We are sitting in the car outside B&Q, waiting for a break in the weather, when I tell Oliver it is over.
Rain is plunging from the sky. Great silver sheets of it, making mist where it lands.
He turns to look at me. But there is no anger, or shock, or even surprise on his face. Instead, there is a resignation I have come to know well.
‘I’ve been unhappy for a while, and I think you are too.’
‘Unhappy.’ He shakes his head. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’
Two people, I think,who can no longer be bothered to try.
He puts both hands on the steering wheel, leaning forward until I wonder if he’s about to sound the horn with his face. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised. I think, in a way... I’ve been half-expecting you to say that to me since the day we met.’
We are quiet for a while. Through the windscreen, I watch the storm spook leaves from the trees, shunting them across the tarmac. The wet sky is the colour of fish skin. There are people rushing past, heads hooded beneath umbrellas.
‘Are you going back to him?’
‘Who?’ I say, thinking for a moment he means Lawrence.
‘Peter Pan.’
‘No.’ I sigh. ‘And I never have been.’
‘I didn’t ever get that sense with Lawrence, you know. The father of your child. But I always had it withhim.’ Oliver moves his gaze to the window, letting out a breath that fogs on the glass. ‘Is this because we couldn’t conceive?’
‘Of course not.’
He turns to look at me properly now. He always seems unrested these days, his eyes shadowed with weariness. He shaves less often, and his face has filled out slightly, from stress, or age, perhaps a little of both. But now, for the briefest of moments, he appears youthful again, his expression newly animated. As if he doesn’t want to break up; as if he does have the energy to try.
Rain reverberates against the car roof, so hard it makes the metal vibrate.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘the idea you have in your head of the perfect relationship, the perfect family, the perfect life... it doesn’t exist. It never did.’
‘I never wanted perfection.’
‘Then what did you want?’
‘What we had, for a long time. Love. A good life together. Happiness.’
He raps his fingertips on the steering wheel and looks out of the window again. ‘So, what’s first on the list? Skydive? Fancy haircut? Saga singles holiday?’
‘No plans yet,’ I say quietly, ignoring his contempt.
He frowns. ‘Does Emma know?’
I swallow and nod. ‘Yes. But she loves you, Oliver. You’ve been her second dad, for almost her whole life. Nothing will ever change that.’
‘Is it worth us going back to the therapist—?’ he begins, then breaks off. A moment passes. ‘No. It probably isn’t.’
I feel a tiny flare of frustration at this.You were the one who decided therapy was a waste of time. You were the one who didn’t want to try.
Maybe I will say this to him, one day. But not today.
He starts the engine, then slides the gearstick into reverse before pausing. ‘You really think you ever gave me a fair shot, Rachel?’
‘For seventeen years? Yes, I think so.’
‘Ah. You mean you’ve served your time.’
