hair now hung in a sleek shoulder-length curtain and she’d taken the hairdresser’s advice and had a few foils put in. The hairdresser had raved at the result, and even the mums at the school had jumped up and down as Isla had stood blushing at the scrutiny but quietly pleased. But the one opinion that mattered, the one person she’d been hoping to impress, had scarcely even noticed.
‘What else?’
‘Not much.’ Isla blushed. A useless liar at the best of times, she wondered how some people managed to have affairs, managed to spend an afternoon making steamy, breathless love and somehow managing to arrive at the dinner table apparently normal. Her two trips to see Karin Jensen had been fraught with guilt—paying in cash, ringing them up to ensure they’d understood that no correspondence should be sent to the house. Even her parking ticket for the Art Centre in Melbourne had been carefully shredded.
Oh, God!
Another lurch of panic as she remembered her E-Tag, the tiny white box that Melburnians displayed on the dashboards of their cars, the tiny white box that bleeped as you went through the road tolls on the way to the city. If Sav looked at the bill he’d know she’d been there, would…
Taking another slug of wine, she ignored Sav’s slightly questioning glance as he topped up her glass, knowing he was undoubtedly confused. It normally took her the best part of an evening to work her way down a single glass, but here she was two minutes in and practically on her second!
He wouldn’t even look at the E-Tag account when it arrived, Isla consoled herself, and even if he did, as if he’d remember what had happened the previous month, as if he’d demand to know what the hell she’d been doing in the city that day. Sav wasn’t like that.
They trusted each other.
Tears pierced her eyes as she realized the incongruity of her thoughts.
Never in a million years would it enter his head that she’d been to see a solicitor today. That their marriage was nearly at the end of the line.
‘It suits you.’
‘Sorry?’ Blinking back at him, she tried to drag her mind back to the conversation but lost her way.
‘Your hair.’ He gave her a rare smile. ‘You’re upset that I didn’t notice you’d had it cut.’
‘I’m not!’
‘But I did notice,’ he carried on, ignoring her denial. ‘As soon as I came in I thought how nice it looked. I just forgot to say it.’
Which just about summed them up really, Isla thought sadly. ‘I picked up my uniforms from the hospital as well. I called in to see you but you were tied up with a patient. I told them not to disturb you.’
‘It’s been like that all day—all week, actually.’ Looking up, Isla could see the lines of tension grooved around his dark eyes as he spoke. His black hair, which to most people probably looked immaculate, by Sav’s high standards was probably overdue for a trim, and she realized how tired he looked—not the usual, it’s-been-a-long-day tired, but totally, completely exhausted. ‘I’d better get used to it, I guess. I’ve got Heath questioning my every move, taking great pains to point out every T I don’t cross or I that I don’t dot in an attempt to show how much better he’d have been for the consultant’s role, and with Martin not due back for another three weeks it’s going to be hell.’
The problems with Heath had been an ongoing saga since Sav had been made consultant. Sav and Heath had both applied for the consultant’s position eighteen months ago, and both of them had agreed at the time, ‘May the best man win.’ But when the position had gone to Sav, mainly due to the unspoken fact that Heath had been going through a messy divorce and custody issues, Heath had taken it in bad part, taking an almost morbid delight in pointing out how much better a choice he’d have been for the job when Sav had taken a month off after Casey’s death.
‘Hell!’ Sav added just for effect, and Isla knew that little tag had been aimed at her. It wasn’t just Heath that was getting to Sav. Isla had lived with him long enough to read between the lines. Taking a breath, she decided to voice what was clearly on his mind.
‘And me going back to work isn’t exactly going to help matters.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Sav snapped.
‘No, but you thought it,’ Isla retorted, taking an angry sip of her wine. ‘You don’t start till nine, Sav. The boys’ uniforms will be out, I’ll give them their breakfast before I go. All you have to do is drop them off at school—it’s hardly a big deal.’
‘It is a big deal if you’re having a heart attack,’ Sav retorted, his Spanish accent deepening the angrier he got. ‘It’s one hell of a big deal if you’re lying there bleeding to death in Resuscitation and the only consultant covering the department is at home, babysitting his children.’
‘If that happens,’ Isla responded, trying desperately to keep her voice even, ‘then you’ll ring Louise. She’s only around the corner, she’s said that she’ll come straightaway. We’ve already worked this out!’
‘No, you worked it out, Isla. You’re the one who worked this whole harebrained scheme out, you’re the one who decided to make your grand return to nursing the one month in the year when you know Martin Elmes is on holiday.’
‘There was never going to be a good time for you, Sav,’ Isla retorted. ‘The simple fact of the matter is that you don’t want me to go back to work, least of all as a nurse in your department. You have this archaic belief that any wife of yours should be firmly entrenched at home.’
‘That’s not true.’ Sav shook his head, pushed away his half-eaten dinner then shook his head again. ‘The plan was that you were going to go back to work next year—’
‘No,’ Isla broke in, ‘the plan was, once the children were at school I’d start back at work.’ It was Isla pushing her plate away now, Isla who couldn’t face another morsel, Isla trying to raise another subject that was out of bounds. ‘And the children are at school now. It would have been next year if…’
He was standing up now, ready to stalk off to the study or the living room, to pick up the phone and ring the hospital and hopefully find out that he had to go in. And on any other night, Isla would have followed him in, finished what she was saying, tried to force the conversation, but tonight she let him go, tonight she just let him walk off, because quite simply she didn’t have the energy to scrape at the stony walls of silence he so forcibly erected.
Just couldn’t do this any more.
‘I’m going for a run after I’ve tidied the kitchen,’ she was shouting into the hallway as he stalked off, and Isla saw his shoulders stiffen, an almost questioning look on that inscrutable face as he turned around, her lack of response clearly not what he’d expected. ‘I’ll take my mobile. You can call me if the hospital rings and I’ll come straight back.’
Sav didn’t call. In fact, he didn’t even come out of the study when she arrived home a good hour later, and barely looked up when, drooping with exhaustion, she popped her head around the study door and said goodnight.
She should have fallen asleep. Only half an hour ago she’d barely been able to keep her eyes open, but the shower had woken her, her mind spinning with guilt as she lay in bed, scarcely able to fathom where she had been today, reeling
