Nothing Personal, Just Things
Pack that vase as well, would you? said Margaret in her usual tone, not turning around.
She stood in the middle of the living room, surveying the shelves the way one eyes the window display at a shop where everythings already been paid for. Calm. Practical. A connoisseurs squint.
Which vase? asked Emily, her voice quieter than she intended. She cleared her throat and tried again. Margaret, which vase do you mean?
That blue one over there. We brought it back from Prague in 98. Its a family piece.
Emily looked at the blue vase. She and David had bought it on their third wedding anniversary in a little shop on Charles Street. The shopkeeper had a beard dusted with white and had said something to them in Czech. David had laughed and pretended to understand. Afterwards, they ate pastries in the street and Emily burned her tongue. Theyd laughed about it for half an hour.
Thats not a family heirloom, Emily said evenly. We bought it together in 2009.
Emily, dear, Margaret finally turned to her, her voice taking on that patient-yet-condescending tone Emily had recognised even in her first year of marriagelike explaining the obvious to a particularly stubborn child. Lets not make this harder. You do realise all this she waved her hand about the living room all of this was paid for with our familys money.
Our familys money, repeated Emily. Mine and Davids.
David earned. His father and I helped. You kept house. Its not quite the same.
David stood by the window, gazing down over the city, which from the twenty-third floor looked like a model, unreal somehow. Toy cars, toy trees, toy people. He said nothing.
Emily watched the slope of his back, a shape so familiar she could trace it in the dark. Knew the way his shoulders curved when he was tired, the freckle under his left shoulder blade, the way he breathed when pretending to sleep. Ten years. Shed known him ten years, and here he was, staring at toy buildings below while his mother packed their lives into cardboard boxes.
***
The flat was beautiful. Emily had always acknowledged that, even when the place made her angry. High ceilings, tall windows, American walnut flooring you werent allowed to scratch with heels. A kitchen from some upmarket interiors showroom, for which Margaret had paid herself, and never let them forget it. The chandelier in the sitting room looked like a frozen waterfall.
Emily had lived there for eight years, and never felt it was hers. Not because the flat was badjust because it was too proper, too expensive, too perfectly assembled from catalogues Margaret brought round.
When they first moved in, Emily set a plain clay pot with violets on the bedroom windowsill. She picked it up at the market for under a tenner. A week later, it was gone. Margaret told her shed binned itit didnt fit the design.
Emily didnt argue. Nor did David.
That was the first time. There were many more.
***
The removal men arrived at ten. Two silent blokes with a trolley and a mountain of tape. Margaret greeted them at the door, list in hand. Emily caught a glimpse: Sitting Room: grey leather corner sofa, 1; marble coffee table, 1; bronze standard lamp, 2…
She turned away and went to the kitchen, put the kettle onjust for something to do with her hands.
David followed, stopping in the doorway.
Em.
What?
Are you alright?
She looked at him. His good-looking face shed loved, now set in that guilty schoolboy expressioneyebrows knit, eyes averted, voice quiet and pleading.
Im fine, she said. Tea?
Emily.
David, do you want tea or not?
He paused.
Alright.
She poured water into two mugsthe white ones, with painted rabbits, bought years ago in Amsterdam. Stupid mugs that never fit the showroom kitchens aesthetic. Margaret called them tacky. Thats why Emily treasured them.
They stood side by side, sipping tea, listening to the rattle of tape and Margarets instructions from the other room.
She has no right, Emily murmured, half to herself, We bought the sofa together. I chose those lamps. The paintings in our roomI brought them back from Florence with my own money.
Ill talk to her.
Youve said that five times today.
He had no answer. Just stared down into the mug.
David, she said, voice finally breaking with exhaustion. I dont want the sofa. I dont care about the sofa. I just want you to… be here. Do you get that? To just stand with me. Once.
He met her eyes.
Im here.
No, she replied. Youre by the window.
***
Margaret was sixty-four and belonged to that breed of Englishwoman who can command a room just by entering it, always seeming to draw most of the available air for herself. Not nasty, exactly. Just precise. Certain of whats proper and what isnt, and what fits the vision.
She loved her son. Emily never doubted that. It was justher love was so dense and all-consuming it left no room for anyone else. Not cruelty, just certainty: no one could possibly love her boy as much as she did. Or more.
In their first year, Emily tried being friends. Invited Margaret to dinner. Asked for recipes. Once she bought a scarf she’d picked out especially; Margaret thanked her, set it aside, and remarked that she had delicate skin.
In the second year, Emily stopped trying to be friends, and simply kept her distance. Politely, without conflict.
By the third, she realised distance was mootMargaret didnt acknowledge boundaries unless she set them.
By the fourth, fifth, sixth… Emily lost count.
***
David Nicholas, called Margaret from the living room. I need you to help decide about the pictures.
He set down his mug. Emily watched him walk towards his mothers voice, and thought, That way of movingI know it by heart too. The quickened step. Shoulders raised. Ready.
How many times in this decade had he answered her call, her message, her every request?
She didnt feel angry anymore. Shed exhausted that long ago. Anger took energy, and hers was gone.
From the living room, she caught Margarets businesslike voice: Well take that one, its from the Fort Gallery, a sound investment… Then David, something indistinct and agreeable.
Emily finished her tea, washed up, set the mug to dry.
Then she wandered into the hall and on to the bedroom. No real reasonshe just didnt want to stand in the kitchen and hear her life being divided up according to a printed list.
The bedroom was quiet. Sunlight striped the bedcover. They hadnt decided who would keep the bed yetMargaret probably already knew.
Emily sat on the edge and smoothed the quilt.
She remembered choosing it in a shop, hesitating between a dark, practical one (doesnt show dirtMargarets phrase) and this one, sky blue and utterly impractical. Shed bought the blue. David had looked surprised but said nothing.
That bedspread was perhaps the most defiant thing Emily ever did in this flat.
***
Emily opened the bedroom loft to look for her old handbag. In the back she found it, and next to it, a shoebox.
A normal, battered cardboard shoebox. Written on the lid in her handwriting: Bits. Ours.
She didnt recall what was inside at first.
She pulled it out, placed it on the bed.
Opened it.
On top lay two old cinema tickets. Yellowing, torn. She tried to rememberthen did: Amélie. For their third date. David said he didnt care for it, but years later hed confessed he actually loved ithe just felt shy.
Below was a postcard from Barcelona, nicked on their honeymoon. On the back, in Davids hand, was: I love you more than Gaudí loved this cathedral. And he loved it for seventy-three years. Shed laughed: Will you love me for seventy-three years? Hed said, Ill do my best.
He was forty now. She was thirty-eight. Ten years together. Sixty-three left.
She turned the postcard over in her hands and thought about it.
Further down: a little Eiffel Tower fridge magnet from a flea market in ParisMagaret had banished it from the fridge immediately, calling it tasteless. A cheap Participant wristband from some office party where theyd danced till one in the morning. A pressed flower, crumbling at the edgesshe half-remembered a field, an early morning, theyd pulled over for the view. Three shells from a Bournemouth beach. A paper napkin covered in a noughts-and-crosses game, waiting for their food at a seaside café.
All worthless. None of it on Margarets spreadsheet.
Emily sat there on the blue bedspread, turning that napkin over in her hands. Something carefully held tight inside her began to slowly let go.
She didnt cry. She didnt know how to, just like that. She just sat, breathing, while in the lounge the tape rolled on, and Margaret listed off the crystal glasses.
***
David came into the bedroom, likely looking for something of his. He saw her, sitting with the open box, and paused.
Whats that?
See for yourself.
He picked up the tickets. Glanced at the postcard.
Emily watched his face change, something shifting slowly, like the light after a cloud passes.
Amélie, he murmured. I said I didnt like it.
I remember.
I lied.
She nodded. I know.
He sat beside her, taking the plastic wristband.
That was at Toms company party. 2015.
Yes.
You lost your shoe on the dance floor.
And you found it under the bar.
And I said you were Cinderella.
And I told you you hardly looked like a prince.
For the first time in two years, he smilednot that tired, apologetic smile, but the real, lopsided one.
No. I didnt.
They sat in silence. A loud thump from the lounge, Margarets disapproving Be careful!, then a removal mans faint apology.
David.
Yes?
How did we end up here? Not this room. This… place.
He didnt answer right away, fiddled with a shell.
I dont know, he admitted at last.
You do, she said, without anger.
He put the shell back in the box.
Im a coward, he said.
Emily looked at his profilehis familiar brow and nose.
I know.
It was supposed to be different.
Yeah.
I should have… so many times, I should have
Yes, David.
For the first time that day, he looked straight at her, not off at some fixed point.
I want you to know, he said, I remember all of it. Every bit of it. He nodded at the box. Buying those tickets. You burning your tongue. The field. The shells, Emilyyou said youd make a photo frame from them, I called it tacky, you got annoyed, but then we went for a midnight swim and
Thats enough.
Why?
Because it hurts to remember.
He fell quiet.
It hurts me too, he said gently.
***
Margaret appeared in the doorway.
David, I need your signature
She saw the box, and the two of them sitting on the bed. Something shifted in her face, hard to pin down.
Whats all that?
Our things, said David.
What things? Thats just rubbish, dear.
Mum.
Old tickets, scraps
Mum. Again, but his voice was different now. Not a plea. Stronger.
She looked at him.
What?
Can you leave the room, please.
A long pause.
David, the removal men are on the clock, theres
Mum. Please leave.
Emily kept her eyes on her hands as a new kind of silence filled the roomclose, ringing, oddly clean.
Very well, Margaret said at last, her voice flat, but changed. Let me know when youre finished, then.
Her footsteps, then nothing.
Emily exhaled.
Thats the first time youve done that, she said.
What?
Asked her to leave.
He said nothing.
In ten years, she added. First time.
I know.
Why now?
I dont know. Maybe… seeing this box. Realising all the stuff getting packed up out there… its just things. A sofa is a sofa. A vase is a vase. But this he nodded to the shoebox, this is us. The only part really ours.
Emily looked at him for a long moment.
David, thats a lovely speech.
I dont want nice speeches. I
Wait. Let me finish. You always talk nicely. Youve always explained things, why it happened, why next time will be different, how you understand. But understanding and acting arent the same.
I know.
No, you dont. You think you do. If you understood, your mother wouldnt be out there, packing our lives into boxes by her checklist. She made a list. Of whats ours. She arrived and made a list.
Ill stop it.
Now?
Yes.
Its late, Emily said. It needed stopping seven years ago, when she threw out my window plant. Or six, when she rearranged our bedroom while we were away. Or five, when she told me I made shepherds pie wrong. Or maybe
Emily.
Or three years back, when she said you werent ready for kids, that you needed to find your feet, and you agreed, and I was thirty-five and I…
She stalled.
The silence closed in.
That was the worst, she whispered. More than anything else.
David sat rigid, his face open, no excuses.
I know, he said. Back then
Dont explain.
I want to.
Not now.
She closed the box, smoothing the lid flat.
Im taking this, she said.
Alright.
Thats all I want from this flat.
He watched her.
Where will you go?
To Jennys, for now. Then Ill look for a place.
Em.
What?
Dont leave.
She stood up, the box under her arm. It felt oddly light for all that was in it.
David, Im leaving this flat, not you. I never wanted to live here. I just… kept pretending I did.
You could leave it with me.
She stopped.
Turned.
What?
He stood straight, hands by his sides, met her gaze.
I said, we could both leave. I dont need the sofa. The crystal. The luxury kitchen. I want you and this box. Thats enough.
Emily stared.
Inside, something stirredhope, fear, weariness, a name she didnt have for it.
David, youre forty. If you walk out with me, your mother will
I know.
be furious.
I know, Em.
And youre ready for that?
I dont know. But if I dont, then Ive nothing left to respect in myself.
Silence.
Thats another conversation, she said.
Is it?
Yes. Its not I want you back. Its I want to respect myself. Thats different.
Maybe so, he said. But you need both, I think.
***
In the sitting room, Margaret was giving directions. As they walked in, she turned, eyeing the box in Emilys arms, the firm set of Davids face.
All done?
Mum, said David. Enough.
Enough what?
All of this He swept his arm at the half-moved furniture and a lamp bundled in bubble wrap. Take it. All of it. I dont care.
She looked at him in disbelief.
These things are expensive, theyre
Mum. Im leaving with Emily. And this box. Thats all I want.
Margaret looked from son to daughter-in-law, that steady self-assurance wilting a bit. Not anger. Not wounded pride. Something new: confusion.
Youve lost your mind.
Maybe.
Its reckless. Its
He stepped to her, meeting her gaze, voice calm. I love you, Mum. But its not a life here. Its a managed project. And Im not a project.
Margaret was silent for what felt like minutes.
Youll regret it, she whispered.
Maybe. But Id rather regret my own choices.
***
They left the flat just after one. Emily carried the box. David had a holdall with a few clothes and his laptop.
They rode the lift in silence. Emily caught their reflectiona not-so-young couple, tired, one cradling a box, the other a bag for a long weekend.
On the ground floor, the concierge nodded. The doors parted. Outside was an ordinary English Aprilcool, grey, the pavement wet from earlier rain.
They paused on the steps.
Where to? David asked.
I told you. Jennys.
I cant go to Jennys.
You dont have to.
I dont want not to go to Jennys. I want to go wherever you go.
Emily looked at the street. From up high, people looked tiny. Down here, they were just normal folk, living their lives.
David, she said. We dont have a flat.
I know.
We dont have much money. Everythings frozen for the split.
Ive a little set aside. Mum doesnt know.
Fine. But that wont last. Well have to rent something small and, frankly, awful.
Okay.
No luxury kitchen.
Thank God.
She glanced at him. There was something almost like relief in himthe word relief not nearly heavy enough for what that look meant.
This isnt the end, she pointed out. Its only just starting. Therell be the solicitor, your mum, all of it.
I know.
Im not sure well cope.
Im not sure either.
And still?
He paused, then said, And still.
Emily adjusted the box. It felt lightjust cinema tickets, a postcard, magnet, wristband, a faded flower, shells, and a napkin with a game on it.
All that was left of ten years. And maybe, the only real part of those years at all.
Lets go, then, she said.
And they did. Into a typical April street, on a drab day, with no plan and no certainty, each with a bag and a box. Far above, the twenty-third-floor flat now belonged to Margaret and her removal men, the parquet, the designer chandelier. She probably had another list in hand already.
Emily wasnt sure they were doing the right thing. She wasnt sure of anything, except one thing: she still had the box, and David walking beside her, and London in April. That smell that comes only when winters endingwhen its not yet warm, but you know the cold cant last forever.
As they walked, she said, Remember when we found those shells?
Bournemouth. You wanted to make a frame.
You called it tacky.
It was tacky.
Im making it anyway.
Good, he said.
Though weve nowhere to hang it.
Well find somewhere.
She didnt reply. She just kept walking, clutching the box, thinking that well find somewhere wasnt a promise. It was just words. But sometimes, just words are enough to take one step, then another. And another.
