June 2014
James looks at the ticket in his left hand as he waits for the doors to open and notices that it expires today. On Monday he will need a new one, but before that lies a celebratory weekend ahead. Celebrating a win for the new haircare account after he and Dominic gave a brilliant pitch to Cynthia and Mike from Fisher + Whyman; celebrating booking tickets to Jamaica for their September shoot for Femme; celebrating that Jeremy Laws, the chief creative officer of MFDD, has just given his wonder boys another pay rise; and celebrating that tomorrow will be the longest day of the year and he, Kitty, Dominic and Josie will be going to a festival on a farm in Suffolk.
As the doors swing open, James follows the other commuters out of the station. At the off-licence on the station approach James buys a bottle of Pimm’s, then nips into the corner shop to buy some cucumber, strawberries and mint and wonders how to tell Kitty about the pay rise. He’ll line up two drinks ready for when Kitty gets home and he’ll tell her they’re celebrating something. She’ll be pleased. James has noticed she’s been looking at house prices in estate agents’ windows recently – perhaps they will buy in Hazelworth after all. They ought to be able to now with their combined salaries.
Kitty usually gets home half an hour later than James, and as he waits to pay at the checkout he contemplates going back into the station to meet her from the train.
Go home. Line up the drinks. Order a takeaway. I can make her happy again.
James walks through the park, across two roads and turns right onto the quiet road with the Victorian terraces. He puts his key in the door.
Shit, I forgot the ice.
The door opens onto the living room and Kitty is already home. Sitting in the armchair in the front room. The television isn’t on and their big weekend bag with the birds on it sits on the floor, leaning against a skinny ankle that might snap under the weight of its contents, so bursting is it at the seams.
But we’re not going to Suffolk until tomorrow.
Kitty’s skin looks paler than ever and the light streaming through the front window makes her eyes shine like uncut diamonds.
James wonders if someone has died and feels panic in the pit of his stomach. The air certainly has a feel of the waiting room at a doctor’s surgery, that a death sentence is about to be delivered.
‘You’re home. Are you OK?’
Kitty looks up at James briefly and then to the Donwood on the wall behind him.
‘Kit? What’s happened?’
‘I’m leaving you,’ she says, looking at the wall and then down at her hands. She twists a pale opal ring on her longest finger.
‘What the fuck…’ James says with a sigh, not a question.
‘Don’t even speak because then I’ll feel too guilty.’
‘What?’
‘It’s definite. It’s not me being flighty or moody or whatever you would want to call it.’
‘I don’t call you anything like that,’ James says, feeling a lump rise in his throat.
Silence.
James breaks it first.
‘You’re my girl; you have been since we were kids. What’s happened?’
Kitty looks angry.
‘Don’t make out like you were happy, James,’ she snaps, giving him a brief sideways glance to where he is still standing by the door, blue plastic bag in hand, mint slowly wilting. ‘Is this really what you want?’
James doesn’t say anything.
‘Anyway I’ve met someone.’
Silence and disbelief hang thick in the joyless air.
‘He gets my train. We’re moving in together.’
James is sickened by the impossibility of what he’s hearing. How could this be happening? Who could she have met on the train?
‘What’s his name?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘WHAT’S HIS NAME?’
In the eleven years they have been together, Kitty has never heard James shout in anger. Her eyes widen like a startled bird.
‘Simon. He works in Cambridge too. We’ve got a flat; we picked up the keys today. You won’t need to see me, unless we’re visiting the kids in Hazelworth, but that won’t happen often.’ She stares ahead, angry, still. Not a hint of excitement in her voice.
‘Kids? What kids?’
Kitty pushes ragged cuticles back with a fingernail.
‘Kitty, you never wanted kids!’
James is so baffled, he leans back on his backpack and slides down the inside of the front door until he is sitting on the floor, blue plastic bag still in hand.
‘How many kids? How old are they?’
‘Stop asking questions, you won’t change my mind. I’m in love with him.’
James glazes over, staring into the open doorway to the middle dining room that leads through to the kitchen. He floats up into the air and looks down at his pitiful body slumped against the door, seeing the top of his head, and Kitty’s in the armchair.
‘What about your stuff? What about our life?’
‘I’ll come back for more clothes when you’re out. And our life? I’m sure your mum and dad will get over it,’ Kitty says sarcastically, standing up.
James can’t move. He is frozen in disbelief.
‘Can I get past please?’
James leans his head back on the soft support of his grey backpack and closes his eyes. He thinks of the note, still sitting in the front pocket of his backpack, crumpled behind his back against the door. Purposeful, hopeful, kind. The kindest thing a stranger had ever done for him. How he wouldn’t even entertain the thought of going for a drink with a girl called Maya who gets his train, when all the while Kitty and a man called Simon were flirting and cheating and fucking and plotting on a train going in the opposite direction.
‘Please James, let me go.’
‘I am,’ he says flatly, standing in defeat to make way for Kitty.
Kitty picks up the weekend holdall and opens the door with her free hand.
A taxi outside waits for her and James wonders if it was there when he sauntered happily down the road, because if it was, he hadn’t noticed it.
How many other things haven’t I noticed?
James’s mind races as Kitty walks down the short terracotta tiled path to the gate and doesn’t look back.
‘The station,’ she says, before a car door closes smoothly and a quiet engine purrs off.
James pushes the front door shut with his forehead. He turns and looks around the small front room and the fragments of their life together. His records. His artwork. A thank you card to James from Albert, the widower who lives next door, for helping him with the garden, sits at one end of the mantelpiece. At the other end of the mantelpiece he sees the invitation to Kitty’s mother’s 60th birthday party next month. ‘To James and Catherine, please do come to my party!’ it says, as dancing teapots and cake stands weave in a conga around a large 6 and a large 0. He wonders if Kitty was ever present since they moved to Hazelworth. How long has this relationship been going on for?
James looks down and realises he’s still clutching a bottle of Pimm’s in a blue plastic bag and throws it towards the front door, sending it smashing against the corner of the room. Glass and Pimm’s and mint and strawberries all slide down the wall in a sharp and sticky mess and James slumps into the armchair Kitty had been sitting in. The seat is still warm.