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“Really?”
“Yes, but don’t worry, I’m fine going on my own. I’ve missed the nine forty-five so I’ll get the ten fifteen. I may as well have another coffee before I go.”
“Just let me put some clothes on and I’ll have one with you.”
By the time Laure joined Iris in the kitchen, the coffee was made. Iris poured them both a cup and they drank it standing by the window.
“What time do you think you’ll be back?” Laure asked.
“End of the afternoon, probably.”
“And Gabriel?”
“The same, I should think. He said he would have lunch in a pub somewhere.”
“I could make dinner, if you like.”
“That would be great. But you’ll have to go shopping, the fridge is almost empty.”
“I can do that.” But Laure sounded distracted, as if her mind was on something else, and Iris resigned herself to there being no dinner ready when she got back.
“If you don’t have time to shop, let me know.”
Laure nodded. “Shouldn’t you be going? You don’t want to miss your train.”
Iris drained her cup and put it in the sink. “See you later.”
Laure gave her a hug. “Have fun.”
She accompanied Iris to the door and closed it behind her, and Iris imagined her trudging upstairs to get her laptop so that she could start looking for a divorce lawyer. She was surprised that Laure was already thinking of divorce, but if she’d learned anything about Laure over the last six weeks, it was that she was mercurial. In a few days’ time, she could be talking about reconciliation.
29
Iris drove through the village toward the station. As she passed Esme’s house, she looked down the driveway and was alarmed to see Esme getting into her car.
She slowed down and pulled in to the curb a little further down the road. An hour before, Esme had told her she wasn’t well enough to go out. Maybe she was going to see her doctor.
She was about to get out of the car and tell Esme she would take her, when Esme’s car pulled onto the road. She prepared herself to flag her down—but to her surprise, Esme turned the other way, toward her end of the village. Iris frowned. Maybe Esme was feeling better and had decided to go to London with her after all. But if that was the case, wouldn’t Esme have phoned to let her know? And why drive to her house when it would have been logical for Iris to pick her up, as they’d originally planned? She dug in her bag for her phone, in case she hadn’t heard it ring. But there were no missed calls, just a message from Laure, asking if she had made it to the station in time for the ten fifteen train.
Pulling out from the curb, Iris drove to the station. She found a place to park and sent a reassuring message to Laure, telling her thatshe was in plenty of time for the train. But instead of going onto the platform, she stayed in the car, unable to shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. Esme’s insistence that she went to London without her was strange. She’d said she wanted everything ready for the baby, but the baby wasn’t due for another seven weeks. Then there was Laure; not only had she seemed in a hurry for Iris to leave that morning, there was also the message she’d just sent, checking that she was in time for her train. It crossed her mind that maybe Esme and Laure wanted to spend the day together without her. But why not say so? Why pretend that Esme was ill? Yes, she might have been hurt that they’d planned a cozy day together. But being lied to was worse.
The heat hit her as she got out of the car. She looked along the track and saw the train approaching the station. She would need to run—but she stayed where she was. She wasn’t sure whether it was the thought of running in the heat that had glued her feet to the spot, or the need to know if there was something going on. Even Gabriel’s decision to go out for the day on his bike was unusual. He hadn’t been out on his bike since Charlie Ingram, so why today?
She got back in the car and drove slowly toward the house. She let herself in quietly, and listened. There was no sound, which meant that Laure was already outside. She went upstairs and looked out of the window. She could see Laure’s sun hat hanging off the tree by the entrance to the walled garden. She should go and tell her that she’d decided not to go to London.
She changed out of her dress and into shorts and a T-shirt. The ground shimmered in the heat as she walked down the path. The silence was palpable, as if no living thing had the energy to move. As she passed the shed, she heard a noise and guessed that Joseph was there, taking a break. She made her way over, intending to say hello. She was about to push the door open when she heard a groan. She paused. Was Joseph ill, had he caught the same bug as Esme? More sounds followed, and understanding what she was actually hearing, she took a quick step back, her cheeks flaming. How could she have been so stupid, howcould she not have realized that Esme had engineered the whole thing so that she could spend the day having sex with Joseph? All the signs had been there; her insistence that she went to London without her, and took Laure with her; her mention of Hugh being out for the day. Anger flooded Iris’s body; she wanted to fling open the door, shout at them, shame them. But she couldn’t bring herself to.
As she backed farther away from the door, two things registered themselves in Iris’s mind. The first was that she hadn’t seen Esme’s car parked outside, the second was that Esme wouldn’t have known that Gabriel was out for the day. At that moment, urgent words came to her from behind the shed door, words of love, of desire, of passion, words spoken not in English, but in French.
30
Gabriel put his bike in the garage and went into the house. It was the best day he’d had for a long time.
It was the gentle sunshine coming through the window this morning that had tempted him to go out on his bike—that, and the unappealing prospect of spending the day with Joseph. And babysitting Laure, who had decided to play at gardening.
His trip out had given him the space to think. He still hadn’t replied to the request from Maggie’s grief counselor, subconsciously hoping that if he didn’t, the problem might go away. But he couldn’t stall indefinitely; it wasn’t fair to Maggie, and anyway, hadn’t he worked out what he was going to say? When he’d stopped for a beer and a sandwich, he’d taken out his phone and made the call.
On the way back to the house, he’d stopped at the surgery to talk about taking more time off. He told his partners the truth, that he didn’t feel up to returning to work in two weeks’ time. To his relief, they’d said that they hadn’t been expecting him to, reminding him gently that he was the one who’d insisted two months would be enough.
