‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, but why look at me as if I were an armed intruder?’
Judith stood in the sitting-room doorway, the back of her hand up to her mouth, heart beating too hard.
‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘Because you had the television on too loud.’
‘Yes, I suppose that was it – but you crept in so quietly.’
‘My dear, I did not “creep” at all. I walked round the house and the back door was unlocked, as it seems to be far too often. Talking of armed marauders, Catherine really should be more careful, living out here by herself. Are you going to sit down?’
Judith backed a little until her legs found the sofa.
‘Do you know where she keeps the whisky?’ he asked.
‘Yes, in the cupboard below the dresser.’
‘For you?’
She was about to refuse, but said, ‘A small one, that would be nice.’
‘Water?’
‘Please.’
It was a little after nine. Cat was at choir practice, Felix and Hannah were asleep, Sam in his room watching a rerun of the Ashes on his iPad.
The strange thought, that Richard would not attack her while the children were in the house, zigzagged through her head. But what made her think that he might attack her? He had hit her during arguments, but never simply gone for her out of the blue.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been to collect you earlier. I was in London and then Catherine’s message said you needed a bit of recuperation and I’m not surprised – these bugs seem trivial but in small children and old people they are often serious if dehydration sets in, as it clearly did with you.’
Judith looked at him as he sat leaning back in the armchair, whisky in his hand, relaxed, pleasant. Handsome. Yes. Of course people do not marry for looks at our age but I had always noticed Richard’s – I had even been flattered that he had picked me out, when he could have had anyone. Though she knew that she had not looked her age, as perhaps she did now, had always dressed well because it gave her pleasure, never become slack about hair, make-up, weight. She had paid attention to those things for herself, and out of pride, not to attract a man. But perhaps it had helped.
He was seventy-three, looked at least ten years younger. He had Simon’s fine features, and tall, narrow frame, though they did not share colouring.
She looked at him again as she drank. What had gone wrong? They had started wonderfully well, she had been happy. He had seemed happy. No – he had been happy. She was sure. Nothing in particular had happened but almost overnight a different man had emerged from the shadows of the one she knew.
And now?
‘I have not behaved very well,’ he said. ‘Correction – I have behaved very badly. To you.’
‘Yes.’
‘I am of uncertain temper. That isn’t an excuse, Judith.’
‘But a lot of people have tempers – not all of them manage to control them but I think most do. I don’t understand you, Richard. And that’s a hard thing to accept.’
He sighed. ‘I’m not sure I understand myself. I seem to have reached my seventies without attaining much wisdom – about myself, anyway.’
‘What are you saying to me? Are you trying to explain – apologise – excuse yourself? Because – you frighten me and I’m not sure how I can get over that.’
They sat in silence. Judith felt a surge of confidence, in her own ability to carve out a new understanding on which their future might be based, in her absolute wish to have everything open and clear between them, and in her belief that if it was not, she could and would walk away from him and from what had started by being a good marriage but which now had a rottenness at the core.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked now, speaking very quietly without meeting her eye.
‘Stay here for another couple of days. I need to work things out. You?’
‘I’d like us to go away – take two or three weeks in the sun.’
‘It’s sunny here.’
‘Indeed. But if we just took the car and drove down through France, stopped where we felt like it, might we not be able to mend things?’
‘You are the one who needs to do the mending, Richard.’
‘When we went to America we were happy, weren’t we, doing just what we wanted, going about, staying a day or a week wherever we wanted?’
‘I was happy then, yes. I think you were too.’
‘I don’t want you to think my irritability always has to get the better of me.’
‘More than irritability.’
‘It begins there.’
‘And should end there.’
He stood up. ‘There isn’t much to pack up. Catherine will look after the house.’
‘Cat has more than enough to do already and it isn’t the house that’s the problem.’
He was looking at her like a child waiting to be back in favour, nervous, hopeful, half smiling. Did she still love him, love him enough to give in?
‘When were you thinking of going?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Goodness, as soon as that? I’m not sure I can be ready by then and why the rush?’
He put out his hand to her and, after a moment, she took it.
‘Because this is too important to wait,’ he said. ‘Nothing matters more.’
When Cat came in an hour later, the kitchen had been tidied and the table laid for the next morning’s breakfast, children’s school things were ready and Judith’s bag was in the hall.
‘I’ve left a quarter-bottle of wine in the fridge. How was Mozart?’
‘Good except that too many people were missing – the norovirus has a lot to answer for. Hello, Dad.’
‘Catherine. You look to me as if a small whisky would suit you better than the dregs of a cheap bottle of wine.’
‘This will do fine.’
Judith looked away from her as she said, ‘I’ve imposed on you enough, darling, and it’s time I went home. Your father’s suggested we take a break in the sun which I do need and which will get rid of the last bugs, so I have to get back and sort everything out.’
She went out to find her coat. Cat stood with her back to the draining board, watching. There was nothing she could or would do. Judith was an adult, she had to make her own decisions. That things were not yet right between her and her father was obvious. She hoped they might mend but doubted they would.
‘I imagine you have no more news of Simon than we have?’ Richard said. He sounded more anxious than usual. ‘Odd how these things work. He could be anywhere, doing anything, for any length of time and nobody is allowed to know. He might as well be working for MI5.’
‘The only thing that worries me is having no way of getting in touch. What if something happened?’
‘I imagine the people at his police station have ways. He implied that he could be absent for months rather than weeks.’
‘Did he? I didn’t think he knew.’
She heard Judith go upstairs, probably to retrieve something she had forgotten, and in the few moments she had, she knew she ought to get his opinion, before he also disappeared for weeks.
‘Dad – I need your take on something.’
She told him, as succinctly as she could, about the private practice offer. He listened carefully, as he always did about anything to do with her career. His advice was always valuable to her, though she didn’t ask for it often.
He was silent for a minute, frowning. ‘You can’t worry about what Chris would have thought. We both know he had a point, but there are counter-arguments. Two things occur to me. You probably wouldn’t get the wide variety of medicine that you have in an NHS general practice, though that’s not to say the well off don’t present with interesting illnesses from time to time, but you would have to do rather a lot of pandering to very minor ailments. My only other query is whether it could possibly work here. Private practice used to be very successful – probably still is in parts of London – but it bears no relation to private hospitals, which are largely financed by insurance. No insurance will pay for a private GP. So I just wonder if they’ve done their sums.’ He got up. ‘After all, most people would ask why pay for something you can get free.’
Judith stood in the doorway.
‘Good,’ he said, smiling at his wife. ‘You should think hard about this one, Catherine, but you may come to a different conclusion.’
She watched them drive off. It was a balmy night. An owl hooted from the chestnut tree. There were stars. Behind her in the house, three slept.
Whatever happened between her father and stepmother would happen and was no real business of hers. Wherever her brother was and whatever he was doing – much the same. She felt entirely alone but was conscious that for the first time in years she was content to be so. She had let something go.
Wookie had come out of the house to sit quietly beside her on the step, a small, silky, warm presence, anxious to have company. She picked him up, rubbed his ears and stroked his head.
‘Funny little object. You’re not a proper dog at all.’ Chris would have said that. Then, growling suddenly, Wookie struggled to be put down and raced off into the darkness, barking ferociously.
Cat waited for him to see off whatever ghostly presence he had detected deep in the bushes, and when he returned, still making small grumbling sounds, hustled him inside and shut the door.