Restoration Project

Suitcase in hand, you head to the station. Your lover is waiting for you on the platform. Despite the years since you have seen each other, you recognise him instantly: it’s as if your heart never let go of him so long ago. You drop the suitcase and run towards him, not caring who sees as your lips meet his. Taking your hand, he walks with you to retrieve your case and then the two of you step onto the train and begin the rest of your life.

That’s the dream, the plan. There might possibly be the sound of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no 2 in the background: you’re a sucker for the film ‘Brief Encounter’. No, maybe not ‘Brief Encounter’ because Laura ends up going back to her husband while the love of her life disappears out of her love forever. You decide to put the film references on hold.

It is early morning when you creep into the spare room and lift the suitcase down from the wardrobe. In the bedroom, your husband is still sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware that you is leaving him. After seventeen years of marriage, he is still content; whereas you know you cannot stay any longer: you feel stifled in this stale relationship that is always the same, day in, day out.

John has no idea that you have recently reconnected with an old boyfriend you last saw over twenty years ago. In this technological age, social media has made adultery easy: a swift search on Facebook, a few clicks on instant messenger, and you were embroiled in a clandestine romance, the light-hearted flirting soon replaced by far more intense feelings. When Martin told you he still loved you, that casually uttered sentence set off a chain reaction that is now causing your marriage to implode. The romantic side of your nature has felt so starved of affection that it’s almost anorexic; but Martin’s endearments have made you feel hungry again, so that for the first time in years, you’re devouring phone calls and gobbling up love letters. You’re a woman in love – and that’s why you have to leave.

 The suitcase is thick with dust. It’s not surprising, given that it’s not been used for almost a decade. If you think hard, you can almost remember a time when weekends away were a regular occurrence – a faint memory shimmers across your mind of a hotel room in Birmingham and a bed that had collapsed under your arduous lovemaking. Those days are long gone now: your waist has thickened and his hair has thinned. You’re both middle-aged, but recently you’ve felt like a teenager, sneaking around to make furtive calls to Martin or to delete his emails before John sees them. You should feel guilty, but you’ve convinced yourself he won’t even notice you’ve gone.

Sneezing from the dust, you hold your breath expectantly – has the noise woken John? The steady sound of his snoring continues, audible even from the other end of the landing. You decide to give the case a quick polish: after all, you don’t want Martin to think you’re a slob.

 As you wipe away years of grime and regret, you remember how the two of you came to buy the case. In the early years of your relationship, you used to trawl the flea markets together – in those long-ago days before car boot sales were a ‘thing’. You’d turned your nose up at this one – as well as the countless others he insisted on buying – seeing only a scuffed and battered monstrosity, worn and damaged by time. That was before he’d revealed his talent, painstakingly polishing the leather until it shone like new, gently cleaning the stitching and shining the brass catches. He spent not hours but weeks bringing the case back to life until you too could see the beauty that had always been there under the dirt.

Your gaze travels to the top of the wardrobe, to the other vintage cases that almost ended up on someone’s scrapheap, and then to his pièce de résistance – the huge, old fashioned trunk in the corner. That one took months: you remember how patiently he sat there, smoothing the wooden trim with three types of sandpaper, de-rusting the metal locks. You’d thought then that he’d make a good father, that he would lavish the same care and attention on your children – but the babies never came and after three rounds of failed IVF, you were almost inconsolable.

How can you have forgotten those months of agony when, unable to work, to eat, to sleep – barely able to function at all – you’d lain in bed for weeks at a time, weeping inside when all your outer tears were used up? John must have hurt as much as you did, but he looked after you patiently, smoothing your forehead, squeezing your hand, making endless cups of tea to keep your fluid levels up. At the time, you thought you were like one of those cases: he rescued you, battered by life, and lovingly restored you until your true beauty shone through. When you were able to get out of bed once more, he looked after you as tenderly as if you were a child yourself.

You’re already having second thoughts, wondering now if you’re right to walk away from a man who’s loved you so devotedly just because a stranger sends you sexy texts that remind you of a time when you were both young. Martin’s been divorced twice already: somehow, despite the fantasy, you can’t really see a permanent future with him, know only that a part of you wants to recreate something you lost a long time ago.

And then you open the suitcase and your mind is made up. Instead of the empty space you were expecting, the whole interior is packed with your history – yours and John’s. He’s filled this suitcase with his love for you – every letter you ever wrote each other; every card exchanged for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries – photos documenting your life together; souvenir programmes and leaflets. All the feelings he no longer expresses with words are stuffed into this case: it’s a treasure chest of memories; an Aladdin’s Cave of emotions.

You are still sitting on the bed in the spare room when John walks in, almost an hour later. Without saying anything, he puts his arms around you and holds you tight. You’re aware that Martin will be waiting for you, at the Starbucks at New Street station where you agreed to rendezvous, but you no longer need to leave. Martin has only ever been a flimsy carrier bag with a flashy exterior – you know that now. John is the suitcase in front of you: firm and solid and dependable, and stuffed with love.

Perhaps the film 'Brief Encounter' got it right after all. You belong here with John, not on some railway platform with a man you hardly know. You gaze at your husband, seeing him properly for the first time in years; and you know that this time, you will help him with his restoration project - and together you will make your marriage shine again.