The Husband's Secret

Chapter fifty-four





Tess woke to the sound of heavy rain. It was still dark, about five am she guessed. Will lay on his side next to her, facing the wall and snoring gently. The shape and smell and feel of him were so ordinary and familiar; the events of the past week seemed inconceivable.

She could have made Will sleep on her mother’s couch, but then she would have had to deal with Liam’s questions. He was already far too aware that things were not quite normal; at the dinner table last night she’d noticed his eyes darting constantly back and forth between herself and Will, monitoring their conversation. His wary little face broke her heart, and made her so furious with Will she could barely look at him.

She shifted slightly away from Will’s body, so that they weren’t touching. It was handy that she had her own Guilty secret. It helped bring her breathing back to normal during those sudden bursts of rage. He’d wronged her. She’d wronged him right back.

Had they both been suffering a form of temporary insanity? It was a defence for murder, after all; why not for married couples? Marriage was a form of insanity; love hovering permanently on the edge of aggravation.



Connor would be asleep now, in his neat flat smelling of garlic and laundry powder, already beginning the process of moving on and forgetting her for the second time. Was he kicking himself for falling for that no-good, cold-hearted woman yet again? Why was she making herself sound like a woman in a country and western song? To soften it, presumably; to make her behaviour seem tender and melancholy, not slutty. She had a feeling that Connor liked country music, but she might have been making it up, confusing him with another ex-boyfriend. She didn’t really know him.

Will couldn’t stand country music.

That was why the sex had been so good with Connor, because they were essentially strangers. It was his ‘otherness’. It made everything – their bodies, their personalities, their feelings – seem more sharply defined. It wasn’t logical, but the better you knew someone, the more blurry they became. The accumulation of facts made them disappear. It was more interesting wondering if someone did or didn’t like country music than knowing one way or the other.

She and Will must have made love, what, a thousand times? At least. She started to calculate it, but she was too tired. The rain got harder, as if someone had turned up the volume. Liam would have to do his Easter egg hunt with an umbrella and gumboots. It must have rained on Easter Sunday before in her lifetime, but all her memories were sun-dappled and blue-skied, as if this was the first sad, rainy Easter Sunday of her life.

Liam wouldn’t care about the rain. He’d probably love it. She and Will would look at each other and laugh, and then they’d look away again, fast, and they’d both be thinking about Felicity and how strange it was without her. Could they do this? Could they make it work, on behalf of one beautiful little six-year-old boy?



She closed her eyes and rolled on to her side, facing away from Will.

Maybe Mum was right, she thought hazily. It’s all about our egos. She felt she was on the edge of understanding something important. They could fall in love with fresh new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of ‘otherness’, a level far beyond what sort of music they liked. It seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip off down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. It was almost embarrassing to be truly intimate with your spouse; because how could you watch someone floss one minute, and the next minute share your deepest passion or tritest of fears? It was almost easier to talk about that sort of thing before you’d shared a bathroom and a bank account and argued over the packing of the dishwasher. But now that this had happened, she and Will had no choice; otherwise they’d hate each other for what they were sacrificing for Liam.

And maybe they’d already begun when they shared their stories last night about bald spots and school trivia nights. She felt equal parts hilarity and tenderness at the thought of Will’s face dropping when the hairdresser held up the mirror to show him the back of his head.

The compass her father had sent her was sitting on the bedside table. She wondered what would have happened to her parents’ marriage if they’d decided to stay together for her. If they’d really tried, out of love for her, could they have done it? Probably not. But she was convinced that Liam’s happiness was the most valid reason in the world for her and Will to be here right now.

She remembered how Will had said that he wanted to squash her spider. He wanted to kill it.



Maybe he wasn’t here entirely for Liam’s sake.

Maybe she wasn’t either.

The wind howled and the glass of her bedroom window rattled. The temperature in the room seemed to plunge and Tess felt all at once violently cold. Thank God Liam was wearing his warm pyjamas and she’d put that extra blanket on him; otherwise she’d have to get up in the cold and go check on him. She rolled towards Will and pressed the length of her body against his back. The warmth was an exquisite relief, and she felt herself begin to slide back into sleep, but at the same time she pressed her lips to the back of his neck, accidentally, reflexively. She felt Will stir, and put his hand back to caress her hip, and without either of them making a decision, or asking the question, they found themselves making love, quiet, sleepy, married love, and every move felt sweet and simple and familiar, except that they didn’t usually cry.