‘How long have you been awake?’ She definitely isn’t finding this moment as funny as I am.
To be fair, I don’t actually know why I’m finding it funny. Possibly exhaustion-induced hysteria.
I always wonder whether the perpetrators of really successful crimes are tempted to tell people about their warped cleverness. It’s hard keeping secrets. And apparently I suddenly want to boast about my own cleverness.
‘The whole time,’ I tell her.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘I didn’t want to disturb you or have any awkwardness so I pretended to be asleep,’ I explain.
‘Didn’t want to disturb me?’ Her voice is rising. ‘But I’ve been awake the whole time. I’m one of the most tired women on the planet right now because I can’t sleep because of you and your stupid deep sleep-breathing but you haven’t even been to sleep and you’ve been faking it this whole time?’
‘You had your Kindle, though?’ I offer.
‘I didn’t want to read. I just wanted to sleep. What time is it?’
She scrabbles around on the table between us, as I say, ‘Three thirtyish.’
‘Noooo. I’m going to die of tiredness.’ She scrabbles some more and then switches the bedside light on.
I blink a lot, because the bulb’s aimed directly into my eyes.
When the light’s image has cleared from my vision, I see that she’s propped herself up on her pillows and has her arms crossed over her chest and is glaring at me.
‘I just want to remind you…’ I begin.
‘Shut up.’ She pulls one of her pillows out from behind her and throws it at me.
I catch it and say, ‘That I haven’t been to sleep either and I was trying tohelp.’
‘Oh, yes. Fair point. Sorry.’ She drops her annoyance very suddenly and smiles at me, and I have to work hard to ignore how beautiful she looks with her bed-tousled hair and the smile and her big pyjama T-shirt falling off her shoulder. I glimpse a bra strap before I whip my eyes away from anywhere near her body. I’m pretty sure that will have been some strategic bra-wearing and hope she didn’t think I might in any way be tempted into trying any kind of intimacy.
I mean, she’s attractive, of course she is.
I mean,gorgeous.
But I would never,neverconsider going back to where we were. We were so, so wrong for each other. I hurt her. I hurt myself. I’m not risking that again.
And physical attraction means absolutely nothing.
‘I think…’ There’s a frog in my throat. I swallow and try again. ‘Maybe I should sleep somewhere else.’
‘But then everyone will wonder whether we have a problem in our marriage.’
‘But wedohave a problem, which is that we are not in fact married? And the monks aren’t going to kick us out in the middle of the night, are they? And we’re not going to stay friends with these people who we’ve met under false marriage pretences. So it really doesn’t matter, does it?’
Emma nods slowly. ‘You make a series of very valid points.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m going to be honest. I wouldloveit if you slept somewhere else because I’m so, so tired – too tired to be polite – and I’mnevergoing to get to sleep with you in the same room.’
‘Likewise,’ I agree.
‘But what if you can’t find anywhere comfortable?’
‘Then I will be awake all night just like I would be awake in here but you’ll be asleep so between us we’ll have gained some sleep and that’ll be a win? And it’s more important for you to sleep because you’re the one who’ll be driving.’
