Trial separation

In seven years of marriage, my wedding ring has come off only once. Not after a row, or in a pathetic attempt to impress another woman, but through medical necessity on holiday in Paris.

It was in September 2008 at the end of a nightmare voyage; there had been a fire in the Channel Tunnel the week before and it was touch and go whether we were even going to be able to get to Paris at all. St Pancras had been crawling with people, in that disorganised chaos Britain seems to specialise in whenever there is the faintest hint of travel disruption, and we had wound up sitting on the parquet floor, leaning against our cases and waiting for an announcement, for something, anything to happen. All around us people were milling around in a state of frustrated disarray. There’s one photo of me Kelly took on that afternoon. In it, I look like I’m trying very hard to put a brave face on things and even somebody who didn’t know me from Adam would be able to tell I was failing, too.

Once safely aboard the Eurostar, our suitcases crammed in an emergency cupboard which had been opened especially to deal with the unexpected extra demand, the stress started to ebb away and our optimism had fully returned as we scuttled from the train and out into the Francophone cacophony of Gare du Nord. All that remained was to make our way to our destination, criss-crossing the Metro lines like experts until the Parisian network spat us out at the Place de la Bastille, the whole city going about its business all around us. The indifference of hundreds of French men and women getting on with their lives, totally unaware of us, felt like an enormous welcoming hug in a way it never would have in London.

We hauled our cases to the top of the stairs - the Metro in Paris is very short on escalators for some reason - and rattled our way down the rue Saint-Antoine, stopping every few minutes to gaze wistfully at the macarons and pastries in window after window. We had booked an apartment on rue Beautrellis, a stone’s throw from the Places des Vosges, on the very edge of the Marais. We reached the spot and stood outside the huge bright blue double doors, taking in our surroundings. The street was lined with tall, beautiful houses, a boutique here and there and the tiniest wine bar right opposite us. Even in the sunlight of a late Monday afternoon, people were sitting outside - drinking, chatting, making me want to be there too.

The letting agent turned up minutes later on a small rasping moped, handed us the keys and took us inside, into a dark courtyard with a single tree in the middle and up some perilous, winding stairs in the block in the corner. At the very top was our residence for the next week; a bright, quiet bedroom, a lounge with a breakfast bar and kitchenette and a little bathroom with sunshine flooding in from the skylight above. He showed us where everything was, got our signatures, wished us a very happy holiday in excellent English and then he was gone, his footsteps echoing up as he tapped his way down the spiral staircase.

We were in heaven, and once we had unpacked, we went exploring. Before long we were sitting in one of my favourite cafes in the heart of the Marais, planning the time ahead; where we would go, what we would do, where we would eat. The first night of a holiday is always the best, in my experience, because you have all that potential waiting to be realised. Every meal is going to be perfect, every photograph in focus, every shop full of delights you can take home with you and every wineglass full of wonders. So we drained some wineglasses of their wonders, sat grinning in the dark wood-lined comfort of my favourite Parisian restaurant and rejoiced at all those possibilities waiting to be unlocked.

It wasn’t until the next day that I realized something was wrong. Maybe I had bashed my hand hauling a suitcase from one place to another, maybe it was aggravated by the constant vibration of dragging wheeled luggage across seemingly endless cobbles, but my ring finger had swollen up to twice its normal size. For reasons I’ve never been able to fathom, it was the only one so afflicted; huge and puffy, it stuck out more than a sore thumb ever could. It took five minutes of swearing and slaving over a cold tap, slathering my hand with washing up liquid, before the ring finally eased free and sat gleaming in my palm. I had been worried – I never deal with stress well – imagining a scene where they had to saw it off in some alien hospital, or worse still remove my finger before the ring cut off my circulation completely.

"You’re just going to have to stop wearing it until your finger goes down." said Kelly. "Technically that means that, for now at least, we’re living in sin."

The rest of the week was pretty much perfect. Kelly took to life in Paris like a duck to water. She would get up before me, grab the outsized basket from underneath the coatstand and wander to the bakery on the corner, queuing behind the hungry builders to ask for a fresh baguette in French. I imagine it was as every bit as cute to them as a pretty woman asking you something in English with a French accent can be. I would come out of the shower to find her singing in the kitchen, cutting off a slice and covering it in butter, or maybe eating it with a thin white sliver of the brebis cheese we’d bought at the market the day before. Everything was ideal: everything, that is, except for the imprint on my swollen finger where my ring ought to have been.

I remember when I first started noticing that finger on women. Depressingly, it was early on - after my degree I worked for a year in the law library, my first and only step on the ladder of publishing. My friend Dave was still in Oxford too, finishing his degree, and as I tried to adjust to the uneasy void between town and gown I came to realize that women in the real world had something women at university had not, something you needed to keep your eye out for, namely a matrimonial status. The hot petite brunette behind the desk at the library had a ring on what Dave and I referred to as "the forbidden finger"; she was the first but she was by no means the last. It felt uncomfortably like growing up when I started checking that finger out early on, working out whether it was worth bothering.

Of course, Kelly had a ring on that finger too when I first met her, but by then I was far too far gone to care. That’s a different story altogether.

I didn’t realize quite how much I would miss my ring until it was gone. Walking round Paris without it, I wondered whether it seemed like Kelly and I were having an affaire, or whether she liked me but just not enough to make an honest man of me. I’d made jokes in the past about surreptitiously removing it before going to a nightclub, and I knew I unconsciously covered it with my other hand when talking to an attractive stranger for the first time, but not wearing it still seemed strange. Besides, didn’t I still look married? I had, after all, the face of a man used to deferring to somebody else, or at least asking them for advice before deciding to ignore it. The dent round my finger looked like the opposite of a ring, the absence of a ring, and knowing there was clinching proof of my good fortune hidden back at the apartment somehow didn’t help.

This last week couldn’t have been more different from those seven halcyon days in Paris.

Off work ill, I pad round the silent flat in my pyjamas alternating between being sick, worried, worried sick and sick with worry. I look at myself in the mirror, wondering why I don’t look as ill as I feel, fearing the day when one day I will. The blinds stay down, and so do my spirits. Staying in the cloying cocoon of the bed until well past noon, I wonder whether this is the way it will all end, and when. The doctor talks about more tests and I try not to look as frightened as I am. The only thing that hasn’t stayed down is the food, and there is nothing more unnatural than me being scared of food. My throat has been so poorly that the fridge might as well have been full of knives.

I drift fitfully from the laptop to the television to a book to a computer game, unable to concentrate on anything except how ill I am. But to give in to the thoughts of illness would mean being pulled down completely, maybe never to come back up. The bedroom is washed in shades of dingy grey, and it becomes unusual to see my face in daylight. Getting dressed, or leaving the flat, seems pointless.

She comes back from work on Tuesday bright and chirpy laden with shopping. But first things first, she plonks the bags on the kitchen floor and folds me into the hugest embrace. I feel like the flat is home for the first time that day and then - because she will not let me mope or give in - I help her unpack everything.

"I got lots of things you can eat, soft things. Look, two types of ice cream!"

I virtually never eat ice cream, it is a forbidden treat. I allow her a wan smile, but we both know that there’s a bigger one underneath the surface trying to escape, if only I will let it. And she is determined to coax it out, even if I don’t enjoy it. She likes a challenge; it explains a great deal.

"And soup – three sorts of soup. I thought you could have these while you’re at home this week. I picked them especially, they all seem like your sort of thing."

Something odd is happening, because I find I’m almost hungry.

"Are these stuffed vine leaves?"

"Yes, I remembered how much you love them. I thought you could have them for lunch one day, they’ll be nice and easy on your throat too. And here – scallops. I thought we could have them for dinner one evening."

"A Jilly Cooper book?" I say, noticing the top of a stack on the coffee table that had not been there an hour ago.

"Yes, I found one I don’t think you have. After all, all your novels look so depressing, you don’t want to be reading one of those this week. I got you Heat magazine too, something trashy to read in bed."

Funny, we have been married for seven years and even now I would feel silly about her knowing just how moved I am. She gives me a little grin.

"Go on, make me a cup of tea."

Later that night, her mother rings and as part of an epic natter Kelly ends up telling her all about my ailments. While this goes on, I am standing in the kitchen, stirring the bolognese sauce and trying hard to look forlorn, something which seems to be getting more difficult with every passing minute. As she approaches the end of the conversation, my wife shuffles into the room and with the telephone in one hand she beckons me towards her with the other.

"What’s this in aid of?"

"I have instructions to give you a hug from mum, come here."

So I do, and she holds me, and I swear I can hear Rose’s voice in the earpiece saying "Love you!" though, weak with hunger, I might have dreamt that part. And maybe I am fooling myself but it feels different somehow. It feels like family. Later on, I’ll joke that it was a turning point and I suppose it sort of was, but only as the latest in a long line of small but significant kindnesses.

So this week couldn’t have been more like that week in Paris, except for one thing; on a starvation diet for days, the weight has fallen off me and my wedding ring no longer fits. It dangles near my knuckle, and even a slightly energetic bout of jazz hands would easily transport it right to the end of my finger and beyond. But I understand some things a lot better than I did a couple of years ago; this time I won’t take it off, even if I have to walk around with my fist clenched until the day it is snug again. Without it, I wouldn’t be me. Without it, I’d be somebody I never want to be.