I took them avidly, marvelling at the change in me. After a while, though, I began to feel a bit turbocharged, as if I might take off, exhaust fumes billowing out behind like a cartoon character, so I flushed the rest of the pills down the loo.
Meanwhile I seethed, rumbled and roared around my house. It seemed to me it trembled with me, like the one belonging to the giant, the one with the beanstalk outside. Fee fi fo – I strode about with eyes like saucers, pausing occasionally to ask, ‘What? He did
The house was tackled next. I dusted and hoovered it from top to bottom, then I hired a steam cleaner. I washed the windows, polished the furniture, mended a broken curtain track in Archie’s room, scrubbed the tiles in the shower – getting right into the grouting with something so toxic it nearly took my fingernails off – and tidied all the drawers and cupboards. I then removed all traces of my husband. I saved cufflinks, a watch and his dinner jacket for Archie and a watercolour he’d liked for Clemmie, but I took all his clothes to a charity shop, and the rest, the things no one would want, I burned in the garden when the children were asleep. I stopped short of burning photos or anything hysterical like that and put them in a box in the cellar, but there was, nonetheless, a faintly heretical gleam to my eye as his Lycra cycling shorts (three pairs), his gloves, silly shoes, ordnance survey maps and stopwatch went up in acrid flames. As the tongues licked high into the velvet sky, crackling and popping in the night, I felt a profound sense of exorcism. Of release. Humming – yes, humming – I turned and strode back into the house for more. Trophies and medals had gone into the cellar along with the photos, but all those sci-fi books could burn, along with his self-help manuals – how to be rich, how to be popular, etc. – and one which I’d never seen before and had found nestling under his side of the bed and was charmingly entitled:
The children were next, spruced to within an inch of their lives. All clothes were washed and hung out to dry on the line, faces scrubbed, sweets and crisps banned, the television turned off, and there were lots of cuddles at bedtime and chat at teatime, which included broccoli and carrots. In other words, business as usual. The smiles and laughs came back too, not slowly as they might with adults, but instantly, children being so forgiving and immediate, which made my heart lurch. But if I had any temptation to beat myself up about their past eleven days of enacting life on a sink estate, I told myself it had been only that: eleven days. And that real grief, and the side effects on a family, could last a hell of a lot longer. That hadn’t been grief; that had been shock. A very nasty one at that. I rang Dad and told him not to panic, I was fine, and knew he could tell by my voice I meant it. His relief was tangible and he rang off with a cheery goodbye and an assurance that he’d try not to come off the enormous chestnut hunter he was breaking in for somebody else to fall off on the hunting field.
In the mornings, after I’d taken Clemmie to school, I went for long bracing walks in the forest above my house, borrowing Leila, Archie’s hand in mine. The three of us would stride through the autumn leaves, Archie kicking them up in his wellies, laughing as colours as bright as jewels – amber, ruby and gold – fluttered down around his head. Just occasionally I’d stop, in this five-thousand-acre wood with not another soul in sight, to clench my fists and shout, ‘Bloody hell!’ to the treetops. ‘Bloody HELL!’ Archie laughed delightedly and they were, unfortunately, his next words. The burnished autumn colours seemed to inflame me more than ever, though, like that fire in my garden: fury was in my heart, my belly, and I’d return refreshed, but incensed. Truly incensed that Phil could have done that to me.
Thank God he was dead, I thought, surprisingly, one morning. At least, it was a surprise to me. I voiced it too, to the bird table, as I had a piece of toast at the kitchen window, then glanced guiltily to the heavens as two sparrows fluttered up to tell. But suppose he hadn’t died; suppose he’d carried on with Emma for years, deceiving me, making a mockery of my life – yes, thank God he was dead, I decided fiercely, throwing my plate in the dishwasher.
‘Thank God,’ repeated Archie gravely behind me, eating his Weetabix. Ah. I’d have to watch that.
The following day I saw Jennie in the shop as I went in for my paper. My newspaper. Which I hadn’t bought for weeks. Had had no interest in the outside world.
‘Choir tonight, isn’t it?’ I said cheerily.
A couple of elderly women in the post office queue turned, surprised.
‘Yes, seven o’clock. Oh,
‘Doesn’t she look a treat,’ agreed old Mrs Archibald, nudging her neighbour, Mrs Cripps, who agreed with a toothless grin. ‘Like the whole world has lifted from your shoulders, love.’
