Page 56 of The One Day You Were My Husband
I’m filled with remorse. Not just at the lunacy of my actions in the past hour, but at the anxiety I’ve caused him lately.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’m a bull in a china shop at the moment, aren’t I?”
“Somewhat.” He smiles.
“Of course Yanika’s not offering me a job. I’m not even legally permitted to practice yet. And even if by some miracle she did, I would never consider moving.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Robin, I’m sorry.”
Sometimes I forget the sacrifice he made for me, leaving London. He has to spend hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds every year on London travel and accommodation thanks to me, and yet he’s never complained. He’s gone out of his way to enable me to stay at home.
“AreyouOK?” I ask him.
“I’m always OK,” Robin says, after a beat. “But I have to be honest, the kids are struggling. They were both all over the place this morning.Mummywas howled many times over. Daddy was not hitting the mark at all. They’ll be fine, of course, but if you can call at breakfast tomorrow it’ll help.”
I should not have come, I think to myself. I should not have left them. Yanika would have given me the placement anyway.
We discuss the call from the head teacher and I ask several times if he’d prefer me to come back tonight. I suspect he would, but he insists I stay. We make a plan for a video call later, once my Roof seminar has ended, and then we’re done.
I sit there for a while longer looking at a terrace of old houses, lights already on for the darkening sky. It’s not even four o’clock. There’s a man in a room full of books in the nearest house, standing by a shelf, reading something. He is completely absorbed, still as a painting. He reminds me of Robin when he’s staring at the night sky.
Tears fill my eyes. Robin deserves so very much better than a wife who behaves the way I have done today.
—
I’m tired and cold by the time I return to the hotel. For a few minutes I consider getting into my large bath and not bothering with the Roof seminar, but I feel compelled to attend, for the sake of my family as much as anything else. The foyer is busy with a group of tourists arriving from a coach outside but the bar looks quiet. A couple of tables with people on laptops, and two men alone at the bar.
I decide to get a hot drink and then go straight to the conference center next door. If I go upstairs, there’s a risk I won’t come back.
I rub my hands together as I walk up the steps into the bar, blowing gently on the tips of my fingers. Hot chocolate. That’s what the kids would tell me to order.
One of the men at the bar turns to look at me as I approach. A businessman with silver hair and a large watch he’s rolled his sleeve up to reveal. He looks at me for less than a second before turning away, talking quickly in a language I don’t know.
The other one—
I stop dead.
He’s sitting at the bar with a beer. Long legs arranged around the bar stool. Bag near his feet. Phone in one hand, beer in the other.
I stand completely still.
No.No.I checked the delegates’ register again this morning, just to be sure. His name was not on it.
My vision tunnels. I stare at him across the bar. Across more than a decade of my life.
He looks up. His eyes meet mine, then drift off toward the reception desk where a group of people checking in. There is no way he’s expecting to see me. Not a part of him thinks I would be here.
I watch the whole thing. The thought process. He looks back at me, frowning slightly, then away again.
Then back at me. And the shock takes him so completely that he stands up from his bar stool and stares at me.
Somewhere near me, a woman is laughing uncontrollably into her phone. The man near Johan orders another drink. The lift doors slide open and then shut.
He stares at me; I stare at him. We are both rooted to the spot.
Twenty-one.
