‘And if anything, I’m working twice as hard as you most of the time.’ The last thing she wanted to do was argue, but suddenly it was as if she’d opened a floodgate, and the anger she’d suppressed over the last few years was escaping in a torrent.
‘Oh, here it comes,’ he said, rolling his eyes.
‘Yes. Here it bloody comes! You say you’re in this business with me, but most of the time you just complain, or go out to “price materials” and spend most of the day elsewhere. You haven’t kept up with your French, you haven’t made any friends here. If I’m honest, you’ve stopped feeling like a husband. It’s like… it feels like I’m your mother!’
He looked at her, his face thunderous. ‘And that’s what I mean. It’s over, Bella. You don’t respect me. And I’m not happy.’
‘What about me?’
‘You said it yourself,Mum, you’re old enough to sort out your own life. Apparently.’
‘Look,’ she said, swallowing her anger for a moment, reaching for him. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard. But could we try again? Try to… I don’t know, recapture what we had? Think about what this would mean, Pete. We’d have to sell, move on. Where would I go?’
‘What about Kitty? Maybe go back to her place for a while. God knows she’d be pleased to have you.’
‘You know I can’t do that!’
‘Still not sure I understand why. You love Kitty, right?’
‘I know, but she’s so overbearing. Judgemental. And…’ She waved her hands, unable to express the way Kitty made her feel. Inadequate. Small.
He made an awkward face, gave her no answers. She realised that, even now, the Pete she’d known was gone. The one who’d sit down and work out problems with her, however insignificant. She was stuck.
‘At least think about it for a bit. Give it some time?’ she suggested.
He at least had the humility to blush at this, to look away. ‘I’ve booked a plane. Tomorrow. I’ll go to my mum’s for a bit. We’ll have to pack up. Sell the place.’
‘Hang on… You’re going tomorrow?’
‘I should have said something earlier, it’s just…’
‘You’re getting on a plane tomorrow and leaving me?’ She stood up, sending her chair rocking backwards noisily. ‘Leaving me to do everything? Sell the house? Wind up the business?’
‘I’m doing it for you! I thought you’d want me out of the way once you?—’
‘No, Pete. You can’t do this. You can’t just disappear because you’ve changed your mind!’
‘I think it’s for the best. We can’t stay here together. Not now.’
‘For the best? The best for you, you mean! Pete, you’re expecting me to deal with this news, deal with the bureaucracy of selling the house, the business. Pack it all up, and what? Send you a cheque with no hard feelings?’
‘Oh, come on, Bella.’
Bella wasn’t given to temper tantrums or outbursts. She was more likely to deal with something with passive-aggressive silence than a huge explosion. But the man she loved – and yes, she’d known they were in a rocky patch, but that was marriage, wasn’t it? – had dumped her in the most callous and selfish way.
She’d never thrown anything in anger before. But she suddenly felt the teapot in her hand, still weighed down with half a pot of cold, stewed tea and couldn’t resist the urge to fling it with all her might. The pot sailed almost gracefully through the air, before plunging onto the terracotta tiles and smashing spectacularly, sending dark liquid and sodden leaves across the floor.
They both stood for a moment looking at what she’d done. Then Pete simply walked from the room.
When the door closed, she sank onto a chair, all the vibrating, jitter-inducing energy and shock dissipating for a moment. She lay her forehead on the table’s hard, smooth surface, smelling the familiar aroma of the wood and polish, and wrapped her arms around her face. She tried to breathe, to focus on what had happened, make sense of it.
But there was no sense to make. Pete – her husband, her best friend, her business partner – was leaving. Everything she’d imagined for her future was falling away. And she had no idea what she was going to do next.
2
2006, FRANCE
‘This is boring,’ her best friend Sarah whispered.
