Read Online Did The Earth Move? by Carmen Reid - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Carmen Reid
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tears in his eyes too.
'Eve, of course I'll miss her all the time ... and you. But if we carry on like this, we're not going to last another month together. I need to get out of this for a bit. Because I want us to stay together.'
'Space never solved anything. I promise you that.'
'Well what the hell am I supposed to do? They want me to do this job. I can't turn it down.'
'Of course you bloody can. You could get another job with another company here without even trying.'
'I haven't even been with this place for two years yet. How will it look on my CV if I up and leave now, when a promotion is being handed to me on a plate?'
She'd snorted at this. How would it look on his CV? Who was this person? What happened to the man who read French poetry aloud in bed?
How had she made such a big mistake? Had she completely misread his character? Had she changed him? Did he wake up one day and feel overwhelmed by his paternal responsibilities?
'I just knew,' she'd told Jen, feeling oddly calm. Probably the effect of Polish gin and the grass. "There's no affair or anything, but we're not his focus, not even Anna. I could just tell. He was distracted, he was thinking about something else, he was somewhere else even when he was with us. He didn't seem to care enough about our problems any more. He didn't want to argue, he didn't want to get me to change my mind about stuff. It was like he'd already made the decision to move on, he was just waiting for the right time to tell me. And it was once so equal between us,' she added. 'Now it's not.'
'You mean you were once in charge,' Jen had pointed out.
'No I wasn't,' Eve had answered, a little irritated. 'He helped, he did his share, did the time. But now, it's work this ... work that... I really resent it. I'm getting Dennis flashbacks.'
They'd sat in silence for a while, comfortably side by side on the sofa.
'Maybe he's pissed off you don't want to marry him,' Jen had suggested.
'Oh, I just can't do that again. It's too scary, I don't want to be a "wife" again. I did it all with bells on.'
'Don't you think you're confusing "marriage" with marriage to Dennis?' Jen had asked.
Eve had a suspicion that all marriages were fundamentally marriage to Dennis to varying degrees.
'I mean, I'm married, thank you very much,' Jen had reminded her. 'Do I seem a downtrodden doormat to you?'
'Why did you do it, though?'
'You were there. Is it so hard to work out?' Jen had asked. 'So we could have a bloody great, happy party and tell everyone we loved each other. And I think the paperwork helps. We're that bit more bound together.'
'And absolutely nothing changed between the two of you after marriage?'
'Hardly anything.'
'So something did?'
'My family started being nicer to him. They finally accepted Ryan as a permanent fixture. Is that so bad? And we argued more about housework. Otherwise, everything was exactly the same.'
'Hmmm.'
'I'm absolutely starving.'
They'd both begun to giggle.
'We've got the munchies. This is pathetic. If Anna gets out of bed and sees us like this, I'm going to be mortified.'
'It's organic, isn't it?' Jen had held up her stub. 'Well, that's fine. Let her try a puff. Might mellow her a bit. She's so uptight for a five-year-old.'
'Shut up!' Eve had given her a mock slap.
So Eve and Joseph split with bitter tears and a small removals van. She was distraught. He was distraught and so were all three children.
Denny shouted round the house and told his mother there had to be something wrong with her. Tom actually cried over it and Anna took weeks to comprehend that Daddy didn't live here any more and she wailed with distress when she was taken away to Manchester for the weekend, leaving Eve alone in her flat for what felt like the first time in her life. Unbearably alone. She'd gone out and got the two kittens that very first Saturday.
There had been brief, muddled reconciliations, including a final one when it had been agreed that Joseph would spend the three
'Eve, of course I'll miss her all the time ... and you. But if we carry on like this, we're not going to last another month together. I need to get out of this for a bit. Because I want us to stay together.'
'Space never solved anything. I promise you that.'
'Well what the hell am I supposed to do? They want me to do this job. I can't turn it down.'
'Of course you bloody can. You could get another job with another company here without even trying.'
'I haven't even been with this place for two years yet. How will it look on my CV if I up and leave now, when a promotion is being handed to me on a plate?'
She'd snorted at this. How would it look on his CV? Who was this person? What happened to the man who read French poetry aloud in bed?
How had she made such a big mistake? Had she completely misread his character? Had she changed him? Did he wake up one day and feel overwhelmed by his paternal responsibilities?
'I just knew,' she'd told Jen, feeling oddly calm. Probably the effect of Polish gin and the grass. "There's no affair or anything, but we're not his focus, not even Anna. I could just tell. He was distracted, he was thinking about something else, he was somewhere else even when he was with us. He didn't seem to care enough about our problems any more. He didn't want to argue, he didn't want to get me to change my mind about stuff. It was like he'd already made the decision to move on, he was just waiting for the right time to tell me. And it was once so equal between us,' she added. 'Now it's not.'
'You mean you were once in charge,' Jen had pointed out.
'No I wasn't,' Eve had answered, a little irritated. 'He helped, he did his share, did the time. But now, it's work this ... work that... I really resent it. I'm getting Dennis flashbacks.'
They'd sat in silence for a while, comfortably side by side on the sofa.
'Maybe he's pissed off you don't want to marry him,' Jen had suggested.
'Oh, I just can't do that again. It's too scary, I don't want to be a "wife" again. I did it all with bells on.'
'Don't you think you're confusing "marriage" with marriage to Dennis?' Jen had asked.
Eve had a suspicion that all marriages were fundamentally marriage to Dennis to varying degrees.
'I mean, I'm married, thank you very much,' Jen had reminded her. 'Do I seem a downtrodden doormat to you?'
'Why did you do it, though?'
'You were there. Is it so hard to work out?' Jen had asked. 'So we could have a bloody great, happy party and tell everyone we loved each other. And I think the paperwork helps. We're that bit more bound together.'
'And absolutely nothing changed between the two of you after marriage?'
'Hardly anything.'
'So something did?'
'My family started being nicer to him. They finally accepted Ryan as a permanent fixture. Is that so bad? And we argued more about housework. Otherwise, everything was exactly the same.'
'Hmmm.'
'I'm absolutely starving.'
They'd both begun to giggle.
'We've got the munchies. This is pathetic. If Anna gets out of bed and sees us like this, I'm going to be mortified.'
'It's organic, isn't it?' Jen had held up her stub. 'Well, that's fine. Let her try a puff. Might mellow her a bit. She's so uptight for a five-year-old.'
'Shut up!' Eve had given her a mock slap.
So Eve and Joseph split with bitter tears and a small removals van. She was distraught. He was distraught and so were all three children.
Denny shouted round the house and told his mother there had to be something wrong with her. Tom actually cried over it and Anna took weeks to comprehend that Daddy didn't live here any more and she wailed with distress when she was taken away to Manchester for the weekend, leaving Eve alone in her flat for what felt like the first time in her life. Unbearably alone. She'd gone out and got the two kittens that very first Saturday.
There had been brief, muddled reconciliations, including a final one when it had been agreed that Joseph would spend the three
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