SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 8)

Decisions, decisions.

I quietly closed my front door and leaned against it in the dark.
Tears started to fall soundlessly down to my chest.
Lorraine had totally broken my heart with her sordid diary.

I went through to the kitchen and made myself a much needed coffee.
I must have smoked half a dozen cigarettes, sitting there in silence.

I moved to go to bed, but, switching on the light, I only stood, staring at our beautiful bedroom. The dark purple walls gleamed in the soft lighting. On the right of the doorway, the wall was covered in smoky mirror tiles reflecting the white sheepskin covered bed surrounded by perfectly fitted, hand built white gleaming wardrobes that Tony had laboured long over.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my stricken face in the mirrored wall.
I could not bring myself to get into that bed.

I went into the lounge where the York stone fireplace that Tony had built housed a beautiful copper fronted gas fire. The stonework extended the length of the wall and held our much-loved collection of music albums, neatly stacked next to the simple record player on hand made polished shelves.
I gazed at the antique rocking chair that Tony had found for me when he visited the dump during my pregnancy. I had restored it and upholstered it with loving care.
I slumped down on the couch we had chosen together and I saw again the lovely ornaments that had been given to us on our wedding day, by so many happy guests.
I could not bear the sight of any of it.

Dylan was following me around the house with his head hanging forlornly. He was trying to attract my attention, so I returned to the kitchen and opened the back door to let him out into the garden.
This time it was I who followed him.
I sat on a rough garden bench Tony had slung together with loose breeze blocks and well worn scaffold boards.
I noticed that Dylan and Dan had been digging up what was left of the scruffy lawn.
The hard standing concrete area at the end of the garden which Tony had made for a shed he was planning, was stacked high with roofing materials and scaffold poles.
In short, there was not a single square inch of our home that did not carry multiple happy memories of planning and working to build this life together.

All this was, metaphorically at least, turning to dust before my very eyes. I felt like a dish-rag which had been used until it was filthy and ragged with holes; until it was discarded as a bright new one was being brought into service.

Dylan’s ears lay flat back on his head, his eyes conveyed fear and worry, so he buried his head into my lap. I lifted him up to hug him, crying silently into his soft, shiny black and white fur.
Nicki came over the fence, curious that we were out in the garden in the dead of night.
She nosed her way into the cuddle as she always did, so we accommodated her too.
They could feel my pain, though I made no sound and Dylan tried to lick the tears from my sodden face.
All night I cried.
I thought I would never stop.

At dawn, Dan woke up and, still sat, smoking in the garden, I wearily heard him jumping around on his bed. Always so full of enthusiasm in the mornings - how could I deceive him that everything was normal?
I have no idea how I pulled myself through our usual routine of breakfast and dressing until the post arrived. Dylan barked and trotted to the front door as the letters hit the doormat. Exhausted and braindead, I picked them up and of course, there was a letter with Tony's scrawled, uneven handwriting spelling out my name and address on the envelope.
I set it down unopened on the kitchen table, unable to bear the sight of it.

Four days and nights went by like that.
I did not step into my bedroom.
I did not change my clothes.
I did not answer the door or the phone.

At some point Adele came down the stairs with Joanne on her hip to see if I wanted to go to the beach for the day.
I said I was unwell. She glanced at my face and retreated laughing, saying "Ooh, if it is the flu I don't want it!" Cheerily, she bumped her pushchair down the stairs and left. I don't think it occurred to her that anything was wrong, even though I must have looked a complete state. Silence is often mistaken for peace, don’t you find?

As that Wednesday wound to a numb close, I somehow pulled myself together, stopped crying and had a bath, washing my unkempt hair. Tony was due home from the oil rig during the afternoon of the following day and I had to decide what I was going to do. I had been vaguely considering a number of different possible scenarios but my usual sharp mind was muddled and strangely fogged.

I had to decide. It was not easy. I was severely sleep deprived and emotionally drained.

Early Thursday morning I went to the bank and drew out some cash.
I did not go shopping at all, but returned to the house full of painfully happy memories.
I packed a small suitcase with a few basic outfits. I hid the case with my handbag in a cupboard under the stairs where we stored our coats.
I bathed again, dressed very smartly and put on my make up carefully. I wanted to appear as formal and normal as possible. I asked Adele to take Dan to play with Joanne upstairs. The daylight dimmed in the house as the sky darkened, heavy with an impending afternoon storm. I meditated without thought. I waited.

When Tony turned his key in the lock he found me sitting in my rocking chair, alone and silent in the lounge. He looked rough and tired. He had not shaved in a fortnight because he had a touch of frostbite in his beard.
He was also drunk.
Drinking on the long train journey home from Aberdeen had become his habit over the past few months and I rarely seemed to see him sober any more. He didn't ask me where Dan was. He just dropped his travel bag, flopped down on the couch and stretched himself out with his hands behind his head.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I asked tonelessly, which made him widen his eyes momentarily.
"Bad?" he ventured in a questioning manner.
Clearly, convincingly and very slowly I delivered the worst lie I have ever told in my entire life:
"The bad news is that I have been unfaithful to you."

I let that sink in for some moments.
Tony did not flinch. He simply stared at me. Eventually he asked "With whom?" without moving a muscle and I knew from that familiar stillness, that he was thinking about half murdering someone, but I had that covered.
"I met a guy in the Marine the other night, he works as a shopfitter; comes from out of town. I went back to his lodgings with him and one thing led to another."
I was surprised how expressionlessly and easily I could lie to him.

He deserved it.
He deserved so much more.

Tony slowly turned to face the back cushions of the couch until I could not see his face. I believe he did that because he did not want me to watch him processing this colossal blow to his macho pride.

Silent, I got up, went to the kitchen and made two cups of coffee, slowly.
I stared at the round chrome electric kettle reflecting a distorted version of my face back at me as it hissed and finally reached boiling point. I carried the cups into the lounge and placed one on a low table beside Tony. I resumed my seat in the rocking chair on the other side of the room.

"Don't let your coffee get cold." I said flatly, after a few minutes of complete silence.
He turned to sit up and the look he gave me was pure hatred.

I just had to laugh.
It was a sneering, contemptuous laugh that I had never heard escape me before.
I was as cold as ice and completely fearless.
I calmly finished my coffee and laid the cup down saying,
"Don’t you want to hear the good news?"
He simply pulled a resigned expression and glared menacingly at me.

"You can move your girlfriend, Lorraine, into this house Tony, because I am leaving you…” I let a few moments hang in the air before adding with fierce defiance, “Right now."

The dawn of guilt swept across his entire body as if he had been physically smacked. His jaw dropped with the shock of it. I got up, went purposefully to the cupboard under the stairs, took out my coat and the two hidden bags. I walked quickly to the front door and I did not look back as I slammed the door so hard that the whole house seemed to shudder. The sound echoed down the dismal empty street, under a slate grey thunderous sky.

I walked out of Tony's life carrying far less than I had arrived with.
I left Dan, Dylan, Nicki and everything I had worked so hard for. I don’t remember thinking much about any of that. My mind was exhausted and sleep deprivation gave me a strange other-worldly distance from reality.

I walked the few hundred yards to the station, bought a one-way train ticket to Liverpool Street in London and, as the train pulled away from Clacton-on-Sea, I saw my face reflected back at me, in the dirty window glass.
I wore an expression that I had never seen there before.
My grim face looked like it was carved in granite.