I could not say, ‘Because I have lately discovered that the pillars of my husband’s personality, the qualities for which he is so broadly admired, the exceptional stoicism, emotional equanimity and never complaining, are actually just symptoms of a newly classified disorder.’
‘The point is, you have come.’ The therapist said that was a great sign and asked us to hop up, directing us to the two chairs that were in the middle of the room, already facing each other and close enough that when we sat down our knees were touching. She told us that because it was very common for partners who’d been together some time to stop looking into each other’s eyes, she always started by getting couples to do just that – stare at each other with total concentration and no talking for three minutes. She would simply observe.
Some seconds into the exercise, a quick succession of electronic alerts came from the handbag at her feet. Patrick and I turned at the same time, to see her reach into the bag and feel around for her phone, saying, ‘I should get that, in case it’s my daughter wanting a ride.’ Once found, she swiped the screen and said without taking her eyes off it, ‘Ignore me. Keep going. I just need to very quickly reply to this.’
Patrick does not hate anything, except swordfish as a food and in nature, joke presents and, as an iPhone option, the audible keypad. As the therapist composed her reply, each letter clicked like Morse code. He looked at me in disbelief, silently mouthed the words ‘No way’ after the therapist leaned forward to put her phone away but levered up again when it beeped twice more in her hand. ‘Honestly, sorry you two. She’s sixteen. They think the world revolves around them at that age.’
Patrick got up, apologised for realising that he had forgotten to do something and needed to do it straight away. The therapist looked bewildered as he ushered me out of her office.
We were suddenly outside, running across the road, hand in hand, towards a bar. We drank champagne, then tequila. I told Patrick we were like two people who had decided to turn themselves in but, in the moment of surrender, they had realised that as exhausting as it was to keep running and surviving and not give up, the alternative is worse. I said, ‘Because the alternative is other people.’
Patrick said, ‘For me, it’s being by myself.’
Outside, on the curb, he took my hand again. We were looking for a taxi but then he pointed to a shop further along and said he wanted to pick up some items. We were both drunker than we had ever been together. It was a small chemist, staffed by a woman with a pinched face who did not find us funny. Patrick put wine gums and a toothbrush on the counter. He said, ‘Would you like anything darling?’ I picked up a shower cap and said I would like to wear it home, if the woman would be so kind as to scan it and give it back. He put everything on the counter and said, ‘All this and a packet of the house condoms please.’
We kissed in the taxi and went to bed as soon as we got home. It was the first time since the miscarriage. Or, I was too drunk at the time to realise, the first time since I had conceived.
As we were about to finish, Patrick stopped moving and said, ‘Sorry, keep going. I just need to check my phone in case someone’s been in touch about a ride.’
‘Martha,’ he said afterwards, lying next to me. ‘Everything is broken and messed up and completely fine. That is what life is. It’s only the ratios that change. Usually on their own. As soon as you think that’s it, it’s going to be like this forever, they change again.’
That is what life was, and how it continued for three years after that. The ratios changing on their own, broken, completely fine, a holiday, a leaking pipe, new sheets, happy birthday, a technician between nine and three, a bird flew into the window, I want to die, please, I can’t breathe, I think it’s a lunch thing, I love you, I can’t do this any more, both of us thinking it would be like that forever.
29
A NEW ADMINISTRATOR joined Patrick’s hospital last year, in May. She had moved to Oxford for the lifestyle but her husband, a psychiatrist, was commuting back to London because he had just got rooms on Harley Street and, she said, we all know they’re like hen’s teeth.
I met her at a charity dinner for a cause I can’t remember, even though the purpose of going was to have our awareness raised. She asked me what I did and I told her I created content so people could consume it. It was a job I had taken auxiliary to the funny food column, which I didn’t mention in case she read Waitrose magazine and realised I was that writer she hated.