The House Swap(58)

She raises her head slowly, looks at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘Fine. Happy.’ Her voice is soft and non-combative, but each word has the feel of a muffled gunshot, killing off further questioning. I think about these words, turn them over in my head. They don’t fit with what she said the other day, when she talked about your remoteness, the feeling she often had that you weren’t quite there. But I don’t have the energy to work out which I would prefer or which is more likely to be true, and I just nod and leave the house, closing the front door quietly behind me.

Somehow, in the few hours I’ve been asleep since I returned from Amber’s house, I’ve managed to work my way across the bed towards Francis, so that when I wake my lips are pressed into the crook of his neck and his arms are wrapped loosely around me. He’s still sleeping, his breath coming evenly, stirring the hair that falls across my face. Lying with the warmth of his body pressed up against mine, the surreal midnight encounter with Amber seems like a dream.

Francis is stirring, stretching and yawning. ‘Hello,’ he mumbles, tightening his arms around me in a hug. ‘It’s good to have you here.’

I push my face into his shoulder, my eyes suddenly stinging senselessly with tears. ‘Morning.’ His hand is resting lightly on the top of my head, then sliding to the back of my neck, applying a little pressure to encourage me to look up at him. I blink the tears back. ‘Did you sleep well?’

He frowns gently, his face angled down to study mine. ‘I slept all right,’ he says, ‘but when I woke up at one point in the night, you weren’t there. Where did you go?’

‘I couldn’t sleep. I was just downstairs for a bit,’ I say quickly. Too late, I realize I have no idea if he went in search of me and found the house empty. My muscles tense, but he doesn’t contradict me.

‘You know,’ he says instead, at last, ‘I really am worried about you. I have been all week. I know we’ve had some tense moments, particularly the other day at the museum, and I’m sorry for my part in that, but it’s not just that. You’ve just seemed … troubled. Jumpy.’ He pauses, as if searching for the definitive comment on my behaviour. ‘Absent,’ he finishes.

The word sends a shiver through me. Absence – detachment – is a dangerous thing between us. I used to come home to a man who seemed not so much a husband as a robot put in his place, a hologram with Francis’s face and nothing inside. At first, I fought back with anger, pouring double the emotion into the empty space that his disappearance from the relationship had left. I’m not even sure when the anger turned to an indifference that numbed me to the bone and sucked up my love. But I know what hardened it and made it set in: you. And now, after all this time, you’re starting to do it again.

I wrap my arms around his neck, trying to bring myself back. ‘I know,’ I whisper. ‘I’m sorry. I just …’ I release him and roll over on to my back, staring up at the shadowed sunlight flickering warmly across the ceiling. ‘I’m not happy here,’ I say honestly. ‘I know we looked forward to coming away, but I feel strange. I miss Eddie, and the flat. I miss being at home.’ As I speak, I feel the resolve strengthen inside me. Amber was right. I have the opportunity to cut this mess off before I’m tempted to have any further contact with you. ‘We could just go home today,’ I say.

Francis draws in a breath, confused. ‘Today?’ he repeats. ‘But we’re going back tomorrow evening, anyway – what’s the point of going now? Maybe you’ve forgotten, Caro, but there’s someone staying in our flat this week, too. They’re not going to want to be turfed out a day early.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ I say, the irony tasting bitter in my mouth, ‘but …’ The words dry up. There is no way to explain to him that I know you have no intention of staying in our house until tomorrow night; that probably even now you’re packing up your things and preparing to make the long drive back here. ‘I’m sure it would be OK,’ I finish lamely. ‘Or we could go somewhere else, drive back and stop off somewhere in the Midlands at a hotel for the night.’

‘Why would we do that?’ Francis asks bluntly. ‘It’s just spending money unnecessarily. Look … I hear what you’re saying. But I think we can turn this around. It hasn’t been all bad, has it? And we could do something nice today. I admit I’ve kind of run out of tourist traps to visit, but I’m sure we can think of something.’

I open my mouth to argue back, but inspiration deserts me and I can’t think of any reason to protest. He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it encouragingly, taking my silence for consent. ‘OK,’ he says briskly, leaping out of bed. ‘I’m going to hop in the shower, and then we’ll work out what to do today.’

When he has disappeared into the bathroom I pull the bedclothes up around my neck, feeling cold. Already, I’m interrogating myself – wondering if I could have tried harder. I tell myself it will be fine. We’ll go out all day, come back late. I’ll walk straight up the path and into the house, not even glancing across the street. Being a few yards away from you is no different from being hundreds of miles away. There is no invisible aura that grows more powerful when you’re closer. It makes no difference at all.

Even as I’m trying to convince myself, I know it’s useless. Despite everything, an insane part of me doesn’t want to go, and doesn’t want to keep away either. I want to see you.