Sarah rested her forehead against the window, allowing her eyes to unfocus as the landscape sped by, the blurring beyond becoming more brown, more grey as they reached the suburbs. None of the windows in the train carriage were open – they weren’t even capable of being opened – but still somehow the winter outside whistled in and forced itself down the neck of her jumper. She was wonderfully anonymous – just another wheelie suitcase toting stranger travelling into the capital for the New Year.
Across from her, sharing the table seat, was a harried mother and two red-cheeked children under five, off on a day trip to see the lights of Oxford Street. Sarah bit back the advice that the lights weren’t worth the stress – the crush of the crowd and the press of the traffic – and wondered when she’d become such a magicless misery guts. She remembered dragging her ex Christmas shopping in the West End not long after they’d moved to London, back when she thought that was a thing that actual Londoners did, and how he had moaned, but also how the lights had hung in bright and heavy ropes over the heads of the crowd. She’d made a point of going back each Christmas since, even though it was cheesy; it was part of her holiday routine, getting that warm little festive buzz each December. Who was she to bad-mouth it now?
The train began to slow, the view already nothing but dirty rail sidings and long-disused platforms, seeded over with clumps of crabgrass; they were approaching Paddington all too soon. Sarah checked her phone. She was right on time. She supposed First Great Western had to manage it on occasion, but still, how typical. Cole hadn’t messaged her, which was surprising. Knowing him as she did, she’d assumed that he’d have been there super early, would have scoped out the quietest of the many cafes on the concourse, claimed an appropriate table and text her with the information. Maybe their marital strife had shaken his usual poise? Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought.
Feeling the ache in her shoulder as she pulled her suitcase behind her along the platform, Sarah plucked at the seam of her tights through her dress; they were weirdly twisted – she’d have to nip into the station toilets and try and sort them out. Although she was loathed to pay 50p, one couldn’t meet for crisis talks with one’s estranged husband with wonky hosiery. That plan was quickly killed – Cole was waiting for her at the ticket gates.
She saw him long before he saw her – she still had the anonymity of the crowd spilling from the carriage doors, all moving in the same direction, lost in a tide of humanity. She slowed, giving herself a shade more time. Cole was an achingly familiar figure, tall and broad in the charcoal peacoat she’d bought for him at the onset of autumn, his hands in his pockets and his elbows sticking out at 45 degrees either side, that same old confident stance. But maybe, maybe, Sarah thought as she neared, his jaw was a little sharper than before, his eyes a little more shadowed underneath. She knew the exact moment he recognised her in the crowd; he looked both delighted and sick, all in one instant.
Sarah fumbled with her ticket at the gates, the little slip of card bending and refusing to slide neatly into the appropriate slot; Sarah felt heat creeping over the back of her neck at the mortifying combination of holding up the press of people behind her and appearing to lose the better part of her motor skills upon coming into the presence of her husband for the first time in weeks.
When she finally made it through the gates, Cole reached for her immediately. Habit, auto-pilot, or embarrassment, she didn’t exactly know why, but she stepped forward into the circle of his arm and turned her face to his in anticipation of a kiss hello. Cole pulled up short in surprise, before he rallied himself and kissed her softly on the cheek. Sarah suddenly realised, that moment too late, that he hadn’t been going to kiss her – he’d been reaching to take her bag – and she felt like she’d quite like to curl up and die.
With one arm solidly but lightly along Sarah’s back and the other occupied with manoeuvring the wheelie suitcase, Cole guided them out of the crush of the platform gate area and over to a quieter part of the huge concourse. Emboldened, perhaps, by the way she’d stepped so easily towards him, so normal and familiar, he left his arm curved around her.
“It’s so good to see you,” he said, after a moment. “How have you been? You look great.” Sarah wondered if he was being disingenuous, or just polite. She looked no different, aside from looking a bit like someone with wonky tights who’d spent the last few hours on a cross-country train. She’d resisted the stereotypical urge to get a drastic makeover or haircut during this relationship hangover stage; if anything, a month or so of crippling sadness, her mother’s home cooking and not much exercise had left her a little puffy and grey.
“Thank you,” she said, purposefully not complimenting him in return, even though he looked annoyingly good. “Are we going to grab a coffee, or something?”
Cole looked as sad as she felt, their marriage boiled down to a quick drink in a train station Starbucks or Costa. “Okay. When are you due at Cleo’s?” he asked. Sarah had arranged to stay with Cleo for the few days leading up to the wedding, despite Cole making it clear that she was more than welcome to stay at their house, and if she couldn’t bear his presence, even in the spare room, he’d find somewhere else to be. The idea of staying in the house, no matter how much she loved and missed it, hadn’t appealed – Sarah knew she’d just get fixated on the empty corner where her Christmas tree should have been standing for the last few weeks, or how Cole hadn’t been stacking the glasses or side plates correctly in the kitchen cupboards, and then she’d never leave again. So, the other half of Cleo’s bed it was.
“We left it pretty open,” she answered, which was true– she’d had no idea how long this was likely to take. “But we said we’d do dinner,” she said hurriedly.
“Okay.” Still managing her bag for her, Cole let her lead them into the quietest looking of the cafes nearby, meekly agreeing to share a pot of tea and sitting down opposite her, with a face like a man who anticipated a blow; Sarah realised she was loathed to be the one to deliver it. Cole had been the one to suggest this meeting. She methodically stirred milk and sweetener into her tea and waited for him to say what he wanted to say. She didn’t have to wait too long.
“I’m not going to insult you by asking you to come back to me,” Cole began; he hadn’t yet poured out his half of the tea. “Although, obviously, that’s all I want,” he added quickly, as if he couldn’t help himself. “But I do want you to come home.”
Sarah shifted awkwardly in the uncomfortable seat. “Cole–”
“I’m the one who did wrong. And you’ve lost your home, and your job. It… it doesn’t seem fair.”
“You know very well that you basically always paid the entire mortgage,” Sarah countered. “It’s your house.”
“It’s our house,” Cole corrected her. “It’s your home. You love that house.” Sarah didn’t bother denying it. “So, I’m going to flat-sit for Harry and Nora while they’re on honeymoon for the next fortnight, and I’m going to find some place to rent with a rolling monthly contract. And, when you’re ready, if you’d like to, I’d like to see you for more cups of tea. Maybe a glass of wine, or a dinner. I miss you so much, Sar. I mean it. I feel like I’m missing…”
“An arm?” Sarah supplied, after Cole’s awkward silence had gone on a whisper too long.
He looked at her sadly. “My heart.”
Sarah swallowed heavily, studied her rapidly cooling cup of tea. “Well. I need to think about it.”
“Of course.”
“The moving back home. I don’t know if I’m necessarily up for cosy dinner dates with you any time soon.”
“They don’t have to be dates. I just can’t imagine you not being in my life. I’m selfish like that.”
“You’re selfish in a lot of ways, Cole.”
“I deserved that. But you know, back when, Bea and I, when we… did what we did. Back then, I didn’t know how much I was going to love you. I know, I know: ignorance is no excuse, but it’s the truth. When I realised you could actually find out what I did and dump me, I felt like I was going to be sick. It made me realise how much you meant to me, made me realise that I was crazy about you. I’ve spent the last few years terrified that you’d learn about what happened and I’d lose you. I’d lose our life and I’d lose our home and I’d lose our future kids. As horrendous as this is, it’s almost a relief. I’ve hated keeping it from you. I just didn’t know what to do.”
Sarah let Cole’s fingers brush over her own for a heartbeat before sitting back in her chair, pulling her hands away from his, studiously avoiding looking at the patent misery on her husband’s face.
“Let’s just get through this wedding, okay?” she managed, after a moment. “There’s no need for what’s going on between you and me to impact on Harry and Nora,” she insisted, feeling brave and stupid and weak. It was that same weakness that had caused her tears standing in the doorway of her empty nursery afflicting her again, except now it was the threshold of divorce she was paused upon, and all she wanted to do was to comfort her feckless, cheating husband, to go home with him – because to her, he was still home.
“I would never do anything to disrupt their day,” Cole was saying, all affront. “And I know you never would too.”
“Okay then, so that’s agreed.” Sarah nodded at the forgotten teapot, sat squatly between them like a little barrier. “Drink up. I’ve got to get to Cleo’s in a bit.”