It had started with the motorbike, Rob said, and I could see how that could be true. He’d had a classic midlife crisis – if wanting to have fun againwasa midlife crisis – but I’d said no. Ihadn’twanted to get on it, or have fun, and not for any sensible reason I could name. I hadn’t wanted sex with Rob for years either, though even now, when he asked why (which he did), I had no real explanation to offer. The beaches he’d gone to with Cheryl, the trips to spas and distant hotels… well, he was right when he said I would have refused. Because I’d been with Mum all that time, hadn’t I? I’d been holding her hand while they trickled chemo into her veins. And Rob hadn’t known that. So what was more natural than finding a companion whodidwant to do all these things?
But then he asked if I hadn’t been with Mum, would I have wanted to do any of those things with him, and the only true answer I could give was ‘no’, and that made me realise that it hadn’t only been about Mum. It had been about my own midlife crisis, my own resentments about the life I’d led and the person I’d spent it with and, in an awful way, Mum had been a convenient distraction from my doubts about my life with Rob. And about Billy, of course. Always bloody Billy.
So yes, I tried really, really hard to understand. And to be fair. And I tried to listen without resentment. But I couldn’t really do it. The best I could manage (something that was largely facilitated by the fur-lined hood of my parka) was not letting my resentment show.
By the time we got home, Rob had finished and, by way of an excuse to avoid being in the same room as him, I ran a bath. I was chilled through from our rainy walk, I explained. I needed, quite desperately, to get warm.
But the truth was that I needed space to think about it all – without Rob studying my face for clues. I needed time to work out whether knowing was better than not knowing; to consider whether my anger was temporary or whether it might be a new, permanent state of being. To consider whether I now knew enough to decide once and for all if I would stay or go. Because we were running out of time here. I was heading for fifty. If I chose Rob again this time, then it would almost certainly be until death do us part. There was a thought! It was truly now or never.
Once the bath was ready I took a deep gulp of air and slipped beneath the surface of the water. Was I really considering leaving him? Just acknowledging it was a shock.
Because how absurd would that be? Staying with someone during the lies – my lies, his lies, everyone’s lies – only to leave him because of his honesty.
Eventually, with nothing resolved, I climbed out of the bath. The water was starting to go cold and my fingers were turning pruney.
But as I dried myself I suddenly realised there was something else I needed to know. There was a whole chunk of Rob he’d kept secret, and it was perhaps another part of the reason we’d drifted apart. If we were doing honesty, I thought, then we might as well go the whole hog.
I found him in the lounge reading something on his phone. He’d changed into joggers and a rust-red fleece and looked cosy and just a bit cuddly.
‘Good bath?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I drifted off for a bit, I think.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘That was one wet walk. Don’t want you catching a cold and having to worry about whether it’s Covid, do we?’
‘I need to ask you something else,’ I said, without further ado. I knew the subject was taboo, and I knew it was risky to ask. If I waited, I feared my courage would fail me.
‘OK,’ Rob said, sounding suspicious. ‘Fire away.’
‘Your parents,’ I said. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh,’ Rob said.
‘And that damned box. What was in that bloody box? Because I know it wasn’t just rubbish. I always knew that wasn’t the truth.’
‘Ah,’ Rob said. ‘OK.’
‘Was it?’
He smiled sadly and shook his head, then got up and walked from the room.
Oh, I thought. It had not been the reaction I was expecting.
I covered my mouth with one hand and wondered what would happen next. Had he gone to lock himself in another room? To pack a suitcase? To throw up? To find a weapon with which to club me to death? All utterly ridiculous imaginings, of course, but leaving the room without a word, without eye contact, had been inexplicably strange and, above all, most unlike Rob.
I heard a noise, a loud clanking noise, and it took me a few seconds to understand where it was coming from. But then I realised it was the sound of the attic ladder being unfolded. Of course. He’d hidden the contents of the box in the attic.
I climbed the stairs and by the time I got there he was above me, hopping about on the rafters. ‘Here,’ he said, eventually, so I climbed the ladder until I could see the box he was holding in his hands. ‘Take it,’ he said, ‘and I’ll come down.’
By the time he’d joined me on the landing, I’d examined the box from all angles. It hadn’t been tampered with. It hadn’t been opened at all.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I lied. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t face opening it. I didn’t realise it was such a big deal. Not for you, I mean. Obviously it’s a big deal for me.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘But why? What do you think is in it?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Rob said. ‘But memories, probably. Or at least some memory-joggers. And none of those are going to be good.’
‘I shouldn’t have…’ I said, handing the box back. ‘It’s for you to decide, isn’t it? I’m sorry. It was just that I could tell you were lying when you said you binned it, so I’ve been wondering about it for years..’
