a miniature Morticia Addams.
‘Charlie,’ the Matt creature said impatiently, ‘did you hear what I said? About wanting a divorce?’
I certainly had; what did he think had ripped the veils of delusion from my eyes? But I was temporarily deprived of speech as almost a quarter of a century of married life flashed before my eyes in Hogarthian vignettes: Flake’s Progress.
The inner film came to a jerky halt. ‘Yes,’ I said finally, nodding. I understood.
Unfortunately my memory was not of the selective kind, a cheery sundial remembering only the happy hours, so my recollections were freely punctuated with loss. Lost mother, lost virginity, lost babies, lost husband, Lost in Space.
Charlie Rhymer, this was your life.
For some reason, Matt seemed disconcerted by my reaction. ‘We’ve grown apart since I’ve been taking these foreign contracts, and I’ve come to realise that this will be best for both of us. In fact, we can divorce right away, since we’ve been separated for more than two years.’
‘How can we be separated when you’re here?’ I asked, trying to get my head around this concept.
‘But I’m not really here, am I?’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m in Saudi.’
‘But you’re back for quite long holidays between contracts – and you said it would be better if I stayed here.’
‘You would have hated it – you know you don’t even like leaving the house, let alone the country.’
‘But that’s just York – it’s got the wrong sort of outside. I’m fine at home.’
‘This is your home.’
‘I meant Upvale, and Blackdog Moors.’
‘You seemed eager enough to run away from it with me.’
‘That was love, and unplanned pregnancy, and Father.’
Matt said earnestly, ‘Charlie, it isn’t that I’m not still fond of you …’
‘Oh, thanks,’ I said. ‘In fact, thank you for having me.’
He ignored that; I’m not sure he even heard it, like most of the things I say.
‘It’s just that I’m not getting anything out of this marriage,’ he continued.
‘You make me sound like a bank. What were you expecting to get out? More than you put in?’
‘At least there are no children to complicate things,’ he said, which was a very low blow. He was starting to make me feel quite sick.
‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Charlie, but we really can’t go on. I’ve been offered a long contract in Japan, and I can’t afford to continue maintaining two households.’
‘But the house … the mortgage?’ I said, my brain starting to limp onwards a bit, now the first shockwave had broken over my head. ‘What will happen?’
‘The divorce will go through quickly if we’re both in agreement – my solicitor will send you things to sign. Then I’ll pay you maintenance every month, so you won’t have anything to worry about. The solicitor will get in touch with you and explain everything.’
‘Will he? Is that what you’ve been doing this week, organising our divorce? Why didn’t you talk to me about it, instead of suddenly handing me a fait accompli on your last morning home? After all, I haven’t done anything, have I?’
‘No, you haven’t done anything,’ he agreed curtly. ‘Perhaps that’s just it. I’ve moved on, and you haven’t. Other women have families and careers and interests. Perhaps now you’ve turned forty, it’s time you got out there in the real world.’
I’d been cocooned for the twenty-three years of my married life, and now suddenly I was to be ripped from my chrysalis and told to make like a butterfly?
He rose from the table. ‘I’ll ring you from Saudi, once you’ve had time to think it over.’
Questions were already beginning to bubble scummily to the surface, like: when did he see this solicitor? How long had he been planning this? What does he mean, he’ll give me maintenance? Was there some other woman behind this? Who on earth would want him?
‘Hurry up and get the car out,’ snapped Alien Nation in a reasonable impersonation of my husband, ‘while I get my bags.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got a plane to catch. It’s time to go.’
It certainly was. I went into the conservatory, locking the door carefully behind me. Although it was so tiny, once I was in the middle where my easel and table were, you couldn’t see me for jungle plants.
Palms, bamboo and bananas, and a fig tree in a big pot … Dense foliage and warm, slightly steamy, air.
Matt banged on the glass a few times like a deranged moth, shouting, but I disconnected, picking up a brush and carrying on painting the tiny, naked, cowering figure at the heart of the rampant forest. It looked like Steve, the handsome young gardener at the park, and something threatening was definitely lurking in the undergrowth.
Probably me: I often had lustful thoughts about him when I went there to sketch in the greenhouse, but in reality there was not enough cover to drag him behind, even were he willing – and it was one of those ironic facts that as you age you lust after fewer and fewer men, and those are the very ones who wouldn’t look twice at you. When my last birthday date-stamped me forty, I knew the writing was on the wall.
I really should have sown my wild oats before I got married, because I feared it was now too late.
Sometimes, too, I wondered if my body wouldn’t have rejected my pregnancies if they hadn’t been fathered by Matt. Now I knew he was an alien, perhaps, I thought, our genes were incompatible.
Too late for that, as well.
Much later I resurfaced to the sound of a familiar loud thud and yelp as Flossie, my spaniel, attempted to walk through the glass door again. But at least if she’d come out of hiding it meant Matt had finally gone.
Flossie was not big on brains, but she had grasped that Matt hated her, and it was safest to keep out of his way. Of course she forgot sometimes, especially when overcome by greed, like the previous morning, when she was drooling over his feet at breakfast, and he kicked her when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Afterwards I went up to the bathroom and gave all my big silver rings a vigorous cleaning with his toothbrush and a bit of powdered floor cleaner. The rings came up a treat and I expected his teeth would, too.
Flossie now sat in the dining room outside the conservatory door, looking dazed, though this is not unusual. She wagged her tail happily when she saw me coming.
The breakfast debris still littered the table, and Alien Nation had left a note pinned down by the teapot that said he’d had to call a taxi, and if he missed the connection it was my fault.
