I try to make conversation in the car, telling her I can only stay an hour or so because Adam gets dropped home from after-school games at five and so I need to be back by 4.30, latest, but she’s not listening. She mutters the right sounds, but she keeps looking at the clock on the dashboard while driving too fast for the tight London roads. Why is she in such a hurry? What important call is she going to miss? Her brow is tight furrows of worry. Only when we’re through the front door does she relax. Which is ironic, because the act of stepping over the threshold makes me feel slightly sick. I shouldn’t be here. Not at all.
‘Ten minutes to spare,’ she says, smiling. ‘Come through.’
It’s a beautiful home. Absolutely gorgeous. Wooden floors – thick, rich oak slabs, not cheap laminate – stretch the length of the hallway, and the stairs rise elegantly to one side. It’s a house you can breathe in. The air is cool, the brick walls old and solid. This house has stood for over a century and will easily stand for a century more.
I peer into one room and see it’s a study. A desk by the window. A filing cabinet. A wing-backed chair. Books lining the shelves, all thick hardbacks, no holiday reads there. Then there’s a beautiful sitting room, stylish but not cluttered. Light and airy. And everything is pristine. My heart is thumping so hard it makes my head throb. I feel like an interloper. What would David think if he knew I’d been here? It’s one thing having coffee with his wife, but another to be in his house. Maybe he’d think both were equally crazy. Adele would too if she knew about what happened with David. She’d hate herself for inviting me into her home. She’d hate me. The worst part is that here, where I feel most out of place, I have a pang for the man-in-the-bar. I don’t want him to hate me. I’m going to have to tell him. I’m going to have to come clean.
God, I’m such an idiot. I should never have let things get this far with Adele. But what am I supposed to do about it now? I can’t just walk out. I need to stay for lunch as agreed. And I like her. She’s sweet. Not aloof or stuck-up at all.
‘Here it is!’
I follow her into the kitchen, which is about as big as my entire flat, and probably cost as much. The granite surfaces have a polished gleam, and I can’t see a single ring or stain from a coffee drip. Adele holds up the little black Nokia. It looks so wrong in this luxurious house. Why does she have such a crappy old phone? And why the panic to get home?
‘Are you okay?’ I ask. ‘What’s the big deal about missing a call? Is it something important?’
‘Oh, it’ll sound stupid.’ Her shoulders hunch in a little, and she focuses on filling the kettle from the filter jug to avoid looking at me. ‘It’s David. He worries if I don’t answer when he rings.’
I’m confused. ‘How do you know he’s going to ring?’
‘Because he calls at the same times every day. He worries, that’s all.’
My discomfort at being in their home, my pang of feelings for David, both evaporate as I stare at her. This beautiful, elegant young woman, rushing home in a panic to take a call from her husband? ‘You have to be at home when he calls you? How often is that?’
‘It’s not how it sounds,’ she says, her eyes pleading with me. ‘Just a couple of times a day. And I have the mobile, so now I don’t have to be at home.’ Is it panic she’s feeling or fear? It’s like a slap in the face. What do I really know about David anyway? One drunken evening, and from that I built a whole character for him. A fantasy. I remember his bad mood yesterday. That wasn’t part of how I imagined him either. But then neither was being married.
‘Good,’ I say, folding my arms. ‘Because it sounds more than a little bit crazy and controlling.’
She flushes and puts some peppermint teabags in a china pot. ‘He likes to know I’m okay, that’s all.’
‘Why?’ I ask. ‘You’re a grown woman.’ The phone peals out and we both start slightly. ‘Maybe you should ignore it. Call him back later.’
She looks at me then, a glare full of jittery nerves, and I feel bad. It’s not my business. I smile. ‘I’m only kidding. I’ll stay quiet.’
She rushes out into the corridor, the handset already pressed to her ear, and when the kettle finishes boiling I pour it into the pot. I can’t hear every word, but if I listen hard I can get some of it. Now I really do feel like an intruder, but I can’t help it. I’m too curious. It’s so weird. David may be a few years older than her, but not enough to turn him into some kind of father figure. Her voice drifts in to me.