Cold dinner plates perched on the table, untouched and damp with the memory of warmth. Laura stared through them, as if they were merely mist. Her gaze fixed instead on the ticking clock, its hands creeping onwards with a sly malice22:47. A strictly curious time, though in the dream it hummed rather than ticked.
David promised to be home by nine. As always.
Her phone kept its silence, uncertain whether it was alive at all.
Laura no longer felt anger.
All that was left inside her had burned to brittle ash, and emptiness ached behind her ribsboth chilly and exhausted.
Sometime near half-past eleven, the front doors lock gave a plaintive groan, as though troubled by an ancient ghost.
Laura didnt turn to look. She sat marooned on the sofa, bundled in a tartan blanket, her eyes clamped to an invisible mark in the wallpaper.
Hullo, love. Im sorryit was a late one at work… Davids voice floated in, threadbare, putting on an artificial, bright timber. He lied this way, alwayshis optimistic mask just thin enough to see the worry underneath.
He drifted closer, bent as if to peck her cheek. Laura recoiled, mechanically, like a clockwork bird wound backwards. He paused, registering the shift, his scarf coiling in his hands.
Something wrong? he tried, unwrapping himself.
Do you remember what day it is? Lauras voice sounded hollow, as if spoken into a vast empty cup.
He stilled, thoughts scattering.
Wednesday. Why?
Its my mums birthday. We were meant to go over with cake. You promised.
Davids face lost its colour, the smile leaking away, replaced at once by a guilty panic.
Oh, Laura, I completely forgotI really did. Work was a madhouse, honestly. Ill ring her tomorrow, I promise.
He crept into the kitchen, rooting around in cupboards, glasses chinking, plates sighing. He always vanished into busyworkthere, among mugs and forks, he could vanish from questions he preferred not to answer.
But tonight, Laura refused to let him disappear into porcelain ritual. She rose and entered the kitchens threshold.
David, who exactly kept you at work til almost midnight today?
He turned, the hand gripping the milk wobbled.
The team. Weve got that big project starting. Deadlines are murder. You know how it gets.
I do, she nodded. I also know you rang at three this afternoon and said, Anne, I get it, but I must fix this.
Anne. His ex-wife. The persistent fog inhabiting their flat three years strong. A frigid echo that rubbed Sunday roast with frost and filled every hallway with silent, icy accusations.
David went white.
Were you… listening?
I didnt need to. You yelled down the phone in the looevery word bounced around the pipes.
He let the milk down on the table and draped himself over a chair as if gravity had found him.
Its not what you think.
And what do you expect me to think? Lauras voice gained a sharp edge, something aching and real after months of numbness. You fidget all evening, youre gone all night, you look at me as if Im faded wallpaper. Are you trying to win her back? Just say it. Ill manage, David.
David stared at his handscapable, clever hands, able to mend clocks or radios, but happiness eluded their grip.
Im not going back to her, he whispered.
Then what? Are you sleeping with her again?
No! The desperation in his eyes nearly scattered Lauras certainty. Laura, truly, nothing like that.
Then what, David? What are you trying to repair? Paying her debts? Living her life instead of ours?
David said nothing.
Words surged from Laura at last, years unsaid tumbling free.
Go, David. Just go to her, if that’s where you long to be. Or wherever else you need to fix things. Make your amends, but leave me out of it. I cant do this. I dont want to.
She turned to leave, but David jumped up, blocking her exit.
But theres nowhere else! Theres no Annenot new, not old! I… I cant even understand myself! I just wish I could put it all right!
He spun away, swallowing stones.
Speak clearly, Laura pleaded.
You really want to know what Im fixing? David barked, bitter and tired. I am. Me! Or Im trying to, anyway. And I cant manage it. Youre not her. Youre patient, youre gentle, you believed in meeven when I couldnt believe it myself. It should have worked. I should have been new, or better, something… but I fail. I forget birthdays, stay in the office after dark, pretend I dont see that look in your eyesthe one where the lights going out. Just like in hers, once upon a time.
Laura was silenta ghost, poised at the doorway.
I dont want someone else, David went on, voice worn to the thread. Im scared itll all repeat. Ill miss something urgent, let it all rot again. Tired of falling shortmaking you lonely day after day, waiting for some life to start. Im not cut out for… being a husband, I suppose. Not for life together, quiet and steady. I ruin things. I dont even liveI tip-toe along a tightrope, afraid of slipping. And you you look as pale as me, these days…
He met Lauras gaze at lastbewildered, raw, honest.
So its not you, and its not Anne. Its just me.
Laura listened to his muddled confession and finally understood: David hadnt betrayed her with another woman, but with his own fear. Not a villainmerely lost, adrift, unsure how to continue.
And what now, David? she asked, not unkind, but empty.
I dont know, he admitted.
Then figure it out, Laura answered, all the sharpness gone, only fatigue. See a therapist. Bury yourself in books, knock your head on a walldo anything. Just stop chasing a big red button to undo every misstep. Theres no such magic. Theres only the work. Your own work. Do it alone.
Without me.
She left the kitchen, passed him in the hall, pulling on her raincoat.
***
The door closed. David was alone again, marooned with the hush broken only by the spatter of rain. He wandered to the window, watched Lauras figure blink out in the shimmering black, and felt a crushing heaviness press down.
His emptiness was no longer a phantom. It was here: in the empty flat, in the chilled supper, and in his own hands, emptied of everything theyd ever held.
And instead of running after Laura into the English rain, David fetched a bottle of brandy and let the night swallow him whole.
