‘It wasn’t great when the bathroom door jammed shut and no one could get in there—’
‘Did you have to break it?’ I ask in alarm, still programmed to be the diligent wife who can’t bring herself not to care about damage to the home.
‘Uh, I was gonna,’ Vince says quickly. ‘But I decided to take it off its hinges instead.’
Momentarily, I’m stunned. I’d be no more shocked if he’d said, ‘And then I extracted Jarvis’s problematic tooth.’
‘You actually managed that?’
‘Yeah. Why not? It seemed like the best option...’
‘Wow,’ I breathe.
‘I am capable of operating a screwdriver,’ he retorts.
‘Right. Yes. ’Course you are. So you managed to find the toolbox?’
‘Well, obviously, yes,’ Vince says defensively. I almost feel sorry for him now, blundering about tipsily in search for the tools that I keep in his dad’s old shed. (Did hereallyfind them?) ‘And this morning I burnt my hands,’ he adds plaintively, ‘when I took that scorching hot thing out of the oven—’
‘The Stilton and broccoli quiche?’
‘Oh, is that what was?’ he asks bitterly.
‘What did you think it was?’
‘I dunno. A hubcap from a burnt-out car? Anyway,’ he barges on, ‘those oven gloves you bought are useless. Paper hankies wrapped around my hands would’ve provided more insulation—’
‘Well, I’m sorry we don’t have asbestos gloves,’ I say tartly. ‘You’re okay, though? Not maimed or anything?’
‘No, I’m notmaimed.I’m fine. But what about you? Areyouokay?’
‘Actually, no,’ I start. ‘I’m not okay at all. D’you know what the most upsetting thing is, Vince?’
‘No, because I haven’t a clue what’s going on.’
I take a deep breath, as if to fortify myself. ‘The thing that’s upsetting me most is that last night, even though your wife was out somewhere, you just went to bed as if everything was normal.’
My heart is banging hard.
‘Well, yeah. I’d had quite a lot to drink,’ he mutters.
‘And then, when you woke up this morning, you weren’t remotely worried that she wasn’t there.’
‘I just thoughtmy wifemust’ve come to bed later,’ he announces, ‘after I’d gone to sleep. And then, when I woke up, I assumedmy wifehad got up early and gone out—’
‘To go wandering again? To buy the right kind of plant milk?’ He’s speaking like this – ‘my wife-this, my wife-that’ – because if there’s one thing Vince can’t bear it’s people referring to themselves in the third person. It rankles him even more than the concept of brunch, with its scrambled tofu connotations, and having to get an app in order to buy a parking ticket.
‘I’d just like to know whymy wifetook herself off to London,’ he barks, ‘when we had a party happening—’
‘Vince, could you—’
‘And whenmy wifemight be planning to come back home—’
‘Stop it,’ I cut in sharply.
‘Stop what?’
‘All this “my wife” stuff—’
