Mary stood trembling in the lounge, fists clenched. “Don’t you dare lecture me!” Her voice cracked sharply. “Thirty years, Victor! Thirty years I’ve spent with you! And what do you do? Stay silent as a grave!”
Victor slowly lowered his newspaper, looking at his wife. Grey hairs stuck out wildly; her face was flushed with anger. He knew another row was brewing.
“Mary, love, calm down. Let’s talk properly.”
“Properly?!” she threw her hands up. “When was the last *proper* conversation you bothered to have with me? When did you last ask how my day was, what was on my mind? Eh? Answer me!”
Victor neatly folded the paper, placing it on the oak side table. He rose and walked to the bay window. Outside, an October drizzle misted the street; golden maple leaves drifted down one by one.
“You’re right,” he murmured softly. “I don’t talk much.”
“Much?!” Mary nearly choked. “You barely talk *at all*! Come home from work, eat dinner mute, gawp at the telly. I tell you about Brenda next door, her grandson getting into university, you just grunt ‘Hmm, nice’. I say I want to nip to the cottage to pick the last tomatoes, you say ‘Do what you like’. Am I a real woman, Victor, or just a blooming hatstand?”
Victor turned. Tears welled in Mary’s eyes, but she stubbornly blinked them back.
“Sorry,” he said. “Never dawned on me it mattered so much.”
“Never dawned!” She gave a bitter laugh. “Victor! What *do* you think about me? Am I just your cook? Your skivvy? Or a habit you’ve worn in, like those threadbare slippers?”
He tried to speak, but Mary spun away towards the hall.
“Know what? Don’t bother. It’s clear enough.”
The door slammed. Victor stood alone, listening to Mary stomp around the kitchen, clattering dishes with unnecessary force. Then silence fell.
He sank back into his armchair, picked up the paper, but the words blurred. Mary was spot on – he *had* drifted away. When did it start? After his mum passed? Or earlier, maybe when he became foreman and work swallowed him whole?
Victor remembered meeting her. Young Mary, behind the counter at Waterstones, radiating warmth. He’d wandered in for an engineering manual. Her smile was so dazzling he forgot why he’d come, just stood there until she chirped, “Can I help you?”
“Something interesting, perhaps?” he’d mumbled.
“What do you like?”
“Oh, bits of everything. Engineering texts… thrillers… classics.”
Mary handed him Shakespeare’s Sonnets. “Try these. Love poems. Beautifully written.”
He bought it, but spent days thinking about the girl with kind eyes, not the poetry. Next day, back he went.
“Enjoyed them?” asked Mary.
“Immensely. Anything else you’d recommend?”
This went on a week. He bought books, inventing questions. Finally, he steeled himself: “That new play’s on at The Old Vic? Fancy it?”
Mary giggled. “Thought you’d never ask.”
They married a year later. Victor recalled their first pokey flat in Peckham – Mary hanging curtains, him struggling with wonky shelves. Evenings spent planning over PG Tips on the cramped kitchenette.
“Want two kids,” Mary declared. “Boy and girl.”
“Want a little place in Kent,” Victor countered. “You growing roses, me tinkering on the MG in the garage.”
“And no rows. Ever,” she added.
“Never,” he agreed, kissing her forehead.
But children never came. Doctors shrugged, said it sometimes happened, told them to live for each other. Mary wept at night, sure he didn’t hear. He heard, frozen, clueless how to help. Gradually, they stopped mentioning it. Gradually, they just stopped talking.
Victor climbed the ladder at work; Mary became a school librarian. They moved to this three-bed terrace, bought the Kent cottage. Mary grew roses; he fiddled with the MG. But they chatted less and less.
Now, alone, Victor understood. Both were at fault. He’d retreated; she’d given up trying. The result? After three decades married, he felt like a stranger in his own home.
Next morning, Mary was icy. She served breakfast silently, replying only in grunts. Victor tried.
“Sweetheart, let’s go to the cottage this weekend? Help with the garden?”
“Not necessary,” she clipped.
“Theatre? Heard about a cracking new drama?”
“Busy.”
Victor caved. All day at the depot, he thought of Mary, their crumbling marriage. That evening, he bought a bouquet of chrysanthemums – her favourite. He unlocked the front door.
“Mary? I’m back!” he called.
Silence. In the lounge, a note on the table. His heart dipped. Her handwriting.
“Victor. Gone to Sylvie’s in Chester. Need space. Don’t know when I’ll be back. M.”
Victor slumped into his chair, rereading it. Chrysanthemums perfumed the air on the table. The house felt tomb-like.
First days, he fumed. Forty quid! Grown woman acting like a stroppy teen! Good luck living without me at Sylvie’s!
But the fury fizzled. The house without Mary felt like a museum exhibit. Silent breakfasts, lonely dinners, the telly blaring. This wasn’t life. It was purgatory.
Victor started noticing things unseen before. Mary’s fluffy slippers by the bed. Her lavender hand cream on the dresser. The ladle she stirred stew with – always precisely placed on the hob. Her novel on the nightstand, bookmark holding a dried rose.
He rang Sylvie.
“How is she?”
“Miserable, truth be told,” Sylvie admitted. “Cries daily. Says her life’s wasted.”
“Can I talk?”
“She doesn’t want you to ring. Yet.”
“Sylvie… what do I do?”
“Don’t know, Vic. But Mary’s hurting. You too, I reckon.”
“Aye,” he confessed. “Tell her I’ll wait.”
Victor started talking to the empty rooms. He told ‘Mary’ about his day, work gossip. Shared thoughts he’d kept locked away.
“Mary love,” he’d announce aloud, tea mug in hand. “Remember Jonesy from Works? Came in today looking gutted. His missus left. Says he took her for granted. Only clocked how lost he’d be without her now. Told him: go on, grovel! Explain! He says it’s too late, she’s with someone else. See, Mary? Blokes are daft sods. Only value what they’ve got once it’s gone.”
He bought the swanky new Smart TV Mary always fancied. Hung the landscape painting she’d chosen months back (he’d kept ‘forgetting’). Tended her beloved spider plants on the windowsill.
“See?” he told them. “Learning. Slow, but learning.”
One evening, Sylvie rang.
“Victor… Mary’s looking for work here. Says she’s starting fresh.”
Victor’s stomach dropped.
“Sylvie, please, stop her! I’m coming.”
“Wouldn’t. She’s dead against it.”
“Could I write? Would you give her a letter?”
“Aye.”
Victor sat at the escritoire, wrote pages, crossed them out, started over
They gazed at each other over cooling tea and toast, the unblinking sun glinting off the Marmite knife, knowing their ordinary morning held something extraordinary – the quiet, hard-won closeness forged only after years of silence and one terribly necessary goodbye, warming their hearts like the butter melting slowly on their toast.
