It was two hours before Susan gave up. Two hours where she’d fretted, checked her phone, checked the meal she’d slaved over, checked her make-up in the mirror, wiped away the smudged mascara, touched up her lipstick. Her messages to Mark had been read so she knew he wasn’t lying dead somewhere, a victim of a random act of violence.
Finally, after two hours, ten minutes and thirty seconds of waiting, a message pinged.
Sorry. First chance I’ve had to message. Stuck with a very needy client. Be home much later.
Susan read it through twice. It wasn’t unheard of for Mark to be delayed in meetings with clients, nor was it unheard of for him to be out late entertaining them, but normally she’d have had advance notice of it. It wouldn’t simply come out of the blue. What kind of a needy client was it?
She trusted him. He had never given more than a healthy admiring glance at another woman in all their years together. It was simply a coincidence that he’d been delayed by a client when she was worried that he’d lost interest in her. A coincidence. They happened.
A candle flickered in a draught from a badly fitting window. She looked around the room, at her sad attempt to create a romantic atmosphere, to prove to herself, and to Mark, that their relationship was solid. She loved him. He loved her. They simply needed to find their feet. Or perhaps it would be more honest to admit that she did.
This wasn’t the best start.
She’d used most of one bottle of wine making the beef bourguignon. What was left, she poured into her glass. It was gone in a couple of mouthfuls. The second bottle was open. Breathing. To be perfect for Mark’s enjoyment. Fuck him, she thought, reaching for it and filling her glass. It was good wine. Too good to drink like lemonade, but she gulped it back without any effort at enjoyment, going for effect rather than pleasure. If the effect was to make her more miserable, it was doing the job.
Her sigh sent the flame of the big candle she’d positioned in the centre of the table flickering. She watched it for a moment, then licked her thumb and first finger and reached out to quench the flame. The wine, it seemed, had gone straight to her legs and she wobbled precariously as she got to her feet. Drunk in charge of a candle. The thought made her giggle, the sound rippling the silence and sounding a little manic. She held a hand over her mouth till it stopped, then went from candle to candle, red wine-coloured spit on her fingers as she put out every one until she was standing in the darkness. Just her and the glass of wine.
Perhaps she should relight them all and sit there at the table until Mark came home. Maybe slip on the only negligee she possessed, a relic of a romantic weekend away in the dim and distant past. She could sit in the candlelight and pose. Like some kind of sad, pathetic Miss Havisham.
But she may be a lot of things… stupid, a little lost… perhaps a bit depressed, but she refused to be pathetic.
Leaving her glass on the table, she went through to the kitchen. There was no point in letting good food go to waste. She debated eating some, then shook her head. Whatever appetite she’d had was gone. The beef would be just as good, if not better, in a couple of days. She put clingfilm over the top of the container and slid it into the fridge. The scallops were on another shelf, waiting to be flash fried. They could have them the following day. And the strawberries. And the stupidly expensive ice cream.
‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’ She hadn’t shouted but the words seemed to echo noisily around the room. Or perhaps she had shouted. Perhaps she’d screamed her fucking head off.
With the kitchen sorted, she took a refuse sack from a roll, snapped it open and went back to the conservatory. The nightlights she’d lit with such enthusiasm only a few hours before were scooped unceremoniously into the bag, the big candle from the table thrown on top. Tying a knot in the plastic, she tossed it to one side to be disposed of in the morning. Then she cleared the table, put everything back as it was, picked up her wine glass and the almost full bottle and went through to the sitting room.
She sat in the dark, in the silence, sipping the wine until it was all gone. She didn’t usually drink much, the wine was strong and she’d had little to eat all day so she was feeling more than a little woozy.
There were no further messages from Mark. She reread the older one. She’d assumed much later would be ten, maybe eleven, but it was almost midnight and there was still no sign of him. It was tempting to send another message, ask if he’d be home soon, if he was okay. If he was with another woman. Perhaps he was and that was why he’d been so distracted recently. Maybe, like her, Mark had become unsettled with their slightly worn and stale life, but unlike her, he had looked outside their marriage for something new to aim for. Something new and exciting.
The thought curled in her belly. She’d lost Drew; she couldn’t lose Mark.
She wouldn’t. She’d fight for him.
On that thought, she put the empty wine glass down. In the hallway, being a dutiful, caring, loving wife… he couldn’t be with someone else, could he?… she switched on a table lamp so that Mark wouldn’t come home to a dark house. Then she gripped the banister and pulled herself up the stairs.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d agonised over what to wear for the romantic evening she’d planned. She avoided looking at her reflection in the en suite bathroom mirror, unwilling to face the sadness she knew she’d see in her eyes. Blindly, she removed her make-up and slathered on some moisturiser with little care. Normally careful with her clothes, she wrenched them off and tossed them onto a chair before slipping naked between the sheets.
When Mark returned, she’d wrap her arms around him. Show him what he’d missed.
It was either that thought or the wine she’d consumed that sent her into a deep sleep. She was convinced it was the wine that was humming in her head when she woke some time later. Putting a hand to her head, she twisted around to see the time. Three. And it wasn’t her head that was humming. It was the electric shower in the main bathroom.
Never in all the years they’d been married, not even in the days when he’d come home from a business meeting stinking of second-hand cigarette smoke, did he have a shower before going to bed.
There was only one logical reason he would do so now.
When silence returned, she turned back on her side. Shutting her eyes, she concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply as she heard the sound of the bedroom door being opened, the soft shuffle of bare feet on the laminate floor, the squeak of the bed as he slid in beside her.
And then the silence as they both lay side by side, suddenly miles and miles apart.