He barely draws breath as he describes how Imogen stayed the night here before he took her home and how she tried to sneak out for the evening with a friend, in spite of losing her mobile.
“I put paid to that,” he says.
“You know,” she says, “you deserve a medal. Edie should be there for her own daughter. But she needs to do a lot more than step up. She’s out of control. You saw the letter. Someone’s got to talk to her. She’s single-handedly wreaked havoc for all of us this weekend. It was carnage at the barn after we read the letter.”
Jayne wants Mark to understand quite how destructive Edie’s words were. How quickly they drove wedges between the wives that could have repercussions for all of them.
“Emily was making accusations,” she says. “About Dovecote. She implied that the money they lost might be a reason for Edie to want to harm you.”
“What?” His face reddens and his expression hardens in a way that unsettles her. She wishes she could take her words back. He’s never been able to handle criticism and especially not about this. She should have known better. “What a bitch,” he spits.
“She shouldn’t have said it. It was nonsense and I would never have mentioned it, but I want you to understand how crazy the letter made us. You don’t know what it was like, being stuck up there.”
He can’t let go of it. “Emily’s got no right.”
“Emily spoke out of turn, but there’s a reason for that.”
He looks angry and upset but also tired, she thinks. This wasthe wrong tactic. She was hoping that he might direct some anger toward Edie, who caused all of this, and who deserves to be knocked off the pedestal the gang keep her on, but he doesn’t.
She takes his hand and holds it until he calms down.
“Bloody hell,” Jayne says. “I missed you.” It’s an understatement. She feels incredibly grateful to be back here, with him, in their home. She leans in to kiss him, but he doesn’t reciprocate, which is disappointing, nor does he tell her he missed her too.
He looks preoccupied.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“I think we should call Emily to see if Paul’s home or if she’s heard from him.”
“Youareworried about the letter,” she says, and the realization revives her own alarm in an instant.
“I am a little, if I’m honest,” he says. “It’s a bit strange. I’m going to call Emily, just for peace of mind.”
“She lost her mobile, too. Last night.”
“I’ll call their landline.”
Mark dials, puts his phone on speaker. Emily and Paul’s landline rings and rings and no one answers.
I think about Jayne as she and I drive to Paul’s house.
For a woman with so many talents, such an outstanding career, she is as blind as a bat when it comes to me. And so predictable.
She’s sitting beside me now, biting her nails. She’s swallowed up my narrative.
I’ll miss her, in a way, when I start my new life with Imogen. There’s no way Jayne is part of my long-term plan. But she’s been fun to have along for some of the ride. She’s played her part beautifully.
Her trauma helps, obviously, when it comes to manipulating her. She thinks I suffer from it, too, and maybe I do, a little, but I’m not ruined, like her.
I picked my wife because she was unlike any other woman I’d met.
She did not seek attention but nor was she shy. She never dressed to show off her body even though it was better than most. At work, she kept her cool more effectively than some of the most hardened and experienced men, even under circumstances that leave everyone scarred. It piqued my attention. I thought she was a rare thing.
I watched her closely for a long time before I made my move, and she was never aware of it because in spite of her vigilance and intelligence she wasn’t a woman who expected to be watched in that way. That was her Achilles’ heel, I suppose.
The first time I asked her out, I almost laughed. She looked like a deer in headlamps.
A woman usually concise, precise, and thoughtful with her language stumbled over her response. My proposal that we go for a simple pub meal together was the first thing I ever saw fluster her.
