‘IT’S CRAZY,’ SAYS Emma, keeping her voice down, glancing at the group at the next table, ‘but he makes me feel alive, if you see what I mean. I’m beginning to realize now just how really dull and empty my marriage has become.’
She’s driven into Totnes with Dora, leaving Joe with Camilla, and is now in Rumour meeting a very old friend. Emma stirs her coffee, looks at Naomi – dear, gentle, rather plain Naomi – and experiences this odd desire to burst out laughing, to dance and sing and jump up and down. Deliberately she schools her face into a more serious expression. How could earnest, sensible Naomi begin to understand these wild, mad emotions? This sudden flowering of love?
‘Are you sure,’ Naomi asks quietly, ‘that you’re not just talking about sex?’
Emma puts down her spoon and stares at her.
‘You know?’ says Naomi gently, as if Emma is about ten and has yet to understand anything about sexual urges. ‘It can be such a powerful feeling, can’t it? But it would be disastrous to confuse it with the real thing.’
‘Meaning?’ asks Emma. Her excitement has diminished a little in the face of Naomi’s pragmatism. She thought Naomi might be rather envious, might want to know a few details of this rather thrilling love affair that seems to be burgeoning between her and Marcus, but Naomi seems remarkably unimpressed.
‘Meaning that your marriage is under strain with Rob being out in Afghanistan. He’s operating on his friends who have been blown up and he’s watching others being flown home in body bags. Not easy for him. Not easy for you. It’s no wonder if your marriage is a bit stressed.’
Emma is silent. This isn’t what she expected from Naomi, whose husband is a junior doctor at Derriford Hospital, and she’s rather wishing now that she hadn’t told her. It’s just so difficult keeping these exciting emotions to herself and she certainly can’t tell her other close friends, who are not only military wives themselves but very fond of Rob. She’d rather counted on Naomi being a bit sympathetic, a bit impressed.
‘Well,’ she says lightly, leaning over to check on Dora, ‘it’s just rather nice to be seen as a woman again, I suppose. Actually noticed and appreciated.’
She knows that Naomi will make some banal remark assuring her that Rob does all those things but that just now life is a bit tough for him. Naomi does exactly that.
‘You know,’ she says, when she’s finished reassuring Emma about Rob’s love for her, ‘my old mum used to say that all marriages have a funny five minutes at some point. After all, you have to think about Dora and Joe, too, don’t you? Does Marcus have children? I know you said he’s separated from his wife. Where does she live?’
‘In Sidbury,’ says Emma. She feels a bit sulky now. She doesn’t want to discuss Tasha or her two sons. They aren’t really part of this. ‘He goes to see them regularly.’
‘Hmm,’ says Naomi. ‘Well, just don’t do anything crazy, Ems. There are a lot of lives involved. Not just yours. Look, I’ve got to get going. See you soon.’
She gets up, gathers bags together, gives Emma a kiss, touches Dora’s head with a light caress. Emma waves as Naomi goes out, drinks the last of her coffee. Her high spirits have evaporated and she feels flat and rather irritable. It was foolish to imagine that Naomi could possibly understand and she wishes now that she hadn’t told her. At the same time, she’s got a point: there are a lot of lives involved. She looks down at Dora, who has fallen asleep; how vulnerable she looks. And suddenly Emma thinks about Rob, so quiet and withdrawn during that last leave, and she wishes that she’d been more perceptive, kinder. Those odd meetings with Marcus, so charged with excitement, made Rob seem very dull in comparison. Guilt and anxiety threaten these more recent feelings of euphoria and she slumps in her chair, thinking about what Naomi said.
A figure appears from behind her and slides into the chair opposite. Emma gasps with surprise and then beams with delight.
‘Marcus! I didn’t see you there.’
‘You were occupied with that rather severe-looking woman so I thought I’d take a back seat. How are you?’
‘But what are you doing here? I can’t believe it.’
‘When you texted you said you’d be coming into Totnes to meet a friend so I thought it might be worth the trip to get a glimpse of you.’
His smile makes her gut churn so that she feels embarrassed and excited and happy all at once. He leans across and strokes the back of her hand with one finger. As usual she feels a kind of shock when he touches her, but instinct makes her snatch her hand away and she glances round quickly and looks down at Dora as if to reassure her. She notes that he regrets his gesture – he sees that it was mistimed and she isn’t ready for any kind of public display – but he has no intention of giving way.
‘Have you thought any more of my plan to have some time on our own?’ he asks. His gaze is so keen, so alive, that she feels her willpower beginning to dissolve in its laser-like beam.
‘I can’t get my head round it,’ she says. ‘Not yet. It’s a bit difficult with the children.’
‘Where’s Joe?’
‘With Camilla. She came down this morning and asked if he’d like to go up and play. She’s got loads of toys up there and, of course, he loves the dogs.’
‘Would she have Dora, too?’
‘I’m sure she would.’ Emma hesitates; she feels the least bit as if she’s being stampeded. At the same time it’s very flattering and exciting. Marcus is so vital; so charged with power that you feel he might explode with it. He’s smiling at her again and she finds that she’s responding, weakening.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to,’ she says. ‘It’s just … I have to be careful. I have to think about Joe and Dora …’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘Of course I do. I understand. But I’m not going to give up either, Emma. I think we would be so good together.’
‘It’s just that there are so many lives involved.’
He laughs and she feels a fool. It’s as if he knows that she’s been influenced by Naomi.
‘Is that what that boot-faced female said?’ he asks. ‘Come on, Emma. It’s your life.’
‘I know it is,’ she says quickly. ‘I know that. But it’s not just my life. I have to think about Dora and Joe. And Rob. This will change everything.’
As soon as she says it she knows it to be true and panic flutters just beneath her ribcage. Marcus continues to watch her with that cool grey stare, as if he is assessing the level of her feelings for him: his power over her. He has picked up the spoon – one of Joe’s with a pirate on its blue plastic handle – that she used earlier to give Dora a little snack and he is turning it and turning it in his hand with a little tap on the table between each turn. There is an oddly controlled rhythm to his action and, just for a brief second, she almost feels frightened of him. Then he leans closer, though he doesn’t touch her, and speaks gently.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘It’s just I can’t bear the thought of losing you, that’s all. I don’t think you have any idea of how I feel about you.’
His expression is tender now, almost humble, and she feels her own power over him, which is rather gratifying and exciting.
‘I will try,’ she says. ‘I’ll talk to Camilla and see if we can have some time on our own together. It’s just that it’s all happened so quickly.’
‘Of course,’ he says, sitting back. He stares around, calmly, easily. ‘Time for another coffee?’
Emma glances at her watch. ‘A very quick one. Then I must go home to feed Dora, and Camilla has invited us to lunch.’
Emma can’t quite decide why the thought of Camilla, looking after Joe and making lunch for them, is such a comforting one. She watches Marcus go to order the coffee; takes another look to make sure there’s nobody she knows, though that’s very unlikely here in Totnes. And anyway, Rob and Marcus are friends. It’s not that amazing that she and Marcus might be having coffee together – and Dora is an excellent chaperone. She tries to capture that earlier warm glow of light-hearted excitement but Naomi’s cool common sense has made it seem rather silly; cheap even. Marcus comes back towards her. He is lean and tough and sexy, and her gut still behaves oddly at the sight of him.
He sits down, smiling and friendly; no stress. He begins to tell her about some incident in Norway, which makes her laugh, things are easy between them again, and she relaxes and it’s good.
It is not until Emma begins to collect her things together that she sees Joe’s spoon. It is crushed and twisted almost in half. Somehow the sight of it is shocking; frightening. She glances quickly at Marcus, but he is occupied shrugging himself into his jacket, and she takes the spoon and drops it into her bag.
Marcus walks back to the car park with Emma, waves her off. He must be careful; very careful. He likes being with her; likes the way that she’s attracted to him but playing it cool. He respects that. But he needs something to happen; to move things along. All the time she was with the girlfriend he was watching her. He saw her face change from excitement – that need to tell someone, to be girly and gossipy – to wariness. He could tell at once that the boot-faced friend was putting the mockers on it; damping things down. The way Emma put her head on one side, her more serious expression, showed that doubt was creeping in. How glad he was then that he’d decided to take the chance to trail her. He’s done it before – checked out where the cottage is – but he needs to be careful. There’s that guy next door, for a start. Emma says she thinks he’s a writer. He comes and goes; he’s a bit of a loner.
Marcus unlocks the door and gets into his car. He can’t help smiling. If people only knew how easy it is to follow them, watch them, they’d never know a minute’s peace. And after all, it was fair enough. She’d sent the text telling him that she was meeting a friend for coffee in the bistro Rumour, more or less suggesting that he should be there, too. It was easy to slip in early and sit at a table at the back, behind a small partition from which point he could watch the two girls together. He needs to see her; to be reassured that she’s attracted to him. He longs for that warmth, that female companionship that he misses so much since Tasha told him that she’d decided she wanted a trial separation; that he was becoming impossible to live with. It’s been less than a year – and he’s been away for most of that – but he misses her, the bitch. God, he misses her and the boys. Not all the time, of course. Not when he’s with the lads out in Norway or in Af. That kind of companionship surpasses everything; nothing like it. But when he’s back he doesn’t want to live in the Mess. He wants to be with his wife and with his boys. He and Tasha keep up the pretence that Daddy’s away working most of the time – he still has most of his stuff at the little cottage in Sidbury – but he needs the stability that Tasha always gave him.
He’s got only these few days of leave and then at the weekend he’s going to see his boys. Thinking about them upsets him. They’re used to his being away, of course, but soon they’ll begin to know something’s wrong. They’re only two and four years old; they don’t really remember anything different, to be honest. Even so, he’s not going to lose them. And, to be fair, Tasha makes sure he sees them when he can. She thinks it’s important. Sometimes he wonders if she’s just trying to teach him a lesson, to shock him into showing more respect and being more responsible when he’s home. Well, it works both ways. She threw him out so she can’t complain if he finds someone else. He’s always fancied Emma but now she’s become a challenge. He can’t get her out of his head and he’s determined to have her. But he hasn’t got much time; he must keep up the pressure on her if he wants to succeed. That night he’d been watching her cottage he’d have knocked on the door, taken her by surprise, if her nosy neighbour hadn’t appeared, peering out in the dark.
Marcus clenches his fists, remembering his frustration. He was waiting under the trees, watching the lights go off upstairs to be certain that Joe was asleep; hoping to catch Emma off guard for a moment. Last night he phoned her, asked straight out if he could come round, but she blocked him. Joe was still awake, she said, fobbing him off. She wants him, he knows that, but just at the moment it’s a game to her. Thrill of the chase and all that. For him it’s a need to prove to himself that he can make another woman love him; take chances for him. If he can just get her alone he knows he can convince her. He hoped that she was going to be on her own this morning, without her children, so he could persuade her to stay and have lunch with him, but no such luck.
A car pulls into the space beside him and a small, thin, nerdy-looking guy in shorts gets out. Marcus lowers his window.
‘Want my ticket?’ he offers. ‘I put way too much on it. Couple of hours enough for you?’
The nerdy guy hesitates, then shakes his head.
‘That’s very kind but I never quite know how long I’m going to be when I’m researching.’
He looks as if he might be going to explain what he’s researching but Marcus isn’t interested. He starts the engine, backs out and drives away.