Marriage on Lockdown Street — Divorce Lawyer Diaries

Inspired by several true stories.

An imaginary traipse through lockdown era family law. Inspired by several true stories.

Let’s say we’re on a neat little cul de sac in leafy North West London. At the very top, where the road opens onto a hill, is the biggest house on the street, separated perhaps from its stucco terraced neighbors by a wedge of garden.

In this house lives a woman we’ll call Helena, her husband David, their children Luna and Mathilde, and German Shepherd Brutus.

The house came courtesy of a grandparent, a wartime stowaway done-good, and was no small source of pride for the couple. Since lockdown Helena has been spending the most time she has there since maternity leave, two stints cut short by hasty returns to her post as a marketing officer at an auction house.

The family first took to lockdown with solemn enthusiasm. Working from home was very nice, they were lucky enough to have plenty of space, and the break from routine seemed at first, an educational, even edifying experience for the children.

Helena and David even realized that their well-honed routines and social calendars had not been making enough space for the mucking about that characterized their early marriage. Even a few years back, they’d be spending school nights getting steadily shit-faced on wine in the kitchen clumsily trying to build the girls’ last-minute school craft projects or doing the school run an hour late having squeezed in some surreptitious shower sex. Now a bit older and wiser, what with their cross-fit and alternate fasting and somewhat more moderate drinking, this had fallen away. Now, rather than bicker at their confinement, they found the bare calendar refreshing.

Yes, there were aging parents to worry about, more cleaning and childminding to be done, and Zoom fatigue, but otherwise these most middle class of West London social butterflies found the absence of social obligation to be a rare joy. For David, it was a clarifying moment. He loved his wife, he loved his family. He knew he had to make amends.

But it’s tricky to make covert calls between your state-approved daily run and a weekly shop. So it was perhaps only a matter of time when on opening David’s Macbook to look for flight details to refund, Helena saw an iMessage come through synced up to his phone. “Don’t end it like this. Please can we meet?!” From Luna’s school teacher.

Luna didn’t notice the friction between her parents at first. She’d been preoccupied with her own schoolroom drama. Pre-lockdown she had used to walk to school every day with her best friend Maria. They lived close by and were in the same year at school. When Maria’s parents split up two years back, she’d moved to a smaller flat with her Mum but they were still within walking distance.

When lockdown measures started coming in overseas, Maria knew something was up. Her Mum had been a bit erratic and was having noisy skype calls late at night. Then one morning her Mum got her up early. “Pack some things Mari. We’re flying out to see your Auntie.” It had been a school day but instead of driving to school Catalina drove Maria to the airport and they flew out to Argentina that same day.

By the time borders started to close, Maria was two hours south of Buenos Aires in her mother’s birthplace. She was jetlagged and a bit dazed when she recharged her phone to dozens of missed calls from her Dad. Then her best friend Luna called. In tears. Her father James had been running around like mad, even knocked on Helena and David’s door in a panic. He’d called the family lawyer who’d advised them in their battles over child arrangements, they’d even issued a port alert, but by then they were too late. David had made some strong coffee and with James sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, Helena had finally got through to Catalina on the phone and confirmed what had happened.

Maria and Luna’s skype calls after that were less tearful but full of protestations of love. Maria liked riding horses on her Aunt’s ranch but she missed her friends and felt awkward at Luna’s desperate questioning when she would be back. With quarantine rules in place, it was anyone’s guess. And as the weeks went on, Catalina felt happier than ever to be home, with a stronger case to be made that her daughter had settled.

The hardest skype calls weren’t with Luna or even the forced, chirpy calls with her Dad, but with her Grandma Elsie back in London. Elsie was distraught that her granddaughter was so far away, though she was now reluctantly self-isolating.

Elsie had moved to North West London from the East Midlands forty years before with the infant James after her hapless husband walked out on them. She found her spiritual home. Never moved away and was never with a man again. She and Cora had lived together happily in this neighbourhood for twenty years.

When gay marriage was legalized six short years ago they threw a party. With two ugly, brief former marriages between them, and then 12 years together as pillars of the community, Elsie and Cora both considered themselves too long in the tooth to go through the whole rigmarole of a marriage ceremony.

With coronavirus, this started to change. Having been in rude health for many years, and Cora still more energetic than most twenty-year-olds, the couple rankled at attitudes to the over 70s. And yet Elsie began to fret. She’d felt the helplessness of seeing her son and Catalina fight over time with Maria. She began to worry about what would happen to Cora if something happened to her.

When Elsie looked into it, she was shocked to discover that twenty years together wouldn’t make her and Cora next of kin. Should Cora end up in the hospital, she might not be able to make any necessary decisions. Should something happen to her, the house and everything in it would bypass Cora entirely and go directly to her son. At no point in the process of growing into what they saw as a comfortable late middle age together, had Elsie been so aggressively confronted with her mortality. It seemed unimaginable.

Without marriage, Cora had no recognition, no protections at all in law. And yet barely a handful of years ago, their relationship couldn’t even have warranted this recognition. In a life support situation, Cora’s vile family could have pulled the plug on her, without Elsie being able to do a thing.

So shielding they did, as carefully as they could. Food delivery unpacked in rubber gloves and all. But Elsie’s unease grew. She wanted a wedding and a will and was impatient for restrictions to loosen so they could get the witnesses they needed for both.

There is a happy ending here at least. Cora was amused and then startled by Elsie’s concern. Then both Cora and Elsie were amused and startled by the wild enthusiasm from family when they mentioned the idea, appalled at the notion that they wouldn’t be there. Their wedding would be the first time the inhabitants of lockdown street had seen each other for a while.

Originally published at http://divorcelawyerdiaries.com