But now, lying in the gloom of Eva’s spare room, he realizes it doesn’t matter what he thought about it. For Rosie, it wasn’t about Seb and his body, it was about her and it was about him, and now it’s about her friend. There is no justification or explanation that will change that. From her point of view, he has betrayed her in the most degrading way possible.
Seb wakes at four a.m., pulls on tracksuit bottoms and a faded T-shirt, lets himself out and walks home. The air is chill, and Seb starts to panic as he walks, picking up the pace, imagining getting home and finding empty beds, missing passports. As soon as he’s through the front door he takes the stairs three at a time, but there, of course, they are. Rosie and Greer fast asleep, Rosie clinging on to their daughter like she’s charging her own gravitational force, the one that will keep her from drifting away from them all entirely. He strokes Greer’s hair, and she stirs slightly before he goes to check on her brother and big sister.
He goes downstairs without turning on any lights, sits on the kitchen sofa and looks up how to delete the search history on his phone. He waits for his phone to finish deleting everything, all those women lurking in its synthetic memory, and where he used to feel a spike of excitement, he now just feels hollow.
Electronically cleansed, he waits for the first glimmer of sunrise before getting up to unload the dishwasher, put the kids’ porridge on, fold the washing, just about outpacing his despair with order and movement. He hears Greer laughing first, and then Heath grumpily shouting at her to be quiet. They’ll all be awake now. His hand shakes as he carries a mug of tea upstairs to Rosie.
Greer is sitting up in bed, her hair a tangled halo, a schoolbook in her lap. Rosie is lying on her back, listening.
He’s a shit.
‘Daddy!’
‘Morning, my loves.’ Seb watches Rosie turn to look at him, her hand shielding her eyes, weak protection against the morning light. Her face is creased with sleep. She looks exhausted, confused. ‘Let’s let Mummy sleep a bit more – why don’t you read to me downstairs?’
‘This book is boring.’ She throws it on the floor as she starts to shuffle off the bed. ‘Can we play witches’ school instead?’
‘We can play whatever you want.’
While Greer is cutting out a green frog for her cauldron and Heath is flicking through a magazine at the table, Rosie comes into the kitchen. She’s showered, perfumed, dressed for work and is moving quickly. The Monday morning panic snapping at her heels, she’s already fighting the brand-new week.
‘Where’s Sylv?’ she asks Seb, her voice crackling with tension.
‘She’s not down yet.’
Rosie tuts and turns to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Sylv, you up?’
Sylvie shouts something indecipherable back, which makes Rosie tut again. Seb moves to the kitchen door. He asks quietly, ‘I thought maybe we could not go to work today?’
She looks at him, but he can tell she can’t see him; she’s blind with anger. ‘Why?’
‘I was thinking we could talk …’
She looks like she wants to spit in his face. ‘I don’t want to talk.’ She pushes past him, reminding Heath, ‘Sweetheart, it’s Monday, you’re supposed to be in your football kit, remember?’
Sylvie finishes her geography homework at the kitchen table while Seb changes into work trousers and a shirt. The thought of staying here, his betrayal everywhere, fills him with more dread than going out into the world. He’ll go to work. He loads the dishwasher while Sylvie looks up facts about volcanoes on his phone. ‘Oh, you got a new message, Dad. Auntie Anna says, “Seb, we need to talk …”’ she reads before he clumsily snatches the phone, knocking her hand too hard.
‘Ow, Daddy!’ She flinches dramatically, rubbing her arm, his phone clattering to the tiled floor. He picks it up but doesn’t read the message from Anna, lets it rest on top of the other unread messages and calls from Eddy.
‘Sorry, Sylv.’ His hand is shaking as he comes towards her, reaching to touch her, but she pushes him away before leaving to walk to school.
When Seb opens the front door, their neighbour Martin is shepherding his daughters along the bumpy pavement on their pink bikes.
‘Morning, Seb!’ Martin says, smiling from his crouched position next to his youngest, who is balanced on stabilizers at a precarious angle. ‘Good weekend?’
Seb manages to nod and say, ‘Fine, thanks, Martin. You?’
Martin grimaces and says something about his in-laws before he stands up straight and shouts at his elder daughter, ‘Jessie, I asked you to wait!’
Seb gratefully turns left, away from Martin, taking the longer route to school.
He isn’t walking alone for long before Vita calls his name. ‘Sebbo!’ She crosses the road towards him, her son, Luca, silently following.
Seb looks at the squirming kid first. ‘Morning, Luca,’ he says while Vita arranges herself on Seb’s arm.
‘So, how was it?’
Seb, blank, replies, ‘How was what?’