Jenny Oliver - The Sunshine and Biscotti Club

The mattress wobbled. Leaning it back against the wall, Libby squeezed herself alongside it, trying to keep it in place with her bodyweight, as she decided to try and shove it up from the bottom.

With her shoulder against the shiny new material she made a move to push but it didn’t budge. The top of the mattress now caught against the step.

Why had she started this? Had it been as much to stop the loop of memories as to test whether she could do all this on her own?

She put her hands over her face. The weight of the mattress was pressing against her body. There was so much that needed doing before the hotel was ready, and getting a mattress up the stairs seemed like one of the more minor items on the to do list. If she couldn’t shift that, what could she do? Perhaps this was a painfully stupid exercise that would prove, as she suspected, there was simply no way she could do it by herself.

Her body slumped.

The mattress slipped a step.

She shouted in annoyance.

A mosquito buzzed around her ear.

She thought about all the plans she and Jake had made for the renovations. All their hopes and ambitions scribbled in notebooks and on napkins. When they’d first turned up at the dilapidated hotel, he’d squeezed her hand and said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re in this together.’ That was how it was meant to be. Him squeezing her hand, her squeezing his.

How was it possible that could turn so suddenly to such anger and shame buzzing like the cicadas as she’d marched down the garden path?

She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face into the mattress, as she thought about the moment when, after her outburst, Jake had stood up, looked down at the lush grass then up to meet her eyes and said, ‘Libby.’ Taking a step towards her. ‘I think actually this might have needed to happen. I think actually it’s a good thing, you know. For me.’

She hadn’t really listened. Instead she’d replied, ‘When you were doing it, when you were shopping online for a mistress, did you think about me? Did you think about hurting me?’

He’d shaken his head. ‘No. Honestly, Libby, I was just thinking about me. And it seemed—I don’t know—separate from you. Libby, I feel like shit but I think it’s right that this has happened. This …’ he’d pointed to the beautiful new outhouse, the garden, the hotel, ‘is all too much. I thought I’d be OK with it, but I’m not. Living here—it’s too remote. I feel like I can’t breathe,’ he’d added with a huff.

‘You feel like shit?’ she’d said. ‘Jake, you’ve shattered me.’

He’d looked at her with pity in his eyes. ‘I miss my life, Libby. I miss life.’

‘But this is our life.’

‘No.’ He’d shaken his head. ‘No. I’m going to go away for bit I think. I’m sorry.’ That was when she had crumpled. When the air had been knocked out of her.

That was the reason why she was hauling a mattress up the stairs like a carthorse, arms stretched behind her as she tried once again to tug it to the top. So that she didn’t have to go to sleep, so that she didn’t have to close her eyes and see herself begging him to stay.

If only she hadn’t cried. If only she hadn’t held on to his arm and tried to pull him back.

She yanked the mattress.

Stupid, stupid Libby.

He’d paused and hugged her when she’d sobbed. Just for a couple of seconds. Enough time for her traitorous mind to think that this could all be forgotten, that they could just focus on the hotel, on the renovations and the imminent arrival of the guests.

But then he’d let her go and held her by the shoulders and said, ‘Will you be OK? Should I call someone?’ in a voice that suggested she was some weak Victorian maiden. With a surge of anger she had bashed his arms off her.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she’d hissed, and he’d had the nerve to look sympathetic. ‘Just go.’

She’d watched him jog up the steps to the terrace and thought, Come back .

Then she’d made herself remember the website, the affairs, the fact she’d found out through her own blog.

Go, you bastard .

No, stop. Come back .

Now as she stood on the staircase, the harsh halogen lights burning above her, she found herself smacking the mattress, thumping it with all her frustration, humiliation, and anger. It felt quite good until it slipped from its perch mid-step and, as she fumbled to catch it, careered down to the bottom like a sledge thumping hard on the floorboards, smashing into the side table and shattering a glass bowl filled with lemons.

‘Bollocks.’

Libby sat down on the step, chaos on the floor around her. She stared at the lemons rolling along the gaps in the floorboards like trains on a track, stopping when they hit a stack of old mirrors about to be relegated to the garage. She glanced up from the lemons to her own reflection. Tired, sad, angry. Who was this person, she wondered as she stared, if she was no longer one half him?

‘Do you think the kids are getting enough kale?’ Eve asked as Peter walked into the kitchen having just put their four-year-old twins to bed.

‘Yes. Because I don’t think anyone actually eats kale.’

‘But it’s a superfood. I don’t know if they’re getting enough superfoods. A woman today said that she gets up at five every morning to make superfood smoothies for her and her kids’ breakfasts and then meditates for half an hour before they wake up. I don’t have the energy to get up and meditate.’

Peter was flicking through the local paper open on the table and splattered with spaghetti Bolognese. ‘Is this Bolognese? Did the kids have Bolognese? Are we having Bolognese as well?’

Eve nodded.

‘Excellent.’

‘But what about the kale.’

‘Bugger the kale. I was brought up on frankfurters and chicken Kiev. I’m OK.’

Eve rolled her eyes and went back to the washing up. Then after a minute, after she’d heard Peter get a beer out the fridge and flip the cap, she said, ‘The thing is, sometimes I just want a proper chat about things like kale. I know it’s neurotic so don’t look at me like that, but sometimes I need to talk about it. It’s important to me.’

She saw him sigh. ‘Eve. I’ve had a really long day. I don’t need to talk about kale. You don’t need to talk about kale. You want to talk about kale because you don’t have anything else to think about at the moment because you’re refusing to think about work.’

‘I am not refusing to think about work.’

‘OK, well maybe if you put as much energy into thinking about work as you did about kale then you’d have come up with something new by now.’

She scoffed, indignant. ‘It is not that easy, Peter. I haven’t got any inspiration at the moment. Nothing. I can’t do it if I have nothing.’

He took a swig of beer to mask his slight shake of the head.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked, referring to the head shake.

‘Nothing.’

She raised a brow.

‘I just reckon it’s bullshit. Sit in your office, do some work. Just do it,’ he said, and then the phone rang before she could reply. Peter reached round to answer it and said, ‘It’s for you. Libby.’

Eve frowned. ‘From Italy?’

Peter shrugged, handed her the phone and walked out into the living room.

She watched him go, quite grateful for the excuse to end the discussion. There was something simmering underneath her and Peter’s relationship at the moment, had been for a while. Nothing noticeable in the everyday, but just a fraction less between them. Conversations reached sighing point quicker. Less tolerance maybe for the other’s nuances. Less kissing, less sex, less closeness as a couple, while still cemented as a family.