‘So, how was school?’ he asks Hannah. ‘Do you still fancy Dylan whatshisname?’
‘I do not!’
‘Yes, she does!’
‘How do you know? You’re not at St Theresa’s any more. You go to Loreto where they all snog and smoke!’
‘Well, I don’t, you idiot.’
Olivia is back in the room. ‘Don’t call her an idiot, Rachel.’
‘That’s hardly fair, Mum. She just—’
‘Life’s not always fair, Rachel,’ Olivia replies, sitting down at the table.
Mike feels a shiver and for a few moments they’re all silent, but then he takes Olivia’s hand and looks at her closed face. He still feels strangely buoyant. He squeezes gently. ‘My darling wife … I would say you look a bit tired, but something tells me that wouldn’t be a good thing to say.’
Olivia smiles, seeming to relent, just a little.
‘However, since I’m home early, instead of going for a run, I can be your personal slave for the rest of the day. Feet up, cup of tea, dinner to follow. Your wish will be my command. What do you say?’
‘And don’t forget the snogging!’ Hannah adds helpfully before bursting into giggles.
‘My mother always called it stew. Very working class, I expect. You’re looking old, Charles,’ Helen says over the beef and kidney casserole in their Edwardian Cheshire home. ‘Or is it my eyes? Turning fifty didn’t bother me a jot, but I had twenty-twenty vision until then,’ she adds, pouring Charlie another glass of claret. She’s pulled the bottle out of the cellar so she knows it’s a good year. She feels that perhaps he will take her news better if he’s drunk a glass or two of the mellow, as he describes it.
‘I suppose five years younger classes me as your toy boy, but sadly I’ve always looked old,’ Charlie replies easily, wiping his plate with a crust of white bread. ‘Perhaps you never noticed. Did you think you’d married a matinee star?’
Helen smiles. Neither has any delusions about their appearances and they often banter easily on the subject, ruminating at length about Rupert’s unexpected good looks. ‘He must have skipped a generation or two,’ Charlie invariably comments. ‘Or perhaps he’s the butcher’s son. He was a good-looking fella before he fell off the roof. Poor old chap, better not to survive than get old really. Like Rod Hull.’
‘Oh yes, the chap from the Marathon Man. I like him.’
‘Ah, film stars. Laurence Olivier? The mad Nazi dentist?’
‘No. The Graduate. Little fellow with a nose, but something about him. One of those method actors.’
‘Robert De Niro?’
‘Charles, you are silly at times. What would I do with Robert De Niro?’
‘You have your talents …’
‘Which I save just for you! Birthdays and Christmas.’
They both laugh. ‘Wouldn’t mind another spoonful of the stew if you’d do the honours. Does Barbara still make these casseroles in that plug-in device?’
‘I think she does. But don’t ask me how it all works. I just eat what she leaves. We must never lose her, Charles. Clean house, dinner, home-made bread. As if by magic.’
‘Agreed. But she must be eighty, at least. Now she is old!’
Helen studies Charles’s face as he wipes his chin with the napkin Barbara has laundered and laid. ‘No, you’re right. Old was the wrong word. Tired or drawn would be a more accurate description. More so than usual. Are you feeling all right?’
‘I’m fine. In fact I’m delighted to be tired and drawn rather than old. It makes me feel like a boy!’
Charlie tucks into his second helping of Barbara’s casserole, hoping Helen will change the subject. At times during their marriage, he’s tried to deflect her long-winded inquisitions, but generally to no avail. Her tendency to see only the black and white in life means she can detect a lie or indeed a deflection a mile off. It’s better to keep a low profile and eat up. He likes eating dinner with Helen, it’s a wonderful combination of the three things he loves best in the world: food, wine and his wife.
A bloody diabetic, he ruminates inwardly as he savours the warmth of the wine on his throat. How preposterous. These women doctors don’t know a thing.
Charlie’s usual doctor, Simpson, is away, or so he was told by the fearsome receptionist when he visited the surgery that afternoon for his test results. One of the junior associates sat looking a little too comfortable in Simpson’s seat, gazing at a computer screen. She looked so very young, like barbers and builders and general office staff.
He furtively glances again at Helen across the worn mahogany table. In either law or medicine, mistakes are easy to make when looking at other people’s cases, computer or not. There’s no point making a fuss until he speaks to Simpson. He’ll worry about it then if he has to. For now his stomach is speaking. A touch of something sweet, it says, and then perhaps a small glass of golden dessert wine to finish.
‘Now, what about pud?’ he asks, lifting his spoon.
‘I’m going to New York City in January, Charles,’ Helen says bluntly. ‘To New York University. I’ve been selected by Ted Edwards to teach and do some research on a secondment and I’m thrilled.’
‘That’s nice. Shall we move on to—’
‘I’ll be there for a year, Charles,’ Helen interrupts firmly.
He puts down his spoon. ‘Good God, Helen,’ he replies. ‘That’s preposterous.’ Charles Proctor doesn’t need to be told anything twice.
The girls are in bed, Mike and Olivia are alone in the bay-windowed lounge and they have no more excuses. Mike takes a deep breath and looks at his wife on the sofa opposite. ‘I’m sorry, Olivia. I realise I’ve …’ he nearly uses the football analogy again, but he doesn’t think Olivia will be amused. ‘Well, I’ve had my mind on other things, I suppose. I didn’t realise it until now. But I can see that I’ve neglected you and the girls and I’m sorry. I’ll stop.’
Olivia examines her neatly trimmed nails. She speaks quietly and he has to lean towards her to hear. ‘I need to know why, Mike. I don’t want to know, but I need to know.’ She’s silent for a moment, and then she lifts her head to look him in the eye. She looks unbearably sad, her face pale, tears about to spill from her eyes. ‘Please be honest with me.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Are you having or have you had an affair?’
Mike almost flinches. It’s the last thing he expects to hear. ‘What the … no! Where on earth have you got that idea from?’ he says, almost laughing with relief at the absurdity of her suggestion.
‘Be honest, Mike.’
‘I am! Absolutely.’
Mike prays the sincerity is showing on his face, and is rewarded when the relief almost visibly flows from Olivia’s body. Limp and shaking, she bows her head, burying it in her hands.
For a moment he sits back in the armchair and watches, a surge of panic stopping him from reaching out to her. She’s been so tense and unhappy, now she’s so relieved at his reply. They live together, they sleep in the same bed. How has he missed all of this?
Olivia lifts her head, but still averts her eyes. ‘I thought you’d stopped loving me,’ she says quietly, the tears rolling down her ashen face. ‘You seemed so disinterested, so remote. Then I thought of how Judith has thrown herself