Between You and Me Read online

  ‘Okay.’ I let this settle. There’s a loud hissing of steam, the banging of portafilters in the background. I look at the ends of her fair hair hitting the mandarin collar of her white-and-blue striped shirt, the small gold pendant in the shape of a star, with a tiny diamond at its centre, hanging from a fine gold chain. My mind casts around for something more to add, but she fills the gap.

  ‘I once told you that I hoped we wouldn’t start out as enemies, or become them, but that may have gone a little to pot somewhere.’ She flashes a brief and slightly ghoulish smile. ‘Anyway, I firmly believe that we do what we do for our own mixed-up reasons, but somewhere in there we can hope some of the right reasons are fuelling everything.’

  I have no idea if she’s trying to apologise, but I don’t find myself feeling very magnanimous. I go on staring at her, conscious of a certain imbalance correcting itself.

  She slides her coffee cup away, her fingers lingering on the saucer. ‘What I’m saying is . . . I have given a lot of thought to this and I hope – obviously not any time soon – but maybe with a bit of tolerance on both our parts, we can put this behind us.’

  She sits back in her chair, crosses her arms, and waits.

  ‘Thank you, Meredith,’ I say eventually, when I can find my voice. ‘That may be a bridge too far. But I suppose – for the same reasons as you – I’m willing to give it a try if you are.’

  She nods, stands, her chair scraping along the floor. I feel her briefly look down at the top of my head, like she might say something else, but then she walks out.

  ‘I was thinking about August,’ Joe says.

  Normal life has somehow resumed for about a month now. We have come to one of our favourite restaurants on the high street, the first time we’ve been out for dinner since before Toby’s accident. It’s one of those places that does a great job of British food. Big hearty portions. For some odd reason the sight of Joe’s plate of English lamb makes me think of a conversation we had in the early days of our courtship. Joe told me all the things he found weird about England when he first moved here. Welsh Rarebit that contained no rabbit, separate taps for hot and cold, almost as many pigeons as people at every tourist monument, and Scotch eggs that he had to eat way too many of before concluding there wasn’t a single drop of alcohol in them. How I’d laughed. That was back when every word that came out of his mouth was enthralling to me, when Joe was sitting on a pedestal he never asked to be on – I just put him there, unwittingly setting him up to fall.

  ‘You’re going to be done with your first foundation year soon. We should do something to mark the occasion.’

  I want to feel excited by this – by the idea of us doing something celebratory to mark this new phase where I become a fully registered doctor.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ I ask, looking briefly at my food.

  He chews fast, wipes his mouth on a napkin. ‘I was thinking . . . well, to be honest, I was thinking of a trip to Chicago.’ He lets the idea land for a second or two. ‘I would like you to spend some proper time with my parents. It’s sad you’ve never actually met them except through FaceTime.’

  As I navigate the last flakes of my Cornish cod, I find myself saying, ‘I haven’t seen my own parents in months. You’ve only met them once.’ We took a three-day break to Spain before we were married. We stayed in a hotel because Joe didn’t really want to be holed up in their small guest room, and met them for dinner, which felt so impersonal, like they could have been anybody.

  I wonder if he senses I’m feeling a little ornery because he looks up from his plate. ‘I know that . . .’ he says, rather open-endedly.

  For some reason I am reminded of our scaled-down wedding day. A civil service at Chelsea Town Hall. Not attended by either set of parents. His, perhaps because it was too far to travel for a second go around. Mine, because I suspect it just wasn’t ‘wedding’ enough to be the day my parents had waited for – though it was never acknowledged. And yet I didn’t see it as devoid of anything at the time.

  ‘So it would be nice if you could get to know them a bit better, too,’ I say.

  I wait for him to say, Then why don’t we go to Spain first and then on to Chicago? And to suggest it like he means it – like the old fix-everything, solve-everything Joe – but instead he says, ‘The thing is, you could hop over there for a long weekend any time – we both could. But I can’t do that with Chicago. If we go – as a family – we have to go for at least a couple of weeks, or maybe three, to make it worthwhile.’

  I believe this is the first time he’s referred to the four of us as a family. And while I’ve wanted this, craved this sense of belonging, of – finally – everything falling into place, all I’m feeling right now is disappointed.

  When I don’t answer, he says, ‘The way I saw it panning out . . . maybe we spend a week with my parents, then we leave Grace and Toby there with them, and you and I go off on a little trip.’ He smiles. ‘I was thinking maybe back to Santa Monica.’

  Santa Monica. Instead of flooding with nostalgia, those words fill me with a tremendous sense of loss. The truth is, in the early days of our relationship I’d imagined us going back sometime, perhaps for a landmark anniversary. I’d envisioned what it would be like, caught myself almost stage-directing it in my mind, thrilled with the idea of recreating how we met.

  As he holds my eyes, with so much optimism in his face, I want to say That’s a fantastic idea! Let’s do it! It would be great for us! Just what we need! But when I go to put voice to this fiction, there is this huge glottal stop. The vocal cords come together, stop the breath and stop the sound.

  ‘Can we ever go back?’ I say instead, and set my cutlery down, suddenly overcome with a horrible heavy heart. ‘Because I don’t believe we can.’

  His face changes; a darkness seems to settle around us.

  ‘Okay,’ he says carefully. ‘We don’t have to go there. We could go somewhere else.’

  I try a smile for his sake, for the way he seems to be window-dressing the issue. ‘Let’s think about it.’

  I resume eating, feel him scrutinising me. Then he resumes eating too. After an interval, he says, ‘Well, thinking’s fine, but we can’t think for too long if we’re going to be securing four airline tickets at the height of the season.’ He says it as though it’s only the logistics that are at stake here, not something much bigger.

  I look up and we meet eyes.

  Then he adds, somewhat potently, ‘I’m going to need you to decide soon.’

  ‘Then I will,’ I say.

  After we get home, I change into my dressing gown and wander back into the living room. He’s standing by the patio door, lit by the moon, watching Mozart sniff around the plant pots.

  ‘What’s changed?’ I say to his back.

  He turns around. A brief frown. ‘What do you mean?’

  Part of me falters. I try to breathe steadily despite a tightening in my throat. ‘For months now I’ve hardly done a thing right. I mean, from virtually the minute I came into this family I seem to have blundered my way through everything . . . had this sense that you’re trying to be patient with me, but you’re carrying around some feeling that you backed the wrong horse.’

  ‘The wrong horse?’ He almost laughs. ‘What?’

  ‘Joe, just a few weeks ago you said I was highly irresponsible, that I put Toby in harm’s way—’ Repeating his expression stings. I try not to exhume the awfulness of all that.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he says. ‘We’re not going back to that, are we? I thought we were over all that business?’

  ‘Not to that, specifically, no. We’re not going back to it. But like I say, I want to know what’s shifted in your mind – about me? Why the vote of confidence in me – in us – now?’

  He shakes his head in bewilderment, perches on the end of the sofa. ‘There’s no sudden vote of confidence. I never lost confidence in the first place . . . The accident . . . Toby . . . It turned out fine.’ He says it as though none of thi
s should be any mystery. ‘It all ended up being okay, didn’t it?’

  ‘Did it?’ I say. ‘If he hadn’t been fine, would we still be here, Joe? Discussing a family trip to Chicago? Because somehow I feel we wouldn’t.’

  I sit down and he angles himself to better look at me.

  ‘If Meredith had sued me, if I’d had my career ruined, would we have weathered that, do you think? Would you have supported me through it?’ I don’t let him answer. ‘In fact, have you ever fully supported me, in either your actions or your words?’

  He looks utterly bruised by this, throws me a hard, uncomprehending stare. ‘Why are you saying all this, Lauren? What are you getting at? Do you really think anyone else in our shoes would have found it easier? Are you that unrealistic?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Probably not. But I’m also wondering if anyone else had been in my situation and had been made to feel as you’ve made me feel at times . . . would they still be around? Would they not feel they deserved so much more? Someone who treated them with so much more consideration?’

  He blinks and then he looks at the floor.

  ‘Maybe I am overly sensitive, but you lost faith in us – in me. You might deny it, but I know you did. Well, the thing is, I lost it in you too. And I don’t really ever see me getting it back.’

  He looks up, stares at me with a slight vacancy. I can almost see his brain trying to negotiate all this. But he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t make a case for how I am so very wrong.

  ‘There’s one more thing, too,’ I say. ‘A couple of months ago, I stopped taking the pill. Right after we came back from Edinburgh, actually.’

  ‘What?’ His jaw drops briefly. ‘And now you’re pregnant?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘You needn’t panic. I’m not pregnant, because I don’t want to be pregnant right now, so I’ve been careful.’ I clear my throat. ‘But nor do I want to be on the pill because someone else insists on it. I’m not going to be held to an agreement we had before we married with the understanding that I am not allowed to change my mind about something as huge as this. I’m not going to be checked up on before you touch me.’

  He regards me in disbelief, like someone desperately searching for a way to protest.

  He goes to speak but I hold up my hand. ‘You made it known how you felt about the timing before I married you – that you didn’t want to be an old dad. You said all you cared about was my happiness, like you were being honest for my own good. But the only good you’re interested in is your own, Joe. The only person whose happiness you are truly invested in is yours.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ he says. ‘That is so not true! It’s actually the farthest—’

  ‘What if I’d insisted I wanted to have kids after I became a qualified GP, would you have still married me?’

  There is a moment where all he can do is look at me. His mouth opens, but any answer he might offer is a little too late out of the gate.

  ‘You wouldn’t have,’ I finish for him. ‘It would have been a deal-breaker.’ I hang my head, wondering how I could have been so naive.

  When I look up his face is a picture of sadness and regret.

  But he still hasn’t spoken.

  He still hasn’t contradicted me.

  ‘So that’s why I’m going to do what I’m going to do,’ I say.

  FIFTY-ONE

  For the next two weeks, the kids are in France with their mother. My days consist of several back-to-back night shifts, sleeping spottily during the day while Joe makes himself scarce at meetings, and in the waking hours where our paths manage not to intersect, trying to get my head around the exhausting logistics of moving out.

  On Tuesday I go to see a few flats that Sophie helped me find. One in particular – a studio in a four-storey townhouse off High Street Kensington – could fit the bill, but it’s two hundred pounds a month over my budget. I need to think about it.

  On Thursday, when I return home after dragging myself around the block with the dog, I think Joe isn’t home, but our bedroom door opens and he wanders out, looking uncharacteristically dishevelled, unshaven, tired, and still in yesterday’s shirt.

  ‘Can we talk?’ he asks, lifelessly.

  I walk into the living room and sit down. Mozart trots to his water bowl and I listen to the loud rhythm of him lapping.

  ‘I don’t want you to leave.’ He sits down beside me. ‘Please . . .’ He reaches for my hands that are folded in my lap, takes them in his own and slowly rubs my knuckles with his thumb. ‘It’s agonising, this . . . I can’t bear the idea that I’m going to lose you . . . Please let’s find a way around this.’

  I can’t look in his eyes. I gaze, instead, at the way my hands lie inert in his.

  ‘I love you, Lauren. If this is about the baby thing . . . I’m prepared to think about it.’

  I want to say I don’t love you, but I can’t say it.

  I take my hands away and fold my arms. ‘Joe . . . I am so wrung out from talking and thinking about this. I don’t want you to rethink anything. As much as you might believe I do, I actually don’t want you to live a life that’s some massive compromise to you – just for me.’

  As I say it, I am never more certain that it’s true. It’s like someone said in the forum – if we don’t want the same things, what hope is there?

  ‘But neither am I going to convince myself I’m happy. Or that because I’m in this – because we’re married and I’ve made some huge commitment to you – I can’t change my situation, I can’t leave.’

  He leans forward, elbows on his outspread knees, places his head in his hands. I watch his fingers, the way they crook, hear his soft, distressed sigh. After a moment or two, he says, ‘You can change anything you want to. Obviously. No one’s keeping you here . . . What I’m asking . . . is that you don’t.’

  It’s the closest I have ever heard Joe come to putting his heart on the line since the day we became husband and wife. But I am not dissuaded.

  ‘I went to see a flat this week.’ I stare at a mid-point on the floor. ‘And this afternoon I signed a six-month lease.’

  ‘What?’ He looks up, uncomprehendingly. When he can recover, he says, ‘It’s fine. Just because you’ve signed a lease doesn’t mean you have to leave . . . We can make the payments . . . You could keep it, use it if you needed a break. Or we could sublet it.’ A flicker of optimism appears in his eyes. ‘A lease isn’t the end of the world.’ He says it as though we’re both aware I’ve made a huge mistake, and he’s just righted it for us. Joe, who is ever-practical, who always finds a way to guide you out of the maze. I will miss this about him, I think.

  ‘I didn’t lease it to keep it as some sort of occasional escape hatch.’

  ‘Then live in it,’ he says, less victoriously. ‘If that’s what you want to do. Take the time you need.’

  ‘To what? Think? Joe . . .’ I throw up my hands. ‘I’m not leaving to go away and think about coming back. It’s not some stop-gap. Don’t you get it?’

  Finally he looks at me as though maybe he does.

  ‘This marriage has broken my faith in relationships – you have – and I need to try to come to terms with that so as not to mess up the rest of my life.’

  ‘Please,’ he says. I can tell that really hurt him. In fact, I probably could not have said a more damaging thing. ‘You once mentioned us going to therapy . . . We can give it a try.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to therapy,’ I say. ‘That implies I’ve got something to work on. And I don’t.’

  He nods. ‘That’s fine. I know you don’t . . . I’ll go. I’ll go alone.’

  ‘It won’t make a difference.’

  We are caught at a juncture that neither one of us imagined finding ourselves at. All I have to say is, You’re right. Okay. Let’s do all of the above . . . But instead I tell him, ‘I can’t do it.’

  At first I’m not sure if I have actually said it, or just thought it – until I look at his face. His fallen, utterly crushed face.<
br />
  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s over.’

  He shakes his head, in a state of transparent denial.

  In our living room, on Sunday night, as Ben the Budgie chirps happily by the open patio door, we tell the children.

  ‘What?’ Grace sits up sharply. ‘What do you mean, taking time apart? You’re leaving Daddy?’

  I tell her that – for now, yes – I need some breathing space. I’m moving out.

  She blinks, looks from me to her father. ‘This can’t be happening . . . This is nuts! I mean, you only just got married!’ And then her eyes meet mine again. ‘Is this because of me?’ She presses her fingertips into her lips. ‘Oh my God. It is, isn’t it? It’s because of me!’

  ‘No,’ I say, quickly. ‘Absolutely not. This has nothing – nothing whatsoever – to do with you or Toby. This is about me and your dad.’

  I glance at Joe, who is sitting with his elbows resting on his knees, his left hand cupping his mouth as he stares unblinking at the floor, like he’s been cast in stone.

  ‘But when will you be coming back?’ Toby’s face settles into a deep frown of worry and woe. ‘When will we be able to go to the park again after school?’

  ‘Lauren will be very busy for the next short while.’ Joe finally speaks. Then he adds, ‘Grace will take you to the park. And so will I.’

  ‘But I don’t want to go with you and Grace, I want to go with Lauren!’

  ‘I know!’ he says, getting up and sitting on the floor beside Toby and smoothing his hair with the palm of his hand.

  I stare at the two of them. Joe sends me a look that says, See, this is what you’ve done.

  Later, when they’re in bed and I am putting things away in the kitchen, I am suddenly conscious of a presence. I turn around to find Joe just leaning on the breakfast bar, watching me. I have no idea how long he’s been standing there.