29

Tony felt an urgency to find Beth Ann. He walked through the hallway, to the kitchen where she was most often to be found this time of the evening. He hadn’t rung to say he would be home early, and in the last months there had been few nights when that was the case. No wonder she had not started dinner. But he could hear her in the house, could tell she was there. He smiled warmly to himself as he walked towards the laundry.

She had her back to him and was standing over the ironing board folding clothes. He stood still, watching her deftly work. She had been the heart of his family, he thought. She had brought everything together. She had made him strong. She, and no one else, had helped him leave behind his past, especially the events of that awful night - and had helped him become who he was. Not a perfect man, he knew. But he was, despite all his flaws, the best man he could be because of Beth Ann’s love.

‘Hello, you,’ he said as he moved closer to her, moving to wrap his arms around her, to hold her close.

Beth Ann shrugged Tony’s arms off. ‘Don’t,’ she said in a voice so low it barely sounded like hers.

‘What’s wrong, love?’ he had asked her, surprised. Beth Ann had never pulled away from him.

‘I’m done,’ she growled in the same low tone.

Tony looked at her, confused. He had never seen her like this. There was a hardness to her face. It seemed greyish. There was no light.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, his tone attempting to be soothing.

‘You know what’s wrong,’ she replied.

And he did. He could read it. He knew it from the acid burn in his stomach and the slow heat coming to his temples. Had Simone said something, let something slip? He panicked. How much could Beth Ann know? Deny it, he told himself. Whatever she’d been told, he could argue his way out of it.

‘I’m not a mind reader,’ he said.

‘You’ve been seeing someone else. You’re having an affair.’

And there it was, hanging in the air between them.

‘No.’ He could hear the hollowness in his voice.

‘Don’t treat me like an idiot.’ Her voice was now sharp, the flash of fire in it.

‘Who told you? What did they say?’ Tony demanded.

‘I can’t live like this anymore.’

‘Wait, Beth Ann. Come on. Don’t I get a chance to defend myself?’ he pleaded.

‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Defend yourself then.’

Tony was thrown.

‘There is no one else. Of course people talk. There’s always gossip. You know how it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s true. Whatever has been said to you, tell me what it is and who said it because I can promise you there’s no basis for it. There’s always some false rumour or other about somebody but they’re usually baseless. Of course people are jealous of me. There are lots of malicious things said. But it’s gossip. It doesn’t mean it’s true.’

‘You really do think that I’m stupid, don’t you?’

‘I don’t. I love you most in the world. Just tell me what was said and who said it and I’ll sort it out.’ He’d been practising what he’d say if Simone had said something, had planned how he would explain.

‘No one told me anything. I rang the hotel when you were in Lightning Ridge and when I asked for your room the operator said that “Mr and Mrs Harlowe” were not answering.’

Tony felt a blessed hint of relief. Maybe, he thought, he could win this.

‘Beth Ann, there was no one else in my room. Clearly this woman on the front desk made a mistake. How can you possibly think that I would do something like that to you? The woman who put you through to my room must have been an idiot. She obviously got it wrong. It could easily happen that she would make a mistake like that. Love, I can’t believe that you would take that as proof that I was with someone else.’

Beth Ann stood glaring at him. ‘Well, if all you say is true, what is your explanation for this?’ Beth Ann picked up a bra - black and lacy - from where it had been thrown to the floor.

He could feel the colour drain from his face.

‘It’s Simone’s,’ he said.

‘Then explain why it’s not her size and why I found it in your overnight bag, the one you took to Lightning Ridge.’

Tony had no answer. The burning acid feeling was consuming his whole body. He’d been caught out. There was no explanation. On the spot, he couldn’t think of a plausible one.

Something else stopped him. It was in Beth Ann’s face, her eyes. There was something different about her, something resolved, hard.

‘Enough, Tony. Enough,’ she said quietly, handing the incriminating evidence to him. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Go to her now. I don’t want you near me.’ And then, more softly, ‘I can’t stand to look at you.’

Tony grabbed his overnight bag. He tossed in a few belongings - his toiletries and some clothes. Exactly what he would have taken if he was leaving for one of his regular trips away. Except he left saying nothing to Beth Ann. She was still at the back of the house. He was glad. He could not bear to see her face.

Beth Ann walked down the hallway and put the chain on the door. She unplugged the phone. She wasn’t hungry but made herself eat some avocado and tomato on toast and poured a large glass of wine. She drew a long bath and put on her best nightdress.

She changed the sheets before she slipped into bed. Clean sheets would mean no Tony Harlowe in her bed. No hair, no skin left behind.

While she waited in the dark for sleep to come, she replayed the events that had unfolded that afternoon. How quickly he had surrendered. How swiftly he had acted on her command to leave.

Beth Ann was not hysterical, not even sad. She’d probably feel more fragile in the morning when she woke up alone, she thought. Then the floodgates would open and she would weep.

She planned to make an appointment tomorrow with a solicitor. She wanted the house sold and she would take half of the assets they had accumulated over their life together. She would move swiftly because she knew she should get matters finalised while Tony was in the throes of new love, while he was planning his own new life. Each step she took towards her own independence would make the one she took after it that much easier.