The 25 Year Divorce

Chapter 1

She sat outside the chapel, white veil draped over the flagstones, sobbing, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t go through with it. I just can’t.’

‘Come on, Lib. Everyone gets nerves right before, it’s normal.’ Her best friend Nicola was tall and angular, dressed in a plum coloured 1940s evening dress unearthed from a charity shop, poorly accessorised with oxblood ballet flats. She drew determinedly on a cigarette.

‘But I don’t think I even love him’ said Lizzie.

‘It’s just the stress of the situation, the last few days. You’ll be fine.’

‘Isn’t this supposed to be the happiest day of my life? God help me for the rest.’

‘You’ll get through it. And if not, we can start planning the divorce!’

‘Seriously, Nic - do you think I should marry him?’

‘You asked me before, and I told you, before. But right here, right now, yes, I think you have to go through with it, now.’

Chapter 2

He was a history teacher who wore quilted gilets and cargo pants; he was someone always prepared for every eventuality - all those pockets filled with essential survival items. She’d been impressed when he pulled out a corkscrew when they accidentally bought a bottle of wine without a screw top. There was a bicycle repair kit, a GPS tracker, two folded rain macs, a calculator, a sewing kit, a bar of Kendal Mint Cake, an emergency tin foil survival blanket and even a small foldable tyre pump which she had marvelled at as it slowly reinflated her car enough to drive home. It was only later she wondered why he didn’t just join the RAC.

He was not someone to whom you would feel instant attraction, would merge unnoticed into any crowd scene - average height, average weight, regulation hair. Only his ears were distinctive, extended like a bat’s, or like a cup counter, she often thought, an anemometer - designed to measure wind speed. She rather liked this about him - not necessarily geeky, but self-absorbed and uncaring in his dress in a way that was strangely endearing.

His name was Clifford Swales and when she once addressed him as Cliff - at a staff meeting, he politely informed her that he preferred Clifford.

When he first asked her out it was nothing like a date. They had gone for drinks after work - exactly two drinks - then driven separately home. They discussed their classes, their pupils, he advised her which pupils - or more specifically which parents of pupils - to be wary of. He hadn’t asked her about herself, where she came from, or anything about her life before she joined the school. She went home with no clue as to why he invited her, and wondering whether she’d somehow disappointed him.

It was a surprise when two weeks later he asked if she might be free at the weekend. He was going to a tractor pull, and suggested it might be fun.

She wore new brown suede boots and a brown tweed jacket. Who knew what to wear for a tractor pull? She laboured with the hair styler, though it looked much the same as ever. She had sensible mid-length brown hair, the identical style since she was ten.

They parked and trudged across long wet grass. Everywhere were displayed items of farm machinery old and new, some painted in bright colours with cartoon logos like ‘Stony Broke’ or ‘Farmer Giles’ Tractor’, others sober red and green Fordson models from the interwar years.

It had been raining and there was a wide expanse of sludgy mud track bordered with temporary barriers covered in advertising boards - Massey Ferguson, Gary’s Feed Supplies, D & J Farm Sales. The spectators sat either side of the barriers on an array of camping furniture. Clifford had brought two folding chairs, a folding table and a large blue plastic picnic box. He unfolded her chair and she sat down ruefully, staring at the ruined boots.

There were compact tractors, oversized tractors, tractors with 3 wheel configurations set within triangular caterpillar tracks, old models belching out black smoke and newer models shrouded in fake black or red smoke-bomb clouds. There was a pervading odour of exhaust fumes and diesel, already seeping into the fibres of her jacket. ‘At least you could have taken me to Delhi,’ she said, ‘If you wanted me to experience pollution!’

He looked at her, somewhat perplexed. ‘Long way to go for a Sunday afternoon jaunt though.’

The tractors paraded up and down, along what was a kind of catwalk for tractors, spectators marvelling at the skill of the drivers as they attempted ever tighter turning circles.

At one point he leaned close to her ear and said ‘In the States, they hold these events at race tracks, with huge grandstands, with tractor units from HGVs rather than farm tractors. Have you heard of the ice roads of Canada’s Northern territories?’

She shook her head.

‘Those drivers are incredible, they manoeuvre 70ton trucks across unmarked ice, ferrying goods up to Alaska.’

He kept up a steady stream of tractor info - she learned that Fordson was a spin-off brand created by Henry Ford, making no-frills tractors affordable for all, that the first tractors were built in the 1840s, steam powered, and the first gasoline powered machines in the 1880s. ‘They were called tractors,’ he said, ‘Because they delivered a high tractive effect, but you’d probably know that as torque.’ He paused, then said ‘You’re probably thinking I’m all torque!’, then chuckled at his own joke for some minutes.

He supplied drinks, small pots of cubed fruit and other healthy snacks from the picnic box, but at one point relented and went to a van, returning with long hot dogs smothered in ketchup and mustard.

They wandered around the few stools selling tractor themed merchandise, and he insisted on buying her a keyring in the shape of a bright yellow International Harvester combine. Then he drove her back and courteously dropped her off outside her small rented maisonette. ‘That was fun, Liz. See you back at school on Monday.’

After that, they kind of drifted into becoming an item. She was new to the area, had formed no particular friendships and the school was her first position after teacher training. At the beginning, dating Clifford was something to do, the best of a number of not very appealing options. He was a man who had a multitude of hobbies and I enthusiasms. And he was intelligent, or at least was a fount of endless information that was all new to her. When they finally kissed and then a few weeks later he rather formally asked if she might like to stay the night - ‘So we can get an early start in the morning - there’s that museum I thought we might go to…’ she found him an attentive lover, concentrating on a number of areas of her body in a seemingly predetermined sequence. When it happened, she didn’t really know if it was good or bad, having only minimal experience in that area. At least she didn’t dislike it.

As the weeks passed, she took it upon herself as a kind of project - winning Clifford. She took an interest in his hobbies, so they’d have more to talk about, and could do more things together. Although he taught history, he had majored in archaeology. Most weekends he went to Anglo Saxon digs, spending hours painstakingly sifting through mud in search of a misplaced past. She realised the only way to spend more time with him was to accompany him, so she sent away for an archaeology trowel with a wooden handle inscribed with Celtic runes. After that, they spent weekends together, kneeling side by side, carefully exposing secrets.

Another of his passions was scuba diving - he was from the West Country and had previously been wreck diving, but although he talked about it frequently had fallen out of practice. For his birthday, the first birthday since they became a couple, she bought him - at surprising expense - a new wetsuit and flippers. When he opened the presents, he became incredibly excited, insisting on changing into the wet suit immediately, flippers and goggles too, and paraded around his living room. But Lizzie quickly discovered the obvious flaw in her plan - now he was desperate to try out the new equipment, so booked a trip to Loch Alsh, a sea loch near the Isle of Skye, to dive the wreck of the Port Napier - a minelayer which had exploded and sunk itself in 1940. ‘Such a shame you don’t dive too’, he said.

Over the next few months, he began taking regular trips to different diving locations. On those weekends she hung around retail parks, although she disliked shopping, or met up for coffee with another female teacher whose company she did not particularly enjoy, and waited for his return.

When he announced a trip to Cornwall, to the Lizard, to dive the wreck of the Mohegan, he said she could come and stay with his family. But she declined, told him she planned spending the time with her own mother. However as soon as he left, she caught a flight to Egypt, where she’d booked a 5-day ‘learn to scuba dive’ course in the Red Sea. She had told no one of her plans. As she sank beneath the water, she sucked desperately on the oxygen line, and panicked, and ascended immediately and battled to rid herself of the goggles. Her heart was beating so rapidly the instructor pushed the oxygen tube back into her mouth until she was calmer. ‘Panic attack,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not the first.’

Over the next few days, she began to dread the moment when she’d have to slip beneath the surface of the warm sea, and could never get used to the idea of breathing underwater, or seeing underwater, and quickly realised she had no interest in staring at fish, or rocks, or fish swimming between rocks. She longed for the point when she could rip the equipment off, go back to the beach and stretch out in the sun, sipping on chilled gin and tonics.

The assessment was on the fifth day and although it was obvious she had no aptitude or enthusiasm for it, she received her dive certificate. The next morning, she caught the flight home.

‘That’s amazing!’ said Clifford. ‘I can’t believe you did that!’

He began investigating places where they could both go, to dive. A few weeks later they travelled to Orkney - Scapa Flow, where German warships had famously been scuttled at the end of World War II. As they stepped off the plane, the rain was lashing down and barely relented all three days of their trip. They took a diving boat and made their way across the churning black sea. She shuddered as she looked down.

‘Dinna worry, it doesnae rain under there,’ said the skipper.

She braced herself, then slipped under the cold waters. The wreck wasn’t deep and she soon felt her feet touch the ocean bed. The ship was cloaked in all kinds of seaweed and there was something eerie and otherworldly seeing its rusting hull through the murky water. Clifford was ahead, skilfully swimming through a large open cavity and into the ship. But it was cold and dark and forbidding and all she could think about was getting above the waves, stripping off the wetsuit and sitting fireside out of the rain. She tried to stay with Clifford, and stuck it out for as long as she could bear, and was surprised to realise, upon surfacing, that she’d only been under for a matter of minutes. She changed out of the wetsuit and sat shivering under the awning. A few tears ran down her cheeks, she’d never felt so cold.

Clifford reappeared half an hour later. ‘Incredible!’ he said. ‘To think it’s been down there over 50 years.’

Chapter 3

When she first took him home, Mother had definitely approved. ‘He seems a very stable, sensible individual. I don’t think you’ll go far wrong with that one.’

‘Do you mean he has good prospects, Ma?’

‘But you have to think of those things, my dear. The world hasn’t changed as much as you imagine.’

Mother had been particularly impressed when she happened to mention problems she’d been having with the tv aerial. Clifford insisted on venturing into the garage, assembling a long ladder which hadn’t been used in years and clambering about on the roof with wire and pliers until a marginally better signal was achieved.

‘Thank you so much, Clifford. That was very kind of you. Of course, I hardly watch the thing. The rubbish they put on nowadays. It’s all bang round this corner, bang round the next.’

‘He would definitely be handy to have around the place,’ said Mother, later.

‘Yes, I suppose, if you need a handy man.’ But Lizzie often needed things fixing, too.

From that point on, Clifford was appointed de facto Chief Technology Officer. Whenever they visited, there was always an appliance that had broken, or needed rewiring, or batteries that needed changing or a timer that needed reprogramming or something which had remained boxed for months waiting for Clifford to assemble.

During those times, Lizzie would sit talking to her mother, drinking surreptitious cocktails, whilst Clifford was otherwise engaged.

‘If only your Father had turned out to be more like Clifford.’

Clifford was only the second boy she had introduced to her mother. She always carefully avoided reading the kind of magazines full of articles about how many people you should have slept with by a certain age. But still, she knew that two was not really enough. And even at that, the first one barely counted.

‘So is this one serious?’, Mother had said, which seemed to curiously reference a host of others who were not.

‘I guess,’ said Lizzie. ‘We get on well. We never argue. He’s a decent person, keeps in contact with his parents. Of course, he’s no looker.’

‘Looks don’t last.’ Her mother shrugged dismissively. ‘You have such a lot to learn, Liz. Sometimes I feel I have totally failed in your education.’

‘But shouldn’t there be something more?’

‘Passion is fleeting, dear, and all love eventually turns to its obverse, hate. Then comes all the shouting and screaming, the messy breakups. Leave all that to Hollywood. I think you’ve made a wise choice.’

Her father had been barely present through her childhood - he was always working late, or working away, so that she assumed he must be the world’s most hard-working man. Only as a teenager did she understand he was a serial womaniser, had girlfriends all over. She often wondered if there might be unacknowledged stepbrothers and stepsisters, maybe whole other families, like you sometimes read about in the news. It had taken her much longer to catch on than it should because Mother so enthusiastically perpetuated the fiction. She spent her days on the couch, an old fashioned housewife horrified by the very concept of working who had a large number of clubs, a succession of ever-evolving crafting hobbies and a few carefully publicised volunteer shifts which all kept her much busier than most careers. Excepting Father’s, of course.

*

She had met Nicola on her first day at University, they’d been allocated neighbouring rooms in the campus dorm. Nicola poked her head round the door asking to borrow some teabags. Somehow they struck up a friendship, of the opposites attract variety. And top of Lizzie’s Uni to-do list - find best friend. Back home she only had playmates, friends in school.

Nicola always called her Libby, either because it sounded cooler than plain old Liz, or because it marked her out as a special friend, a name only she could use. Nicola was not beautiful, but she was available, and always had lots of boys; all her other friends were boys. At first, she tried to drag Libby out, to dark and dingy clubs, or to watch punk bands, or those kind of house parties in squats that seemed to last forever.

‘Aren’t you going to dance?’ asked Nicola, one time. The dance floor was a huge living room with no furniture, wallpaper that had been mostly ripped off, carpet which crunched underfoot and hardcore techno distorting from an old boombox. A bare low watt bulb had been screwed into the only working light fitting.

Lizzie had looked around. ‘I think I’d rather clean,’ she said.

After that, Nicola constantly tried to set Libby up, there were always friends of friends of friends but it was obvious nothing would work out. Only one guy hung around - a short, skinny Irish boy who went bright red whenever any girl spoke to him and only listened to The Beatles. He was the plus one from his dorm group, dragged along to places and deposited with Liz, like a sitter. Eventually he overcame his shyness, but not the sexual orientation questions she suspected he was grappling with. Nothing ever happened between them.

Lizzie preferred to stay home, get an early bed, keep on top of her course work. She disliked loud music and late nights. But she got to live it all, vicariously, through Nicola. Her friend would return in the early hours, and recount everything that happened that night, and either make coffee or swig from a half empty wine bottle that she had brought back. Then, often, she would crawl into the small single bed beside Lizzie, and fall into a drunken sleep.

Sometimes, Lizzie could still smell the men on her.

And that seemed enough. A priest and confessor relationship, they both needed each other. For validation, for acceptance. Having a friend like Nic elevated Lizzie’s social standing - at least she understood the world, and for Nicola - she just needed someone to keep her from becoming completely lost.

‘Libby is my rock, she’s always kept me grounded… much like a kid being punished’ Nicola used to joke.

At the end of Uni, they’d gone on a trip together, a tour of the great cities of Europe taking in Vienna and Berlin and Milan. They walked through the architectural quarters, soaked up the history, traipsed around galleries, took reels and reels of film and filed all the memories away to be recounted in travel tales forever. Lizzie loved the patisseries of Vienna the most, but it was only in Berlin that Nicola came alive, loving the dark dance bars, the nascent techno movement, the underground vibe that had inspired Bowie and Iggy Pop, sneaking back to her room in the early hours. The city was still in the process of being rebuilt and they walked dutifully through Checkpoint Charlie, gawped at the crumbling graffitied remains of the wall, then stood solemnly before the Reichstag which turned out now, somewhat incongruously, to have a huge Norman Foster designed modernist glass dome.

When they flew back, there was a new awkwardness between them and neither was quite sure why they’d chosen that particular trip. Sometimes travel defines a friendship, other times it exposes its limits.