He placed his suitcase on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. Helena walked over to the window and looked out across the sea.
‘So, what do you want to talk about?’ he asked, but he knew the answer.
‘Us,’ she replied flatly.
‘What about us?’
‘Well, it’s just not the same, is it?’
‘No.’
‘I’m tired of pretending to the children that everything’s fine. It’s not fine. I’m not happy. It’s all very well for you, travelling the world like a gypsy, writing your books of stories. But I’m the one trapped here in this house without you. Without any support. I’ve brought these two children up almost single-handedly,’ she said and felt the strain in her neck rise to clamp her head in its vice.
‘But you always knew that was my life. You didn’t have any expectations. You said so yourself. You gave me freedom because you understood that I couldn’t survive without it,’ he said, shaking his head and frowning.
‘I know. But I didn’t know how it was really going to be. In the beginning we travelled together. It was a dream. I loved it and I loved you. But now . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Now?’ he ventured sadly.
‘Now I don’t love you any more.’ She turned to face him. Noticing the hurt cloud his face she added quickly, ‘Love has to be nurtured, not left to rot with
neglect, Ramon. I loved you once, but now I don’t know you any more. I wouldn’t recognize love if it slapped me in the face. All I know is that I’m tired of being alone and you always leave me alone, for months on end. You always will,’ she said and the tears cascaded down her cheeks, one after the other, until they formed two thin streams of misery.
‘So what do you want to do?’ he asked.
She walked timidly over to him and perched next to him on the bed. ‘If you were afraid of losing me, Ramon, you’d stay and write here. You’d change for me. But you won’t, will you?’ He thought about it for a moment, but his silence answered her question. ‘Do you love me, Ramon?’ she ventured.
His shiny conker eyes looked at her forlornly. ‘Yes, I do, in my own way, Helena. I still love you. But I don’t love you enough to change for you. If I stayed here with you and the children I’d shrivel. I’d dry out like a plant in the desert. Don’t you see that? I don’t want to lose you, or the children, but I can’t change,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I arrive home and the first thing I think about is when I can get going again. I’m sorry.’
They both sat in silence. Helena cried with the relief of having given vent to her feelings. She felt the heaviness lift and the tension ease on her temples.
Ramon sat wondering what she was going to do. He didn’t want to lose her. She was his safety net. He liked to have a home to come back to. Even if he rarely used it, he still liked it to be there. He loved his children. But he wasn’t used to the day-to-day routine of children. He wasn’t a family man.
‘So what happens now?’ he said after a while.
‘I want to go home,’ she replied, standing up again and walking over to the window.
‘You mean to England?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s the other side of the world,’ he protested.
‘Why should you care? You’re always the other side of the world and you always will be. What difference does it make where we are? You’ll always be on another continent.’
‘But the children?’
‘They’ll go to school in England. We’ll go and live in Cornwall with my parents.’ Then she rushed to his side and knelt on the floor at his feet. ‘Please, Ramon. Please let me take them home. I can’t bear it here any more. Not the way it is now. Without you there’s no point, don't you see? I don’t belong here like
you do. I would have belonged, I had planned to, but now I want to go home.’ ‘What will you tell them?’
‘I’ll tell them that we’re going home. That you’ll come and see us, the same as you always have. We’ll just live in a different country. They’re young, they’ll accept it,’ she said firmly. She looked at him imploringly. ‘Please, Ramon.’
‘Do you want a divorce?’ he asked impassively.
‘No,’ she replied quickly. ‘No, not divorce.’
‘Just a separation then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then nothing. I just want out,’ she said and hung her head.
His premonition had been right. She was leaving him. She needed his permission to take the children out of the country and he would give it to her. How could he deny her that? Their children were more hers than his if one judged it by the amount of time they both spent with them. She was right, what did it matter where they were, he was always thousands of miles away.