Chapter One
"Well, what did you think?"
John's question seemed unnecessary. Twenty years of marriage to Caroline should have amply prepared him for the expression she wore, but he was an inward-looking man whose life experience seemed to have taught him nothing but the ability to make every situation about himself. He fidgeted, expectantly. Caroline felt overwhelmingly irritated.
She looked from John's eager face to the bright, cluttered marble worktop in front of her. She stared, deliberately, at the collection of cups, papers, a bunch of keys, and...was that a conker? She used this pause, this familiar interlude, to prevent her temper erupting. It was a well-practiced tactic. She removed her glasses in silence, and took a breath.
"You are joking?" She asked in that way she had of making a question sound like a statement.
"What do you mean? Jo…"
"I mean you can't be serious?" Again, John feels it's probably not a question.
"Well, it's just a...it's not supposed to be...it's fictional." He offers.
Caroline is not even slightly placated by this.
"I thought we'd discussed this. I thought we'd agreed that our lives are very much off-limits when it comes to your books." She uses air quotes as she spits the word 'books' at him. Caroline is an efficient hunter, she knows just how to wound her prey.
"Now wait a mi...that's hardly...it's not about you." He says, it's a familiar argument, but Caroline can see he believes it.
"Not about us?" She lifts the weighty manuscript from in front of John, flips it round to face her. She opens to a page she has marked with a brightly coloured sticky note. The glasses go back on.
"'He stands there awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, he bares his heart to her.'" Caroline reads, her monotone suggests she is not amused – it's too subtle a clue for John. "'Is there some merit in you and I, well, getting back together?' He asks her. She turns, furious, and yells 'I'm a lesbian, I like sleeping with other women, I always did' he is heartbroken, his..."
"Yes, yes okay, there are some...themes...in common," John concedes, "But it's just…"
"You killed my wife", She says quietly.
"I…Alison Waterhouse's wife...yes, I… " there's no point in denying it.
"Is that what you think of me?" Caroline asks, she sounds upset.
John opens his mouth to speak, and closes it. Caroline is doing that thing she does where she acts hurt to get you to drop your guard but she's about to rip your head off, he's sure of it. Luring yo in like a Venus flytrap. He has to tread carefully.
"I don't know what you mean, Caroline." He tries to echo her tone but he's already bracing for impact.
"Do you think so little of me, as a person, that you'd write this...this fiction to find a way to possess me, again?"
Again, his mouth opens, it closes. No sounds escape.
She continues, "I am the happiest I have been in years and your response is to pen this alternate universe in which you get to swoop in and…"
"Hardly swoop, Caroline. I...the, the hero. He has a pretty hard time being ridiculed by the lesbians and––" He foolishly interjects.
"You. Killed. My. Wife." The glasses come off again.
There's a rustle at the kitchen door, Kate – tiny Flora asleep against her chest – gives Caroline a quizzical look as she fumbles amongst the clutter on the kitchen island for something. "There it..." She exclaims, holding up a clean muslin. She smiles at her wife as Caroline mouths "tell you later" and she heads back upstairs with their child.
"You killed my wife" Caroline hisses at John.
"Well the plot... It reconciled them all, didn't it, this monumental tragedy."
Caroline is lost for words. Not wanting to scream at him in the house her tiny, colicky baby is sleeping in, but suddenly feeling that screaming might be the only thing to do.
"You are not publishing this," she says, sure of it.
"It's...the publishers love it. And I've spent the advance and everything now. So. So, I have to. No one will know it's you."
I don't care people knowing it's me, John. I've just come out to a school full of teenagers, do you think there haven't been looks, been comments. I don't care about me, I can take it." She pauses, momentarily.
"I care about Kate, and our children. I care that you've written this story for yourself and treated her like a plot twist, nothing more. That you've written a future for her child that involves two hapless dads, but no Kate. Do you know how long she has waited to be a mum? Of course you don't. And what about the message it sends to Lawrence – his dad has written Kate out of his book, his life. Dispatched. Got rid of. Easy as. Like she's unimportant. Have you any idea the effort Kate and I have put in to getting Lawrence to accept her and Flora? And you've all but given him a free pass to reject her."
"Well that wasn't my intention."
"I know that. I know this wasn't about him. It was about you. About exploring your alternative future, putting right all the wrongs you felt were done to you. That much is made abundantly clear. But we talked about this when the boys were tiny, do you remember?, the example you set, especially to Lawrence, is important. And now, more than ever, he needs to see us all getting on. We need to be bigger than this kind of..." She trails off. Her propensity to chose words that wound was second nature but it wasn't what she needed here.
"This kind of what?" John bristles, defensively.
"This kind of fantasy. You've got it down, you've got it out if your system. Now please, please, see what kind of damage you're going to do to your own family if you go ahead and publish this…this…" Again, she edits herself, "this book."