‘Well, I’ll go away. For a few days. It’s me they …’
Rosie is shaking her head again and Eva says, ‘Rosie’s right, Sebastian: you need to stay here.’
He looks at them, the bravest people he knows. They can tell he needs them to explain.
‘There’s the parent forum on Monday. If you leave Waverly, it’ll be like you’re running away,’ Rosie says and Eva nods, agreeing.
‘She’s right. The fire didn’t burn all that stuff away. You still have to face everyone; you still have a responsibility to the kids.’
‘No, no, I’m resigning. There’s no way …’
‘If you resign now then you’re right, Sebastian.’ Eva’s voice is steady but firm. ‘You are in danger. In danger of all of this being for absolutely nothing. Of going through so much and buckling anyway. The kids’ petition is all the proof we need. They need you to hold on.’
She puts her warm palm on top of his before adding more gently, ‘And don’t forget what your dad always said. Chaos often precedes change. That’s the way of things.’
Her voice cracks and Seb wonders whether she too is thinking about everything they’ve lost. They only have a small handful of photos of Seb’s dad now, just one or two from Seb’s childhood and none of Eva’s family or her own youth. A young police officer had brought them over in a small tray, along with a bronze dolphin figurine and a couple of bits of pottery they’d been able to save from the wreckage.
‘I don’t know how …’ he stumbles, feeling the full impact of his weakness, the rush of his helplessness.
‘None of us do. It’s OK not to know and it’s OK not to succeed but it’s not OK, when you’ve come so far, to just give up.’
How many times has Seb delivered a similar speech to his students over the years? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred?
He still doesn’t know if it’s the right thing but, then again, he doesn’t even know if there’s any such thing as ‘the right thing’ any more. Was there ever? It seems to Seb that all there is, all there ever was, is trying. Trying. The rest is out of their control.
He nods and says, ‘If it’s what you both want.’
‘I don’t think either of us wants any of this, Seb,’ Rosie replies, a little sharp, before adding, more gently, ‘But there’s no avoiding it’s where we are.’
Eva goes back up to bed after supper. Seb and Rosie sit next to each other on the sofa in the sitting room. It’s dark but neither of them makes a move to turn on the lights and a part of Seb wishes they could stay like that, just the two of them, in the darkness and silence. Just sit like they did before Anna’s radio appearance. But he knows he might not get another chance to say the things he’s not sure she’ll believe.
‘I don’t know if I can ever tell you how sorry I am, Ro.’
Rosie turns to him, her face calm. ‘I don’t know if you can ever make it better,’ she says, before adding, ‘Tell me something, Seb. Would you do it again? Pay a woman for sex, I mean.’
Before, he’d have acted shocked, probably have said, ‘No! Of course not!’
He’s different now. They both are. So, he says, ‘If we weren’t together any more? Maybe.’
She doesn’t seem either sad or angry. If anything, she seems relieved. Like she can feel on a subtle, pheromonal level that he’s telling the truth.
‘But what I can tell you,’ he says, his voice almost a whisper, ‘is that for as long as we’re married, I will never betray you again.’
Rosie’s crying now, her tears silent and silvery in the evening light. ‘I thought we weren’t making promises any more.’
‘That’s not a promise, it’s just something I know.’
Rosie looks away from him for a moment, before turning back again. ‘How can we know that we won’t just end up in the same place, Seb? I can’t just make my body do things I … I’m worried we’ll follow the same patterns, lying to ourselves, to each other again …’
‘We won’t because neither of us wants it to go back to how it was. We’ll make a new agreement. Not one based on promises that might destroy us and each other in our efforts to keep them, but an agreement based on an intention to always be truthful.’
Rosie breathes out, squirms next to him with embarrassment. ‘You make it sound easy.’
‘I don’t mean to.’
‘I think I need help figuring out who I am now beyond, you know, being a wife and mother. And I guess that means physically, too. I need to know who I am inside this body, and I think that’ll help me know how I want to experience this body. Does that make sense?’
Seb nods. It makes sense, but still, his mind reels. What they’d both been experiencing all along were different manifestations of the same thing. They’d both been trapped, alone, trying to keep an inordinately complicated show on the road. The weight of it had been too much, struggling as they were, separately. It was never sex that he craved, not really. It was this. It was honesty. It was connection. It was believing he could still be loved in all his ugliness. That his most hidden, shameful parts, the parts that quaked with fear and loneliness, could still be welcome, still be loved. Shame, he realizes now, loses its power when it’s not hidden away but brought out, into the light.
They’re suddenly interrupted, both turning towards the porch light as it flickers on, the sensor disturbed by someone walking up the steps. Next to him, Seb feels Rosie brace; he reaches for her. But it’s not someone with a brick for the window – it’s Anna, her hand clamped at her sternum, carrying a small plant in a pot. She sees them, through the window, at the same time as they see her. For a moment, Seb thinks she’s going to say something to them, mouth through the glass. She doesn’t. Instead they all just stare, surprised, observing the shapes of each other. Anna looks away first and they see her stoop to place the pot down, by the front door, and, without looking at either of them again, she turns and disappears, back into the night.
It’s Rosie who stands first, walks quickly to the front door, runs down the three stone steps, Seb following behind, and calls into the crisp darkness, ‘Anna!’
Anna stops but doesn’t turn around right away, until Rosie moves closer to her and says her name again like she’s trying to wake her old friend up. ‘Anna.’
The street lights are bright but Anna’s face is still full of shadows. They stare at each other and Seb senses that now Rosie has Anna’s attention she isn’t sure what to do with it. In the end it’s Anna who steps forward and, speaking directly to Rosie, says, ‘I just wanted to keep us all safe, to stop history repeating itself. That’s all.’
Seb watches Rosie nod; she knows. They stand there for a few seconds longer, the three of them, and it feels like they all know this isn’t an apology and neither is it forgiveness. This is a goodbye.
He moves a step closer to his wife but doesn’t touch her as Anna turns and walks away from them for the last time.
Chapter 25
Abi hadn’t planned to go. She’d deleted Mrs Greene’s email and neither Lily nor Abi had mentioned the parents’ forum to the other. They had agreed on the first flat they saw in Brighton, but they’d had to sign for it immediately, so they didn’t lose it. It meant going into savings to pay double rent for at least a month, but freedom, Abi figures, is worth it. This morning, at breakfast, Abi is blank when Lily asks, ‘Is the meeting today in the pavilion or the hall?’
Abi’s toast hovers between her plate and her mouth.
Lily rolls her eyes. ‘Tell me you’re going, Mum.’
‘Going where?’ Margot asks.
‘Lil, I really don’t think it’s a—’
‘You don’t think it’s a good idea? Mum, come on, you’ve got to go!’
‘What are you talking about?’ Margot drops her spoon, porridge and honey landing in a splat on the floor.
‘Mum, you have to show you’re not ashamed, that you’ve done nothing wrong …’