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“Let’s have that one more time, then,” I said. “First just the altos and Cass, then we’ll do it again with the whole section.”
It sounded far better the second time, and I checked my watch. Eight-fifteen. We weren’t due to finish until nine, but I exchanged a glance with Petra. She looked exhausted, which meant she was utterly dead on her feet, and she gave me a little nod.
“I’m going to break tradition here and suggest we leave the rest for today,” I said to the choir. “But we want everything perfect next week. Everything learnt, so we can focus on polishing the edges. Everyone happy?”
A rumble of assent could be heard from the assembled women, so Petra dismissed them. Then there was the usual fielding of questions, but Petra disentangled herself from them after a few minutes and disappeared off towards the offices. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Cass and Felicia whispering together. They kept looking at me. I was about to go over there and ask if there was a problem, but they left. Which was just as well, because I felt mentally and physically drained and couldn’t be dealing with any more problems.
Petra reappeared once they were gone. I made a beeline for her, intending to give her a hug, but she saw me coming and scurried back towards where she’d come from. I stopped dead in my tracks – she was actively, physically running away from me, a thing that she’d never done before. But before I could have any more thoughts on it, the caretaker appeared, and helped me pack up the piano and the chairs. Halfway through, my phone buzzed in my back pocket, so I took it out.
You take the car, I’ve got a couple of bits to finish up here then I’ll walk back x
Why text me, when we were in the same building? I furrowed my brow. Could Stella have turned up? Were they canoodling in the office? Perhaps now was the time to catch them in the act… if they really were having an affair.
I’d been in Petra’s office a handful of times, but the corridors were rather a rabbit warren, so I wasn’t particularly sure where to go. Luckily, there was decent signage, so eventually I found it. It was in darkness, so I walked further up the corridor to Victoria’s. That one had a light on, so I stood in front of the door and peered through the glass panel.
What I saw stopped my heart.
Petra was in there. Alone – no sign of Stella draping herself over her. It was only as I noticed this that I realised I’d never really expected it after all. Rather, Petra was hunched over the desk, and she had her head in her hands, nothing about her indicating that she was aware of my presence. As I watched, her shoulders gave a little shake, then a bigger one. She was crying. Here, alone, at work. Was this how she spent all her days? Lonely and in turmoil?
Every muscle of mine ached to go in and comfort her, but my instincts told me that that would not end well. She would react like a trapped animal, and probably lash out; it was almost a guarantee at this stage. My legs began to shake, and I stepped away from the door so that she wouldn’t see me, before sinking to the floor just outside. There, I allowed the tears to roll down my cheeks.
What had our marriage come to, when I couldn’t even comfort my wife for fear of rejection or retribution?
It occurred to me that this was not a healthy way to live. For either of us. But what could I do? Go in and confront her? Go home and confront her? Neither of these would get us anywhere. It was the job. It was killing us. And it was all due to end in four weeks. Four weeks today would be the end of term. If we could only make it to then.
With these thoughts echoing in my head, I hauled myself to my feet silently and stole another glance through the door pane. Petra was no longer sitting at the desk, and the external door that doubled as a fire exit was open. Perhaps she’d gone out for a breath of air. It didn’t seem a bad idea. I certainly wouldn’t be going out to join her, though.
Back at home eventually, I checked on the meatballs that had been in the slow-cooker for the last six hours. I put some pasta in a saucepan ready to boil when Petra got home, then looked at it and simply thought, Why do I bother? Why, when she’s determined to push me away at every turn?
Chapter Forty-Three
After that, Petra had three days of parents’ evenings. It hadn’t been her decision to put all of them across two weeks – that had been Victoria’s. Petra simply hadn’t thought to change them until it came to the point of sending letters and emails about the evenings out to the parents themselves. At that point, she had found herself rather stuck with it. So the consequence was that the Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays of the next two weeks would be extra-long days for her. No sooner had the kids left the school, the parent-teacher appointments began, one evening for each year group. Petra no longer did any actual teaching, but a number of parents had booked individual appointments with her, and her general presence was always required the rest of the time.
All of this meant that I hardly saw her. I was putting in some long hours myself – two staff off sick and one on holiday meant that we were hugely overstretched at the shop – and our general life really went out the window. On Friday night, Petra came home with a migraine (those were normally my area, so it was a sign of her total exhaustion) and thus spent Saturday in bed sleeping while I did a nine-hour shift. That was valuable time lost for her, so she spent all of Sunday holed up in the music room working while I washed the car and mowed the lawn.
Then it was back into another week. “Three weeks and two days, and we’re done,” she said as I left for work on Monday morning.
“Love you,” I said, but the door banged shut somewhere between the ‘love’ and the ‘you’.
The busy-ness of the last couple of weeks had served to dull the rumble of dysphoria in my brain, but it seemed that the slam of the door had ramped up the volume once again. Today, sitting on my chair during a quiet spell at work, my skin seemed to prickle with unease. I almost wanted to cut myself out of my body, although how I could extract myself from this vessel was beyond me. Then that thought unlocked the memories I’d been trying so hard not to revisit.
I had cut myself before. Several times. Back when Lyndsey died, rocking our worlds apart, like a glass paperweight dropped on a tiled floor. For a while, self-blame had consumed me. I should have stopped her. I should have thrown away her cigarettes and locked her in her room until the cravings stopped. Because it was the cigarettes that had done it. Nothing else about her lifestyle was wrong. Her body had been otherwise fit and strong, so it had been fighting the cancer for all it was worth, prolonging the agony. It was all the fault of the smoking.
The self-harming had been a way to release the tension. I’d pictured the toxic cocktail of anger and pain coursing through my veins, and from there it had seemed like the logical next step to cut myself and let it flow out. And it had made me feel better, so I did it again and again over the next few months, hiding the wounds from my parents (who were living with me at that point while I struggled) under thick jumpers. But spring had rolled around, and with it, short-sleeve weather. My pride had made me stop. I couldn’t bear the thought of anybody seeing the wounds and asking questions. So I let them heal, battled against the urges with the backbone of a warrior, and told myself that I could start again when jumper season arrived. But then Petra had come into my life, and while she hadn’t cured everything, she had given me a reason to stay ‘clean’. Not that I liked the term ‘clean’. It implied that self-harm was something ‘dirty’, and it wasn’t.
Perhaps it wasn’t healthy to lay so much blame at the feet of the cigarettes. But I did. The smoking was to blame for my sister’s death, and every time I handed over a pack of rolling tobacco or a pack of cigarettes or cigarillos or cigars, another little tiny piece of me lit up with fury.
“Excuse me?”
“Hmm?” I jolted back to life to see a young man wearing a business suit standing in front of me. “Oh, sorry. Are you here for an interview?” A logical thought – we were hiring, after all.
“Sorry?” He looked perplexed. “No. I’d just like a pack of your cheapest cigarettes, please.”
My heart plopped down into my shoes. Numbly, I grabbed a packet out of the cabinet, scanned them and waited for him to tap his card before I handed them to him. He examined them.
“Perfect, thanks!”
He gave me a grin, and turned to go. My hands balled at my sides, and I felt my body filling with pure rage. That young man. So full of promise, just like my sister had been. But willingly polluting his body full of tar and nicotine and other toxic chemicals, because… what? Because it was cool? Because it was trendy? Because his mates were doing it? Because he was addicted, and too weak to quit like my wife had?
