When Linda woke up that day, she realised, as she did most mornings, that Tim was already up.  She decided that a few more minutes in bed would be good and she stretched her legs across the whole bed, enjoying the cool expanse of sheet.  Cool – so Tim had been up some while - probably, Linda thought, in the garage, getting ready for today’s activities – his activities, not theirs. 

She rolled out of bed, her early morning cup of tea beckoning from the kitchen. Pushing her feet into slippers, Linda felt the irritations of the day beginning. Tim’s wetsuit, from yesterday’s swim? sail? paddleboard? was stretched across the doorway, patches of wet darkening the carpet. Linda stepped across it onto the landing where the usual flotsam and jetsam greeted her.  Most of the stuff had been there for weeks – tools, fishing rods, cycling kit, and shoes. Why so many shoes – wetsuit boots, trainers, sandals? Nothing smart, she noted.

And why was all this stuff upstairs on the landing for heaven’s sake? She knew why. It was because Tim had taken over their daughter Sarah’s bedroom as his “Hobbies Room”, the garage (it had never housed a car) already full to overflowing.

 “You won’t let me bring things in the living room,” he had grumbled to Linda and this was true. She drew the line at the living room. Although, just recently, shackles and pulley blocks were jostling for place with the laptop, the remote controls and newspapers on the coffee table.  

In the kitchen Linda made a big mug of tea and turned on the radio. She began to feel soothed by the soft music but the mood was disturbed by Tim’s noisy arrival in the kitchen. Linda felt, rather than saw, the tension in his movements. No words were spoken; he filled his water bottle; picked up two muesli bars from the cupboard and stuffed them into his rucksack.

“Are you going straight out or shall we have breakfast together?” Linda heard the implied criticism in her question.

“You know I’ve got early start, I told you,” Tim’s voice was tetchy, even more than usual. Linda looked at him, wondering if she should know what he was doing today. 

“Fishing competition! Me and Steve,” Tim muttered, pulling his mobile phone away from the charger.

“Will you be back for lunch?” Unlikely, Linda thought and also, in the same moment, she was aware that she hoped he wouldn’t.

“Oh - not sure – Claudia and some of the others are bringing food. Anyway, I told you – it’s an all-day thing.” 

Claudia. Linda had heard that name a few times just recently.

Tim swivelled on his heels, brushed a kiss on Linda’s cheek and disappeared back into the garage. Linda watched him go. 

She looked around the kitchen – her kitchen – the only room free  from stuff and felt a sense of pride that she had kept this, her inner sanctum, at bay from the encroaching hordes of Tim’s paraphernalia.

The day seemed to stretch out in front of her. Since they had retired from the civil service, their joint “aims and objectives” (how she hated those words) had been quite vague and ill-formulated. Tim’s plan, as far as Linda could see, was to enjoy himself at break-neck speed, all day and every day and boy, was he doing that! Linda’s retirement plan had been to sort the garden out, go for walks and to read all those books she had been saving for exactly this time in her life. Sitting now with her cooling cup of tea and still not dressed, Linda realised with a bit of a jolt, that their plans did not, in any way, include each other. 

Hearing Tim moving around in the garage and talking softly to someone on his phone, Linda decided to shelve plans to tidy the house. What was the point?  She decided that lunch with Sarah would be so much more preferable.

An hour later, Linda was showered and dressed in her “going to town” clothes – as opposed to her every day housework or gardening attire. The wet marks on the carpet were still there but the wetsuit had gone.  Had Tim had a spark of tidying conscience? Linda doubted that. 

At the top of the stairs, she tried to step over a snaking length of fishing line but it tangled itself tightly round her ankle. Just saving herself from falling, Linda felt hot fury welling inside her. She disentangled herself and, leaving the coils  like evil, glassy eels, where they were, she left the house and its chaos.

Outside, the sun was trying to break through but it was windy and Linda pulled on a fleece to walk the mile and a half into the town centre.  She turned her face to the sun, feeling her shoulders relax. She loved the wind and let it ruffle her curly hair (did she comb it this morning?) and took a route away from the main road so that she could walk through the trees along the edge of the lake. Four cygnets (so cute!) were swimming as fast as they could to keep up with their parents. Linda sat on a nearby bench to take a photo, enjoying the small ripples made by their legs.

While she watched, Linda saw a small sailing boat tacking across towards her, its sails full and the sailors hiking-out to balance the boat. Linda thought about the years she had sailed with Tim and how exciting she had found it on the windy days.  So they had done things together in those days. She took a photo to show him later.

The boat veered towards her and gybed right in front of her, the sail flying across the thwart. A young woman was clinging to the shroud and shrieking - fake fear, thought Linda. The boat righted itself and Linda took another photo. 

She watched as the helmsman regained his seat, laughing and pulling his crew closely into his body and kissing her shoulder.

Linda turned away, shielding her face. It was Tim. And, the other, presumably, was Claudia.

She put her phone away.  The sailing boat, with her husband and his crew, flew across the water away from her.

The wind blew stronger and Linda pulled her fleece tighter around her. Somehow it all made sense now. She called Sarah and said she was too busy to meet for lunch,

“Come for supper tonight instead,” said Sarah. “Just you. We can talk better without Dad. Anyway, he’s always grumpy these days.” 

There must have been a time when he was happy, Linda mused, but she couldn’t remember when. She knew she rarely felt happy herself these days. 

Back at home, Linda pushed her way through the bikes in the hall and went straight upstairs to change. She stepped over the reels of fishing line unwinding themselves across the landing. She knew that she should wind them up. She also knew that today, just now, she wouldn’t. 

She stood looking down into the hall for a long time. She had loved this house in the early days but now the paint was peeling, the banisters were rickety and all that Linda could see now was the clutter. She hated that clutter.

 It was gone six o’clock when the front door opened and Tim called out a greeting. 

Linda watched from the top of the stairs. “How was the fishing?"

Just a small hesitation and Linda knew, if she looked at him, she would see that small, lying twist in his mouth.

“Yeah, it was good. A long time to be sitting. Only just finished,”

Such easy lies.

She said steadily, “I’m going to Sarah’s for supper – we didn’t think you’d be back. I might stay there for a few days.”

A flicker of surprise on Tim’s face. He climbed the stairs towards her, heading, she knew, for the hobby room. He stepped over the stuff on the landing and brushed past her, without really meeting her gaze. She smelt the alcohol on his breath.

The door shut behind him.

Linda stared at the closed door then knelt down and picked up the twisting, silky fishing line. One end was tightly wound round the newel post and it was so easy for Linda to thread the loose end across the top of the stairs and fix it, to and fro, several times. As she secured both ends she felt like the female spider in the centre of the web.

Back downstairs she put on her jacket and opened the front door. A feeling was bubbling in her chest – fear? excitement? a giggle?

Linda closed the door firmly and walked out, feeling the soft air close around her like a hug.

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