A secret.
He’d said yes, of course. She needed him. What else was he going to say?
But now he’s wondering if he should have done. He won’t be able to tell Jess about this, so it feels a bit … he’s not sure how to put it. Not comfortable. Like he’s crossing a line of some kind.
In the end, he gets fed up of staring at the empty chair and the brown frothy rings in his coffee cup and he goes home. When he opens the front door, he is greeted by the sound of banging from upstairs. A quick check of the kitchen reveals a cold oven and nothing on the hob. Just as well he stopped to grab some provisions on his way home. Jess must be busy.
He finds her in their spare bedroom, putting up a couple of shelves that he said he’d do three months ago, but hasn’t quite gotten around to. She’s making so much noise with the drill that she doesn’t hear him until he’s almost right on top of her. She jumps, pressing her hand to her chest and laughs, before leaning to kiss him on the cheek.
‘Thought I’d get on with it,’ she says by way of explanation. ‘I know you said you were going to but, it has to be a bit of a busman’s holiday doing DIY at home.’ He must be scowling because she adds, ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No. Of course not.’ If anything, it should be her who minds. She really shouldn’t be doing the job he said he’d do, but he’s glad she’s not distant or irritated, as she sometimes is. At leastthere’s that. It’s such a relief, in fact, that he offers to take over, or at the very least help.
She smiles at him as she lines the drill up for the next hole. ‘No worries. I’ve got this. I thought you were going to be home a couple of hours ago, but I guess things ran on at the site, yeah?’
He looks away. ‘Something like that.’
‘Why don’t you make yourself a cup of tea and collapse in front of the TV. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes or so – hopefully! And then I can rummage around in the fridge and see what I can rustle up for dinner.’
He waves in the general direction of downstairs, where he left his shopping. ‘I picked some pizzas up at the Co-op, actually. I’ll throw them in the oven.’
‘Cool. Even better. See you in a bit.’
He backs out of the spare room, essentially dismissed. As he returns downstairs, he thinks that it would’ve been nice to put the shelves up together, even if he’d just handed her the screws, but of course Jess wouldn’t think of that. She’s so self-sufficient, so independent. It was one of the things that drew him to her in the early days. It was nice to be with someone who didn’t always need something from him.
He makes himself a cup of tea and does as instructed, flicking through channels until he find something mindless about border security he can use as television wallpaper. As he sits there, he reminds himself that he should leave Elena a message, tell her that maybe he’s not the best shoulder to cry on. However, by the time Jess is back downstairs, and the supermarket pizzas are in the oven, his phone has not made it out of his pocket.
SILK
A smooth, soft fibre produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons which can be woven into a durable fabric with a characteristic sheen. While silk is one of the strongest natural fibres, it loses strength when wet and its elasticity is poor.
CHAPTER THIRTY
JESS
‘Did you sleep in the spare room last night?’
My cutlery stops moving, and I glance up quickly from my eggs Benedict. ‘No, why do you ask?’
‘I woke up around five. You weren’t there.’
This conversation has been brewing all morning, but I’m not sure I want to have it in the bougie new café in town where were having an anniversary brunch. ‘No. I just got up early. Couldn’t sleep.’
Mostly because I was too busy ransacking every drawer and cupboard in our flat for a small leather navy-blue ring box. Luke must have it stashed somewhere in the bedroom, because I couldn’t find it anywhere else. I did, however, find this year’s bullet journal, so that’s a small win.
Aside from learning I’m good for a smear test for another three years, I was reminded that this is the year Hannah gets married to Connor and I will be planning the hen party, we’ve started house-hunting in earnest after the successful sale of Luke and Elena’s first renovation project and, according to a log in the back of the book, I’m slipping money to my mother on afairly regular basis and the total owing is always greater than the amount that has been paid back.
I’m sad about the house-hunting. After finding the journal, I hopped on Rightmove and discovered ‘our’ house is under offer – not to us. I’m heartbroken, but if this is what I need to do to save my marriage, so be it. If I don’t succeed and Luke does want a divorce six years in the future, we’ll have to sell it anyway, so it’s a risk worth taking.
However, in all of the neatly bulleted task lists and journal entries, I findnothingto indicate why Luke and I must have argued last night. It’s most frustrating. If I could work out what the issue was, we could talk it out and I could get on with the job of saving my marriage. I’m hardly going to make much of an impact the way things are now.
We’re both being civil to each other, but the atmosphere lingers, the same way uneasiness does after a nightmare. Thank goodness I arranged to have the day off work. With so little time left to make a difference to our relationship, spending seven to eight hours away from Luke is just a waste of time.
‘Spoken to your mum recently?’ I ask, aiming for a subject that will hopefully ease the tension.
‘Yeah. She rang yesterday,’ Luke says as he concentrates on assembling the perfect forkful of a full English, complete with gooey yolk running down over the free-range Cumberland sausages. He frowns and looks up before he pops it in his mouth. ‘She asked when we’re doing something for my thirtieth, but I said we didn’t have anything planned yet.’
Outwardly, I’m sporting a calm but slightly enquiring smile. Inwardly, I’m panicking. According to my bullet journal, I’m doing the same as last time and planning Luke a surprise party.I’m sure I’ve told Diane it’s all very hush-hush but I’m also sure she will be just as useless at keeping a secret and might end up accidentally blurting it all out to her son as she did last time. ‘Do you have any ideas of what you’d like to do? Experience day? Meal up in London?’
