‘Just tell me,’ I say. ‘Stop teasing me, Stephen.’
‘No, I’m not teasing.’
‘Come on, I know what this is about.’
‘You know?’
‘Women’s intuition, and, well, you’ve been so stressed about everything, and now your mood’s improved, I imagine there’s only one reason.’
‘What reason were you thinking?’
‘Becoming a partner!’
‘This isn’t about that.’ His eyes fix on mine, and his forehead creases. He takes one of the gold-wrapped chocolates and puts it back.
‘I thought this was a celebration.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, looking down at his lap.
I wipe the fly off my hand with the white linen napkin and stare at him. ‘You didn’t make partner?’
‘No,’ he says and looks up at the high dome of the ceiling.
‘Then what’s the news?’
He shakes his head. ‘You’re so funny, so clever, but you always have difficulty understanding the simplest things.’
‘In which case, blame the English language, not me,’ I say. ‘Now tell me!’
‘I’m sorry, Lalla. I want a divorce.’
Part FourRevive
It never will rain roses: when we want
To have more roses we must plant more trees
George Eliot
Chapter55Christmas
Wednesday, 25 December, Christmas Day
Christmas came and went without anyone being murdered, which shows great restraint on my part. Our Instagram reels portrayed an ostensibly Happy Christmas – reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’ together by a log fire on Christmas Eve, the children jumping up and down in matching red-and-white pyjamas with their stockings, Stephen and I singing ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ in jolly Santa hats, and gasping as the Christmas pudding was set aflame with brandy.
So many pictures that jar so violently with my memory. Between these homely images, I cut holes in the crotches of Stephen’s suits, superglued his MacBook Pro shut, and dumped his Patek Philippe in the toilet bowl. Petty, of course, but it felt good.
We argued when time allowed, but I didn’t mention the spectre of divorce at all, although the thought of it left me feeling quite sick all week. He doesn’t know a divorce could leave me with nothing if he found out about Hollis and our voided relationship.
I’m sure the children sensed the tension because Nathan wasn’t sleeping and Nelly pulled all eight tentacles off his brand-new Jellycat octopus. Nathan had a wee on Nelly from the top of the stairs in revenge. Not much landed on Nelly, but it did hit asocket and blew the fuse. Stephen scolded everyone, then disappeared to the place men go when they find a little puddle of pee too much to bear.
When he came back he lost the plot again because he discovered I’d bought a goose not a turkey. He told me that his mother would never have done such a thing to his father, and left again, claiming he was going to buy a turkey, at 1 p.m. on Christmas Day.
I assumed he was on his way to mope at his mother’s bedside as she would probably equal his outrage at my culinary detour. However, he’d consumed three quarters of a bottle of Baileys by midday and called not long after he left, having driven into a tree just outside our house.
I told him that his actions were unbecoming of someone hoping to become a partner, as the final deliberations would happen early in the new year. He told me that my goose was cooked, which annoyed me because I knew it was – I put it in the oven myself.
Even though the children enjoyed Christmas, Stephen’s mood remained sour. He blamed our ruined festivities and everything else (including the new dull Quality Street wrappers) on my unilateral decision to abandon tradition rather than his decision to abandon his family. He even asked me if the goose was some kind of ‘perverse revenge’ for the divorce, and I assured him that spending four hours preparing and cooking a Christmas roast did not qualify as revenge, and if I did punish him, it would be far more painful.
