Roberta

      Usually Octavia kept a very tight silence when I tried to explain away Scott’s bad behaviour. Now, as she drove me home, she’d abandoned all pretence, adopting my mother’s helpful stance of ‘But what about …?’ as though that particular set of soul-sapping doubts would never have occurred to me.

      I turned away from Octavia and watched the trees flash past in the dark. I knew he could be a bastard. I didn’t need telling.

      ‘You can still change your mind and come to mine,’ Octavia said, without taking her eyes off the road. The immense effort she was making not to overrule me engulfed us, killing all conversation.

      Octavia was so generous but I knew what Jonathan would be like. He’d pretend to be happy about me staying, then walk into the kitchen with a little too much purpose, radiating huffiness like a cat ejected from the warm spot in front of the fire. He’d snatch up my coffee cup before I’d finished and pass me my handbag every time I put it down somewhere. In this fragile frame of mind, I knew I’d also struggle with the chaos of Octavia’s household in the morning. The children would be wandering about spilling Coco Pops everywhere, while Jonathan followed them around with a dustpan and brush. I never understood how Octavia could stand the children screaming with laughter, Charlie on his drum kit, often with Stan, their huge Alsatian, barking away, far too big for their little house. And that was without the TV on in the sitting room and kitchen.

      I’d trained myself to find one child noisy enough.

      No, I didn’t want to go to Octavia’s. I wanted to disappear up to the second floor of my own home and lock myself in the guest suite. Every bit of me yearned to snuggle under a clean duvet, pull down the blackout blinds and blank everyone else out.

      Octavia rolled to a halt under the big chestnut tree outside our house. ‘Shall I come in with you?’

      ‘No. You’ve done enough, thank you. I’m not going to talk to Scott now, even if he’s still awake. Don’t wait. You’re going to be worn out at nursery – go and get a few hours’ sleep.’ I gave her a big hug. Everyone needed someone they could call in the middle of the night.

      I pointed the fob at the electric gates, got out of the car and walked up the lonely drive of my life, the cold slicing into my lungs. My key wouldn’t turn in the front door. I stood fiddling with it for a moment, but I knew. Of course, I knew. Scott had dropped the latch.

      Bastard.

      Octavia’s car still hadn’t moved. Her concern was beginning to smother me. I wanted her to go so I could sift through the debris of my life in peace, even if it meant sleeping in the summerhouse.

      I flicked the fob at the garage door and it rolled back. I waved at Octavia, forcing a smile, making shooing motions with my hand. This time I heard the creak of her ancient suspension as the car lumbered into reverse.

      I picked my way past the gas barbecue and huge gazebo Scott used for summer parties, in his guise as the neighbourhood Lord of the Manor. The door into the utility room was unlocked. Not a total bastard, then. I put my boots in their little space on the shelf and tiptoed upstairs. The house was still. I prayed that Scott was asleep. The morning would be soon enough for that confrontation. Our door was shut, thank God. I looked in on Alicia, bunched up into a tight ball. I smoothed her hair, tucked the duvet round her and hurried to the top floor.

      I could smell the stale air of the police station on my skin. The en suite shower was singing its siren call to me but I didn’t want to wake Scott. Before I did battle with him, I needed some sleep. I stripped off my clothes, then hesitated. I put my underwear back on. Some discussions couldn’t happen naked. I climbed under the duvet, my shoulders and neck releasing tension into the fat, downy pillows. Contrary to my expectations, sleep sucked me down into immediate oblivion.

      And Scott catapulted me out of it.

      He strolled into the room, clean-shaven, favourite blue shirt, handsome. A more sophisticated version of the spirited surfer boy who’d enchanted me in Venice nearly nineteen years ago. Far too flaming refreshed for someone who should have been lying awake, guilt-ridden and repentant.

      ‘Hi. What time did you get back?’ He sounded as though I’d been up to London for cocktails with the girls. He put a cup of tea on the nightstand. I was failing to match the affable man in front of me with the vindictiveness of the previous evening.

      My head felt as though someone had filled it with stones. My eyes were dry and gritty. It was years since I’d gone to bed without cleansing and moisturising. I was blinking as though I’d been living underground, my mind slowly ordering the events of the previous day.

      ‘I don’t know what time. About three-thirty, maybe, no thanks to you.’ I was scrabbling for accusations and anger. I had expected to fly at him, grab him by the perfectly ironed collar of his shirt and shake an explanation out of him. Instead, I was like the split beanbag in Alicia’s den, a million little polystyrene balls littering the floor, leaving an empty casing in a heap. I waited for him to piece together some fragments of the puzzle that had transported me to that pit of a police station.

      Instead Scott drew the curtains a fraction, running his finger along the sill. ‘I’ve never understood why this room suffers so much with condensation.’

      I hadn’t either, but unlike Scott, that conundrum was number four thousand and twenty-nine on my list of immediate worries. Silence sat in the room. I just wanted him out of there, so I could have a shower and pull myself together. ‘You’re up and about early.’

      Scott rarely scheduled any meetings before ten-thirty. ‘Mum’s landing at 11.30. You never know what the traffic’s going to be like round Heathrow.’

      I started. Adele! I had to get up, get going. The cleaner had changed her bed, but I needed to sort out some toiletries, towels, pop out for some flowers. I wanted to check that Alicia was OK before Adele swept in, taking over with her incessant chatter.

      Scott standing there so nonchalant filled me with fury, giving life to my limbs. I felt as though I might leap out of bed and start snatching pictures off the wall to crash over his head. My throat had tightened so much, I wasn’t sure I could force enough air through it to produce speech.

      ‘Just so you know, I’m staying for Christmas. For Alicia’s sake. Over the next few days, I am going to forget what you did to me and do my best to carry on as normal. But when your mum has left, we need to have a serious talk.’ My jaw was so tense, I could feel my wisdom teeth grinding together.

      I expected him to bristle and start off down the ‘Don’t threaten me’ route. He shrugged a brief acknowledgement. I waited for an apology or an excuse. Something that indicated that he understood I wouldn’t just brush this under the carpet along with all the other hurts that had gnawed away at the great monolith of love we’d started out with. This time he’d pushed me too far. Instead he said, ‘After you left yesterday, I took that quiche you were making out of the oven and put it in the fridge. Wrapped it in silver foil. Hope that was OK.’

      Quiche. My God. I’d been in a cell half the night and we were talking about quiche. We’d be auditioning for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest next. It was like being trapped in a reality show