A Hundred Pieces of Me (2 page)

She hangs another silver bauble, then stops: it’d be nice to share this with Stu, she thinks. He shouldered the back-breaking part of the renovation when she wasn’t up to it; it’s only fair that they should share the fun stuff. Decorating the tree is something they should do together, a new tradition they can start of their own.

Gina puts the lid on the box so the cats can’t get into it, and goes through to the sitting room where she’s been ordering presents on her laptop. There aren’t that many shopping days left, and she’s barely started their family list. She turns up Phil Spector’s Christmas album to an indulgently loud level, but has only got as far as Stuart’s aunts when her credit card’s declined.

She checks again. Declined.

Gina frowns at it. It’s their joint card, the one that’s supposed to be for household bills. Stuart must have bought something big, probably for his bike – she’d paid off the balance last month in full, ready for Christmas. The website says the cut-off date for presents to Australia is Monday; if Auntie Pam in Sydney wants her usual tin of shortbread, it’s got to be sent today.

Gina chews her lip, then dials Stuart’s mobile. Her card’s already at the limit with her car’s MOT and insurance, and Pam’s
his
auntie. After two rings it goes to voicemail, which doesn’t surprise her – if he’s karting, his mobile will be sensibly stowed in his locker – so she calls his workmate Paul, who picks up after a couple of rings.

‘Hello, Paul, it’s Gina,’ she says, wandering around the sitting room, drawing the heavy curtains, clicking on the lamps. ‘Sorry to bother you – hope I’m not interrupting any murdering!’

‘Hey, Gina.’ Paul sounds as if he’s somewhere noisy: she can hear ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ by Slade in the background.

‘I’m trying to get hold of Stu. When he finishes what he’s doing, can you ask him to give me a ring?’

‘Stuart?’

‘Um, yes. Are you supposed to refer to him as Hercule Poirot or something?’

‘Sorry?’

Gina pauses in front of the mirror over the fireplace and stares at her reflection in the age-spotted glass; as usual, after a trip to the hairdresser, she doesn’t look like herself. Her short black hair is smooth, swooping across her long face in a sophisticated fringe that will last four more hours before frizzing. The haircut is part of her resolution to make more effort this year. More effort with her business, with Stuart, with . . . everything.

‘Gina? Sorry, I’m not with Stuart.’

‘He’s not with you?’

‘Not unless he’s stupid enough to be in Cribbs Causeway shopping!’ Paul pauses, then laughs. ‘Oh, bollocks, I’ve probably blown his big surprise, haven’t I? He’ll be out getting your present from somewhere. What’ll it be this year? A kayak?’

‘Yes, that’s probably it.’ Gina tries to laugh. She can’t. Her face feels heavy, her cheeks suddenly doughy. ‘Ha! Sorry to bother you, Paul. Have a good weekend!’

She hangs up and, half-heartedly, tries on Paul’s explanation, but it doesn’t fit.

Stuart packed a weekend bag; he ironed his own shirts. He told her several times – once too many, come to think of it – that it was a karting weekend, then a murder mystery dinner, and they’d be busy from Friday morning through to Sunday afternoon but not to worry if she couldn’t get hold of him because the hotel was in a forest with no reception ‘which is best for team-building’.

Too much detail. Stuart’s even an over-efficient liar.

Gina sinks onto the sofa, still gripping her phone, and Loki, the less disdainful of their two cats, shoots away from her.

She has to force the two concepts to mesh. Stuart: lying. Reliable, upright Stuart, who got the decorations down from the attic for her before he left, who emptied the bins and changed the cat litter.

All practical things, she realises. Thoughtful, but housemate-y. That’s what they are, after five years of marriage, housemates. Her last birthday present had been a sander, for the upstairs floorboards.

The weird thing is, Gina doesn’t feel devastated, just  sad. It’s only confirmed something she realises now that she already knew. Has known for months, but not wanted to acknowledge. She’s been buying how-to-fix-your-relationship books and hiding them in the airing cupboard; Stuart’s just been more practical, as usual.

She gazes at her half-dressed tree out in the hall. It’s making a cookie-cutter Christmas-tree shape against the pale blue staircase behind, and underneath the dull ache that’s filling her chest like gravel, Gina feels a faint flutter of that elusive happiness.

Something pushes her towards the tree, to finish decorating the branches. There’s at least half a day before he gets back when this house is going to be perfect. It deserves it.

Gina levers herself off the sofa and sleepwalks into the hall, to her box of decorations and memories. While the Ronettes sing in the background, she carries on slipping glass baubles onto the knotty pine branches, breathing in the rosemary-scented resin and letting the dark heart of the tree fill her senses until there’s no room for any thoughts about the future or the past.

Outside, beyond the glossy holly wreath and the brass knocker on the freshly painted front door, it snows.

Now, Longhampton

It was no coincidence, thought Gina, gazing around her empty new flat, that Heaven was commonly assumed to be a big white room with absolutely nothing in it. Something about this clean, peaceful space made her feel calmer than she had in weeks.

She stepped towards the big picture window with its panoramic view over the brown and grey rooftops beyond the high street, and experienced a strange elation like sparkling mineral water rinsing through her veins. She hadn’t expected to feel quite so positive about the first day of her new life, single, in a new place. The last few weeks had been hard, and Gina’s bones ached with invisible bruises, but now underneath there was a first-day-of-school excitement.

Fresh paint. Empty rooms. Smooth walls, ready to be filled, like a brand-new notebook.

Some of it was adrenalin at having sold the house and rented this new flat in just a fortnight. Some of it was relief to be away from the atmosphere that had hung over Dryden Road after Stuart’s bombshell, which, like an actual bombshell, had left a sort of miserable crater where Christmas was supposed to have been. Even though he’d moved out almost as soon as he’d admitted where he’d really been that weekend (Paris), his presence had lingered in every stray sock and framed holiday photo, of which there were many. Almost overnight, Gina felt as if she’d woken up in the house of a happily married couple of strangers.

She knew that was her own fault, which only made it worse. She’d deliberately set out to make Dryden Road into a sort of scrapbook of her and Stuart’s life together: it was feathered with tiny mementoes of parties and anniversaries, and quirky collections in frames. Gina never met a shelf she couldn’t fill, which was why it came as a bit of surprise to feel so instantly at home in the cloud-like emptiness of this modern flat, above the optician’s, next to the deli.

212a High Street was the exact opposite of the house she’d just left in the desirable poets’ streets area of Longhampton, the neglected Victorian terrace that she and Stuart had coaxed from damp shabbiness to what Gina’s house magazines liked to call a ‘forever home’. Gina was a conservation officer for the council; putting back the dado rails and moulded ceiling roses was a labour of love. 2 Dryden Road’s final gift to them for their split nails and silent hours’ sanding was a quick sale: it wasn’t their forever home but several other families wanted it to be.

If Dryden Road was a busy Victorian scrapbook collage, 212a High Street was a blank page. It was an open-plan conversion, painted throughout in soft vanilla eggshell with brand new carpets and wooden floors, resolutely featureless. No fireplaces, no skirting, no picture rails, just plain walls and big double-glazed windows that turned the town’s skyline into a living picture across one wall of the sitting room. It reminded Gina of a gallery, full of light and air, a place that invited you to pause and think. The moment she’d walked in with the estate agent, her eyes gritty from another sleepless night, a sense of stillness had come over her, and she’d handed over the rental deposit the same afternoon.

That had been a week ago, the last week in January.

Bright sunshine was warming the flat despite the chill outside, and Gina turned slowly on her heel, assessing the available space, and stopped at the long wall next to the window. It demanded one really fabulous piece of art, something beautiful that she could sit, gaze at and get lost in. She didn’t have the right painting or print yet, but she’d formed a middle-of-the-night plan to get rid of everything she didn’t need or love from the old house, and buy one amazing . . . thing.

Everything from the old house.

Her stomach rippled with nerves at the unknown months ahead. The nerves tended to ambush her, creeping up when she wasn’t concentrating to dive-bomb her good mood like seagulls. Once the novelty of her new place wore off, Gina knew it was going to be tough, dating again at thirty-three, unravelling her life from Stuart’s, and having to make new friends to replace the ones he would be taking with him. Gina had only one real mate, Naomi, whom she’d known since school; the rest of their social circle had been Stuart’s football and cricket friends.

But this flat would help her start again, she told herself. Everything she loved would be on show, all the time, instead of hidden in cupboards. And she could decide what she brought into it. There wasn’t room for much, so she’d have to be selective. From now on; everything that came into this flat had to make her happy or be useful, or ideally both.

One of the self-help books Naomi had pressed into her hands had been about a man who’d got rid of all his possessions, except a hundred vital things. He’d felt freed by it, apparently. Gina wondered if she could do that. It did seem wrong to spoil the serene minimalism with clutter. And the discipline would be good for her. What hundred things did she actually need?

Could you get rid of that much stuff and keep anything of yourself? Or was that the whole point? You could focus on being you, instead of relying on your things to explain who you were.

The thought made Gina cold and light-headed, but not necessarily scared.

Her mobile buzzed in her pocket. It was the removal men, coming with the boxes from Dryden Road. She hadn’t been there for the packing. Naomi, in her role as cheerleader and supporter, had been firm about it. Well, bossy. In a nice way. ‘You’ve been through enough, you’re knackered, and they’re the experts,’ she’d insisted. ‘Pay them to do it. I’ll pay them to do it. If you put your back out packing you’ll only have to fork out for massages later.’

Naomi had been right. She was usually right.

‘Hello, Gina? It’s Len Todd Removals, and we’re about to leave your property. Just checking you’re in to take delivery of the boxes that aren’t going to storage.’

Some of the bigger items, like Gina’s huge velvet Liberty sofa and her inlaid arts-and-crafts wardrobe, had gone straight to the Big Yellow on the outskirts of town, to wait until she could bring herself to sell them, or find a flat big enough to house them. The rest – the drawers, the cupboards, the shelves – was all on its way to her.

Gina checked her watch. Two o’clock. They’d arrived at her old house before eight, but even so . . . A whole life bubble-wrapped in under a day. ‘You’re not finished already?’

‘All in the van. You had a fair bit of stuff, though, love, I’ll give you that.’

‘I know.’ She winced. ‘Sorry. I should have had a clear-out.’

Gina had assumed Stuart would take more than he did. Instead, he’d swept through in one morning while she was at work, packed a few small items and stuck Post-it notes on large articles (like the new bed, which he’d suddenly remembered he’d paid for) and left a note saying she could have the rest – he didn’t want to make life difficult.

At first Gina had been hurt by how little of their combined life Stuart wanted, and then it turned out that he didn’t need a lot because his new life already had a toaster. And a duvet. And other personal touches. Within two days of his big revelation, Naomi – whose husband Jason played football with Stuart – had ferreted out the fact that he had moved in with his Other Woman, the woman he’d taken to Paris. Bryony Crawford, a friend from his cycling club, who lived in the Old Water Mill development. As soon as Naomi told her that, Gina knew exactly what kind of person Bryony would be. Storage wouldn’t be a priority. Stainless-steel-surface cleaners would.

Gina pushed the thought away, as it started to unfurl into further, more troubling mental images. Everything coming into this flat, she reminded herself, had to be positive. Including thoughts. And she was
glad
none of her beautiful possessions would be ending up in the Old Water Mill, even if it meant paying for them to be in storage for a bit.

‘Are you there, love?’ Len Todd sounded concerned.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll expect you in – what? Half an hour?’

‘Great.’ The removal man paused. ‘You’d better clear some room.’

Len Todd, and his Removals, arrived at half past two, bumping the first of the cardboard boxes up the side stairs to Gina’s first-floor flat.