We met at the GP surgery, queuing for the doctor. I was there because of blood pressure spikes, and he was waiting for test results. We got talking. Oliver turned out to be a calm, unhurried man.
Eight years had passed since my divorce. My son had been living on his own for a long time. My friends all had their own lives: grandchildren, allotments, endless check-ups and hospital visits. And then this real man appeared beside me. He didn’t drink, didn’t cause rows, didn’t raise his hands.
Back then I thought: here it is, a gift from fate.
It’s amazing how low we sometimes set the bar. He doesn’t hit me – that’s already good enough.
Oliver worked at a warehouse. The pay was small, but, as he liked to say, “stable”. That word was his favourite.
He was stably tired.
He stably complained about his back.
He stably couldn’t help around the house.
And he stably expected dinner on the table at seven o’clock sharp.
When he moved in with me, he brought two holdalls, an old laptop, and his mother on the phone.
Margaret called every day.
At first I even found it sweet.
She’s just worried about her son.
Then I realised that her constant:
— Have you eaten?
— Have you caught a chill?
— Emma probably opens the windows, that’s why he’s coughing…
sounded as though I was starving her son and keeping him in a draught.
The first year seemed bearable enough.
I cooked – he ate.
I washed – he wore.
I bought food – he lamented:
— Everything’s gone up so much.
And he said it as if I personally had haggled with the shops over the new prices.
Once a month he handed me money.
A hundred pounds.
Sometimes a hundred and forty.
And he did it with an expression like he’d just paid off the mortgage on the whole house.
— Here, for the household. Just don’t spend it on extras.
And I paid the utility bills, bought groceries, cleaning products, his back medication, socks, discount meat.
The worst part was that I actually felt grateful for that money.
That’s what frightens me most now.
After dinner Oliver liked to sigh heavily.
— The rice is a bit dry. My mother makes it fluffy and tender at the same time.
I still don’t understand how that’s possible.
There must be some special magic that only mothers of grown sons have access to.
Or:
— Not enough salt.
— Then add salt.
— I’m already seated.
He was settled at the table.
So the whole world had to adjust.
I got up.
Brought the salt.
Then the bread.
Then the tea.
Then the remote control, which was literally half a metre away from him.
— Emma, you’re closer.
Everything was closer to me.
The kitchen.
The bathroom.
The work.
Probably even the afterlife would turn out to be closer to me.
Gradually I started to get tired.
Not just physically, though that too.
I’d come home from work, take off my shoes and dream of just five minutes of silence.
Just five.
But from the living room I’d immediately hear:
— Why so late? I’m hungry.
Not:
— Are you tired?
Not:
— Let me put the kettle on.
Just:
— I’m hungry.
I always washed the dishes.
Oliver had a special kind of allergy – to the sink.
As soon as he saw dirty plates, he’d suddenly remember his bad back.
— I’d help, but you know…
Yes, I knew everything.
Which pills he took in the morning.
Which brand of ham he preferred.
That his mother couldn’t have onion.
That Oliver couldn’t lift heavy things, get up early, go to bed late, clean the bathroom or take out the bin without being reminded.
But what I liked – nobody ever asked.
Once I suggested splitting the bills fifty-fifty.
He looked surprised:
— What do you mean fifty-fifty? I earn less.
— I know.
— Then why are you putting pressure on me?
There it was.
I wasn’t asking for diamonds or expensive gifts.
I just suggested we split the cost of food and utilities.
And I instantly became the woman who puts pressure.
That same evening he called his mother.
He deliberately put her on speaker.
After listening, Margaret said coldly:
— Emma, are you trying to turn my son into a lodger?
I was standing at the stove stirring pasta.
I really wanted to answer:
“Lodgers at least pay for their keep.”
But I kept quiet.
For now.
Later Oliver got a new job.
The salary was better.
But now he had shirts to wear every day.
White.
Light blue.
Striped.
And they all needed ironing.
For the first few weeks I did that after work.
After dinner.
After cleaning.
I stood at the ironing board while the TV played in the room and Oliver lay on the sofa.
— You’ve ironed the sleeve badly.
— Oliver, I’ve been doing this for an hour.
— Well, I’m not asking for myself. I need it for work.
The next day Margaret turned up without warning.
She brought her son a homemade pie and set it on the table demonstratively, as if to say:
“This is what proper food looks like.”
And I was chopping a salad at the time.
Then came that Thursday.
The hardest one of all.
I got home almost at nine in the evening.
In my bag were apples and yoghurt – for myself.
I open the door and see Margaret in my kitchen.
Wearing my dressing gown.
That blue, soft one with the pocket where I always put my glasses.
Next to her lay five crumpled shirts and the iron.
Oliver came out of the living room.
— We need to discuss something.
I was slowly taking off my boots.
Because if you do it fast, one of them might well fly at somebody’s head.
But I’m a well-brought-up woman.
Sometimes that seriously gets in the way of living.
— I need to be in the office by eight tomorrow, Oliver announced. — I don’t have time to iron.
— Then iron now.
— I’m tired.
I looked at the sofa.
At the plate with crumbs.
At his mother in my dressing gown.
At the iron.
And then he said, completely calmly:
— If you can’t manage in the evening, get up at five in the morning and iron my shirts. That’s a woman’s duty.
And suddenly I saw the whole picture from the outside.
A fifty-four-year-old woman standing in her own flat after a hard day’s work.
In front of her a man who practically lives here for free and eats at her expense.
And next to him his mother, wearing her dressing gown, explaining what a real woman should be.
I walked silently into the bedroom.
I took out of the wardrobe those same two holdalls he’d arrived with four years ago.
I put them in the hallway.
And calmly said:
— Pack your things.
He was sure I’d cry.
That I’d be scared.
To be honest, I thought so too.
In four years a person grows into your life.
Even if he’s like a weed, it still hurts to pull him out.
But I stood there in silence.
Afterwards wasn’t easy.
My hand automatically reached for a second plate.
At the shop I mechanically picked up his favourite cheese, then put it back on the shelf.
The hardest part wasn’t missing him – it was stopping myself from blaming me.
Who would want me with my jars on the balcony, my habit of watching series under a blanket, and my age over fifty?
But one day I came home, switched on the light and suddenly understood:
I want myself.
Clichéd?
Probably.
But that was when it really hit me.
Not as a housekeeper.
Not as a domestic servant.
Not as an accessory to a man.
Just as Emma.
A month later Oliver came back.
With three slightly wilted roses.
They probably looked as tired as the two of us.
I opened the door but kept the chain on.
— Emma, I feel bad without you.
— I don’t want to go back, I answered calmly.
— At all?
— At all.
He stood on the landing for a little while longer.
Then he turned and walked away.
