There was a second too long a pause before Eve realised what she’d said and as she walked back to the sofa added as casually as she could, ‘And you.’
‘And me,’ Peter said with the raise of his brows.
‘Of course you, it goes without saying,’ she added with a laugh, checking to see if there were any other toys lying about the place.
‘It doesn’t, Eve.’ Peter shook his head.
‘Of course it does,’ she said, spotting a small plastic cow hiding behind one of her French café jugs and going over to pick it up.
‘No,’ Peter said, the rows and rows of Netflix options skimming past at unreadable speed.
Eve was just going over to stand the plastic cow up with the rest of the plastic animals on the toy farm when Peter said, ‘I need to talk to you about something.’
‘What?’
He leant forward so his elbows rested on his knees and his fingers steepled to a point in front of him.
Eve went and sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of him, the plastic cow still in her hand. ‘I didn’t mean to miss you off when I was talking about holidays. I really do just include you by default.’ A small frown appeared on her face—that had sounded better in her head.
He took a breath in. ‘Something’s gone wrong, Eve. With us.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ Eve shook her head. ‘Look at us—lovely house, lovely kids, lovely, lovely, lovely.’ She used the plastic cow to emphasise the point, trotting it in front of her like she might with the kids, and immediately regretted it.
She felt Peter waiting as she put the cow down next to her on the table. Then he said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s unfixable, I just know it’s there.’ He sat up straight, running a hand through hair that really needed a cut. Eve found herself thinking that he could take their son, Noah, with him to the barber’s at the weekend. Noah would like that. ‘I nearly had an affair,’ he said.
‘What?’ Eve stopped thinking about the barber’s and almost laughed. ‘Are you joking? Is this because of Jake?’
Peter shook his head. ‘No. Maybe. I’ve wanted to tell you for ages. I didn’t do anything. One hundred per cent I didn’t. But I thought about it, Eve. I thought about it. And in the past I would never have even considered it.’ He sank against the sofa cushions.
Eve pulled her hair back from her face, holding it there as she said, ‘Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you all? Why are you all having affairs?’
‘I didn’t! I didn’t have an affair. Don’t lump me in with Jake. But I feel like if I don’t tell you then I am like him,’ Peter said. ‘Eve, the only person I’ve wanted to talk to about this was you—and you’re the only person I couldn’t talk to about this.’
‘I feel sick,’ Eve said. Right deep inside herself sick. Like everything precious was slithering away.
She swept the little plastic cow off the table in annoyance and for a moment sat with her hand covering her face. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked.
Peter sat forward again. ‘I have no idea what it means. It just means that things can’t go on as they are. It feels like we’ve got a chink. Both of us on different roads. I don’t know,’ he said, rubbing his forehead, ‘I’m shit at explaining stuff like this. That’s what it feels like to me. Like we’re running parallel on different tracks.’
‘Who was it? Do I know her?’
‘That’s not the point.’
Eve bit her lip. ‘I just want to know. So I can see it, you know, in my head.’
He closed his eyes for a second. ‘A supply teacher.’
Eve frowned. ‘Not the little blonde one?’
Peter exhaled slowly. ‘This isn’t about the affair, Eve. There wasn’t an affair. Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything. Are you crying?’
‘No.’ Eve shook her head, desperately holding back any semblance of tears.
She bent down and picked the cow up, putting it on the table next to her again, feeling like she needed a mascot.
‘I think maybe we just need to take some time,’ Peter said. ‘What do they call it? Have a break?’ he said doing quote marks with his fingers. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I just did that. I hate people who do quote marks. I’m nervous,’ he said.
The oven timer plinked to say the Bolognese was ready.
They both stayed where they were.
‘I think maybe you should go to Italy,’ Peter said in the end.
Eve nodded; needing to look away from him she glanced round the living room, the timer beeping incessantly in the background, the sense of being cocooned gone, everything no longer quite so secure.
The hotel was exactly as Jessica had imagined it would be.
Quaint, she thought, as she stepped out of the taxi, sunglasses on, hair smoothed back into a low ponytail. There were twee green shutters on every window, flowerboxes on every balcony railing filled with gnarled white geraniums, an archway into a ground floor bar with dark wooden chairs and terracotta half pots as light sconces, a mildewed green and white striped awning. And painted down the centre of the building was a sign saying Hotel Limoncello.
‘God, I can’t stand Limoncello,’ a voice drawled from the taxi, and she turned to see Dex, Valiumed up to the eyeballs post-flight, lying across the backseat and staring up at the same view.
‘Can you walk?’ she asked, glancing down at him.
‘Certainly,’ he said, sliding himself along the leather like a caterpillar and then stumbling out onto the warm pavement.
‘Christ, even the pavement’s hot. It’s too hot, Jessica. I’m too hot,’ he said, pulling himself up to standing.
She held in a smile as she paid the taxi driver who’d hauled the luggage round from the boot and was now looking dubiously at Dex as he tried to hold himself upright.
‘This bag is ridiculous,’ Dex said, leaning against Jessica’s massive case. She had packed, as usual, for every eventuality.
Next to hers, Dex’s bag was tiny. Hand luggage only. He had packed, he’d said, what he always packed for any holiday: three pairs of shorts, three t-shirts, underwear, one pair of flip-flops, a hat, and a book.
She could hardly believe he could remember, considering that neither of them had been on holiday for the past three years, instead chained to their desks building the recently award-winning Waverly Design Agency. Which was actually where she’d quite happily still be, she thought as she glanced back to the hotel and felt the heat already burning her hair and her skin. And where she would be if it wasn’t for that Design Agency of the Year award.
Jessica had foggy memories of the ceremony, of Dex nudging her out of her seat to go up and collect the award while she was still perfecting her happy-for-whoever-won face. She vaguely remembered the surge of triumph, but then the champagne had been popped and she had nervously drunk more and more as strangers came over to offer their congratulations. Amidst it all had been a phone call from Libby that had seen Dex and possibly Jessica herself, she couldn’t quite remember, shouting, ‘Italy! Of course! Why not? A celebratory holiday.’
Even