When Angela got home Gregory was there, waiting for her. “What’s all this about a family crisis?” he asked her.
Angela had prepared a story on the way home. “I couldn’t stand it at work today,” she said. “I’m under stress, Gregory.” Stress was a word that Gregory responded to. He claimed to suffer from it himself whenever he did his VAT returns. Only recently he had bought an anti-stress tape, a recording of a family of whales calling to each other, which he played in the car as an antidote to road-rage.
“So where have you been all day?” he said, as he filled the kettle.
“Just walking about,” she lied, taking off her coat and hanging it on the back of the pantry door.
“Are you going in tomorrow?” he said.
“Oh yes,” she said, eager to finish this conversation. “I feel so much better now. Will pasta be all right for dinner?”
Gregory watched her carefully as she chopped and peeled and stirred. There was something different about her, but he couldn’t quite define it. It was something to do with how she held her body. It was almost as if she’d forgotten that she was fat. She set the table carefully and opened a bottle of his favourite Valpolicella. There was warm bread and a green salad with an olive-oil dressing, and a rich sauce, and the pasta was soft, just how he liked it. And to follow there was Neapolitan ice cream with a crunchy triangular wafer which she knew he loved.
As she watched him eat, she thought there was something different about his face. He looked peculiar, unfinished. He lifted his linen napkin to his lips and dabbed it. When he put it back on to his lap, she realised.
“You’ve shaved your moustache off!” she said.
Gregory used a corner of the tablecloth to polish the convex back of the stainless-steel spaghetti server. When it was shining to his satisfaction, he gazed at his distorted reflection. He was pleased with what he saw.
“I’m doing something about my hair tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going to be a new man,” he said with no discernible sign of humour. At least none that Angela could see.