The Things We Need to Say Read online

  ‘Hey,’ he said, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m scared,’ I replied, quietly.

  ‘Oh, Fran,’ he said, taking me in his arms. ‘Women have been having babies for millions of years. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  Famous last words.

  JULY 2016

  Fran

  The next morning after breakfast, a breakfast that consisted solely of a cup of black tea with lemon as she is unable to manage much else, Fran returns to her clean room to find a small paper parcel of ginger sweets on the dressing table along with a note that simply says ‘Mia’ alongside a drawing of a heart. Fran could have cried from the thoughtfulness of it, having already eaten all the ginger sweets from the previous day. She sits on the bed and notices that Mia has propped the little plush Piglet up against the pillows when she has made the bed.

  The previous evening she thought she had fully recovered and had enjoyed the delicious food. At least she hasn’t been sick this morning, which means, whether this is food poisoning or a stomach bug, it must be on its way out.

  Underneath the nausea Fran feels hungry but has no idea what she can possibly eat that will make her feel better. Mostly she just feels exhausted. She’s not sure where she’s going to summon the energy from to teach this morning. Yesterday, when everyone arrived, she had felt so at home, so alive. When she was teaching, when they were eating together and her mind was occupied she felt like Fran again. But this morning after a night spent tossing and turning, battling with her demons and waves of nausea, she doesn’t feel capable of anything.

  She has been awake since four a.m. thinking about Molly turning thirty. Thirty can be such a turning point for so many women, a point when they find themselves having to make a lot of grown-up decisions. Fran has been thinking about the choices she made when she turned thirty and the choices Molly has had thrust upon her and how all those choices can change the whole trajectory of life.

  What would have happened if Fran hadn’t come off the Pill on her thirtieth birthday? Would she have been able to avoid all the heartache that was to come? Would it have saved both her and Will? Or did she ever even have a choice?

  Fran sucks on another ginger sweet and starts to feel the nausea subside. She wonders what Will is doing, if he’s going to go to work today. She realises she still isn’t angry with him. When she was on the phone to Janine on Monday she knew Janine expected her to be mad, to be angry, to hate Will for what he’d done. But she doesn’t. She can’t hate him.

  At some point in the small hours of the morning it began to dawn on Fran that there was more to this than Will cheating. That ultimately Will’s infidelity was the least of their problems. She began to wonder if they had spent too long worrying about each other and not enough time thinking about themselves. They had both put their lives on hold for so long waiting for a baby that never came and then they’d lost everything so quickly last summer.

  All Will had ever wanted was a family, wasn’t it? Fran wonders if their marriage can survive not having children. She wonders if it was over long before Will cheated. Can love seep away without anyone noticing? Does it leave a shadow so that you think it’s there when it isn’t?

  She forces herself to bring her mind back to the retreat and the people who need her now, and spends a little time going through her notes for the two yoga sessions she’ll be teaching today. Then she spends a few minutes writing in her journal. She used to keep a diary as a child and it’s something she has started up again recently and she finds it invaluable after everything that has happened. Even a few words here and there throughout the day can stop her spiralling into panic mode, can stop her worrying about Will.

  When she’s sure she’s ready, she stands up, stretches, and thinks about how her body feels. She doesn’t let herself listen to the whisper of doubt, the whisper of hope, the whisper of fear in the back of her head.

  Elizabeth

  Elizabeth is standing in a forward bend, looking at her feet, on the first morning yoga session of the retreat.

  ‘Lift up all ten of your toes,’ Fran says. ‘Then see if you can put them all back down one at a time.’

  Elizabeth looks at all ten of her toes, the nails of which she has had painted shell pink especially for the retreat. She can’t remember the last time she had a pedicure. Her husband always said he hated her feet, so she never bothered drawing attention to them. She watches Fran’s feet as she walks past – each of her tiny toenails is painted a different neon colour.

  Much as she knows she’s meant to focus, to stay in the present moment, Elizabeth finds her mind drifting away from the forward bend, which she seems to have been holding for an impossibly long time. As the sun makes stripes on the yoga studio floor and the dust motes sparkle in the light, she thinks about her husband – her soon-to-be ex-husband and remembers the heat of the Rhodesian sun where they met in 1979 – two teachers who, after a year in underfunded, dusty English schools, ran away to Africa in the hope of a better life. Two people looking for adventure.

  It hadn’t been a great love affair, Tony hadn’t swept her off her feet – in fact, the first time they met, Elizabeth barely noticed him, although he always claimed to remember her. It had been at a drinks reception at the home of one of the school inspectors – an ex-army Colonel from Surrey who spoke too loudly and whose wife drank too much. Sometimes living in Africa felt like living in a soap opera. Other times it was terrifying.

  Their love had been a slow burner, but the night Elizabeth left Africa – six months before Tony’s contract was up – he asked her to marry him. Other expats they’d known had married in Africa, had their children there, but that wasn’t for them. Africa hadn’t turned out the way either of them had wanted. They got married, bought a house in Cambridge, and Tony got a job in a local comprehensive. By the time they were married Elizabeth was already pregnant and it was a long time before she was to teach again.

  She shakes that thought away.

  ‘Try to keep your awareness on your own mat, on your own breath,’ Fran says as she walks past Elizabeth again. Elizabeth tries to concentrate. It’s as though Fran knew her mind was wandering.

  Fran hadn’t been looking herself that morning – paler than usual and Elizabeth had noticed she’d had nothing but tea for breakfast. She thinks about what Constance said the previous afternoon and then shakes that thought away too. Fran’s private life is none of her business.

  ‘How do forward bends make you feel?’ Fran asks.

  Right now? Bloody terrible, Elizabeth thinks. She wonders how much longer Fran is going to keep them here as she watches a bead of sweat drop from her brow onto the mat.

  ‘You’re probably all wondering how much longer I’m going to make you stay like this,’ Fran says. Elizabeth can hear the smile in her voice. ‘If you feel yourself resisting just breathe into it. Let it go.’

  Easy for you to say, Elizabeth thinks.

  Grounded. That’s how forward bends make Elizabeth feel she realises, and she could truly do with some of that right now.

  ‘Step back into downward dog,’ Fran says, finally. ‘And drop into child’s pose.’ The sense of relief in the room is palpable.

  ‘Ask yourselves why you’re here.’ Fran says this last sentence quietly, almost as though she is talking to herself. Almost as though the rest of the group weren’t meant to hear it. But Elizabeth asks herself the question anyway.

  Forgiveness. When Fran asked everybody to write down an intention for the retreat, forgiveness had been the word that echoed around Elizabeth’s head, as though somebody were whispering it in her ear.

  She doesn’t have anybody to forgive; nobody has done anything wrong except her. But unless she learns to forgive herself, she doesn’t think she will be able to move on.

  Other than her own family and Constance and Will, nobody knows the truth about her divorce, unless Tony has told people – and Elizabeth suspects he hasn’t. But she wonders if telling
the truth is part of the process, part of her journey to forgiveness.

  ‘Tuck your toes under and come back into downward dog,’ Fran says.

  Fran

  ‘Tell me to mind my own business,’ Katrin says as she pushes her plate away from her. ‘But what happened between you and your husband, Elizabeth?’

  Fran looks up from her own plate where she’s been moving some ratatouille around for the last ten minutes. Her eyes flick from Elizabeth to Katrin and back again as she feels the atmosphere around the table thicken.

  Amado had been waiting for them at their table on the terrace when they came down for lunch. Fran had watched as he’d pulled Elizabeth’s chair out for her and unfolded her serviette, placing it on her knee with a flourish. She’d noticed the look of surprise on Constance’s face that someone other than her was getting all the male attention. She’s noticed a look of fondness pass between Elizabeth and the hotel manager – a look that made Fran feel warm inside.

  Lunch had been delicious, even though Fran hadn’t felt much like eating, and conversation had flowed easily until now.

  Everybody is looking up but still nobody has spoken. Fran wonders if she should say something, but her throat feels dry. Her mind flicks momentarily to Will, imagining the question directed to her – what happened between you and your husband, Fran?

  ‘He left me,’ Elizabeth says, suddenly, the sound of her voice breaking the silence like shattering glass. Fran notices the heads of some of the other guests in the hotel turning towards them and hopes their table is far enough away to avoid eavesdropping.

  ‘What did he do?’ Katrin asks.

  ‘How do you know it was him who did something?’ Elizabeth replies quietly, without emotion.

  Katrin shrugs. ‘Isn’t it always?’ she says.

  Fran looks over at her and wonders where this is coming from. This isn’t the Katrin she knows from yoga classes: graceful, successful, compassionate Katrin. This is somebody else. There is a look on her face that Fran doesn’t recognise – it’s not quite malice, but it’s not far from it. What’s happened since this morning? Fran’s eyes flick sideways to Molly who is staring at her friend with an expression of shock. She doesn’t know what’s going on either.

  ‘Well not in this case,’ Elizabeth says in that same calm, measured tone. ‘I had an affair and my husband found out, so he left.’ Elizabeth puts her knife and fork together carefully on her plate as though to signal the end of the subject.

  Katrin doesn’t say anything and Fran notices her looking away, blinking rapidly as though trying not to cry. Fran thinks about Elizabeth’s words, how cut and dried it was for her husband. Elizabeth had an affair so he left. Is that what she should do too? Should she leave Will? She wonders if it is what Janine expects. She sees Will’s face as he held on to her arm before the taxi drove away, asking her if she was leaving him. Is that what he expects? Is that what he wants?

  ‘Fran?’

  Fran looks up and realises Katrin is asking her a question.

  ‘You’ve been through your fair share of heartbreak,’ Katrin repeats. ‘Do you think it’s all preordained? Do you think the universe plans all this disaster to punish us for unknown sins?’

  Fran can sense the other guests looking in their direction again. Molly is staring at Katrin and Katrin is staring at Fran. Nobody else knows where to look and David stands up suddenly, so quickly his chair crashes to the floor behind him. He fumbles to pick it up again and tries to speak but no words come out as he rushes off, away from the full force of female indignation.

  Fran wonders what Katrin knows. How does she know about Will? But then, as the immediate panic subsides she realises Katrin is talking about something else – most people around this table know what happened the previous summer and eventually she’s going to have to tell those who don’t. But not now. Not now.

  ‘I don’t think the universe works like that,’ she hears herself saying, her voice sounding a lot calmer than she feels. She notices the women around the table looking up at her, a sense of relief that she seems to be saving the situation.

  ‘I think sometimes we can use this idea of “the universe” as an excuse to relinquish responsibility for our own lives, or as something to blame, especially when we don’t understand what’s happening to us or why,’ she goes on, realising how much of what she is saying applies to herself. ‘I don’t think the universe is something that controls us; I think it’s something that we are actively a part of, like a sort of collective. We’re responsible for our own luck, our own futures, our own happiness.’ She stops suddenly. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Sometimes I have a habit of saying things that people don’t necessarily want to hear.’

  Katrin is staring at her.

  ‘Good for you,’ Constance says. ‘It takes guts to go against the grain. Sometimes yoga teachers can be a bit …’ she pauses, looking for the right words ‘… rainbows and unicorns,’ she finishes.

  Even Katrin smiles.

  ‘There’s always good and bad,’ Fran says. ‘We can’t appreciate one without the other. Yoga isn’t about pretending bad things won’t happen, it’s about giving you the tools to deal with them when they do.’

  She tries to catch Katrin’s eye, but she has turned away, looking out towards the sea. Whatever has brought this on, the subject is clearly closed.

  But the conversation plays around Fran’s head for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Much later, as she lies in the huge king-sized bed, spread out like a starfish, she still wonders what happened at lunchtime and what made Katrin ask those questions. And she wonders about her own life, her marriage, about how Will still makes her feel, how hard it is to be angry with him.

  She thinks about Elizabeth and Molly and the new starts that are being thrust upon them and she thinks about the empty room in their house in Suffolk, the room that neither she nor Will ever go into, the room that should have been a nursery. She never really stops thinking about that.

  Will

  He looks at the two cups of tea sitting on the kitchen counter in front of him. He rubs his hand down his face, the stubble on his chin scratching his palm as he does so. He hasn’t shaved all week. He can’t believe he made her tea. He can’t believe she isn’t here. The clock in the hall is still ticking.

  He pours the tea down the sink and walks towards his study. As he passes the clock he stops, opens the door in the front of it and unwinds it. At least that way he doesn’t have to listen to the seconds of his life ticking away. He walks into his study and pours himself a large Scotch. He sits at his desk and looks out into the garden as the last vestiges of twilight turn into night.

  It’s only been two days since Fran left, but to him, rattling around this big house on his own, it feels longer. This is a house built for a family, a house that should have children running up and down its stairs, playing in its rooms – this house doesn’t deserve the sadness that he and Fran have brought to it. He wonders if it’s time to move on. He wonders if Fran will want to move on with him.

  He looks out towards the garden, catching his reflection in the window, seeing his father there again. He thinks about all the plans he had, how he’d looked forward to watching his family grow up – the joy that garden could have brought. And then there’s the room upstairs, the closed door that taunts him every time he walks past, the room they never talk about. The room that should have been a nursery.

  He picks up his phone. He’s desperate to call her, to hear her voice, to tell her again that he’s sorry and that he loves her, but he promised he wouldn’t. It’s taking all his willpower to keep that promise.

  He has never been a patient man. When he has an idea, when he wants something, he wants it then and there. He was the child who would carefully unwrap the Christmas presents under the tree when the rest of the family were asleep and then wrap them up again because he couldn’t bear to wait until Christmas Day to find out what they were. Waiting to find out what Fran is going to decide to do, waiting t
o find out if she still loves him enough to try again is going to be the biggest test of patience he’s ever known. Worse than waiting for the results of his law exams, worse than sitting in court waiting for the judge to make a decision, waiting to see if he’s won.

  He’d slept with Karen because he wanted to have sex again and Fran wasn’t ready. He could make up excuses about his heart breaking, about his marriage being over – but the truth of it was that he couldn’t wait. What kind of a person did that make him?

  And Karen had been right. There had been a part of him hoping for contrition when he told Fran about the affair. He had hoped that the burden of guilt would lessen. But her knowing hasn’t changed anything. He still feels exactly as he did before and now he knows he has broken his wife’s heart again just when she was beginning to think there was a possibility of it mending.

  There is no one like Fran. Everybody else, even his ex-wife, had been a warm-up act for the main event. He knew from the moment Fran walked into his office, he learned what love was meant to feel like. Nearly twelve years after he first met her, he still feels that sensation of white heat whenever he looks at her.

  And yet, he hadn’t been able to wait for her.

  He will now.

  Fran

  When Fran returns to her room on Thursday morning after breakfast, she finds Mia has left more sweets for her. She hasn’t told anyone that she is still feeling unwell and wonders how Mia knows. She tries to ignore the voice in the back of her head that is asking her what kind of stomach bug clears up every afternoon. She begs the voice to be quiet; she has a yoga retreat to run.

  That morning’s yoga session is based around a series of twists. Fran has always loved the seated twists in yoga, the way they make her spine feel after a long day sitting at a computer, the way they open up her shoulders, her chest, her heart. They can sometimes make her feel vulnerable, but in that vulnerability there is a strength.