The Kindest Thing - страница 4

When we were at university open relationships were all the rage, and Neil and I were nothing if not fashionable. Neil had one-night stands with a stream of women when I was away or staying in to study. I had a few short-lived affairs. Most of the time we’d sleep together, either at his house or at the bed-sit I’d moved into in my second year.

One night I’d been visiting my mother and got back sooner than expected. The trip had rattled me. She and I had so little to say to each other that, for me at any rate, the visits were an excruciating mix of tension and boredom. We relied on banalities, talked about the weather, the increase in fuel prices, domestic mishaps and the ups and downs of acquaintances we cared little about. I went out of a sense of duty; I never could tell whether she got any pleasure from our encounters.

There was a disco on at the student’s union that evening, and although I’d missed most of it, it would be more fun than sitting in getting stewed on my own. While I changed, putting on a vintage silk dress and dramatic makeup, I drank a couple of brandy-and-lemonades and smoked a joint.

Things were in full swing when I arrived, the air humid and smoky, the lights rippling over the crowd. Neil was in a corner, a pretty redheaded girl sitting on his lap. My guts clenched in reaction. I shot him a blazing smile and turned away. I wanted to rip her off him. I wanted him to dump her on the floor and come over to me. I wanted to kill them both. Not acceptable reactions. For the next hour I flirted with a group of lads at the bar before going off with the prettiest. It felt meaningless.

When I rolled up at my place the following afternoon, shivering in my thin dress, Neil was sitting on the doorstep. My heart burned when I saw him. He kissed me and followed me in.

I had a shower while he made bacon-and-egg butties. He was quiet as we ate and the tension was plain in the set of his jaw and the cast of his eyes. I put music on, rolled a joint. We lay on the bed smoking. He put the roach in the ashtray. I straddled him, let my robe fall open, traced his clavicle with my fingers. He stayed my hand and my skin chilled. He was leaving me. That was why he’d come round, why he was so wound up.

‘Move in with me,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Or I’ll move in here. I don’t want anyone else.’ He edged himself up onto his elbows, shook his hair back from his face. ‘I don’t want to share you.’ His eyes were hot.

‘Very bourgeois.’

‘Deborah,’ he warned me, his grip on my wrist tightening.

‘Okay.’

He closed his eyes, a gesture of relief. Then looked at me again. Lay back down. I began to unbuckle his belt.

Living together. Monogamy. I wondered how long it would last.

We argued about housework: cleaning, shopping, cooking, washing. He tried to joke about it but I was deadly serious. There was no way I was going to become my mother; solely responsible for all that – even before my dad died. Life was too short and chores too soul-destroying. Neil was an adult, not a child, and I appealed to his political sensibility. ‘You believe in equality – this is part of the equation.’ I had little respect for a man who needed servicing. It worked both ways: I would shift rubbish and change fuses with the best of them. Not for me the helpless act, the little lady who hauls home the groceries then finds her muscles have melted clean away when faced with a flagstone.

Things weren’t up to scratch for a long time but I’d seen my brother successfully use the excuse of incompetence to get away with doing nothing in the house so that wouldn’t wash. We taught each other and weathered the ridicule of friends and family: You the one wearing the apron, Neil?

He became competent at cooking and cleaning and laundry. No more than that, but no more was expected. And I became a dab hand at DIY.

The prison van comes for us at eight in the morning. We’ve eaten breakfast and are waiting in the reception area near the main exit. Four of us. A couple of the girls, who don’t look much older than Sophie, are smoking and laughing, their nerves making them talk quickly. The other woman is silent. She wears Asian dress, a