Her last letter to him is brief, the ink smudged in places, and I imagine her tears falling melodramatically onto the thin paper, evidence of her anguish. She tells him she has not gone through with “it”, but doesn’t say what “it” is. I have a fair idea though. She goes to some lengths to say that a child won’t change anything. If anything, it will bring them closer together, that a son will bring him joy. I wonder if she is trying to convince him or herself.

His final letter is even shorter, the words punched onto the page, the pen leaving small tears in places, his hand heavy as he expresses his disappointment that she went against his wishes. He tells her his placement will be over in another two months and that they will address it when he returns to England. His final words are the hope that she is carrying a son.

27

NOW

Helen sat at her dressing table under a cloud of Chanel. It reminded her of her mother, this perfume, and she hated it, but Hugh was a creature of habit. He had presented her with a small bottle for their first Valentine’s Day together and she had politely said it was one of her favourites. Since then he had bought it for her every year. She’d tried wearing a different fragrance for their date nights, just to spice things up, but he’d noticed every time and let her know in his characteristic passive-aggressive way that he was disappointed by sneezing repeatedly and commenting on how her alternative perfume was affecting his sinuses.

So now she tolerated the headache-inducing smell, just so that she didn’t have to endure his sullen expression over the dinner table. Tonight the perfume was masking the smell of bleach after she had removed all traces of the red paint from the pool house, scrubbing until her arms ached and then scrubbing some more, long after the paint had gone.

She checked her make-up, making sure it was sufficiently understated because he hated to see her “painted like a doll”, as he described it. Not too much, but enough to disguise the tiredness and worry lines. Her hair was loose and blow-dried around her shoulders, just how he liked it. He liked to sit and stroke it sometimes and in those moments she felt like Clive, fussed over, petted. She had finally chosen an outfit of muted colours, nothing too bright to offend his sensitivities, after discarding a rainbow-coloured skirt that she had struggled to zip up, the waistband constricting her, payback from her binges. She wasn’t sure why she went to such lengths to fit in with all his little preferences, considering that he would likely turn up in the same pair of trousers and shirt he had worn to school, would maybe have run his hands through his hair if she was lucky.