OUTSIDE THE DOOR.
It was one of those silly arguments really. Even now, years later, I’m not exactly sure how it started, though I am sure how it ended! I think it was probably when he said,
“When we get home we’ll get changed quickly. We’re invited to a party tonight.”
“ Oh no… not tonight! I’m really tired,” I said and pointed to the bags full of exercise books on the back seat of the car. “ And I’ve got all this marking to finish before tomorrow.”
We both work at the same school. I teach English so marking of exercises takes up quite a lot of my time; while he, on the other hand, is Head of P.E. and so ‘marking’ hardly figures at all.
“ I’ve already accepted,” he stated and that did irritate me.
“But I don’t want to go,” I muttered out loud, as much to myself as to him.
We drove on in silence for a while, him ramming in and out of gear, and me getting more and more furious, and staring out of the passenger window. Lately he had taken to agreeing to things without even bothering to check with me first whether I wanted to do them or not. Finally he said,
“Well I’ll go on my own then.” And I snapped back,
“ Oh do whatever you like…. You usually do.”
When we turned onto our driveway he got out without a word, slammed the car door shut behind him, and went straight through the front door and upstairs to change. He didn’t even offer to help me carry the piles of exercise books into the lounge. It was when I dumped them onto the carpet beside the sofa that the obvious question occurred to me. So I went to the foot of the stairs and called up to him,
“ Where exactly is this party anyway?”
“ At Janine’s place,” he replied from the bedroom…. And it was then that I really lost it. Janine!
Now, with hindsight, I have to admit that I’ve really no right to be holding anything against her. She was his assistant in the P.E. department, just out of training college, and full of eagerness and enthusiasm for everything he suggested. About five or six years younger than us, she was also the same age at which we got married. Blond and really nice looking but with a very ‘touchy feely’ manner.
My mum, shortly before she died, had warned me, ‘ Beware of the touchy feely ones! They can get away with almost anything by claiming it’s just the way they are, and it doesn’t really mean anything!’
“Well,” I shouted back up at him. “ If it’s at Janine’s place you certainly don’t want me with you do you? …..cramping you style?”
I marched off into the kitchen, nearly stumbling over Brandy our new Labrador puppy, banged open the freezer door, pulled out a ready meal for one, slammed the door shut and started throwing plates and cutlery onto the formica top table. I certainly intended him to hear how angry I was. I’m not sure I’d any clear idea what I expected, or wanted him to do about it. ‘Backing down’ has never been something Keith finds easy to do.
Finally he appeared in the kitchen door and stood looking at me with what seemed suspiciously like a superior expression on his face. He was wearing the new sweater and trousers that I had bought him for our anniversary the previous week and Brandy, who had been our present to each other, rolled onto her back and began to wag her tail with pleasure.
“That was a very childish remark you just made,” he stated.
“Well that’s probably because I thought I was speaking to a child,” I replied.
What on earth was I saying? I didn’t want this thing that had reared up between us to go on like this! It was as if somebody else had taken over my voice and, regardless of what I wanted, that somebody was still talking…. No… not just talking either…. Shouting!
“It’s always the same with that Janine,” the voice yelled. “She flash’s you one of her looks, crooks her finger, and your like Brandy over there. On your back with your legs up in the air and begging to have your tummy rubbed. It’s pathetic…. No…. you’re pathetic…. Selfish and bloody pathetic…”
I have to admit, he did look stunned by the outburst.
“You don’t mean that…” he began as if trying to reason with an hysterical child, which of course, only made me feel even worse.
“But that’s the point… I do mean it. I’m so sick of watching the two of you together.” I tried to mimic Janine’s eager tones. “ ‘Oooh Keith that is such a good idea… I’ll get onto it straight away’. … She’s just as silly as you are!”
I stared at him, angry tears of frustration in my eyes, wishing he would not only realise what was the matter, but understand what he needed to do in order to put it right. What he said was,
“Well I’d better go then,” and I flung the plate I was holding onto the table smashing it in the process and sending Brandy skittering across the tiled floor, past his legs, and out into the hallway
“ Go then,” I screamed, “ Go to your precious Janine and then don’t bother coming back. Stay with her if she’ll have you…. because I’m fed up with the sight of both of you!”
He turned and went. and I suddenly thought,
‘If he slams the front door the way he slammed the car door I’ll know it really is over between us!’
The bang seemed to rattle and shake not just the house but me as well, and I stood there gasping for breath, listening to the car start up, leave the driveway and roar off down the road. My thoughts and emotions whirled in my head like a runaway carousel and I didn’t know how to stop them. I didn’t know either how to prevent the world I knew and loved from collapsing into nothing around me. I think I sobbed something like ‘ Mummy…oh mummy please help me,’ and then I went out into the darkened hallway.
The door wasn’t shut. He’d slammed it so hard it had recoiled into the latch and now it had swung open again. As suddenly as the tide of fury had overwhelmed me it now ebbed away, and I knew what I needed to do.
I took a moment in the lounge to reassure a trembling Brandy that I wasn’t actually angry with her, cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, had a quick sandwich, and then went up to the bathroom. I showered, washed and dried my hair; then I put on the new nightdress he had bought me for our anniversary, and climbed into bed.
Really I took an awful risk when I think about it because I didn’t close the front door but just sat in bed waiting and hugging his pillow in my arms. Somehow I knew I wouldn’t have too much longer to wait… and I didn’t.
I heard the car turn back onto the drive and listened as he re-entered the house, closed the front door, looked for me in the lounge, and then climbed the stairs to our bedroom door. He watched me with a slightly wary, even sheepish, expression in his eyes and then he said,
“ I’m sorry… I didn’t think or even understand…. Your mum and everything…”
I interrupted him. “ I’m sorry too.. For saying the things I did.”
Then I asked him if those at the party had liked his new sweater and trousers, and he looked down as if he had forgotten he was wearing them.
“ I didn’t go into the party,” he mumbled, “ Just sat outside for a while and then went for a drive around… to clear my head I mean…”
I made a show of replacing the pillow onto his side of the bed and then quite pointedly lowered the duvet. As he came around the end of the bed he did ask me about the marking.
“I’ve a couple of free periods in the morning. I’ll do it then.,” I murmured.
He started to explain, “ I can tell Janine tomorrow that you were very tired and…” but I interrupted him again.
“Keith,… just for tonight… let’s leave Janine outside the door!”
The end.
THAT DOOR.
Do you see ahead of you that door?
It’s a door unlike any you have seen before,
For it’s neither closed nor open,
At present impassable, but accessible in time.
From beyond it, if you care to listen,
Come the sound of voices long remembered
But now almost never heard. Well, only ‘almost’.
Sometimes those voices,
Like muffled phrases from a foreign song,
Can catch you off guard, bypass you ears,
Yet resonate loudly into your yearning heart.
Then, in tears you long to hear again
Those precious remembered tones
As if that door were flung open wide.
But still it will remain the singular door,
Through which you hesitate to pass.
What lies beyond is a place
By the human mind unknowable,
But which, by the heart, is recognised as ‘home;’
As where those we have loved and left,
Now rest awhile, and await our return.
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