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“You’re not wearing any!” I called to her departing figure. “You haven’t worn any in months!”
“I know, but I might get a manicure,” she said, reappearing with the bottle. “In that salon across the road from the hotel, if it’s still there. And I might hate it, and want to take it off straight away.”
“When has that ever happened?” I got up and took the bottle off her. “Come on. Stop panicking.”
“Stop panicking?” she repeated, her voice laced with panic. “That’s the most unhelpful sentence in the world! You don’t understand, Jean. I thought it was a woman’s thing, packing for every eventuality. I don’t know why you don’t do it. Sometimes I question whether you’re a woman at all.”
If only you knew, I thought instinctively, my heart thudding in my chest. Then I thought, Well, you will tomorrow.
Luckily, she calmed down overnight, and seemed positively tranquil by the time we loaded our bulging suitcase into the boot of our car early on Saturday morning. We had agreed that she would drive first since my knees never did very well in the morning, and that we’d stop halfway and change over. Without saying much, we motored through the village and out the other end, heading Northwards.
We swapped just before we got to the motorway, and got coffee. It woke us both up, and we began chatting a bit more as I joined the motorway and started zipping between the cars.
“I forgot what a nippy driver you are on the motorway,” she said as the outside lane opened up before us and I leaned on the accelerator. Out of the corner of my eye, I clocked her reaching for the ‘oh-shit’ handle, and it finally registered that I was scaring her.
“You never seemed to mind before,” I said, but eased off all the same. I could almost sense her walls going up, and my heart sunk – I’d been counting on her being emotionally present for this… denouement, of sorts. In an effort to bring her back to me, I turned the car radio on. “Come on – find something we can sing along to.”
She obliged me, and soon found an eighties station that churned out hit after hit. No Eulalia Gray – she’d only emerged in the nineties, after all – but some of our other favourites played. Soon we’d slid into that particular happy place that can only be found when singing along to blisteringly loud music on a car journey with the world zipping past you at the speed of light. It gave me hope.
We swept into the hotel car park in the afternoon after a fairly painless journey. The little village was exactly how we remembered it: lush and green, with buildings forged out of Cotswold stone the colour of crumbly butter tablet, charmingly uneven pavements and old-fashioned street lamps. The sun shone brilliantly, just as it had done all morning, and in our mutual excitement it almost felt as if the village was putting on a show of splendour just for us. As we got out of the car, I exhaled deeply. It had been far too long, and I’d forgotten how much I loved the Cotswolds.
We detoured into a little pub for lunch, and as we chatted it felt just like old times. Nonetheless, something was holding me back from enjoying it. The elephant in the room was causing a queasiness in my stomach. Time and time again that afternoon, as we poked our way around the little independent shops, I found myself on the brink of telling her. But there were too many people around. I wanted to do this in private.
After dinner. When it was just us and the hotel room.
I knew I had to stop procrastinating, and just tell her.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The curry and naan we’d shared churned in my stomach as we trudged up the stairs to our room.
It hadn’t been a bad afternoon. Petra and I had gotten along fine, but there had been an undeniable tension between us. In her, especially. I got the feeling that she was bracing for impact.
I was, too.
She ushered me into the room ahead of her – “Ladies first,” she quipped with a nervous chuckle. I mirrored her nervous chuckle, because I knew she’d likely never be saying that to me again, not if she took it the way I hoped she would.
We sat down in the two chairs either side of the little table, but I immediately sprang to my feet and began pacing.
“Okay.” My voice came out more guttural than I’d expected. “I know I said I’d tell you something. And there is something I need to tell you. But I don’t know how. I’ve been thinking and thinking, but I can’t get the right words to come. So I don’t know what to do now. You’re probably not going to like it.”
“Jean, just talk to me.” Petra’s voice shook. “We’re a couple. We’re married. The whole point of couples being together is that neither of them has to go through anything alone. We’re supposed to be in it together.”
Fear paralysed me, and I froze.
“You’re going to leave me,” I whispered, shaking my head as the gut feeling hit me. “For good this time. I know it. You’ll never look at me in the same way again and you’ll walk away.”
“Try me. This is important, isn’t it?”
“Mm.” I sat down on the chair finally, but I couldn’t look at her.
“I’m ready,” she whispered.
“I’m not the woman you thought you married, Petra.”
She tilted her body towards me. I could see it in the corner of my eye.
“That’s a bold declaration,” she murmured.
