Alice to cry louder and Josh to exclaim from upstairs, ‘By Jove! What’s going on down there!’ He liked to experiment with different personas. The current one was a posh country gent. In previous incarnations, he’d been a barrow boy from the East End, a whiny American teenager and Julian Clary. ‘Moaning all the time, nagging all the time,’ Rob continued, his face red with anger. ‘It’s no picnic for me either, I can tell you!’
It had degenerated from there. And concluded with Rob emptying the contents of his gym bag onto the bedroom floor, refilling them with some clothes and a hastily compiled wash kit, and going to his mum’s for the night.
‘Where’s Dad going?’ Harry had said, appearing on the landing.
‘Oh, just to Nana’s,’ said Frankie. She still had the shakes. ‘He’s going to do a few jobs for her.’
‘Really?’ said Harry in mocking disbelief.
‘Yes,’ said Frankie. ‘Go and get on with your homework.’
She had watched Rob, through the bedroom window, getting into his car. At first he stepped over the clothes and coat hanger on the drive, then he opened the boot of the car, retraced his steps and shoved them inside.
She didn’t feel sad; she only felt relief. Any guilt that threatened was swept away by the thought that he was angry too. Angry rather than distraught. That made it slightly easier for her. She didn’t want to destroy him. She just wanted him to go away.
Frankie shook the horrible memories of that night from her mind. It was done, he was gone, and she now had the rest of a luxurious Sunday before her. She was going to spend much of it on the sofa with chocolate and a couple of box sets. She was going to wallow in the marvelousness of this new kind of Sunday.
At 2p.m., whilst enjoying Grey’s Anatomy and a bar of Dairy Milk, she was rudely interrupted by a text.
Rob.
This is hell.
Tell me about it, she texted back. (She had a silly urge to add ‘stud’, for old time’s sake, but decided that was madness.)
Blimey, it’s hard work.
Tell me about it, she texted again, then switched her phone off. Single for a year? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Make it a lifetime.
Rob brought them back late by half an hour. Despite having the time off, she was really happy to see their little faces. He said he couldn’t find his car keys. He said after much frantic searching they were eventually found inside Alice’s shape-sorting pot. How they’d laughed, he said.
Frankie didn’t laugh. ‘You need to be more responsible now.’
The smile on his face faded and he looked angry. It had obviously been a long weekend.
‘I shouldn’t have to be more responsible! You should be doing all this! You should be being my wife!’
‘Tough – now maybe you’ll appreciate what I did for you.’
‘What? Ruin my life?’
The children looked slightly stricken. Frankie hugged them all fiercely in turn, then bundled them in and up the stairs to watch a DVD, leaving her and Rob to pull stony faces at each other on the doorstep.
He sighed. ‘I’m moving into one of my brother’s empty buy-to-let flats next week, for the foreseeable. It’s about ten minutes’ drive away.’
‘How nice.’
‘Can I come back the weekends that I don’t have the kids, and work on Kit?’
Rob was building a kit car. It was a sort of giant yellow Meccano car, which he kept in the garage and added bits to when he could afford them. When it was done, it was going to be a flash-looking sports car with one of those noisy, throaty engines and one day, presumably, he would just drive off in the bloody thing, alone – it only had two seats. Frankie had always been quite resentful about Rob and Kit. She didn’t have time for a hobby! Imagine if she locked herself in the garage every weekend, only coming out to demand bacon sandwiches and cups of tea.
‘No,’ Frankie said. ‘I just want to be left alone.’
‘But you won’t see me! You don’t see me for hours at a time when I’m in there.’
‘Quite. So no, you’re not doing it. Sorry.’
‘You’re being a bit of a bitch, you know, Frankie.’
‘Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve been pushed to it.’
His next sentence was said with a kind of venom. ‘I’m actually wondering if you might be slightly mentally ill.’
She laughed, loudly. ‘Ha! That would be convenient! Well, don’t think about sending me off to some sanatorium, Sue Ellen style.’ He looked blank. He hadn’t been a Dallas fan, as a kid. He didn’t watch much telly, in the eighties; he was always out on his bike or doing Airfix in his room. ‘Then you’d have to have the children full-time. You’d have to give up your job!’ He didn’t look suitably chastened, so she decided to get herself on a roll. ‘Don’t forget, you’ve only been allowed the luxury of that lovely job all these years and have children, because I’ve been supplying the childcare and the –’ she sneered ‘– domestic services.’
‘What?’ Rob’s face was a picture. A picture of a man who’d been told something totally outlandish. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. My job has allowed you to be a nice little housewife and mum and swan round all the time!’
‘Swan round! I’ve been bringing up your children and making sure your life runs smoothly. What a bloody cheek!’
Rob looked flabbergasted. ‘You choose this life; you chose to be a mum and housewife!’
‘I didn’t choose to be a baby-making slave! We were supposed to be a team. But we haven’t been, have we? Not at all. I may as well have been a single mum!’ An indignant, Ready Brek glow was turning her face all red, but she didn’t care. ‘So now I’m going to be one. And…and how dare you use a word like “housewife”!’ She spat it, with scorn, as though it were the worst insult he could throw at her. ‘Nice little housewife? That really says everything I need to know.’
‘What’s wrong with the word housewife?’ Rob asked, in all innocence, and she could have killed him. ‘You really are losing the plot, Frankie! You’re a nutter.’ He shook his head, as though she were an errant child who needed a nice sit down with a drink and a biscuit. Then his voice softened. Oh, here it comes, she thought. ‘Perhaps you just need time,’ he said. ‘Some headspace. More chill-out time.’
What on earth? This wasn’t 1990, the Second Summer of bloody Love! It had been one of his favourite eras. Did he think she just had to put on some Happy Mondays and sit in a field with a load of people waving glow sticks and she’d be fine?
‘You used to be such a laugh,’ he said. She had been, she knew. They’d both been such a laugh. Had such a laugh. He still was, probably. Except now he laughed on his own.
‘Maybe
