Sticks and Stones 6

Suzie is sure that if I was to make that brave step into the unknown, my writing would flourish with the new order in my life. When she says this, I know she’s right, but then arrogance tells me that I can’t be pushed into anything and that I should wait for the right moment to change, otherwise it would all be for nothing.
I know she’s right, deep down in my gut, because I haven’t written anything for over a year. If I carry on much longer, I’ll be spent.
Having said all that, I have had to prise myself away from the family and from the guilt of coming to Andorra to even start to realise that there are no shouts from the kitchen for help because Clara’s got hold of one of the gerbils again or from upstairs because one of the sockets has come out of one of the many screens up there. The constant clock-watching aspect for school-run cohesion has temporarily gone from my life and I can breathe again. Ideas are flowing and weaving with one another. The thread of this story grows longer and stronger to me.
I will rent myself the apartment I saw in Lavaur on Monday. It will offer me the best of both worlds. I will write there from early morning, do the lunchtime school-runs, eat with the family and return to write in the afternoon. In the evening, I will return home with the unyielding hope that I am one day closer to being a published author, a man in good order.
I will make the most of my days and have time and mental space to cut from the outside world in order to connect with the children. We will play with bits of mud in the garden and snuggle up for bed-time reads. They will look up to me and I will not let them down.
Knowledge and love will replace Clara’s confusion and mystery, and Suzie will start her editing course with part of the proceeds from my first short story collection’s advance.
Maddy’s writing will re-emerge from the abyss and Griff will come off his PS2 and ask me nicely if I could show him how to write a good story.
Failing that, I’ll be able to kip off a hangover at the flat in Lavaur and see Clara at weekends and lunchtimes.
I just remembered Suzie’s periods, and they make any real progress a daunting prospect.
How can I tell her that her menstrual cycle will eventually cripple the family unless she grabs it by the short and curlies, that this monthly tsunami constantly shakes the foundations of hope whenever it causes her to erupt, spitting volcanic embers, at me, the one person she feels comfortable enough puking her pain at?
When will she accept that it’s a fact of life she needs to come to terms with? I’m by no means blameless in this (I represent half of the problem), but will she see anyone about her own problems? No.
Once I suggested she might be going through early menopause and she hit the roof, so there must be some truth in it.
We’ve reached the point when any serious debate is cut short by deflection. For instance, if she talks to me about finding a proper job, I defend myself and then deflect it back to her, mentioning her editing course as bait. She’ll then defend herself with the age-old theory that there’s no time for her to do the course, mostly due to my refusal to take over with the children and my need to go out and get pissed, which she highlights at regular intervals.
By the time we’ve lobbed, smashed, chipped, foot-faulted and line-called one another in this useless game of emotional tennis, the game is a tie and no one’s the wiser. Subconsciously, another brick has been placed on the wall of discontentment between us, making it all the more difficult to see over to the other, hoping for each other to be different, if only we could help each other.
Hope needs to be nurtured to blossom.
When Suzie has asked me to leave or we have made it impossible for her not to, it usually takes two or three days for a cheapish flight to become available. On the last day, we wake up and Suzie is kind to me. She wears something vaguely sexy, we catch each other’s eye for what seems like the first time in a lifetime and, before you know it, I’m shagging her senseless on the bathroom floor. We choose the bathroom because we don’t want the children getting even more confused with our mixed, highly contrasting emotions. The sex is good. I like her body and her face is attractive when I stare up from the place that gives her the most trouble. I lick to soothe and she knows it. She often cries at times like this, accepting the inevitability of our lower power taking control of the desperation, unable to say no because she loves me, torn by the confusion and only hanging on in there because of good old hope, and I don’t mean Bob.
When I return, usually a week to ten days later, she will faithfully pick me up from the airport with the children all hopeful for a new me, then we will make love once home, a quickie while the children open presents or occupy each other, whispering that we’re ‘doing adult things’ and that ‘it’s OK’ to Clara, who may look lost for a split second.
Suzie hardly ever initiates sex. It’s hard to tell what she gets out of it. She never divulges to me when she’s coming, but the murmurs are authentic and the crescendo seems true enough.
Maddy’s eleven, Griff’s eight and little Clara stands at the grand old age of three-and-a-half. They get along extremely well together, although my biggest fear is that Clara plays alone too often.
When I picture myself at her age, I was always doing my own thing, head down into a box of tricks. It’s hardly surprising when you consider that I had three much older sisters. I was almost five years younger than my youngest sister, as Clara is to Griff.
When Griff and Maddy go to see their father, Clara is a perfect angel, always busy playing or occupied with a good Disney film, but somewhere deep inside those crystal blue eyes, there’s a little girl waiting for her brother and sister to magically reappear, angry and confused, wondering why they are not here with us.
When they return, the house is alive again. Clara’s eyes brighten the moment she sees them running towards her at the airport.
I so want to be back home now.
The truth is, since our separation, I rented a small gite close to their new home, but after a month without spending a night there, I gave it up. I had been staying at the new place with the family, so, to offer myself a cheaper form of respite for when a quarrel erupted, I bought a caravan and put it in the driveway. I haven’t slept in it yet, but at least it’s there.
Suzie’s temper is worse than ever, but I just can’t be without the kids, so I suffer the accusations, the words and the belittling.
The trip from Andorra was far less gruelling than it was getting there, especially when I had the promise from Suzie that I could take Clara out to the park that same afternoon.
When I got back, there was no one home so I used the spare key and let myself in. I almost felt like an intruder, although Hero and Leila were pleased to see me. Suzie and Clara were soon back from the lunchtime school-run for Griff, and so we played.
There was one other reason for my going to Andorra that I mysteriously forgot to tell you about earlier, which was that Alan, an old friend from Woking who I felt had failed me as a friend recently and who I didn’t want to see, had been invited to stay by Suzie. He gets on really well with Griff and Maddy, so Suzie had invited him over to stay at a time when I’d promised to leave for good, again, so I couldn’t very well insist he didn’t come because it would have been cruel on the kids, and Suzie pays the rent. It’s her house to invite whosoever she wants to invite. Besides, I had said I’d never come back last weekend and she agreed it was for the best.
I decided not to stay and wait for his apology, had it ever been forthcoming.