‘Can we have a made-up story tonight?’ Bella pleaded as she got out of the bath and into the towel Charlie was holding out for her. He’d left extremely early that morning but had made it home in time for bath time, much to the children’s delight.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Charlie said, wrapping her up in it like a parcel. Max was already rubbing himself dry vigorously with his Lion King towel while Flora sat on the loo in her dressing gown.
‘How come you don’t have to sleep at the office any more?’ Flora asked.
Tasha listened to their conversation as she sorted through a pile of laundry at the top of the stairs. She wondered once again whether Flora was more astute than they gave her credit for.
‘It’s calmed down a bit for now,’ Charlie said. ‘Thank goodness.’
‘That’s lucky! Just in time for Dorset!’ Bella said.
‘I can’t believe it’s this weekend!’ Max squeaked, racing past Tasha into his bedroom to perform several celebratory jumps on his bed.
‘Dad, can I show you my poetry book I’ve been writing?’ Bella asked, taking him by the hand.
‘Put your pyjamas on, please,’ Tasha said as she brought a pile of washing into Max’s room and started to put it away in his chest of drawers. ‘Then it’s time to do your teeth.’
As she took some more neatly folded clothes into Bella’s room Bella was showing Charlie the first two poems she had made up for her home-made anthology. ‘Wow, darling, these are brilliant!’ Charlie said.
‘I want to make up stories like you when I’m older,’ she informed him.
Soon they had all piled onto Max’s bed for their story. As Tasha continued pottering about she listened to Charlie speak. She reminded herself just how lucky they all were to have him and vowed never to do anything to jeopardise the family’s happiness again. She knew their marriage needed work but they both had to be willing to work at it together. The first step was having him back home; their relationship could be dealt with at a later stage.
That evening Tasha cooked him his favourite meal, steak and chips with Béarnaise sauce. She was determined to make every effort, even lighting a candle and laying the table.
‘Did I overcook it?’ she asked as he prodded his meat unenthusiastically.
‘No, it’s fine. I’m just not particularly hungry.’ He pushed his plate to one side and looked at her, rolling the stem of the wine glass between his thumb and forefinger back and forth, watching the red liquid swill around the fragile balloon of glass. He raised his gaze to meet hers. ‘You know a nice meal isn’t going to fix things? It’s not as simple as that. You can’t just pretend everything is OK, Tasha.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m not pretending it is. I am just trying to make an effort, to show you how sorry I am.’
‘Sorry doesn’t even begin to cut it.’ She could hear the anger in his voice. ‘The fact I have to sit here knowing that bastard is right across the road from me… that I might see him at any moment. That I can’t even confront him in case the children overhear…’
She nodded, her appetite now completely lost.
‘I know I can’t undo what I’ve done but at least going forward I can try to improve things, we both can.’
‘Why did you do it?’ he asked. He was looking directly at her, searching for some kind of explanation.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Well, you’d better come up with some kind of reason. If I’m going to find a way to move past this I need to understand exactly what happened.’
‘I was upset…’
‘About what?’
‘It’s hard to pin it on anything in particular. I guess it was more a build-up of frustrations, resentment, boredom, loneliness – loads of emotions that I was doing a terrible job at dealing with. We haven’t exactly been in a good place recently…’
‘And that… smarmy bastard was the cure, was he?’
‘No!’ she said. ‘Not at all.’
‘Then what?’
‘He was just… there. That’s all.’
Charlie looked as if he might cry. She tried to explain herself, to somehow excuse her behaviour. ‘That Monday, after the awful lunch at Marigold’s and you having been away for the whole weekend, I was feeling annoyed with you for not asking a single question about how it had gone.’
‘But I bought you flowers to say thank you.’
‘I know. I felt terrible. I can’t excuse myself… but by then it was already too late.’
‘How did it happen?’ Charlie looked pained at the thought. ‘Actually, I don’t want to know.’
‘OK.’
‘No. I do. Tell me.’
Tasha took a deep breath. ‘I bumped into him in the morning and told him about Ella. He said he’d give me that number. I went inside to get it and—’
‘Stop.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Tasha stared into her glass of wine. She could hear the clock ticking on the wall behind her. She couldn’t bear the look in his eyes.
‘Why did he bring the number around? Does he have no fucking morals showing up here like that? He just chatted to me as if nothing had happened. How can anyone be so brazen? And to think I was saying what a nice, helpful guy he was…’ His jaw was clenched in anger as he thumped his fist against the table, causing the cutlery to rattle on his plate.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I must have looked so stupid.’
‘You didn’t. Of course you didn’t, Charlie.’
Charlie looked at her. ‘Was he better than me?’
‘I—’
‘Don’t answer that.’
‘He wasn’t.’
‘I just can’t believe that I’m back here again. Though I suppose this time at least you haven’t fucked off with my best friend.’ He laughed bitterly.
‘No! I would never leave you.’
‘You’d never leave me but you’d shag the neighbour in a blink of an eye.’ His voice was cold.
‘Never again…’ Tasha didn’t know what else to say.
‘It never should have happened in the first place.’
Charlie suddenly stood up. His chair scraped across the floor. ‘I’ve had enough of this conversation.’
He took the bottle of wine and his glass, leaving his plate of food barely touched, and left the room. The sitting-room door slammed shut behind him. Tasha fought back tears as she cleared up their dinner. She went up to the spare room. She wanted to stay out of Charlie’s way before he said something he might regret. All of a sudden, the house felt too small for them both.