‘Anyway, you were saying. About our dodgy vibe. Do you think that we need to see someone after all?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m not even sure how easy that would be at the moment. We’d probably have to do it over a bloody webcam or something. So I was thinking… what I was thinking, really… is that maybe we need to do it ourselves.’
Trees, cut grass, wooden bench. I gulped a mouthful of air trying to find some O2, but it seemed unusually scarce.
‘Are you OK?’ Dawn asked. ‘You look kind of sweaty. I hope that dog didn’t just give you ankle Covid.’
‘Just, you know… One of my panic things,’ I said. ‘It’ll pass.’
Grumpy woman, barking dog… Dawn reached out to take my hand…wife’s hand.
‘We can do this,’ she said. ‘We still love each other, right?’
I nodded. ‘Totally. No doubt about that.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then we can do this. Let’s go home and watch shite TV.’ And with the realisation that she wasn’t going to open Pandora’s box right that second, I found myself suddenly able to breathe again.
Though lockdown had blurred the line between workdays and weekends to the point where I’d sometimes have to check my phone to work out what day it was, we did try to keep Sundays special.
I’d skip breakfast so that I could have brunch with Dawn and then we’d FaceTime the kids and phone Tracey and Wayne to check everyone was OK. In the afternoon we’d generally settle down to watch a film.
That Sunday went pretty much to plan, but as we sat in the lounge Dawn said, ‘You know what? Can we skip the film today? I think we’ve seen all the decent ones anyway.’
I turned and frowned at her. ‘OK,’ I said doubtfully. ‘What you thinking of?’
‘How about we try that talking business,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘OK.’ I clicked the TV off. ‘Here?’ I asked. The lounge somehow didn’t feel right for that kind of conversation, but I couldn’t think where might be better. Perhaps the kitchen. Somewhere with cold clean surfaces would maybe help keep emotions in check.
Dawn shook her head. ‘Let’s walk,’ she said.
I nodded towards the window and pointed out that it was raining.
‘Barely!’ she said. ‘Come on. Talking’s easier outside. I think it’s because there’s more air.’
We pulled on raincoats and boots and headed in the direction of Margate, and the drizzle felt strangely refreshing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually chosen to walk in the rain.
When we reached Cliftonville we automatically made our way to our old house, where we stood side by side on the wet pavement looking up at the tatty façade. The paint was peeling and one of the windowpanes on the top floor had been replaced with board, but the house next door had been recently and rather beautifully repainted.
‘Maybe the neighbourhood's finally making a comeback,’ I said, nodding.
‘Maybe,’ Dawn said. ‘It’d be about time.’ Then, ‘That house was the most amazing thing anyone’s ever done for me and I don’t think I ever even thanked you.’
I smiled and nodded as I scanned the windows, remembering seeing Dawn and baby Lucy through them when I used to get home. ‘I was so happy in that house,’ I said, a lump forming in my throat. ‘I loved you both so much. I still do of course, but back then I felt like I’d been blessed. I felt like I’d won some sort of lottery.’
‘I should have been happier too,’ Dawn said. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t. I’m really, really sorry.’
‘Hey, you were OK,’ I told her, bumping hips.
‘Nah, I wasn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘I did my best, honest, I did. But I was still in love with Billy.’
We walked to the lido and then down and along the broad promenade to the harbour, and by the time we got there the drizzle had stopped. The sea was grey and oily, as if made of something far more viscous than seawater, and even the seagulls seemed subdued.
We sat on a damp wall at the end of Margate harbour and it was there Dawn told me everything.
She explained how much she’d loved Billy (something I knew already) but also why she’d loved him (something I did not). She explained how she believed that the girl I’d met and fallen in love with was, at least in part, Billy’s creation.
I told her that I thought she was giving him too much credit, but she insisted that no, her confidence to dress the way she had, her love of indie rock and Britpop – even, obtusely, her feminism – these things had all come from Billy. ‘His parents gave me the first books I’d read since school,’ she said. ‘Without them I might never have read another book again. Seriously. My books, politics, music, all of it came from that one summer with Billy.’
