Girl Unknown(54)

The sentence was left to drift. Just spit it out, I thought irritably. My notes, abandoned in the other room, would probably remain unread now. I’d just have to wing it during the radio interview in the morning.

I asked her to tell me exactly what had happened.

‘I mistook her phone for my own, you see,’ she began. ‘I read one of her text messages by accident. It was private. That was what she said. I tried to tell her it was a mistake. That I wasn’t spying on her or anything like that. But she didn’t believe me.’

‘Go on,’ I said, listening now.

‘Some guy had sent her a text,’ she said again. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you –’

‘Saying what?’

She hesitated, putting the compress to one side, a little crease of a frown appearing between her eyebrows. Her reluctance was apparent, but I was curious now.

‘It’s okay, Zo?. You can tell me.’

‘Something about how he missed her. He missed her lovely mouth, or something.’

She said the words and my irritation fell away.

It’s a funny thing – trust. Trust and love, the foundation stones of a marriage. When I found out about Caroline’s little romance, it was like someone had taken a hammer to that block of trust and begun pounding at it, causing cracks to run through it, like veins. We had spent the past year and a half working to mend those fissures, sealing them up with gestures and promises. I still loved her, still felt grateful that she was my wife, but cracks like those can be hard to fix, and when Zo? said those words – he missed her lovely mouth – all at once I was thinking about another man pressing his mouth against my wife’s, prising open her lips, exploring with his tongue. It was an image I had tortured myself with at the time, but had learned to suppress. It was back with me now, and suspicion sprang to life. The sealing cement was falling away to reveal the cracks in our trust in all their ugliness.

‘I know I shouldn’t have read it,’ she was saying, ‘but you have to believe me – I would never have read it if I’d known it was her phone.’

Keeping my voice carefully neutral, I said: ‘So what happened next?’

‘She was so angry … She snatched the phone back and she pushed me against the wall.’

The image snagged in my brain. It didn’t seem quite right. ‘Are you sure about this, Zo??’

‘I don’t think she meant to hurt me. Not really. But the way I fell, my face kind of hit the wall and I know there’s a bruise, and it throbs a bit, but it looks worse than it is …’

She started to cry again, and while I was full of conflicting emotions, I couldn’t stand seeing her upset like that, her face damaged and sore.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, even though it was not my fault. My thoughts and feelings were opaque, torn between wanting to believe her and my natural instinct to back away from the hard knowledge of my wife’s infidelity.

‘It’s okay,’ she said, getting up from the table.

She was going to say goodnight, but before she did I reached out and held her wrist.

‘I’ll talk to Caroline,’ I said, feeling her pull away.

‘No, please don’t. I don’t want her thinking I’ve been telling tales.’

‘Zo?,’ I said gently, trying to calm the nervous agitation within her. ‘She’s going to see your face. We need to talk about this – all three of us.’

‘No, please. Not after last night.’

‘We have to sort this out. You’re my daughter and I want you to feel safe here. But Caroline is also my wife. This is her home. Whatever has happened, we can’t just ignore it.’

‘I need to sleep,’ she said, twisting her arm from my grasp.

‘What will you do?’ I asked, suddenly worried that she would pack her bags and leave.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, moving towards the door. ‘Stay out of her way, I suppose.’

She turned – something about her defiance reminded me sharply and painfully of Linda.

After a while, I switched out the light and went upstairs to bed. Caroline didn’t move as I climbed in next to her, and for a long time I lay there, staring at the outline of her body, her hair spread over the pillow next to mine, with the uneasy feeling that even though she was my wife and the mother of my children, even though I had known her half my life, she was still a stranger to me.

My radio interview was scheduled for 8 a.m., which meant leaving the house earlier than normal. As it was, Caroline had a breakfast meeting, so we were all up early – all of us except Zo?.

‘Pour me a mug there, will you?’ Caroline asked, and I felt a flare of irritation.

I had resolved to talk to her once we were alone, but with Robbie and Holly slumped over their breakfast, conversation was impossible. I had promised to bring Robbie with me to the radio station after he voiced an interest in the media, and now I found myself quietly regretting it. I wanted to spend more time with him, but I had slept badly and my nerves, made worse by my lack of preparation, were getting to me.

‘Pass me the milk, Zo?,’ I said.

Both Holly and Robbie looked up.

‘You called me Zo?,’ Holly said, as if I’d slapped her.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘You did, Dad,’ Robbie said.