‘Bored with what?’
‘With everything, really. The lack of… I don’t know… conflict… I can’t think of the right word. Friction, maybe? It started to get on my nerves. I started craving someone who might disagree a bit. Someone I could argue with. Like when I was young and I used to argue about everything. Life just felt so predictable.’
‘Actually, I know exactly what you mean. I felt the same way. But it was more like a lack of options for me.’
‘Options?’
‘Yeah, I don’t know… a lack of possible paths, perhaps. I mean, when you’re young, there are all these different lives you can live, aren’t there? And for a while, the possibilities just seem endless. There are so many possible turn-offs you can take when you’re a teenager, it feels terrifying. You can do anything, be anything, date anyone, live anywhere… But suddenly you’re married, and you’re getting older and all those possible futures seem to just get less and less until there aren’t any turn-offs left. There’s only one straight road. And that feels kind of scary. Claustrophobic.’
‘But what you realise,’ Dawn says, ‘if you’re lucky, like we were, is that those other paths, the turn-offs you didn’t take, the changes you could have made, they’re all still there. I mean, youcanstill leave, can’t you? You can still go looking for someone new. Or live somewhere else. Or whatever you want to change, no matter what your age is. It’s just that you’ve learned the other optionsweren’tbetter. Still aren’t better. You get the… the wisdom, I suppose, to appreciate the path you’ve chosen. To choose the life you already have. To re-choose the person, ultimately, that you’re with. Because in the end you work out that there’s nothing to be achieved after all. Except maybe peace, and harmony, and being happy and whatever.’
Rob nods thoughtfully. ‘Maybe. I never thought about it quite like that, but maybe.’
‘I mean, that’s what we finally realised, wasn’t it? What a whole life together had done for us. The fact that we’d sort of… merged until we agreed on everything.’
Rob laughs. ‘Not sure about everything, but on most things, sure.’
‘And that’s…’ Dawn says. ‘I don’t know. Something to be treasured, isn’t it? I thought I was bored with it, back then. I thought I wanted other options. I thought I wanted to rewind and choose a different, more exciting path…’
‘With Billy.’
‘Yes, with Billy. And so did you. But when we came back from our little…’
‘Detours?’
‘I was going to say adventures, but yes, detours is good. Because that’s what they were. And when we came back to each other, and even more when we were squashed up together by that pandemic, I realised that the way we get on, the way we’d ironed out all the kinks, well, in the end, that was the most amazing thing of all. No other path could really compare. And it had taken a whole lifetime together to manage that. There wasn’ttimeto do it all again with someone else even if I’d wanted to.’
‘I couldn’t believe I’d almost thrown it away. I was so angry with myself for risking everything.’
‘Yes,’ Dawn says. ‘Me too. The thought of being locked up with anyone else…’
‘With Cheryl… God!’
‘Or with Billy… terrifying.’
‘D’you remember you gave me those weird books to read?’ Rob says. ‘During the lockdown? Ah! That’s what they called it.Lockdown.’
‘Weird books? What weird books?’
‘The ones where all the men are bastards.’
Dawn laughs. ‘Oh!’ she says. ‘Fay Weldon. Yes, I loved those books. I actually quite fancy reading them again.’
‘They were good,’ Rob says. ‘But full of unhappy relationships. They kind of made me realise how lucky we were, too.’
‘Maybe I gave them to you on purpose. I don’t remember, really.’
‘It was cosy though, just the two of us, wasn’t it? With our books and our music and our walks.’
‘We did get on well. It was a surprise.’
‘We stilldoget on, don’t we?’ Rob says.
‘Yeah,’ Dawn says. ‘And it’sstilla bit of a surprise. But anyway, we’re getting sidetracked here. We need to decide what to tell Tom.’
They discuss how much to tell Tom all afternoon, but because the issue is so complex they fail to make a decision.
Lucy – Tom’s mother – still doesn’t know that her biological father may be the late William Ruddle. Dawn has always thought she might tell her about Billy at some point, but it’s just never seemed like the right moment.
