said something you don’t know?’ Delia said.
‘Yes! Something we don’t know. Not … that.’
‘Was it meant to be something work related?’ Delia said. She was in a space beyond caring about professional interests or social embarrassment. It was like that time on a campsite when she was so hideously ill with flu she didn’t care about doing a noisy Portaloo poo.
‘No!’ Roger said.
She dispassionately noted that even though she wasn’t trying to be clever, he looked wrong-footed and maybe even intimidated.
‘It should be something innocuous. We don’t need to know about your dirty laundry.’
Dirty laundry?
Delia swallowed and assessed her surroundings. This room, these people, this job. What was it all for, this putting up and shutting up and sucking up? Where did it get you?
‘Well, that’s bullshit. You asked for something personal you didn’t know and I told you something. Now it’s not good enough. Being cheated on isn’t good enough either but I have to live with it. Don’t play stupid “getting to know you” games and then complain about getting to know someone.’
Roger boggled. Everyone else sat bolt upright and poised, perfectly immobile, like Red Setter bookends. Linda looked like she’d been slapped. Ann was enthralled, having forgotten about her osteopathic agony.
‘Here’s something else you don’t know about me. I’m leaving.’
Roger snorted. ‘Then I need you to follow me upstairs and we’ll discuss your notice period.’
‘I’ve saved all my holiday for the honeymoon I’m not having any more, which is offset against my notice period. So I don’t have a notice period. This is it.’
Silence.
Roger stared at Delia. The room’s attention had now switched to him, like Centre Court at Wimbledon, to see his return volley. Roger pushed his glasses up his nose. He cleared his throat.
‘The council has only just paid to send you on that health and safety course. We’ve nursed a viper at our breast.’
Delia was going to call ahead and say ‘Surprise! I’ve left my job and will be walking into our house at an unusual time of day,’ then asked herself why she was doing it.
She didn’t owe Paul the courtesy. In fact, who was Delia really protecting? If there was anything to interrupt, she needed to know. She didn’t think Paul would risk doing it in their bed when she still had her key, but her parameters for what was or wasn’t Paulness had changed.
Delia felt cold trepidation as she opened the front door, but there was no noise inside. No Parsnip to greet her, either. Paul must be walking him, or he’d taken him to the pub. Delia wondered if Celine had ever petted him, and the rage surged again. She’d be checking Parsnip’s fur for any unfamiliar perfume.
Her phone beeped – a nervous text from Aled’s partner Gina, asking if she was OK. Too little, too late. Delia fired off a brief reassurance that didn’t invite more conversation.
Delia had asked herself what she’d have done if she’d had word of Aled cheating on Gina, and she decided she’d have insisted Aled tell her. She certainly couldn’t have sat there with them and run double books. And condolences-wise, she wouldn’t have limped in with a text, days after the fact, either. It would’ve been bringing a bottle and a box of pastries, and swearing, like a proper friend.
Delia avoided looking round the house, and bolted up the stairs. She heaved the largest trolley case out of the wardrobe, the dark blue one with the hummingbirds on it that Paul complained made him look unmanly in the arrivals and departures hall. A notional unmanliness, as they never went abroad. Parsnip’s infirmity and the pub were powerful draws to stay home.
What should she pack? Delia started flinging underwear and clothes into the case. Had she really left her job? Had the Paul shock made her manic? Was she going against the advice she’d heard more than once, about not making any major decisions in the first six months after a life-changing event?
The front door banged and gave her a thunderclap of the heart. Paul was home, chatting to Parsnip. She heard their dog yap and do his usual three revolutions, chasing his own tail, before settling in his basket. Parsnip didn’t so much sit down as let his legs collapse underneath him.
Delia paused over the suitcase. She knew Paul was staring at her discarded pink coat.
‘Delia? Dee?’ he shouted up the stairs.
She zipped the case and heaved it off the bed, her work bag on her shoulder. Along with everything she had in Hexham, this would do for now.
She pulled it along the first-floor landing as Paul bounded halfway up the stairs.
‘Delia,’ he said, line of sight dropping to the suitcase as he eyed her through the banister spindles.
He looked tired, with a shaving cut on his chin. He was wearing that grey John Smedley jumper that Delia bought him to match his grey eyes, but he wouldn’t win any brownie points because of it.
‘You’re going to Hexham for longer?’
It was strange – Delia realised she hadn’t definitely decided, until that moment. Seeing Paul standing there, she knew she had to leave Newcastle. There were so few certainties now, Delia had to rely on the rare convictions she had. She surprised herself with her resolve.
‘I’m going to London.’
‘What? For the weekend?’
‘For the foreseeable future. I’m going to stay with Emma.’
‘How long have you got off work?’
‘I’ve left my job.’
‘What?’
Paul’s aghast expression was sour satisfaction. She could do surprises too.
‘How come? Are you OK?’
‘Because I got told off for how I run social media and participate in team-building events, and I needed to leave anyway. I haven’t been OK since our anniversary.’
Delia left her luggage trolley for the bathroom raid, filling a toiletry bag with jars and tubes. Paul and his confusion loitered behind her.
‘Do you not think we should talk before you move to the other end of the country indefinitely?’
‘Do you?’ Delia said. ‘Is there new information?’
She zipped up the vinyl flowery wash bag, then did a mental inventory: favourite dresses, liquid eyeliner, laptop. Those were the can’t-live-without essentials, she could buy anything else.
‘We’ve been together ten years, yes, I think there is more to talk about.’
