Nothing Personal, Just Possessions
Pack that vase as well, said Margaret Whitmore, not turning around.
She stood in the centre of the sitting room, inspecting the shelves with the cool, appraising gaze of someone peering into a shop windowall already paid for. Composed. Methodical. Her eyes narrowed in the manner of an aficionado.
Which vase? I asked, my voice lower than I intended. I cleared my throat and repeated, Margaret, which vase do you mean?
That one. The blue one. We brought it back from Prague in ninety-eight. Its a family heirloom.
I looked over at the blue vase. Tom and I bought it together for our third wedding anniversary in a tiny shop on Charles Street. The shopkeeper was an old man with a grey beard, who said something to us in Czech. Tom had chuckled and pretended to understand. Afterwards wed eaten chimney cake from a street stall, and Id burned my tongue, and wed both laughed about it for half an hour.
It isnt a family heirloom, I replied, evenly. We bought it together. In 2009.
Emma, darling, Margaret finally turned, her voice taking on that tone Id learned to recognise the first year of marriagepatient and explanatory, the sort reserved for a misguided child. Lets not make things complicated. You know full well that all of this, she gestured around the sitting room, was paid for with our familys money.
Our familys money, I echoed. Ours. Mine and Toms.
Tom was earning. His father and I helped. You kept house. Its not quite the same.
Tom stood at the window, gazing down at London. From the twenty-third floor the city looked tiny, like a toy: tiny cars, tiny trees, tiny people. He didnt say a word.
I watched his back. I knew every line of it by heart. How he slouched with fatigue. The little mole below his left shoulder blade. The rhythm of his breathing when he pretended to be asleep. Ten years. I had known that back for ten years, and now he simply stood at the window and let his mother pack our life into cardboard boxes.
***
The flat truly was beautiful. Id always admitted thathigh ceilings, panoramic windows, American walnut floors you dare not scratch with heels. The kitchen from Luxe InteriorsMargarets pride, paid for outright and mentioned at every available opportunity. The chandelier in the sitting room resembled a waterfall mid-freeze.
I lived here for eight years but never felt it was home. Not because it wasnt lovely. Just too perfect. Too expensive. Curated to within an inch of its life from catalogues Margaret brought by.
The day we moved in, I placed a little clay pot of violets on the bedroom windowsill. Bought at Columbia Road Market for a fiver. Within a week the pot vanished. Margaret said shed chucked it: it didnt work with the aesthetic.
Id let it go. So had Tom.
It was the first time. There were many more.
***
The movers came at ten sharp. Two silent blokes with a dolly and rolls of tape. Margaret greeted them at the door with a printed list in hand, numbered and sorted by room. I caught a glimpse: Sitting room: grey leather corner sofa, 1; marble coffee table, 1; bronze floor lamp, 2…
I turned away and escaped into the kitchen. Switched on the kettlejust something to do with my hands.
Tom followed, stopping in the doorway.
Em, he said.
What?
You alright?
I looked at him, at the face Id once adored, which now wore what I mentally called his apologetic schoolboy lookeyebrows drawn, eyes averted, voice soft, almost pleading.
Im fine, I said. Tea?
Em.
Do you want tea or not, Tom?
He hesitated.
I do.
I poured the boiling water into two mugs. The white ones with rabbits wed picked up in Amsterdam, silly and out of place in the Luxe Interiors kitchen. Margaret dubbed them trashy. Thats why I cherished them.
We stood together drinking tea, Margarets calm yet decisive directions wafting in from the sitting room amid the noise of tape and shifting furniture.
She has no right, I murmurednot to him, more to myself. We bought the sofa together. I chose those lamps. The paintings in the bedroomI brought those from Florence with my own money.
Ill talk to her.
Youve said that five times today.
He didnt answer. Just stared into his mug.
Tom, I said, my voice finally slippingexhausted, flat, nothing like I wanted it to be. Im not asking for the sofa. I dont want the sofa. I just want you to… be here. Stand by me. Just once.
He looked at me.
I am here.
No, I sighed, youre standing by the window.
***
Margaret was sixty-four, the kind of woman who could fill a room until there was hardly any air left for anyone else. Not cruel, really, just precise. Always sure of what was proper and what didnt fit the scheme.
She loved her son. I never doubted it. Her love simply took up so much space there wasnt much left for me. Not because she was unkind. She just couldnt believe anyone would love him as much as she did. Or more.
That first year, Id tried to befriend her. Invited her to Sunday lunch. Asked for her apple crumble recipe. Even bought her a scarf Id agonised over. She thanked me, laid it aside, and told me her skin was too sensitive for wool.
By the second year I stopped trying to be chummy and simply kept my distance. Politely. Calmly.
By the third, I realised distance didnt work. Margaret didnt acknowledge boundaries unless she drew them herself.
By years four, five, six… I stopped counting.
***
Tom Nicholas, she called from the sitting room. Come help me with the paintings.
He put down his mug. I watched him respond to her voicea slightly hurried step, shoulders raised, a readiness Id watched for ten years.
How many times had he gone, obediently, whenever she called? The bell, her voicealways the first to answer.
I wasnt angry anymore. I was simply too tired. Anger needs energy, and Id run out long ago.
In the sitting room, she held forth about paintings. That one must comeits from Fortnums, a sound investment… Then Toms indistinct murmur, acquiescing.
I finished my tea. Washed my mug. Set it to dry.
Then I walked out to the hall and on to the bedroom. Not because I needed to be there. I just couldnt stand listening to my life being divvied up by bullet points on a spreadsheet.
The bedroom was quiet. The sun cast golden lines over the made bed. No decision yet on whod keep it. Margaret probably already knew.
I perched on the edge. Ran my hand across the sky-blue coverlet.
I remembered picking it out. Id stood in John Lewis with two options: a sensible dark onepractical, as Margaret would sayor this pale blue, as light as the sky and wildly impractical. I chose the blue. Tom looked surprised but said nothing.
That blue coverlet was perhaps my most rebellious act in eight years of living here.
***
I opened the overhead cupboard in the bedroom just out of habit. Hunting an old handbag. There it was, stashed in the shadows, and beside it, a shoe box.
Just an ordinary cardboard shoe box, a bit battered, with Misc. Ours scrawled on the lid in my handwriting.
I couldnt remember what was in it at first.
I took it down. Set it beside me.
Opened it.
On top: two tattered cinema tickets, yellowed with age. What film? I had to thinkoh, Amélie. Our third date. Tom complained all night he didnt like it, then confessed years later he was embarrassed to admit he did.
Beneath, a postcard from Barcelona: our honeymoon. Sagrada Familia on the front, and on the back, Tom had scribbled, I love you more than Gaudí loved this cathedral, and he loved it for seventy-three years. Id laughed, asked, Youll love me seventy-three years, then? He promised, Ill try.
Hes forty now. Im thirty-eight. We made it ten. Sixty-three to go.
Holding that postcard, I thought about that.
Then: a little Eiffel Tower fridge magnet from a Paris antiques marketswiftly banished from the fridge by Margaret as cheap tat; a plastic festival wristband marked Participant, from some random work do where wed both danced until 1 a.m.; a dried-out flower, edges crumbling, from some nameless fielda vague memory of an early morning drive just because it was beautiful; three seashells from Bournemouth beach; and a paper napkin covered in noughts and crosses from a long-ago café wait.
All of it cheap. All of it trivial. None of it on Margarets master list.
I sat on the blue coverlet, napkin in hand, and something in me, long held tight, softly released.
I couldnt cry. I never could just like that. I only sat, breathing slowly, as the business of packing possessionsand a lifecontinued on the other side of the door.
***
Tom came into the bedroom by accident, probably after something of his. He saw me sitting on the bed, box open, and paused.
Whats that?
Look for yourself.
He picked up the cinema tickets. The postcard.
I watched his face. Something in it shiftedslightly, as light changes when a cloud moves.
Amélie, he said quietly. I told you I hated it.
I know.
I lied.
I know.
He sat down beside me. Picked out the wristband.
ThisKims old work do. Twenty-fifteen.
Year I lost my shoe on the dance floor.
And I found it under the bar.
You called me Cinderella.
I said I barely looked like a prince.
He smilednot the tired, strained one of the last two years, but an old, genuine grin, one side higher than the other.
You didnt, I agreed.
We lapsed into silence. Voices and sounds from the sitting room leaked in.
Tom, I said.
Yeah?
How did we end up here? Not in this roomin this place?
He spun a shell between his fingers.
I dont know, he admitted at last.
You do, I said, without bitterness.
He put the shell back in the box.
Im a coward, he confessed.
I looked at his profileso familiar, the exact line of nose and brow.
I know.
It should have been different.
Yes.
I ought to haveover and over, I ought to have.
Yes, Tom.
At last, he met my gazetruly met it, for the first time on this wretched, endless day.
I want you to know, he said, I remember all of this. Every bit of it. He gestured at the box. I remember those tickets. I remember you burning your tongue on that cake in Prague. The wildflower field. The shells at BournemouthGod, you said youd frame them and I called it kitsch and you sulked, but then we swam at 3 a.m. and
Stop, I said.
Why?
It hurts.
He fell silent.
It hurts me too, he whispered.
***
Margaret appeared at the door.
Tom, I need your signature on
She saw the box and us, side by side on the bed. Something in her face changed, almost imperceptibly.
What is that?
Our things, Tom said.
What things? All that old stuff is rubbish, bin it.
Mum.
Tickets, scraps of paper
Mum, he repeated, and suddenly there was something new in his voicenot pleading, something else.
Margaret stared at him.
What?
Can you leave us, please?
A long pause.
Tom, the removal men are waiting, our time
Mum. Leave the room.
I avoided her eyes. Focused on my hands folded in my lap. I heard the silence that followeda tense, ringing sort.
Fine, she agreed at last. Different, almost uncertain. When youre done, come find me.
Her footsteps retreated. The door stayed ajar.
I breathed out, slowly.
That was the first time, I said.
What?
You asked her to leave.
He didnt reply.
In ten years, I added. The first.
I know.
Why now?
No idea. Maybe he hesitated. It was that box. It made me realise everything were fighting about out thereits just stuff. Sofas a sofa. Vase is a vase. But this he nodded at the boxthis is us. The only thing thats really ours.
I looked at him for a long time.
Tom, I said at last, those are nice words.
I dont mean them to be pretty. I
Wait. Let me finish. Theyre nice words, and Im tired of them. Youre brilliant at words, you always have been. At explaining why things turned out this way, why next timell be different, how you understand… But understanding and doing are different.
I know.
No, Tom, you dont. You think you do. Because if you really got it, your mother wouldnt be in our sitting room now, packing our life away by her rules. She made a list, you realise? She came in here and listed what was ours.
Ill put a stop to it.
Now?
Yes.
Its too late, I said. It needed doing long ago. When she threw out my violets, or when she rearranged our bedroom while we were away. Or when she told me my shepherds pie was wrong, or
Em
Or three years ago, when she decided we didnt need kids just yet, that you should get established first. And you agreed, and I was thirty-five, and
I stopped.
The quiet was complete.
That was the worst of it, I managed, voice almost gone. Worse than any of the rest.
Tom hardly moved. His face was bareno excuses, no defences.
I know, he said. I
Dont explain.
I want to.
Not now.
I closed the box. Pressed the lid down until it fit snug.
Im taking this, I told him. Thats all I want from this flat.
He looked at me.
Where will you go?
Marinas for now. Then Ill find somewhere.
Em
What?
Dont go.
I stood. Took the box under my arm. It was absurdly light, given all it held.
Tom, Im leaving the flat, not you. I cant live here, not anymore. Actually, I never really couldI just got used to pretending.
We could leave together.
I paused.
Turned.
What did you say?
He stood now, arms at his sides, looking right at me. We could leave together. I dont want the sofa or the crystal or the art. I want you, and that box, andwell. Thats it.
I looked at him.
Inside, something flickereda tangle of hope and fear and exhaustion and something else, unnamed.
Tom, I said quietly, youre forty. If you walk out with me now, your mother
I know.
will be furious.
I know, Em.
And youre ready for that?
I dont know if Im ready. But if I dont do it now, Ill never be able to respect myself.
A pause.
Thats a different conversation, I said.
Is it?
Its not about winning me back. Its about being able to respect yourself. Thats different.
Maybe, he said, but you cant really have one without the other.
***
In the sitting room, Margaret was instructing the movers. When we entered, she spun round, glanced at my box, then at Tom.
Are you finished? she demanded.
Mum, Tom said. Enough.
What do you mean?
All this he gestured around at the half-disassembled room, one lamp in the middle wrapped in bubble wraptake it. Its yours. Im not fighting for any of it.
Margaret blinked.
What are you talking about?
The sofa, the vases, the crystal, the artwork, the kitchenyours. I dont care.
Tom, thats all valuable, its
Mum. He moved beside her. I watched him look his mother in the faceno anger, no blame, just direct. I love you, but I cant live like this. Its not a lifeits a managed project. And I dont want to be your project.
Silence. Something flickered in Margaret that wasnt anger or wounded pride. More confusiona person suddenly playing by someone elses rules.
Youve lost your mind, she said, quietly.
Maybe.
Its reckless. Its
Mum. He paused, gentle but firm. I want to regret my choicesnot other peoples.
***
We left the flat at just after one. I held the box. Tom lugged a small bag of clothes and his work laptop.
We said nothing in the lift. Its wall was all mirror, and I watched our reflection: two no-longer-young people with tired faces, one clutching a box, the other a weekend bag.
Ground floor, the concierge nodded. Glass doors slid aside. Outside, an ordinary April afternoon: damp, cold, redolent of wet leaves and distant drizzle.
We stopped on the steps.
Where to? Tom asked.
I saidMarinas.
I cant go to Marinas.
You dont have to.
I dont want to not go. I want to go where youre going.
I looked out at the street, at people who, from above, resembled dotsbut up close were just people, going about their day.
Tom, I said, we dont have a flat.
I know.
We hardly have any money. Its all locked up until the lawyers sort it.
I stashed a bit. Mum doesnt know.
Alright. But its temporary. Well need to rent something. Itll be tiny. Probably ugly.
Thats fine.
No designer kitchen.
Thank God.
I looked at him. He looked back. His face showed something like relief, although relief seemed too slight a word for all that was held in it.
This isnt the end, I said. Its just beginning. Theres court, your mum, everything.
I get that.
Im not sure well manage.
Me neither.
And yet?
He was quiet. Finally, And yet.
I shifted the box under my arm. So lightjust tickets, postcard, magnet, a wristband, one dried flower, three shells, and a napkin with noughts and crosses.
All thats left of ten yearsand also all that truly mattered.
Alright then, I said. Lets go.
And so we diddown an ordinary April street, on a bleak, chilly day, with no plan and no certainty, just one bag and one cardboard box to share. Somewhere above and behind was the twenty-third floor, its glass and walnut and frozen-waterfall chandelier, with Margaret probably dictating to the movers again.
But we walked on. I didnt know if it was right. I didnt really know much for sure anymore, except for one thing: this box in my hand. Tom beside me. April. And that scent you only get in springstill cold, but with the promise that one day, winter does end.
Tom, I said, as we walked.
Yes?
Do you remember the shells?
Bournemouth beach. You were going to make a frame.
And you called it kitsch.
It is kitsch.
Im still making it.
Alright, he said.
We havent got a wall for it, yet.
Well find one.
I didnt answer. Just walked beside him, holding my box, thinking that well find one wasnt a promise. Just words. But sometimes, words alone are enough to let you take the next step. And another. And another.
