‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ he said. ‘Shall I drive somewhere?’

‘No. I’m not staying.’ His car was spotless. She ran a finger along the dashboard, felt the leather upholstery cool against her back. The engine was idling softly and the radio was on with the volume turned down irritatingly low. Why have it on at all then? She tried to make out the song. She realised sadly that she was still bored. Surely she should be excited, terrified, aroused. Anything other than this dulled detachment. Maybe it was because this, she, was someone else. She was still in the kitchen, scraping up glass, rummaging in cupboards. Now she was on the couch, scrolling vacantly through her phone. Where had Tim gone with Ruby? Had he told her? She was stupid thinking he’d meant her when he said they had a hot date.

She looked at the hand now holding hers, the thumb that was stroking her wrist. She could smell his cologne. He was wearing too much of it, it made her want to sneeze. If she let him hold her she’d take that smell back home with her. She became aware that she was being spoken to.

‘But it’s up to you,’ Kyle was saying. She looked at him, grinning and groomed to perfection. How long must it take him to look that way? A vague picture emerged of her waiting impatiently outside the bathroom door, of him finally emerging with his face caked in cream. She would learn to hate this man in a week.

‘What is?’ she asked.

The thumb froze on her skin and his perfectly plucked eyebrows knotted curiously. ‘Tomorrow? The hotel? You’ve not heard a word I’ve said, have you, Beth? Dazzled by my dashing good looks?’

‘Yes, that’s what it is.’

He smiled. She imagined a tooth glinting in the light. ‘I’m there until Sunday. I was saying you should come visit me. No pressure or expectations. We can just talk if you want.’

‘Is that all you want?’

‘You know what I want.’

A car turned into the road and began crawling slowly towards them. She watched it approaching. She began, quite calmly, to think of a rational explanation for being in this car with this man. As it drew level she and the driver made eye contact. The car inched past and continued slowly up the street. Kyle was watching her.

‘Anyone you know?’

‘Do you care?’ He made a face. ‘What hotel did you say it was?’

He told her again. She knew it. Ruby was going to a party tomorrow less than a mile away. Suddenly Kyle leant across and began kissing her. She sat there and allowed it to happen. He was surprisingly gentle, and she closed her eyes and concentrated on what he was doing. She heard another car pass. Or perhaps it was the same one returning. She realised that nothing in the world could explain this away, and that she didn’t care. She began to kiss him back. He murmured softly and his hand moved off her shoulder and beneath her T-shirt. She put her hand in his lap. Squashed beneath his trousers the blood was flowing hard. He began to move on the seat, lifting himself up against her. He was groaning. She withdrew her hand and pulled away from him.

‘Beth?’ he said. His eyes were glazed. His mouth hung open. She could see his trousers bulging. It annoyed her. No, it infuriated her, but she didn’t know why. She opened the car door. ‘Beth?’ he said again. ‘Beth, wait?’

‘No. I can’t. I have to clear up the blood.’ Those quizzical eyebrows again. She realised he thought it was some sort of metaphor. She didn’t care what he thought. ‘This has absolutely nothing to do with you, you know,’ she said, as she closed the door on him.

When she was back home she watched for his car to drive past, saw his face in profile as he stared straight ahead. She leant back heavily on the door. He wanted her. Everyone seemed to want something. But she wanted nothing. She wanted nothing that she had, nothing that she didn’t have. ‘I’m so bored,’ she said. She heard her voice wavering. ‘I’m just so bored. Everyone feels something but me.’ She put her hand back inside her trousers. As she suspected, still dry as a whistle. Suddenly she screamed. She took a shoe off and threw it across the room, sending a frame crashing to the floor. That deep well that she’d suppressed earlier, it erupted now. It gushed upwards and streamed out of her eyes.

When he and Ruby finally got home later that day Tim stood in the driveway contemplating the house. He found his eyes drawn to their window. It was full of sky, white clouds scudding along on the breeze beneath a flat grey background. He imagined Beth up there, watching him. All afternoon he’d been anxious to get home.

‘No, Ruby,’ he’d said, when she’d asked to go on the carousel.

‘Not now, Ruby,’ he’d said, when she wanted to ride the mini train.

But now he was here something held him back. Things would change when he went inside. Things had already changed, but it was possible to pretend otherwise until they were said aloud. Ruby ran past him and in the front door, leaving it open behind her. Eventually he followed. Inside, he stopped and scanned the room, unsure exactly what he was looking for. It looked the same. Nearly the same. The patches of blood had been wiped into faint pink smears, the glass had been cleared from the kitchen floor. But something had shifted. Something had happened here and changed the air.

He spotted a picture frame broken on the floor, a shoe, Beth’s shoe, beside it. That man earlier, outside their house, he’d been a surveyor, a realtor, an estimator. He’d sailed the seven seas and flown to the moon. He’d shown Tim the paperwork to prove it. He’d been lying – ‘Your home?’ he’d asked. ‘It’s nice. Cosy inside, I bet.’ He’d winked then, or maybe Tim had just imagined him winking – but it was only during the course of the afternoon that he’d begun to appreciate the full force of the lie. He stared at the shattered frame, imagined Beth’s back pressed against it, knocking it from its nail. He remembered the last time he’d kissed her, opening his eyes to see her staring at him in such a way that made him jump back. It wasn’t disgust, or revulsion, or even hatred – nothing as passionate as that. It was boredom. He realised that now.

‘Did you have fun?’ she asked. She was in front of him, holding a cup out. He looked at it, at her hand beneath it and his taking it from her. He felt her searching his face.

‘Daddy was grumpy,’ Ruby said. ‘He didn’t let me go on any of the rides.’

‘That’s not like Daddy. Tim?’

He glanced up, meaning to meet her eyes, to challenge her; he thought he’d know for certain then. But his gaze fell short, it stuck on a vague area of her cheek – was it flushed? – and as much as he willed it not to, he felt it weaken, falter, and then wilt completely and slide down her body like a wet rag. She only had one shoe on. All the withering things he’d planned to say swilled about in his head. ‘You’re only wearing one shoe,’ he said pathetically. He turned away from her and followed Ruby upstairs.

Couples fall silent not always because they stop communicating, rather, they learn to communicate in new, subtler ways. Ruby was asleep. Tim and Beth sat unspeaking on the couch passing the remote control back and forth with increasing contempt; a physical expression of the argument they were not yet having. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Beth fidgeting, folding her legs beneath her, stretching them out again, sitting up abruptly and looking around before shrinking back into the cushions. She was missing her phone. He knew that. Normally it was an extension of her hand, but tonight it was upstairs, turned off. Silenced.

‘So,’ she said.

‘So,’ he replied.

The programme ended. They watched the credits roll. They watched the adverts. They watched another programme start. He thought of Amy at work, over whom he’d infatuated for years. She had put her hand on his leg once. ‘Can I?’ she’d asked. He saw again her slender fingers, her thighs beneath black tights. He’d put his hand over hers. It was his left hand. Orange light and shadow swept over his wedding band. He’d grasped her hand and placed it back gently on the table before walking resentfully to the door.

‘Where’s your phone tonight?’ he asked Beth.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I must have left it upstairs.’

‘You never normally leave it anywhere.’

‘I guess I’m full of surprises.’

Again she looked at him. Again he shied from her gaze. So meek a response. It appalled him. He wondered how his body had known to act in such a shameful way, even before he’d realised he was ashamed?

‘I’ve got to work tomorrow,’ he said.

‘But tomorrow is Saturday.’

‘I know. We’ve all been called in. At least you can have some quality mother-daughter time.’

‘Ruby has that party at lunchtime,’ she said, knowing the venue was less than a mile from the hotel. She didn’t believe in fate. Everything is personal choice.

‘You should go,’ Tim said.

‘Maybe I will.’

That afternoon Ruby had told him about a nightmare she’d had. They’d been on a canoe, just the two of them. They’d paddled out into the middle of a lake and without warning he had plopped over the side and into the water. She had laughed at him as he floated beside her, just out of reach. He’d taken a deep breath then and slid beneath the surface. A moment later she heard him tapping the bottom of the fibreglass, tap-tap, tap-tap, before emerging on the other side, spurting water out of his mouth. Over and over he did this, each time tapping the underside of the canoe as he passed beneath it. Under he went again. A moment passed. Then another. She waited excitedly. She wasn’t afraid. She trusted him. She began to look around to see where he might reappear. She took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could. She took another deep breath and did the same thing again. Still he’d not surfaced. Eventually she leant over and dipped her face into the water to try and find him. In front of her eyes tiny particles floated about in a brown, silent world. Beyond that, even just a foot beyond that, she saw nothing at all. She sat back up in the canoe. He wasn’t there. The water all around her was flat and unbroken. That’s when the terror came.

‘It’s just a dream,’ Tim told her, ‘I’ll always be here for you.’ It had seemed such an obvious thing to say then, and such an easy promise to fulfil.

Another programme was ending, another starting. The remote control was discarded between them. Neither had moved to pick it up. So much to say, but really there was nothing to be said. He stood up, dared to look at her finally.

‘Just don’t make a fool of me, Beth.’

She didn’t even pretend to be surprised. ‘Where’s your famous rage now?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to bed.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN