in the hall collecting his things together, and I wait until I hear his car drive away before I move. I need to be at the spa in a little over an hour but there’s something I have to do first.
I head upstairs, along the first-floor landing to the set of stairs that lead up to a small roof-space conversion that houses Michael’s office. I know what I need to do. As I approach his office there’s a louder voice inside my head telling me I have no choice.
My husband is distracted. More distracted than usual. He may try to cover it up with charm and smiles and kisses but he needs to be focused on me. His wife.
I push his office door open and walk inside. The room is a cluttered mess of books and files, a wall of shelves filled with more books and papers that have spilled over onto his desk, the floor, but he knows where everything is, or so he tells me. It’s an organised mess, but not the kind I could work in.
I head over to the window, peering outside, just to make sure that he’s gone. It’s all quiet out there, nothing but the sound of birds chattering and the distant noise of traffic. It’s an ordinary, everyday morning.
I sit myself down at his desk, looking at the photographs he’s got scattered about the surface, in amongst the piles of papers and books – us on our wedding day; on holiday, in Andalucía; one of us with Liam taken at a university Christmas party a few years ago. So happy. The three of us. There’ve been no photographs taken in the past year. Nothing on display, nothing anywhere to act as a reminder.
I switch on Michael’s desktop computer. He has his laptop with him, but I’m assuming everything he has stored on that will be on here, too. I feel no guilt, no nerves. This is my right. I scan the icons on his screen, looking for the one I need. One I’m sure he hasn’t password-protected, and then I see it. His tutorial timetable pops open, filling the screen, and my eyes flick over the coloured blocks he uses to distinguish his students. They each have their own personal colour. That’s just the method Michael likes to use and my eyes continue to scan the document. A name in a light-green block, and even though the colour isn’t in any way significant, the name might be. Ava. The only female student he has a tutorial with today. Do I know who she is? No, I don’t. But I know what she might be. There’s a twisted sense of relief as I stare at the screen. I have something to work towards now. I have something to focus on.
Her tutorial is at twelve-thirty this afternoon. Scribbling the time down on a piece of paper I shove it into my pocket as I close the timetable down. I go to switch off the computer when my eyes fall on the email icon staring back at me from the screen, my hand hovering just slightly above the mouse. Do I dare? Is this who I’ve become? Yes. I think, maybe, it is.
My hand falls back onto the mouse and I move it slowly towards that email icon, stopping only briefly as a flicker of rationality creeps in, but it’s soon pushed aside and I click down on the mouse. But whatever it was I was about to do, it’s halted. He’s password-protected his email account. So he does have something to hide.
Shutting the computer down, I get up and go over to the window once more, resting my forehead against the glass as I stare outside at the view, at the surrounding houses in neighbouring fields, all of them set in miles of countryside, green fields dotted with more houses here and there. I can see for miles from up here in the roof space. It’s peaceful and beautiful and this house – I loved this house. When we first moved in here we had so many plans, it was our little corner of the world, our hideaway, a place where no one could get to us. After that night – what happened – my initial reaction was to run, to leave it all behind, everything we’d created here, all those plans. Michael thought that staying here – he thought it was for the best. He thought that facing up to it all might help fix what was broken, but maybe it can’t be fixed?
Finding the slip of paper I’d pushed into my pocket just a few seconds ago, I start to play with it, twisting it between my fingers. I can almost feel the lies, they’re so real to me now. I know they’re there, I know he’s telling them. I’m …
Something crashes downstairs.
Jesus!
It’s just the post – that noise that nearly stopped my heart beating, it was just the post being pushed through the door. I know that. The postman is walking down our driveway. I got such a shock I’ve hit my head slightly on the glass. A dull ache spreads across my forehead. I need to stop this. I need to pull myself together.
I get up and walk out onto the small landing here on the top floor. There are only three rooms at the top of the house – Michael’s office, a tiny bathroom and a box room that Michael uses to store his overflow of books, files and papers. I very rarely come up here. It’s Michael’s floor, really. His space.
Back down on the first floor I slip into our bedroom, tidy myself up. I tie my hair back, apply a little more make-up. I’m painting on that mask again, putting up that shield. I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Ellie Travers stares back. Confident businesswoman. Loving wife. Loving wife who’s snooping around her husband’s things. What are you not telling me, Michael?
As I turn to head back downstairs, something catches my attention. I can hear something, a noise; it’s vague, a low, heavy rumbling … where’s it coming from? It’s getting louder and there are raised voices now, they’re outside. Shouting. I quickly move into the empty bedroom to my right to get a better look out the window, my heart beating so fast I think it might explode. There’s someone outside. Is it her?
Get a hold of yourself, Ellie. It can’t be.
As the refuse lorry rumbles down the lane my eyes close with relief. All I heard was the bins being emptied. That’s all. My paranoia, that unwelcome rush of anxiety, it’s ramping up when it should be waning now. I should be able to deal with it all, after fourteen months. But I can’t. Or I won’t. I don’t know.
It’s then I realise which room I’m standing in. It’s empty. There isn’t even a bed in here. The walls are painted a bight lemon yellow and the carpet’s a soft, plush cream pile, but that’s all there is – painted walls and cream carpet. Maybe we’ll get around to making this more of a room and less of an empty space one day, but not yet. There’s no hurry. It’s not as if we need another guest room right now.
The view is pretty from this room. It gets a lot of sun in the afternoon, on the days when the sun dares to make an appearance. That’s why I painted the walls yellow, to make the most of the sunshine. I wanted this to be a bright and happy room.
The sound of my phone ringing out from the kitchen startles me. It’s becoming exhausting now, this almost constant fear that something is going to happen. I need to get my shit together.
Closing the door, I run downstairs towards the ringing phone. It’s Carmen, at the spa. It’s time to focus. But as I listen to Carmen’s update, my fingers curl around the scrap of paper in my pocket. This is far from over.
I love my husband.
My husband loves me.
Nothing, and nobody, is getting in the way of that.
*
‘Ellie! How lovely to see you!’
Sue’s smile beams out as I walk into the outer space that houses Michael’s office, and the offices of two of his fellow English professors. It’s a bustling, busy area comprising three desks for the secretaries, countless filing cabinets, a large table with two desktop computers on it at the back of the room, next to a huge wall of windows that look out over university grounds, an old battered leather sofa
