I pull out my purse, choose a credit card and hand it over. The machine rejects it.
‘Can I split it between cards?’ I ask, trying not to look at the others while I’m dying inside.
‘Of course,’ the receptionist replies.
Three credit cards later and we are at last back in Liv’s car, and all the knots and stresses the masseuse pummelled out of me have returned, ten-fold.
Chapter 17
Anna
I can smell it in the house the moment I open the back door. A scented citrus aerosol clinging to the curtains and carpets. Drew is trying to disguise something. Alcohol. He’s been drinking again.
I turn, lift the recycling bin lid and peer inside. There are no cans or bottles in here, which is evidence in itself. If he had nothing to hide and he wasn’t binge-drinking, it’d contain at least a couple of empty lager cans. So he’s hidden his empties elsewhere. Last time, I found them in the boot of the car we share, under the false floor next to the tyre jack. The time before that, they were in the box that attaches to the back of the lawnmower and catches the grass.
He’s wearing his delivery driver’s uniform when he appears: green jacket, white shirt and black trousers. He’s been employed by a haulage firm for the best part of a year and I hate to think of the number of hours he must have exceeded the drink-drive limit while behind the wheel. Each time I confront him, he promises that he’s never driven while drunk. I’ve yet to believe him.
‘Oh hi,’ he says, faking surprise. ‘How was the spa?’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘Really good. How are you?’
‘I was upstairs putting the washing away,’ he adds, holding up the blue wash basket he’s carrying.
His eyes are ever so slightly glazed and he’s trying hard to focus on mine without allowing them to wander.
‘What was it this time?’ I ask without emotion.
‘Huh?’
‘Lager? That’s what you normally turn to when things get bad.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Your breath smells of mints, so I assume you’ve been sucking the life out of a packet of Polos.’
‘I’ve just cleaned my teeth.’
‘At half past four in the afternoon?’
‘I didn’t get around to doing it earlier.’
‘You’re struggling to maintain eye contact with me.’
He closes his eyes, then opens them and forces himself to hold my gaze. ‘I had a couple of drinks last night,’ he concedes. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
‘Where are your empties?’
‘In the recycling bin.’
‘I looked. They’re not.’
He folds his arms and fixes me with a cold gaze.
‘You’re checking up on me?’
‘Don’t turn this around on me, Drew. You shouldn’t be drinking at all. I let it go at Liv’s party but I shouldn’t have.’
‘Don’t start,’ he says, and puts the basket away under the worktop in the utility room. I follow him.
