After Lausanne

Messages continued to trickle back and forth — a song here, a film there, a shared memory plucked from the 90s like an old dry flower still faintly scented. For months, it hovered in the realm of the sacred-platonic, where nothing is asked and everything is implied. Then one night she wrote, “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if...?”

And I replied, “Yes.”

And that, apparently, was enough.

Within weeks I was looking at rental flats in Geneva, because Lausanne — lovely, lakeside, and stifling — was her city, her children’s city. Geneva was neutral ground. Expensive neutral ground. We figured I could be close enough to her but far enough from the awkwardness. (It turns out, awkwardness is immune to geography.)

I told my wife. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She said, “Well, you always did prefer fiction to reality.” Then she went for a long walk, came back and started talking logistics. She was calmer than I deserved. I offered to sell the house. She said, “Don’t be dramatic. Just get your things.” I think that was worse.

The boys didn’t say much. my youngest said, “Will you still pay for my driving lessons?” my eldest just muttered, “Unreal,” and left the room. 

I moved to a furnished studio that overlooked a tramline and a sex shop, both of which flashed red all night. I bought a moka pot and a towel. I borrowed money from my brother and told him not to ask why. I told myself: This is what it means to risk everything for love.

She came over that first night with a bottle of Swiss wine and a bag of organic pasta. She was visibly nervous. We ate in silence and then made love on the sort of mattress that reminds you how old your knees are. The sex was fine — affectionate, familiar. A bit like using an old typewriter: charming, inefficient, nostalgic. We fell asleep tangled and a little cold. She wept softly in the dark. I pretended not to notice.

The first cracks came the next morning, when she asked if I might consider getting a job — “something stable, just until your writing kicks in.” I said I was thinking of applying for translation gigs. She said, “Is that… real?” I said yes, and she smiled, but it looked like she was trying not to wince.

Her kids hated me. One ignored me, the other asked pointedly if I was “the reason Mum cried all the time now.” I bought them Pokémon cards. It didn’t help.

We stopped sending each other songs.

By month three, I found myself staring at her feet one evening and wondering why I had never noticed how… functional they were. Long, oddly knuckled. Her toenails seemed to grow sideways. I felt sick with myself.

She had a laugh that I once thought was full-throated and free, but now grated like a crow with a sore throat. She started saying things like, “You’ll understand once you’ve lived in Switzerland a bit longer,” as if I had failed an invisible exam in neutrality.

My ex stopped returning my emails.

Her husband sent me a calm, horrifying message that simply read:

“You may think this is love. But it’s adrenaline. I’ll be here when it runs out.”

I began writing a story about the whole thing and then realised I wasn’t sure who the main character was anymore.

Then one morning, I looked at her across the kitchen and said, “I miss my dog.”

And she said, “You don’t have a dog.”

And I said, “Exactly.”

That was the beginning of the end. Or maybe it was the beginning of the middle of the end, which is a harder place to climb out from. We didn’t explode. We simply evaporated — like water droplets on a nylon shower curtain.

I left Geneva in the middle of the night, three bin bags and a suitcase. She said, “I hope you find peace.” I said, “I hope you find your charger.” It wasn’t romantic. But it was honest.

Sometimes I still listen to that song she sent me — LoveHer, by Romy.

Only now it just sounds like a jingle for Swiss Rail.