He looked up, and Bea saw a bleakness in his eyes that scared her.
‘What do you mean?’ Bea crumbled up some of Thomasina’s walnut bread in her fingers.
‘I understand it’s been hard for you. Giving up your old life and starting anew. But I’d give anything to be in your position.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t think I can carry on.’
‘What do you mean?’ Bea panicked. ‘With what? Do you mean us?’
Oh God. He was asking for a divorce. She’d bored him into wanting a divorce, with her ‘wittering’.
‘No! Of course not. I mean this way of life.’
Bea took a gulp of wine. Then another. They were walking, so they didn’t need to have the driving conversation.
‘I hate it. I hate leaving you and Maud. It’s bloody exhausting, getting up at stupid o’clock and going to catch the train. By the time I’m back home, I’m too knackered to have a conversation or enjoy my food and the weekends go in a flash. By the time I’ve had a lie-in to get over the fact I’ve had hardly any sleep, it’s Sunday. And from midday on Sunday my stomach is in a knot, dreading Monday morning.’
‘I had no idea you felt like this.’
‘I thought it was going to get easier. But I just want a normal life, Bea. I love it here in Peasebrook. I want to be a normal bloke. Join the darts team in the pub. Muck about in the garden. Enjoy my family. Maud looks at me sometimes as if she’s someone she thinks she should recognise but isn’t quite sure …’
He rubbed his face and Bea suddenly saw how terrible he looked. Haggard and red-eyed. She’d put it down to too much red wine.
He looked over at her.
‘I don’t want to be a high-flyer any more. I don’t want to be part of the commuter club, an absentee husband and father.’
Bea fiddled with the knife and fork on either side of her bowl. She had lost her appetite all of a sudden and couldn’t finish her soup.
‘What do we do about it?’ she asked, her voice very small. ‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea …’
‘I don’t know, Bea. But I can’t carry on. If I’m not careful, I’m going to get sacked. I’m tired and I’m stressed and I’m resentful and I’m making mistakes and being a pain in the arse to work with.’
Bea reached out a hand and put it on top of Bill’s.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve been stuck in my own little world, trying to play the perfect wife and mother. And to be honest, I haven’t been that happy either. It’s as if we’ve both been forced into a way of life we don’t want, in order to sustain this fantasy lifestyle.’
‘Exactly,’ said Bill. ‘I know you’re bored. I know you adore Maud, but I can see you trying to find ways to get through the day.’
‘Handwashing cashmere cardigans just isn’t doing it for me.’ Bea managed a laugh. ‘Not even when I get to hang them on the line with fancy artisanal wooden clothes pegs.’
She had a mental image of herself, a veritable layout from Hearth magazine. But she wasn’t going to be defeated by this. Bea was a strategist. She always had a plan.
‘What about if we do a swap?’ she said.
Bill raised his eyebrows.
‘Swap?’
‘I could go back to work. I get people calling me all the time offering me jobs I really, really don’t want to turn down. I would love to go back and be a proper grown-up in London. And you could hang out here with Maud.’
‘Be a house husband?’ Bill frowned. ‘I’m not sure about that.’
Bea wrinkled her nose. ‘No! You can do some freelance work from home while Maud’s at nursery. Though you would have to do a bit of house stuff – get food in, bung the washing on every now and again. But it’s not hard, Bill. Why do you think I’m so bored? I think you’re way better suited to this country life than me. I just don’t see myself as a jam-making, WI sort of person. But I think you’d really like the gardening and the log-cutting and the endless trips to the pub.’
‘Do you really think it could work?’ asked Bill. ‘I’ve got loads of people who want me to do consultancy for them.’
‘Yes!’
‘You’d have to be the breadwinner. You won’t mind the commute?’
‘No! I am soooo jealous whenever you head off for that train.’
‘Really? You’re welcome to it.’
‘It will take a bit of time for me to find the right job. But I think it’s a great solution. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to move back to London. I think here is perfect, and right for Maud.’
Bill looked as if the weight of the world had been taken off his shoulders.
‘I’d love that, Bea. I feel as if life’s whizzing past, and I don’t have time to enjoy the things I want to enjoy, and any minute now Maud will be sixteen. I want to slow down. I know I’m only just forty, but I don’t want to spend the next ten years slogging my guts out. And if it means cutting back on crap that doesn’t matter—’
‘Like hundred quid candles?’
He caught it. ‘Yes!’
‘You’ve got yourself a deal, mister.’