Henry carried his toolbox inside the house and Monika followed him through to the kitchen. She wore shorts and a vest top but grabbed a cardigan from the hallway to cover herself and held it tight to her chest.
‘Drink?’ she asked.
She turned her back to him and popped the kettle on. Henry watched her and his body tensed. Normally, by now, she’d have flung herself at him, pressing her body onto his and forcing his t-shirt over his head. Like last night in his van…
The husband must be in.
He looked around but saw no signs of Mr Thorpe. The guy had lived a lot of life, you could see it around the house in the framed photos and furniture collected from afar. And he smelled of money. The tanned, clean skin and the shirts he chose to wear, open-necked, tucked into his pressed chino shorts, finished off with leather boat shoes for a casual at-home look, ready to jump on a yacht at any given moment.
He looked at her. It wasn’t so much what women said that threw him into a blind panic, it was what they didn’t say. The silence yawned between them. He stared at his toolbox and listened to the water bubble up inside the kettle. It seemed to take forever and she still hadn’t turned around.
She walked to the huge American-style fridge and took milk out, still not looking at him.
‘Is your foot okay?’ he asked. She’d cut it last night when their concentration was otherwise engaged.
He dug around in the pit of the absence of an explanation for something to say, and it bounced off the walls that had been freshly plastered but had yet to be painted. Without the trinkets that make a room liveable – curtains, freshly hung pictures, the detritus of human movement – a new kitchen sounded like a morgue. The kettle flicked off and he jumped. She opened a drawer and Henry appreciated the craftsmanship in the soft close mechanism that he was so proud of. She rattled a teaspoon inside the sugar jar and it was like an orchestra of female scorn.
‘Monika…’
She rounded on him. Her face was tired. She looked like she’d had a rough night.
‘You know what I want,’ she said.
She stirred the tea furiously, spilling a little on the side. The spreading brown liquid disturbed Henry’s sense of order, because the marble worktop was porous and needed looking after. The seasons of a woman’s moods were a mystery to him.
‘Shall I—’
‘No.’
She gave him his tea and he thanked her, cupping his hand around the fine china. His first cup was usually post coital, and accompanied by a wide grin, the warmth of the brew matching that of his newly spent loins, but he pushed the image away.
She looked at him directly for the first time now, and he saw the hurt in her big beautiful hazel eyes that reminded him of the horse chestnut conkers he’d lovingly polished as a kid.
‘I need to get away, I can’t stand it anymore,’ she said.
Henry swallowed the hot tea and the cup scalded his hand. He put it down. He walked towards her but she shifted and pulled her cardigan tighter.
‘I’m sorry. It’s complicated. I can’t just up and leave like you. I’ve built something from nothing and I have to work,’ he said.
‘I have money.’
‘That’s not the point.’
He didn’t tell her that he couldn’t breach his probation conditions…
Monika stared at him. Her hands relaxed a little around her cardigan, and it fell open.
He came closer and she allowed him to take her into his arms. A heartbeat’s pause sat between them, then they both burst out laughing at the same time.
‘I’ve wrapped my foot. I told Tony I banged it on a flower pot,’ she said. The tension between them slid away.
‘Hey, come here,’ he said, pulling her closer.
She spoke into his chest. ‘I’m not just another bored housewife.’
‘No, you’re not.’ He kissed her.
‘I’m ready to leave him, Henry,’ Monika breathed into his shoulder, releasing his t-shirt from his shorts.
Henry reached his arms up over his head as his t-shirt slid off.
‘Let’s talk about it later,’ he breathed heavily.
The kitchen was almost finished and he would no longer have an excuse to come here.
‘Can I take you to bed?’ he asked. ‘Your bed?’
They’d explored every inch of the house entwined and eager for each other’s pleasure, but never in her marital bed. He had no idea why he wanted to do it there, but he did. She nodded and led him by his hand through to the hallway and upstairs.