No ones got me in their grip
Ill be late, weve got a massive backlog on site, Victorias voice came muffled over the hum of an angle grinder. Can you hear me at all?
Loud and clear, I shifted the phone to my other ear. Should I wait for dinner?
Dont bother. I might not even make it back, the deadlines breathing down my neck.
Right.
A few short beeps. Thats how it always ends.
I set the phone down on the kitchen table and stared at a pot of cooling beef stew. Id cooked for two out of habit, though Id long since stopped. Victoria was a tiler, and her schedule looked like a heartmonitor trace: frantic spikes of activity followed by long, flat stretches. For half a year she hopped from site to site, laying expensive porcelain tiles in other peoples flats, pulling in enough money to make me quietly jealous. Then came another halfyear of absolute lull, when the orders dried up and she stayed home.
Both extremes were unbearable in their own way. When Victoria was working, she vanished physically, emotionally, mentally completely. Shed leave at seven in the morning and, if she bothered to return at all, be back after midnight. Sometimes shed even spend the night on the job, because whats the point of hopping back and forth when I have to start again at six? Id have dinner alone, watch a series by myself, and crawl into a cold, empty bed. The only reminder that I was still married was a crumpled marriage certificate tucked somewhere in a file drawer.
I tried once to tally how many evenings wed actually shared a meal in the past three months. Four. Four!
The real hell began when the workday ended. Victoria would stroll back home. Youd think that would be a cause for celebration, a chance to finally be together. Not so. After months of hopping from flat to flat shed become so fixated on the myriad design choices shed encountered that her own home started to drive her mad. Shed stare at the bathroom tiles the very ones shed laid herself two years ago and her eyes would twitch.
This is a nightmare, she muttered, running a finger along the grout lines. How could I have let this happen? A misalignment of one and a half millimetres. One and a half millimetres, Edward!
I, who couldnt tell a oneandahalfmillimetre error from a fifteenmillimetre one, gave a polite nod.
And then it began.
First shed say, Lets see if we can fix it. Then, Ill just chip out one tile, replace it, and were done. Next, Since weve started, we might as well redo the whole wall, otherwise its pointless. Before I knew it, Id get home to find the bathroom gone just naked walls, piles of construction debris, and Victoria in a respirator happily mixing tile adhesive.
In three years of marriage wed survived four bathroom renovations, three kitchens and one hallway.
The job finished on time, and another lull settled over the work. But not for me.
Bring me the tile spacers, Victoria called while I was on site. And the grey grout, Ill text you the brand.
Im at work.
Drop by at lunch. I need to finish that corner before evening.
Fine.
Bring, pick up, order, help. I turned into a courier, a loader, and a handyman all at once. Victoria never left the house, venturing out only to the builders yard for supplies sometimes three times a day, because I didnt know the grout wouldnt be enough, how was I supposed to know?.
She was constantly exhausted, worn out by the very renovations shed started herself. In the evenings Id find her in the kitchen dirty, bedraggled, tile dust in her hair and shed stare at me with empty eyes.
You having dinner?
Later. Ive no energy.
She had no energy for anything. No conversation, no film together, no intimacy. I was only useful for fetching rollers when she was too lazy to dress, hauling a sack of cement from the van, or holding a level while she aligned a row.
Were married, Victoria would say when I tried to protest. Married people help each other.
Married a laughable word for a relationship where one person exists purely as service staff for the others professional ambitions.
Saturday night, Victoria was rearranging the splashback above the stove. The previous one didnt please her colourwise. I was perched in the kitchen amid the chaos, trying to sip tea. The kettle sat on a stool in the hallway because the countertop was buried under tiles. I fetched sugar from the bathroom. I couldnt find a spoon anywhere.
Poppy, I began cautiously, can we call it a day?
Call it a day? she didnt even turn, fitting another tile to the wall.
All this. The endless renovations. Youre constantly redoing something in the flat.
And what? I like it. This is my home, I want it perfect.
Itll never be perfect for you. Youll redo everything, then move on to another site, get inspired by something new, and start again.
She dropped the tile and slowly turned. There was something dangerous in her gaze.
And what do you suggest? Live like this, surrounded by everything that irritates you?
I suggest we live normally. Like normal people. Go to the cinema. Eat dinner together. Talk about anything but grout lines and sealants. Do you even remember the last time we went out just the two of us?
I have work.
You dont have work now! You invented it yourself!
Thats not an invented job, Edward. Its called improving living conditions. Some people specialise in that.
Some people just want to live. Not on a construction site, not in dust, not in a fetchandcarry mode. Live with a wife who remembers she has a husband.
Victoria crossed her arms, as if shielding herself.
You just dont get it. Youre a programmer, sitting in your cosy office, tapping away at keys. I create something with my hands. Something real, something you can touch. And when I see I can do better, I do better.
At the expense of everything else!
If youre not happy nobodys got you.
She said it almost offhand, like it was about an uncomfortable chair you could simply toss out and replace. I fell silent. In those seven words lay the whole problem compressed, distilled. To Victoria, I was an option, not a necessity, not a husband, not a beloved partner merely a switch you could flip off when I got in the way.
You know, I brushed the dust off my jeans, maybe youre right.
In what?
That nothings really holding me down.
We stared at each other through piles of tile, bags of grout, the remnants of what had once been a kitchen. Both of us understood that the fight wasnt about the renovation. It was about the fact that our rhythms had long since drifted apart, intersecting only at the postal address.
We signed the divorce papers in three months. Surprisingly civil. There was nothing to split.
I walked around my new flat small, but spotless, not a single sack of cement in sight and could barely believe the silence. No drilling. No banging. No frantic calls for sealant because the old stock ran out.
For the first time in three years I could actually plan my evenings. Yet something was missing, a hollow in my chest that no planning could fill.
Almost two years later.
Heard the news? Dave, an old mate, rang on Friday night. About your ex?
I tensed. Since the divorce Id avoided any mention of Victoria.
What news?
Shes married. Just recently.
That fast, eh?
Yep. And guess who she married? Dave paused dramatically. A tiler, can you imagine?
I snorted.
Hows that working out?
They say theyre brilliant together. Roaming sites as a pair, a perfect duo.
I thought about how Victoria had found someone who spoke her language. Someone for whom a oneandahalfmillimetre shift was a tragedy. Someone who understood the difference between epoxy and cement grout not because someone taught him, but because hed learned it on the job.
What had once driven me to the brink of madness now underpinned their relationship. I found it oddly amusing.
Three months after that call I ran into them in a supermarket, purely by chance. Id stopped after work for groceries, grabbed a basket, headed for the dairy. Victoria stood by the yogurts, a man of similar age, broadshouldered, hands clearly accustomed to hard work. They were debating something in low voices, laughing. She nudged his shoulder; he poked hers playfully, and she squealed, hopping back.
They looked like teenagers, smitten teenagers who didnt care about anyone else because the whole world had narrowed to the person beside them. Victoria looked different. Not drained, not holloweyed, not the woman whod just spent eight hours pounding walls. She looked alive, just as I remembered her at the start of our relationship.
I hesitated, set my basket down, and left the store without buying anything.
In the car I smiled. We simply werent meant for each other. Our divorce had been inevitable.
I started the engine.
If Victorias found her person, Ill find mine too.
The thick fog that had settled over my life after the split finally lifted.
