4 November 1999

I drove into Modbury today to go to the deli and when I was there the heavens opened. A river of water ran down the high street, spewing like fountains round the tyres of parked cars. It was like the eclipse all over again, the sky was so dark. I inched the car back along the lanes and I could hardly see the road. I spent the afternoon walking round the house, going into rooms I don’t visit from year to year. It’s so shabby. There’s the bathroom with the orange paper — half-finished, bare walls still visible. The carpet in the drawing room is threadbare, the ceiling in the library has damp patches. I should do something about it. Even the deck is collapsing. I went out with a coffee this afternoon and leaned on the railing, which snapped, leaving me lying on my back, stunned, in the flower-bed below, among rotting leaves.

I remember the time and money I spent on this house years ago, when I changed some colours, knocked down some walls but then stopped. I retreated to the deck with my bottle and lamp, waiting for John to come home from school at weekends. Eventually waiting for him to come home at all.

11 November 1999

I’m sitting on John and Sonja’s deck, wrapped in borrowed jumpers and a fleece jacket, and they’re upstairs in bed, probably both lying awake, feigning sleep. John’s birthday present this year is a marble bust of Hercules and a column embellished with volutes on an Ionic capital, as I wasted no time in telling him. I’ve never been able to shake off my compulsion to teach him words. Hercules and plinth were delivered this afternoon, wrapped in gold paper with a drooping red satin bow tied round the column. John loved it but I have to say I’m running out of statues to give him. I scour the country for a different god each year but the pickings are getting thin.

John also loved my new car, my new toy — a customised dark blue AK Cobra 470 turbo, which I collected last week. I gave him the keys, told him to take it, take Sonja out for lunch or something, and whilst they were gone I walked around their house. It is beautiful but it’s also dead. Everywhere there’s a feeling of two people living separate lives. Nothing I can put my finger on but an air of absence everywhere. Even my own house has a life of its own: it’s shabby and run-down but at least there’s evidence of life — newspapers, half-read books, coats thrown down in the hall, muddy, sandy boots left lying around, and piles of empty bottles. But in this house everything is tidied away, hidden, as if John and Sonja avoid spilling into each other’s lives.

This evening I took them out for a meal to celebrate, if celebration it was (John’s birthday is, after all, the anniversary of many things). It’s five months since I drove to Bristol and saw John parked outside the deli, staring at Sonja. I know now that he’s walking a knife edge. I also know that he won’t talk to me about Sonja, about his marriage, because, as always, he’s trying to save me from sadness. I’d really rather know what’s going on. As we ate and exchanged talk about nothing very much, I watched Sonja. She’s distracted by something and I fear it’s love, or something like it.