were bombastic, overblown and based on veiled threats made to
couples who would likely not set foot in a church again until a
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christening, funeral or wedding called for it. How, with their lack of bombastic, overblown veiled threats, secular ceremonies felt thin,
regardless of how much the two protagonists puffed them out with
readings and poetry (and, on one occasion, asking the congregation
to sing ‘I Love You Just the Way You Are’ in some ghastly echo of
a romantic comedy).
But these objections, Tom knew, were a smokescreen. Her real
problem with marriage was neither the ceremony nor its relevance.
Instead, Esme’s idea of a binding connection between two people, at
the expense of all others, was shattered in 1993, when her father left the family home to pursue a two-year affair with a recent university
graduate named Noelle.
Tom had learned of the affair six months into their relationship
– the knowledge of it was like a military badge, only bestowed after
so much service.
‘Ever since then I’ve known I could never do it,’ she had told
him. ‘From the moment I saw those suitcases piled up in the hall.’
‘But he came back.’
‘After two years,’ Esme had said firmly, the pain of it still clear and fresh. ‘It was so fucking tawdry. This older man shacking up with one
of his former students. Like something from a dodgy European film.’
‘Did you know her?’
‘I spent every weekend with them until I was fifteen. And one
holiday in Ibiza. She was the worst. She used to take me to see kids’
films and critique them as though they were Merchant fucking Ivory.’
‘What was it like? When . . .’
‘He pretended like none of it had happened. Called it his “blip”.
And Mum just took him back.’
Tom stopped talking about it there and then and hadn’t men-
tioned it much since, knowing that to do so would be to pick at
a scab that would probably never heal. Esme’s idea of family, and
particularly marriage, would never be the same again after that. It
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had become something people could pick up and put down at will.
If one partner was willing to leave the door open, the other was free
to wander in and out like a bored cat.
Although her relationship with her dad repaired over time, a
vulnerability had been exposed. As much as he liked him, Tom wasn’t
sure if it was something he could ever forgive Tamas for.
Tom placed his hand on Esme’s and watched with a smile as the kids’
party popper stack collapsed, sending the colourful plastic rolling
across the table.
The dance floor had hit peak busyness by the time his first hour
of songs was almost up. Annabel and Sam were at its centre, barefoot
and passing a bottle of prosecco back and forth. Neil, Pod and Ali
had their ties around their heads, dancing like bad facsimiles of Mick Jagger while their partners looked on with weary, loving acceptance.
A heavily tattooed blonde girl elicited a great cheer as she delivered a tray full of shots.
When Esme got up to go to the loo, Annabel made her way over
to him, taking the seat she had just left.
‘It’s still a great big no then?’ she said.
‘Probably.’
‘When was the last time you spoke about it?’
‘About two months ago. Laura asked.’
‘I mean just the two of you. Not at a party or something.’
‘No idea. Probably years ago. It just doesn’t come up.’
‘Maybe it should.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean maybe she’ll change her mind if you actually ask. She
looked happy today. During the ceremony and that.’
‘She looked happy because she likes you. Not because she likes
marriage all of a sudden. She’s barely spoken for the last half hour.
She’s thinking about her dad. I can tell.’
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‘All I’m saying is that you never know, Murray. She’s changed you. There is the slightest possibility that you’ve changed her, too.’
With that, Annabel was pulled away by Sam, back to the dance
floor for the beginning of Tom’s Britpop section.
Meanwhile, Esme was walking back over to him. He handed her
a glass of red wine he’d poured from the bottle left on the table, and took a sip of the sweet fruit juice he was drinking, wondering as he
was to blame for the gut that was pushing a little too noticeably
against the buttons of his white shirt.
‘Seriously. Do you want to dance?’ he asked, as the final strains
of Suede’s ‘Animal Nitrate’ rang out. ‘Because we’re really getting
towards the good stuff now.’
‘Maybe in a bit,’ she said. ‘I’m enjoying watching other people.
They look like they’re having fun.’
It may have been what Annabel said, but for some reason Tom
thought he could sense something in her voice. A note of envy,
perhaps?
‘They are having fun.’
‘You’ve done well today,’ she said, kissing him on the cheek. He
could faintly smell the red wine on her breath. ‘I’m proud of you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘And sorry if I was a bit of a grump a minute ago.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said, knowing he didn’t have to say anymore. Tom
listened as the first strains of ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ bounced
around the room, and a delayed, drunken cheer rang out.
‘Es. Do you ever—’
‘Tom. Not tonight.’
‘I just—’
‘I’m not going to change my mind. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I do.’
‘Because I thought we were—’
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‘We are.’
‘Are we, though?’ she said, turning to look at him.
‘We are,’ he said again, unsure if he had sounded convincing
enough. Equally unsure if he wanted to sound convincing at all.
He pulled out his phone. It was 10.59. Tom looked back at Esme,
who was staring across the dance floor, that blank, almost sad look
on her face again.
‘Good,’ she said, taking his hand.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Midnight – 1 am
UNHAPPY NEW YEAR
January 2015 – Covehithe, Suffolk
‘Happy New Year!’ Neil shouted, popping a cork and filling seven
tall, thin crystal-cut glasses with champagne.
Everyone stood. Kisses, hugs and handshakes were exchanged, as
Neil went over to the bi-fold doors that led out onto a wide, brightly lit and lightly frosted lawn to let the new year in. One by one, his
friends joined him, as his wife Karin hit play on the wireless speaker which now belched out ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
All except Tom, who remained on the
big grey couch in front of
the wood burner, hoping that the rest of them would be so drunk
that they wouldn’t realise he hadn’t joined them.
He had been feeling it for an hour. He knew the symptoms
immediately, even if they had become like strangers to him after
such a long absence.
First came the restlessness; the inability to get comfortable or
to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. And the
feeling of confinement, as though the walls in Neil’s kitchen were
closing in on him. A dizzy sensation took him away entirely – like
being drunk but without drinking.
His heart beat, beat, beating away in his chest.
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The worst would happen, he knew it.
He desperately needed to run away.
He tried to concentrate on the large oak coffee table, laden with
wine, spirits and mixers. Sipped his non-alcoholic beer, but it tasted acrid in his mouth. He craved something more.
In a strange way, it made sense to him that it was happening. This
was the pattern things followed: the lack of sleep, the low feelings.
The desperate hoping beyond hope that it might fade away like a
common cold or headache. It was all a familiar song Tom had heard
before. Each day taking him a little lower, riding down in an elevator with no ground floor.
The things he could tangibly hold onto in the world one by one
slipped away. The pit was opening up and he could do nothing to
avoid sliding in. Dread, nausea, palpitations. One fear perpetuating
the next and the next and the next like dominos falling. Rational
thinking, logic and reason all gone.
The question was, now sober, how could he block it out?
Tom was acutely aware and embarrassed that this was happening
around people. Friends. That they’d witness him losing control of
his body.
They were halfway through the second, vaguely mumbled verse
of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ when Esme noticed that Tom hadn’t joined the
rest of them.
‘Are you feeling alright?’ Esme said, leaning over him. Her voice
was quiet.
The year was less than ten minutes old. Tom didn’t want it to
start this way.
‘Not really.’
‘Okay. Are you going to be sick? Do you think it’s something you
ate?’ she said, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead.
It was cold from the outside air. ‘I said you shouldn’t have eaten
those—’
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‘No,’ Tom said. ‘I just feel . . .’ he said, but drifted away before finishing his sentence.
‘Feel what?’
‘We should go,’ he said, trying to stop himself from crying.
‘But it’s just turned—’
‘I said we should go,’ Tom snapped.
Immediately, Esme grabbed his hand and pulled him off the sofa.
‘Okay,’ she said, ushering him towards the door, without offering
an explanation to anyone at the party. ‘You’re okay.’
Together, they left Neil’s house – a barn conversion he’d preten-
tiously named ‘Vanha Talo’, which apparently meant ‘old house’ in
Finnish, despite his lack of Finnish connections – and found their
red Nissan Micra sitting out on his gravel driveway.
As Tom got into the driver’s seat, he saw Esme run back to where
Annabel was standing in the doorway. They spoke for a second before
she returned to the car.
‘What did she say?’ Tom asked, his voice urgent and abrupt.
‘Nothing,’ Esme said. ‘You forgot your coat. Do you want me
to—’
‘No. I will,’ Tom said, turning the car on. He reversed out of the
driveway with a screech and pulled onto the road that would take
them towards Lowestoft and his parents’ house. But he managed
barely a mile before pulling over to a stop to take deep, panicked
breaths – one after the other.
‘Tom, what is it? Tell me,’ Esme said, trying to keep her voice
measured and calm.
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s not nothing, Tom. Please just say. Did something happen?’
She tried to place a hand on Tom’s arm, but he threw it off.
‘Okay. It’s okay. Do you need me to drive?’
Tom didn’t answer again. Instead the breathing continued.
‘I need to go home.’
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‘I know, sweetheart. I know. It’s not far—’
‘I mean home.’
‘London?’
Tom nodded as the breathing continued.
‘Okay. But it’s midnight and—’
‘I know,’ he said, sounding pained, as tears began to form in the
corners of his eyes and his breathing began to shudder.
‘We can, Tom. If you feel okay to drive home you know we can,’
Esme said, remaining calm to counteract his panic. ‘Or, if you want,
we can try to get back to your parents tonight. And I’ll drive us home tomorrow. But only if you want.’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe that.’
Ten minutes later, with his breathing finally measured, Tom
turned the ignition and began the twenty-minute drive back to his
parents’ house.
It was during that week and a half over Christmas that he had felt
the first pangs of it. The low moods. The desire to be inside rather
than out. The discomfort when around people, noticeable everywhere
he went – from the Christmas morning charity swim, to the pub
where he’d met family on Boxing Day.
But he hadn’t said a word about it, defying his understanding of
himself in the hope that it might fade away. Maybe things might be
different this time and it would lift, as though his depression was a
passing cloud rather than a full-on storm.
In the past when he’d felt anxious about leaving their home in
London, Tom had passed it off as ‘feeling a bit sick’ – unable to
quantify why he was experiencing this dread, and what was its cause.
He’d successfully sequestered himself in his childhood bedroom,
could barely bring himself to move. As far as Esme and his parents
knew he was working. They wouldn’t think to bother him.
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Much of the time Tom found it remarkably – even scarily – easy to hide how he was actually feeling.
And through it all, he couldn’t escape the sense that it was all
wrong.
This wasn’t supposed to happen now.
Not when he was supposed to be happy.
For years, Esme’s presence had precluded this from happening.
The conditions for depression to manifest – whether loneliness, anxi-
ety or self-hatred – did not exist when she was around.
So why had that all changed?
That night, sitting on Neil’s sofa and feeling as though the world
was shutting down around him, Tom realised he’d been foolish
enough to look for reason where none existed.
This thing needed no reason.
After a twenty-minute drive they arrived at Tom’s par
ents’ house.
Esme helped him up to his bedroom, sneaking him away from his
parents, aunts and uncles who were chatting in the living room.
They’d all insist on a New Year’s kiss or handshake, and human
contact was the last thing Tom needed.
Esme left him to undress and crawl under the covers before she
turned the light off. She asked no more questions and closed the
door behind her as she left.
Alone, he lay there for a few minutes before he heard voices in the
hallway outside. His mum. Had she noticed that something wasn’t
right? He should’ve known that she would. It was unlike Tom to
ignore everyone, to not walk into their dining room and start picking
at the leftover cheese and crackers. Unlike him to be so distant over
Christmas. His mum knew that best.
‘What is it?’ he heard her ask Esme.
‘I don’t know. He just came over all . . . funny, I suppose. We were
at Neil’s and suddenly he just shut down.’
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‘Can I see—’
‘Not yet. Maybe tomorrow. We should let him rest.’
‘Nothing’s happened, has it? He’s not had a drink.’
‘No. Why would he? It looked like a panic attack or something.’
‘Oh God,’ Tom heard his mum say, a tearfulness creeping into her
voice. ‘I didn’t think this would be back,’ she said, and Tom began
to panic. Would this, he wondered, be it? The moment. What would
his mum say to Esme?
‘What?’ Esme said. ‘Am I missing something?’
‘His . . .’ she started, angrily. ‘ Sadness.’
Sadness. Tom considered the word. It’s what she always called
it. So often unable to call it by its real name. Even way back when
he was away at university and his depression was at its worst. Tom
would never forget the time he had stood in their family kitchen,
screaming the word over and over while his mum cried and his
sister begged him to stop. Depression, depression, depression. How
terrible he felt when he’d discovered the reams of online articles
about depression and anxiety disorders printed off and left under
her bedside table, along with a stack of NHS pamphlets and a book
about the condition she’d ordered from the library. Nor could he
forget his dad’s pain and desperate good intentions when trying to
talk to him about it, unsure and awkward.
‘Sadness?’ Esme said.