I was, talking like some kind of women’s magazine heroine with all the ‘I must learn to love again’ stuff, but deep down I knew that it wasn’t that simple. It wasneverthat simple.
‘But you’re going to worry, every time any man walks out of that door, that he might not come back,’ Connor said, succinctly. ‘And that sort of worry isn’t going to be good for your health or your relationship.’
It stung somewhat to hear it laid out like that, but he was right, damn him.
‘While you’re going to worry that every woman you meet is keeping massive secrets about a whole other life,’ I responded in kind. See how he liked it.
‘Ah, well.’ Connor slid the plates onto the table and we sat down and eyeballed each other over the slightly singed chops. ‘We’re a right pair of romantic disasters, aren’t we?’
I nodded. ‘We’re practically a rom-com.’ I began to eat my dinner.
‘That we are.’
There was cutting and chewing now taking the place of conversation, but it actually felt rather pleasant. The lamp on the dresser shone a cheerful pool of light and even the overhead fluorescent bulb didn’t feel quite as stark as usual.
The window threw a patch of brightness into the darkness of outside, illuminating a square of white snow, dark and slow river, and a few spare ducks pecking idly at protruding growth around the edges. Everywhere else was almost silent. There wasn’t even the usual distant sound of cars travelling the road along the top of the ridge, only the far-off whirr of a generator on one of the farms as evening milking continued.
‘What do you think, then,’ Connor said eventually, when the plates were nearly clear.
‘About what?’ I leaned back. He really was a good cook – those chops weren’t as burned as I’d feared.
‘About making new traditions? Doing things differently so it’s not a matter of stirring up old memories but making new ones? Because I was thinking, there’s no point now in raking over the old stuff and trying to make itfeeldifferent. How about breaking new ground instead?’
He opened the window to scrape the plates out and the ducks fell upon our scraps with much quacking into the snow-shaded dark.
‘Why have you been thinking about new traditions? I mean, you’re fine, aren’t you? The snow won’t last forever, you aren’t going to be stuck in the cottage for the next fifteen years.’
Connor paused, elbows on the open windowsill. ‘No, no, you’re right.’ He said it lightly and cheerily, but with an undertone that I couldn’t place. ‘I’m not, am I?’ He came back inside and closed the window. ‘But my reluctance to go back this year is opening my eyes to a few things.’
‘Such as?’
He sighed. For a moment he looked tired and a little disillusioned. ‘I’m trying too hard to fit in,’ he said and then turned away, bustling with the dishes. ‘To be the son that they want rather than who I am. Why don’t you get a dishwasher?’
‘I’ve already told you, because there’s only me and I don’t make that much washing up.’
He clanked a few more plates and ran hot water without answering me. I stood with my back to those carefully argued-over oak worktops and looked at my lovely kitchen, built by my wonderful husband. When my parents had come on a visit after Elliot and I had bought the place, when it was still a building site filled with planks and holes in the wall, I’d proudly showed them around. My mother had pursed her lips and frowned and said, ‘It’s a bit small, isn’t it? For the money you paid?’ Unable to see beyond what it was, and into what it could be, and coloured by her disapproval of Elliot’s profession, she’d put a damper on my excitement and enthusiasm that day.
I’d been so determined to prove her wrong. I’d sent pictures of the cottage in every stage of construction; photos of the huge oak dresser being put together – Elliot had found it in a salvage yard and trimmed bits off to make it fit our room – anything I could think of to show her that I’d been right. So maybe I wasn’t quite as innocent of the crime of ‘wanting family approval’ as I thought. I’d wanted my mother to see Elliot as I saw him, a hard-working, kind, practical man who loved me and had a vision for our future. I knew she saw him as stolid and unimaginative, not a high-flier. Unsuitable for her educated daughter, even though that daughter was pushing forward with such an esoteric field of study, not something she could boast about to her friends, such as jewellery or royal palaces. ‘Fairy tales, darling?’ she’d said, when I’d told her about my doctorate. ‘Aren’t you a bit old for that sort of thing?’
But she, and my long-suffering father, who had enjoyed Elliot’s company, and who had cornered him to talk about football at every chance, were in Spain now. Too far for me to need to make any accommodations for them.
‘What you said, about going for a walk tomorrow.’ Connor spoke again, his back to me now as he sluiced water into the sink. ‘And traditions. Yes, going for a pre-Christmas Eve walk was one of ours but, y’know, maybe you could make it yours too. Different from what you did before, with Elliot. Something foryou, a new Christmassy way to be.’
I let myself imagine all those lost Christmases that could have been. The cottage alive with lights and a tree and small plastic toys scattered over the rug. Stockings hung, turnips put out for the reindeer, and Elliot making boot marks in soot by the chimney to let the children know that Father Christmas had been. Hopeless laughter over badly cooked sprouts, a handmade rocking horse, and nights cuddled under a blanket while we watched the stars.
‘Are you all right?’ Connor had turned suddenly and caught me with the memories sparkling in the corners of my eyes and the imagination of what ought to have been running down my cheeks.
‘Yes,’ I said, choked. ‘I’m just – oh, it’s sounfair! We had plans, we had a life! I wanted… more, so much more. All those years we’ll never have…’ The words stopped, caught up behindthe regret and the grief, which I always thought I was getting over, but which would ambush me at inopportune moments.
‘Hey,’ he said. And the next thing I knew I was being embraced, gathered into a tight hug. ‘It’s fine, now.’
