Anita looked at the words on the screen and scrolled through the text again, trying to decide exactly what she was looking at. In one sense the answer was easy enough. She was looking at the contents of a computer disk she had found in a desk drawer in the study in her own house. It had been hidden under a pile of envelopes, but it seemed to her that it had been hidden in a way that guaranteed it would be found sooner rather than later. There was a label on the disk in her husband Stuart’s handwriting, but all it said was ‘UNFINISHED’.
She had come home today after barely a couple of hours at work. She had claimed to have a headache, but it was a condition more metaphorical than medical. She needed room and time to think about work, something she could only do when not actually at work. There was a new crisis just around the corner and she would soon have to make some very big and difficult decisions. She wished she didn’t have to make them alone. But business matters seemed irrelevant the moment she found the disk.
The discovery had been so casual yet it seemed so vital to her. It was, in a sense, what she had been looking for all along, although her searching had been barely conscious. Yet now that she had made her discovery she knew she had expected more and she had expected worse. She had feared there would be something shameful, something sick and violent and possibly pornographic, something perverse and destructive, something she might be able to understand but would possibly never XXX able to forgive. Instead she had found something she simply die not fully understand, pages of some sort of journal or diary perhaps a confession, though she couldn’t work out exactly what it was her husband was confessing to. If anything it seemed to be a text that relished obfuscation, that was trying hard not to give up its meaning too easily.
She read the words again but remained confused. It was not what she wanted it to be. It was not an explanation. She wanted a document, a manifesto, that would make sense of what she increasingly thought of as her husband’s recent ‘absence’. That was what she called it, though it was not the most obvious term. It was not any sort of physical absence. He was there every morning and evening. They worked together in a manner of speaking. He spent time with her, talked to her. They slept their nights in the same bed. They had sex as often as any couple who’ve been married for ten years. He spent most of his time behaving like a good husband.
Nor was there any easily identifiable emotional absence. Stuart was attentive and loving. He was there for her. He supported and encouraged her when needed, and he knew when to leave her alone. He was doing nothing wrong and yet she had a terrible sense of his being not quite there. She wanted to know where he was and why. And perhaps, she now thought, he was in these words.
Stuart’s working day was the sort that entitled, indeed required, him to be away and out of touch for many hours, and that had never bothered her before; in a sense she’d arranged it that way, but now it did bother her. The unaccounted parts of his life had become an intolerable mystery to her, and for a long time she’d had no idea how to solve the mystery. She couldn’t ask him. She could hardly follow him, could hardly employ a private detective. People like her didn’t do things like that. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself.
She had thought it just possible that he was doing something as innocent and banal as attending a gym or health club, for one of the strangest things about Stuart was that he was looking so healthy. He’d lost weight recently, nothing dramatic, just a gradual slimming down. And his face had colour. He looked good, he looked younger.
A less confident wife would have suspected an affair but Anita did not, and even if she had suspected, even if she’d had proof, it wouldn’t have worried her the way she was worried now. She was secure enough, and she knew her husband was responsible enough, that she didn’t have to fear his walking out. He’d had at least one affair that she’d known about. It had been with a very junior employee. Anita hadn’t liked the idea, hadn’t liked the reality, but she’d lived with it. She’d gritted her teeth and waited for it to be over, and sure enough it soon had been.
But the unfaithful Stuart’s behaviour had been nothing like this. This was something quite new, something she suspected and feared had nothing at all to do with sex or love or betrayal, nor with anything else with which she was familiar.
She’d tried gently asking friends and colleagues whether they’d detected anything different about Stuart and they’d all said no. But even if someone had been prepared to humour her, they would surely have thought the changes were for the better. Stuart had seemed happier recently. In fact he had seemed positively serene. In theory he had no less than the usual number of worries but they no longer threatened or disturbed him. He looked like a man who had achieved wisdom and contentment. No wonder she was terrified.
She realized that the few pages she’d been reading on the screen explained very, very little. Stuart had, of course, always been a great fan of London, had always gained energy from the city. But this strange poetic ramble did nothing to justify his serenity, nor her feelings about him. However, she had read only one file. She knew that the disk contained a great deal more information, apparently a great many more of her husband’s words. She looked at the other file names. They were intriguing but unrevealing: WRAPAROUND, DISCOVERY, v & D. She knew she would have to read them all. She always hated reading screens. She wanted hard copy. She found another file, set up the printer, then went downstairs to make coffee while the machine churned out the next instalment of Stuart’s diary.