Victor retreated yet drew nearer always.
“Don’t you dare lecture me!” Margaret’s voice sliced the air, knuckles white as milk. “Thirty years! Thirty years I’ve given you. And you? Silent as a stone!”
Slowly, Victor lowered the damp *Evening Standard*. His wife stood furious, grey hair awry, cheeks flushed like overripe plums. He knew the storm was breaking.
“Margaret, please. Let’s talk calmly.”
“Calmly?” She flung her hands up. “When did you last speak? Truly speak? Ask about my soul?”
Victor folded the paper. Stood. Outside the window, October rain wept onto yellowing elm leaves.
“You’re right,” he murmured. “I don’t speak much.”
“Much? You don’t speak at all! Supper in silence, eyes glued to the telly. I mention Mrs. Davies next door, her grandson off to uni – you grunt. I want the cottage tomatoes picked – ‘do what you want.’ Am I a woman or a hat stand?”
Tears brimmed in her eyes, defiant.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realise it mattered.”
“Didn’t realise!” Her laugh was bitter. “Vic, *what* do you think of me? Cook? Laundry maid? Or just habit, like those worn slippers?”
He opened his mouth. But Margaret was already gone, the kitchen door slamming shut like a gunshot. Silence swallowed the Chelsea flat, broken only by distant, angry clatter from the kitchen. Then nothing.
Victor sank into his armchair. The newspaper blurred. She was right. The distance started when? After his mother passed? Or earlier, buried in work after becoming site manager?
Memories surfaced, dreamlike and fractured. Young Maggie behind the counter at Waterstones, Camden. He’d gone for an engineering manual. Her smile – sunlight through stained glass. He’d forgotten the book.
“Something interesting?” he’d asked.
“What do you fancy?”
“Anything. Technical journals. Mysteries. Classics.”
She handed him Dickens. “Try this. Tales of the heart. Beautifully written.”
He bought it. Thought not of Pip, but of the girl. Returned daily for a week, buying books he barely read. Finally dared: “New film at the Odeon? Fancy it?”
Her laugh chimed. “Thought you’d never ask.”
They married within the year. Dreamed in their tiny South London flat – Margo fixing curtains, Vic nailing shelves. Sharing PG Tips on the kitchen stool, planning.
“Two children,” she’d sigh. “Boy and girl.”
“A Sussex cottage for me,” he’d counter. “You with roses, me tinkering in the garage.”
“And never a cross word,” she’d add.
“Never,” he’d vow, kissing her brow.
But children never came. Doctors murmured apologies. Margo wept soundlessly at night, believing him deaf. He heard, frozen, wordless. They stopped speaking of it. Stopped speaking much at all.
He climbed the ladder. She moved to a school library. They bought the Chelsea flat, then the Sussex cottage. She grew roses; he tinkered with the Rover. Silence thickened.
Sitting alone, Victor grasped it – both were lost. He walled himself in; she stopped battering the wall. Thirty years, and he was a stranger here.
Next morning: stony silence over toast. He tried.
“Margot, weekend at the cottage? Help with the roses?”
“Don’t bother.”
“Theatre? New play?”
“Busy.”
At work, thoughts of her consumed him. That evening, he bought chrysanthemums – her favourite. Opened the door.
“Margo? Home!”
Silence. A note on the teak table. Her hand. His heart lurched.
*‘Victor. Gone to my sister in Oxford. Need space. Don’t know when back. Margaret.’*
He reread it. Chrysanthemums perfumed the still air. The flat felt entombed.
Anger flared first. Petty! Grown woman acting the child! Let her stew in Oxford!
But anger faded. The flat became a museum. Silent breakfasts. Solitary dinners. Telly drones. Existence, not life.
He began seeing traces: her worn slippers by the bed. Face cream on the dresser. Her favourite soup ladle, precise on the cooker. A book on her nightstand, marked by a pressed rose.
He phoned Alison, her sister.
“How is she?”
“Poorly,” Alison admitted. “Cries daily. Says her life’s wasted.”
“Can I speak?”
“She won’t. Says don’t call.”
“Alison… what do I do?”
“Don’t know, Vic. But she’s hurting. You too, I reckon.”
“I am. Tell her… I’ll wait.”
Victor started speaking to the empty rooms. Telling Margo about his day, the odd thoughts he’d hoarded.
“Remember Davies?” he’d murmur over tea at the kitchen table. “Chap from accounts? Wife left him. Says he didn’t value her, took it all as due. Now realises he’s nothing without her. Too late, she’s found another. Silly sods, us men. Only see the treasure when it’s gone, eh Margot?”
He bought the large telly she’d eyed. Hung the Turner print she’d chosen months back. Nursed her drooping spider plant back to life.
“See?” he told its leaves. “Learning. Late, but learning.”
Alison called one evening.
“Vic? Margot’s looking at jobs in Oxford. Says she’ll start anew.”
The floor vanished.
“Alison, please stop her. I’m coming.”
“No good. She’s firm.”
“A letter? Will you give it?”
“Aye.”
He wrote. Pages. Scrapped them. Began again. Settled on simplicity:
*My Dearest Margot,
You’re right in all. I’ve been a poor husband, silent and selfish. But I love you. I love you with a fierceness I only felt when you’d gone. Can you ever forgive me? Grant us one more chance. I will change. I promise.
Your Vic*
No reply. Victor paced. Phoned Alison daily.
“She read it?”
“She did. Wept.”
“And?”
“Thinking.”
“Alison, I have changed. Can’t live without her.”
“I tell her.”
Friday dusk. A key scraped the lock. His heart bolted. He reached the hall.
Margaret stood on the threshold, small suitcase. Thinner. Paler. Eyes like rain.
“Hello,” she breathed.
“Hello,” he breathed back. “Welcome home.”
They gazed. She saw the new telly, the Turner, the thriving green spider plant.
“Lovely,” she whispered. “Wanted that print hung for ages.”
“Knew you did.”
“Telly fits well.”
“Bought it for you.”
She sank into her armchair. He took his own.
“Got your
Victor gently embraced her there at the breakfast table, dawn light spilling over the cups, their hearts whispering anew on this quiet journey just begun, walking hand in hand.
