The Second Life of Nathan Jones. David Atkinson

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       Chapter 5

      Christmas and New Year passed with a black cloud hanging over the flat. No matter how he tried Nathan couldn’t shake off the gloom. Even the usual manic Christmas morning present fest had a hollow feel about it. The girls returned to school and nursery and the time Nathan had been dreading was nearly upon him.

      This would be his last weekend at home with his wife. He’d been trying to come up with a plan to make her stay but, so far, he’d drawn a blank. He’d pleaded with her a few times over the last few weeks, but she wasn’t interested. He’d considered trying to emotionally blackmail her with the girls but didn’t want to use his children so blatantly. Besides, he’d decided, if her daughters had meant that much to her she wouldn’t be leaving anyway.

      The whole thing had come about due to that stupid afternoon when he’d stepped in front of the bus. Laura had said it had only hurried up the inevitable, but Nathan wasn’t so sure. Laura had glimpsed the potential of a life without him when that had happened, and it had been the catalyst for everything else that had followed. It wasn’t as if he thought their married life had been perfect, far from it, but, in his head, they had stayed together for the good of their family. In his maybe old-fashioned view of the world this appeared to be perfectly acceptable if it meant they remained together. Miserable, but together.

      He smiled at his own analysis. He didn’t want a miserable marriage any more than his wife did. He wanted their old relationship back, the one they’d had when they were first together, the first few months of wide-eyed wonder they’d shared after Millie’s birth when everything had seemed filled with promise and novelty.

      Millie and Chloe would be home from school soon. After that he planned to cook up some steaks for Laura and himself. Millie would have a little bit and he’d do some pasta for the younger girls, who wouldn’t touch steak. He’d already bought a nice bottle of expensive Shiraz; well, a tenner seemed expensive for him. He’d sauté some potatoes and serve them and the steak with green beans, pepper sauce and onion rings, the height of sophistication for Nathan. It also felt a little like the last meal for a condemned prisoner or, perhaps more fittingly, the last meal for a condemned marriage.

      He’d been so busy in the kitchen that he almost forgot to get Daisy from nursery and had to zoom up the road in his car. He made it just as the last of the parents were leaving the building. When he bustled into the classroom he found Daisy sitting on Mrs Ridgwell’s knee, crying. Mrs Ridgwell, a severe woman in early menopause, always appeared to be mad at everything and everyone.

      ‘Daisy’s been upset all day, Mr Jones. She says her mummy’s leaving – is that true?’

      Nathan frowned. They’d deliberately agreed to limit what they said to Daisy, deciding she would be too young to grasp the reality of their situation. Of course, her older sisters had been subject to no such censor and he suspected they’d been telling Daisy more than she needed to know.

      ‘She’s going to be working down south a few days each week, that’s all.’ He wasn’t willing to share more than that with strangers.

      Mrs Ridgwell looked over the top of her glasses at Nathan and pouted. ‘Daisy is very upset about it. I think your wife should reconsider going if this is the effect it’s going to have on her children.’

      Nathan initially reacted with anger at her poking her nose in where it had no right to be, but then he realised she echoed his own sentiments exactly. So he relaxed and said, ‘I’ll mention it to her, Mrs Ridgwell.’ He prised his daughter free from the clutches of the scowling teacher and guided her to his car.

      Daisy’s demeanour brightened considerably when she arrived home and into the loving circle of her sisters, a relationship so complex, enveloping and at times contradictory that Nathan, as a man and a father, would never completely understand it. However, as he stood and watched Chloe and Millie making a fuss of their youngest sibling he decided, whatever happened between him and Laura, he’d always put his girls first.

      His wife arrived home from work tired and stressed as usual. She said a quick hello to everyone, accepted a glass of wine from Nathan and disappeared to soak in the bath.

      *

      Later, after dinner, Laura and Nathan sat in silence at the dinner table. The plates had been cleared and stacked in the sink and Laura pulled out a notepad from her handbag. She poured the remainder of the wine into their glasses and said, ‘Right, Nathan, you’re going to have your hands full on Monday, so you need to make a list of what needs done and when.’

      ‘Do I?’

      ‘If you want to have any kind of life you do, yeah.’

      ‘I like my life just as it is.’

      Laura sighed. ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter what you like, does it, Nathan? СКАЧАТЬ