Heidi says, ‘Text me when you’re home.’
‘I’m a big girl, Heidi.’
‘I know, but bad things happen to girls of all shapes and sizes.’
16
Despite dashing to the station, I miss my train by a matter of minutes, and I have to wait another fifteen for the next one. I kill time drinking a glass of house white in the station bar. I don’t really remember making the decision to order a second, but when I pay, I realise I have. I’m agitated and hoping that alcohol will soothe. It doesn’t. A wave of dreary sadness washes over me as I pass through the ticket barrier. I’m not just upset that Heidi might be jealous of my relationship with Matthew or stung that she doubts his commitment to me. The truth is, sometimes I can’t provide her with the answers to the questions she asks. Maybe she’s right and I don’t know him as well as I should. Throughout my career, I’ve maintained that there is no such thing as a stupid question. I’m known for asking the things no one else wants to ask but everyone ought to. It appears I have not transferred this skill to my private life. Should I have? Or are the two things entirely different? The thought confuses me after what I’ve drunk. I wish I’d bought some water.
When Matthew and I are together, we exist in an almost surreal immediacy that make the past and even the future seem irrelevant. There’s an urgency and a completeness to our every moment that doesn’t allow room, or even harbour a need, for anything other than what he offers me. Isn’t it better to stay in the moment, forget what’s gone before, don’t worry about what is yet to come? Isn’t that the mantra we’re all supposed to live by? Being with him is like being in a deep, contented state of meditation. The here and now is enough. More than enough. Yet when I am away from him, for example when I’m with Heidi and she’s probing, I become unsettled and uncertain. I guess that leaves me two choices. I should know more or I should be apart from him less.
The train is busy with commuters. I squeeze into a seat and text Matthew to say I’ll be home by 8.30.
He texts back. What, already? That was a short night xx
Missed you xx
He responds with a smiley face and then: I better clear out the other woman xx
I send a laughing face. Funnily enough, texts with emojis between the two of us don’t aggravate me at all. It’s aways been our language and I’m always sure what he is implying, unlike when I’m texting with Heidi.
He asks, Have you eaten? Xxx
No. I’m starving xxx
I could eat you xxxx
Despite this silly exchange, my mood doesn’t clear. I stare out of the window. The rain makes everything look grey, flat and exhausted. I watch as stations whizz past, in and out of sight, eternally remote, boasting nothing more exciting than uninviting waiting rooms and public toilets.
I carry the regret of my evening with Heidi and Gina with me, and the moment I stumble through the front door, before I have even taken off my coat, I blurt, ‘Where is Becky buried? You never said.’ I regret the question as I hear myself ask it, although it is arguably a smidge better than ‘Do you want kids?’ which is also preying on my mind.
‘Hello, babe.’ He walks over to me. Kisses my forehead. I know I smell boozy, which I’m not proud of. I clamp my mouth shut, try not to breathe near him. He’s holding a spatula that’s dripping with a thick red sauce. I watch warily, in case any of the sauce drips onto my dark wooden floors or my coat. Matthew doesn’t appear aware of it in his hand; he just seems delighted to see me. He beams. ‘I’m making dinner,’ he adds, not answering my question.
‘Oh, let me wash my hands and I’ll help.’ I dash upstairs, splash water on my face and gargle with mouthwash before returning to the kitchen. I like cooking with Matthew. I’ve prepared and eaten enough meals alone to know that this ritual is special, valuable. I enjoy creating something with him; it’s not babies, but it’s something. We are both decent cooks. We learn from one another. Tonight he has prepared a staple, spaghetti bolognese. The smell of the basil, tomatoes and garlic is delicious, and my mouth waters. Carbs are just what I need to soak up the alcohol before I go to bed. I don’t want a cracking hangover in the morning. I can’t afford that, as I have an early start and a busy day. The restructure at work is demanding a forensic approach to budgets. Salaries are the biggest cost, meaning redundancies are inevitable. Tomorrow I’m meeting the CFO to identify who we need to lose. I sigh. I shouldn’t have gone out with Heidi and Gina; I should have kept my head in the game.
‘I am not someone who insists that my bolognese is the best outside Italy or anything hyperbolic, but I do know I make a reliably good one,’ says Matthew with an endearingly modest smile. ‘The trick is to let the sauce simmer for as long as possible so that the flavours of the beef and sausage mingle and reduce. I prepped this at four this afternoon.’
‘But you thought I was eating out,’ I say.
He smiles at me. ‘I had a feeling you might come home to me. At least, I hoped you would. I wanted to be prepared if you did. Besides, if you had stayed out for a raucous time with your friends, I would have popped it in a Tupperware box for tomorrow. It’s just as good on the second day.’ He looks shy about admitting to being so thoughtful, so domestic. I smile encouragingly, and he adds, ‘But I thought that maybe you’d decide being here is just the best.’ He pauses, makes eye contact, and my stomach hiccups. ‘And I was right.’
See. There it is. Evidence that we know each other so well.
Matthew is wearing a crisp white shirt and a pair of jeans. He looks handsome and vital. He clocks my eyes roaming up and down his body, grins. ‘What?’ he asks.
I can hardly confess to marvelling at how attractive and sexy I think he is, so instead I say, ‘I’d never risk making bolognese in a white shirt.’
He laughs and holds up an open bottle of red wine, offering it to me. The bottle is almost empty. I feel a sense of relief that he’s been drinking. I didn’t have to surreptitiously gargle. I can be comfortable with him. Of course I can. I move to the hob to inspect his cooking. We stand side by side and he dips the spatula into the sauce and brings it to my lips. I taste it and nod my appreciation. When he answers, it takes me a moment to understand what is being said.
‘In America, where we were living at the time. That’s where she’s buried.’ I’m glad that I don’t have to look him in the eye now. What might I see there if I did? Pain? Grief? Love? I know he still loves her. That’s natural. Yet difficult. I should have remembered he always answers every question I put to him. His solid, matter-of-fact response shames me, rather than reassures me. I shouldn’t be quizzing him, checking up on him, it’s beneath us. ‘We had so many friends there, it seemed right that the funeral was in New York so we could say goodbye together. Besides, the idea of her on a plane, in a fridge or whatever it is that they do …’ He shivers.
I place my hand on his forearm. ‘I see. Makes sense.’
‘Anyway, I couldn’t have afforded to have her flown anywhere. Not to South Africa, where her parents are, or here, even though I knew I’d be coming back to the UK in the long term.’
‘Aren’t you sad that she’s so far away?’ I ask. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be able to put flowers on her grave? Aren’t you worried that no one is doing that?’
‘She’s dead, Emma, what does it matter?’ Matthew snaps.
I gasp at the abruptness of his response. Normally he’s so patient and unflappable. However, I also accept that my questions are clumsy, unkind. Heidi has got under my skin. It’s idiotic of me to push this matter. I’m glad we don’t have to visit her grave together, that we don’t have a physical presence hanging over us. As it is, I sometimes feel the ghost of her sitting between us. Not literally, of course, I don’t believe in such nonsense, but metaphorically she haunts me.
He puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘That sounded harsher than I meant it to. Sorry. All I mean is that I carry her around in my heart, in my head. I don’t need to visit her grave. She’s with me always.’ And now I really wish I hadn’t asked, because his words land like slaps. She’s with me always too. ‘OK, enough of this talk.’ He claps his hands together and looks about him. ‘I’m going to put on some music. I just need to find the portable speaker thingy. This house is so large, I keep losing things. Then we can enjoy this delicious meal I’ve slaved over for you.’ He grins. ‘Will you make yourself useful, put on the spaghetti?’
I keep spaghetti in an embossed Fortnum and Mason biscuit tin, but when I reach for it, I find that it’s empty. Behind the kitchen, just past the utility room, is the larder. I rummage around in there for a new packet of spaghetti. It’s not on the shelf where I keep pasta, although there is a bag of farfalle and another of rotini. Certain that there ought to be a packet somewhere, I get down on my hands and knees and root about behind tins of black beans and cannellini beans in the bottom cupboard. Finally, I’m successful. I grab the packet triumphantly and return to the kitchen.
I don’t understand what I’m faced with.
My beautiful, serene state-of-the-art kitchen is decimated; it has turned into a 3D Jackson Pollock. The bolognese sauce is everywhere. I don’t mean the pot has been upended – I don’t know how that would happen anyway, as it’s a chunky Le Creuset that I struggle to pick up. It’s still on the hob, but it seems that someone has scooped up the blood-red sauce and thrown it over the walls, smeared it across the surfaces, the breakfast bar, the floor. There are splatters on the sink, the splashback, the draining board.
I stare at the act of vandalism and my confusion metamorphoses into fury. What the hell? Who the hell? Why the hell? The tomato and mince look like blood and crap. It looks like a protest in a prison. Something I’ve seen in a movie or a nightmare. But before I can fully process my fury, it dissolves into fear. My lungs harden and my breath sticks in my throat. The plants and globes being destroyed was bizarre enough; now this. I’ve been wanting to tell myself that there isn’t a problem, but I know that’s not true. Whoever did this might still be in the house. I feel a chill; suddenly the room seems eerie and dark. The air is not as it was. It is wet and drained of oxygen, of health. I can’t explain what I feel, because it is unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. I am not alone, I’m sure of it. Am I having a panic attack? ‘Hello?’ I call out. No one replies. Had I expected anyone to?
‘What have you done?’ I jump, look up and see Matthew coming down the stairs carrying the portable speaker. He glances around at the mess and then at me, at the spatula in my hand. He shakes his head sadly.
‘I didn’t do this.’ I can’t recall picking up the spatula, and yet there is sauce trailed down my hand to the elbow of my shirt. I drop it. It falls into the pan and makes another splash on my clothes. I notice that his white shirt is still immaculate; it’s the only thing that remains clean. My cheeks feel like they’re being squeezed together, squashing my nose and eyes; not painful exactly, but uncomfortable and disorientating. I know I’m a little drunk. The thought is in one way a relief – because when I am totally sober, this will all seem less weird, it will make more sense, surely – and yet being drunk is simultaneously a problem because drunks are unreliable, unreasonable. ‘It’s vandals again,’ I explain. ‘We must check the house, right now. We should press the alarm.’
Matthew immediately moves to the back door, wiggles the handle. It’s locked. He turns to the bifold doors that run the length of the house and checks those; they are all secure too. He dashes upstairs and although I’m nervous that he’ll encounter someone, he would be able to manage himself so I don’t try to stop him. For a few moments I remain exactly where he left me. He returns to the kitchen and says, ‘Nothing. No one. All the doors and windows are locked.’
‘I don’t understand.’ I break off. Matthew looks equally confused, and embarrassed too. He stares at his feet. He doesn’t think anyone has been in the house. ‘I didn’t make this mess,’ I insist.
