Chapter 4
On her way home from class, Polly called in at the mini supermarket up the road and bought some chicken Kievs for tea. She
sprinkled some frozen mini roast potatoes on a baking tray and stuck everything in the oven along with a carton of cauliflower
cheese. Then she poured herself a large glass of chenin blanc from the fridge and sighed as it hit the back of her throat
with an icy punch.
When she heard Chris’s van draw up, she felt her jaw tighten with tension. Since deciding to leave, she’d felt deceitful pretending
everything was running along as always when she knew what was coming. He hadn’t noticed anything amiss, hadn’t picked up on
her awkwardness, hadn’t felt the air thickening around them when they were together; sometimes she’d felt it cloying in the
back of her throat enough to choke her. She wanted him to suspect something, because at least it would mean he was taking
some notice of her, but there was fat chance of that. It wouldn’t have changed anything, though, not now. They were too far
past their finish line.
“Hi,” she called and pushed out a civil smile of greeting when he walked in.
“Smells good,” he said. “I’ll be down in five for it.”
He dropped his bag where he stood. She’d lost count of the times they’d had the subsequent exchange, and they were about to
have it again.
“Please don’t leave it there, Chris. I’m sick of having to move it.”
He rolled his eyes—how she hated when he did this. “Why? Is it in the way of anything?”
Was he blind? “I can’t get to the bin, I can’t get to the door.”
“Do you want to get to the door?”
“It’s not the point.” He dumped, she shifted, that was the point, and it had been one of the many little things that had helped
to wreck their relationship.
He gave it a petulant kick to the left—that was all it took for it no longer to be an obstacle—while chuntering under his
breath about not needing this when he’d just come in from work, plus the word nag was thrown in for good measure. He then went upstairs to change and Polly checked on how things were in the oven.
He came downstairs shortly afterward in tracksuit bottoms and an old sweatshirt. He smiled at her and she registered the rare
phenomenon and silently gulped. He smiled at customers about to part with their cash, he smiled at his daughter, but in all
honesty, she couldn’t remember the last time she got his full beam trained exclusively on her.
“Want your wine topped up?” he asked, opening the fridge for an energy drink.
“Er, please.” He almost never asked her.
She served up and he tucked into his dinner as if he hadn’t eaten for a week and made small noises of approval as he was chewing.
“I haven’t stopped for as much as a cuppa all day. This is lovely. Tastes like restaurant food,” he said.
It didn’t. It tasted like what it was, easy and convenient.
She used to love cooking for him. She used to put a flower in a vase on the table and try to make their evening meals feel intimate and caring for him after a full day’s work, but he’d just bolt down the food and then get up, shove his plate in the washing-up bowl, and go and watch the telly, leaving her to finish her meal alone.
She hadn’t ever wanted to stop making the effort, but eventually she had.
She’d made hardly any meals from scratch over the past few months; fresh had been replaced by frozen and dried, more things were delivered to the table from the microwave, and she didn’t want to think how many unappreciated man-hours she’d clocked up in the kitchen over the past eight years.
“Really nice,” he went on. “Delicious.”
More compliments. Something prickled on her scalp. Looking back, she remembered him being especially buoyant at the time of
his fling. Bouncy as a dog with two dicks, not a hint of conflict or guilt. She watched him secretly as he ate with gusto,
and she wondered how she would feel if he announced he was having another affair. She wished he would. It would make things
so easy because she could say, “Well, off you go and fill your boots.” A mutual split would be an ideal scenario.
He wouldn’t be single for long, she knew. She’d seen how women flirted with him at the garage, because he looked good in petrol-blue
overalls with his perfect stubble, and he had the gift of gab when he didn’t have to back it up with any substance. He was
handsomer in his mid-forties than he had been in his mid-thirties, and he’d been quite the looker then. He’d always looked
after himself, had nice white teeth, and though his sandy-brown hair was thinning and graying a bit at the sides, he wore
it short in a cut that suited him. He kept himself trim and toned with weights in their garage and he never had a problem
spending money on clothes for himself, even if he had a problem spending it on other things. He always smelled of either his
garage or a pricey cologne, both easy on the olfactory nerves of people he encountered. She’d liked that he took pride in
his appearance and had enjoyed being on his arm whenever they went anywhere, knowing that other females were admiring him
but she was the one he went home to. Until she wasn’t.
That night in bed, Chris kissed her. Not a perfunctory peck but a longer kiss that grew in intensity, and she could tell where
it was heading. She stopped him before it went to “access all areas” and said not tonight because she was whacked.
Not tonight. Not again. She didn’t even want to sleep beside him anymore—it felt wrong to—but keeping things on an even keel until after Camay’s wedding had been her master plan, for right or wrong.
It did help that the bed was so wide; it didn’t even feel as if they were sleeping together.
Chris was snoring softly within five minutes, while Polly lay there imagining herself in a cozy single bed with a springy mattress, not a hard orthopedic one for the back, as had been Chris’s choice.
Everything was always Chris’s way or the highway, and for her that highway was now approaching fast.