The River House

A dark mood washes through me.

The cars all have their headlights on now: bright beams from the oncoming traffic weave across us. We drive through a stand of birches, their slender trunks and branches pale and naked in the lights. I realise I had hoped for something in this moment—though the hope was never fully conscious, and certainly never expressed. That there’d be a kind of freedom or renewal. That we’d enter a new landscape, with glimmerings of what life might be like when Amber too goes, when it’s just the two of us, and that it would be a place that I could live in. That there’d be a new intimacy—dinner sometimes in restaurants on the waterfront, trips to the theatre, winter weekends in Prague. A rediscovery of one another.

Yet in this moment I know the limits of what we have, what we are. I see that what is missing is not just something postponed or which can be recovered. Not something put aside for a while or safely stowed away—like a book you never quite finished but hoped one day to return to. Is this my fault? I wonder. Have I tried hard enough, done enough to mend it?

We went to a Marriage Guidance counsellor once. It was my idea, of course, but Greg agreed to come—unwillingly, but at least he agreed. I was so grateful to him. I remember this, as we drive along the motorway and the countryside darkens around us. I tell myself—at least I did what I could, at least I tried.

The counsellor had a room with walls the colour of mint toothpaste, and on the table an African violet that looked as though it was made from plastic, the leaves too clean and symmetrical to be real. She smelt of anti-bacterial soap and she wore a polyester blouse with a floppy bow at the collar.

We talked for three sessions before we reached what we’d come for. She never seemed quite comfortable with us: perhaps my being a psychologist made her nervous. We talked about our children, the families we grew up in, and what we did when we disagreed—which seemed to be her speciality. The thing we had really come to say hung there in the room with us.

Eventually I told her that sex was our problem. She flushed a little when I said this, her neck blotching with purple above the polyester bow. Her embarrassment seemed a serious flaw in a marriage counsellor. She said, rather primly, that she thought the physical relationship between any two people would be fine if the communication was right. And I thought, No, that’s not true: sex is about sex, it’s not about communication.

I remembered how it had happened. How after the children I was always so tired; and we went on having sex, though I didn’t really want to, because it seemed mean to say No: but an orgasm seemed to take more energy than I had. There’s a moment of decision, of reaching out for pleasure, you have to focus, to fantasise—well, it’s like that for me anyway—and it never seemed quite worth the effort. So I used to say, Leave it, really, I don’t mind. And sex had come to seem pointless, even inappropriate—as though it wasn’t what our relationship was for. I’d tell myself this didn’t matter, that I could live without it. Yet always with an awareness of something obscurely wrong, of an absence—some primary colour missing from my life, as though I were a picture painted without red. I couldn’t begin to explain this to her.

She tried a different tack. She said how sex—just the physical thing—often isn’t enough for women: we women need to feel we’re making love. She said this with emphasis, as though it were a unique insight. I told her this was a distinction I’d never understood. My response seemed to perplex her. But romance was so important, she said, all those little gestures that make a woman feel special.

I tried again.

‘But I mean—after having kids—sex does go sometimes, doesn’t it? Don’t you find that with other couples? What happens to them? Does it ever come back?’ My voice was shrill, urgent. I really wanted to know this.

She said it was us she wanted to talk about now—not other couples.

She had some suggestions, some stratagems. I was to ring Greg at work and to make an appointment for sex. When she saw how we both responded to this, imagining me interrupting a semiotics tutorial with a lascivious proposition, she moved on down her list. I needed to pamper myself, she said—she was very keen on pampering, which seemed to involve the purchase of scented candles and expensive bath products. I muse on this now, as we drive on through the darkening landscape—because it’s quite a common belief, and yet so very strange. As though sex can be found at a department store cosmetics counter, among the flash balms and exfoliants, and purchased from one of those pushy women with clinical white coats and far too much mascara. Whereas desire is to be found in other places entirely. At a party where a stranger comes up behind you and runs his hands down your sides. Or in an afternoon office, where a man who smells of smoky rooms holds your eyes for a little too long and pushes up his shirtsleeves. Yes, especially that: just thinking of it.

And then Greg said, ‘Ginnie’s ever so tired, aren’t you, darling? Bringing up the girls—she has her hands full. You know, life’s very busy.’

And the counsellor said yes, that it would probably all change when our daughters were older. I felt a kind of despair then, as they both insisted that our problem was not such an issue really and perfectly predictable. I knew such bleakness, in the room with the African violet and the toothpaste walls. Feeling that this was beyond repair, that we’d reached the end of the line.

After that she retreated to safer ground—to our relationship history and the story of how we’d met. She sat back in her chair now, she seemed to be more at ease. I understood what she was seeking to do—to unearth or recover whatever had originally drawn us together. I might well have done the same in her place. Though I didn’t see how this could help us. You can’t go back there.

I told her how we’d met at a dinner party—just giving the outline of the evening. It was a Burns Night dinner, held by some friends of Max’s, who’d wangled me an invite: and we were all told to bring a song or a poem: and I fell in love with Greg when he was reading aloud.

It was done with panache—a long refectory table, a proper damask tablecloth, the whole place shimmering with candles. The men wore dinner jackets, the women were in long dresses. I remember one woman who had a dress of some slippery cloth that was tight across her breasts, and a heap of blonde hair pinned high up on her head. There was whisky that tasted wonderfully of woodsmoke.

But even after the whisky, most of us were a little embarrassed reading the poems we’d brought. Mostly we chose comic poems, keeping the emotional temperature down, so as not to seem pretentious. Max read something by Craig Raine. I read a poem by Wendy Cope, which was short and a little poignant. The blonde woman didn’t read anything, though toward the end of the evening she pulled out her hair clip and let down all her hair, shaking her head a little as it fell, so it rippled and gleamed in the candle-light. Max watched intently. Someone took out a guitar and sang a Tom Lehrer song.

I didn’t really notice Greg till he started to read. He was rather too thin for my taste, and anyway seated up at the other end of the table. But he had a beguiling speaking voice—a subtle, cultured baritone. He read something obscure and Celtic, a strange tale of enchantment, of four companions who were walking in their lands when a mist fell: and when it lifted the land was bright but everything they knew had disappeared, all their flocks and herds and houses and the people who were with them; there was no animal, no smoke, no fire, no man, no dwelling, so only the four of them remained alone. The narrative was disjointed, dreamlike, as though the storyteller had stitched together many different strands. There were curses and metamorphoses and one thing becoming another, and magical objects and animals—a shining white boar, a golden bowl. Greg read with complete confidence, expecting to be listened to. It was a bold thing to do, to read something so rich and elusive. We heard him in attentive silence. Afterwards, before we clapped, there was a little collective sigh of pleasure.

At the end of the evening, as people started to drift away, I went to him and asked about the story. I was warm with the wine, fluid, more forthcoming than usual. It was from the Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh stories, he said. He lent me his copy, wrote his phone number in it, insisted that I had to give it back when I’d finished. I noticed that his cufflinks were little silver fish. He seemed quirky, cerebral, charming: but with a kind of reserve that made me feel at ease. Max gave me a quick knowing smile as he slid out of the room, his arm round the blonde woman, his fingers tracing the curve of her hip through the flimsy fabric of her frock, as though they were lovers already.

Yet I misread Greg, of course. The whole attraction was based on errors of interpretation. I saw his detachment as a kind of peacefulness, a safety I knew I needed. And he, I think, misunderstood me too—welcomed my shyness, my hesitancy, believing I would be happy to be a rather traditional wife, grounding him, keeping everything calm and stable: while life for him, the real thing, happened elsewhere. There’s such readiness, at some points in your life, to move on to the next stage—the old world over, the new one not yet begun. You grasp at anything you feel might take you forward. There, it’s all signed and sealed, the choices made, the path plotted out. And you find yourself in the middle way: your marriage empty, your children leaving, the mist falling over the land.

CHAPTER 9

I sit in the soft late afternoon sun that falls across my office, sipping a final coffee. I like to stay here sometimes before I head for home, letting the day and all its tensions fall from me.

The file of the last child I saw is on the desk in front of me. Gemma Westerley—a little waif in frilled socks, with hair the colour of straw and a naked, timid smile. She has special needs, though for years her teachers didn’t realise; she was quiet in class and her exercise books were orderly with hearts drawn in the margins, and nobody saw how little she understood. Now her teacher is worried she might have been abused. Her confusion is still here in the room, like a trace of smoke or perfume. I make some notes, then put the file away.

I plan my evening. There’s fish in my bag for tea. I went to the market at lunchtime and braved the fish stall with its glazed dead eyes: this made me feel like a good mother. Amber is going out later, to the Blue Hawaii for a birthday party, where they will drink cocktails named after sex acts and laced with too much v dka, and I want to make sure that at least she’s eaten properly. And when Amber has gone I shall start to tidy Molly’s room.

At the thought of Molly, I feel a little surge of anxiety. I wonder whether she woke on time this morning, and whether she has made friends with the girl with the black shiny hair. I wonder when she will ring me.

I look through some post that wasn’t urgent—courses I could go on, and a catalogue from a firm I’ve used before. They make hand puppets and therapeutic games. The catalogue is glossy, full of colours. I flick through. There’s a crocodile with a zipper mouth, to use with children who’ve been abused, to help them tell the things they’re keeping secret. There’s a wolf that’s half as big as a child. ‘A large scary wolf who can also be afraid. Is he then so scary?’ I think how Amber would have adored him when she was little and had a scheme to keep a wolf as a pet. And there’s a grey velvet caterpillar, with poppers you can undo to hatch a yellow butterfly. I shall take the catalogue home and see if there’s anything useful. Perhaps I should order the crocodile for Gemma. But I’m tempted too by the chrysalis that turns into a butterfly. I’m not sure which child I would use it with: but I love its velvet wings.

My mobile rings. I scrabble in my handbag, thinking it’s Molly.

It’s a number I don’t recognise.

‘Now, am I speaking to Ginnie?’

My pulse has skittered off before I consciously recognise his voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Ginnie,’ he says. ‘It’s Will.’ I notice how he doesn’t give his surname. ‘Look, I’ve got some info on your little patient. Quite interesting.’

‘Thanks so much,’ I tell him.

There’s a little pause, as though he’s drawing breath or working out how to put something. The sun through the window is warm on the skin of my arms.

‘Would you like to meet up to talk about it?’ he says.

‘That would be really helpful,’ I tell him.

‘I wondered about after work today,’ he says. ‘About six. I could do that if it suits you.’

I tell him, yes, it would suit me. We talk for a moment or two with enthusiasm about how useful this will be—to talk about it properly. Our voices are level, reasonable: we are two professionals planning a case discussion. I have a crazy fear that even over the phone he can hear the thud of my heart.

‘There’s a pub,’ he says. ‘In Acton Street. D’you know it?’

I explain, perhaps with rather too much emphasis, that it will be the easiest place in the world for me to find.

‘I’ll see you there,’ he says.

I put down the phone but his voice is still inside me. Desire ambushes me, taking away my breath.

I ring Amber. It’s her voicemail.

‘Sweetheart, look, I’m going to be late, I have to go to a meeting. There’s some lamb stew from yesterday in the fridge. It just needs heating through. Make sure you heat it for ten minutes, and be really careful to switch the ring off afterwards.’ But I know she’ll ignore my message, and go to the Co-op for crisps and a pack of Cherry Bakewells.

In the cloakroom I study myself in the mirror for a moment. I think of the dream I had of him. I hold my hands under the tap then pull wet fingers through my hair. At least I have a lipstick. My skin is still flushed from talking to him.

I take my coat from my office, and the bag with the fish in—though I’ll probably have to throw it out, it needs to be cooked today—and the catalogue with all its therapeutic toys. I decide I shall order the butterfly.

CHAPTER 10

It’s the pub that I passed when I walked home from work, a lumbering building with purple paintwork and advertisements for Sports Night. I get there too early and sit in my car round the corner, nervous, suddenly wondering why I’m here.