The Woman At The Door, Daniel Hurst [world best books to read TXT] 📗

to take out the white one and open up the collar on it before taking out an item of makeup from my pocket and getting artistic for a moment. Then I put the collar back down on the shirt and return it to its rightful place in the wardrobe, so it looks like it was never removed.

With my work here complete, I make one final check on the bedroom to ensure that my presence here has not been obvious before leaving the room and heading back downstairs. Using the manufacturers’ reset code to secure the house again, I escape out of the back door in the twenty seconds I have before the alarm activates and use my key to lock up behind me. Then all I have to do is go back through the side gate, close that and head away down the street to get on with the rest of my day.

I love what I do for work, and I love what other people do for work too.

While they’re out all day doing their job, I get to sneak into their homes and do mine.

Who said Monday mornings were dull?

11

REBECCA

I hate Mondays. Time seems to be standing still, and that is not something anybody wants to happen when they are at work. As usual, the weekend went far too quickly, and now I’m back here again in a freezing cold cabin in the middle of a field on a building site.

Some days, I love my job as an engineer and other days, I hate it.

Today, I hate it.

I enjoy the mental stimulation that comes with this role, as well as the unpredictability of it and the fact that I’m not always chained to a desk for eight hours a day. At any point, I can get up from here, put on my hard hat and my hi-viz jacket and go out on site to make a few checks and chat to a few of the workers. That’s a luxury when the weather is nice.

It’s not so great when it’s raining.

I even enjoy working in such a male-dominated industry as construction. Sure, the conversations in the canteen are a little different to what they would be if I worked with mostly women, but I have always got on well with men. I like how straightforward they are. There’s no bitchiness, gossiping or secrets. Men, or at least the ones I work with, just say it as it is. That is very refreshing, and I like working in an environment like this one.

I also like the fact that I don’t have to put on a load of makeup or fret over what to wear to the office each day in case I get judged by any female colleagues. Here, muddy boots and scruffy hair are as common a sight in the office as a computer and a coffee machine, and that’s fine by me. I save my beautifying for the weekends. During the week, I’m just Rebecca, a site engineer with mud on her clothes and knots in her hair. At the weekends, I’m a more feminine version of myself because as much as my husband loves me, I’m not sure he gets turned on by dirty boots and bright green jackets with concrete splattered across them.

I’ve been an engineer for fifteen years, after graduating from university and taking on my first role on a site. The years have flown by since then, although in some ways, they haven’t because there has been plenty of slow mornings just like this one to get through along the way. Checking the time at the bottom of my computer screen, I see that it is only 10:02. God, this day is dragging already. I just want to go home and get into bed. It’s not unusual for me to feel tired after the weekend, but this was not a normal weekend by any stretch of the imagination.

The woman at the door on Saturday night saw to that.

I haven’t slept properly since then, my mind ablaze with all sorts of thoughts and worries about my husband, that woman and what it might mean to my previously happy life. Not even a Sunday Roast in a pub yesterday afternoon could take my mind off things. It was sweet of Sam to take me out for a meal, and the food was fantastic, as it always is when we go to that particular venue. It’s just that it’s difficult to truly appreciate beef, potatoes and gravy when all you can think about is some other woman with your man.

I can’t get the image of that woman out of my mind, and that fact hasn’t been helped by going to our neighbours’ house yesterday and looking at her on his CCTV footage. Having to see that blonde hair, those red lips and that pair of high heels for a second time has only reinforced the image of her that I have in my mind and in turn, it’s only making me feel worse.

It’s not untrue to say that the woman is more attractive than me. And it’s not untrue to say that I could see how my husband would like her if indeed what she told me was true about them sleeping together. Maybe I took my eye off the ball. Maybe coming home every night from site dirty and dishevelled has slowly turned Sam onto another woman.

What man prefers his woman to opt for mud over makeup?

Damn these paranoid thoughts. Will they ever leave me alone now? If only I hadn’t answered that door. If only I had stayed on the sofa with Sam eating Indian food and watching that film. Things were so perfect then, or at least I thought they were. But now, things feel like they are falling apart.

I broke down in front of my husband yesterday. I’d locked myself in the bathroom for as long as I could and hoped that I’d gotten all the tears out in private but no sooner had