Two Hours later – I imagine it’s always been a problem for Kev – six-foot tall, broad-shouldered and as soft as a block of butter left on a sunny windowsill. It’s disconcerting to see him, tear-stained, unpacking his feelings through a filter of intense sensitivity, large but droopy and long-faced, like John Wayne with PMT. You either want to tell him to pull himself together and not be so wet because a big man weeping is as weird as animals being able to talk, or you get this tickle in your stomach which you know is going to burst forth at some point in the form of runaway laughter.

     We’ve been talking for over an hour. Through the shower door at first because he had to thaw out when he got in (stuck up a tree in the snow all morning), then over milky coffee beside the woodburner. I’ve done the her-or-me thing again, just for the record, and he’s trying (again, just for the record) to explain how, given that he loves me, we come to be in this predicament.

     Youngest’s friend from the farm is here. As we talk, two small boys pelt each other relentlessly with wet snow just beyond the kitchen window.

     “You know, I think I only just left home,” he says suddenly.

     I am startled out of contemplation of Youngest’s rosy, snow-chafed features by this softly-voiced observation, straightforward enough but, at the same time, puzzling.

    “What? What d’you mean, you only just left home?”

    His eyes are still a bit watery – maybe a reflection of his turbulent emotional state, maybe he got sawdust in them this morning. “It sounds ridiculous, I know,” he goes on. “And it’s hard to explain. Try this: I’ve never really lived alone. Went to Edinburgh of course, briefly, but I was only late teens. Got tired of it and came home. A couple of years on I, more or less, lived at Fiona’s place in Inverness but it wasn’t long before we bought the flat off mum and dad and I ended up above the parents again.” He tips a high-strength Cod Liver Oil capsule into his palm, throws it to the back of his throat and swallows. I am always astonished he can get them down, great big, grease-filled bullets that they are, without a glass of water. “Come to think of it,” he muses, once he’s swallowed. “Lived in my shed a lot rather than share space with Fiona, but the parental kitchen with mum in it was always available, just below.” He stares at me, almost accusatory. “Then there was you,” he says. “You had your own house! Except half of it belonged to someone else so that had to end. And then there was the house with no drains at Beauly. Wow, what a place that was, eh? I fixed everything there was to fix and adapted some things that would never actually do what they were supposed to but still, you were in charge of getting us a rental on the place – you just went out one afternoon and did it. And, less than a year later, you bought this place!”

    Feel like I’m in the dock for being pro-active in the procurement of a suitable roof over our heads. “Sorry!” I say, irritated. “Sorry if that caused some kind of a problem but, as I recall, you didn’t have a bean…”

   “Don’t get me wrong,” he says hastily. “It’s a fantastic place and it’s worked really well for us, but I feel like, well like I’ve always had somebody looking after me, somebody else making the decisions about what to do next. Maybe, Lizzie, maybe it was time for that to stop.”

    I stare, mull this over, then I speak. “Right. Right, I see what you’re saying, but I can’t quite…you see, it seems to me that break the pattern is exactly what you didn’t do. You ran away to someone else, someone newly separated, in the same situation I was in ten years ago, all set for some kind of repeat performance. Maybe I’m confused, but it feels to me you were going backwards not forwards, Kev.”

     He waves aside my little nugget of (I feel) bang-on-accurate analysis. “I know,” he says. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

     “Well then say what you mean. Do you want to leave and set up all on your own so you can have the growing up experience you’re missing? And does that, or does it not, involve shagging someone else while attempting to achieve so-called independence?”

    He puts his hands to his head, aggravated (though, as far as I’m concerned, he has no right to be) “Lizzie Burns! Has anyone ever told you, you’re a very hard woman? When I try and talk to you it’s like this canon opens fire on me! You have all the words and, you know what? You’re always right about everything.”

     “Yeah, right…”

     “I mean it!” He does mean it. “I mean it, you are! I’m not trying to be sarcastic! You’re always right and I always get it wrong and you have the words to tell me exactly how wrong I’m getting it and by the time you’ve finished with me I feel like I’m not worth bothering with!”

     I toy angrily with the idea of asking him not to behave like he’s not worth bothering with but find my fire somewhat extinguished when I’m forced instead to flash a great big friendly smile at two wet little boys pulling faces beyond the window. My grasp of the conversation slips a little.

     “Okay,” I say, feeling a slight pang of concern suddenly about his anguished features in the firelight. “I’m sorry. Go on. Explain to me why, if this has all been about breaking away, we’re still together.”

     The hands rub his face again, trying to erase what? Embarrassment, awkwardness, the pain of honesty, the humiliation of publicly realized shame? All of the above plus any last remnants of the Highland Shortbread, five pieces of which he just consumed alongside a mug of Darjeeling? When he takes them away again, he has a twinkle in his red-rimmed eye.

     “Bloody-mindedness?” he suggests.

     “Cowardice?” I counter.

     “Laziness?”

     “Lateral-thinking?”

    “Revenge?” He leans across the table to look me in the eye. “You probably hate my guts. You probably wish I was a million miles away in some really dodgy country where all foreigners get dhengi fever, if they aren’t mugged to death for their mobile phones first. You probably want to lure me into a false sense of security then snip a brake cable or poison some bolognaise.”

   I stare him out, refusing to be amused. “So why would you want to stay and take that kind of risk?” I ask.

        Without taking his eyes off me, he throws himself backwards in his chair (a tad too dramatically in safety terms, I speculate, given the dubious structural integrity of our ancient furniture) and, “Because I was wrong!” he says with feeling. “And because I do have a lot to lose. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until you’re in danger of losing it.”

  

My face feels like it’s on fire. In the list of Things-It’s-A-Good-Idea-To Say-In-The-Wake-Of-Having-Been-Caught-Cheating, this takes a solid fourth or fifth place. However, didn’t exactly leap out of him the minute the game was up, did it? In fact, hasn’t he also said recently, that he didn’t feel he had that much to lose? So, why the confusion, the inconsistency, the turning one way and then another? Is Kev genuine and muddled, or just scarily manipulative?

    “When did this make itself plain to you?” I inquire, quietly now.

    “Your voice on the phone,” he says. “You were dumping me, and I knew you meant it.”

    Are feelings that emanate from the fear of being (wholly justifiably) dumped the same as feelings emerging from growing self-awareness and a re-discovered love attachment to one’s partner? Oh wow, it’s a difficult one, and not a question most of us would wish to encounter. I have to think about it, eyes fixed on the microwave, brow furrowed and then I reach a decision - I’m not sure they are.

    “I did mean it Kev,” I tell him. “Yes, I did. And listen: I don’t want you to stay for Youngest (though he’s obviously very important), or for the business (brilliant as it is), or for the house (which is a wonderful place), or even for my business skills (which are, of course, considerable). No, if you stay it’s got to be because you want me. Because you want to be US. No other reason. If you don’t want that, then…” This is coming to me as I speak, the kind of words that rise up out of your stomach rather than your head or your throat. “If you don’t want that, then, well, move out of the way. I’m sure someone will come along eventually, trip over me lying face-down in the dirt and decide I’m of moderate interest. Life will go on.”

     He smiles. “I don’t want anyone else to come along,” he says

     “But you said…”

    “I said some things I didn’t mean.”

    “Really?”

    “Really. Don’t hold it against me?”

    He gets up to put a log in the stove while I drain my coffee mug, stand to flex my stiff neck and mooch over to the cupboard over the sink to hunt for paracetamol, hoping it’ll subdue the throbbing at the back of my skull.

     “So, can I stay then?” he asks, as I pour myself a glass of water. “Or are you gonna chuck me out?”

     As if, right at this moment, a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question like that can be answered. I shake my head, swallow, turn to face him, and stall. “God Kev, I don’t know. If it involves my not looking for someone else there are some guys out there I’m going to have to disappoint…”

    “So disappoint them,” he shrugs, smiling again.

A large chunk of snow hits the window pane, startling us both. Beyond it, as it slides slowly down the glass, I can see the cat bolting for the safety of the hedge, every hair on its body standing on end.

     “Right!” I cry, throwing the remains of the water into the sink and grabbing Eldest’s waterproof from the windowsill. Hauling open the kitchen door, I can feel Kev at my back.

     For twenty minutes we exhaust ourselves hurling wet snowballs at small boys and at one another. Now and then, one of us scores a direct hit, back of the head or in the face, and the level of aggressive thrill I experience means I have to mentally stuff cotton wool in the mouth of an insistent inner voice nagging me to go back indoors and make that lethal bolognaise.

     We are walking a tightrope.

 

 

The Season to be Merry

Christmas Day – I have to admit that, in all truth, though I pour scorn on the money-grabbing commercialism of it all, I have had some wonderful Christmases. Mainly with my little boys, when they were young enough to marvel at the appearance of a single, brightly wrapped gift under the tree, left by the man with the reindeer. But the one where dad had his picture taken wearing a string vest and a paper party hat and clutching a large, ripe Stilton stands out, as does the one where gran nodded off momentarily and slid gently out of the leather armchair onto the carpet with her wine glass in her hand.

     Surely even the most cynical of us still gets a weirdly nostalgic chestnuts-roasting-by-an-open-fire kick out of the festive season? Something left over from childhood, perhaps? Let’s see, for me it revolves around Holly (with berries), snowflakes on Christmas Eve, tinsel, sumptuous gift wrap, the panto, fizzy wine and an overdose of expensive chocolates. But again, like most of us, I probably also harbour a sneaking suspicion that, when the Christmas comes that I have to spend alone, present-less and sans fake champagne, I just might discover that’s the very best way to do it.  

     Certainly this one is bound to be a complete bummer.

     Kev hasn’t bought anything for anybody – unless Juliet Sanders’ adultery nest is choc-a-bloc with flowers, Brodie’s Scottish Berries and expensive jewellery paid for with the cash from my log deliveries. I did, however, do sufficient shopping myself before family life went swirling down the toilet, so Santa manages to pull it off as usual. The thick blanket of snow outside puts an ecstatic face on Youngest who, with an abundance of long blonde hair and a guitar almost as big as himself permanently glued to his back, is beginning to look like a mini member of a 70’s metal outfit. Even my multiple inner bruises can’t prevent a smile lighting up my eyes as he stuffs a chocolate snowman in his mouth, rests one buttock on a kitchen stool and hits me with his (inventively embellished) rendition of ‘Smoke on the Water.’

          Kev’s pleased with his gifts and apologetic for having bought sweet-sod-all himself. I pat him on the shoulder and say “That’s ok,” but I don’t mean it. I really don’t. He could at least have decided to buy himself out of trouble with a really expensive making-up gift. Even something special for Youngest would’ve done the trick. Of course, presents aren’t what it’s all about, but the ability to give when it’s appropriate is important and Christmases, birthdays, anniversaries, any kind of special occasion, these are opportunities to showcase one’s capacity in this direction. A person who cannot give suffers a certain emotional sterility which ought to make us wary. But then, what’s the point of noting it? I am, by now, a long way beyond wary.

        We can’t seriously expect Ma and Pa Gates to put up with us on Christmas Day (now that would be a panto) so it’s just the three of us, booked into one of Inverness’s crummier hotels for lunch because I’m not bloody well cooking it. We drink tea and nibble toast until the time arrives to put on black velvet and high heels. The latter are components of my outfit, of course - Kev looks better in moleskins and olive wool though, at the moment, whether he makes an effort or sticks to t-shirts with holes in, he is struggling to appear anything to me other than an over-large, malign man/child.

      My skirt is now way too big, hanging round my waist like a lop-sided hula hoop, and heels are not good in the snow. I mince across the submerged gravel of the drive, climb awkwardly into the cab of the pick-up and effect an improvised reduction of the waist of my skirt with a paperclip before belting up and allowing Kev to take us in the direction of the  least glamorous end of town.

 

Half-an-hour later -  Having knocked back a couple of glasses of sherry whilst reclining on a musty sofa in a balloon-festooned foyer, I ask Kev if he’s still texting her. Just once, he admits (quite readily and with a positive tone suggesting he thinks this ought to be wholly acceptable), to tell her he misses her.

    As we begin our lukewarm third course (the turkey bit) he accidentally calls me by his ex-wife’s name and I choke loudly on my stuffing.

     Youngest has three puddings while we sit in silence watching snow descend on a stretch of black river crying out for a tragic seasonal drowning incident.

    It’s pitch dark by the time we emerge and, into the painful emotional wasteland existing between us, Kev drops the unexpected suggestion that we drive up to Tesco’s car park (the supermarket will be shut) and do ‘doughnuts’ in the snow. By this time I am depressed/inebriated/bewildered enough to care very little for anybody’s personal safety so I say “Yes, as long as I get to do some.”

      Curling the pick-up sideways round the trolley-shelter, I imagine being spotted by the boys in blue from the roundabout. “Believe it or not officer,” I would have to say. “I have had very little to drink and doubt I am actually over any limits at all. This thing’s a bit frisky in the snow - I simply thought it was important I learn how to handle her.” He would, I guess, cast his gaze over the skewed acres of black velvet, the heels, the fishnet tights and the suicidal glitter in my eyes and conclude I was just some glamorous eccentric up from the Central Belt.

 

Christmas Night – Youngest and I spend a long evening racing remote control quad bikes around the kitchen floor. I’ve put French Café music on the stereo because, in the past, it has seemed to calm Kev’s nerves. Our eventual proximity to the trolley shelter, once the excitement had induced a certain devil-may-care giddiness in me and we were sliding sideways across the unofficial skid-pad like an egg on a Teflon frying-pan, had frayed him a bit. Edith Piaf has the job of restoring a sense of equanimity but ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’ in our current circumstances has an effect on the insides like having your head held underwater too long. Having driven my quad into a wedged situation under the woodburner, I leave Youngest to affect a rescue, switch the tree lights on, pack the dishwasher and fetch some cheese on toast.

     Neither Kev nor I ate very much at lunch despite having been charged a hundred quid, in advance, for the pleasure. We follow this up with paying only vague attention to some crappy Hollywood Blockbuster. A few relatives have left their ‘merry Christmases’ on the answer machine and I’m hoping no-one else will bother to ring. 

    Now that I remember, I did send my parents a text message some days ago suggesting Kev and I might be having relationship difficulties. This prompted a phone call during which my mother seemed way more strung out about the three-way animosity rife her end between herself, my father and my sister, so that it was quite impossible to burden her with anything else. At the end of our conversation she’d asked if Kevin had hit me. I said no, wished them all Merry Christmas and drove to town to put a truckle of cheese and a packet of oatcakes in the post.

    I have Spoken to Erica though, my ‘best’ friend since we were eleven years old and safely six hundred miles away in Gloucestershire. I have told her EVERYTHING. Her reaction was as expected.

    “I don’t believe it! And you’ve been so good to him – I just can’t believe it! And you’re staying? Are you a saint?”

     A Saint? Of course I’m not. I might be a bit stupid. I might be lacking imagination about the options. I might still be (dare I say it?) a wee bit in love. Who on earth knows? Really, who bloody well knows?

After Lights Out - Not much said in bed. I woke crying at 3 am. Kev asked me what the matter was. Then he said would I stop because he needed his rest and if he thought I was sobbing instead of sleeping he wouldn’t be able to drop off. I cried harder then. I didn’t care.

 

Self Depilation

Boxing Day. At the Sales – Kev keeps darting behind clothing rails to check his mobile. Presumably he thinks he’s being discreet. In fact, he’s not discreet. He’s not understandable, kind, manly or good company. I have absolutely no idea what rationale informs his thought processes so that he is able to behave like this. Is that my problem? Should I be grateful for his ‘honesty’? Having confessed the situation to me, is he trying to handle it out-in-the-open to prove, in some peculiarly warped way, that he can be trusted? Or has the appearance of virtue been hijacked because he is either too lazy or too clueless to cope any other way? Is my Kev really a regretful cheat, or just a failed one?

     I stick with Youngest and we find some attractive items of clothing which fit very well now that my dimensions have shrunk along with my appetite. Trying on a dress with a low neckline and flouncy hem (not my usual choice), I ask Youngest “What d’you think?”

     “Nah,” he frowns. “You look like a lady off Neighbours…” Hang the thing back up and head for sportswear, spotting en route some rather beautiful underwear (also not my usual choice) reduced, now that the annual opportunity for misguided males to hand over tiny gilt lace items to bemused wives and girlfriends who prefer something sensible in cotton is past, so purchase sixty quid’s worth without batting an eyelid.

     Around quarter to eleven I give up on Kev completely, setting him free to roam the indoor shopping centre or huddle in doorways reading ego boosting texts from desperate single mothers (well, for all I know there could be more than one of them. It’s a big club.)

     We meet again at lunchtime in the French café.  I experience a certain satisfaction over the fact that I have so many carrier bags hanging off my arms I can’t actually fit behind the small corner table he’s picked. I’m not exactly proud of myself for feeling such satisfaction but, then again, neither do I experience any guilt. There’s nothing he can say. It’ll cost him so much more if we separate.

     I order vegetarian quiche followed by lemon drizzle cake with whipped cream and don’t eat very much of either.

 

Boxing Day evening – The skimpy new knickers are great! Tight across the hips, smooth over the buttocks, lacy in an over-the-top tantalizingly different way. The only down side (or downy sides) are the large tufts of pubic hair escaping either side of the delicate lace panels like stick-on Victorian sideburns. Snow’s still falling outside, nothing decent on the telly, so I decide (for first time in my life) to attempt a DIY bikini wax…

Stop Lizzie! No! This is rash and will probably result in a rash...
What's in store for Kev now? And do Lizzie's actions amount to self-harm?
Is this a good or a bad sign for Lizzie's sex life?
All will be shaved and exposed in Chapter 9...