‘Sail off into the sunset.’ She felt the need to emphasise the corniness of his suggestion, no matter how her gut crunched, and her eyes widened as she pictured sitting next to him somewherewarm, watching the sunset, miles and miles away from Mablethorpe Road and all that ailed her. He, however, responded as if it were mere confirmation and there was nothing clichéd about it.
‘Yes!’ He banged the table and laughed, as if it were a possibility.
‘This conversation is exciting, distracting, fun, but it’s not that simple, is it? I can’t imagine how such a thing might affect our kids,’ she reiterated.
‘I think they’d want to see us happy!’
She bit her lip, unable to tell him that there was a little more to it, that Aiden, the boy engaged to his daughter, was about to become a dad.
‘I’m also an old stick-in-the-mud, I don’t do well with change, it takes me an age to adjust. I’m still trying to get used to life without Jonathan. Still feel married to him and I think, I think that Aiden takes comfort from the fact that even though his dad isn’t here, I am, holding the fort, keeping things the same. God, I even have a huge plant in the hallway that I hate. It takes up so much room, but because it’s been there for so long, when Jonathan was here, I can’t seem to throw it away.’
‘Are you sure it’s Aiden you do it for, keeping things just as they were?’
She stared at him. It was a fair question. And so she gave a fair answer. Her words when they came were delivered slowly.
‘If I were to move on, what does that say about our marriage? I don’t want my son, my family to think I didn’t love Jonathan in the way I did because I hooked up with someone else. You read about it, don’t you, people who remarry or have relationships, and some of the comments are always about how it’s too soon, howcouldshe, did she even love him? I can’t stand the thought of that because I did love him. I do love him.’
‘I think you might be overthinking it.’
It was her turn to give a wry laugh. ‘Maybe. You and Trish, your situation, it feels messy.’
‘I am determined for it not to be. I’ve never cheated on her, never, but something has changed, I’ve changed, and I just can’t do it anymore!’ He looked very close to tears, and it moved her.
‘I don’t... I don’t know what to say, Dominic. I don’t know how I’m supposed to behave because the last time anyone said anything remotely like this to me, and the last time I felt anything close to this, was at a time in my life when it was expected. We were in our early twenties and the sole objective for most of us was getting paired up, meeting someone, findingthe oneif you were very very lucky, but more than that we were all open to it! When your friends paired up and met their person, it gave you hope that it was possible it might happen to you too. But now...’ she looked up, staring again into his face, taking the opportunity to study him in the way that she liked to do, a face that was still new and one that held her in its thrall, ‘now it’s different. I’m not that young girl anymore. I’m older, jaded, cynical even. I don’t know how to start trusting you, how to start trusting anyone new. And I don’t really believe in the fairy tale you describe, things take time, and yet I’d be lying if I said to hear you say those words didn’t fill me with something that feels a lot like excitement.’ She had done it, admitted to the fireworks that leapt in her stomach at no more than the sight of him. Looking up, she watched the genie swirl above her head. ‘But the moment I think about you, I also think about Trish, I think about Iris, I think about Aiden, Jonathan. It’s all so bloody complicated. It’s one thing for you to move into a flat but quite another for Trish to find out you are with someone else. And that the someone might be me.’
She briefly thought of lovely Holly Hudson and her heart twinged.
‘So, what do we do then?’ His tone almost imploring. ‘What happens next?’
‘I... I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose, we do nothing. What I do know is that Jonathan was my husband,ismy husband. We took vows and I was his and he was mine and that’s how I’ve spent most of my life, Dominic, and it’s hard to see myself in any other way. And it would be hard for my son to see me in any other way.’
Dominic sat forward in the chair, his hands on the tabletop. She was overly aware that if she let her fingers creep forward, they would be touching. Quickly, she placed her hands on the sides of her chair and sat on them.
He swallowed and held her eyeline. ‘But what if... what if you aremine, Enya? What if we don’t let it be that complicated. What if we accept that you’re meant to be mine, and what if every moment in your life up until this point was waiting for this, waiting for me!’
‘I can’t... I can’t even begin to... I loved him. I love him.’ She could now see Jonathan’s face in his last moments. His hand inside hers, their wedding rings still glinting as if new and shiny with all they represented in their shared life and their shared love.
‘Yes, of course, and you always will! And I loved Trish with every fibre in my being! I loved her, Iloveher still, but it’s faded. It has run thin, dispersed, until in recent years all that is left is a hint of the rich and vibrant colour that was our new and exciting love. Why can’t I reset? Why can’t I choose you?’
She felt the watery contents of her stomach threaten sickness. It was a lot to hear, a lot to take in. ‘Does Trish know all this?’
‘She feels it the same as I do, she’s not happy, I’m not happy, even if we rarely say it.’
‘Why don’t you say it?’ She wanted the detail, knowing every bit of information was like painting by numbers, helping her build the picture.
‘Because it hurts! It’s painful and it smacks of failure. It’s not what we’re led to believe, is it? No one reads about the princess who rides off into the distance with her prince and has a few good years before everything gets toned down, their love becomes muted, and reaches the point where they’d rather potter in the garden than spend time together. It’s supposed to be happily ever after, but that’s not true, people change, people die! And what are we supposed to do? Put up with big plants in our houses that we can’t stand for eternity? Cling to that feeling of how things used to be, hoping that we get a glimpse of it on our anniversaries or Christmas Eve after one too many? Is that it? Is that all we’re entitled to?’
‘Maybe, yes.’ She remembered sitting in the car with Aiden, giving him advice on slowing down, explaining the kind of love that she and Jonathan had shared, together for so long that they almost knew what the other was thinking. So in tune they knew how to handle any situation just by looking at the other one. In sync. One team. How was it even possible to start over with someone new?
‘No, Enya! It can’t be, it’s not enough, notgoodenough!’
‘It was enough for me.’ She spoke softly. ‘Our passion became muted but evolved into something quite wonderful, maybe not the roaring wave but certainly a gentle predictable tide that was a lovely way to live. It was our happily ever after.’
‘Really? Because it’s not enough for me. Are you saying that when you find a pot of gold just lying there at your feet, as if it’s been waiting for you all along, you don’t think you have a right to dig it up, to hold on to it?’
‘Not if it hurts other people or makes their lives more complicated!’ She held his gaze and he seemed to shrink a little, getting her point entirely.
They were both quiet; it seemed that he, like her, was a little exhausted by the exchange in the highly charged atmosphere that had slipped from light-hearted joviality with alarming speed.
