HARRIETSTRATTON
AUGUST2002
With shaking hands, Harriet closed the door of the smallest room in the house, the laundry room, and switched on the tumble dryer. Not to drown out their conversation entirely, but certainly with the intention of masking it. Plus, she figured the whirring sound resonating throughout the cottage would give Bear and Dilly the impression, should they venture downstairs, that there was nothing to be concerned about, no drama lurking beneath their little feet on the floor below.
It was unpleasant how close she was to Hugo in the relatively confined space. Not that she found him unpleasant but she would certainly have preferred more distance in light of the conversation they were about to have. She leaned on the white china butler sink, he by the window, putting no more than thirty-odd inches between them, the space made smaller still in light of the topic. But this small discomfort preferable to alarming the kids.
‘So.’ She decided to begin, harnessing the anger that sparked in her veins. ‘You think the issues we have in our marriage aremyfault?’
‘No, I never said that.’ He shook his head.
‘Because, and please do interject if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick entirely, but I thought it was because you were having sex with our neighbour while I scurried around Waitrose on the hunt for hummus?’
‘Why do you do that?’ He narrowed his eyes at her, as if trying to see her, really see her. She could smell the tang of red wine on his breath and found it repellent.
‘Do what, Hugo?’
‘Try to be funny, while being so fucking mean, so cutting!’
She took a deep breath; maybe he was right. Deciding to turn down the meanness, she would try to speak plainly without the edge. The point of this chat was, after all, to make progress. This, she knew, would be a hell of a lot easier to do if the red-hot poker of anger and indignation was not shoved firmly up her arse.
‘Okay’ – she held up her palms – ‘let’s start again. Why don’t you tell me how you feel I’m responsible for what we’re going through, or at least tell me my part in it?’ She folded her arms tightly across her stomach.
He took his time in forming a response and this, too, bothered her more than she could say.
‘I know I’m the one that had the affair.’
Bravo!Wisely, she kept this to herself.
‘I’ve admitted it, told you everything there is to tell, agreed to move and I’ve been working hard to help us heal, to figure out how we go forward. I mean, here we are, in Ilfracombe, our fresh start!’
‘Yep.’ She could barely contain her contempt for the fact he wanted points for admitting the affair, as if unaware, or choosing to ignore, thereasonfor their move.
‘But I think it’s useful to look at the reasons why I made the decisions I did.’
She felt her jaw tense.Useful?He sounded irritatingly officious, as if he were about to conduct a post-implementation review, or garner lessons learned after a project.
‘For the last few years, H, you’ve been so focused on your job, the kids, the house, whatever else is popping up next on the calendar. It’s like you have to slot me in. I’ve felt redundant. I was never the priority for you. Never. And Wendy ...’
It was rare for him to use her first name. When unable to avoid mentioning her at all, he would say ‘her’ or ‘she’ as if aware that to use her name made a connection, gave her status, both of which were like knives in her gut.
‘...Wendy was all about me. And it reminded me what it felt like to have someone put me first.’
It was as if all the air had been sucked from the room and she was hit with an overpowering sense of claustrophobia. Fearing she may pass out, unable now to prioritise what the kids may or may not hear, she opened the laundry room door and made her way across the kitchen to the open-plan sitting room. Gulping great lungfuls of air, she walked backwards until her legs touched the leather chair and slumped down, as the strength finally left her. She was appalled by his admission that basic flattery and a little attention had been all it took to divert him from their shared life, to knock him from the pillars of commitment on which their future had rested.
Hugo, having followed her, wasn’t done. He sat on the couch opposite and rested his joined hands on his knees, his head down, tone earnest, calmed a little.
‘I guess I never realised when we got married, when the kids came along, that I would slip further and further down the list, and I guess being with her was a reminder of what it felt like to beconsidered. It wasn’t that I wantedher, per se, but I wanted to be someone’s priority. It felt good.’
She bit her lip, trying to think of the last time she had put herself first. It was far easier to recall all the times she hadn’t; turning up at many a school event without having had time to wash her hair because she’d been too busy making cupcakes for the bake sale, hours and hours of homework and reading with the kids instead of taking a hot bath, gluing masks for Halloween until the early hours, or packing jars of sweets for the Christmas tombola while yawning at the end of a hectic week. Giving Hugo the last of the vegetables, an extra helping of apple pie or the spare pillow, always thinking of his needs/wants before her own. The big things too: only inviting her beloved family every other Christmas as he found it all ‘too much’, turning down the offer of promotion four years ago, which would have meant relocating to Edinburgh, because despite it being a huge whack of salary and an opportunity for her to write her own scientific paper, Hugo and the kids were settled and that was how she understood compromise. And this before she got to the daily sacrifices she willingly made for her kids, or how she’d packed boxes, locked up their family home and was now in this cottage in a town where she didn’t have one proper friend and was clinging on by her fingertips.
‘I know it sounds selfish, H.’
She couldn’t help the snort of sarcastic laughter that left her mouth.Ya think?
‘But I don’t think it is selfish to want more. I mean, I fucked up badly, I know I did, but I feel that if we’d had better communication, if we’d made more time for each other ...’
She could hardly stand to hear any more and kept her voice low. Another sacrifice to spare the kids hearing the row, when all she wanted to do was scream from the roof!
