‘There was definitely nobody else?’ I asked, sick of the silence and wondering if some guesses might encourage him to open up.
His head shot up. ‘No. I’d never have done that to you.’
‘I believe you and I didn’t think it was the case but it was as good a place as any to start. I have a couple of theories. Should I tell you them? You can tell me if I’m close.’
When he didn’t respond, I launched into the first one.
‘You didn’t love me. You thought you did but it wasn’t really proper deep all-consuming love.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not it.’
‘I haven’t finished. Maybe you did love me at university but, at some point after we left, that changed. Maybe it was after we got married. Maybe it was after Maddie was born. You didn’t want to acknowledge it because, if you lost me, you’d lose the closest connection to university that you had. The friendship group would dissolve. It would all be different.’
‘I promise you, that isn’t it. I loved you, Grace. I loved you at university, when we left, when we got married, when Maddie was born and beyond.’
‘You’re sure? Because it scares the hell out of me that our marriage might have been meaningless to you.’
‘How can you say that? You meant everything to me for years and I still care for you now, but…’
‘But you don’t love me. Obviously you don’t or we wouldn’t be having this conversation cos we’d still be married.’
‘Things changed, but it being over between us doesn’t mean it was meaningless to me. It just wasn’t meant to be forever. I wish it had been but it wasn’t.’
The relief I felt that it hadn’t all been fake was only momentary. Now I still felt nauseous wondering when his lovefor me had disappeared and how much of our marriage had been just about going through the motions.
‘So what changed?’
He was staring back into his mug. Feelings. Anything to do with feelings had always been like pulling teeth with Laurie. I was going to have to go with my second theory.
‘I think it changed when Adrian died.’
He snapped up his head once more but this time his eyes were wide and his cheeks had paled. I was onto something here.
‘I think you were hit harder by Adrian’s death than you ever let on and that grief consumed you and switched off other feelings. From the look on your face, I think I might be on the right lines.’
He gulped. ‘You are. Itisabout Ade, but not in the way you think.’ He cradled his hands round his mug and took a deep shaky breath. ‘It’s my fault he’s dead.’
44
I narrowed my eyes at Laurie.It’s my fault he’s dead.Had he really just said that?
‘He drowned,’ I said. ‘It was a tragic accident. How can that beyourfault? You weren’t even there.’
‘It wasn’t an accident.’
‘Of course it was! He got caught in a riptide in a place notorious for them.’
‘Exactly! He knew that but he still entered the water because he…’
Laurie’s voice caught and my stomach plummeted to the floor as I realised what he was saying.
‘You can’t mean he… No! Not Adrian. He was always so happy and full of life.’
Laurie shook his head. ‘Ade was struggling. He felt like he was failing at life.’
‘But why? He had a top job and loads of friends.’
‘He had a low-paid junior job. He could only afford to fly back to the UK each year because his parents paid his air fare.’
