‘Leigh didn’t though, Kai did.’ Janssen’s tone is iron. Mark’s certainty and excitement evaporates instantly. Janssen has thrown the first punch after all – intentionally or otherwise. Mark feels a slackness in his gut, a bearing down on his sphincter. He wants to ask where the bathroom is but won’t give Janssen the satisfaction of seeing his frailty. He clenches, straightens his shoulders, draws himself up to his full height, ignores the spasms in his stomach.
‘So, you are saying what? She was only ever half a person with me?’
‘Half a person with either of us.’ Janssen shrugs and reaches for the vodka bottle again. Something like pity snags Mark’s conscience. He’s been drinking too much himself as well but only in the evenings, and usually with Fiona for company. He has the boys to think about; he’s had to retain a semblance of keeping it together.
‘I will have a coffee with you,’ he says. Janssen takes the hint, puts down the vodka and reaches for two pods, two cups.
Whilst Janssen prepares the coffee Mark continues to roam around the vast apartment. This time, instead of denying her occupancy, he looks for her tastes and influence. He looks for her. He examines the bookshelves to see what she read here and the art on the walls to know what she looked at. In their home they have a few framed mass-market posters. Ones with inspirational or funny messages. Leigh chose them all. Mark tries to recall what each of them says. In the hallway there is one that reads Don’t grow up, it’s a trap. One in the bedroom, I’ll be ready in five minutes! In the kitchen a poster declares Cook, dance, laugh, live. In the downstairs loo, there is one that has just a single word. Breathe. He has never given that one much thought before. Now he wonders whether that was the most pertinent. The one she looked at every day as she checked her make-up before she dashed out the door, the one she saw on her return when she dashed in the house desperate for a quick pee as she transitioned from Kai back to Leigh. Janssen’s walls are covered in numbered prints that suggest exclusive, limited runs. There are oil paintings, modern ones, huge and undoubtedly expensive, possibly privately commissioned. Did Leigh choose these works? Is this what she would have liked to hang on their walls if they could have afforded it?
He opens the door on to their bedroom. He holds his breath, takes in oxygen through his mouth because he doesn’t want to smell her, not here. He looks at the bed. It’s enormous. Mark wants to ask Daan what she was like in bed, this woman Daan was married to, this woman Mark was married to. He doesn’t yet believe they are the same person. Well, he believes it, but he can’t process it, not quite. Not entirely. He swallows the question, pushes it back down his throat. The answer might kill him.
There are three doors off the bedroom. The first is the bathroom. Their bathroom at home was refurbished last year. They picked new grey-and-cream tiles and did away with the bath so they could fit in a larger shower. The result is quite smart. Admittedly there are nearly always hardwater marks on the shower glass and taps. Open tubes and bottles of shampoos, body washes, toothpaste, Leigh’s various lotions and potions are scattered about like confetti. Hidden intimacies – like verruca cream, iodine tablets and sweat block wipes – are rarely returned to the cabinet that was installed to store such things but instead expose them as a couple – as a family – that are less than perfect but totally human. Still, it is fine. A decent place to grab a hurried shower in the morning, although it is best if you leave the window open because despite the refit there is always a faint lingering smell of mildew.
This bathroom is incomparable. Of course it gleams, that is to be expected considering the rest of the apartment, but there is more than that to appreciate. This bathroom is a sanctuary; it is sensual, classy. No one grabs a rushed shower here. The mosaic tiles shimmer. The copper bath is enormous, two can easily bathe until they wrinkle in there. There are no bottles or packets lying around, just fat candles, perfectly stacked piles of towels and beautiful decanters full of what Mark can only presume to be bubble bath – no not here, not bubble bath – oils. The room smells of something woody and dark. Ginger or citrus. He can’t see a loo brush or a bottle of bleach. He tries to imagine her weeing in here, shaving her legs, taking off her eye make-up. He can’t, because it lacks her trail of mess. And maybe not being able to imagine her is a boon after all.
He goes back into the bedroom and opens another door. He was expecting a wardrobe. It is a wardrobe, if an entire room of shelves and rails can be described as something so humble. This walk-in wardrobe is the same size as Oli’s bedroom, a little bigger than Sebastian’s. He stares at the racks of shoes neatly lined up behind the glass sliding doors. He’s seen something similar in very posh restaurants, for storing expensive wines, but row
