“You’d think he’d have known about last night, wouldn’t you?” Mark starts clearing the table again, transferring our cereal bowls from table to dishwasher. “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing—it’s ridiculous.” He bends to stack the dishes, rearranging what’s already there from last night. It crosses my mind that he’s deliberately taking his time, deliberately avoiding looking at me.
“Did you know my mum?”
“What?” He drops our spoons into the rack. One, two.
“Mark, look at me!”
He straightens slowly, picks up a tea towel and wipes his hands, then folds it and places it on the counter. Then he looks at me. “I never met your mum, Anna.”
If Mark and I had been together for a decade—if we’d met as teenagers, grown up together—I’d know if he was lying. If we’d been through the challenges other couples go through—ups and downs, breakups and makeups—I’d know if he was lying.
If I knew him better . . .
His face is unreadable, his eyes unflinchingly on mine.
“She made an appointment with you.”
“Lots of people make appointments with me, Anna. You made an appointment with me. We leaflet-drop the whole of Eastbourne, for Christ’s sake.” He breaks his gaze, turns back to the dishwasher, even though there’s nothing left on the side.
“But you don’t remember speaking to her?”
“No. Look, some people book with me direct; others go through Janice. The chances are, I never had any contact with her.”
Janice sits in reception in the lobby of the office block that houses Mark’s Brighton practice, along with a dozen other small businesses that don’t need—or can’t afford—their own building, their own staff. She manages their appointment books, welcomes their clients, and answers the phone, matching her greeting to whichever line is flashing on her phone.
Serenity Beauty. Can I help you?
Brighton Interiors. Can I help you?
“The point is, she never kept the appointment.”
“How do you know?” The words don’t sound like mine. They’re harsh and accusatory. Mark makes a sound like air escaping from a tire: exasperated, irritated. It’s the first time we’ve argued. Properly, like this, snapping at each other, turning away to roll eyes at an invisible audience as though trying to summon support.
“I’d have remembered.”
“You didn’t remember she’d booked an appointment.”
There’s a beat before he answers.
“It’ll be on the system. Janice updates it when they arrive.”
“So you can check?”
“I can check.”
I hand him his mobile.
He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “You want me to do it now?”
I wonder if this is what it’s like when you think your husband’s cheating, if this is what you turn into. I have become the sort of woman I’ve always despised: a folded-arms, pursed-lips harridan demanding on-the-spot answers from a man who has never once given her cause to distrust him.
But his leaflet was in my mother’s datebook.
He scrolls through his contacts, taps the entry for the practice. I hear Janice’s singsong tones on the other end of the line and know what she’s saying, even though I can’t make out the words.
Holistic Health. Can I help you?
“Janice, it’s me. Would you mind checking something on the system? Wednesday, sixteenth of November. Two thirty P.M. Caroline Johnson.”
The bravado I felt a moment ago morphs into uncertainty. If Mark were lying he wouldn’t check right now, in front of me. He’d say he needed to look it up at work, or that the records didn’t hold that level of detail. He’s not lying. I know he isn’t.
“And she didn’t rebook?”
I busy myself picking up Rita’s toys and dropping them into the basket.
“Thanks, Janice. How are the next couple of days looking? Any cancellations?” He listens, then laughs. “No chance of Christmas Eve off, then!”
He says good-bye and finishes the call.
Now it’s my turn to avoid his gaze. I pick up a stuffed pheasant from which Rita has extracted the stuffing. “I’m sorry.”
“She was marked as a no-show. She didn’t make another appointment.” He crosses the kitchen and comes to stand in front of me, gently hooking his forefinger under my chin and lifting it until I’m looking at him. “I never met her, Anna. I wish I had.”
And I believe him. Because why would he lie?