so Luke had asked him to stop by.’
I nod as though I knew this already. I didn’t, Simon doesn’t often give me much detail about the projects he works on. He used to. My first thought is relief that his explanation for being late home wasn’t totally inaccurate. Going to see Luke to discuss work, even in a pub, is almost the same as having to stay behind for a meeting.
My tentative optimism is knocked back when Connie adds, ‘Only Simon wasn’t really up for talking about the project. He wasn’t making much sense at all, in fact. Just kept going on about how much Millie had loved camping in the garden. He was sort of fixated on that, you know.’
She doesn’t say it. She wants to say he was rambling and repeating himself, that he was drunk. I know she does because I’ve seen it often enough myself. There was a time when Connie might have dared called a spade a shovel but we’re more careful with each other now. More reserved.
When we were at university together and when we shared a flat after that, we saw each other every day of our lives, but that intimacy has been neglected. I can no longer open up to her without reserve. We’ve replaced one another. We’re married now and have been for a long time. That draws a curtain around certain things. Things like her explicitly saying my husband is a functioning alcoholic. She can’t say it until I do. I have no intention of doing so. We still love each other. I love her boldness, her candour, her volatility. Her panache. I’m also intimidated by all those characteristics too.
As usual, I try to change the subject. ‘I should have brought your camping stove back, I forgot all about it.’
Connie looks briefly impatient as she knows I’m dodging her point. ‘Simon returned it last night, actually.’
‘Oh good.’
‘Well, most of it. He’d mislaid the screw-on pan support bit.’
‘We’ll buy you another,’ I say quickly.
‘Oh wow, no. No need. I didn’t mean that. We never use it.’ She glances at her hands and then carefully says, ‘Luke put him in an Uber.’
They know. My friends know my marriage is quaking under the strain of Simon’s drinking. I’d hoped we’d hidden it well enough, but they know, and this is Connie’s clumsy attempt to fix things. She doesn’t understand that what she is suggesting – a party, a renewal of our vows – is a pathetic, inadequate Elastoplast put over an amputated limb. Her idea is idealistic, therefore idiotic. How could we stand up in front of our friends and family and say our wedding vows again? For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. It’s a crazy idea. For one thing, Simon rarely stands without swaying, he prefers to slump. He rarely speaks, instead he slurs. It would be utterly humiliating. I’m doing my best to hide, why would she think dragging us out, putting us under the microscope would be a good idea?
She clears her throat and carries on. ‘It might be fun to do something celebratory. I know you have a lot on your plate. Your mother-in-law being so ill, the pressure Simon’s under at work.’
I flash her a look that could freeze breath. ‘What do you know about his work?’
‘Luke made me go along to some corporate dinner the other week. Simon’s name came up amongst the guests there. They just mentioned that…’ she loses her confidence and trails off.
‘What?’ I demand hotly.
‘Well, his workload seems to be getting on top of him. They weren’t gossiping. Just saying,’ she adds hurriedly. Connie blushes. They, whoever they are, clearly were gossiping.
I need this conversation to stop. I need to put an end to this stupid idea of hers. I shake my head. ‘I’ll come to your party, we both will, but we can’t possibly renew our vows.’
‘I just thought it would be—’
‘No, Connie. Absolutely not.’ I’m rarely this forceful. Usually I don’t have it in me to argue with anyone other than Simon. Not the nurses in my mother-in-law’s care home, not the whingy parents of my pupils, not even the annoying cold callers that ring to ask if I’ve been in an accident recently, certainly not Connie who is wily and persuasive. She seems startled by my determination but, to my relief, she nods.
‘OK, I understand.’ She pauses and glances at Millie. ‘But you know if there’s anything we can ever do.’
‘There isn’t,’ I state, plainly.
‘If you ever need to talk.’
‘I don’t.’ I glare at her. I need her to drop this now.
On the whole, my friends and family seem prepared to look in the other direction when there’s evidence that Simon drinks too much. That he’s a functioning alcoholic. Oh yes, I know the label, I just don’t see what it achieves in bandying it around. Of course, I’ve asked him to get help; yes, I’d like him to go to a doctor, a counsellor, but he won’t. So what is there to discuss? My friends are understandably embarrassed, or at least they know I am, and in a truly British way, they don’t want to make a fuss. We’ve known each other since we were students. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t seen every other one of us totally plastered at some point or other, so to date they’ve made excuses for my husband. They laugh when he falls asleep at the dinner table or slips on their front step as we leave their home. As though it’s all one big joke. As though he is a big joke. This has suited me. I don’t know what to do to get him to stop drinking, this is a problem I can’t solve so I’ve been happy enough to ignore it. I thought, hoped, that one day he’d wake up and announce that the hangovers were no longer worth it, that he was going to buy a Fitbit and a bike and start getting healthy, that’s what most middle aged men do. But he hasn’t. Few of my friends get seriously drunk anymore, most abstain from drinking through the week and, other than Simon, I don’t know anyone who drinks through the day.
Now, I no longer know what I want from my family and friends. Do I really still want them to politely look away, to refuse to acknowledge what they evidently see? I don’t know how to ask for help or even accept it when it’s being offered up, as it clearly is by Connie, right now. Sometimes it feels like Simon and I are on a boat, an oar-less boat that’s drifting further and further out to sea. My sister and my friends are stood on the shore, watching us, aware we are in deep and dangerous waters but doing nothing other than waving at us; friendly but ineffectual. If Connie holds my gaze for a moment more I might just tell her. Simon isn’t coping. I’m not coping.
She shrugs, the moment vanishes. Lost. Well she offered. She can tell herself, and Luke too no doubt, that she’s done the right thing. She can congratulate herself on being a good friend without having the awkwardness of me telling her just how bad things are. She brightens up, almost instantly, nothing much depresses her for long. ‘But you’ll come, right? That’s great news. You haven’t been to one of my parties for ages. I’ll absolutely mention that it’s your special day in my speech.’
I don’t say anything, and she takes that for agreement. She often does. I’ll think of an excuse to get out of the party later. I slurp down my iced latte and say, ‘Look, we’ve got to go.’ I stand up, banging my leg into the small table in my haste. It shudders and the glasses rattle on their unnecessary saucers. The women on the table next to ours stare at me. I wonder whether I’ve spoken too loudly, sometimes I don’t judge those things as well as I ought to, not if I’m stressed. I use my school teacher voice, when really that should be limited to the classroom of eleven-year-olds.
Connie looks crestfallen. ‘Don’t you want to stay and make some plans? Talk about menus and things?’
‘It’s not really my forte, I’m sure whatever you decide it will be wonderful,’ I garble. ‘Millie, come along now, Daddy will be wondering where we are.’
This is unlikely, but Simon isn’t the only one who is a bloody liar.