Sometimes I’ll hear a track that Oli and Seb are listening to and I’ll say, “What’s this? This is good.” Up until about six months ago that would make Oli smile, he’d excitedly show me some incomprehensible YouTube video and tell me facts about the singer: they’ve been in prison, they’ve performed on a yacht to crowds on the shore, they gave away ten million in cash in their local hood. The worlds he describes are alien to me; I remember when the most surprising thing a pop star could do was wear eyeliner. But I liked to listen to him enthuse. I liked to see him animated, I felt honored that it was me he chose to share his excitement with. I miss that. I miss him.
I once made the mistake of commenting that after hearing Taylor Swift on Radio 1, I considered her my spirit animal—because if you listen to her lyrics, she writes the things I feel. Well, felt, when I was young and vulnerable. It appears those things don’t change for a woman no matter how woke a world becomes. It was around this time that I noticed Oli change toward me. When I said the spirit animal thing, he didn’t get the sentiment, couldn’t see my joke or my attempt at connection. He was horrified. Suddenly furious that I might encroach on his world of youth and possibility, crushes, and illicit under-the-covers （solo） activity.
“You don’t even know what a spirit animal is,” he snapped. “Another person can’t be your spirit animal.”
“I know, I was making a joke!” I said, smiling trying to get him to engage. “But she is brilliant, isn’t she? It’s as though she understands everything there is to understand about secret longings, triumphs and mistakes.” After hearing her on the radio, I had downloaded her latest album. I pressed Play on my phone. “Listen.” I began to dance around the kitchen. We first bonded over dancing, me and Oli. He used to climb onto my feet, and I would step with him, in a strange slow shuffle dance, the way my father had once moved with me. Obviously, he’s far too big now. He’s taller than me! He’s a great dancer. I like watching him. It takes a confident teen to dance anywhere, let alone in the kitchen with his mother. That day, when I said the thing about Taylor Swift, Oli just scowled, said Taylor Swift was crap and then disappeared to his room. I can’t remember him dancing with me since.
Wallowing in the luxury of an empty house, I pump up the volume and listen to her touching lyrics and dazzling melodies while I mop the kitchen floor. She sings about young love and irresponsibility. Mark and I never had that. He was a father when I met him and I became a mother the day I agreed to be his girlfriend—or at least a stand-in mother, an almost-mother. Yet as I listen to the words, I am flung even further back into days defined by spectacular failures, magnificent consequences. I like to dance, it’s a great source of joy to me. I adore the sheer extravagance of it. The alone time on a Sunday afternoon seems deliciously illicit, indulgent. I start to sway my hips, move my feet, click out a beat. Soon the lyrics and rhythm infiltrate my body like a stranger. I give in to it. No, that suggests resistance—I jump in to it. I let myself go. I let it all out. I’m normally in control of everything: myself, my family, time. I’m relatively self-conscious, constantly aware of the impression I make. But when dancing, that drops away. My arms and legs loosen, I shake my hips and my head. I start to use the mop as a fake dance partner and spin and twirl.
Outside, the sky dips from bruised gray to a dark indigo as I clean and dance. Mark texts to say that he and the boys have gone back to Paula’s for supper. Decision made. I’m not being consulted, just kept up to date. But I was only planning a sandwich tea, it’s not like I can complain. When the floor is clean, and all the surfaces are gleaming, I put away the mops, cloths and bucket but—a regular Cinderella determined to go to the ball—I continue to dance. My stomach becomes clammy with sweat, my hair sticks to the back of my neck, and I am loving it! The pleasure, the freedom is absolute.
That’s why I am so angry with Mark and the boys for taking it away. The pleasure. The freedom.
I hear them. Their laughter. Loud and unruly. It is pitch-black outside now and I have the light on in the kitchen, it is as though I am on a stage, performing but also exposed. Mark, Oli and Seb are standing at the glass patio door, laughing like hyenas. I wonder how long they have been watching. They pile into the house, still laughing. Carelessly ridiculing me.
“Quite the performance,” says Mark. He kisses me briefly, his cold lips bite against my blushing cheek. “I forgot my key, so we came around the back.”
“God, Mum, you dance like Grandma,” says Seb. I don’t. Their grandmother still does the twist—to her credit—I’m a little more nineties. Yes, stuck there, probably, but it is not the twist, it’s a lot of jumping up and down and arm waving. Still, I understand the point Seb is making. Hurriedly, I pull my arms to my sides. If I could chop them right off, I would. I imagine reaching for the carving knife, clean and gleaming on the kitchen unit.
“Wash your hands. Thoroughly. Sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice, like we’ve been told,” I say. No one responds.
“You are such a loser, Leigh,” mutters Oli. Barging past me, he grabs an apple from the fruit bowl I’ve stocked, bites into it aggressively. He shakes his head. Not the way I did when dancing, not with joyful abandon, but with despair. Disgust. “Embarrassing.”
I turn to Mark and plead with my eyes for him to say something, I know he understands me, but he just shrugs. His eyes say, don’t bring me into this; it’s your battle. Sometimes being a wife and mother feels like death by a thousand cuts. I straighten my shoulders, force out a smile, albeit a small one—no one is going to think I am deliriously happy right now, but I don’t want to cause a scene. Or maybe I do, but Mark doesn’t. I am master over my own body. I choose what to reveal. I keep my face relaxed, my brow unfurrowed, my chin stays high. Unreadable. You are not meant to feel like an outsider in your own tribe. It’s unnatural.
“Can we get a dog?” Seb asks.
“No,” I snap. He’s been asking this question on and off for about six months. Normally I’m more serene and make an effort to let him down gently but I don’t have the patience, the energy. How would a dog fit in with my lifestyle?
Seb looks startled, his face is shadowed with a hint of worry. I instantly feel guilty. Twelve-year-olds shouldn’t worry about their parents. He’s an observant and kind kid. Funny and lighthearted himself, he wants the same brightness in everyone’s world. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
How do I tell him everything is wrong, except perhaps him? Although even loving him is complicated. There is no pleasure in my life that is absolute. I am entirely to blame for that fact.
“Nothing, I’m just tired. Look, why don’t you go and have a shower? I’m going to call Fiona. I’ll come up and see you before you turn your lights off.” He nods, dashes off obediently, willingly, wanting to believe I’m just tired.
I pour myself a healthy-sized glass of wine and tell Fiona about Oli’s loser comment. I try and fail to make it sound like I think it is no big deal. She knows me too well to be fooled. I’m glad, I don’t want her to ignore the situation, the way Mark does. I need her to sympathize, to affirm that it’s unfair, that I don’t deserve to be treated this way. There’s been a suggestion that Oli and Seb ought to see a grief therapist. Actually, the idea has been mooted more than once. I think Fiona was the first one to bring the idea to the table and she does so again tonight. She’s my best friend. I love her, she means well but her timing couldn’t be worse.