Wire Coat Hangers

She slid open the door. Coat hangers swung slightly in the rush of air.

‘What!’

What. What. What? Realization shot in first. Then fury.

Empty. Empty. His clothes were gone. He was gone. Hot tears started to course and she swiped at them. Angry. Livid. Thoughts raced. ‘Don’t you go and feel sorry for yourself now!’ Yelling at herself?

It didn’t help.

First one drawer in his tallboy, then another, and the bottom one. All empty, like his side of the closet. Two steps back, two, and she plonked down on the bed, defeated. She slid down slowly, lay on her side, on her side of the bed, curled into a comma, an apostrophe, feeling the room – sensing the room – grow dark around her. If she could sleep, it might stem the rage that ran through her. They had plans. They had plans together.

Was it just anger? Sadness, sadness, misery drummed at her chest.

It was cold and still when she clattered cups and things in the kitchen much later. No idea what time it was. Even when she looked at her phone on the counter when it rang, she did not register it was very late. Or very early, or whatever. But somewhere on the other side of the world from her, Lesley Goddard was awake, calling her.

‘Hello, Mother. Yes, I did – yes, I left you a message. I would have woken you up if I had …’

Lesley Goddard’s stream of words started and never stopped. It was how she was. She told you what she thought and she never stopped thinking. There was no mental filter there to sort good from bad, straight from crooked, fair from inappropriate. ‘I told you, darling. I told you the minute I saw him, Merry. He didn't care for you. You’re well rid of him.’

Merry held the phone away from her ear and shook her head, and the tears now were of regret rather than anger. Of misery and self-pity. If her mother understood, if she gave her a minute’s consideration, a second’s silence, it might help. But who else was there to call, right then, right then?

It was the middle of the night everywhere but where Lesley Goddard went on, unhindered. Merry did not really need to listen. She had heard it all, all, through a childhood and youth filled with words, words, words. She didn’t need words; she had had enough of words.

‘I don’t need solutions, Mother.’ She spoke through the woman’s gabble, with the realization of why her mother was ‘Lesley Goddard’ to her mind. That’s all she was, just as her friends thought of her as Lesley Goddard, if she still had any. That Lesley Goddard who talks, talks, talks – telling you what she thinks about how you should run your life.

She didn’t need solutions or platitudes, she needed someone to listen. Just listen and nod while she mumbled and disburdened and perhaps rid herself of some of the tension and pain. And disappointment. Disappointment.

‘Mother …’

But the woman on the other end would neither listen nor stop.

Merry thumbed the side of the phone and killed it. Everything was still and silent. She should not have called work; a day off – what would it do? She should have gone in the next day and distracted herself with spreadsheets and the recalcitrant database. And recalcitrant colleagues, who pitted their lack of satisfaction against hers.

Was that all it was? Was life one big AGAINST?

Not allowing herself to answer the question, Merry looked around their flat. Her tiny apartment, where Tim had moved in … what was it? Three years ago? She was not about to move. No, that would be too reactive, too expensive, too stupid; but a cleansing renovation was long due. It would renovate her core, too; the part of her that missed Tim and could not understand why he had gone without argument, like a thief in the night, while she was at the dentist.

She looked at her phone. She owed him no explanations. She would wait. Or she could call him. Or she could wait.

Reactive reactions. Her smile was wry. She knew all about them; No.

She gazed at herself in the oval mirror over that empty chest of drawers without having to ask herself why. Staleness and impatience – the kind that bordered on contempt – had entered their relationship a long time ago.

So what would she do to the kitchen? How would she remodel the entry? There was a stack of magazines in the lounge. The lounge, whose curtains and blinds she paused to consider. She would divest the place of its autumn colours and inject some brightness. She would have silver and cornflower blue and white, white, white.

It was a big pile of magazines. She staggered as she brought it to the kitchen table. Her dreams – not even Lesley Goddard would call them plans, if she could entertain someone else’s ideas – were held by bookmarks. Swing tickets, receipts, faded printouts from teller machines and old shopping lists stuck out of the pages, bristling like useless far-fetched concepts.

Tim was pushed to the side of her mind, but he was still there. ‘People don’t change, but how they react to things is developed by what’s thrown at them by life,’ someone had said to her once. Not just someone – it was an injustice to categorize Clara as a mere someone. Her wisdom, laughed through large horsy teeth and grinned through wide judicious eyes, was precious. But she contracted cancer and died so suddenly Merry hardly had the time to gauge her reactions, to grieve. Now, she sat looking at the pile of magazines without really seeing it. ‘Ah, Clara. I could do with a bit of your sarcasm and acerbity now.’ Merry turned and pushed the lever on the kettle. ‘Come on, send me something.’

It was their joke. Neither of them believed in anything. Not even plain luck or misfortune. They did not belong to the everything happens for a reason brigade. There was no hereafter, no power greater than themselves. Realists, pragmatists, they were, talking over coffee, or wine, or ice cream, and derided the world, laughing their practicality to life between them. ‘And now you’re dead.’

But she wished Clara was there to sort her out, take her by the shoulders and shake her a little. What was the loss of a relationship, after all, she would say? What would she rather lose? What did she value most, the partner who left her … or all her money and life’s accumulations and achievements, such as they were? It was a thought. ‘Be true to yourself now, Merry,’ she said to that reflection. The mirror would have to go. She leafed through a magazine to find a white-framed arched one she had seen weeks ago, coveting its stylish shape.

She pulled at the bookmarks, sheaving them into an untidy pile as she turned pages. What she had marked months ago would not necessarily please her now, or in a year, when the renovation had settled and she had grown used to it.

Would she get used to it? Would a Tim-less existence work for her? She was growing mushy; it was not the right attitude to take on. Coffee, a glass of wine, ice cream … all three! She raided the fridge and sat again to make a solid plan for redecorating the flat. It would take money, real money, and goodness knew there was not a lot of that.

It crossed her mind as she sipped at the last of what was left in a bottle of Taylors. Had Tim raided their housekeeping account in the same way as she rifled through the freezer for ice cream? Same as he emptied his wardrobe?

A quick thumb-type on her phone showed her what he had done. ‘Hmm, I see.’ Tim had taken exactly half of the balance. Exactly, down to the last thirteen cents. The account had been closed, and he sent one half to her personal account at another bank. ‘Right.’ Days ago. A week. Premeditation, girl.

It was fair, she supposed. Fair? Was it?

Clara would say, ‘Leave it. Leave it, Merry.’

Lesley Goddard would hiss a diatribe against Tim, against all men, against all money-grubbing people, about her own failed relationships. Half an hour of my, I, mine, me, myself, myself, myself.

She stood and paced with some determination to the wardrobe and looked again at the swinging wire coat hangers. She had always hated them – her side of the wardrobe was neat and uniform, with all her garments, arranged in seasonal weights, hanging on identical flocked non-slip black hangers. They all faced the same way. It was something that irked Tim, her tidiness.

He had once broken a wine glass at the sink when she had said something like, ‘It appeals to my sense of order.’ She could not remember what the argument was about, but it had irritated him so much he squeezed his eyes shut and uttered a long grunt of annoyance she could still hear if she paused and thought about it. She got on his nerves.

Quite seriously. It was why he was gone, gone, gone.

000

‘You know this as well as I do.’

‘What? What do I know?’ Merry sat across from Isobel, a friend she found acted and spoke a fair similarity to Clara’s wisdom. They met at a favourite café, where they went to cheer each other up, to catch up, to lament and celebrate.

‘You know that no one leaves a happy relationship. There’s always a reason.’

‘Huh – I also know relationships can be practical, romantic, idealistic …’

Isobel nodded fiercely. ‘… transactional ...’

‘What!’

‘You know what. What you had with Tim was a deal, not a relationship.’

‘I often wonder what Clara might have thought.’

‘Hmm – she would have said that relationships end for romantic, idealistic reasons too, because unhappiness is not about the other, but about the SELF.’ There was a slight tinge of victory. Isobel was satisfied with the level of intelligence in her observation.

‘Yeah. Look, look – we’re both being clever. We’re experts at sorting out the world. We’re great at reasons.’ Merry smiled, though. Half an hour with Isobel made her miss Clara, but generally gave her enough clever ammunition and good humour for a week.

But would a week rid her of this feeling of loss? Ah – Tim.

She stood alone in front of that wardrobe again. The sooner she started renovating, the quicker she would heal. A list of paint, hardware, tools and supplies grew on her notebook. If she was really careful she could afford it all. Just. The magazines were still stacked on the kitchen counter. Sunshine streamed in while she leaved through, waiting for the dishwasher to finish. And that was when she saw it.

It stuck out of one of the pages of Home and Garden. Just a corner, just visible. She had binned all the rest. It was a lotto ticket. One of Tim’s ways of wasting money. She did not believe in fate, or destiny, or luck. There were no such things. Constructs created out of nothing but hope had no place in her life. She never bought lotto tickets. This one looked as new as the day it was rung up. Tim too had leaved through those magazines, looking for dream DIY projects.

She pulled it out and looked at it. Huh. Not recent, but not that old. It found its way to her wallet, and the next time she walked into a newsagents for a new magazine, handed it to the girl behind the counter. ‘It’s an old one,’ she apologized. ‘Am I within the two years or whatever it is?’

‘I think it’s seven.’ The girl’s smile and wink was a mark of hope. She believed in luck. She raised crossed fingers. The machine pinged and rang a tune. She looked at the screen with a fallen jaw. ‘You … it … gee!’

Money for paint, Merry guessed. Yes!

‘It’s a share in four million.’ The girl was breathless, as if she had vaulted the counter to give Merry the news.

‘What?’

ooo

It was months before she did anything about the win. Months after she had banked the money, looking at the unbelievable balance on her online statement and shaking her head. Yes, there was the modicum of a smile around her eyes. She would use it, but she would not say a word about it.

She showed Isobel around the flat, which had been completed quickly, before the deadline Merry had set herself. The kitchen alone was nothing short of fabulous, and her friend said so, tapping fingers on the stone countertop, stroking the shiny tapware and cupboard knobs with fingers that spoke more than words.

‘My goodness, Merry.’

‘I know.’

‘I didn’t know you had the wherewithal for automatic blinds! And those amazing armchairs. This beautiful artwork. And that mirror!’ They stood at last in Merry’s bedroom, where light from the park played across a fine rug which was obviously wool, obviously expensive.

‘Chic. Unbelievable. Oh – gorgeous.’

The closet was gone. Contractors had removed the built-ins, which made the room spacious and light. In their place stood matching white French armoire and garde-robe. ‘These are stunning!’ It was the only adjective left. Isobel had run out of adjectives. ‘May I?’ She opened the double doors of the stylish wardrobe and noted the colour- and season-arranged clothing. ‘And racks! All those racks.’

No metal coat hangers. Not a single solitary wire hanger.

‘Racks appeal to my sense of order.’

‘Well, I must admit you’re a tidy soul.’

Merry didn’t believe in souls. ‘I won lotto.’ There it was, finally out. She put a hand to her mouth. There went her promise to herself.

Isobel spun to face her. Her brown hair was ruffled, her wide brown eyes full of disbelief. ‘Really!’

‘Yes. And it was actually one of Tim’s tickets. I … I decided not to share.’

Isobel’s eyes narrowed. ‘You didn’t tell him?’

Merry didn’t answer. She remembered her misery, her desolation when he left without a word. She led the way to the fridge, took out a bottle of moscato and found two exquisite Spanish glasses. ‘Let’s drink to … let’s drink to something.’

‘Merry … Meredith Goddard – come on. You really didn’t tell him?’

Her name said like that conjured an image of her mother, the woman she thought of as Lesley Goddard. Merry laughed. She sipped wine and laughed. ‘My mother would preach if I told her. She would give me thirty minutes of what she thinks, what she feels, what it suggests to her. Don’t preach, Isobel. Please.’

Her friend stroked her arm. ‘No. Of course not. I see what you did here.’ She fanned a hand at the dove grey kitchen cupboards, the black steel chandelier, the white latticed dresser across from the beautiful arch to the foyer. She waved at the row of blue and white ginger jars. ‘I see what you did. You renovated.’

‘I did.’

‘No – I mean you didn’t move out. You moved on. You didn’t run away and start again. You didn’t buy bigger and better. You stuck to your life. I can see it for what it is.’

‘Is that what you think I’ve done here?’ Merry felt the wine reach her pulses, her ankles, the lightness in her mind. She almost waited for Isobel to say hope.

‘He left without warning, didn’t he?’

‘Not a word. No message, no phone call, no explanation. I still haven’t heard.’

‘I know. I see him in the city and he doesn’t even turn or wave – and I’m not even involved.’

Merry nodded. ‘I guess you’re part of my life and me … and he wants nothing more to do with me.’

Isobel threw her head back and chuckled. ‘Or your sense of order. Well, there’s order here.’

‘There is?’ Merry thought again of her hatred for swinging wire hangers.

‘There is. This is balance, Merry. This is justice. He leaves without a word, you keep the windfall. He never knew anyway. Never will know, right?’

‘Never.’

‘Exactly. I see it.’

But Merry moved towards the wine bottle and topped up both their glasses. ‘Hm. What do you see exactly, Isobel?’ She wondered what Clara might have seen.

‘You know how they say success is the best form of revenge? Well, you have succeeded. He’s now in your past. And that, in my book – in our book – is the sweetest revenge.’

They laughed together. Merry turned on her new stereo and the sound of William Barton playing digeridoo with some full-scale orchestra filled the entire apartment. The light was beautiful, the music perfect, the timing right. Merry was free, and it was all solved and behind her. Whether Tim knew it or not, she had got her own back.

‘I think I see what I did, too.’

oooOooo