Victor folded his newspaper, the sharpness of Margaret’s voice still hanging in the air. She stood rigid, fists clenched, her usually neat grey hair askew. “Thirty years! Thirty years I’ve lived with you! And what do I get? Silence, constant silence! Like talking to a brick wall!”
He sighed, looking up at his wife, her face flushed with familiar anger. Another storm brewing. “Mags, calm down. Let’s talk properly.”
“Properly?!” She threw her hands up. “Properly?! When was the last time you properly talked to me? Asked how my day was? Asked what was on my mind? Eh? Answer me!”
Victor neatly placed the paper on the table and stood, moving to the window. October rain drizzled outside as maple leaves yellowed and fell. “You’re right,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t talk much.”
“Don’t talk much?!” Margaret choked on her fury. “You don’t talk *at all*! You come in from work, eat dinner in silence, stare at the telly. I mention Susan next door, her grandson getting into university – you grunt. I say I want to get the tomatoes in at the cottage – you say ‘do what you like’. Am I your wife or a ruddy coat stand?”
Turning, he saw tears welling in her eyes, though she stubbornly held them back. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t realise it mattered so much.”
“Didn’t realise!” Her laugh was bitter. “Vic, what do you even *think* of me? Am I just the cook? The cleaner? Or a worn-in pair of slippers?”
He opened his mouth, but Margaret had already spun on her heel and marched out. The door slammed. Noise from the kitchen – cabinets banging, dishes clattering – then silence. Alone in the lounge, Victor sank into his armchair, the newspaper blurring before him. She was right. He’d drifted. When had it started? After Mum died? Or earlier, when the site manager job swallowed him whole?
He remembered meeting her. Margaret worked at the bookshop on High Street. He’d gone in for an engineering manual. Her smile was dazzling; he forgot why he’d come. “Something interesting, please?” he’d finally stammered.
“What do you enjoy reading?”
“Oh, anything. Technical manuals, detective stories, the classics.”
She’d handed him a volume of Dickens’ tales. “Try these. Very human. Beautifully written.”
He bought the book, obsessed less with Dickens than with the girl’s kind eyes. Back he went the next day.
“Enjoyed them?” she asked.
“Immensely. What else?”
A week of book-buying and excuses later, he found the nerve. “There’s a new Bond film on. Fancy it?”
Margaret laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
They married a year later. Victor recalled their first flat – a tiny one-bedder in Croydon. Margaret hung curtains; he put up shelves. Evenings spent over tea planning a future. “I want two children,” she’d said. “Boy and a girl.”
“I want a house with a garden,” he’d replied. “You grow roses, I’ll tinker with the car in the garage.”
“And never row,” she added.
“Never,” he agreed, kissing her forehead.
But children never came. Doctors shrugged. “It happens. Live for yourselves.” Margaret wept privately; he heard and felt helpless, wordless. They stopped talking about it. Stopped talking much at all. He rose at work; she moved to the school library. They bought a three-bed terrace, then the cottage. She grew roses; he tinkered with the car. But conversation dwindled.
Sitting in the silent lounge, Victor understood they were both to blame. He’d hidden inside himself; she’d stopped trying to reach him. Thirty years married, and he felt a stranger in his own home.
The next morning, Margaret was icy. She served breakfast in silence. Victor tried. “Mags, let’s go to the cottage this weekend. I’ll help with the garden.”
“Don’t need it.”
“The theatre? They say this new play’s good.”
“Busy.”
Victor gave in. All day on site, he thought of her, their crumbling life. That evening, he bought chrysanthemums – her favourite – and let himself in.
“Mags? Home!” Silence. He found a note on the lounge table in her hand. His heart lurched.
> *Vic. Gone to Susan’s in Warwick. Need time. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Margaret.*
He sank into his armchair, rereading the words. The chrysanthemums filled the silent house with their faint scent. Dead quiet.
He was angry at first. It was childish! A grown woman throwing a wobbly! Let her stew at her sister’s.
But the anger faded. The house without her felt like a museum. Silent breakfasts, solitary dinners, the telly blaring – it felt less like life, more like endurance.
He began noticing details he’d missed: Her slippers by the bed. Her face cream on the dresser. The ladle she used for soup, always left precisely on the hob. A book on the bedside table, marked with a dried flower.
He called Susan.
“How is she?”
“Not good, Vic,” Susan admitted. “Crying daily. Says her life’s wasted.”
“Can I speak to her?”
“She won’t. Says leave her be.”
“Susan… what should I do?”
“Don’t know, Vic. But she’s hurting. You probably are too.”
“I am,” he confessed. “Tell her I’m waiting.”
Victor began talking to the empty house. Telling Margaret about his day, work gossip, thoughts he’d kept bottled.
“Mags,” he said aloud over tea. “Remember Peterson from Planning? Came in gutted today. Wife left him. Said he took her for granted. Reckons he can’t live without her now. Told him – beg forgiveness, explain. He reckons it’s too late, says she’s moved on. Blokes, eh, Mags? We’re daft. Don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.”
He bought the big telly with proper sound she’d always fancied. Hung the picture she chose months ago that he’d procrastinated over. Tended to her favourite ficus on the windowsill.
“See?” he told the plant. “Learning. Late, but learning.”
One evening, Susan called. “Vic? Margaret’s looking for work in Warwick. Says it’s a fresh start.”
Victor’s stomach dropped. “Susan, please, don’t let her! I’m coming.”
“Wouldn’t advise it. She’s dead against seeing you.”
“Then a letter? Will you give it?”
“Yes.”
He wrote pages, scratched them out, started again. Settled on:
> *My Darling Mags. You’re right. I’m a rotten husband; quiet, selfish. But I love you. Only truly realised when you went. Don’t know if you’ll forgive me, but please – give us another chance. I’ll change. Promise. Your Vic.*
Silence for a week. Victor paced, rang Susan daily.
“Saw the letter?”
“Yes. Cried.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. Thinking.”
“Susan, I swear I’ve changed. Can’t live without her. Tell her.”
“I do. Every day.”
Friday evening, a key turned in the lock. Victor’s heart jolted. He walked to the hall.
They ate their toast in comfortable silence, the ordinary clink of cutlery now carrying the weight of a promise chosen anew, a love rediscovered not in grand gestures but in the quiet decision each morning to truly stay.
