to run all the way back. Sandra was just pulling the blind down over her till. She made a point of looking closely at her watch as he burst back in through the doors, then hurriedly pulled on her mac and grabbed her bag.
‘Enjoy the play,’ Mark called after her, but she had already gone.
***
It was Wednesday already and, although Nicci kept insisting she wasn’t interested, Jilly kept insisting that she’d never know until she tried, so they were looking at evening classes. Jilly had spread the thick glossy brochure out on her kitchen table and used their coffee mugs to pin it down at the corners. ‘There must be something here…’ she said.
‘But most of them have already started. Weeks ago. Look, the term dates are like school, starting in September. We’re well into November already. If we joined something now, we’d never catch up.’
‘Oh, Nic, don’t be such a defeatist. That might matter if we were going to do a GCSE or something, but I wasn’t really thinking educational. We only want one of the fun courses, don’t we? Turn up, enjoy, go home again. No homework or exams or anything like that. What about line dancing? Or yoga? Yes, let’s try some yoga. All you have to do is lie on the floor and copy what the teacher’s doing up at the front. We could manage that, surely? I bet it would be good for all that stress of yours too.’
‘I am not stressed!’
‘You could’ve fooled me. You’ve got tension written all over you. Your muscles must be as tight as violin strings. I could probably play a tune on them, if I actually knew how to play a violin. Now, there’s a thought…’
‘No. I do not want to learn to play the violin, or the piano, or a pair of bloody castanets for that matter.’
‘Oh, hello, Nicola.’ Jilly’s husband Richard thumped into the kitchen through the back door, clattered his briefcase down on the tiled floor and pulled off his tie, then bent to give Jilly a kiss on the top of her head. ‘God, I’m bushed.’ He picked up Jilly’s coffee mug, peered inside, muttered something about too much milk, and drained it dry. And, with no mug to hold it down, the open page of the adult education brochure flapped back up and over, almost knocking Nicci’s own coffee over with it.
‘I’m off up for a hot bath, love,’ Richard said, letting out a long exhausted-sounding breath and dumping the mug back down with a thud. ‘Dinner nearly ready?’ And, without waiting for a reply, he was gone.
‘See? See what I have to put up with? His tie chucked on the worktop, his bag on the floor, complaints, orders…’
‘Oh, stop it. You love the pants off him! Anyway, I’d best be off. I only intended to drop by for a few minutes on my way home, and let’s be honest, you haven’t even started on the dinner, have you?’
‘Oh, I’ll rustle something up. Or he will. He’s a great cook, you know, when he’s in the mood. Which I’m not sure he is tonight! And, anyway, Richard’s stomach is the least of my worries right now.’
‘Why? What else have you got to worry about?’
‘You, of course.’
‘Jilly, don’t be silly. I can look after myself.’
‘And so can Richard.’
‘That’s a bit harsh. Jilly. Take it from me, you’ve got a good one there. Don’t take him for granted. You’d be lost without him, you know. Believe me, I know. Just don’t make the same mistakes I did, okay?’
‘The biggest mistake you made was telling Mark what you’d done. He need never have known. You and your conscience. And your big mouth! You’d never catch me confessing.’
‘But you don’t actually have anything to confess, do you? And you still have a marriage to hang on to. A good one, too. I know the IVF must have taken its toll lately, and how awful it all must be, but you need some “me time” now. Both of you. So, why not cook your husband something delicious for dinner?’
‘Oh, come on, Nic. After spending all day at work baking bloody cakes, the last thing I want to do is cook!’
‘But you’re good at it. And a dinner for two is hardly the same thing as mixing up a fruit cake, is it? Go on. Light a few candles. Not birthday candles for a change: proper scented ones. And put some sexy music on. When he comes back downstairs, surprise him. Pamper him. He’ll love that.’
‘Who’s being the marriage counsellor now?’ Jilly laughed. ‘Oh, God, just look at the state of my nails. Nibbled to the bloody quick…’
‘Well, if that’s all you’ve got to fret about…’
Jilly looked up at her and raised her eyebrows.
‘Sorry. I know there’s been a lot going on. No wonder you bite your nails. I’d probably be up to my elbows by now if it was me. But he did look tired, your Richard. It must be hard on him too, you know, seeing you going through it all. Go on, cook him something nice. Humour me, okay? And I’ll get out of your way. We’ll talk about yoga another time.’
‘They say you can stretch your legs right back and tuck your knees behind your head when you get good at it, you know.’
‘Could come in handy, I suppose. For after your candlelit meal…’
She could still hear Jilly laughing as she closed the door behind her and stumbled down the garden path in the dark, the first teardrop already winding its way down her cheek.
It was no good. She couldn’t carry on like this, pretending everything was fine. Putting on a brave face in public and sobbing her heart out in private. It had to stop. She only had to spend a few minutes in Jilly and Richard’s house, watching their easy interaction and silly bickering to feel a painful pang for the ordinary, comfortable, loving marriage she had lost.
She wiped the rogue tear away, pulled her raincoat around her and put her head down against the rain as she dashed across the main road in the rush-hour crowd. She found the car where she’d parked it in a side street that hadn’t yet been blighted with yellow lines, but hardly remembered the drive home, the wipers flicking backwards and forwards in front of her eyes, the headlight beam bouncing off the puddles.
At the gate, the For Sale sign had slipped again, its wooden post now leaning at an uneasy angle that almost blocked her passage up the path. Oh, how she would love to tear it down, but there was no way she could raise the money she’d need to buy Mark out, and he had made it plain enough that he didn’t want to stay on here either. It had been their house, their home, the place they had saved so hard for and both fallen in love with the very first time they’d stepped through the door. It could never be the same for either of them living in it alone. Mark had made it clear that he wanted a fresh start, and that selling up and going their separate ways was the only thing they could do.
But was it? Was it really? She stood still and gazed at the For Sale sign. Maybe, falling over like that, it was trying to tell her something. That it wasn’t too late to try to stop all this sale nonsense and to do something, anything, to save their home, and save their marriage…
She didn’t want to learn to live without him. Didn’t want to play Jilly’s games, lose herself in distractions, or beat herself up with regrets and recriminations. No, what she wanted was her husband back. She knew that now. Nothing else would do. Nobody else would do. They belonged together. They always had. Somewhere they had lost sight of that, but now it was as clear as the crystal in her mother’s posh glass cabinet. She had to win him back, find a way to regain his trust and bring him home. But that would take time. Time, with the divorce already underway, that she had so little of.
Inside the house, she slung her coat over the banisters and went straight to the sideboard. The envelope felt cold and stiff in her hands as she drew out the decree. Running her gaze down the stark white page to the bottom, she homed in on the date, then dashed into the kitchen and tugged the calendar off the wall.
Puppies in various cute poses stared back at her. Her mother’s doing.