Behind Closed Doors(21)
It all sounded so plausible that I regretted acting as hysterically as I had. Jack had been right to be angry with me. I had already seen how his work could impinge on our relationship—God knew how many times he had been too tired or too stressed for sex—and he had already apologised for it, and had begged me to understand that the very nature of his work meant that he couldn’t always be there, both mentally and physically, for me. I had been proud of the fact that we had never rowed but now, I had fallen at the first hurdle.
I wanted nothing more but to see Jack, to tell him how sorry I was, to feel his arms around me, to hear him say that he forgave me. Reading his message again, I realised that when he said he’d see me in the morning, he probably meant the small hours. Feeling much calmer, and suddenly very tired, I got undressed and climbed into bed, relishing the thought of being woken before too long by Jack making love to me. I just had time to hope that Millie was still sleeping soundly before I fell into a deep sleep.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Jack might be spending the night with another woman, but it was the first thought that entered my mind when I woke sometime after eight the next morning and realised that he hadn’t come back after all. Fighting down panic, I reached for my mobile, expecting to find a message from him, if only to say at what time he would be at the hotel. But there was nothing, and because there was the possibility that he’d decided to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep in the office rather than disturb me, I was reluctant to phone him in case I woke him up. But I was desperate to speak to him, so I called him anyway. When I got his voicemail, I took a deep breath and left a message in as normal a tone as I could muster, asking him to let me know what time I could expect him at the hotel and telling him that we needed to call by the hospital to see Millie on the way to the airport. Then I showered, dressed and sat down to wait.
As I waited, I realised that I didn’t even know what time our flight was due to leave. I vaguely remembered Jack saying something about an afternoon flight so I guessed that we would have to be at the airport at least a couple of hours before. When I eventually received a text message from Jack, almost an hour later, I was again bewildered by its tone. There was no apology, no mention of anything except an order to meet him in the hotel car park at eleven. By the time I struggled into the lift with our two suitcases and my hand luggage, my stomach was churning with anxiety. As I handed the room key in at the reception, I was glad that the man I had spoken to the night before had been replaced by a young woman who, I hoped, knew nothing of my missing husband.
A porter helped me take the luggage out to the car park. I told him that my husband had gone to fill the car with petrol and headed for a nearby bench, ignoring his suggestion that I’d be better off waiting in the warmth of the hotel. I hadn’t wanted to take a heavy coat with me to Thailand and because I’d expected to go from the hotel to the car to the airport, barely venturing out into the open, I was only wearing a jacket which was no match for the vicious wind that whipped across the car park. By the time Jack showed up twenty-five minutes later, I was blue with cold and on the verge of tears. Stopping the car only feet away from me, he got out and walked over to where I was sitting.
‘Get in,’ he said, picking up the cases and loading them into the boot.
Too cold to argue, I stumbled into the car and huddled against the door, wanting only to feel warm again. I waited for him to speak, to say something—anything—which would go some way to explaining why I felt as if I was sitting next to someone I didn’t know. When the silence had gone on for too long, I summoned up the courage to look at him. The lack of emotion on his face shocked me. I had expected to see anger, stress or irritation. But there was nothing.
‘What’s going on, Jack?’ I asked unsteadily. It was as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘For God’s sake, Jack!’ I cried. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘Please don’t swear,’ he said distastefully.
I looked at him in amazement. ‘What do you expect? You disappear without a word, leaving me to spend our wedding night alone and then you turn up half an hour late to fetch me, leaving me waiting in the freezing cold! Surely I have a right to be angry!’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t. You have no rights at all.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Is there someone else, Jack? Is that what all this is about? Are you in love with somebody else? Is that where you were last night?’
‘Now it’s you who’s being ridiculous. You’re my wife, Grace. Why would I need anybody else?’
Defeated, I shook my head miserably. ‘I don’t understand. Is there some problem at work, something you can’t tell me about?’
‘I’ll explain everything when we’re in Thailand.’
‘Why can’t you tell me now? Please, Jack, tell me what’s wrong.’
‘In Thailand.’
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t particularly feel like going to Thailand with him in the mood he was in, but I took comfort in the fact that, once there, I would at least have an explanation as to why our marriage had got off to such a bad start. Because his mood seemed to be related to some sort of problem at work, I couldn’t help feeling apprehensive that it might be something I’d be seeing a lot more of in the future. I was so busy working out how I would adjust to being married to a man I hadn’t known existed that it was a while before I realised we were heading straight out to the airport.