Irene stirred her cooling tea as raindrops streaked the kitchen window like silver tears. On her doorstep stood Mrs. Henderson, clutching a worn string bag, her brow furrowed like crumpled paper. “Irene dear, whatever does it mean?” the neighbour questioned, peering in. “Married or not? Just yesterday afternoon, I saw Simon—your Simon—leaving this very flat. Then this morning, huddled under an umbrella at the Tube station with a blonde woman!”
A sigh escaped Irene as she folded the newspaper aside. “Come in, Mrs. Henderson. It’s not quite what it seems. Yes, Simon’s my husband. Properly married. Seven years next May, the registry stamp proving it. But… we live apart. Separate homes.”
“Lives apart?” Plonking herself onto a kitchen chair, Mrs. Henderson clearly prepared for a long chat. “What manner of marriage is that? Whatever made you wed in the first place?”
Irene placed a steaming cup of tea before her guest. Outside, the persistent October drizzle mirrored the grey afternoon seven years past when she and Simon had signed their wedding papers. “I married for love, naturally. Assumed we’d settle like all decent couples. Children, perhaps a cottage weekend retreat, a shared life. But no,” Irene gave a small, wry smile. “Within half a year, the differences bloomed. He thrived on boisterous gatherings; I cherished quiet. His belongings scattered like autumn leaves; I craved order. He might skip a week’s washing; I couldn’t bear a day without the shower.”
“So divorce him!” Mrs. Henderson waved a dismissive hand. “Why suffer?”
“Ah, that’s where the rub lies. Divorce isn’t simple. We own the flat, you see. Privatised jointly before the wedding—saved every spare penny between us. Simon insists selling it would be the only way, splitting the proceeds. Where would either of us go? Renting? At forty-three and forty-five? Where does one find that kind of money?”
Mrs. Henderson nodded thoughtfully, the problem resonating. “So, what’s the answer?”
“This,” Irene gestured vaguely. “Simon keeps the flat. I found myself a tiny one-bedder, far out near Croydon. Cheerfully cheap, blessedly mine. A mortgage, yes, but my refuge untouched. He visits, sometimes, when the stillness there grows too loud. We talk like old chums, over tea. Then off he goes.”
“For how long?” Mrs. Henderson studied Irene’s calm, tired face.
“Who knows? This suits us now. Officially man and wife, paperwork unchanged, no awkward questions at the office. Practically? Two lives, lived alone.”
After her neighbour departed, Irene lingered by the rain-lashed window, the fading tea tasting of damp wool. The downpour swelled, its persistent drumming echoing fragments of their past.
They’d met at work. Simon, then Head of Supply Chain, tall and genial with a disarming smile. Irene, Chief Accountant. The spark was instant. “Irene Gibson,” he’d ventured on that unremarkable Thursday, leaning at her desk, “might I tempt you to lunch? There’s a lovely cafe nearby.” Lunches turned to dinners. Simon proved a cultivated man: a reader, an art lover. They conversed of Bronte and Bond films, dreamt of Cornish coasts. “It’s effortless with you,” he’d confessed a month later. “Like being understood halfway through a thought.” For Irene, recently five years divorced and doubting she’d find kinship, his presence felt like slipping on a favoured glove. Simon was divorced too, childless, rattling around a large three-bed in Balham inherited from his parents. “Feels cavernous,” he’d sigh. “But selling… it’s Mum and Dad’s place.”
They courted six months before Simon proposed. A simple registry wedding followed, only nearest kin and friends. Early days glowed with that new-marriage warmth; problems seemed trifles easily smoothed. But slowly, the trifles hardened into walls. “Simon, the dishes!” Irene would protest, glaring at the stack wilting in the sink. “Leave them be, I’ll sort them,” he’d murmur, eyes glued to the telly. “And tomorrow, and then they petrify! Impossible to scrub!” “You fuss like a drill sergeant, Irene. Unbend a little.” Unbending felt impossible. The domestic chaos crushed her spirit, while Simon found her meticulous order clinical. “Like a blooming surgery in here. A home should feel lived-in.” “Lived-in doesn’t mean squalid!” Their spats multiplied: unwashed mugs, coats discarded like fallen soldiers, Simon’s friends descending unannounced at midnight. “I just can’t,” Irene confessed to her sister Sarah over the phone. “We’re chalk and cheese.” “Try bending to his ways,” Sarah advised. “They’re all like that. My Rob’s no prize either.” But bending felt like breaking. Irene physically recoiled from mess; Simon couldn’t twist himself into her tidy shapes.
The breaking point arrived with his old friend Geoff, visiting from Newcastle, promising “just a night or two” yet sprawling into a week. “Simon, surely you see?” Irene pleaded, tears pricking. “He drinks from breakfast, smokes indoors, blasts that infernal music! The neighbours are complaining!” “Don’t be a wet blanket, love. He’s a guest. Hospitality!” “I’ve endured a week! He acts like he owns the place, never a ‘thank you’! And you indulge him!” “Stop dramatising. We’ve known each other since infants.” “And me? Am I just the lodger?” It crystallised then: she couldn’t stay. Yet divorce seemed ruinous – the Balham flat, their joint savings. “Listen,” she’d proposed after Geoff’s departure, “what if… we live separately? You keep Balham. I’ll find my own little bolt-hole.” Simon was baffled. “Separately? But we’re wed.” “Legally, yes. Husband and wife. But we live apart. Visit when we choose.” “Peculiar notion,” he’d frowned. “What will people say?” “Let people mind their own plots.”
Long talks ensued. Simon resisted, then yielded, weary of the conflict. “We’ll try it. Come back if it falters.” Falter it did not. Irene secured her Croydon flat, took the mortgage, curated her space exactly so. No concessions. Only her rhythm. Alone proved strange initially, especially returning to silence. Yet solitude blossomed. Mornings unfolded undisturbed; evenings held only she, books, Schubert, languid baths. Weekends belonged to her meticulous pace, meals cooked solely for her palate. Simon visited roughly weekly. Over tea, they swapped news, sometimes watched a film. Calm settled in, the old tension evaporated. “We’re clever folk, you and I,” he remarked once across her kitchen table. “Found a way to keep the marriage without the mayhem.” “Though ‘family’ feels a stretch,” sighed Irene. “Why? We care. Remember when you had the flu? Medicines, groceries. My troubles at work? Your counsel.” True enough. The bond remained, merely spatial.
Yet melancholy sometimes visited Irene, sparked by happy couples holding hands, or friends’ chatter of family Christmases. “Do you regret… no children?” she asked Simon on a visit. “Regret it? Naturally. But our peculiar arrangement… impractical. Besides, almost fifty now.” “I’m forty-four. Easier than ever, technically.” “Theoretically possible, many things. Practically? Picture it: co-parenting across London?” Imagining it, Irene knew he was right. Their hybrid life excluded prams and school runs. She made peace, slowly. A cat, Misty, filled
Emily watched the constellations emerge through the dissipating rain over Lancashire, the warm weight of Marmalade curled purring on her lap a testament to the quiet contentment found not in prescribed paths, but in her own enduring arrangement of sweet solitude.
