by Hilary Boyd
But what Connie was really asking was whether Devan would know that she had been – however fleetingly, however unintentionally – tempted by someone else.
She waited a quarter of an hour before seeing her husband’s head appear round the pub door, then braced herself.
‘Sorry,’ Devan said, not explaining why he was late. He sat down, laying his phone carefully on the table between them. Connie had bought two glasses of red wine. It was a Monday and the place empty so early, except for Dix – the resident drunk – perched on his habitual stool at the far end of the bar.
‘How’s Neil?’ Devan asked eventually, as if he were madly searching for a topic of conversation with his own wife.
‘Fine. Sends his love.’ Connie did not elaborate. She was on a mission and not going to be diverted, given the suspicions Neil had planted in her mind. ‘Devan, can we talk about something? Your phone, what exactly are you doing on it all day?’
He looked surprised, then frowned. ‘Why? Does it bother you?’ His tone was not quite rude, more nonchalant as he reached for his glass and took a large gulp. She was pretty sure she couldn’t detect any shiftiness in his expression.
She ploughed on regardless, accompanying her words with a poor attempt at a laugh. ‘I feel like Princess Diana, these days. There are three of us in this marriage.’
Devan was silent. Then he said quietly, ‘Or one.’
Confused and taken aback, she just stared at him.
The glance he shot her implied she was being disingenuous.
‘I need to spell it out?’ He took another gulp of wine. ‘You spend virtually seven months of the year on your trips. Then you come home and all you do is monitor me, criticize me.’ He let out a pained sigh. ‘As soon as you step through the door, I feel judged. The house isn’t tidy enough, the surfaces not wiped enough. I haven’t been doing stuff. Plus, I’m not chipper, I drink too much and don’t give you enough sex. And now my phone’s an issue?’ He raised his eyebrows in apparent exasperation.
Connie squirmed. There was some truth in what he’d said – although he chose to exaggerate, as always, the time she spent away. But it was his tone that dismayed her. It was so totally devoid of tenderness. ‘Don’t you wonder why I behave like that?’
He gave a careless shrug. ‘Because you’re feeling guilty? You know I hate you going away, so when you’re home you pile in and try to polish me up … so you won’t have to worry about me when you leave the next time.’
Again, his assessment was not far off the mark. She did worry about him and would rather not have to. ‘I only feel guilty because you make me,’ she said quietly. She hadn’t tasted her wine. The quantities of strong coffee she’d recently consumed had turned to acid in her stomach.
He stared stonily ahead, as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘Are you saying you’re fine as you are, if only I would stop nagging you?’
‘No. I’m not saying that. I’m not fine. I’m bloody lonely when you’re away. That’s why I’m on my phone all day. With my back playing up, it’s my only companion.’ At another time, his blatant self-pity would have made Connie laugh. ‘And I can’t properly settle to anything because then you come home and interrupt, expect me to be on tap again.’
‘Settle to what?’ She knew she sounded dismissive, but he, a grown man, was being so childish, so unfair, she could barely control her irritation.
Devan drew himself up, crossing his arms. ‘OK, I’ll tell you. I want to do a history degree with the Open University. I want to learn to sail. I want to walk the Pennine Way … like you always said we would.’
Connie was silenced. Yes, they’d often discussed that walk over the years. But the history degree and the sailing were entirely new. He’d never suggested he might be interested in doing either. Was this real, or was he just making something up to throw her? She barely knew him enough, these days, to answer her own question.
Deciding to call his bluff, she said, ‘Well, that’s great. Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you’d do something medically related, but sailing sounds fantastic.’ He didn’t respond, maintaining his aggrieved expression, so she went on, ‘Tell me more, Devan.’ He let out another long sigh, his face softening. But he still didn’t speak, just bowed his head and began picking at his thumbnail. ‘I’m not stopping you doing any of those things, you know.’
Silence fell.
She remembered the days when her husband had been up at six thirty every morning, off to work with a spring in his step, totally involved with his surgery, his patients, the team with whom he worked. He’d arrive home exhausted, full of the dramas of a long day … although still interested in whatever Connie had been up to, how school had gone for Caitlin. I never complained, she thought, about his long hours, his dedication to work. I never suggested he give it up for me, even when Caitlin was small and I was virtually a single mum. It was just a given that she would keep the home fires burning. But he was not now returning the favour.
‘When did we lose touch?’ she asked eventually, pressing his hands as they lay clasped in his lap. He shrugged as she squeezed them. ‘Devan?’
His fists just sat there beneath hers, unresponsive, as if he couldn’t feel her touch – or couldn’t bear it – and she pulled away. After what seemed like an eternity to Connie, he raised his head, his blue eyes dark with reproach. ‘I don’t know where we’re going, you and me.’
She felt a powerful judder shoot through her body, as if she’d walked into a lamp post. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Surely you can see.’ He gazed forlornly at her. ‘This is supposed to be our time, Con. We’ve worked all our lives. Now, we’ve got, what, twenty years left? And that’s if we’re lucky. Probably even fewer fit years when we can do stuff. But you intend to be gone for at least half of that.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘It tells me something. You’d prefer to be off with a bunch of strangers than here with me.’ He stopped but he hadn’t finished. ‘It’s making me think …’
Ignoring the exaggeration of her time away, Connie was surprised at how steady her voice sounded as she asked, ‘Think what, Devan?’ She knew in her heart of hearts that he was being unfair. But she also felt conflicted. Even Neil seemed to think her husband had a point.
This whole issue with retirement reminds me, she thought, of how Devan never breathed a word about me smoking when we first met. If, back then, he’d tried to make her quit, she would probably have taken years to do so. But he’d never mentioned it, despite apparently being disgusted by every puff, and she gave up soon after. If he’d taken the same approach as he did then, kept his thoughts to himself and let her retire in her own time – given her something to come home to, indeed – she would probably have set a date in the near future. But the more he backed her into a corner, the more she wanted to work till she dropped.
‘About us,’ Devan said. ‘About what our marriage means to you.’
Connie sat up straight. She still hadn’t touched her wine, although Devan had drained his. ‘And what did you conclude?’ she asked coolly, sick of the whole thing and furious about all the pointless effort she’d put in to help him over the hump of retirement, the worry she’d invested in his health – mental and physical – the numerous times she’d reached out to him and been rebuffed. None of the support she’d offered had been, as he suggested, a selfish act on her part, but because she loved him and hated seeing him so diminished. In return he was bullying her until she did what he wanted, bundling her into a retirement for which she wasn’t yet ready.
When he didn’t reply, she said, ‘OK. So, hypothetically, what would happen if I did decide to retire at the end of the season?’
‘What would happen?’ He seemed puzzled by the question.
‘You finally get me where you want me, Devan. What next?’ She glared at him. ‘Seeing as you don’t even seem to like me any more.’
Now it was his turn to appear confused. ‘Of course I like you, Connie,’ he said, blinking nervously. ‘We’d … we
’d start again, wouldn’t we? Recalibrate our lives.’
I don’t want to recalibrate my life, she muttered silently. But aloud she said, ‘And do what? You keep banging on about travelling, but we can’t afford to, not all the time. Would you do this history degree you’re talking about? Or take off sailing? Both things you could do right now, of course, if you were serious.’
His expression hardened. ‘No need to be spiteful.’
Neither spoke, both trapped in their own affront.
Connie was the first to back down. ‘Devan, please,’ she begged. ‘What are we doing? This is stupid.’ She shuffled her chair closer and put her arm across his shoulders, which made him look around self-consciously at the other drinkers who’d been accumulating in the low-ceilinged snug during the course of their row.
Shrugging her off, he picked up his glass. ‘I need another drink.’
He could have drunk hers, but he obviously wanted a break from the conversation. She watched him as he leaned on the bar, chatting amiably with Stacy as if nothing were awry, then had a smiling exchange with one of their neighbours. Charming to everyone in the world but me, she thought sadly. She got up. There was no point sitting here torturing each other. She didn’t tell him she was going, didn’t say goodbye. She’d never walked out on him in public like this before – never needed to.
Connie realized, as she covered the short distance to the house, that something very serious had just happened between her and Devan. She was pretty certain there was no cooing female voice online, consoling her husband in his outrage at her intransigence and neglect. This was worse, in a way. A significant breach had opened up in their relationship today. As if a door, long fastened and secure, were being slowly forced ajar. Devan, she saw, was using the threat to their relationship as blackmail. Forcing her to quit the tours. But she knew that if she gave in now, she would resent him for the rest of her life.
8
As Connie sat on the Eurostar, staring out of the window at the flat grey-green stretches of Normandy flashing past, she realized that each tour seemed to mark out a further decline in her relationship with Devan.
The tulip tour had seen the connection between them stuttering, as if they were coming in and out of signal, her husband’s increasing lack of motivation and attention to his personal care – including drinking too much – becoming more apparent. Lake Como had witnessed a ratcheting up of his sniping about her retirement, his ongoing avoidance of any physical contact and his obsessive withdrawal behind his phone screen. And now Lake Garda seemed to have identified a new low, where the very bedrock of their marriage was being questioned.
Since the conversation in the pub, Connie felt they had been shocked into a temporary moratorium on any further discussions about their relationship. They’d tiptoed around each other in the days before she left, as if each were an invalid who couldn’t cope with stress. She didn’t dare explore what Devan had meant. He clearly didn’t dare either. And, as had become the norm these days, Connie had not taken a proper breath until she was on the train to London and away from her husband’s discontented presence. She wondered gloomily how bad it would have become by the time she was on her way to Poland next month.
‘Ah, Connie! Bentornata, cara.’ Bianca Conti, diminutive but fizzing with energy – although she was well into her seventies – kissed her warmly on both cheeks. ‘Avanti! Ciao, ciao, benvenuti a tutti.’ She opened her arms to the group in the foyer with a charming smile.
Connie had been bringing tours to this family-run hotel in Desenzano for a decade now. It was Venetian in style, faded terracotta with narrow arched windows and lacy balconies overlooking the peaceful harbour for small boats on the shores of Lake Garda. Bianca ran the hotel with her two sons, Federico and Sandro, but was unquestionably in control.
As soon as the hurdle of check-in was cleared, Connie found her room and threw herself onto her bed with a sigh of relief. The journey had been unusually trying. One of her passengers, Martin, sixty-seven, from Cheltenham, had not been able to lift his case because of his bad back – although it was a company rule, made very clear at booking, that everyone was responsible for their own luggage. So Connie had had to lug his heavy suitcase on and off the trains, along with her own. Then the hotel next to where they overnighted in Turin was hosting a wedding, the shrieks and thumping music going on into the early hours. And, to cap it all, the train on to Lake Garda had been cancelled, and Cheltenham Martin had been pickpocketed as they hung about at Turin station, his wallet stolen out of his back pocket. Luckily it had only contained his bus pass, some loyalty cards and his RAC membership: his bank card had been in his shirt pocket at the time. But he was upset, and it had taken Connie a while to calm him down.
None of that matters now, she thought, as she lay on her back, looking up at the light from the water outside reflected on the cream ceiling in glinting ripples. She’d got her passengers here, safe and sound, the sun was shining, and Bianca, as always, would give them a wonderful time.
The weather had been perfect so far – sunny and hot, but with a pleasant breeze – the tourists gradually coalescing into their groups and obviously enjoying themselves, with the lake excursions, pretty squares to explore, and the pavement cafés in which to sit with a cool drink or gelato.
Now it was day five: Venice, Connie’s all-time favourite.
They took an early train to the city, then a couple of private water taxis along the Giudecca canal to Piazza San Marco. The first sight of the city – although Connie had seen it more times than she could count – always took her breath away. It sat shimmering in the soft morning light above the water of the lagoon, its elegant skyline of domes and campaniles like a chimera: if she closed her eyes, she thought, it might vanish as if it had never been.
As the group stood on the square, phones held in front of their faces almost before they’d even taken in the extraordinary thirteenth-century Byzantine façade of the basilica, she spotted Gianni, the guide who would lead the walking tour through the city.
‘Adesso … You come with us, bellissima?’ he asked flirtatiously, when they’d greeted each other. He was young and handsome, sunglasses perched on his dark hair, the muscles of his tanned arms stretching the short sleeves of his white polo shirt. He was relatively new to guiding, and a touch cocky, Connie thought. He seemed to think his job was almost beneath him.
‘Not today,’ she said. She had absorbed much of the art and culture on previous trips, but in her current mood she craved indulgence, nothing she had to concentrate on too hard. Maybe she would drink a dramatically expensive hot chocolate on the piazza to the music of the small café orchestra, then wander the shady, picturesque streets, stroke some of the soft leather handbags she couldn’t afford. ‘Don’t drown them,’ she said.
Gianni batted his eyelids in mock seduction. ‘For you, signora, I do anything you ask.’
She waited till the crocodile had disappeared down one of the narrow alleyways to the south of the piazza, then went and found a table in the sunshine and ordered her hot chocolate. It came with about three inches of whipped cream sprinkled with chocolate flakes in a glass with a metal handle and she just stared at it, appreciating its beauty, before plunging in her teaspoon and dragging up some hot, creamy deliciousness, shutting her eyes to savour the sweetness rolling over her tongue.
As she sat there, she found herself thinking disloyally of Jared – Italy evoked him. And without the constraint of being with Devan, she made no attempt to quell her musings. She wondered if he’d ever thought of her since that night on Lake Como. She laughed to herself. A fleeting kiss, yet it sets my ageing heart aflutter, she thought wryly.
‘Connie?’
She jumped as a hand dropped lightly onto her shoulder. She spun around, expecting to see one of her group, left behind already by Gianni’s imperious march through the crowded back streets.
‘Jared …’ Her breath caught in her throat. It shocked her to see him there – almost as if she’d magic
ked him up with her thoughts. For a moment she thought she must be mistaken – the morning sun was so bright behind his head that it left his face in shadow.
He was entirely composed, however, as he smiled and pulled out a chair. ‘May I?’
She managed a nod, her heart flapping uncomfortably beneath her ribs. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Just staying with friends for a few days. They own one of those damp, crumbling palazzos on the canal. Just can’t resist Venice in the spring.’ He nodded towards her drink. ‘I see you’re getting stuck into the local delights.’
‘What an incredible coincidence, bumping into each other,’ Connie said, still stunned that Jared was actually there, sitting calmly at her table.
He gave her a knowing smile and tapped the side of his nose. ‘Ah, well, not entirely coincidence. I overheard a woman in the queue for the Doge’s Palace chatting to her friend. “We have to be back to meet Connie by twelve,” she said. And I just knew it must be you … so I’ve been wandering around looking for you ever since.’
He was wearing sunglasses and she couldn’t read his eyes, but he was giving her a self-congratulatory grin. And, unlike her, seemed perfectly at ease as he ordered his coffee.
‘Still strange,’ she said, trying to calm herself. ‘Us being here in Venice at the exact same time.’
Jared smiled. ‘True. But I’m a firm believer in synergy.’
When his coffee arrived, he stirred the chocolate carefully into the foam. ‘It’s good to see you, Connie.’
There was an obvious reply, but Connie couldn’t say it. Is it good to see Jared? On one level, yes. She found, against her will, that the frisson his presence engendered was agreeable. But on another level, no. She didn’t want him here, didn’t want to be reminded of that kiss.