She grimaces. ‘You need to see me?’ she repeats, mentally listing the various reasons her son might want to see her. If he wants money, she’s all out. If he’s split up with Jessica and needs emotional support, her stock of that is pretty low, too.
‘Yeah, it’s kind of urgent,’ Jude says. ‘So is it OK? If we come up?’
‘What? Now?’ she asks. ‘I’m right in the middle of packing. Everything’s all over the place, sweetheart. The moving guys are coming tomorrow and I’m way behind schedule.’
‘Then we can help you,’ Jude says. ‘We can stay the night and help you all day tomorrow.’
‘But the bedrooms,’ she says. ‘I’ve packed all the bedding away. I wouldn’t even know which box it’s in.’
‘We’ll bring sleeping bags. It’ll be fine.’
‘But . . .’ she sighs. ‘This really isn’t the best timing, Jude. I’d have to start unpacking stuff and tidying and this isn’t the right moment for that. Are you sure it can’t wait till next weekend?’
‘Um. Well, no. No, it can’t really,’ Jude says. ‘And don’t tidy. We don’t care how the place looks.’
‘Tell me now, then,’ she says. ‘Tell me on the phone. You don’t have to drive all the way here, do you?’
‘I’d rather come,’ Jude replies. ‘We can be there in . . . How long?’ he asks, and it’s not until Jessica, in the background, shouts out, ‘Four, four and a half hours,’ that she realises the question wasn’t directed at her. ‘So, about sevenish?’ Jude says.
‘But the kitchen . . .’ she says. ‘Even the kitchen stuff . . . It’s all packed away.’
‘Then we’ll bring pizza,’ Jude says.
‘Pizza,’ she repeats.
‘We can eat it out of the boxes.’
‘Bring Chinese, then,’ she tells him. ‘If you must come, bring Chinese, from Ip’s. I’ve still got plates somewhere.’
‘Chinese it is, then,’ Jude says. ‘See you about seven-thirty.’
‘And go to Ip’s,’ she says again. ‘Opposite the Bull’s Head. They were really rude the last time I went to the other one, so go to Ip’s.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Jude says. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll go to Ip’s. See you in a bit.’
‘Just one thing,’ she asks. ‘Is it good news or bad?’
‘Um, I’m not sure, really,’ Jude says. ‘It’s certainly news, anyway.’
One
Mandy
My marriage ended on the 3rd of March 2007 at about 2.25 p.m.
There had been no warning signs; I had no suspicions. If anything, I felt blessed that we were one of those lucky couples who were destined to coast through life side by side. I didn’t like to think about the end much, didn’t want to consider which of us might go first, but that was about the only terror I could envisage on our joint horizon.
Other than that, I felt quite comfortable with the idea of getting older. What could be nicer, I thought, than lazy days in front of the (gas-powered) log fire, pausing occasionally to make a cup of tea for the person I’d spent my life with, someone so familiar to me that I hadn’t needed to ask what he was thinking about for years. That’s how well I thought I knew my husband.
Retirement, of course, was still a long way off, so I’m only telling you this to give you an idea of just how shocking that afternoon’s revelations were to me.
I’d had one of my rare optical migraines at work that lunchtime, and after the obligatory lie-down on the office couch until I could see well enough to drive again, I’d rushed home, hoping to get to bed before the pulsing, throbbing headache that invariably followed the blindness got started.
Other than the hum of the refrigerator and the pfff! of the boiler starting up, the house was exactly as quiet as I expected it to be. Ian was out at work; the kids were at school. I’d take my Migrex and lie down in the darkened bedroom and, if I was lucky, it would pass by the time everyone got home.
As I entered the bathroom, I glanced towards our bedroom and saw, through the half-open door, a heeled leather shoe at the end of the bed. I noticed it without noticing it, if you know what I mean. I saw it as I saw the rumpled sheets and the wintry sunlight cutting through a gap in the curtains, but with the shimmering still present around the edges of my vision it didn’t register, really. I certainly didn’t consider, as I sat down to wee, that the shoe might not be mine.
What I did notice, when I stepped back out of the bathroom, the shimmering almost gone now and the lobe above my left eye beginning to throb, was that the shoe was no longer there.
Feeling more confused than suspicious, I headed towards the bedroom. The sheets, I noticed, were now smooth. The shoe I thought I’d seen had vanished. Had I imagined it? Was I having visions, now? Or had it just been a memory from a different day?
I sniffed at the air and thought I detected an unusual odour, a synthetic fruity perfume like fabric softener or perhaps cheap own-brand washing powder. But strange odours were a regular feature of my migraines, too, and so I ignored it and thought instead, as I kicked my own shoes off, about the shoe I thought I’d seen.
I crossed to the window and, even though this was physically painful, peered out at the street before pulling the curtains shut. The street outside was quiet. Everything seemed as it should be.
It was then that I heard a noise, or at least, I thought I heard a noise. Above the whistle of the WC tank filling it was hard to be sure, but it had sounded like our conservatory door closing. The imaginary shoe, the fruity smell, the sheets, the noise . . . Something seemed out of kilter.
Not knowing quite why, I strode down the landing to Jude’s bedroom and peered out between his Spider-Man curtains at the back garden, just in time to see Ian, my husband of thirteen years, surreptitiously pulling the back gate closed behind him. Then for a fraction of a second, no more, I saw the backs of two heads: Ian’s, and a blonde woman’s, before they vanished behind the neighbour’s hedge.
I just about managed to change the sheets, but I was in too much pain to do anything more. But even with the sheets changed, I couldn’t bear to lie down in that bed. I wondered if I ever would again.
After glancing around the room one last time and noting that Ian’s tie was draped over the back of a chair, I crossed the landing to Zoe’s messy bedroom, where I threw myself down and closed my eyes. The tie, I realised, was the same one Ian had worn to work that morning, the pink and blue striped one I had bought him (on Jude’s behalf) the previous Christmas. Between spasms of physical pain, I thought about what I’d just discovered, and wept.
The pain had faded to a dull ache by the time the kids got home. I set them up with a film and some crisps and waited for Ian in the kitchen. They didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. Kids are incredibly self-absorbed at that age.
Ian arrived just after six. He was whistling. I kid you not.
‘Hi,’ he said, bending down to peck me on the cheek. ‘How was your day?’
‘Not good,’ I said. ‘I got a migraine and had to come home, but then you know that, don’t you?’