The Stepmother(67)

 

As quickly, apparently, as I had made enemies.

 

I didn’t bother with any ‘Hi, honey, I’m home’ jokes. I was the joke now I feared. ‘Matt?’ I called gingerly.

 

‘In here.’

 

How much had changed in four months. Ruefully I followed the voice.

 

‘Have you been going through my emails?’ Matthew asked as soon as I walked into the kitchen. No ‘hello’, no greeting at all – he barely even looked up.

 

‘Oh!’ Should I lie? But what was the point? I’d left the laptop in the kitchen, where it glared balefully from the table, its owner looking no less malevolent. ‘Well not going through them exactly – I just…’

 

‘What?’

 

‘I just wanted to know who sent you that – thing – about me.’ I moved towards Matthew hopefully.

 

He was unshaven, in jeans and a T-shirt, not quite as svelte as when we’d married, his stubble blue-black, his face dark with anger. ‘Not going through them?’

 

‘I just wanted to see if I recognised the email address.’

 

‘But I told you that I didn’t.’

 

‘I just thought that I might though. I am sorry – but that’s all it was really.’

 

‘All?’ He put great weight on the word. ‘That’s all?’

 

‘Yes. I mean I didn’t look at anything else…’ But that was a lie. ‘Why are you so angry? What’s happened now?’

 

‘Apart from you snooping in my private affairs?’ He looked at me. My first thought was how sickeningly handsome he was, despite his scowl; my second was a rare flash of anger.

 

‘I wasn’t snooping!’ I was vehement. ‘It was just the one email, and it was about me – and…’ I had to bite the bullet again. ‘And you’ve not been honest yourself.’

 

‘What? Why?’

 

‘Who did you take with you? To Brussels. Did… did Kaye go?’

 

‘Kaye?’ He looked at me like I was totally mad. ‘Don’t be so f*cking stupid.’

 

‘I’m not. I saw another passport number…’

 

‘Yes. Yours.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘Yours, I said.’

 

‘I-It’s not mine,’ I stammered.

 

He shoved the laptop towards me. ‘Why don’t you check?’

 

‘I did. Mine ends with a twenty-six, not…’

 

He opened his briefcase and threw four passports across the table at me. ‘Check it then.’

 

I picked them up. One of them was mine, it seemed.

 

‘When I booked it, I booked it for all four of us. But it’s all been so f*cking awful, I just couldn’t take you too. You knew that.’

 

‘Sorry,’ I whispered.

 

‘You should have believed me.’ He slammed the laptop lid.

 

I didn’t know what to say, but I saw the bottle of whisky and box of Belgian chocolates on the side, very fancy, wrapped in gold ribbons, and I contemplated a joke about my chocolate addiction – anything to ease the tension. Only the look on Matthew’s face suggested jokes would be unwise.

 

‘Matthew, please. Try and understand. I had to look on your computer. I wouldn’t normally have, but I needed to know,’ I pleaded. ‘I feel like someone’s trying to…’

 

‘Trying to what?’

 

‘Bring me down?’ In for a penny, I supposed. ‘Like – as if someone might be, sort of – trying to come between us?’

 

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid.’ He looked at me as if we’d never met. ‘You know, Jeanie, I thought you were such a quiet little mouse – such a safe bet – but you’re not at all who I thought you were.’

 

‘A mouse?’ I repeated dumbly.

 

‘And if someone actually was trying to come between us,’ he said irritably, ‘which they’re not – well you’ve only yourself to blame. If you’re going to act like a tart, then…’

 

‘What do you mean a tart?’ I was aghast.

 

‘Well, first the boy at the school. Then entertaining men here.’

 

‘What do you mean “entertaining men”?’

 

‘Sylvia told me she caught you with that guy.’

 

‘Sylvia?’ I had no idea they were such good friends. ‘She caught me with what guy?’

 

‘You tell me, Jean. She texted me, saying sorry to have to tell me, but when she came for coffee yesterday, some guy was getting out of the shower.’