After a largely sleepless, night, I made up my mind to call Jon. Keen to make contact, but unable yet to face the idea of a conversation, I decided to phone him at home, while he was at work, so that I could leave the brief statement which I had perfected at around 4am that morning. Determined not to worsen the situation with a rambling off-the cuff message, my aim was to be concise and conciliatory, without apologising for a distressing situation which I still felt was entirely of his making. Both Sophie and David were out of the office all morning, allowing me ample opportunity to read and practise my three-sentence speech numerous times before actually dialling Jon’s number. However, despite this considerable level of preparation, my A4 script still shook slightly in my hands, while I waited for his answer phone to kick-in.
The phone seemed to ring for an eternity before a pre-recorded Jon finally answered.
‘I can’t get to the phone at the moment, but if you leave a message, I’ll call you back.’
I began to read. ‘Hi Jon, this is Alice. I just wanted to say that I am disappointed that we argued last night. But hopefully now that we’re both aware of a problem, we’ll each think more carefully about how we behave and be able to move on. Bye.’
I pressed the hash key and listened to my message. Surprised at just how self-assured I sounded, I pressed ‘4’ to deliver the message and flopped back in my chair, feeling emotionally and physically exhausted.
Unable to think of anything other than my argument with Jon, I spent the next few hours reliving it and hypothesising regarding his feelings and what he would say when he called. That he would call, I had no doubt; it was just a question of when, and of how that conversation might go. If he was apologetic, I was ready to be gracious. If, on the other hand, he called simply to say that the whole thing was best forgotten, then I would be non-confrontational, welcoming his statement and firm-up our arrangements for tapas that Friday after work. I both longed-for and dreaded his call, but by the time David and Sophie returned to the office at 3pm, I had accepted that he was unlikely to pick up home messages from the office, and would probably now call me at home that evening.
My colleagues had returned from their meeting somewhat subdued, although each had insisted it had gone well. They immediately began working on their return and, as I was still pre-occupied by the disagreement with Jon, the office was a much quieter place than usual that afternoon.
I left work on the dot at five, keen to discover whether he had left a message on my landline, as I had on his. However, a review of my messages when I got home at 5.30pm, threw up nothing more interesting than a reminder from a sash-window company of a visit the following week.
The evening dragged and I found myself checking either the kitchen clock, or my phone, every ten minutes. When Jon hadn’t called by seven o’clock, I told myself that it was not at all unusual for him to work until seven or seven-thirty and therefore, allowing for travel time, he would be unlikely to call before eight. At eight-thirty, I began to wonder whether he had gone out with Suzanna or a client after work. At 10pm, I decided that must be the case and at midnight I assumed he must be too tired to call, or text, or was not alone. By 1am, I was thoroughly miserable, desperate to speak to him and wondering why on earth I had chosen to leave a message, instead of developing a backbone and phoning at a time when, no matter how distressing or uncomfortable, we could have had an actual conversation. I still felt hurt and angry about what he had said and wasn’t at all ready to apologise or back down. But my overwhelming feeling was of a desperate need to make things better. As it was, the ball was well and truly in his court. I had served and now it was up to him to lob, volley or smash. Short of calling again, which a lingering reluctance to appear vulnerable or in the wrong prevented me from doing, I simply had to wait.
At 1.30am, I closed my copy of Jane Eyre, knowing that not one word of the thirty-two pages I had looked at had actually entered my consciousness. I switched off my bedside light as the alarm clock read-out changed to 1.33am, but it was at least another hour before my brain ceased whirring and I finally fell asleep.