Sophie Hannah: Hurting Distance

What are you staring at now? Where are you?

I wanted to ask for more details. What did you mean, about Juliet breaking? Would she collapse, sobbing, on the floor, lose her memory, become violent? People can break in a range of ways, and I have never been able to work out if you are frightened of your wife or frightened for her. But your tone was solemn, and I knew you had more to say. I didn’t want to interrupt you.

‘It’s not just that,’ you muttered, scrunching up the diamond-patterned coverlet in your hands. ‘It’s her. I can’t bear the thought of you seeing her.’

‘Why?’ I felt it would be tactless to tell you that you had nothing to worry about on that score. Did you imagine I was curious, desperate to know who you were married to? Even now, I have a horror of seeing Juliet. I wish I didn’t know her name. I would like to keep her as unreal as possible in my mind. Ideally, I would know her only as ‘she’ and there would be less for my jealousy to latch on to. But I could hardly have said that, could I, when we first met? ‘Don’t tell me your wife’s name, because I think I might be in love with you and I can’t stand to know anything about her.’

I doubt you could imagine the anguish I’ve felt, climbing into bed every night this past year and thinking: Juliet will be lying next to Robert in their bed at this moment. It isn’t the thought of her sleeping beside you that makes my face twist in pain and my insides clench; it’s the idea that she regards it as ordinary, routine. I don’t torment myself with the image of the two of you kissing or making love; instead, I imagine Juliet on her side of the bed, reading a book—something boring about a member of the Royal Family or how to look after houseplants—and barely looking up when you come into the room. She doesn’t notice you undressing, getting into bed beside her. Do you wear pyjamas? I can’t picture it, somehow. Anyway, whatever you wear, Juliet is used to it, after years of marriage. This is not special for her; it’s just another boring, unremarkable night at home. There is nothing she particularly wants or needs to say to you. She is perfectly able to concentrate on the details of Prince Andrew and Fergie’s divorce or how to pot a cactus. When her eyelids start to droop, she tosses her book down on the floor and turns on her side, away from you, without even saying goodnight.

I want the opportunity to take you for granted. Although I never would.

‘Why don’t you want me to see her, Robert?’ I asked, because you seemed to be stuck in a thought, trapped somewhere in your head. You had that look you always get: a frown, your lower jaw jutting out. ‘Is there something . . . wrong with her?’ If I’d been someone else, I might have added, ‘Are you ashamed of her?’ but for the past three years I have been unable to use the word ‘ashamed’. You won’t understand this, because of what I haven’t told you. There are things I too like to keep separate.

‘Juliet’s not had an easy life,’ you said. Your tone was defensive, as if I’d insulted her. ‘I want you to think of me as I am when I’m with you, here. Not in that house, with her. I hate that fucking house! When we get married, I’ll buy us somewhere new.’ I remember giggling when you said this, because I’d recently seen a film in which a husband takes his new wife to see the house he has designed and built for her. It is huge and beautiful and has a big red bow wrapped round it. When he removes his hands from her eyes and says, ‘Surprise! ’ the wife storms off in a huff; she is angry that he hasn’t consulted her, has presented her with a fait accompli.

I love it when you make decisions for me. I want you to feel proprietorial towards me. I want things because you want them. Except Juliet. You say you don’t want her, but you’re not yet ready to leave. It’s not if, it’s when, you say. But not yet. I find that hard to understand.

I stroked your arm. I cannot and never have been able to touch you without feeling faint and tingly, and I felt guilty then because I was supposed to be having a serious conversation, not thinking about sex. ‘I promise I’ll keep my distance,’ I said, knowing you need to be in control, cannot bear to feel events slipping away from you. If we are ever married— when we are married—I will call you a control freak affectionately, and you will laugh. ‘Don’t worry.’ I held up my hand. ‘Scout’s honour. I won’t suddenly turn up at your house.’

Yet here I am, parked directly opposite. You tell me, though: what choice do I have? If you are here, I will apologise and explain how worried I’ve been, and I know you’ll forgive me. If you are here, maybe I won’t care if you forgive me or not; at least I’ll know you’re all right. It’s been more than three days, Robert. I’m starting to go slowly crazy.

When I turned into your road, the first thing I saw was your red lorry, parked right at the bottom on the grass verge, beyond the few houses and before the road narrows to become a country path. I felt a surge in my chest, as if someone had given me a shot of helium, when I read your name on the side of the van. (You’re always telling me not to call it a van, aren’t you? You wouldn’t accept ‘Red Van Man’ as a nickname, though I tried several times.) Robert Haworth, in big black letters. I adore your name.

The lorry is the same size it’s always been, but it looks enormous here, at an angle on the grassy slope, crammed in between the houses and the fields; there is barely enough space for it. My first thought was that this isn’t a very convenient place for a lorry driver to live. It must be a nightmare, reversing out on to the main road.

My second thought is that it’s Monday. Your lorry shouldn’t be here. You should be out in it, on a job. I am getting really worried now, too worried to be intimidated—by the sight of your house, yours and hers , Juliet’s—into scurrying home to pretend everything is probably okay.

I knew your house was number three, and I suppose I imagined that the numbers would go up to twenty or thirty as they do on most streets, but yours is the third and last house. The first two are opposite one another, nearer to the main road and the Old Chapel Brasserie on the corner. Your house stands alone further down, towards the fields at the end of the lane, and all I can see of it from the road is a bit of slate roof and a long, rectangular slab of beige stone wall, broken up only by a small square window on the top right-hand side: a bathroom, perhaps, or a box room.

I have learned something new about you. You chose to buy the sort of house I’d never buy, one where the back is front-facing and the front is concealed, not visible to passers-by. It gives an unwelcoming impression. I know it’s for the sake of privacy, and it makes sense to have the front overlooking the best views, but I’ve always found houses like yours disconcerting all the same, as if they have rudely turned their backs on the world. Yvon agrees; I know, because we drive past another back-turned house on our regular route to the supermarket. ‘Houses like that are for recluses who live on their hermity own and say, “Bah, humbug,” a lot,’ Yvon said the first time we passed it.

I know what she’d say about 3 Chapel Lane if she were here: ‘It looks like the house of someone who might say, “You mustn’t ever come to the house.” As indeed it is!’ I used to talk to you about Yvon, but I stopped after you frowned and said she sounded sarcastic and chippy. That was the only time something you said really upset me. I told you she was my best friend and had been since school. And, yes, she is sarcastic, but only in a good way, only in a way that cheers you up, somehow. She’s blunt and irreverent and she firmly believes we should all poke fun at everything, even bad things. Even agonising love for a married man you can’t have; Yvon thinks that, especially, is something we ought to poke fun at, and half the time her levity is the only thing that keeps me sane.