Behind Her Eyes(44)

I want to say something, to check she’s okay, and then her mobile, sitting in the key well, rings. I don’t need to ask who it is.

‘I’m just going to the gym,’ she says after answering it. She sounds almost apologetic. ‘Yes, that’s right. No, I’m going straight home. I promise. Okay, I’ll speak to you then. Bye.’

‘Well that was romantic,’ I say, dryly, and open the window. It’s hot in the car and I feel slightly queasy after seeing the bruise and hearing their conversation. I feel awful. Angry. Upset. Confused. David hasn’t been avoiding my bed because he’s rekindling his marriage, that’s for sure.

‘Did you two have a row?’ I don’t use the word fight. I don’t want her to think I’m asking if David hit her, although that’s pretty much exactly what I’m asking, even though I can’t quite imagine it. Not my David anyway. Adele’s David is a stranger.

‘Oh no,’ she says, but she doesn’t look at me as she parks the car. ‘No, nothing like that. Just, you know, marriage.’

I don’t know, I realise. I know nothing about their marriage, but it seems very different to most, to what Ian and I had definitely. Ian and I rubbed along together, before his affair, like everyone else. The odd falling out, but I was never afraid of him. David and Adele’s is nothing like that. The phone calls, her nervousness, his moods, the pills, and now this. How much am I supposed to ignore because he seems different with me? I love Adele. She’s given me the ability to sleep properly at night, which is the best thing ever. I don’t want her to be unhappy and hurt. But my feelings for David are real too. Am I being an idiot? Is he an abuser? Will it be me with a black eye soon? It all feels surreal.

Could he have hit her? I think as I get out of the car. Really? Surely not. Maybe Adele is telling the truth and she just had a stupid accident at home. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t turned up at my door. He’s been looking after her. Feeling guilty? The tension seeps out of my stomach a bit as I cling to that explanation and follow Adele to the front door. An accident, that’s all.

There’s a boxed treadmill in the hallway, and Adele laughs when I see it, a tinkling broken glass sound. She says David bought it for her as a gift, but they’re sending it back. She didn’t want to stop going to the gym.

My mood sinks again as my head adds these new pieces to the puzzle. Was it meant to be a nice gift, or was there a more sinister motive? Was David trying to chain her to the house further? If she wasn’t going to the gym there was one less reason to go out and meet new people on her own? Maybe that caused a fight. Did she try to assert herself and then he punched her? And now, out of guilt at his own behaviour, he’s relented and is sending it back? But if he’s that jealous of how she spends her time when he’s at work, then why has he been sleeping with me? Why isn’t he at home with her all the time? And why isn’t he jealous of where I am when I’m not with him? Maybe it’s too early in our relationship for that. I’ve seen those films where the men are all charming at first, and then the violence comes. It feels weird to even think of David and violence in the same sentence. Maybe he simply doesn’t care enough about me to want to know my every move. Maybe, I try to tell myself, he didn’t hit her at all.

‘Which cupboard?’ I ask, when we’re in the kitchen. Part of my brain is telling me to shut up and let it go, but I’m too curious. I can’t help myself. She looks at me, confused, as she gets plates out and effortlessly starts preparing a tapas-style lunch that never seems to include leaving coleslaw or hummus in their tubs and dumping them on the table like normal people.

‘Which cupboard? You know …’ I wave my hand around my own cheek.

‘Oh!’ she says. ‘Oh, that.’ Her eyes frantically run along the row for a moment. ‘That one. Above the kettle. Silly really. I wanted an ibuprofen and the kettle was boiling and steam got in my eyes so I couldn’t see what I was doing. So stupid.’

I nod and smile, but my heart is thumping hard and I know she’s lying. She picked at random, and from where I’m standing I’m pretty sure she’d have to be crouching a little for the corner of the door to hit her cheekbone. I can’t see how it could have hit her directly in the face if she was the one opening it. Not with enough force to cause that injury. It’s a dying bruise, so it must have been there for a few days.

I very nearly ask the question that hums between us – Did David do it? – but I chicken out. I don’t think I want to know, not here and not now. Not where my own reaction can’t be tempered. My guilt would show. I’d end up telling her what I’ve been doing with him, and I can’t do that. I can’t. I’d lose them both. And anyway, she’s too fragile for that right now. It would probably break her.

Instead, still feeling sick, I grab the bottle of sparkling elderflower water and two glasses and take them out into the fresh air. For the first time in ages I’m craving a real cigarette and I can’t get my electronic one out of my bag fast enough.

‘So, tell me!’ she says, once she joins me with two full plates, which look wonderful even though I don’t feel at all like eating. ‘You actually did it?’

‘Yep.’ I breathe out a long stream of vapour, letting the nicotine calm me slightly. For the first time today I see proper happiness in her face, and she claps her hands together with joy like a child.