Chapter 1 - ‘This is very much the scenic route.’

Alright, here we go!

Welcome to Love You Too, Esty Mackie. This is a good place to start! Long time readers of this newsletter may have seen this book referenced in some posts, and here it is, in full, one week at a time.

For the first week, I’m publishing the first three chapters in one go. Click on through at the bottom of the posts. Or, check out the Love You Too, Esty Mackie tab at the top.

I hope you enjoy it 💖

Esther

I regret it the minute I offer Neil a lift into work, and then instantly feel mean because the weather’s shit. Big fat rain falls heavily from the sky. Bouncing off surfaces, carving out rivulets at the sides of the street, flooding drains. Summer rain. The kind people love to listen to at night, or savour the sound of before they have to get up. The kind that silences birds, and that you feel through your jacket as it hits your shoulders. The kind that’s nice to kiss in, but not walk in. And the gearbox in his car is fucked, so really, I can’t not offer to drive. It would be unreasonable.

Although truthfully, I was looking forward to twenty minutes to gather myself for the day, perhaps with a coffee and a pastry I could enjoy without him making a comment about having breakfast at home. Because he absolutely would make that comment. Just time alone in my car, me and the rain. But he’s already sitting in the front passenger seat when I leave the house and he winds down the window a crack.

‘Don’t forget your lunch, Esther!’ he calls, waving a purple and green neoprene lunch bag at me, and I raise my own black and turquoise one in response. Last year’s Christmas gift from his mother, along with matching insulated, initialled coffee cups. E for Esther, N for Neil. Mine lives in my desk drawer at work.

‘It’s leftovers from last night,’ he says, as I start the car. ‘Tuna pasta with tomatoes, remember?’

‘Mmhmm,’ I say, my eyes fixed on the rearview mirror as I reverse down the drive. I definitely remember; not least because I cooked it.

We wind slowly down the narrow roads of our estate. Past terraced townhouses with Juliet balconies and solar panels, and boxy maisonettes with exterior cladding and roof gardens, and the green with the basketball court in the middle.

This isn’t usual for us. Generally, Neil walks the fifteen minutes to the station, to catch the 08:12 to Basingstoke, but today he’s working from an office in the city centre, and he’s feeling talkative.

‘Just a note for next time,’ he says. ‘Tuna in oil is better, and I do think the sauce could’ve done with a touch more oregano.’

‘Oh, okay,’ I say, half tuned out and watching for a break in the traffic. The windscreen wipers whip rhythmically over the glass. The indicator ticks.

‘Just because of the way it balances the flavours,’ he continues. Calm down, I think, Gordon Ramsay you are not.

Neil’s a marmite person, and there’s no getting around that, it’s just a fact. People tend to either really like him or find him irritating, with very little ambivalence. He has a way about him. He hates to be back-footed, so before he speaks on anything, he’ll have formed an opinion about it. A reasoned argument, carefully researched and constructed, so that if ever he’s asked, he knows exactly what to say. Nothing is spontaneous with him. Nothing is off the cuff.

And usually I appreciate the safety of it; he’s stable and reliable and likes things the way he likes them, and that’s endearing in its own way. But this level of highly considered commentary really doesn’t need to extend as far as canned goods and dried herbs in a fairly basic pasta sauce, and it’s touched a nerve. I’m about to ask why he didn’t mention the oregano situation last night when I could have done something about it, but he changes the subject.

‘That aside, there’s actually something I wanted to broach with you.’

I glance briefly across at him and he’s looking as if I should know what he’s about to say.

‘Go on?’

‘We’ve lived in our house for how long now?’

‘Many, many years,’ I say, and I feel a little tested because he definitely knows the answer, probably to the day. ‘Getting on for seven.’

‘And we always said we weren’t going to rent forever.’

It isn’t a question.

‘Ye-es,’ I agree.

‘Well, the inheritance from my grandmother came through.’ He twists in his seat. ‘And remember we talked about using it as a house deposit?’

‘Oh, wow, big news. That seemed to take ages.’

I can feel his eyes on me still. My response isn’t what he wanted, but I’m chalking it up to the drive. ‘I’ve done some calculations and I think we could afford to look for something a little bigger,’ he continues.

‘Bigger? As in, more space?’ I ask, glancing across at him again. ‘Do you think we need it?’

‘Wouldn’t you prefer somewhere with a third bedroom? And maybe more room for your photos?’

His last comment feels off. Neil has never ever been interested in my photography in all the years I’ve known him. Occasionally I’ll try to get him excited over something I’ve taken, but he goes for function over beauty every time. Neil likes the walls blank.

But what he said about upsizing interests me, because our house is definitely big enough for just the two of us, and we have a spare room, used only occasionally by his parents, and home to an exercise bike I had good intentions for but which now serves as a clothes horse.

‘Guess it depends on what the extra bedroom was intended for,’ I say, coyly.

‘I’m sure we’d find a good use for it,’ he says, equally coyly. ‘Perhaps it’s time to revisit the life plan.’

‘What do you mean by “revisit the life plan”?’ I ask, swallowing, because he’s got my attention with this; revisiting the precisely constructed plan that steers his entire existence isn’t something Neil does. It might as well be carved into stone.

‘I mean, maybe it’s time we moved things forwards.’

‘Uh, okay,’ I say, confused now. He switches on the radio, leaving the conversation hanging in the air. The presenter quips merrily between songs and takes a call from a girl entering a competition. She answers a series of questions correctly, winning tickets to Glastonbury. There’s squealing over an applause track, and quick decisions about who she’s taking with her.

‘As if she didn’t know,’ Neil laughs, sipping from his coffee cup, and for a moment, things feel lighter.

In another life, I’d made plans like this, too. Endless summers of festivals, all over the world. My mind drifts to a place of hospitality wristbands and nice places to stay. Of sequins glinting in the sunlight, and flowers in loosely braided hair. Of larking around with friends, making memories over street food and expensive drinks. But, like a lot of things I’d dreamed of, it never happened, and the idea of camping in a muddy field now isn’t so appealing.

‘I know it’s a lot to think about, Esther,’ Neil says, serious again, forcing my attention back. ‘But I think it’s maybe time.’ He screws up his nose. ‘I have to say, I was hoping for more enthusiasm from you.’

‘It’s not that,’ I say. ‘You just threw me a bit, that’s all.’

‘I’d like to stay where we are, ideally.’

‘That’s quite a narrow search area.’

‘But have you seen the number of for sale signs? And, it’s brilliant for transport links,’ he says, and I can’t disagree.

‘I guess. Look, this is all quite a lot for a time boxed commute. Aren’t there things we need to work out before we go trying to buy a house?’

‘No time like the present, and if we move quickly, I’m sure we could be in somewhere by Christmas.’

Seven months from now. Two whole seasons to get through. We’re in the part of the year where Christmas seems ages away, but within a couple of months really won’t anymore.

The conversation swills around my head. Cloudy, like a Magic 8 ball. He’s talking about savings accounts and our combined salaries and I’m struggling to keep up. I know buying somewhere together is the next logical step but there’s something fundamental holding me back that I can’t quite pinpoint.

‘Where do you want me to drop you?’ I ask, pivoting our chat, because all this, the unnecessary comment about my cooking, and now suddenly not only buying a house but upsizing as well, is quite a lot to deal with, so I do what feels safe; I pack it away.

‘The usual place,’ he says, programming it into the sat nav app on his phone. ‘Ah! Turn left here.’

He signals with his hand and I’m surprised. He needs to go to the city centre, but this turn takes us in the opposite direction.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘This is very much the scenic route.’

‘It’s the fastest way today,’ he says, so I follow his directions, turning off up a hill, past the pub on the river whose beer garden floods every time there’s a super moon, and the garden centre my parents spend hours at. It’s not a part of town I ever really visit anymore, but it used to be. I’d be here so often, in fact, that I was on chatty speaking terms with the lady who ran the off licence in the row of shops opposite, and the guy who owns the chippy always knew my order without me even having to ask. 

But after everything that happened, I never came back, so I don’t know if anyone would remember me, or if the chippy is even still there. Up ahead, I know there’s a turning into a cul-de-sac, and sepia tinted memories try to push themselves to the surface. The bus journey from my parents’ house. The giddy feeling I had every time I stepped off. Hot sun on scorched grass. The trees through the seasons. Good memories, but always with a lick of something melancholy that tightens my chest. An uncomfortable, hollow feeling looms, and I blink it away and press just a little harder on the accelerator until that street sign’s in my rearview mirror, the lettering a black blur, disappearing completely as the road curves. The feeling evaporates into a sense of calm, and I relax a little.

It’s short-lived, though. Through the speakers, one song fades into another, full of synthesised chords and upbeat drums and a voice so painfully familiar it physically hurts to listen. Affected, rounded out O’s, and a fake cockney accent, and hearing it on this specific stretch of road is, genuinely, such a cruel joke. The feeling from before is back, this time intensified tenfold, and I feel winded. Now the car is stifling and I’m desperate to open the window. My palms are clammy and my neck prickles. This is the worst commute ever.

‘Neil,’ I say, my voice ragged and hoarse. ‘Please can you switch this off?’

I clear my throat and loosen my grip on the steering wheel in an attempt to look like I’m okay. Blood returns, my fingers fizz. He glances at me.

‘Why?’ he asks.

‘Or at least turn it down? I really need to concentrate on the road.’

‘I quite like this song though.’

Panic rises from the pit of my stomach as he watches me, not reacting at all, his eyes and jaw fixed. I don’t want to hear any more, but he doesn’t reach for the dial to turn down the volume. Surely he can see I’m uncomfortable, so why is he just watching me drive? His quiet calmness contrasts with my jittery agitation.

Eventually I reach for the volume control myself, and the last thing I hear is an affected, rounded O.

‘Well, I really don’t like that song,’ I mutter.

‘What is up with you today?’ he asks.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What do I mean? Esther, come on. Your neck’s red. You’re all flushed.’

But I don’t know where to start, so I say:

‘Nothing. I like it quiet in the car, and I need to concentrate through this stupid route your app has thrown up. I just… don’t need that music on.’

‘Alright.’ He holds up his palms and looks out of the passenger side window. We’ve turned again, now snaking down a road with long, tree-lined avenues leading off it. ‘Quite a nice part of town, this,’ he observes.

‘Mmhmm,’ I agree. ‘It’s okay.’

‘And close to your parents. Perhaps we should visit, maybe take a walk in the park?’

We almost never do this. Why is he asking now? I have no intention whatsoever of going to the park near my parents’ house any time soon. I don’t want to walk past houses my friends used to live in, or to see the school I went to, or visit the parade of shops at the hub of the neighbourhood. It’s all very much best left in the past.

Further ahead is the reason for the diversion and the traffic slows again: a set of temporary traffic lights and workmen in thick, waterproof high-vis gear. Fat rain drips from their ear protectors. Their noisy drilling jars with the hum of the engine.

‘About the house,’ I say, tentatively. ‘We don’t need to decide right this second, do we?’

He sighs. ‘The sooner the better, I think. Is there a problem?’

‘No… I… it’s just… Look, we’re almost at your office. Maybe this isn’t the time to talk about it?’

‘Well, when would be?’

He looks at me like I’ve wrecked his entire morning and we don’t speak again until I reach the car park. We sit for a moment, not moving. ‘I don’t know why you’re closed off with me, Esther,’ he says, finally.

‘I’m not,’ I argue.

‘You are,’ he interrupts, ‘and it’s frustrating. What was that, back there? With the radio?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ I insist. ‘I just needed to concentrate, like I said.’

I’m relieved when he buys it. He nods, gathering his things from the footwell, and straightens his tie in the mirror.

‘Can you pick me up this evening? About six?’

‘Ah, I’m going to dinner with Roni, remember?’

‘Oh, yes, now you mention it. Are you meeting her in town? I could take the car and collect you from the station.’

‘No, I’m going to where she works.’

‘The Pines?’ he says. ‘Okay, never mind.’

‘I’ll see you at home then. Have a good day.’

‘Yep.’

He gets out of the car, slamming the door far harder than necessary, and strides quickly across the tarmac, dodging puddles, his bag strap flat and diagonal across his back. And I wait until he’s turned the corner before I exhale the full breath I’ve been holding since that song came on, and slump down in my seat. As I start the engine again, I turn the radio volume back up slowly, cautiously, and reset it to a different station. Better, actually, that I connect my phone to the car’s bluetooth so I’m more in control. I can’t risk hearing that song again.

Because the thing is, that song is sung by Ash Ramsay, frontman of the indie synth pop band Grandeur Looms, and he was my first love.

And I was his.