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He takes another sip of coffee, puts down his mug before he heads back towards the door, and as he passes me he gently squeezes my shoulder, drops a quick kiss on my forehead. ‘Have a good day, darling. I’ll see you later.’
He goes back over to his bag, picking it up and throwing it over his shoulder. I drop my gaze, go back to checking over those books. ‘What time are you going to be home?’
‘I’ll probably grab some lunch with the guys, and then I need to stop by the university later to pick up some papers, so, I’m not sure when I’ll be back.’
I look up to see his retreating figure head out into the hall, watch as he stops by the line of coats hanging up by the door, his eyes falling on that jacket Liam returned.
‘Liam dropped it off a couple of nights ago. Said you must’ve left it in his car.’
I continue to watch as he rummages around in the pockets. Oh Michael, I know what you’re looking for. I can’t quite see from where I’m sitting, but the fact that he puts his hand straight into his jeans pocket makes me think he’s slipped that receipt in there.
He says nothing more to me as he lets himself out and closes the door behind him.
I get up and go out into the hall. Glancing down at the security monitor I watch as Michael’s car pulls out of the driveway and I turn around and take his jacket off the hook by the door, immediately feeling around for the inside pocket. It’s empty. He did take that receipt out of there, but I check the other pockets anyway. I might have missed something. No. They’re all empty.
I hang the jacket back up and sit down on the stairs, dragging my hands back through my hair. Our Saturdays, they used to be good. They used to be something we enjoyed. If I had to work then, yes, he’d play squash, maybe organise something with Liam. But if I wasn’t working we’d always do something, even if it was just going into Durham to look around the shops, take a walk along the river, have lunch outside if the weather was good. We’d always do something, together. Now it seems he can’t wait to be apart from me.
I stay there, at the bottom of the stairs, for a good few minutes, just staring at that small black and white security monitor, even though nothing is happening. It’s all quiet outside, but I keep staring at our empty driveway, at the shrubs and pots of flowers that dot the gravel and block-paved space. It’s all quiet.
Suddenly I don’t want to be here, in this house, alone. I get up, grab my coat, and I let myself out. I’m not going in to work, not yet. There’s nothing urgent waiting for me. I don’t know where I’m going. I just know that I need to get away from here, for a while. I need to be somewhere else. So I get in my car and I drive. I turn up the radio and I try to drown out that silence I’m so tired of now. I just drive, until I find myself passing a supermarket. I pull into the car park, stop the car and turn the music up a little louder, and for a few minutes I sit there, listening to a song I don’t know as I look out around me, at people going about their lives with no idea how much mine has changed. So much, I don’t recognise it any more. And then that numbness hits me again, washing over me with a breathtaking speed, and I breathe in deeply, try to compose myself because I can’t sit here all day. I have to do something.
Reaching over onto the passenger seat I grab my bag. I can’t remember if I put my purse in there before I left the house. Yes, it’s there, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ll go and do the food shop. I’ll do something mundane and ordinary and try to forget all the crap that’s complicating my once beautiful, perfect life. But as I walk across the car park it’s as if all eyes are on me, as though every person here can see my pain so clearly, a loneliness that’s so glaringly obvious to everyone I can almost feel their pitying looks boring into my back as I pass them. So I keep my head down, grab a shopping trolley from outside the store and go inside. But I still feel exposed, and yet, at the same time, it’s as if I’m the only one here. I’m in a busy supermarket, surrounded by noise and chatter, and yet, I feel alone.
I raise my head slightly, just to see where I am, which aisle I’ve just walked into and I stop by the milk, my eyes scanning the shelves, but I’m looking at everything and seeing nothing. So I just reach out and grab something, anything. I don’t care. Just putting something into the trolley fills me with a sense of relief, as if I’m less exposed now I’ve actually started to do what I came in here to do. What did I come in here to do? I did a big food shop two days ago, there’s nothing else we really need.
I continue my slow walk up the aisle, glancing at the shelves as I pass, watching as everyone around me picks up items, talks to the person they’re with. Almost everyone is with someone. But even those who are alone don’t seem to have that weight on their shoulders that I feel I carry constantly now. They’re walking around with a sense of purpose, while I don’t even know what I’m doing in here. I have one carton of milk in the trolley and no idea what else I’m looking for. So I just start to grab things, anything – a can of soup, a packet of pasta, bread, cereal, teabags, even though I know we don’t need any of it. I want to get out of here now. It’s time to go to work. I need to take my mind off all of this. I need to grab onto reality.
‘Ellie?’
A voice behind me makes me jump, causing me to drop the jar of marmalade I was holding, and I watch as it clatters against the metal of the shopping trolley, landing on its side next to a loaf of bread.
‘You not at work this morning?’
I look up. It’s Liam. And my eyes lock on his for less than a heartbeat before I drop my gaze, glancing down at the basket in his hand. It’s filled with things he probably does need, as opposed to my randomly filled trolley. ‘I’m on my way to the Durham salon. I just needed to pick up a few things first.’
And then I realise something and I frown, and he doesn’t miss that change in my expression. ‘Is there something wrong, Ellie?’
‘I thought you’d be at the squash club this morning.’
‘I was. I’ve just come from there, but there’s nothing happening. Most of the guys are away on business this weekend, so there’s not really a lot going on.’
‘Was Michael there?’
It’s his turn to frown, and that causes my stomach to twist up into that all-too-familiar knot of fear, anxiety once more taking over. ‘No, he wasn’t.’
‘It’s just that – he said he was going there. This morning, when he left the house. He said he was going to the club.’
‘Well, I didn’t see him …’
More lies. My husband. The liar.
I start to push the trolley towards the check-outs, but Liam puts a hand on my arm to stop me, and I stare down at his fingers grasping my wrist.
‘Is something wrong, Ellie?’
He repeats that question and I just look at him. I don’t want this conversation here. In fact, I’m not sure if I want this conversation at all.
‘Okay. Let’s go for a coffee.’
‘I need to get to the salon.’
I try to push the trolley away again but his fingers tighten around my wrist. ‘We’re going to grab some lunch, all right?’ He loosens his grip on me and I drop my gaze again, eyeing those random items of food in my trolley. ‘All right?’
‘Yes. Okay.’ I look up at him and I don’t know if I feel angry or sad or frustrated. I don’t know. I just know that my husband is lying to me. ‘Let’s go.’
Liam smiles, but I don’t smile back. I’m not really in the mood for smiling. I’m not really in the mood for lunch, either, but I don’t think I have much choice as far as that’s concerned. And I know that Liam – he’s going to try and take my mind off something that can’t be ignored, but ultimately, he’s going to fail. Because I can’t ignore it. I can’t ignore any of it. Not any more …
*
‘You’re selling the house?’
I’ve become so selfish lately, so consumed with my own problems that I forget to take notice of what’s going on in our friends’ lives. But Liam’s our closest friend, and I had no idea the repercussions of his divorce had come to this.
‘Well, Keeley wants her half of the equity.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s time to move on, I guess.’
‘I’m assuming you’ll be looking to buy a new place of your own?’
‘I’ve been checking out a few properties, yes.’
‘Anywhere in particular?’
‘Somewhere between Durham and Newcastle, I thought. That would make my commute to the lab a little easier, seeing as I’m there most of the time at the minute. But I’m definitely looking for a smaller place. If it’s just going to be me.’
His eyes meet mine and I look down, reaching for the salt at the exact same time that he does, our hands clashing together, and I quickly pull mine back, laughing as he does the same.
‘Ladies first.’ He smiles and I return it. I’m glad I bumped into him now. I’m glad of the company. I don’t think I’d really wanted to be alone today. It’s just that house, the irrational feelings it can kick up inside me sometimes.
‘Ellie?’
I hadn’t realised I’d drifted off. ‘I used to have friends, Liam.’
‘You still have friends.’
I raise my gaze and my eyes once more meet his. ‘They’re all too scared to be alone with me these days. It’s fine, in a crowd, at parties, weddings … They don’t know what to say to me. I mean, they think me and Michael are fine, but they still don’t know what to say …’
I leave that sentence hanging and drop my head again, watching as I absentmindedly fiddle with the salt shaker.
‘They’re still there. All of them. They’re still there.’
I slowly look back up and I smile slightly. I have to stop this self-pity because he’s right. My friends are still there, they haven’t distanced themselves from me, it’s the other way around. I’m the one who can’t face the girls’ nights out or the weekends away. I’m still being invited, I’m just making excuses not to go.
‘You need your friends. You need me.’
‘Yes. I do.’
He breaks the stare and looks down, picking up his fork, although all he does is move his food around the plate a bit.
‘That jacket you dropped back for Michael a couple of nights ago …’
He raises his head, his eyes back on mine. ‘What about it?’
‘I found something. In the pocket.’
He frowns, putting down his fork. ‘Found what?’
‘A receipt. For that Spanish restaurant – the one me and Michael used to go to regularly.’
He’s slightly confused now, I can tell.
‘It was for lunch there. A few days ago.’
‘So?’
‘So, we haven’t been there for a long time. Not since … It was our place. Why would he go there without me? And who was he with, huh? Who did he take?’
Liam sighs and it’s one filled with frustration as he picks up his fork and resumes eating. He isn’t even entertaining this conversation. And I want to tell him I dropped by the university, I want to tell him that, too; tell him what I saw, but I stop myself, I pull back because I’m not sure he wants to hear that, either.
‘I think I’m losing him, Liam.’
He keeps his head down and I watch him, the way he stabs his pasta with a fork, the sound of metal hitting china loud enough for me to hear above the noise of the busy bistro.
‘When he touches me, which isn’t all that often, it doesn’t feel like it used to. He doesn’t feel like he used to.’
‘Have you talked to him?’ Liam asks, but he keeps his head down. And there’s a slight edge to his voice, a hint of frustration, and I don’t want to push him away too, I really don’t.
‘I’ve tried. But you know how it is, he doesn’t want to listen.’
Liam looks up and sits back in his seat, his eyes finally meeting mine.
‘I love him, Liam. And yes, I’ve told him that. He knows I love him. And I know – I think he loves me …’
‘You think he loves you?’
I break the stare this time, glancing around the bistro at couples and families and groups of friends all enjoying lunch. The place is full of laughter and excited gossip, conversations that aren’t darkened with unfounded suspicion and doubt, like mine are.
‘How long is it going to take? How much more do we have to go through before it pulls us so far apart we can’t ever come back together?’
‘I can’t answer that, Ellie, you know I can’t.’ He sighs again, running a hand back through his dark-blonde hair, and I turn my head back around to look at him, but he’s turned his attention to the people around us now. And I just watch him for a few seconds. I try to read his expression and I start to feel that guilt hit me again. I keep dragging him into this, into my and Michael’s problems, but he was involved too, to some extent. He went through it with us; he knows how hard it’s all been. He understands. He’s been there for me. More than Michael has. But I still feel that guilt, sometimes.
‘Surely we didn’t go through all that shit just to lose everything?’ I say quietly, and I wait for him to respond, but he doesn’t, not really. Instead he checks his watch and continues to eat as though I hadn’t uttered a word, hadn’t asked that question.
‘What if he keeps putting those barriers up?’
Again, no response.
‘I know Michael’s hiding something.’
He finally looks up, laying down his fork, his attention is on me now. ‘Hiding what?’
‘I don’t know … I don’t know anything for sure, I just …’ I sit back. I can feel that weariness start to flood my body again. That doubt, that uncertainty, it’s rushing forward, threatening to overwhelm me, but then I remember what I saw, at Michael’s office. I remember the way she looked at him, the way he looked at her. I remember that. I remember what’s gone before too. I remember the past. And now that doubt and uncertainty is being chased away by a fire in my belly. I have a mission, right? I have a job to do. ‘He’s looking for a distraction.’
‘And you’re not?’
Liam looks at me, right into my eyes, and I drop my gaze, because he’s right. We’re both looking for distractions. We both need them, and that’s part of the problem. ‘I saw her.’
‘Saw who?’
‘Ava.’
I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but I really can’t stop myself. I can’t.
‘Who the hell is Ava?’
‘One of Michael’s students …’
‘Jesus Christ …’ He throws back his head. He’s not even attempting to hide his exasperation now. And I can see it on his face. It’s not there as much as it is on Michael’s – that expression I’m all too familiar with – but it’s there all the same. The disappointment, the frustration, the wishing I’d just drop all this shit and get on with my life. It’s there, now, I can see it clear as day.
‘And you think, what? That he’s sleeping with her?’
His bluntness shocks me a little, but maybe he’s just doing that to try and make me see things more clearly, but I know what I saw. And I don’t want to argue with him. I don’t need that. ‘The way he looked at her … the way she looked at him, there was something else there …’
I leave that sentence hanging, because I’m not entirely sure how to finish it, and Liam, he stays silent for a few seconds, his eyes down, and now I’m wondering if I should’ve confided in him at all. Maybe I should’ve kept this to myself, until I had something more concrete. Until I knew, for sure.
‘My husband refuses to talk to me. He refuses to talk about something that we still need to talk about, I still need to talk about. It doesn’t matter whether he’s moved on or not, I haven’t. I haven’t. And if he’s looking for some kind of distraction … Is it my fault? Have I pushed him into this?’
‘Pushed him into what?’ He looks up, and his eyes – that frustration is still there, but there’s something else. He understands, all too well. ‘What exactly do you think is going on, Ellie?’
I let a couple of beats go by before I answer him. ‘What if it’s happening again?’
My voice is barely a whisper. I’m not crazy. I’m not imagining anything.
‘What am Isupposed to do? Just fall into line, suck it up and wait for him to get whatever he’s doing out of his system? Is that how it works now?’
‘Maybe he’s just found his own way of dealing with things.’ He finally faces me again, and looks at me hard. ‘And you have yours.’
He holds my gaze for the briefest of seconds, and then he’s signalling for the bill. He’s calling an end to this now. And I feel that rush of guilt return.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t keep using you as a sounding board, it isn’t fair.’
