Fionnuala Kearney - The Day I Lost You - A heartfelt, emotion-packed, twist-filled read

‘And talking of hooks, let’s get you set up, young man.’ Jacqueline play-punched Finn. ‘We’re doing timed races to the top tonight.’

‘I’ll be in the gym.’ Theo jerked his head towards the next-door building.

‘Great, enjoy,’ Jacqueline said, before steering Finn towards the wall.

Forty minutes later he was rowing hard. He stretched his long body forward on the machine, straightened his arms, then angled them at the elbows, pulling his body weight forward. The digital monitor at eye level told him he had already rowed 3.9 kilometres, which meant just over one more to go. He closed his eyes and, as his body moved, he thought of the woman next door with his son. He thought of her small, rounded body, nothing like Harriet’s, who was tall and lean and angular. He thought of the breasts he had tried to avoid looking at. He thought of the way the suspension belt had wrapped around her thighs. Shit . He rowed harder, ignoring the sudden image of a naked Jacqueline as it imprinted itself in his brain.

When the alarm sounded and Theo slowed down, he opened his eyes to find Eddie, his gym buddy and a friend since school, staring at him, a wide smile on his face.

‘Share, now,’ he said. ‘I want some of whatever you were thinking about.’

Theo lifted a small towel from the front of the machine and wiped his face. ‘Wasn’t thinking anything in particular.’ His breath came in short pants.

‘Liar. You’re talking to someone who knows you.’

Standing slowly, he reset the machine to start again and headed to the men’s showers in Phil’s Gym.

‘What’s up with you anyway?’ Eddie asked as he followed. ‘You’ve had a face like a slapped bum since you arrived.’

‘I’m not sure, if I’m honest.’ Theo was surprised at his frank reply. He looked back at Eddie. ‘I have an incredible urge to go out and get completely shitfaced.’

Theo could almost hear the whirring in Eddie’s brain, trying to work out if there was any way he would get away with joining him; what excuse he could give his wife.

‘Stop, Ed. Jules would have you sliced and diced. Both of us have to get up for work in the morning and I have to go home with Finn.’ He rested his hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Another time …’

When he stood under the pressured hot water, in the shower stall next to Eddie, he called in to him. ‘Stop thinking about it,’ he said, before switching the control to cold, gasping out loud with the shock.

‘What if I tell her you’re having a bad night and need my company?’ Eddie yelled. ‘The au pair, what’s-her-name-again, can look after Finn?’

Theo laughed. ‘I’m going home, Ed. We’ll do it soon.’

He listened to Ed groan. ‘Honestly, you wave it at me, like waving a lollipop at a child, then take it away. Seriously. Not. Fair.’

Theo left Eddie drying his hair, slung his gym bag over his shoulder and exited through a series of doors and corridors to the climbing centre where Finn was already waiting.

‘You’re late.’ His son pointed to his digital watch.

‘By one minute.’

‘Late is late,’ he said, stepping into side by Theo. Looking up at the night sky – clear and star-laden, he added, ‘I don’t reckon aliens are ever late.’

‘Right.’

‘Think about it,’ Finn said. ‘More than likely they’re a highly evolved species. More than likely they’ve sorted out the annoying things in humans. Like being late.’

‘Right,’ Theo repeated. ‘Spag bol or chicken tonight?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Tough.’ Theo pointed the remote at his four-year-old Volvo. ‘Get in. Decide on the way home. You’re eating supper.’ Theo had seen too many young people – and not just girls – through the surgery with either the start of, or a fully developed, eating disorder. It was his natural instinct to want to make his son eat. He bit his lip. ‘You really not hungry?’

Finn didn’t reply.

‘You understand you have to eat to give you energy to do things like your climbing … You need to eat the calories in order to have them to spend.’

‘So you tell me all the time.’

Theo took in Finn’s profile as he stared through the windscreen putting his seatbelt on.

‘What would you like?’ he asked.

‘Just some tea and toast,’ Finn shrugged.

‘Tea and toast it is.’ He was in no mood for a spat.

In his son’s room, Theo picked two books up from the floor and placed them on his bedside table. The top one was a young person’s guide to computer technology, his last year’s fixation. The second, a thick tome on the whole question of whether we’re alone in the universe. The laptop, closed on his bedside table, would, Theo knew, be open up to Minecraft, his digital obsession and something he often played with his school friends online.

Theo leaned over Finn’s sleeping form, smoothed his son’s fringe away from his forehead, bent down and kissed his head. He noted the determined line of his chin, even in sleep. He got that from him. Next, the colour of that forelock he had just touched. That was exactly the same shade as his mother’s. He also smelled the faint hue of tobacco from it.

You will be all right , he told himself, as he imagined Finn outside some shopping mall, hanging out with boys Theo didn’t recognize, pursing his lips as he pulled on a cigarette. Or, worse, having the audacity to hang out of his rear bedroom window teaching himself to inhale. You will be able to do this .

In bed, he lay awake for a very long time. Whatever way he tried to settle, he couldn’t. On his right side, he had stared at Harriet’s pile of pillows for at least an hour, until he finally tossed them onto the floor. He moved his own two pillows and himself into the centre of the bed, then got up and rearranged the whole thing as it had been. He didn’t want Finn to see that; to see parts of his mother vanishing from the house, from his bed.

From his left side he thought of sex; it was three months since he’d had sex. Harriet and his sex life had been brilliant; so brilliant that even when he’d known there was something wrong, he had convinced himself it didn’t matter. He sighed loudly, thumped his pillow and turned over again, stared at the narrow strip of light under the door from the landing. Beyond the door was his study, then Finn’s room and, further along, Bea’s room. He thought of her, twenty-three years old, almost the same age as Anna. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard that he was wide awake and any hope of sleep was gone.

His watch said 01:35 when he threw back the duvet, removed a dressing gown from a hook on the back of the door and moved silently to his study. There, he switched on the light and removed a book from one of the shelves. He settled himself into the reading chair; a recliner that Harriet had bought for him years ago. The book lay open on his lap. His reading glasses lay on top of the book. She was everywhere. The life that was; the one they had together, was everywhere – in the pillows, in the chair, all around. He should move, he thought, before dismissing the idea as a bad one for Finn’s sake. This was his son’s home – he just needed to get a grip.

Downstairs, he boiled the kettle and made himself a coffee, paced the floors of every room before settling in the front living room. He stood on a dining chair and unhooked each curtain slowly, allowing each one to curl into two separate piles on the floor flanking the window. He got down and stood back. That was better. There was, he told himself, as he attempted to fold the piles into something the charity shop would accept, no point at all to them.

Next he climbed the stairs and, after retrieving a suitcase from under the bed, began to pack Harriet’s clothes. He had no idea of what order she would like them in, what way she would have done it, but they had to go. If anything at all was to be gained by a sleepless night, by the conversation he’d had with her yesterday rolling over and over in his head like a worn-out loop, he had to move on from that day in December. And removing her scent from their bedroom seemed like the best start. It only served as a reminder of his failure, of their failure. He slipped her shirts from their hangers one by one, placed them in the case. He removed her jumpers, already folded, put them on top. Trousers were laid, one crease only, the way Harriet liked them. He filled the suitcase quickly, moved his clothes into the empty space, took his aftershave from the en suite and sprayed it all over the inside.