He got to his feet, lifted his rucksack, took a deep breath and walked toward the house.

When he stepped through the front door she was standing in the kitchen.

“George.”

He deposited his rucksack by the stairs and waited for her to come into the hall. He spoke very quietly in order to keep the pain to a minimum. “I think I may be going mad.”

“Where have you been?” Jean said this quite loudly. Or maybe it just sounded loud. “We’ve been worried sick.”

“I stayed in a hotel,” said George.

“A hotel?” said Jean. “But you look as if-”

“I was feeling…Well, as I was saying I think I might be-”

“What’s that on your head?” asked Jean.

“Where?”

“There.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that,” said Jean.

“I fell over and hit a door frame,” explained George.

“A door frame?”

“In the hotel.”

Jean asked whether he had been drinking.

“Yes. But not when I banged my head. I’m sorry. Could you talk a little more quietly?”

“Why on earth were you staying in a hotel?” said Jean.

It was not meant to be happening like this. He was the one who was graciously putting certain matters to one side. He was the one who deserved the benefit of the doubt.

His head hurt so much.

“Why didn’t you go to Cornwall?” said Jean. “Brian was ringing, wondering what had happened.”

“I need to sit down.” He made his way to the kitchen and found a chair which screeched horribly on the tiles. He sat and cradled his forehead.

Jean followed him. “Why didn’t you call me, George?”

“You were…” He nearly said it. Out of spite, mostly. Luckily he did not have the words. The sexual act was like going to the lavatory. It was not something one talked about, least of all in one’s own kitchen at nine-thirty in the morning.

And as he struggled and failed to find the words, the image came to mind again, that man’s scrotum, her sagging thighs, his buttocks, the warm air, the grunting. And he felt something like a blow to his belly, a deep, deep wrongness, partly fear, partly disgust, partly something way beyond either of these things, as disturbing as the sensation he might have felt if he looked out of the window and saw that the house was surrounded by ocean.

He did not want to find the words. If he described it to another human being he would never be free of the picture. And with this realization came a kind of release.

There was no need to describe it to another human being. He could forget about it. He could put it to the back of his mind. If it lay undisturbed for long enough it would fade and lose its power.

“George, what were you doing in a hotel?”

She was angry with him. She had been angry with him before. This was his old life. It felt comforting. It was something he could deal with.

“I’m frightened of dying.” There. He had said it.

“That’s absurd.”

“I know it’s absurd, but it’s true.” He felt a glow of a kind he never expected to feel, this morning of all mornings. He was talking to Jean more frankly than he had ever done.

“Why?” she asked. “You’re not dying.” She paused. “Are you?”

She was scared. Well, perhaps it was good for her to feel a little scared. He began to untuck his shirt, just as he had done in Dr. Barghoutian’s consulting room.

“George…?” She steadied herself with a hand on the back of the chair.

He lifted his vest and lowered the waistband of his trousers.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Eczema.”

“I don’t understand, George.”

“I think it’s cancer.”

“But it’s not cancer.”

“Dr. Barghoutian said it was eczema.”

“So why are you worried about it?”

“And there are these tiny red spots on my arm.”

The phone rang. Neither of them moved for a couple of seconds. Then Jean shot across the room at a surprising speed, saying, “Don’t worry. I’ll get it,” though George had shown no intention of moving anywhere.

She picked the phone up. “Hello…Yes. Hello…I can’t talk right now…No, nothing’s the matter…He’s here now…Yes. I’ll call you later.” She put the phone down. “That was…Jamie. I rang him last night. When I was wondering where you were.”

“Have you got any of those codeine tablets left?” George asked.

“I think so.”

“I have a very bad hangover.”

“George?”

“What?” he asked.

“Do you think it might be a good idea if you went to bed? See if you feel any better in a couple of hours.”

“Yes. Yes, that might be a very good idea.”

“Let’s get you upstairs,” said Jean.

“And the codeine. I think I really do need the codeine.”

“I’ll dig some out.”

“And maybe not the bed. Maybe I’ll just lie on the sofa.”

47

Ray didn’t turn up the following morning. Or the following evening. Katie was too cross to ring the office. Ray was the one who needed to make a peace offering.

But when he didn’t turn up the day after that she gave in and called, if only to put her mind at rest. He was in a meeting. She called an hour later. He was out of the office. She was asked if she wanted to leave a message but the things she wanted to say weren’t things she wanted to share with a secretary. She rang a third time, he was away from his desk and she began to wonder whether he’d left instructions that he didn’t want to talk to her. She didn’t ring again.

Besides, she was enjoying having the house to herself and she was in no mood to give it up before she had to.

On Thursday evening she and Jacob laid out the Brio train set on the living-room carpet. The bridge, the tunnel, the freight crane, the chunky track with its interlocking jigsaw ends. Jacob arranged a crocodile of trucks behind Thomas then crashed them into a landslide of Lego. Katie arranged the trees and the station and made a mountain backdrop from Jacob’s duvet.

She’d wanted a girl. It seemed ridiculous now. The idea that it mattered. Besides, she couldn’t quite picture herself kneeling on the carpet mustering enthusiasm for Barbie’s visit to the hair salon.

“Bash-crash. It chops the driver’s…it chops…it chops the driver’s arm off,” said Jacob. “Nee-naw, nee-naw, nee-naw…”

She knew nothing about petrol engines or outer space (Jacob wanted to be a racing driver when he grew up, preferably on Pluto), but in twelve years’ time she preferred the prospect of body odor and Death Metal to shopping expeditions and eating disorders.

After Jacob had gone to bed she made herself a gin and tonic and sort of looked at the latest Margaret Atwood without actually reading it.

They took up so much space. That was the problem with men. It wasn’t just the leg sprawl and the clumping down stairs. It was the constant demand for attention. Sit in a room with another woman and you could think. Men had that little flashing light on top of their heads. Hello. It’s me. I’m still here.

What if Ray never came back?

She seemed to be standing to one side, watching her life pan out. As if it was happening to someone else.

Perhaps it was age. At twenty life was like wrestling an octopus. Every moment mattered. At thirty it was a walk in the country. Most of the time your mind was somewhere else. By the time you got to seventy it was probably like watching snooker on the telly.

Friday came and went with no sign of Ray.

Jacob said he wanted to go and see Granny, and it seemed as good a plan as any. She could put her feet up while Mum did a bit of child care. Dad and Jacob could do some man stuff at the aerodrome. Mum would ask about Ray but in Katie’s experience she never liked to spend long on the subject.

She rang home and Mum seemed unnaturally excited by the prospect. “Besides, we’ve got to make some decisions about the menu and the seating plan. We’ve only got six weeks to go.”

Katie’s heart sank.