Kitabı oku: «Behind Closed Doors», sayfa 4

PRESENT

On the way home in the car from seeing Millie, I mention to Jack that I’m going to have to phone Diane sometime before Friday to tell her that I can’t make lunch with her and Esther.

‘On the contrary, I think you should go,’ he says. Because he’s said the same thing many times before I know it doesn’t mean anything. ‘After all, you’ve already cancelled twice.’ Even those words aren’t enough to get my hopes up. But on Friday morning, when he tells me to put on my prettiest dress, I can’t help wondering if the moment I’ve been waiting for has finally come. My mind races so far ahead that I have to remind myself firmly of all the other times I’ve ended up disappointed. Even when I get into the car beside Jack, I still don’t let myself believe that it might happen. But when we drive all the way into town I can’t help but believe it, and I begin to plot feverishly, terrified that I’ll let the moment slip through my fingers. It’s only when Jack parks the car in the road outside the restaurant and gets out that I realise how deluded I’ve been.

Diane and Esther are already seated. Diane waves and I make my way over, a smile hiding my bitter disappointment, conscious of Jack’s hand on my back.

‘I’m so glad you could make it,’ she says, giving me a quick hug. ‘Jack, how nice of you to come and say hello. Is it your lunch hour?’

‘I worked from home this morning,’ he says. ‘And, as I don’t have to be in the office until later this afternoon, I was hoping you’d let me gatecrash your lunch—in exchange for me treating you, of course.’

‘In that case, you can join us with pleasure,’ she laughs. ‘I’m sure it won’t be any trouble to add an extra place, especially as it’s a table for four.’

‘Except that we won’t be able to talk about you now,’ Esther jokes. As Jack purloins a chair from another table, it occurs to me that had she wanted to say anything more damaging, she wouldn’t have been able to. Not that it really matters any more.

‘I’m sure you’ve got far more interesting things to talk about than me,’ Jack smiles, placing me opposite Esther and signalling to the waitress to bring another place setting.

‘And Grace would only have nice things to say about you anyway, so it wouldn’t be much fun,’ Diane sighs.

‘Oh, I’m sure she’d be able to find a few little imperfections.’ Esther looks at me challengingly. ‘Wouldn’t you, Grace?’

‘I doubt it,’ I say. ‘As you can see, Jack is pretty perfect.’

‘Oh come on, he can’t be that perfect! There must be something!’

I furrow my brow, making a show of giving it some thought, then shake my head regretfully. ‘No, sorry, I really can’t think of anything—unless buying me too many flowers counts. Sometimes it’s hard to find enough vases to put them in.’

Beside me, Diane groans. ‘That is not a fault, Grace.’ She turns to Jack. ‘I don’t suppose you could give Adam a few tips on how to spoil one’s wife, could you?’

‘Don’t forget that Grace and Jack are practically newly-weds compared to all of us,’ Esther points out. ‘And they don’t have children yet. Gallantry tends to fly out of the window once familiarity and babies install themselves in a relationship.’ She pauses a moment. ‘Did you live together for long before you got married?’

‘We didn’t have time to live together,’ Jack explains. ‘We got married less than six months after we met.’

Esther raises her eyebrows. ‘Gosh, that was quick!’

‘Once I knew Grace was the one for me, there didn’t seem to be any point in hanging around,’ he says, taking my hand.

Esther looks over at me, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. ‘And you didn’t find any skeletons in the closet once you were married?’

‘Not a single one.’ I take the menu the waitress holds out to me and open it eagerly, not only because I want to stop Esther’s interrogation of my relationship with Jack but also because I’m hungry. I scan the dishes on offer and see that their fillet steak comes with mushrooms, onions and French fries. Perfect.

‘Is anybody having anything remotely fattening?’ Diane asks hopefully.

Esther shakes her head. ‘Sorry. I’m going for a salad.’

‘I’m having the fillet steak,’ I tell her. ‘With fries. And I’ll probably have the chocolate fudge cake for dessert,’ I add, knowing that is what she wants to hear.

‘In that case, I’ll join Esther in a salad and you in the fudge cake,’ she says happily.

‘Would anybody like wine?’ Jack asks, ever the perfect host.

‘No, thank you,’ says Diane, and, regretfully, I resign myself to an alcohol-free lunch because Jack never drinks during the day.

‘I’d love some,’ says Esther. ‘But only if you and Grace have some too.’

‘I won’t,’ says Jack. ‘I have a lot to do this afternoon.’

‘I will,’ I tell Esther. ‘Would you prefer red or white?’

The conversation, while we’re waiting to be served, turns to the local musical festival, which takes place every July and draws people from miles around. We agree that where we all live, we’re near enough to be able to attend the festival easily yet far enough away to not be disturbed by the thousands of people that descend on the town. Although Diane and Adam always go to the festival, Jack and I have never been and we’re soon drawn into Diane’s plans for all of us to go together. In talking about music, we learn that Esther plays the piano and Rufus the guitar and when I admit to not being at all musical, Esther asks me if I like reading and I tell her I do, although I do very little. We talk about the sort of books we like, and Esther mentions a new bestseller that has just come out and asks if we’ve read it. It turns out that none of us have.

‘Would you like me to lend it to you?’ she asks, as the waitress puts our meals on the table.

‘Yes, please.’ I’m so touched that she has offered to lend her book to me rather than to Diane that I forget.

‘I’ll drop it round this afternoon,’ she offers. ‘I don’t teach on Fridays.’

Now I remember. ‘You might have to leave it in the letter box. If I’m in the garden, which I probably will be, I won’t hear the bell.’

‘I’d love to see your garden sometime,’ she enthuses. ‘Especially after what Jack said about you having green fingers.’

‘There’s no need for you to drive over,’ says Jack, neatly sidestepping the massive hint she’s just dropped. ‘Grace can buy the book for herself.’

‘It’s really no problem.’ Esther eyes her salad appreciatively. ‘Gosh, this looks lovely.’

‘In fact, we’ll go and buy a copy as soon as we’ve finished here. Smith’s is just around the corner.’

‘Is it just on Fridays that you don’t work?’ I ask, wanting to change the subject.

‘No, I don’t work Tuesdays either. One of the other teachers and I job-share.’

‘I’d love to be able to do that,’ says Diane wistfully. ‘It’s hard working full-time when you’ve got children. But I’d hate to give up working altogether, which is the only alternative because my firm haven’t heard of job-sharing yet.’

Esther looks over at me. ‘I can’t believe you don’t miss working. I mean, you had a pretty exciting job before you got married.’

I busy myself cutting a piece of steak, because it’s hard being reminded of the life I used to have. ‘Not at all—I have plenty to keep me occupied.’

‘So what are your other hobbies, apart from painting, gardening and reading?’

‘Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that,’ I say, realising how lame it sounds.

‘What Grace hasn’t told you is that she makes a lot of her own clothes,’ Jack intervenes. ‘Just the other day, she made herself a lovely dress.’

‘Really?’ Esther looks at me with interest.

Used to thinking on my feet, I don’t bat an eyelid. ‘It was just a dress to wear around the house,’ I explain. ‘Nothing fancy. I don’t make clothes to wear out in the evening or anything too complicated.’

‘I didn’t know you were good with a needle.’ Diane’s eyes gleam. ‘I’d love to be able to sew.’

‘Me too,’ says Esther. ‘Perhaps you could teach me, Grace.’

‘Maybe we could start a sewing circle with you as our teacher,’ Diane suggests.

‘I’m really not that good,’ I protest, ‘which is why I’ve never mentioned it before. I’m too worried people will ask to see something I’ve made.’

‘Well, if you sew anything like you cook, I’m sure the dress you made is beautiful!’

‘You’ll have to show it to us sometime,’ Esther says.

‘I will,’ I promise. ‘But only if you don’t ask me to make you one.’

The constant need to field her remarks makes me feel so tense that I consider skipping dessert, something I wouldn’t normally do. But if I don’t have one, Diane won’t, and because Esther has just professed herself too full to eat another thing, it means that the meal can be rounded up quickly. I weigh the pros and cons but in the end the lure of chocolate fudge cake is too strong. I take another sip of wine, hoping to stave off more of Esther’s questioning, wishing she would turn her attention to Diane for a while.

As if reading my mind, she asks Diane about her son. His eating habits is one of Diane’s favourite topics of conversation, so I get a few minutes’ reprieve while the conversation revolves around how best to get children to eat vegetables they don’t like. Jack listens attentively, as if the subject is of real interest to him and my mind turns to Millie, worrying how she will take it if I’m not able to go and see her over the weekend, because it’s getting harder and harder to explain my absences to her. Once, it would never have occurred to me to wish her to be any different to how she has always been. Now, I’m constantly wishing that she didn’t have Down’s, that she wasn’t dependent on me, that she could live her own life instead of having to share mine.

Called abruptly back to the present by Diane ordering my dessert for me, I tell Esther, when she asks what I was dreaming about, that I was thinking about Millie. Diane asks if we’ve seen her recently so I tell her that we saw her the previous Sunday and that Jack took us out for a lovely lunch. I wait for someone to ask if we’ll be going to see her again this weekend, but nobody does, so I am none the wiser.

‘She must be looking forward to coming to live with you,’ Esther says, as the desserts arrive.

‘Yes, she is,’ I agree.

Jack smiles. ‘We’re looking forward to it too.’

‘What does she think of the house?’

I reach for my glass. ‘Actually, she hasn’t seen it yet.’

‘But didn’t you move in a year ago?’

‘Yes, but we want everything to be perfect before she sees it,’ Jack explains.

‘It looked pretty perfect to me when I saw it,’ she remarks.

‘Her room isn’t quite finished yet, but I’m having so much fun doing it up, aren’t I, darling?’ To my horror, I feel tears welling up inside me and bow my head quickly, conscious of Esther’s eyes on me.

‘What colour will it be?’ asks Diane.

‘Red,’ says Jack. ‘It’s her favourite colour.’ He nods at my chocolate fudge cake. ‘Eat up, darling.’

I pick up my spoon, wondering how I’m going to be able to do as he says.

‘It looks delicious,’ says Esther. ‘I don’t suppose you want to share it with me, do you?’

I hesitate, feigning reluctance, wondering why I’m bothering because I won’t have fooled Jack. ‘Help yourself,’ I say, offering her my fork.

‘Thank you.’ She spears a piece of the cake. ‘Did you and Jack come in separate cars?’

‘No, we came together.’

‘Then I’ll drop you back, if you like.’

‘It’s fine, I intend taking Grace home before going into the office,’ Jack says.

‘Isn’t that a bit of a detour?’ she frowns. ‘You can get straight on the motorway to London from here. I’ll take her home, Jack, it’s really no problem.’

‘That’s very kind of you, but there are some documents that I need to pick up before seeing one of my clients later this afternoon.’ He pauses. ‘It’s a shame I didn’t bring them with me, because I would have let you take Grace home with pleasure.’

‘Another time, then.’ Esther turns to me. ‘Grace, perhaps we can exchange telephone numbers? I’d like to have you all around to dinner, but I need to check with Rufus to see when he’s free. He has a trip to Berlin coming up and I’m not sure when it is.’

‘Of course.’ I give her our home number and she taps it into her mobile.

‘And your mobile?’

‘I don’t have one.’

She does a double take. ‘You don’t have a mobile?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t see the need for one.’

‘But everybody over the age of ten and under the age of eighty has one!’

‘Well, not me,’ I say, amused—despite myself—at her reaction.

‘I know, it’s incredible, isn’t it?’ says Diane. ‘I’ve tried to persuade her to buy one but she isn’t interested.’

‘But how on earth does anybody get hold of you when you’re out and about?’ wonders Esther.

I shrug. ‘They don’t.’

‘Which is quite a good thing,’ says Diane dryly. ‘I can’t go shopping without Adam or one of the children phoning to ask me to get them something, or to find out when I’ll be back. The number of times I’ve been standing at the checkout in Tesco trying to load all my shopping into bags while trying to sort out something at home doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘But what if you have a problem?’ asks Esther, still trying to get her head round it.

‘People managed perfectly well before without mobiles,’ I point out.

‘Yes, back in the Dark Ages.’ She turns to Jack. ‘Jack, buy your wife a mobile, for God’s sake!’

Jack opens his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘I’d be only too happy to. But I know that if I did, she wouldn’t use it.’

‘I can’t believe that—not once she realises how practical they are.’

‘Jack’s right, I wouldn’t,’ I confirm.

‘Please tell me you have a computer.’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Then could I have your email address?’

‘Sure. It’s jackangel@court.com.’

‘Isn’t that Jack’s address?’

‘It’s mine too.’

She raises her head and looks at me quizzically from across the table. ‘Don’t you have your own address?’

‘What for? Jack and I don’t have any secrets from each other. And if people email me, it’s usually to invite us for dinner, or something else that concerns Jack too, so it’s easier if he sees the messages as well.’

‘Especially as Grace often forgets to tell me things,’ Jack says, smiling indulgently at me.

Esther looks thoughtfully at the two of us. ‘You really are a joined-at-the-hip couple, aren’t you? Well, as you haven’t got a mobile, I suppose you’ll have to resort to pen and paper to take my numbers down. Have you got a pen?’

I know that I don’t. ‘I’m not sure,’ I say, intending to make a show of looking for one. I reach for my bag, which I had slung over the back of my chair, but she gets there first and hands it to me.

‘Goodness, it feels empty!’

‘I travel light,’ I tell her, opening my bag and peering inside. ‘No, sorry, I don’t have one.’

‘It’s all right, I’ll get them.’ Jack takes out his mobile. ‘I already have your home number, Esther, from Rufus, so if you just give me your mobile?’

As she reels it off, I try desperately to commit it to memory, but I get lost somewhere near the end. I close my eyes and try to retrieve the last few numbers but it’s impossible.

‘Thanks, Esther,’ says Jack. I open my eyes and find Esther looking at me curiously from across the table. ‘I’ll write it down for Grace when we get home.’

‘Wait a minute—is it 721 or 712 in the middle?’ Esther furrows her brow. ‘I can never remember which it is. The end is easy enough—9146—it’s the bit before I have a problem with. Could you just check, Diane?’

Diane gets out her phone and locates Esther’s number. ‘It’s 712,’ she says.

‘Oh yes—07517129146. Did you get that, Jack?’

‘Yes, it’s fine. Right, anyone for coffee?’

But we don’t bother, because Diane has to get back to work and Esther doesn’t want any. Jack asks for the bill and Diane and Esther disappear off to the toilet. I would like to go too, but I don’t bother following them. The bill paid, Jack and I take leave of the others and walk towards the car park.

‘Well, did you enjoy that, my perfect little wife?’ Jack asks, opening the car door for me.

I recognise one of his million-dollar questions. ‘Not really.’

‘Not even the dessert you were so looking forward to?’

I swallow hard. ‘Not as much as I thought I would.’

‘It’s lucky Esther was able to help you out then, wasn’t it?’

‘I would have eaten it anyway,’ I tell him.

‘And deprived me of so much pleasure?’

A tremor goes through my body. ‘Absolutely.’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Do I detect a renewal of your fighting spirit? I’m so glad. To tell the truth, I’ve been getting quite bored.’ He gives me an amused glance. ‘Bring it on, Grace—I’m waiting for you.’

PAST

That evening, the evening of my wedding day, when I stepped into the bedroom after my bath, I was dismayed to find it empty. Presuming that Jack had gone off to make a phone call, I felt irritated that something could be more important to him on our wedding day than me. But my irritation quickly turned to anxiety when I remembered that Millie was in hospital and in the space of a couple of seconds I managed to convince myself that something terrible had happened to her, that Mum had phoned Jack to tell him, and that he had left the room because he didn’t want me to hear their conversation.

I ran to the bedroom door and flung it open, expecting to see Jack pacing up and down the corridor, trying to work out how to break some tragic news to me. But it was empty. Guessing he had gone down to the lobby and not wanting to waste time going to find him, I searched through my luggage, which had been dropped off at the hotel by the chauffeur, dug out my phone and rang Mum’s mobile. As I waited to be connected, it occurred to me that if she was talking to Jack, I wouldn’t be able to get through to her anyway. I was about to hang up and call Dad’s mobile instead when I heard her phone ringing and, soon after, her voice.

‘Mum, what’s happened?’ I cried before she’d even finished saying hello. ‘Has there been a complication or something?’

‘No, everything’s fine.’ Mum sounded surprised.

‘So Millie’s all right?’

‘Yes, she’s sound asleep.’ She paused. ‘Are you all right? You sound agitated.’

I sat down on the bed, weak with relief. ‘Jack’s disappeared so I thought that maybe you’d phoned with bad news and that he’d gone to talk to you in private,’ I explained.

‘What do you mean, “disappeared”?’

‘Well, he’s not in the room. I went into the bathroom to have a bath and when I came out he was gone.’

‘He’s probably gone down to the reception for something. I’m sure he’ll be back in a minute. How did the wedding go?’

‘Fine, really well, considering that I couldn’t stop thinking about Millie. I hated that she wasn’t there. She’s going to be so disappointed when she realises that we went ahead and got married without her.’

‘I’m sure she’ll understand,’ Mum soothed, and I felt furious at how little she knew Millie, because of course she wouldn’t understand. I was appalled to find I was near to tears, but after all that had happened, Jack’s disappearing act was the last straw. Telling Mum that I would see her at the hospital the next morning, I asked her to give Millie a kiss for me and hung up.

As I dialled Jack’s mobile, I told myself to calm down. We had never rowed before and shouting at him down the phone like a fishwife wouldn’t achieve anything. Something had obviously come up with one of his clients, a last-minute problem that he needed to sort out before we left for Thailand. He would be just as annoyed at being disturbed on his wedding day as I was.

I was relieved when I heard his phone ringing, relieved that he wasn’t on the phone to someone, hoping it meant that the problem—whatever it was—had been sorted. When he didn’t pick up I stifled a cry of frustration and left a message on his voicemail.

‘Jack, where on earth are you? Could you phone me back, please?’

I hung up and began to pace the room restlessly, wondering where he had gone. My eyes fell on the clock on the bedside table and I saw that it was nine o’clock. I tried to imagine why Jack hadn’t answered his phone, why he hadn’t been able to take my call and wondered if one of the other partners had come to the hotel to talk to him. When another ten minutes had gone by, I dialled his number again. This time it went straight through to his voicemail.

‘Jack, please phone me back,’ I said sharply, knowing he must have turned his mobile off after my last call. ‘I need to know where you are.’

I heaved my suitcase onto the bed, opened it and took out the beige trousers and shirt I planned to wear for travelling the following day. Pulling them on over my camisole and knickers, I dressed quickly, put the key card into my pocket and left the room, taking my telephone with me. Too agitated to wait for the lift, I took the stairs down to the lobby and headed for the reception desk.

‘Mrs Angel, isn’t it?’ The young man behind the desk smiled at me. ‘How can I help you?’

‘Actually, I’m looking for my husband. Have you seen him anywhere?’

‘Yes, he came down about an hour ago, not long after you checked in.’

‘Do you know where he went? Did he go to the bar, by any chance?’

He shook his head. ‘He went out through the front doors. I presumed he was going to fetch something from the car.’

‘Did you see him come back in?’

‘Now that you mention it, no, I didn’t. But I was busy checking in another client at one point, so it could be that I didn’t see him.’ He eyed the phone in my hand. ‘Have you tried phoning him?’

‘Yes, but his mobile’s switched off. He’s probably in the bar, drowning his sorrows that he’s now a married man.’ I smiled, trying to make light of it. ‘I’ll go and have a look.’

I made my way to the bar but there was no sign of Jack. I checked the various lounges, the fitness room and the swimming pool. On the way to check the two restaurants, I left another message on his voicemail, my voice breaking with anxiety.

‘No luck?’ The receptionist gave me a sympathetic look as I arrived back in the lobby on my own.

I shook my head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t find him anywhere.’

‘Have you looked if your car is still in the car park? At least you’d know whether or not he’d left the hotel.’

I went out through the front doors and followed the path round to the car park at the back of the hotel. The car wasn’t where Jack had left it nor was it anywhere else. Not wanting to go back through the lobby and face the receptionist again, I went in through the back door and ran up the stairs to the bedroom, praying that I would find Jack already there, that he would have arrived back while I’d been out looking for him. When I found the bedroom empty, I burst into tears of frustration. I told myself that the fact the car was missing went someway to explaining why he hadn’t answered his phone, because he never answered his phone while he was driving. But if he’d had to go back to the office on urgent business, why hadn’t he knocked on the bathroom door and told me? And if he hadn’t wanted to disturb me in my bath, why hadn’t he at least left me a note?

Increasingly worried, I dialled his number and left a tearful message saying that if I didn’t hear from him within the next ten minutes I was going to phone the police. I knew that the police would be my last port of call, that before phoning them I would phone Adam, but I hoped that in mentioning the police Jack would realise just how worried I was.

They were the longest ten minutes of my life. Then, just as I was about to call Adam, my phone beeped, telling me I’d received a text message. Letting out a shaky sigh of relief, I opened it and when I saw that it was from Jack, tears of relief fell from my eyes, making it impossible to read what he had written. But it didn’t matter because I knew what it would say, I knew it would say that he’d been called away unexpectedly, that he was sorry I’d been worried but that he hadn’t been able to answer his phone because he’d been in a meeting, that he’d be back soon and that he loved me.

I reached for a tissue from the box on the desk, wiped my eyes, blew my nose and looked at the message again.

‘Don’t be so hysterical, it doesn’t suit you. Something’s come up, I’ll see you in the morning.’

Stunned, I sat down on the bed, reading the message over and over again, convinced I had misunderstood it in some way. I couldn’t believe that Jack would have written something so cruel or been so cutting. He had never spoken to me in such a way before, he had never even raised his voice to me. I felt as if I’d been slapped in the face. And why wouldn’t he be back until the following morning? Surely I deserved some explanation and, at the very least, an apology? Suddenly furious, I called him back, trembling with anger, daring him to answer his phone and, when he didn’t, I had to force myself not to leave a voicemail that I would later regret.

I needed to talk to someone, badly, so it was sobering to realise there was no one I could call. My parents and I didn’t have the sort of relationship that would allow me to sob down the phone that Jack had left me by myself on our wedding night and for some reason I felt too ashamed to tell any of my friends. I would normally have confided in Kate or Emily, but at the wedding I realised how much I’d neglected them since I met Jack, so I didn’t feel able to call them either. I thought about phoning Adam to see if he knew why Jack had been called away so suddenly but as they didn’t work in the same field, I doubted he would know. And again, there was the feeling of shame that something could be more important to Jack on our wedding night than me.

Stemming the tears that fell from my eyes with a tissue, I made an effort to understand. If he was with one of the other lawyers, I reasoned, locked in some delicate meeting, it was normal that he had turned his phone off after my first attempt to contact him so that he wouldn’t be further disturbed. He had probably intended to phone me back as soon as he had a chance, but the meeting must have gone on longer than expected. Maybe during a quick break he had listened to my messages and, angry at my tone of voice, had retaliated by sending me a sharp text message instead of phoning me. And maybe he had guessed that if he did speak to me, I’d be so overwrought that he wouldn’t have been able to get back to his meeting until he’d calmed me down.

It all sounded so plausible that I regretted acting as hysterically as I had. Jack had been right to be angry with me. I had already seen how his work could impinge on our relationship—God knew how many times he had been too tired or too stressed for sex—and he had already apologised for it, and had begged me to understand that the very nature of his work meant that he couldn’t always be there, both mentally and physically, for me. I had been proud of the fact that we had never rowed but now, I had fallen at the first hurdle.

I wanted nothing more but to see Jack, to tell him how sorry I was, to feel his arms around me, to hear him say that he forgave me. Reading his message again, I realised that when he said he’d see me in the morning, he probably meant the small hours. Feeling much calmer, and suddenly very tired, I got undressed and climbed into bed, relishing the thought of being woken before too long by Jack making love to me. I just had time to hope that Millie was still sleeping soundly before I fell into a deep sleep.

It hadn’t occurred to me that Jack might be spending the night with another woman, but it was the first thought that entered my mind when I woke sometime after eight the next morning and realised that he hadn’t come back after all. Fighting down panic, I reached for my mobile, expecting to find a message from him, if only to say at what time he would be at the hotel. But there was nothing, and because there was the possibility that he’d decided to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep in the office rather than disturb me, I was reluctant to phone him in case I woke him up. But I was desperate to speak to him, so I called him anyway. When I got his voicemail, I took a deep breath and left a message in as normal a tone as I could muster, asking him to let me know what time I could expect him at the hotel and telling him that we needed to call by the hospital to see Millie on the way to the airport. Then I showered, dressed and sat down to wait.

As I waited, I realised that I didn’t even know what time our flight was due to leave. I vaguely remembered Jack saying something about an afternoon flight so I guessed that we would have to be at the airport at least a couple of hours before. When I eventually received a text message from Jack, almost an hour later, I was again bewildered by its tone. There was no apology, no mention of anything except an order to meet him in the hotel car park at eleven. By the time I struggled into the lift with our two suitcases and my hand luggage, my stomach was churning with anxiety. As I handed the room key in at the reception, I was glad that the man I had spoken to the night before had been replaced by a young woman who, I hoped, knew nothing of my missing husband.

A porter helped me take the luggage out to the car park. I told him that my husband had gone to fill the car with petrol and headed for a nearby bench, ignoring his suggestion that I’d be better off waiting in the warmth of the hotel. I hadn’t wanted to take a heavy coat with me to Thailand and because I’d expected to go from the hotel to the car to the airport, barely venturing out into the open, I was only wearing a jacket which was no match for the vicious wind that whipped across the car park. By the time Jack showed up twenty-five minutes later, I was blue with cold and on the verge of tears. Stopping the car only feet away from me, he got out and walked over to where I was sitting.