The Breakdown(19)

ago, as soon as I found out.’

I shake my head stubbornly. ‘You didn’t. If you’d told

me, I would have remembered.’

‘Look, you even said you’d use the time I was away

to work on your lesson plans for September so that we’d

both be able to relax when I got back.’

Doubt fingers its way into my mind. ‘I couldn’t have.’

‘Well, you did.’

‘I didn’t, all right,’ I say, my voice tight. ‘Don’t keep insisting that you told me you were going away when you didn’t.’

I feel his eyes on me and busy myself making the tea

so that he can’t see how upset I am. And not just because he’s going away.

SATURDAY JULY 25th

My body clock still hasn’t adjusted to being on holiday,

so despite it being the weekend I’m in the garden early,

pulling up weeds and tidying beds, only stopping when

Matthew arrives back from the shops with fresh bread

and cheese for lunch. We picnic on the lawn and, once

we’ve finished, I mow the grass, sweep the terrace, wipe

down the table and chairs and dead-head the plants in

the hanging baskets. I’m not usually so obsessive about

the garden but I feel a pressing need to have everything

looking perfect.

Towards the end of the afternoon Matthew comes

to find me.

‘Would you mind if I go to the gym for an hour or

so? If I go now, instead of in the morning, I’ll be able

to have a lie-in.’

I smile. ‘And breakfast in bed.’

‘Exactly,’ he says, kissing me. ‘I’ll be back by seven.’

Title: The Breakdown ARC, Format: 126x198, v1, Output date:08/11/16





68


b a paris


After he’s left I begin to make a curry, leaving the

door to the garden open for air. I slice onions and dice

chicken, singing along to the radio as I cook. In the

fridge, I discover the bottle of wine we started a couple of evenings ago and pounce on it. I pour what’s left into a glass and carry on with the curry, sipping the wine as I go along. By the time I’ve finished in the kitchen it’s almost six o’clock so I decide to have a long, bubble-filled bath. I feel so relaxed that it’s hard to remember the relentless anxiety that had burdened me last week. This is the first day that I’ve managed to push all thought of Jane to the back of my mind. It’s not that I don’t want to think about her, it’s just that I can’t stand the constant guilt. No matter how much I want to I can’t turn the clock back, I can’t not live my life because I didn’t realise it was Jane in the car that night.

A news bulletin comes on but I turn the radio off

quickly. Without the noise from the radio, the house is

eerily quiet and maybe because I’ve just been thinking

about Jane, I’m suddenly conscious of being home alone.

Going into the sitting room, I close the windows which

have been left open all day, then the one in the study,

and lock the front and back doors. I stand for a moment,

listening to the house. But the only sound I hear is the

soft ca coo of a wood pigeon outside.

Upstairs, I run the bath but before getting in I find

myself hesitating over whether or not to lock the door.

I hate that the visit from the alarm man has played

with my head so in defiance to myself I leave it ajar,

The Breakdown





69


as I normally do, but undress facing the gap. I climb


in and sink down under the water. The bubbles rise

up around my neck and I lie back against their foamy

cushion, my eyes closed, enjoying the stillness of the

afternoon. We’re rarely disturbed by neighbour noise;

last summer the teenagers who lived in the house nearest

to us came to apologise in advance for a party they were

throwing that night and we didn’t hear a thing. It’s why

Matthew and I chose this house over the much larger,

more impressive – and consequently more expensive –

property that we also looked at, although I think price

was also a consideration for Matthew. We’d agreed to

buy it jointly and he was adamant that I wouldn’t put

in more than him, even though I could well afford to,

despite having bought a house on the Ile de Ré six

months previously. A house nobody knows about, not

even Matthew. And certainly not Rachel. Not yet.

Under the bubbles, I let my arms bob to the surface

and think about her birthday, the day I’ll finally be able to give her the keys to the house of her dreams. It’s been a hard secret to keep. It’s perfect that she wants to go to the Ile de Ré for her birthday. She took me there a couple of months after Mum died and we stumbled

upon the little fisherman’s cottage on our second to last day there, an à Vendre sign hanging from an upstairs window.

‘It’s beautiful!’ Rachel had breathed. ‘I need to see

inside.’ And without waiting to consult the estate agent, she marched up the little path and knocked on the door.