Paul stood in the middle of the bedroom, hands in the pockets of his maroon trousers, surveying the mess. For once he seemed to be at a loss for words.
"You think they came in through the bathroom window?" he finally said in disbelief. "Are you sure you didn't leave a door open, or—"
"You were the last one to leave!" Marisol shot back.
"Alright, alright. Calm down."
"What? You can't possibly be telling me to calm down!" Her voice sounded shrill to her ears.
He pressed his lips together and turned away from her. "I told you we needed to replace Mr. and Mrs. Kelly."
"Paul, that is not the issue. We don't need MORE people running through the house. We need LESS."
Marisol crossed her arms over her chest, disgusted with the whole situation. Now they were at each other, and the fans had their wish. They'd finally disrupted their lives so much that the newlyweds spent their precious free time arguing instead of rolling around in bed together.
Paul's somber gaze lingered on the empty night table. The look on his face made her heart soften. She crossed the room and stood in front of him, resting her forehead on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry about the picture of you and your dad," she said. "I know it was important to you."
Paul's arms went around her. He pulled her close, a proper deep hug with their hearts pressing together, and it was like an immediate mood stabilizer. Enveloped in his scent, she could almost feel the stress leave her body, replaced by those magical bonding chemicals that coursed through her every time he held her. His hugs were like therapy. It was only when he wasn't holding her, the other twenty-three and a half hours of the day, when her life went to shit.
"I don't care about the clothes," Paul was saying, his voice rumbling in her ear. "They can keep the clothes. It's the pictures gone that makes this such bollocks."
Marisol nodded against his chest.
"I'll talk to the girls and let them know how unhappy I am. I think I can get the pictures and camera back. We'll need to sort out a live-in housekeeper again, straightaway. I'll see if Brian can find someone trustworthy." His arms tightened around her. "It will be all right, love. You'll see."
Leaning back, she tilted her head to look at him. "Do you mean you think you'll get the pictures back and we'll hire a housekeeper and everything will be right as rain again?"
Uncertainty crept into his expression. "These last few days without the Kellys have been a shambles. Don't you think having help would be a good thing?" He said the words tentatively, as if testing the idea.
They stared at each other across a ringing silence. His arms fell away. "What? What is that look on your face?"
"You just don't get it." She shook her head sadly. "Paul, I can't live this way. I feel violated. I'm scared to walk out the front door alone. I have no privacy. We pulled the curtains closed on all the front rooms when I moved in last month, are we going to keep them closed for the next thirty years? Is this how you want to raise our daughter?"
He took a step back, his expression going from puzzled to thunderous. "Well fuck me. Anything else about me you're unhappy with?"
"I'm not...this isn't about you, or about you and me...not at all."
She took a step closer to him, worried that she'd said too much, needing to feel his arms around her again.
He took another step back, narrowing his eyes. The room darkened as a cloud moved across the sun, and the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. In the chilly silence, she could almost picture a tumbleweed rolling across the room.
"Please don't make this a personal attack, that's not what I'm saying at all." She clasped her hands in front of her, pleading. "I'm not unhappy with you. I love you. I'm unhappy with the way we're living. I mean... you can't be...are you happy?"
"Am I happy?" He flicked his eyes to the ceiling, then back at her. "Am I happy?" he said again, louder.
"Ssh! The baby is finally asleep!"
"For fuck's sake, Marisol," he continued, not bothering to lower his voice. "I live in a state of permanent wonderment, that someone from a pretty basic and humble background could suddenly find his life going "whoosh" in this completely extraordinary way. That feeling never leaves me, it's always beneath the surface of everything I do. I never forget what it was like growing up without money. And now I have money, and a beautiful wife I'm in love with, and a perfect baby, why wouldn't I be happy?"
With his hands back in his pockets, he stared at the floor, chewing his lip, as if considering his next words. Then he looked directly into her eyes.
"You don't know what it's like, growing up without a lot of options. Maybe you're a bit spoiled. Maybe that's why you're not happy, when we have everything we could possibly want."
His words didn't register for a few seconds, and then a cold knot formed in her stomach. The last thing she'd expected was for Paul to lash out at her. This conversation was going from bad to worse.
"I never said I wasn't happy with you. Please don't make this about us. It isn't about us." She reached for his hand, but he pretended not to notice. "Let's get out of here," she pleaded. "Let's go to Sussex and stay for a while."
"We can't bloody live in your grandmother's house, Marisol. It's out of the question. There isn't a gate or a wall or any privacy whatsoever, and once people found out I was there they could walk right up to the door." His voice was laced with exasperation.
"We just need to get out of here for a while, maybe until the fan situation dies down," she persisted. "We could look for a place in the countryside, a house close to the other three, a place that isn't on the bus line."
"Are you having me on? I haven't got time to look for a bloody house right now! I'm in the middle of a bloody album, for Christ's sake."
"I know. I know the timing isn't the best. That's why we could go to my grandmother's house until we found something more secure. I could start looking, I could spend all my time looking."
She reached up and held his face in her hands. "Sweetheart, it's hard enough adjusting to marriage and a baby. In all the chaos I'm afraid we're going to lose us. No one knew we were there before, and it was perfect. Remember how happy we were there?"
She leaned in to kiss him but he pulled back. She felt like she'd been slapped. Stunned, she let her hands fall away. "At least I thought we were happy..."
"This is where we live. You knew that before we married. Our life is in London." A lorry clattered down the street, rattling the window panes, and he stared outside for a beat before looking back at her. "London is the cultural center of the world right now. People are doing, and creating, and thinking things. I didn't go to uni like you, because I was working from the age of sixteen. Now I'm meeting creative people and learning new things every day, and you want me to leave?"
"Forty-five minutes away, Paul. That's all I'm asking." The lump in her throat felt so big it was hard to swallow. "I don't feel safe here. I'm not staying here." She gulped back a sob. How had it come to this?
They stood staring at each other, as a chill silence surrounded them.
"Seriously, Marisol?" Paul said, stressing the word seriously. As in seriously, why can't you be happy? Seriously you're making me deal with this when I'm trying to create art for the world? Seriously am I not enough for you?
"Please come with me to Sussex," she begged.
After what felt like an eternity, he shook his head. "I don't think so. Maybe it's easier to let you leave right now. While I'm still mad."
"Mad? Why are you mad?"
He threw up his hands. "Because you're threatening to leave me!"
"I don't want to leave you! I want you with me! My dog was kidnapped and we've just been robbed, how can you expect me to stay here?"
"And neither of those things would have happened if I hadn't sacked the Kellys. I'm happy to hire a new live-in couple but you won't even listen to my suggestions."
They were going round and round, neither of them giving an inch.
"London is our home, Marisol," he added quietly and firmly. "If you want to leave then you're going without me."
Her breath seemed to solidify in her throat as her eyes filled with tears.
He looked away.
"I guess I need to pack some things then," she said, hoping he'd stop her.
That was when he turned and looked at her, his eyes kind and very, very sad. He kissed her cheek, his skin rough, his lips quick. "I had so much hope for us," he whispered in her ear.
Marisol sobbed into her hands. She felt like she was in free fall. She knew he loved her. If only he would touch her again, if he would hold her, they could work this out. She'd never wanted to leave him, not for a minute, but she couldn't live here. Why couldn't he understand? How could he let her walk away?
When she looked up, he was no longer in the room. Soon she heard the sound of a piano from the studio— a doleful, melancholy tune in a minor key that made her feel chilled to the core.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her legs shaking, her heart hurting so much it felt like she was having a heart attack at twenty-one. How had it come to this? When did everything become so out of control? Was Paul really about to let her walk out of here with the baby, after all they'd been through the past three years? Maybe he was fed up with her constant complaining about the fans, about being tired, about the hours he kept. Maybe he was glad to be rid of her for a time.
She wanted to talk to Donna, or Angela...but Kim was the one person she knew who would understand what she was going through. She would call Kim, first thing in the morning...when she woke up alone, for the first time in a very long time. The thought of it brought on a new spate of tears. The melancholy music from upstairs wasn't helping any. She wanted to scream and clamp her hands over her ears.
Instead, she dragged her sleeve across her runny nose, sucked in a ragged breath, and trudged to the cupboard where she kept her suitcase.
An hour later, Paul was still in the music room, sitting at the piano, his back bent, his face down near the keys, eyes shut, lips curled in concentration.
Marisol walked over to him, holding their bleary-eyed daughter, just roused from her nap.
"Paul," she said faintly.
His hands stilled.
"We're going now. Before it gets too dark."
His shoulders heaved. She studied his profile, looking for a sign that he'd changed his mind, that he'd run away with them to Sussex. A muscle quivered at his jaw. Pronounced shadows under his eyes made him look older than his twenty-four years. His hands on his knees were curled into fists.
"I rang Mal," he said, his voice husky and low, as if he was trying to be quiet and calm in front of the baby. "He'll be here shortly to take you. I don't want you behind the wheel when you're upset."
"Won't you come with us?" Marisol asked again, practically begging this time. Her arms tightened around the baby as she tried to keep herself from trembling. He didn't look at either of them.
"This is our home, love, minutes away from where I work. You're my wife. This is where you belong."
She leaned over and placed a quick kiss on his stubbled cheek, her heart breaking. "I love you. You know where to find us."
A look of tired sadness passed over his features. "Au revoir, Marisol," he said, without looking up.
The melancholy piano music started up again before she reached the door.
"Da da?" Melody said questioningly, and Marisol gulped back a sob as tears again filled her eyes.