There’s her husband. In the shadowy secret moments of his life. It’s similar to the feeling of being in her children’s school. She pulls out her phone and calls him. It rings ten times and then cuts off. For some reason she pictures him pulling his phone from his pocket, seeing her name and putting it back in his pocket.
It’s midday. As far as she’s aware he doesn’t undertake out-of-clinic appointments. Maybe he’s meeting someone somewhere for lunch?
The fact that it is Valentine’s Day passes fleetingly through her mind and she finds herself picturing Roan in a trendy Soho restaurant, a single red rose on the table, a waiter pouring champagne into a flute for the beautiful young woman sitting opposite him.
She shakes her head to rid herself of the image.
She will not be that person again.
9
Roan gets home just before 7 p.m. that night. Cate watches him flick through the letters on the kitchen table. He gets to the letter in the white envelope with the card in it and she sees it, a crackle of something pass through him, like a tiny pulse of electricity. His fingers stumble, vaguely, but he keeps flicking, then wordlessly puts the letters back down on the kitchen table.
‘You still up for drinks tonight?’ he asks.
‘Definitely,’ she responds quickly. ‘I did have a look online but I couldn’t find anything that didn’t need to be booked.’
‘Maybe we should just head into the village. Go to the least Valentiney-looking pub we can find?’
‘That’s fine with me. Eightish?’
Roan nods. ‘Eightish sounds good. I think I might just head out for a run then. What time’s dinner?’
She glances at the oven where Josh’s goujons are cooking. She hadn’t thought about dinner for Roan. For her. ‘Are we not eating out tonight?’
‘Can do. Fine with me. I’m not that hungry anyway.’
She opens her mouth to say, ‘Oh, that’ll be because you went and had lunch in town somewhere, with someone, for some reason.’ But that’s not how she wants the night to start. Instead she smiles and says, ‘Great. Have a good run.’
Georgia appears a moment later. She goes to the bread bin and takes out the loaf of expensive rye and sourdough bread that Cate buys especially for her. She puts it in the toaster and then goes to the fridge, pulls open the vegetable drawer, rummages for a moment, emerges with the fresh avocado in her hand, slices it over the sink, tugs out the stone with the tip of the knife, drops the stone in the bin, mashes the avocado in the same bowl in which she always mashes her avocado, grinds salt into it, smears it over the two large slices of toast, sits it on the table with a large glass of apple and mango juice and bites into it.
Georgia sees Cate watching her. ‘You all right, Mum?’ she says.
Cate nods, shaking herself out of her mild reverie. ‘I’m fine, yes.’
Georgia picks up the Banksy Valentine’s card with her spare hand and examines it. ‘Aw,’ she says. ‘Sweet. Dad got you a card. Bless. What’s it mean?’
‘It means …’ She tugs a piece of kitchen towel from the roll and uses it to mop up some spilled tea on the counter. ‘I don’t know. I think maybe he thinks I’m still a bit sensitive after what happened last year.’
‘Oh, you mean yourcrisis?’
‘Yes. Our crisis.’
‘That was so weird,’ Georgia says, her mouth full of food. ‘Just so, so weird. What was it even about?’
They’d never told the children what it was about. They’d never told the children how close they’d come to splitting up. They’d just said they were having a bit of a crisis, totally normal after so many years together, that they were going to spend a few days apart and see how they felt after. And then there hadn’t really been an after. Roan had moved back. They’d gone skiing. Life had continued.
Cate shakes her head. ‘I’m still not too sure,’ she says. ‘Just one of those things. Happens to every couple, I guess.’
‘But you’re cool now? You and dad?’
‘Yes. We’re cool now. In fact, we’re going out to the pub tonight.’
‘Ooh, ooh, can I come too?’
Cate raises an eyebrow. ‘What on earth for?’ She laughs.
‘I like pubs.’