Chapter Twenty-eight
Amber is shocked by how easy it is to make the change, now she’s started. She’s been so afraid of her anger, of being unable to control it if she ever gave it rein, that she’s amazed by how restrained she can be as she lets it play out.
Instead of the frenzied stuffing of bin liners, the shower of clothes from upstairs windows, the bonfire-of-the-vanity products that the weak indulge in, she has quietly come home, waited for Vic to wake up, and told him it’s time for him to leave. No screaming, no shouting, no tears: just a calm statement of fact. The mortgage is in her name, and for once, instead of running when things get difficult, she has stood her ground and stated her case. She’s not flung him on to the street with a suitcase, not changed the locks – though she thinks she probably will, once he’s cleared his stuff – or emptied the bank accounts. She’s just told him that he needs to make other arrangements, and that then he must be gone. And then, quite calmly, she’s gone to bed.
It’s gone lunchtime when she wakes. She’s only had a few hours’ sleep, but they’ve been deep, dreamless and restorative in a way she can barely remember. She feels awake and alive; strong and decisive. The house is silent. Mary-Kate and Ashley curl round each other on the bedspread, chins on paws, gazing. A tail thumps as she sits up, and they jump down to follow as she goes downstairs.
He’s still sitting at the kitchen table where she left him, staring into space, his face blank as though he’s rebooting, his hands flat, palms-down on the table. She has an eerie feeling that he’s been here all this time, switched off and waiting for stimulus. He doesn’t acknowledge her as she enters; doesn’t, as far as she can see, even blink as she crosses the room and puts on the kettle. The dogs skirt wide, eyes fixed on his rigid shoulders as though they expect him to spring suddenly to life like a big cat. She opens the back door to let them out, goes to the fridge to get the milk.
He leaps to his feet as though an invisible hand has thrown the On switch. ‘Let me get that,’ he says.
‘Nope, you’re OK,’ she replies; tries to put herself between him and the fridge door. But he keeps on coming. Snatches the milk from her hand – she cedes her grip on it to avoid having a mess to mop up – and takes it to the countertop. Goes into the cupboard and gets down the mugs. ‘Earl Grey?’
Behind his back, she shrugs. ‘Earl Grey,’ she says. She’s never learned to like PG, not really. ‘Thanks,’ she adds. No point in dropping the façade of civility when it’s all going to be done and dusted sooner or later anyway.
Vic drops the bags in the mugs, pours in the water. ‘Do you want something to eat? You must be hungry.’
‘No thanks. I’ll get myself something in a bit.’
He adds milk, spoons in the sugar. ‘Come on. I can make you a bacon sandwich.’
She shakes her head. ‘Thanks.’
‘Amber, you should eat,’ he says in that reasonable voice of his.
She can’t stop herself snapping. ‘No, Vic! I said no!’
He does that infuriating shrug that indicates that all women are mad. Takes his tea and sits down at the table. ‘How did you sleep?’
Her mood is deteriorating rapidly. She grunts and takes her tea over to the door and looks out at the dogs. They are sniffing and wagging around the gap at the bottom of the gate. I must take them for a walk, she thinks. Poor little sods don’t get nearly enough exercise.
‘I was thinking,’ he says, ‘about maybe building a proper barbecue. You know. Bricks and that. Then we could have people over. Not have to go out all the time.’
Shit. He’s pretending it never happened.
‘What do you reckon?’ he asks. ‘We don’t do enough entertaining, do we? Wouldn’t you like that?’
Amber sighs and turns back to the room. ‘No, I wouldn’t, Vic. I don’t want you to do any DIY or make me meals or try to be nice. Thank you, but there’s no point.’
Vic raises his eyebrows. ‘Wow.’
‘I’ve said my piece,’ she says. ‘I don’t want you thinking I didn’t mean it.’
‘And I don’t get a right of reply?’
She tips her tea down the sink. She doesn’t want it any more. ‘No. You forfeited that when you fucked my friend.’
‘One mistake,’ he says.
She feels like screaming. Wishes she hadn’t tipped the tea away because the satisfaction of dashing hot liquid in his eyes would be exquisite. Instead she puts the mug down hard in the sink and snatches the dogs’ leads from the hook by the door. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
She goes out and crouches down by the dogs. It’s hard to clip the leads on: her hands are shaking and the dogs are dancing with anticipation. She feels him behind her, in the doorway, watching; shakes Mary-Kate by the collar to make her stand still.
‘God, you can really bear a grudge,’ he says.
‘I’m not talking about it. I’m not!’
‘You at least owe me that,’ he says.
She flings herself to her feet and dashes for the gate. ‘No I don’t!’ she snarls back. She struggles with the bolt. It’s hardly ever used because they always go in and out through the front, but she doesn’t want to have to push past him, doesn’t want to be confined within those walls, until she’s regained control of herself.
‘Here, let me help you,’ he offers.
‘No!’ She’s barely aware that she’s shouting. ‘Just fuck off, will you?’
‘Amber!’ His voice is calculatedly reasonable; designed to make her angrier. ‘Come on, love. Calm down.’
The bolt gives suddenly. Shoots back and gouges a great runnel of skin out of her thumb. ‘Shit!’ she screams. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’
‘Oh my God,’ he says. ‘Let me look.’
He steps forward, his voice all concern, his face all enjoyment. She doesn’t understand what he’s doing. All she knows is that she wants him nowhere near. She hauls the gate open and steps backwards on to the road, screaming into his face. ‘Just keep away from me! Fuck off! Don’t fucking touch me!’
She wheels on her heel and finds that Shaunagh Next Door is standing on the weedy verge with her baby buggy and the gimlet-eyed biddy, Janelle Boxer, from number ten. They look thrilled. She doesn’t care.
‘I want you out of this house, Victor Cantrell,’ she shouts. ‘You just get out of my house!’
She turns to the women. ‘What are you looking at?’ she snarls.
Chapter Twenty-nine
‘Luke, please. Just turn the sound off.’
‘I need the sound,’ says Luke. ‘I can’t tell if there’s a troll coming if I haven’t got sound.’
‘You’ve played this game at least a thousand times,’ Kirsty says. ‘You must be able to remember by now.’
The noise is driving her mad. The beeps and boops assail her ears like tiny flaming arrows. With the tinny tinkle of JLS from Sophie’s earphones and Jim’s throat-clearing, she feels as though she is under assault from all sides. Her shoulder is stiff where she wrenched it, and a bruise on the back of her thigh makes sitting uncomfortable, moving more so, even without the wriggling fear of a deadline to hit and a forgotten car-insurance bill.
Luke doesn’t raise his eyes from the screen. ‘Just let me get to the end of this…’ he says, and swoops his arms out as a dwarf leaps out from behind a pillar and lobs a vial of poison. ‘Awww, Mum,’ he says. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’
‘Go and play upstairs,’ she orders. Wishes for the millionth time that she was the kind of parent who made her kids share a bedroom to make room for an office. She feels like a teenager doing prep. You’d never think I was this family’s main breadwinner. I’m the only person here who doesn’t have a space of her own. Even Jim’s got his shed, goddammit.