You’re Free to Choose Your Own Path

Diary 12March

No ones holding me back

Will be late weve got a complete backlog on the site, Victorias voice crackled, the hum of an angle grinder in the background. Can you hear me at all?

I hear you, I shifted the phone to my other ear. Should I wait for you for dinner?

Dont bother. I might not even make it back; the deadlines are breathing down my neck.

Alright.

A short buzz. Thats always how it ends.

I set the handset on the kitchen table and stared at the pot of cooling leek and potato soup. Id still been cooking for two out of habit, even though I knew I should have stopped by now. Victoria worked as a tiler, her timetable looking more like a heartmonitor trace than a calendar: sudden spikes of frantic activity followed by long, flat stretches. For six months she bounced from one building site to another, laying pricey porcelain tiles in other peoples flats, earning enough to make me quietly envious. Then six months of absolute calm, when the orders dried up and she was stuck at home.

Both extremes were unbearable in their own way. When Victoria was on the job she vanished physically, emotionally, mentally entirely. Shed leave at seven in the morning and might not be back until after midnight, if she ever returned. Sometimes shed spend the night on the site, thinking, Whats the point of hopping home when Ill be back at six anyway? Id have dinner alone, watch a series in solitude, then crawl into a cold, empty bed. The only reminder that I was still married was the marriage certificate tucked somewhere in a drawer of paperwork.

I once tried to count how many dinners wed actually shared over the past three months. Four. Just four.

The real nightmare began when the workday ended.

Victoria would come home. Youd think Id be glad, finally having my wife around, a chance to be together. Not so. After six months of hopping from flat to flat, shed become so fixated on the endless parade of designer choices 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 narrow.

This is a disaster, 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 the spiral started.

First shed say, Let me see if I can fix it. Then, Ill just pop out one tile, replace it, and thats that. Then, If Im already here, I might as well redo the whole wall, otherwise its pointless. And finally Id get home from work to find the bathroom gone just bare walls, piles of construction waste, and Victoria in a respirator, cheerfully mixing tile adhesive.

In three years of marriage we survived four bathroom remodels, three kitchens, and a hallway.

The contract was finally completed on time, and another lull settled over the work. Not for me.

Bring me some tile spacers, Victoria called while I was still at the site. And gray 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 Id become the courier, the loader, the oddjob man all in one. Victoria never left the house, only venturing out to the builders merchant, sometimes three times a day, because I didnt know the grout wouldnt be enough, what was I supposed to think?

She was constantly exhausted, from the very renovation shed started herself. In the evenings Id find her in the kitchen dirty, ragged, tile dust in her hair staring at me with vacant eyes.

Going to have dinner? shed ask.

Later. No strength.

She had no strength for anything: conversation, a film together, 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 of tiles.

Were married, remember? Victoria would say whenever I tried to protest. Spouses help each other.

Spouses. A funny word for a relationship where one person exists solely as support staff for the others professional ambitions.

Saturday night, Victoria was fiddling with a backsplash over the worktop. The previous one didnt please her because of its shade. I was perched amid the chaos, trying to make a cup of tea. The kettle sat on a stool in the hallway because the countertop was buried under tiles. I found sugar in the bathroom. No spoon anywhere.

Pippa, I began gently, do you think its enough?

Enough of what? she didnt even turn, slipping another tile into place.

All of this. The constant refurbishing. You keep redoing bits of the flat.

And so what? I like it. This is my home; I want it perfect.

Itll never be perfect for you. Youll finish one job, hop to a couple of new sites, get dazzled by fresh ideas, and start over again.

She set the tile down and turned slowly. Something dangerous flickered in her eyes.

So what are you suggesting? Living like this while everything around me irritates me?

Im suggesting we live normally. Like normal people. Go to the cinema. Have dinner together. Talk about anything other than grout and spacers. Do you even remember the last time we went out just the two of us?

I have work.

You dont have work now! You made it up yourself!

This isnt madeup work, Edward. Its called improving living conditions. Some people specialise in that.

And some people just want to live not in a construction site, not in dust, not in a fetchthisandbringthat mode. Live with a wife who remembers she has a husband.

She crossed her arms as if shielding herself.

You just dont get it. Youre a software developer, typing away in your cosy office. I create with my hands. Something real you can touch. When I see I can do better, I do better.

At the expense of everything else!

If youre not happy noones holding you.

She said it almost offhand, as if talking about an uncomfortable chair you could simply discard and replace. I fell silent. Those seven words held our whole problem, compressed into an option for her. Not a necessity, not a husband, not a loved one just an option she could switch off if she wished.

You know, I said, brushing dust from my jeans, maybe youre right.

Right about what?

That nothings really holding me back.

She looked at me over the piles of tiles, bags of adhesive, and the remnants of what had once been a kitchen. Both of us understood that this fight wasnt about the renovation. It was about the fact that our rhythms had long since drifted apart, intersecting only at the same postal address.

We signed the divorce papers within three months. Surprisingly civil. There was nothing left to split.

I roamed my new flat small, clean, not a single sack of cement in sight and couldnt believe the quiet. No drilling. No banging. No urgent calls to bring sealant because the old one 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 nothing could fill.

Almost two years later.

Did you hear the news? Dave, an old mate, rang on a Friday night. About my ex?

I tensed. Since the split Id avoided any gossip about Victoria.

What news?

Shes married now. Pretty quick, actually.

Quick, huh?

Yes. And guess who she married? Dave paused for dramatic effect. A tiler, can you imagine?

I snorted.

And how are they?

Everyone says theyre glowing. Theyre a twoperson crew, hopping sites together. Perfect partnership.

I thought about Victoria finding someone who speaks the same language as she does. Someone for whom a oneandahalfmillimetre misalignment is also a tragedy. Someone who knows the difference between epoxy and cement grout not because he was taught, but because he lives it.

What used to grind my teeth now formed the foundation of another couples life. I found it oddly amusing.

Three months later I ran into them in the supermarket, purely by chance. Id just finished work, grabbed a basket and headed for the dairy aisle when I froze.

Victoria stood by the yoghurts, a man of similar age, broadshouldered, hands clearly accustomed to hard labour. They were picking items, whisperarguing, laughing. She nudged his shoulder, he jabbed her side playfully, she squealed and hopped away.

They looked like teenage lovers, oblivious to the world, their entire universe reduced to each other.

Victoria lookeddifferent. Not worn out, not vacant. She looked alive exactly the way I remembered her when we first met, before the tiles took over.

I hesitated, placed my basket on the floor and left the store emptyhanded.

In the car I smiled. We just werent meant for each other. Our divorce had been inevitable.

I turned the engine on.

If Victorias found her man, Ill find mine too.

The thick fog that had settled over my life after the divorce finally lifted.