Selfish People. Lucy English

said Leah, trying to sit up in the tangle of sheets.

      ‘I heard you shouting,’ said Ben. ‘I fell out of bed.’

      ‘Oh dear …’ said Leah. ‘Oh dear … what time is it?’

      ‘It’s eight.’

      ‘You better have your breakfast, boys.’

      ‘Daddy’s making porridge,’ said Jo. ‘He said he’s going to get us ready today and you’re to stay in bed, he said you’re not very well today.’ They all looked at her for a visible sign of illness. ‘You’ve got a black eye,’ said Ben.

      ‘Oh, I haven’t!’ She felt her head where she had hit the wall. Downstairs, Al was calling. The boys scampered away. She crawled back under the duvet. She felt like lead, a piece of grey flat lead. She listened to the voices coming up from the kitchen. Al was laughing, he sounded quite cheerful. A car honked and the children left for school scolding each other about who had forgotten what. Then the house was quiet. Leah felt herself go tense but Al didn’t come to see her. She could hear hoovering noises from the front room. Then silence. Then the front door slammed. Al had gone to college.

      She got out of bed past midday. She went to the boys’ room as she always did, to make their beds, but they were already made and the toys put away. Downstairs was the same. Whatever he had broken last night he had tidied up and the kitchen was clean. She was disorientated, it was as if she didn’t exist. She ran a bath and floated there for some time. She had a large bruise on one leg and on her arm and one just above her left eye. It wasn’t a black eye, it was hardly noticeable. She got dressed in a turquoise jumper and lilac leggings, the colours of summer. And what could they all do this summer? Go to the sea? She thought about it and sorted out the boys’ shirts into tidy piles, humming to herself. She rearranged the books on the shelf, the tallest ones at one end going right down to the little Beatrix Potter books. In her room she hauled the mattress back on to its base, it didn’t take that long. I better start thinking about tea soon … but I haven’t had any lunch or breakfast … She went to the kitchen and heated up the bean soup from last night and made a sandwich and sat down at the table.

      She bit her sandwich and chewed and chewed it but she couldn’t swallow. When she did the food fell into her stomach as if it didn’t want to be there. She stirred her soup but she couldn’t eat that either. If I don’t eat I will get ill and I won’t be able to cope. Al is always telling me I don’t eat enough, that’s why I have no energy … I must eat. But she couldn’t. Then all the fear from last night came back.

      I’m going to die. She pushed away the plate and began to cry. She rested her head on the table. She could hear herself crying as if it were somebody else and she couldn’t stop it. If I don’t leave I will die. I have to leave this place. I have to leave.

      She didn’t hear Al come in. He had bought a bunch of flowers, which he put on the table. She accidentally touched them and looked up. She was so startled she screamed.

      ‘They’re for you,’ said Al, pushing the flowers towards her.

      They were a mixed bunch, the sort one buys at garages. She tried to stop crying.

      ‘I’m sorry … about last night.’

      ‘Oh? Oh?’ She was convinced he was still angry with her.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as if she hadn’t heard the first time. She was still crying. ‘I was out of control. It was wrong. I know you’re not bonking Bailey. It got mixed up with everything … There’s a lot we have to sort out. We have to do a lot of talking … Can you please stop crying.’

      ‘I can’t,’ wailed Leah.

      ‘I’m sorry I hit you. I didn’t mean to. Can you hear what I’m saying? Leah, I’m trying to sort things out.’ He waited. He ate the sandwich and the bowl of soup. Leah stopped and was wiping her nose on her sleeve.

      ‘How are you feeling?’ said Al.

      ‘I don’t know.’ But she did know. She felt totally and utterly wretched, but she wasn’t going to tell Al that.

      ‘We have to find a way of relating properly. Communication between us is appalling. If we are to progress we are going to have to be more honest with each other …’

      ‘I’ve had enough,’ said Leah.

      ‘I see.’ He sounded slightly irritated.

      ‘Al, you don’t understand, I’ve had enough. I have. This is the end.’

      ‘Well, naturally you are going to be feeling negative –’

      ‘No, Al, listen, it’s the end. I don’t want to go on.’ She looked at the flowers. They would be dead by the end of the week. ‘It’s the end.’ And she could see he finally understood. An expression passed over his face which she hadn’t seen for a long time, an incredulous expression that had none of his recent anger or cynicism. He used to say, ‘Are you sure?’ and Leah would say, ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

      ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Leah the way she used to when they first met, before they had children and everything had gone wrong. But his face was hardening up again.

      ‘Well, that’s ten years down the drain. Now what? I’m not going to move out.’

      ‘I could go somewhere,’ said Leah vaguely. She couldn’t think about details.

      ‘Where? You know what the housing situation is like. And what about the children? They’re my children too, I’m not letting them go.’

      ‘We could sort something.’ She rested her head in her arms. She felt she could sleep for a week. Al was dividing up the furniture. ‘You’re not having the music system or the telly, I bought that …’ She closed her eyes.

      He shook her. She sat up with a start. ‘Leah, go to bed. The children will be back soon. Go and have an early night.’

      ‘Was I asleep?’

      ‘Look, I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry, Leah.’ He led her to the foot of the stairs. ‘Everything’s going to change now, it’s all going to be different. You get your own place, then we won’t wind each other up …’ He was almost crying. ‘Then we can start appreciating each other again … Oh, and I forgot to tell you. I’ve packed in college, but we can discuss that in the morning …’

       CHAPTER SIX

      I’ve been in bed all Friday and most of today. Al brings me cups of tea and bits of food. He’s keeping the children away. He is being very nice. I’ve been dreaming and thinking and my thoughts are like my dreams. I’m thinking about Al.

      I met him when I was at university in Norwich. He used to stand on the campus steps selling Anarchy Now. He was dirty then and dishevelled with his hair down his back and a stained old boilersuit. I was a first-year English student all keen to have discussions about postmodernism and structuralism and everything was so very very exciting … my hair in an Alice band and I wore pretty blouses and flowery skirts. I had never met anyone like Al before who was also reading English but he used to storm out of seminars shouting, ‘This is bourgeois crap!’ I had never even seen anyone like Al before. I was clever. I got As and Bs for my essays but Al and the anarchists they got straight Fs and didn’t care. They called me ‘Miss Brainbox’ and ‘Miss Middle Class’. I thought, why are they so angry? I sat opposite Al in the coffee bar and I said, ‘Hello, I’m Leah,’ and he said, ‘Who do you think you are? Fuck off.’ But I didn’t and it sort of went on from there.

      He lived with the anarchists and five Germans in a farmhouse in Loddon. Their parties went on all weekend. I stayed with him and I stopped wearing blouses and flowery skirts. I got a boilersuit and I didn’t wash and I got drunk and stoned and fucked and loved it.