For the last few days Aidan and I have been circling each other warily, like dogs, hackles half-raised, unsure whether to fight or accept. He kept to his room, to his computer and phone while I worked outside, trying to lose myself in the quiet earth.
There was a message from Dr F’s office on the phone, asking if we would like to make an appointment for counselling. I pressed Delete. I didn’t tell Aidan.
Jane called but I put her off, declining an invitation to Sunday lunch. I know I’ll have to deal with it some time but not now, not yet. I’m not ready to watch people play Happy Families, to witness the careless caress of a head, the perfect small fingers of children entwining through older hands. Instead I spent my spare time with Hazel.
There was something soothing about it, knowing she wouldn’t pry, wouldn’t offer false comfort. She didn’t. There was no sitting around moping over the kitchen table; she put me to work. I relearned old skills and learned some new ones too. I helped her fix gaps in the hedges, mend fences, chainsaw fallen trees. Lambing was over and we would check up on the straggle-legged lambs bobbing about the fields, watched keenly by Erin and Shee.

Badger barely lifted a finger. He seemed to spend most of his day in the barn or down the pub. Occasionally he’d head off to check the sheep, whistling the dogs to him. He had his own names for them – Meg and Jep – and they shrank, cowed, towards him – obedience warring with the deepest reluctance and fear.

Come dusk he’d set a light on his quad and head off, shotgun over the handlebars, to ‘lamp’ for foxes. Hazel shuddered and I would make my excuses and head home, for another supper of cold cuts or spaghetti with shop-bought sauce. The fire was left unlit – the cold and silent hearth.

Ben worked quietly, unobtrusively, picking up on the atmosphere as if by osmosis. I hadn’t the heart to tell him we might not stay, that all his hard work and loving care could be enjoyed (or ripped apart) by some other people.
He had found the crib in the attic and started talking about it. Something about the inscription. But then, noticing my face, had stopped. He’s a sensitive man, an observant man. He quietly and deftly changed the subject and started talking animatedly about the warbler on the bird feeder, pointing out the window, allowing me to regain my composure, to hastily wipe away the traitorous tears.

Spring comes late here but, once started, there is no stopping it. Everything is new, fresh, thrusting, bursting out, pushing up, eager for birth, for life. The irony is not lost on me.
I try to lose myself in the evenings in a good book. I am glad I’ve finished The Stolen Child with its changeling children banished to the woods, with its vulnerable babies. I’ve started Louise Erdrich’s The Painted Drum and it seems to fit my mood – introspective, melancholic. So far it has no babies in it, only ravens and mad dogs and strange, uncommunicative relationships.
This morning I woke up alone. It’s not unusual: Aidan has been sleeping in the so-called guest room – not that it’s had any guests. But this morning, the moment I awoke, I knew immediately that he had gone. Rommel and I were alone in the house (apart from the rats/mice/whatever).
There was some quality of the air that told me so. Sure enough, there was a terse note on the kitchen table.
‘Gone back to London. Will call. A.’