What Happened

15 Minute Write

“ I’m telling you, it was up there “

He nodded his nose towards the roof of the building that lay in front of them, which, because she was looking too, she didn’t notice.

“ Oh, I’m not so sure, you know “

Why were they even here, she wondered. It was all such water under the bridge, awful, soul-destroying very close to marriage killing at the time, but over. They had moved on, or she had.

“Look at those windows, the funny little bits, we used to say they were like ancient scrolls”

He knew she knew. He knew she didn’t want to think about it and so chose to be determinedly vague as she always was about this.

“Oh yeah, I remember those, but still, I’m not sure, our eyesight isn’t what it used to be eh?”

It annoyed him, for sure, that they still couldn’t address this - that they never could, never really even tried.

“Well, I am. We didn’t have those window boxes or anything, but the windows, they’re unique. I’m telling you, that’s where it all happened, right there in that flat “

Was it time, perhaps? They were old enough now to have a grown-up conversation, surely. But even if they did, it was unlikely that she’d change her opinion, or her opinion of him. It would be like reversing the polarity on a magnet or voting for the other party.

“You’re probably right, maybe I just blanked it all out. I blamed you for the whole thing. That nearly broke us, what you did”

There it was. This is what happened. If he did ever manage to get something about the whole thing out of her. But right now, for once, he wasn’t in the mood. Why were they even here? Why did they stop, if he hadn't said anything she might not have been any the wiser. Yet she had picked the direction they were walking in, and he had let himself be brought here, thinking she had a plan or something to say.

“You know she wanted it. If I hadn’t done it, then she would have found someone else. Bloody hell, it was compassion. If I’d known then what I know now If I’d have realised how much grief I’d have had, well, I’d have kicked her right out and told her where to stick it”

“Well, yes. You should have, shouldn’t you?”

It felt almost like this was the first time, ever, there was a conciliatory tone to her voice, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“ Don’t give me all that. You were the one who invited her in the first place. You wanted her around. I was just enjoying it being the two of us. “

It had been at the start of their young marriage, free at last, a place of their own. Giddy times, he remembered wondering how he got so lucky, and then how come that luck ran out so quickly.

“Yes, but we had no money, did we? We couldn’t afford it. Blimey, imagine if, somehow, we’d have been able to buy that place - we’d be millionaires by now. “

“Ha! Yeah. Not tourists gawking at all the old haunts. The last of the crew”

She looked him in the eye, something, he realised, she hadn’t done for a very long time. He felt her gloved hand, looped on his arm, squeeze.

“Was that what we were, Donny? A crew?”

“I suppose we were” 

As the rain started to lightly fall again, they turned away from the building that had such a profound effect on their lives and started down the road. It felt, almost, like a slate being cleaned. Yet the pain and misunderstanding would always be there, but perhaps now they didn’t need, either of them, to talk of it again. Why did they wait so long, he wondered.

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Old Bond Street, London, 2023. Nikon d750

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