Michael Robotham - Shatter

‘Can I ask you something?’ says Charlie, tilting her head to one side.

‘Sure.’

‘Do you think you and Mum will ever get back together?’

The question snags like a hook in my chest. Maybe this is how an earthworm feels?

‘I don’t know. Have you asked your mum?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does she say?’

‘She changes the subject.’

I nod and raise my face, feeling the warmth of the sunshine on my cheeks. These warm cool clear days bring me comfort. They tell me that summer is coming. Summer is good.

Julianne hasn’t filed for divorce. Maybe she will. I made a deal. A pact. I said that if she were alive, I would do anything she asked. She asked me to move out. I have. I am living in Wellow, opposite the pub.

She was still in the hospital when she told me what she wanted. Rain streaked the windows of her room. ‘I don’t want you coming back to the cottage,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you ever coming back.’

She kicked me out once before but that was different. Back then she said she loved me, but couldn’t live with me. This time she hasn’t offered me any similar crumb of comfort. She blames me for what happened. She’s right. It was my fault. I live with that knowledge every day, watching Charlie closely, looking for any sign of post-traumatic stress. I watch Julianne too and wonder how she’s coping. Is she having nightmares? Does she wake in a cold sweat, and check the locks on the windows and doors?

Charlie winds in her fishing line. ‘I got a joke for you, Dad.’

‘What’s that?’

‘What did one saggy breast say to the other saggy breast?’

‘What?’

‘If we don’t get some support soon we’ll be nuts.’ She laughs. I laugh too. ‘Do you think I should tell it to Mum?’

‘Maybe not.’

I still regard myself as being married. Separation is a state of mind and my mind hasn’t come to terms with it. Hector the publican wants me to join the Divorced Men’s Club of which he’s the unofficial president or chairman. There are only six of them and they meet every month and go to the movies or sit in the pub.

‘I’m not divorced,’ I told him, but he treated that like a minor technicality. Then he gave me the speech about getting over the shoals and heading back into the mainstream. I told him I’m not a classic joiner of things. I’ve never been a member of anything, not a gym or a political party or a religion. I wonder what they do at a divorced men’s club?

I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want the long empty moments. It reminds me too much of crappy dorm rooms at university, after I left home and couldn’t find a girlfriend.

It’s not that I can’t live on my own. I’m OK with that. But I keep imagining that Julianne is thinking the same thing and will come to realise that she was happier together than apart. Mum, Dad, two children, the cat, the hamsters, and I could bring the dog. We could shop, pay bills, choose schools, watch movies and romance each other like normal married couples, with flowers on Valentine’s Day and anniversaries.

Speaking of anniversaries, today is a special one: Emma’s birthday. I have to get her back to the cottage by three for a party. We pull in the fishing lines and pack up the picnic basket. Gunsmoke is filthy and smelly and neither of the girls want to sit next to him in the car.

The windows are kept open. There are lots of shrieks and girlish laughter until we get to the cottage, where they tumble out the doors and pretend that I’ve gassed them. Julianne is watching from the doorway. She’s put coloured balloons over the trellis and the letterbox.

‘Look at you,’ she says to Emma. ‘How did you get so wet?’

‘We went fishing,’ says Charlie. ‘We didn’t catch anything.’

‘Except pneumonia,’ says Julianne, shooing them upstairs for a bath.

There is an abstract sort of intimacy in our conversations now. She is the same woman I married. Brown-haired. Beautiful. Barely forty. And I still love her in every way but the physical one where we exchange bodily fluids and wake up next to each other in the morning. Whenever I see her in the village I am still struck by wonder: what did she ever see in me and how could I have let her go?

‘You shouldn’t have let Emma get wet,’ she says.

‘I’m sorry. She was having fun.’

Gunsmoke is tearing through her garden, chasing a squirrel and trampling her spring flowers. I try to call him back. He stops, lifts his head, looks at me as though I am extremely wise and then takes off again.

‘Everything ready for Emma’s party?’ I ask.

‘They should be here soon.’

‘How many are coming?’

‘Six little girls from day care.’

Julianne’s hands are stuffed into the front pocket of an apron. Both of us know we could pass our time like this, chatting about storms or whether to clean the gutters or fertilise the garden. Neither of us has the vocabulary or the temperament to share what remains of our intimacy. Maybe this is a form of mourning.

‘Well, I’d better get Emma cleaned up,’ she says, wiping her hands.

‘OK. Tell the girls I’ll come and see them during the week.’

‘Charlie has exams.’

‘Maybe on the weekend.’

I smile a winning smile at her. I am not shaking. I turn and walk to the car, swinging my arms and holding my head up.

‘Hey, Joe,’ she calls. ‘You seem to be happier.’

I turn back to her. ‘You think so?’

‘You’re laughing more.’

‘I’m doing OK.’

Acknowledgements

This story was inspired by true events in two countries but not based upon either of them. It could not have been told without David Hunt and John Little who were invaluable in helping my research. Among the others who answered my questions and shared my excitement were Georgie and Nick Lucas, Nicki Kennedy and Sam Edenborough.

As always I am indebted to my editors and their teams, Stacy Creamer at Doubleday US and Ursula Mackenzie at Little, Brown UK, as well as to my agent Mark Lucas and all those at LAW.

For their continued hospitality I thank Richard, Emma, Mark and Sara and their respective broods. My own brood must also be acknowledged- Alex, Charlotte and Bella, who are growing up before my eyes despite my pleas for them to never change.

Last, but not least, I thank Vivien, my researcher, reviewer, reader, therapist, lover and wife. I have promised her that one day I’ll find the right words.

About Michael Robotham

Before writing full-time he was an investigative journalist in Britain, Australia and the US. He is the pseudonymous author of 10 best-selling non-fiction titles, involving prominent figures in the military, the arts, sport, and science. He lives in Sydney with his wife and 3 daughters.