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Carolyn had phoned her mother afterwards, having as she did the vague notions that a) one phoned one’s mother in times of great change, and b) getting divorced from one’s husband of six years more or less constituted a time of great change.
“We’re finished,” she said, her voice clipped, sharp: well-kept like a hedgerow, like a hand of nails. “Ian and I. I thought you ought to know.”
“Oh.”
Carolyn waited. Her mother didn’t usually keep to single syllables, would surely have a judgement to render.
“Well, that’s a shame, isn’t it. Still, five years, though—”
“It was six years.”
“Oh, really? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Of course. Of course, you’d know. Well, that’s rather good innings, considering, isn’t it?”
Carolyn’s grip on the handset tightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you know—nobody really thought—we all thought he was sweet on Ruthie, at the start. You and he just didn’t always seem to fit. Ian’s….”
Her mother trailed off, but Carolyn had heard the end of that sentence many times over. Ian’s such a dear. Ian’s a wonderful man. Ian’s just so terribly nice, isn’t he? Really solid. Really reliable.
What on earth is he doing with you?
This last, only once, the Christmas between their engagement and wedding. Ian had stepped out onto the patio to smoke a cigar with her father and Carolyn’s mother had said it laughingly, watching the silhouettes of the two men through the window. Yes, yes, he’d liked Ruth at first and wasn’t it a turn-up, nobody could have seen it coming, wouldn’t put you two together, but don’t they always say opposites attract?
She should be in floods of tears, Carolyn reflected, should be in pieces now because it was all over and Ian was such a dear, just so very… nice, wasn’t he?
And that was just it. He was nice. So awfully nice. And it wasn’t that Carolyn wasn’t nice, exactly… She could be nice when the occasion presented itself, but in-between times, she preferred not to be bound to one adjective. Ian, she presumed, would be more, too, with somebody who knew how to draw it out.
So in the end – thinking about it as she had over the eons that had fled in the few seconds since her mother’s sentence had frittered away into static – in the end, she wasn’t all that offended. She and Ian had been a mismatch - right from the start, and not in a magical, binding sort of way. Just in a ‘what are we actually doing?’ sort of way.
Six years. Not bad innings, considering.
“Yes,” said Carolyn. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” But then, because at the end of the day she was going to be divorced at twenty-nine and her mother had not so much as asked her if she was alright, “So now you know. Goodbye, then.”
She set down the receiver and sighed and wondered a little if she might cry.
No? Well, then. Onwards.