‘I think you should stop working for the time being. You can go back, but you’ve been looking so exhausted and I just think it’s not worth it. I’m sure they will welcome you back with open arms once you’re ready … I intend to give you an allowance each month so you won’t need to worry about money anymore …’
Ivan’s words spun around her head as she made her way home from the pub. There was something about his voice when they had spoken on her way to meet Madeleine that she was still struggling to put her finger on.
The smell of cooking hit Gabriela as she put her key in the door, not long after six. What struck her next was the absence of noise, except for the hissing of oil on the hob over the sound of the radio.
Tom looked up as she walked in, a smile spreading across his face.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, moving warily into the room, where the table was laid for two with a bunch of daffodils set between the serving spoons.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, frowning.
‘Why is it so quiet?’
‘Oh, you mean the kids?’ he said. ‘I sold them.’
Moving back to the cooker and flipping the chicken breasts sizzling in the pan so that they spat out oil, he spoke more loudly.
‘Sadie and Callum are watching endless episodes of some brain-rot or other on Netflix on the laptop in our room, so you and I are having a grown-up supper for two. At 6p.m. because that’s how I roll.’
Gabriela accepted a plate and sat down, eyeing him suspiciously. And yet there was no reason why she should be suspicious of this Happy Families routine of his. It was how it went, with Tom: the more significant their arguments, the more likely they were to be followed up by a display of domestic bliss. She wondered how his own self-deceit tasted as he swallowed it.
‘I hope you’re hungry, because I made way too much,’ he said, heaping sautéed potatoes onto her plate.
‘Starving,’ she said.
‘How was your day?’
She held up her hand to show she didn’t want more wine. ‘It was good. I just caught up with some things I needed to do, you know, life admin stuff. Work’s been so full on, we’re starting to pull together links in the chain, and—’
She could already tell Tom was building up to something, though it wasn’t clear yet what it was until he interrupted her.
‘I’ve been thinking … With the new year coming up, I started thinking about resolutions and what I want from life and …’ He paused briefly. ‘I think we should move.’
She stopped chewing, waiting for him to carry on, but he just looked up at her, as if trying to gauge her reaction.
‘Sorry?’ she said, after a moment. ‘I thought you loved this house—’
‘I don’t mean I want another house … What I mean is that I think we should move somewhere totally different. The coast, near Saoirse and Jim, maybe? Or, I don’t know, anywhere: southern Spain? We talked about that, didn’t we, years ago, how one day we’d travel, buy an old finca and—’
She tuned out his voice, unsure whether this was his idea of a joke.
For a moment she was silent, struggling to find a reasonable answer as to why they shouldn’t go. It was true, when she was pregnant with Sadie they had fantasised about downsizing one day, relocating to somewhere hot and rural, living off the fat of the land – and the proceeds of the house.
But that was a lifetime ago, before any of this. Before she realised that the idea of living in a remote house anywhere with only Tom and the children for company made her want to crawl under a rock and die. Before she had placed the detonator under the foundation of their lives and waited for them all to be destroyed.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Tom said. ‘I know it sounds a bit reckless, but I mean, Jesus Christ, you only live once, don’t you? And your job … Come on, you can’t tell me it’s making you happy? You’re miserable, and Callum has only just started big school, it’s the perfect time to do it. Besides, the house must be worth a fortune by now.’
‘It’s my house,’ she said, before she could stop herself.
Seeing the hurt in his expression, she softened her tone. ‘Tom, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that – but I can’t. I’m not miserable, I’m just busy – I’m at the critical part of an operation and … I’ve got to go away.’
The final words came out before she had time to properly form them.
‘What?’
She breathed in. ‘I have to go back to Moscow for a while.’
Tom’s voice was faint, ‘What’s a while?’
Gabriela had already made the mental calculations. If she left in a month’s time, she would be four months pregnant – any longer than that and she couldn’t guarantee she would not be showing more than she could possibly explain away, not the third time around. Even if it had been so long that she couldn’t remember the last time Tom had seen her naked.
‘I don’t know exactly – seven, maybe eight months?’
‘Eight months?’ he echoed, disbelieving. He seemed to be beyond words. The following silence was crippling. There was nothing she could do but fill it.
‘I know it seems like a long time, but maybe it will be good for us … to have a break from each other. Things haven’t been … Please, Tom, don’t make me feel guilty about this.’
Still he didn’t speak, his fork hanging above his plate as if his body had forgotten how to move.
‘What about the kids?’ They were the words she had been dreading. ‘We could come with you. It could be an adventure. You always said you wanted one of those.’
‘No!’ she snapped. She paused, collecting herself, then went on more calmly, ‘We’ve done it before, and you knew, Tom, that this is part of my job. You’ve always known.’ The only way forward was over and through, wading past the obstacles she couldn’t bear to acknowledge.
Tom inhaled, cupping his chin with his hands. Sitting back in his chair, as if seeing her in a way that required inspection from a greater distance, he nodded slowly, and for a hideous moment she wondered if he suspected. He didn’t though, and she was almost angry at him that he could look at her and not see what was happening in front of his eyes, the changes that you couldn’t ignore. But then how could he ever have guessed?
‘I’ll be back,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘I’ll make it up to Sadie and Callum. To you.’
He didn’t move his eyes from her face.
‘Whatever you need to do.’
There was something so discomforting about the acceptance in his words, so heartbreaking, that she closed her eyes.
‘Hey, Gabriela, no …’
As he walked around to her, pressing her body into his, she heard the bed above their heads creak and then the sound of her children’s feet on the stairs.