A Surrey State of Affairs (48 page)
Read A Surrey State of Affairs Online
Authors: Ceri Radford
Why has he not come around today, with a flower, seeking forgiveness?
Why is it so much worse if a woman does what a man does with routine cruelty?
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28
Stalemate. I am ignoring Jeffrey; Jeffrey is ignoring me.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29
Today I finally dug out my adapter and charger and plugged in my phone for the first time since getting here. I had two concerned answerphone messages from Sophie and Rupert, one from Tanya, who said that Shariah sent her love, and one from Harriet, who asked me if everything was all right in a worried voice and then told me that there was a rumor going around that Jeffrey and I had been thrown in jail in Costa Rica for drug smuggling. I deleted that message, but listened to the ones from Sophie and Rupert several times. Their voices made me cry. Perhaps I should go home. Perhaps this is it. For the first time, the strange heat and dust and vast blue sky oppress me. I miss home, I miss my children, I miss drizzle and narrow country lanes and the smell of cakes rising in the oven. Perhaps I should give up on Jeffrey and fly home alone and sell the house and buy a flat and throw myself into whatever divorced women do—take up pottery or stained glass or something, lend Miss Hughes a hand at Cats in Need, start embroidering. Is that what my future holds?
I knew I should call Sophie and Rupert back but I couldn’t face it. Instead I wrote a text message, and sent it to them both:
With Dad, still alive, love Mum x.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30
Today Jeffrey smiled at me over breakfast, a weak, flickering, uncertain smile. I smiled back, involuntarily. Then I scowled and went back to picking the burned bits off my bread roll.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31
I checked my e-mail earlier and found this message from Reginald amid the usual unsolicited junk offering me cheap train tickets or free knitting patterns:
Dear Constance,
I don’t know where you are, but I hope you are well. We are all worried about you. There are all sorts of wild rumors flying around that we’re doing our best to ignore. I pray to God every day that you’re sunning yourself on an exotic island and not being used as an unwitting drug mule or anything dreadful like that. If you get this, please let me know that you are safe. I can’t bear the thought of you festering in a prison cell. I know that you would sooner starve than eat a rat. Remember the face you pulled when Miss Hughes brought her homemade savory scones to church and the cheese was a bit off?
Well, wherever you are, I’m sure that some news from home will cheer you up. Rosemary has come back! Apparently she ditched her acrobat when they were on tour in Estonia and he tried to make her put her head in a lion’s mouth. As I have often observed, dear Constance, the Lord moves in mysterious ways. She has had her hair cut and thrown away the leotards and is back to her good old self. Gerald is delighted. He was a bit shocked at first but then he came to me for a quiet talk and I advised him on the importance of Christian forgiveness.
I think that is the only news to speak of. The roof continues to leak in the corner, but we’re only £143.76 away from being able to afford the repairs, and I’m hoping to raise that at next month’s cake bake. If only you and your walnut slices were here we’d be home and dry, in more ways than one!
Warmest wishes,
Reginald
The message made me smile. I wrote back to tell him that I was well, but kept the details vague. Then I went for a long walk, and as the dry grass scratched my legs, I thought of Gerald and Rosemary rebuilding their life together, and I wondered.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1
I actually feel happy. The guilt in my stomach has gone, a heavy sadness has lifted off my shoulders. Things are not perfect—I don’t think they will ever really be perfect—but oh, they are better.
Last night Jeffrey knocked on my door at about six. I threw the tissues in the bin, ran my fingers through my hair, and let him in. He had a picnic hamper and a bottle of wine.
Once again, he said the words “Constance, we need to talk.” Then he asked if I would come out with him. I agreed, on the condition that I could put on some insect repellent first.
He led me on a winding path toward the perimeter of the estancia, past cacti and bushes filled with small birds, up onto a little hillock with a view stretching out to the Andes on one side and to the plains melting into a flat horizon on the other. He spread out a blanket, which I noticed from a monogram must have been stolen from Lufthansa on our flight over. I decided not to reprimand him for his lack of morals. Instead I took off my sandals and sat down. He unpacked the food—empanadas, which are a surprisingly edible foreign version of the Cornish pasty; hunks of cheese; and big, rosy apples—and unwrapped two wineglasses from a hand towel. When he opened the bottle, the pop echoed for miles. Then there was silence. I looked down, at the evening sun lighting up the fine hairs on my arms, then I looked up, and I saw that he was watching me with damp, serious eyes.
“Connie, I am an arse,” he said.
“I know,” I replied, and smiled. We clinked our glasses; they bumped together, loudly. We drank, and ate, and once we had done that and we were stretched out among the crumbs he told me again that he was sorry, for everything he had done, for how he had reacted, that he wanted to start again.
He told me that he’d hated himself when he was sleeping with Natalia, but that he’d felt cut off from me, from home life, from his feelings. He said it was like living in a sort of bubble; he had been contented enough but somehow insulated, nothing had really mattered, nothing had felt real. And then it had been pricked. I raised my eyebrow at his choice of wording, and he laughed. I remembered how much I used to enjoy making him laugh in the old days, when we were first together, and I would describe elaborate caricatures of my English tutors. When had I stopped trying to entertain him? When had he stopped listening?
He told me that he’d thought he’d already been through his crisis when he was locked in his cell, but it turned out that it was only when he was out here, alone and hurt, that he truly realized what mattered and what didn’t. Then he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and told me that I mattered.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2
A new month, a new beginning. Jeffrey and I are going traveling together. I think we’ll start by heading to the tropical Iguazu waterfalls, and then see where our fancy takes us.
Do not be alarmed. I’m not naïve enough to think that one picnic has saved our marriage. The hurt runs deeper than that; it will take more. But I am willing to try, and so is Jeffrey: we will be striving together against the odds toward a common goal, for the first time since we lost the remote control for three days and eventually hunted it down to the pocket of Sophie’s dressing
gown. Also for the first time in recent memory, we are going on an adventure together. And it will be an adventure in more ways than one: we are on a strict budget. Alpha & Omega has stopped paying Jeffrey’s salary. Before he left, he told them that he needed to take time off for a family emergency, but he has not been in contact since. He says that he has developed a sort of phobia at the thought of his old job, a little like how he used to feel whenever his mother would mention the dentist, except that in this case there are no sticky badges or cups of pink water to coax him back. We have investments, of course, but apparently the accursed recession has taken its toll. No matter. We will cope. I remember a Girl Guide camping trip when I was a child: sleeping on a paper-thin foam mattress, washing in cold water, eating baked beans warmed over a stove. I’m sure two-star hotels can be no worse.
I must go back and help Jeffrey pack; we leave in an hour. You may not hear from me for some time.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7