unable to join them.
That night, I take off my earrings and I put them away in their box. I get into bed, alone. Inside my heart is a vast, hollow space.
Andrew is downstairs, watching something on TV, and I know he will stay there for a while, until I have gone to sleep. Perhaps, if I had behaved differently, we would have had sex tonight. Perhaps those earrings were more than just a present, perhaps they were a bigger gesture, a held-out hand. But I have blown it now. I have slapped that hand away.
And so on we go.
I close my eyes tight and the tears slide into my hair. Is this it? Is this all there is for me? To be useful till I am no longer useful? To be grateful for my small domestic slice and cling to it, no matter what? To hang on and on, till one day I will end up like Andrew’s mother or, worse still, like Mrs Reiber, old and alone.
I see my life run away from me. I see it, skittling down the years like leaves in a breeze. How bitter will I be then, when everything is gone and I am stuck here still in this terrible glue?
EIGHT
Janice comes to visit us the weekend after Christmas. She brings books for Jono and champagne for Andrew and me, but she doesn’t bring her boyfriend.
After lunch we go for a walk in the park, and she and I walk and talk while Andrew and Jono kick a ball. Janice doesn’t have children, and now, of course, she swears she’s never wanted them. She observes Jono with a carefully studied disinterest. I ought to find this refreshing, a break from the intensity with which Jono is normally viewed. I ought to find it liberating; it should free me up to be just myself with her. But the fact is that Janice regards all family life with the same indifference, verging almost on disdain. We are part of the domestic otherworld, Andrew, Jono and me, and as far as Janice is concerned, I am cemented squarely in the middle of it.
‘How was your Christmas?’ I ask.
‘Fantastic,’ she says decisively. ‘No cooking, no relatives – best Christmas ever.’
The feeling that I am a lesser being somehow pervades me, the dull footsteps of predictability creeping over my skin.
‘How about yours?’ she says now, with forced enthusiasm.
‘Oh, fine. You know, the usual,’ I say. ‘Have you seen the parents?’
‘Yes, I went down yesterday. Getting all the family done in one weekend.’
‘Oh.’ That is what I am then; something to be done.
‘Paul’s still stuck with his in-laws in Bristol,’ she adds, by way of explanation.
‘You’re still seeing him, then?’
‘Of course.’
Janice is just over one year older than me. I remember when she used to roam around the house at night-time, dragging her stuffed donkey behind her, terrified of the witches hiding in the dark. Now, she holds her hardness in front of her like a huge, giant bat, with which to smack us all away.
‘Did you see him over Christmas?’ I ask kindly. She is my sister, after all.
‘He came to Devon the day after Boxing Day and stayed over.’ She laughs, triumphantly. ‘Told his wife he had to go into work.’
She is my sister, but her harshness frightens me. I don’t know what to say.
As if she senses my disapproval she says, ‘All men have affairs, you know.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘Well, most do,’ she says. ‘Ian did.’ Ian was her husband. ‘And Paul is. I’m doing no worse than was done to me.’
‘That’s hardly a justification,’ I say, and then, because I don’t want to argue with her, ‘I worry about you, that’s all. I don’t want you to get hurt.’
She loops her arm through mine suddenly and I am overwhelmed with a thickening sadness.
‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ she says. She gestures to where Andrew and Jonathan are now wrestling over that ball, the picture of familial bliss. The shriek of Jono’s laughter cuts clean through the cold winter’s air. ‘Andrew is one of the few men I know who wouldn’t have an affair.’
I watch him, grappling with his son.
That night, I take off my earrings and I put them away in their box. I get into bed, alone. Inside my heart is a vast, hollow space.
Andrew is downstairs, watching something on TV, and I know he will stay there for a while, until I have gone to sleep. Perhaps, if I had behaved differently, we would have had sex tonight. Perhaps those earrings were more than just a present, perhaps they were a bigger gesture, a held-out hand. But I have blown it now. I have slapped that hand away.
And so on we go.
I close my eyes tight and the tears slide into my hair. Is this it? Is this all there is for me? To be useful till I am no longer useful? To be grateful for my small domestic slice and cling to it, no matter what? To hang on and on, till one day I will end up like Andrew’s mother or, worse still, like Mrs Reiber, old and alone.
I see my life run away from me. I see it, skittling down the years like leaves in a breeze. How bitter will I be then, when everything is gone and I am stuck here still in this terrible glue?
EIGHT
Janice comes to visit us the weekend after Christmas. She brings books for Jono and champagne for Andrew and me, but she doesn’t bring her boyfriend.
After lunch we go for a walk in the park, and she and I walk and talk while Andrew and Jono kick a ball. Janice doesn’t have children, and now, of course, she swears she’s never wanted them. She observes Jono with a carefully studied disinterest. I ought to find this refreshing, a break from the intensity with which Jono is normally viewed. I ought to find it liberating; it should free me up to be just myself with her. But the fact is that Janice regards all family life with the same indifference, verging almost on disdain. We are part of the domestic otherworld, Andrew, Jono and me, and as far as Janice is concerned, I am cemented squarely in the middle of it.
‘How was your Christmas?’ I ask.
‘Fantastic,’ she says decisively. ‘No cooking, no relatives – best Christmas ever.’
The feeling that I am a lesser being somehow pervades me, the dull footsteps of predictability creeping over my skin.
‘How about yours?’ she says now, with forced enthusiasm.
‘Oh, fine. You know, the usual,’ I say. ‘Have you seen the parents?’
‘Yes, I went down yesterday. Getting all the family done in one weekend.’
‘Oh.’ That is what I am then; something to be done.
‘Paul’s still stuck with his in-laws in Bristol,’ she adds, by way of explanation.
‘You’re still seeing him, then?’
‘Of course.’
Janice is just over one year older than me. I remember when she used to roam around the house at night-time, dragging her stuffed donkey behind her, terrified of the witches hiding in the dark. Now, she holds her hardness in front of her like a huge, giant bat, with which to smack us all away.
‘Did you see him over Christmas?’ I ask kindly. She is my sister, after all.
‘He came to Devon the day after Boxing Day and stayed over.’ She laughs, triumphantly. ‘Told his wife he had to go into work.’
She is my sister, but her harshness frightens me. I don’t know what to say.
As if she senses my disapproval she says, ‘All men have affairs, you know.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘Well, most do,’ she says. ‘Ian did.’ Ian was her husband. ‘And Paul is. I’m doing no worse than was done to me.’
‘That’s hardly a justification,’ I say, and then, because I don’t want to argue with her, ‘I worry about you, that’s all. I don’t want you to get hurt.’
She loops her arm through mine suddenly and I am overwhelmed with a thickening sadness.
‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ she says. She gestures to where Andrew and Jonathan are now wrestling over that ball, the picture of familial bliss. The shriek of Jono’s laughter cuts clean through the cold winter’s air. ‘Andrew is one of the few men I know who wouldn’t have an affair.’
I watch him, grappling with his son.
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