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Katie was going to save her marriage.
She rang the office at eight. She was pla
“Let me guess,” said Aidan, wearily. “You’re sick.”
It would have been simpler to say yes, but it was a day for being honest. And, in any case, she’d never liked agreeing with Aidan. About anything. “I’m fine, actually. But I need the day off.”
“No can do.”
There was a gurgling noise in the background. Was it possible that he was urinating while talking on the cordless phone? “You can live without me for a day.”
“The Henley had the fire officer round. Their license for the ballroom has been revoked. So, we have some work to do.”
“Aidan?” she said, in that growly snap you used to make bad children stop what they were doing right now.
“What?” he said, in that slightly quivery voice bad children used when you did the growly snap.
“I’m staying at home. I’ll explain later. I’ll find you a new venue tomorrow.”
Aidan reasserted himself. “Katie, if you’re not here by ten o’clock-”
She put the phone down. It was entirely possible that she no longer had a job. It didn’t seem terribly important.
Ray turned up just after nine, having dropped Jacob at nursery. He rang the office and talked to a few people to make sure everything didn’t crash and burn in his absence. Then he said, “What now?”
Katie threw him his coat. “We take a tube into London. You get to choose what we do this morning. I get to choose what we do this afternoon.”
“OK,” said Ray.
They were going to start all over again. But this time she wouldn’t be single and desperate. She’d find out whether she liked him instead of just needing him.
They could deal with his anger-management issues later. Besides, if the wedding was off, it was someone else’s job.
Ray wanted to go on the Mille
“Remember wafers?” said Katie. “You’d get this little brick of ice cream sandwiched between these crisscross-patterned biscuits. Maybe you can still get them…”
Ray wasn’t really listening. “It’s like being on holiday.”
“Good,” said Katie.
“Only problem with holidays,” said Ray, “you have to go home afterward.”
“Apparently, going on holiday is the fourth most stressful thing you can do,” said Katie. “After death of a spouse and changing your job. And moving house. If I remember correctly.”
“Fourth?” Ray said, staring at the water. “What about if your kid dies?”
“OK. Maybe not the fourth.”
“Wife dies. Kid with disability,” said Ray.
“Terminal disease,” said Katie. “Loss of limb. Car crash.”
“House burning down,” said Ray.
“Declaration of war,” said Katie.
“Seeing a dog run over.”
“Seeing a person run over.”
“Actually ru
“Actually ru
“Ru
They were laughing again.
Ray was disappointed by the wheel. Too well engineered, he said. He wanted the wind in his hair and a rusty handrail and the faint possibility that the whole structure might collapse.
Katie was thinking she should have included a height rule in her plan for the day. She felt ill. Marble Arch, Battersea Power Station, the Gherkin tower, some green hills over there which looked like they were in bloody Nepal. She stared down at the blond wood of the central oval bench and tried to imagine she was in a sauna.
Ray said, “When we were kids we had these cousins who lived in this old farmhouse. You could get out of the bedroom window and climb up onto the roof. I mean, if Mum and Dad had known they’d have gone ballistic. But I can still remember it, even now, that feeling of being above everything. Roofs, fields, cars…Like being God.”
“How long have we got to go?” asked Katie.
Ray seemed amused. He glanced at his watch. “Ooh, about another fifteen minutes.”
62
Except that it wasn’t a swimming pool because her lime-green bottom (her name was Maria
63
Jean had always found her sister hard work. Even before she was born-again. To be honest, it was slightly better after she was born-again. Because then there was a reason for Eileen being hard work. You knew you’d never get on because she was going to heaven and you weren’t, so you could give up trying.
But, God, the woman could make you feel greedy and self-centered just by the way she wore a shapeless faun cardigan.
She was sorely tempted, over lunch, to mention David. Just so she could see her sister’s face. But Eileen would probably consider it her moral duty to share the information with George.
It didn’t matter now. The ordeal was over for another year.
By the time she got home she was looking forward to a conversation with George. About anything.
She was juggling her keys, however, when she realized something was wrong. She could see, through the little square of frosted glass, that the phone table was at an angle. And there was something dark lying at the foot of the stairs. The dark thing had arms. She hoped to God it was a coat.
She opened the door.
It was a coat.
Then she saw the blood. On the stairs. On the hall carpet. There was a bloody handprint on the wall beside the living-room door.
She shouted George’s name, but there was no answer.
She wanted to turn and run and phone the police from a neighbor’s house. Then she imagined the conversation on the phone. Not being able to say where he was, or what had happened to him. She had to be the first to see him.