The Envelope
I’d forgotten about it entirely until he found the envelope.
“What’s in this?” he asked quizzically, staring at me intently as he held the small brown package towards me like a signpost from beside the shelves in my office. As soon as I saw it I knew, and I just tried to hold my face together so he wouldn’t see. If he did then it would only lead to more questions. Ones that I really didn’t want to answer.
He tried to hand me the envelope as I looked at the bookcase behind him, pretending to scour for a book I’d needed all day. “I’ve no idea,” I finally sighed, “it’s probably just tickets, or some other rubbish.”
“It’s got your name on the front,” he continued, a dog with a bone. “It must be yours.”
“Leave it there on the side,” I sighed, feigning exasperation. “I’ll take a look at it later.”
He looked around, waiting for something more, before giving in and placing the envelope carefully on the side table I was leaning against. He started to move away but stopped, turned back and stared into my eyes impassively. “But I want to see what’s in it.”
Back then, we never thought about consequences. No one did: we were all young and fearless and untouchable, and if we didn’t actually rule the world, it felt as though we should.
We were at the supermarket, the big one we had to catch a bus to reach, when we saw it on a discount shelf at the end of an aisle, sitting opposite the checkout and waiting for an impulse buyer to come along. And we did. A handful of still new Polaroid cameras, ancient stock taking up valuable space and marked at 80% off with 3 free films, with another shelf below containing more film going for a song. We looked at each other, and it was placed carefully, wordlessly, into the trolley next to the red onions.
I made us dinner when we got home, the late summer sun stumbling drunkenly through the kitchen window as she opened the wine and talked about all the places she wanted to see in Barcelona if she could get some time off work before the weather turned. I let her go on uninterrupted, enjoying the excited cadence of her plans, concentrating on my movements in the tiny space as I closed in on the end of my work, stretching out the process as much as I could before plating up as I enjoyed the buzz of her excitement.
The promise of a meal somehow made her even happier than the reality of one. And she was always ready to eat.
“Daddy, I want to see what’s in the envelope!” His voice was getting higher now, more urgent: I knew the pattern from here. He was focussed, sensing something was different, and he was not going to leave it until he knew what it was. “Why won’t you open it now?”
He made a lunge for the envelope but I shifted my weight, checking him with my hip as I leant back, casually placing my left hand onto it for protection. “I’ll take a look later,” I promised, simulating boredom, “and I’ll show you then. I’m just looking for something else at the moment.”
“I’m going to tell Lucia,” he threatened, playing his first card. “She’ll make you show me.”
“Lucia’s gone down to the shops with your sister,” I smirked as I watched him scowl, “so you’ll have to wait a while.”
“I want to see what’s in it now!”
“It’s probably some old receipts or something.”
“What’s a receipts?”
“It’s like a ticket.”
“A ticket for what?”
“I want to see Parc Guell the most,” she continued, slurping on her noodles as I shook chili flakes into my bowl, “but I don’t want to stay near there: it’s too far away. I want to stay near La Rambla. Angela told me about this little club she went to in the Plaça Reial, and an amazing restaurant she went to in the lanes behind it. And I want to go to la Boqueria, and smell the fish.”
She talked excitedly until she finished her meal, drained her glass, and then finally asked. “Why did you buy it?” she queried as she poured another drink for us both.
“I don’t know,” I deferred. “It was cheap. And I’ve always wanted one, I guess.”
“But for what?”
“For taking random photos. You know I like that.” I clinked her glass on the table, and took a long gulp. “Why did you buy it?”
“I always wanted one too,” she smiled, shyly looking over my shoulder before returning my gaze, emboldened. “You know why.”
“When do you want to use it?”
“Well, I’ve finished my dinner now…”
I downed the rest of the glass. “And I’ve finished my drink.”
“Come on then,” she smiled, dropping her bowl into the sink as she passed, “come with me. And bring the camera.”
I could see that he was casting around the room, looking for another bomb to drop, physical or emotional, it was no difference to him. He tried one last lunge at the envelope, which I parried with ease, before retreating to his toys on the other side of the room. Surely there’d be something he could use against me there, I could almost see him thinking.
“Daddy, where’s George?”
“Wherever you left him, probably. Either in your bed still, or with the other toys. Did you bring him downstairs this morning?”
“I don’t remember. Can you see him anywhere?”
“No, why don’t you look around?”
“I need help! Stop standing over there, come and look over here!”
“I can see just fine from here.”
“Daddy!” he squealed, going up a pitch as he tried to get me under control. “I can’t find him!”
“He can’t have gone anywhere, can he love? He’ll turn up.”
“But I need him now!”
I knew what he was doing, and yet there was little choice but to go along with his un-cunning plan. We looked in the lounge room, in his bedroom, in the playroom, and then the inevitable happened as he made a burst back towards the office. I grabbed him around the waist but, squirming as though in a trap, he wriggled free and pumped his little legs across the room, grabbing the envelope before holding it aloft, in vindication.
“I’ve got it!” he beamed as I slowed to a stop, pondering my next move. He pulled it towards him, his face now serious as he stopped to consider the shape and weight of the envelope. “We must open it now daddy,” he opined solemnly as I considered my next move.
She was already naked as I walked in, arranging herself on the bed in readiness for what came next. I brought the camera towards my face but watched her over the top of it, gazing impatiently as she contorted her body in front of me, rolling through her facial shapes, now coy, now sultry, using whatever was to hand as a soon to be discarded prop.
It wasn’t long before she wanted me, crawling across the bed and taking the camera off me before helping me remove my shirt, my jeans, my underwear, and then taking her turn with the camera. Suddenly self conscious I folded into myself before she instructed “no”, ordering me into the shapes of her choice until I could feel the wine helping me to follow her lead.
When she had enough shots she disappeared briefly into the kitchen before returning with a bottle of prosecco, popping the cork extravagantly and ensuring that I wore some of the spray before gulping from the bottle, the foam leaking from her mouth and snaking down her body as she laughed and handed me the bottle. I took a swig as she knelt down and took me in her mouth, leering upwards before leaning back and moaning “the camera”, moving forwards again as I picked it up and took the shot.
Later I was behind her, inside her, and as I pushed the bottle away I saw our profile in the full length mirror leaning against the wall. I watched her face for a while, seeing the ebb and flow of her mouth, before demanding “look in the mirror.” She turned towards it and caught my eyes before licking it lustfully as I captured the last photo and threw the spent camera to the floor.
Afterwards we lay in bed, leaning into each other with the light pulled down low over us as we perused our work. It was the last photo that made me ask.
“Why did you lick the mirror?”
“Oh,” she laughed quietly, “I thought you told me to...”
“Come on Max, we have to tidy up a bit before Lucia gets back,” I tried hopefully. “We can’t expect her to do all the work around here.”
“Okay, I’ll help you,” he sulked, but only if we look in there first.”
“Why are you so interested in the envelope anyway?”
“I just wanna know what’s in there.”
“Look, let’s make a deal: we tidy up in here and your bedroom first, and then we can think about it.”
“We can do it, you mean!” He wandered around the room, picking up a toy here and there, starting to play with them before I reminded him to tidy it away as I brought some basic order to the house. As soon as I told him we were finished he ran back into my office and picked up the envelope, turning it over and over in his hands before asking “why does it feel funny, daddy? It feels likes it’s sliding inside, or something…”
It was three years after Max was born, almost six since Louise had arrived, when Joanne received her diagnosis.
She was wearing a summer dress, and the doctor noticed a small mole on her back when she took our son for his shots. 2 weeks later, reading the report he said “ah” before pulling himself up in the seat as if to steady himself, turned to look at us both as we sat there vibrating, hands wound tight together like fencing wire while Max played with a toy in the corner, before starting “it’s rather worse than I feared, I’m afraid…”
My head filled with white noise, the feeling of teeth on aluminium foil, as a low, unstoppable moan escaping from my mouth. She sat there, silent and still, listening more intently than I’d ever seen her. I felt as though everything I knew was wrong, that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
And I was right.
She was already in planning mode when we got back home. “There’s not much time to get everything done. I will need your help.” Lucia started a month later from a nanny service recommended by a friend, and the kids loved her within the week. Jo smiled at that with wry satisfaction.
It was towards the end when she pulled out the envelope, although we didn’t know it at the time. Lucia had gone home, the kids were asleep, and there was only us and a bottle of red wine that she insisted on pouring out, even though she wouldn’t take more than a few sips to keep me company. She still looked incredible, she still looked like her, although she was much quieter by now, as though giving a final consideration to everything she saw.
She pulled out the photographs and smiled, the most genuinely happy emotion I’d seen for months from either of us. She went through the photos one by one before separating them into two piles, one of her, one of me, and said “I love you” before grabbing the kitchen scissors and cutting up her pile into small pieces.
“I wouldn’t want Lucia to find them, after I’ve gone,” she explained, putting the pieces back into the envelope alongside the intact photos of me.
“Why aren’t you cutting up the photos of me?”
“Maybe she’d like them,” she laughed, taking a last sip of wine before writing my name on the front. “At her age she could probably do with a little thrill now and again.”
“But why not just get rid of them completely?”
“Who knows what will happen later?” she smiled ruefully. “I know you’ve always liked jigsaw puzzles...”
He started to tear the envelope before I took it out of his hands and carefully lifted the flap before handing it back to him: he poured the contents onto the table and laughed as the pieces tumbled down. “It’s like it’s snowing, daddy!” He pushed the pieces around the table, trying to make sense of it all, before giving in and asking “what is it?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s just something you mum cut up a long time ago.” He fell quiet at the mention of her, as always, and gazed at the debris reverently for a while before wordlessly pushing the pieces into a pile and handing me back the envelope.
“Do you still feel sad when you think about her, daddy?”
“Yes, sometimes I do. But sometimes thinking of her makes me smile, too. Like now. Do you still feel sad when you think of her?”
“A little bit,” he gulped, looking up at me guiltily. “But sometimes I think about nice things, like hugging her or playing Lego with her, or a jigsaw or something, and that’s nice. I miss her lots, though.”
“Me too mate, me too. Do you want to help me put all these pieces back in the envelope?”
“Yeah, I do.”
It was the night of the funeral that I took the envelope out again. Lucia had got the last stragglers out of the house and tidied up the kitchen while I put the kids to bed, and when she was done she came over and hugged me, gently kissing me on both cheeks and said “okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I closed the door with my eyes welling again, and it was only afterwards that I noticed the plate of cold meats and cheese on the kitchen island, next to a bottle of wine and a glass.
I hadn’t seen the envelope since Jo had cut up the photos, and after the headfuckery of the day just finished I wanted to touch something of her one last time. I carefully smoothed out the pile of pieces and pushed my polaroids to one side before pouring a small drink, swirling it around in my mouth for a moment before swallowing.
I hadn’t planned anything, but the drink gave me the courage to take the decision: I pulled down the scissors and carefully cut up my photos into the same sized pieces before letting them tumble unto hers. I poured another drink and then mixed all the pieces together until I couldn’t tell which was which.
Good, I thought. At least some part of us will remain together now, for a while longer.
(August 2020)
“What’s in this?” he asked quizzically, staring at me intently as he held the small brown package towards me like a signpost from beside the shelves in my office. As soon as I saw it I knew, and I just tried to hold my face together so he wouldn’t see. If he did then it would only lead to more questions. Ones that I really didn’t want to answer.
He tried to hand me the envelope as I looked at the bookcase behind him, pretending to scour for a book I’d needed all day. “I’ve no idea,” I finally sighed, “it’s probably just tickets, or some other rubbish.”
“It’s got your name on the front,” he continued, a dog with a bone. “It must be yours.”
“Leave it there on the side,” I sighed, feigning exasperation. “I’ll take a look at it later.”
He looked around, waiting for something more, before giving in and placing the envelope carefully on the side table I was leaning against. He started to move away but stopped, turned back and stared into my eyes impassively. “But I want to see what’s in it.”
Back then, we never thought about consequences. No one did: we were all young and fearless and untouchable, and if we didn’t actually rule the world, it felt as though we should.
We were at the supermarket, the big one we had to catch a bus to reach, when we saw it on a discount shelf at the end of an aisle, sitting opposite the checkout and waiting for an impulse buyer to come along. And we did. A handful of still new Polaroid cameras, ancient stock taking up valuable space and marked at 80% off with 3 free films, with another shelf below containing more film going for a song. We looked at each other, and it was placed carefully, wordlessly, into the trolley next to the red onions.
I made us dinner when we got home, the late summer sun stumbling drunkenly through the kitchen window as she opened the wine and talked about all the places she wanted to see in Barcelona if she could get some time off work before the weather turned. I let her go on uninterrupted, enjoying the excited cadence of her plans, concentrating on my movements in the tiny space as I closed in on the end of my work, stretching out the process as much as I could before plating up as I enjoyed the buzz of her excitement.
The promise of a meal somehow made her even happier than the reality of one. And she was always ready to eat.
“Daddy, I want to see what’s in the envelope!” His voice was getting higher now, more urgent: I knew the pattern from here. He was focussed, sensing something was different, and he was not going to leave it until he knew what it was. “Why won’t you open it now?”
He made a lunge for the envelope but I shifted my weight, checking him with my hip as I leant back, casually placing my left hand onto it for protection. “I’ll take a look later,” I promised, simulating boredom, “and I’ll show you then. I’m just looking for something else at the moment.”
“I’m going to tell Lucia,” he threatened, playing his first card. “She’ll make you show me.”
“Lucia’s gone down to the shops with your sister,” I smirked as I watched him scowl, “so you’ll have to wait a while.”
“I want to see what’s in it now!”
“It’s probably some old receipts or something.”
“What’s a receipts?”
“It’s like a ticket.”
“A ticket for what?”
“I want to see Parc Guell the most,” she continued, slurping on her noodles as I shook chili flakes into my bowl, “but I don’t want to stay near there: it’s too far away. I want to stay near La Rambla. Angela told me about this little club she went to in the Plaça Reial, and an amazing restaurant she went to in the lanes behind it. And I want to go to la Boqueria, and smell the fish.”
She talked excitedly until she finished her meal, drained her glass, and then finally asked. “Why did you buy it?” she queried as she poured another drink for us both.
“I don’t know,” I deferred. “It was cheap. And I’ve always wanted one, I guess.”
“But for what?”
“For taking random photos. You know I like that.” I clinked her glass on the table, and took a long gulp. “Why did you buy it?”
“I always wanted one too,” she smiled, shyly looking over my shoulder before returning my gaze, emboldened. “You know why.”
“When do you want to use it?”
“Well, I’ve finished my dinner now…”
I downed the rest of the glass. “And I’ve finished my drink.”
“Come on then,” she smiled, dropping her bowl into the sink as she passed, “come with me. And bring the camera.”
I could see that he was casting around the room, looking for another bomb to drop, physical or emotional, it was no difference to him. He tried one last lunge at the envelope, which I parried with ease, before retreating to his toys on the other side of the room. Surely there’d be something he could use against me there, I could almost see him thinking.
“Daddy, where’s George?”
“Wherever you left him, probably. Either in your bed still, or with the other toys. Did you bring him downstairs this morning?”
“I don’t remember. Can you see him anywhere?”
“No, why don’t you look around?”
“I need help! Stop standing over there, come and look over here!”
“I can see just fine from here.”
“Daddy!” he squealed, going up a pitch as he tried to get me under control. “I can’t find him!”
“He can’t have gone anywhere, can he love? He’ll turn up.”
“But I need him now!”
I knew what he was doing, and yet there was little choice but to go along with his un-cunning plan. We looked in the lounge room, in his bedroom, in the playroom, and then the inevitable happened as he made a burst back towards the office. I grabbed him around the waist but, squirming as though in a trap, he wriggled free and pumped his little legs across the room, grabbing the envelope before holding it aloft, in vindication.
“I’ve got it!” he beamed as I slowed to a stop, pondering my next move. He pulled it towards him, his face now serious as he stopped to consider the shape and weight of the envelope. “We must open it now daddy,” he opined solemnly as I considered my next move.
She was already naked as I walked in, arranging herself on the bed in readiness for what came next. I brought the camera towards my face but watched her over the top of it, gazing impatiently as she contorted her body in front of me, rolling through her facial shapes, now coy, now sultry, using whatever was to hand as a soon to be discarded prop.
It wasn’t long before she wanted me, crawling across the bed and taking the camera off me before helping me remove my shirt, my jeans, my underwear, and then taking her turn with the camera. Suddenly self conscious I folded into myself before she instructed “no”, ordering me into the shapes of her choice until I could feel the wine helping me to follow her lead.
When she had enough shots she disappeared briefly into the kitchen before returning with a bottle of prosecco, popping the cork extravagantly and ensuring that I wore some of the spray before gulping from the bottle, the foam leaking from her mouth and snaking down her body as she laughed and handed me the bottle. I took a swig as she knelt down and took me in her mouth, leering upwards before leaning back and moaning “the camera”, moving forwards again as I picked it up and took the shot.
Later I was behind her, inside her, and as I pushed the bottle away I saw our profile in the full length mirror leaning against the wall. I watched her face for a while, seeing the ebb and flow of her mouth, before demanding “look in the mirror.” She turned towards it and caught my eyes before licking it lustfully as I captured the last photo and threw the spent camera to the floor.
Afterwards we lay in bed, leaning into each other with the light pulled down low over us as we perused our work. It was the last photo that made me ask.
“Why did you lick the mirror?”
“Oh,” she laughed quietly, “I thought you told me to...”
“Come on Max, we have to tidy up a bit before Lucia gets back,” I tried hopefully. “We can’t expect her to do all the work around here.”
“Okay, I’ll help you,” he sulked, but only if we look in there first.”
“Why are you so interested in the envelope anyway?”
“I just wanna know what’s in there.”
“Look, let’s make a deal: we tidy up in here and your bedroom first, and then we can think about it.”
“We can do it, you mean!” He wandered around the room, picking up a toy here and there, starting to play with them before I reminded him to tidy it away as I brought some basic order to the house. As soon as I told him we were finished he ran back into my office and picked up the envelope, turning it over and over in his hands before asking “why does it feel funny, daddy? It feels likes it’s sliding inside, or something…”
It was three years after Max was born, almost six since Louise had arrived, when Joanne received her diagnosis.
She was wearing a summer dress, and the doctor noticed a small mole on her back when she took our son for his shots. 2 weeks later, reading the report he said “ah” before pulling himself up in the seat as if to steady himself, turned to look at us both as we sat there vibrating, hands wound tight together like fencing wire while Max played with a toy in the corner, before starting “it’s rather worse than I feared, I’m afraid…”
My head filled with white noise, the feeling of teeth on aluminium foil, as a low, unstoppable moan escaping from my mouth. She sat there, silent and still, listening more intently than I’d ever seen her. I felt as though everything I knew was wrong, that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
And I was right.
She was already in planning mode when we got back home. “There’s not much time to get everything done. I will need your help.” Lucia started a month later from a nanny service recommended by a friend, and the kids loved her within the week. Jo smiled at that with wry satisfaction.
It was towards the end when she pulled out the envelope, although we didn’t know it at the time. Lucia had gone home, the kids were asleep, and there was only us and a bottle of red wine that she insisted on pouring out, even though she wouldn’t take more than a few sips to keep me company. She still looked incredible, she still looked like her, although she was much quieter by now, as though giving a final consideration to everything she saw.
She pulled out the photographs and smiled, the most genuinely happy emotion I’d seen for months from either of us. She went through the photos one by one before separating them into two piles, one of her, one of me, and said “I love you” before grabbing the kitchen scissors and cutting up her pile into small pieces.
“I wouldn’t want Lucia to find them, after I’ve gone,” she explained, putting the pieces back into the envelope alongside the intact photos of me.
“Why aren’t you cutting up the photos of me?”
“Maybe she’d like them,” she laughed, taking a last sip of wine before writing my name on the front. “At her age she could probably do with a little thrill now and again.”
“But why not just get rid of them completely?”
“Who knows what will happen later?” she smiled ruefully. “I know you’ve always liked jigsaw puzzles...”
He started to tear the envelope before I took it out of his hands and carefully lifted the flap before handing it back to him: he poured the contents onto the table and laughed as the pieces tumbled down. “It’s like it’s snowing, daddy!” He pushed the pieces around the table, trying to make sense of it all, before giving in and asking “what is it?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s just something you mum cut up a long time ago.” He fell quiet at the mention of her, as always, and gazed at the debris reverently for a while before wordlessly pushing the pieces into a pile and handing me back the envelope.
“Do you still feel sad when you think about her, daddy?”
“Yes, sometimes I do. But sometimes thinking of her makes me smile, too. Like now. Do you still feel sad when you think of her?”
“A little bit,” he gulped, looking up at me guiltily. “But sometimes I think about nice things, like hugging her or playing Lego with her, or a jigsaw or something, and that’s nice. I miss her lots, though.”
“Me too mate, me too. Do you want to help me put all these pieces back in the envelope?”
“Yeah, I do.”
It was the night of the funeral that I took the envelope out again. Lucia had got the last stragglers out of the house and tidied up the kitchen while I put the kids to bed, and when she was done she came over and hugged me, gently kissing me on both cheeks and said “okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I closed the door with my eyes welling again, and it was only afterwards that I noticed the plate of cold meats and cheese on the kitchen island, next to a bottle of wine and a glass.
I hadn’t seen the envelope since Jo had cut up the photos, and after the headfuckery of the day just finished I wanted to touch something of her one last time. I carefully smoothed out the pile of pieces and pushed my polaroids to one side before pouring a small drink, swirling it around in my mouth for a moment before swallowing.
I hadn’t planned anything, but the drink gave me the courage to take the decision: I pulled down the scissors and carefully cut up my photos into the same sized pieces before letting them tumble unto hers. I poured another drink and then mixed all the pieces together until I couldn’t tell which was which.
Good, I thought. At least some part of us will remain together now, for a while longer.
(August 2020)