LITMIR.BIZ

       6. Theo

      He was up hours before anyone else, had mopped the kitchen floor and made a picnic of sorts before there was a sound from Finn’s bedroom. Bea was, as always at the weekends, sleeping in. The food he had prepared was wrapped in foil and packed in a picnic box he’d found in the garage. A tall flask of coffee completed his efforts.

      When Finn appeared, his laptop in his hand, Theo was standing on his head in the furthest corner of the kitchen.

      ‘Morning, son.’

      ‘You are so weird,’ Finn said through a stretched yawn. He removed a bowl from a cupboard and shook a box of cornflakes at it, poured half a pint of milk over it and went to take a place on the sofa in the den watching television. ‘Why do you even do that?’ he asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

      ‘Helps me think. Sometimes when things feel a bit upside down, it’s good to look at them this way.’

      ‘Yeah, right.’

      ‘Don’t get too comfortable. We’re going out.’ Theo lowered his legs and tucked them to his chest before rolling onto his knees.

      Finn groaned. ‘It’s Sunday.’

      ‘So it is. Lots of people are up and going to church. Lots of people are up walking their dogs. We’re going to the beach.’

      His son rolled his eyes, then peered at him over the top of his raised bowl. ‘The beach. In February.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Why? It’s freezing.’

      ‘Because we can. Now shift your butt up to the shower. We should go soon.’

      ‘I really don’t want to go to the beach, Dad.’

      ‘No, Finn, you think you don’t want to go to the beach. I can promise you when you get there, you’ll want to be there.’

      ‘You don’t need to do this, you know.’ Finn spoke with a mouthful of cornflakes.

      ‘Don’t speak when you’re eating.’

      ‘This father-son crap.’

      ‘Finn!’

      ‘Really, Dad? You say “crap” all the time … I don’t get this sudden … this sudden need to spend time together.’

      Theo swallowed hard. ‘My wanting to spend time with you is hardly sudden. We always spend Sundays together. We used to—’

      ‘We used to do lots of things together when Mum was here, yes.’ Finn had walked away.

      ‘And what, we should stop that because she’s not?’ Theo stood at the door to the den and tried hard to keep his voice from rising.

      ‘Yes,’ his son nodded, and opened up his laptop to his world of Minecraft. ‘We should.’

      Theo left the room, walked slowly upstairs to his bedroom. He pulled the bedclothes up, picked yesterday’s jeans off a nearby tub chair and hung them in the wardrobe. Next to them, a jumper of Harriet’s hung on a hanger. He tugged it towards him, lowered his face and inhaled her scent. It wasn’t perfume, but the body lotion she wore, and it lingered in all her clothes. Coconut and spiced orange. He dropped the sleeve and grabbed his coat from another hanger. Downstairs he took a hat and gloves from the coat rack near the hall door. ‘I’ll be back in a bit,’ he called into Finn and closed the front door behind him.

      In between his and the next-door neighbour’s house was a path. Just wide enough for two people, it led into public woodland. Theo breathed in, blew his breath out in circles. It was cold. A thin dusting of icing-sugar-like frost lay on the ground. The only sounds around on a quiet Sunday morning were those of his heart beating and his shoe soles crunching underfoot. He shoved his gloved hands deep inside his pockets and quickened his pace. This area of green, the walking space, the rural feel of it, in what was otherwise a suburban area, only a few miles from Guildford town centre, was why he and Harriet had settled here. He pulled his phone from his pocket, removed one glove and, without thinking about it, jabbed his wife’s number with his thumb.

      ‘Theo, everything okay?’

      He did love her voice; it was one of the first things he had fallen in love with. She was softly spoken, her expression gentle, a voice that wrapped you up in a blanket. It was something he had seen her use powerfully when in work, lulling her opposition into a false sense of security.

      He put his glove back on, stopped walking, and held the phone to his ear.

      ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said.

      ‘You sound out of breath.’

      ‘Just out for a walk. Look, I called because … I have these papers.’ Theo looked skywards towards the slate-grey cloud cover through the canopy of trees. ‘I know you’re not coming back, Harriet. I think I just want to hear you say it.’

      There was a silence which made Theo wonder if she was alone.

      ‘I’m not planning on coming back, Theo.’

      His eyes blinked closed. He lowered his neck into his coat, shivered. ‘Right.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Me too. I didn’t fight for you.’ He listened to the sound of clothes rustling, imagined her getting out of bed, moving to another room in her new flat. ‘Separation documents. That’s what they are. They’re not divorce papers and I need to know if I should be moving on with my life. I’m in limbo. We’re in limbo here.’

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