You’ve got … things?’
‘Yes.’
‘I better help you.’
We hauled my meagre goods up the stairs. ‘What’s in here, rocks?’ Patrick asked, and I’d had to admit that yes, there were rocks in some of the boxes; I collected them for drawing practice. Dan had kept all the Ikea/Argos chipboard that furnished our marital home, so there wasn’t much. ‘Do you want a glass of wine?’ Patrick said, when the room was a mess of boxes and cheap Ikea blue bags.
I did, but I felt odd about sitting with him, and I was worried I’d been drinking too much as my marriage fell apart. ‘I’m OK, thanks. I’m very tired.’
‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
I liked to think I was fairly spontaneous and fun. The kind of girl who’d jump on a train to Madrid with only the clothes on her back and not even book a return flight in advance. The kind of girl who bought train tickets at the station instead of getting them online for up to a third less. Who didn’t know what they were doing three weekends hence but was fairly sure it would involve a music festival and a twenty-four-hour drugathon with dubious men in goatees, and not a trip to Ikea for a new magazine rack.
I wasn’t spontaneous. Plus, I hated goatees. Things that suck about divorce, number twenty-two: nothing is where it should be. If you wanted to make your famous lemon risotto, the recipe books were still in the house, and you didn’t manage to get custody of the food processor. If you wanted to go hiking, your boots were in the car your husband/ex-husband was still driving to work every day. You wanted to wear a blue dress and realised it was at the dry cleaner’s, the ticket God knows where, and you weren’t making the thirty-mile trip for a frock from New Look anyway.
Nothing is where it should be. Not you. Not your heart. Not your life.
Finally, I’d unpacked nothing but my toothbrush and pyjamas, but I was in bed and was listening to the unfamiliar house around me. The trickle of old plumbing. The creak of the attic. I took out my phone—my screen saver was still a picture from two years ago, Dan and I doing a selfie at our wedding. He was planting a kiss on my cheek and I was smiling widely, as if I couldn’t even imagine a time when we wouldn’t be that happy. I thought about texting him to tell him I’d found somewhere, but I knew he wouldn’t care. That was another thing that sucked about divorce. You were hurting and lost and alone, and the only person you could think to tell about any of it was the one who no longer wanted to talk to you at all.
When I woke up, it was the day after the first day of the rest of my life. No one ever talked about that. That’s the day when you have to live with your momentous decision, start redirecting post, unpacking boxes. My overwhelming wish was to lie in bed, sorrowfully dwelling on the terrible mess I’d made of my life. When you’re freelance, you see, you have those luxuries. But I didn’t get the chance, because I was woken at six by a tapping on the door. Mice? Ghosts? I cleared my throat. ‘Hello?’ Indistinct mumbling. A shy ghost? ‘You can come in!’
There was a fumbling and the door creaked open. In flew twenty pounds of overexcited dog. Max leapt up on the bed, where he rolled over with his feet in the air, indicating I could do as I wished with him. Sadly, it was only dogs who reacted this way to me in bed.
In the doorway stood Alex, holding yet more dripping daffodils. He wore one red welly, the other foot clad in a stripy sock, and a pretty on-trend onesie with Thomas the Tank Engine’s face on front. ‘Hello,’ I said.
‘’Lo.’ He stared at me out of his dark eyes.
‘Those are nice flowers.’
‘Flarrs for you,’ he muttered, darting in and crushing them onto my bedside table, where they left green smears.
‘For me? Thank you, Alex.’
‘Mummy likes flowers.’
Awk-ward. ‘I’m sure she does. And how is Max today?’
‘He’s not allowed on the bed.’
‘Is he not? He’s naughty, then, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. Can I come in the bed?’
‘OK. The more the merrier.’ Alex needed my help to get up, and I suggested he leave the remaining welly behind. He sat cross-legged, looking at me.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Rachel.’
I pitched around for four-year-old conversational topics. I liked kids but was still having conflicted feelings over whether I wanted them or not. Dan and I hadn’t even been able to manage a dog. I could feel the panic reach up in me from the pit—the one of ‘I’m broke and thirty and I’ll be alone forever’—so I focused on Alex. It’s hard to have existential horror when you’re with a four-year-old. They barely understand the concept of ‘tomorrow’ let alone ‘the rest of my miserable life’.
‘So who’s that on your onesie?’
‘’S Thomas.’
‘Oh yeah? Who’s your favourite person in Thomas?’
Alex and I were having a little chat about animated trains—I bluffed my way through, my sister has kids—when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and Patrick burst in. He too wore a onesie in a fashionable nautical stripe, a thick grey jumper on top. ‘Alex! I told you to leave Rachel alone. She was sleeping.’
‘No, she wasn’t,’ said Alex, with impeccable logic. ‘Brought her flarrs.’
‘Yes, we’ve talked about this, mate. We have to leave some of the flowers in the garden or there won’t be any more. Come on, get down. You too, Max.’ Child and dog slid off the bed. Max waddled out, wagging his little tail and wheezing. Alex clung to his dad’s hand. Patrick took a look at me, in my alluring sleepwear—Bruce Springsteen T-shirt, fleece pyjamas with sheep on. ‘I’m sorry about them.’
‘It’s OK. It’s a nice way to wake up.’ Then I worried he’d think I meant him in his onesie, so I quickly said, ‘Max and Alex, I mean—I’ve always wanted a dog.’
‘That’s fortunate, because Max is very hard to shake off. I found him inside my coat the other day. I’ll try to keep them both out of here.’ He looked round at the mess of boxes and bags, paintbrushes rolling on the desk, reams of paper stacked about the place. ‘You’re an artist, are you? I didn’t quite catch what it was you did.’
‘I’m a graphic designer really, but I used to also be a sort of freelance cartoonist. I do caricatures of people, for weddings and birthdays and that, and sometimes a bit for magazines.’ As I said it, I realised this sounded like the world’s flakiest career, like ‘vajazzalist’, or ‘toenail consultant’. I also realised the room was an absolute tip.
‘I’m not finished unpacking,’ I said hurriedly. I was not tidy. I liked to pretend it was something to do with my artistic temperament, but really I was just a slob and quite forgetful. I’d put down bits of toast and then wonder what happened to them and make some more. It used to drive Dan crazy. That’s how it goes, isn’t it? When you start out, when you’re in love, it seems as if these things could never matter, as if they’re just crumbs in the bed of your love. Then as time goes by, all you can feel is the crumbs. They’re itchy. They keep you awake. I suppose all those little crumbs become a big loaf in the end, rising between you, keeping you apart.
That wasn’t the best metaphor I’d ever come up with. Moving on …
Once I was up, showered in my lovely en suite, and had pushed some of the mess into the fitted cupboards, I stuck on Destiny’s Child’s ‘Survivor’ on a loop, looking for inspiration, and sat on the bed with a notebook to make a list. A list for the rest of my life.
I