… to ape something I said yesterday. I’ve always had a morbid fascination with those surrendered wives (well, I say always but they’ve only been around for about 10 years and only exist at all because of women’s lib). Of course, I could never be one, my mouth is too fond of being left to its own devices and beside, The Artist, would not, I think, have ever wanted that kind of responsibility.
Ours is a modern marriage, a blended family. We try to be a team and most of the time it works – The Artist has what he wants: to work as an artist and I have what I want: a third child after years of being denied (by virtue of divorce) and denying myself (that part of my life is passed – at twenty-four!!). We have no money to speak of, our car’s a c**t and we are trapped in the heart chavland. Apart from these minor problems we are for the most part happy.
Now, though, we are apart. I’m on the verge of tears often – last night at the school awards do I had to ask people not to be nice to me. Of course, they still were. I’m very afraid. Afraid of the immediate future: the possibility of being re-housed and the idea that that may well mean we are out of the frying pan and into the fire; afraid of not being re-housed and the idea of The Artist being in rehab for even longer than necessary. I’m afraid that every time this happens a little bit of what The Artist is to me is lost.
The thing I’m most afraid of is that this will happen again. I’m not afraid of having to care for The Artist but I’m so afraid of losing him.
