where on earth are you? Could you phone me back, please?’
I hung up and began to pace the room restlessly, wondering where he had gone. My eyes fell on the clock on the bedside table and I saw that it was nine o’clock. I tried to imagine why Jack hadn’t answered his phone, why he hadn’t been able to take my call and wondered if one of the other partners had come to the hotel to talk to him. When another ten minutes had gone by, I dialled his number again. This time it went straight through to his voicemail.
‘Jack, please phone me back,’ I said sharply, knowing he must have turned his mobile off after my last call. ‘I need to know where you are.’
I heaved my suitcase onto the bed, opened it and took out the beige trousers and shirt I planned to wear for travelling the following day. Pulling them on over my camisole and knickers, I dressed quickly, put the key card into my pocket and left the room, taking my telephone with me. Too agitated to wait for the lift, I took the stairs down to the lobby and headed for the reception desk.
‘Mrs Angel, isn’t it?’ The young man behind the desk smiled at me. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Actually, I’m looking for my husband. Have you seen him anywhere?’
‘Yes, he came down about an hour ago, not long after you checked in.’
‘Do you know where he went? Did he go to the bar, by any chance?’
He shook his head. ‘He went out through the front doors. I presumed he was going to fetch something from the car.’
‘Did you see him come back in?’
‘Now that you mention it, no, I didn’t. But I was busy checking in another client at one point, so it could be that I didn’t see him.’ He eyed the phone in my hand. ‘Have you tried phoning him?’
‘Yes, but his mobile’s switched off. He’s probably in the bar, drowning his sorrows that he’s now a married man.’ I smiled, trying to make light of it. ‘I’ll go and have a look.’
I made my way to the bar but there was no sign of Jack. I checked the various lounges, the fitness room and the swimming pool. On the way to check the two restaurants, I left another message on his voicemail, my voice breaking with anxiety.
‘No luck?’ The receptionist gave me a sympathetic look as I arrived back in the lobby on my own.
I shook my head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t find him anywhere.’
‘Have you looked if your car is still in the car park? At least you’d know whether or not he’d left the hotel.’
I went out through the front doors and followed the path round to the car park at the back of the hotel. The car wasn’t where Jack had left it nor was it anywhere else. Not wanting to go back through the lobby and face the receptionist again, I went in through the back door and ran up the stairs to the bedroom, praying that I would find Jack already there, that he would have arrived back while I’d been out looking for him. When I found the bedroom empty, I burst into tears of frustration. I told myself that the fact the car was missing went someway to explaining why he hadn’t answered his phone, because he never answered his phone while he was driving. But if he’d had to go back to the office on urgent business, why hadn’t he knocked on the bathroom door and told me? And if he hadn’t wanted to disturb me in my bath, why hadn’t he at least left me a note?
Increasingly worried, I dialled his number and left a tearful message saying that if I didn’t hear from him within the next ten minutes I was going to phone the police. I knew that the police would be my last port of call, that before phoning them I would phone Adam, but I hoped that in mentioning the police Jack would realise just how worried I was.
They were the longest ten minutes of my life. Then, just as I was about to call Adam, my phone beeped, telling me I’d received a text message. Letting out a shaky sigh of relief, I opened it and when I saw that it was from Jack, tears of relief fell from my eyes, making it impossible to read what he had written. But it didn’t matter because I knew what it would say, I knew it would say that he’d been called away unexpectedly, that he was sorry I’d been worried but that he hadn’t been able to answer his phone because he’d been in a meeting, that he’d be back soon and that he loved me.
I reached for a tissue from the box on the desk, wiped my eyes, blew my nose and looked at the message again.
‘Don’t be so hysterical, it doesn’t suit you. Something’s come up, I’ll see you in the morning.’
Stunned, I sat down on the bed, reading the message over and over again, convinced I had misunderstood it in some way. I couldn’t believe that Jack would have written something so cruel or been so cutting. He had never spoken to me in such a way before, he had never even raised his voice to me. I felt as if I’d been slapped in the face. And why wouldn’t he be back until the following morning? Surely I deserved some explanation and, at the very least, an apology? Suddenly furious, I called him back, trembling with anger, daring him to answer his phone and, when he didn’t, I had to force myself not to leave a voicemail that I would later regret.
I needed to talk to someone, badly, so it was sobering to realise there was no one I could call. My parents and I didn’t have the sort of relationship that would allow me to sob down the phone that Jack had left me by myself on our wedding night and for some reason I felt too ashamed to tell any of my friends. I would normally have confided in Kate or Emily, but at the wedding I realised how much I’d neglected them since I met Jack, so I didn’t feel able to call them either. I thought about phoning Adam to see if he knew why Jack had been called away so suddenly but as they didn’t work in the same field, I doubted he would know. And again, there was the feeling of shame that something could be more important to Jack on our wedding night than me.
Stemming the tears that fell from my eyes with a tissue, I made an effort to understand. If he was with one of the other lawyers, I reasoned, locked in some delicate meeting, it was normal that he had turned his phone off after my first attempt to contact him so that he wouldn’t be further disturbed. He had probably intended to phone me back as soon as he had a chance, but the meeting must have gone on longer than expected. Maybe during a quick break he had listened to my messages and, angry at my tone of voice, had retaliated by sending me a sharp text message instead of phoning me. And maybe he had guessed that if he did speak to me, I’d be so overwrought that he wouldn’t have been able to get back to his meeting until he’d calmed me down.
It all sounded so plausible that I regretted acting as hysterically as I had. Jack had been right to be angry with me. I had already seen how his work could impinge on our relationship—God knew how many times he had been too tired or too stressed for sex—and he had already apologised for it, and had begged me to understand that the very nature of his work meant that he couldn’t always be there, both mentally and physically, for me. I had been proud of the fact that we had never rowed but now, I had fallen at the first hurdle.
I wanted nothing more but to see Jack, to tell him how sorry I was, to feel his arms around me, to hear him say that he forgave me. Reading his message again, I realised that when he said he’d see me in the morning, he probably meant the small hours. Feeling much calmer, and suddenly very tired, I got undressed and climbed into bed, relishing the thought of being woken before too long by Jack making love to me. I just had time to hope that Millie was still sleeping soundly before I fell into a deep sleep.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Jack might be spending the night with another woman, but it was the first thought that entered my mind when I woke sometime after eight
