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

‘I can’t imagine you working on a building site,’ Phil says to Ally. ‘But I’d love to see it.’

‘Hey!’ she cries, playfully hitting her partner on the arm. ‘I’d look great in a hard hat and boots, I’ll have you know!’

Phil gives her a wink, and I smile because it’s clear that these two are very happy together, although I already knew that from what Ally has been telling me over these last few months. She really likes this guy, and while I’m not getting carried away, I have a feeling she thinks he might be the one.

It’s about time she found ‘the one’.

She’s spent the last ten years trying almost every other ‘one’ in town.

I’m happy for my friend, but I’m also a little sad because seeing the pair of them like this is reminding me how bad things are in my relationship right now. In normal circumstances, Sam and I would be teasing each other and having a laugh too, but these are not normal circumstances.

I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I had really been hoping that he was going to give me a plausible explanation as to why there was lipstick on his shirt collar earlier, but he wasn’t able to manage it. He didn’t even give me an explanation of any sort, which only served to make me angrier, as well as more anxious.

That makes two things that he hasn’t been able to explain now. The woman at the door and the lipstick. Am I right to be concerned? Should I have been more understanding? Or should I have cancelled this meal and told him that he had to get out of the house unless he gave me a better explanation about the troubling events?

I don’t know. I’ve never had to deal with something like this before. I’ve had relationships before Sam, but they ended because we drifted apart, not because anybody strayed. It wasn’t something that I ever spent much time worrying about then, and I hadn’t expected to start worrying about it when I got married either. Cheating, lying and secrets are things that happen between couples on TV shows I watch, not things that happen in my marriage. But unlike those TV shows, this can’t be sorted out by a scriptwriter who can make things up as they go along. This is real life. This is my life.   So why do I feel like I’m losing control of it?

‘So what kind of projects do you work on?’ Phil asks me, clearly very keen on what I do for a living. But I’m happy to chat about it. It’s not as if my husband has been a font of conversation since we sat down at this table.

‘All sorts, really. We’re currently building a new drainage system for excess stormwater to run off into.’

‘Cool,’ Phil says, and I’m not sure if he really means it, but I appreciate the effort.

‘It’s not that cool,’ Sam mumbles before finishing his pint and looking around for the waiter so he can order another one.

‘What?’ I say, unsure what he means.

‘I said it’s not that cool. You almost died the other day.’

‘You what?’ Ally cries, almost knocking her wine over as she sits forward in concern.

‘I didn’t almost die,’ I say, batting the air and trying to play it down, mainly because I don’t want to concern my friend, nor do I want everybody to know what happened on site last Monday. But it seems like Sam does.

‘Yes, you did. You walked behind an excavator when it was reversing, and you would have been squashed if you hadn’t been pulled out of the way.’

‘Oh my gosh, Rebecca! Really?’

I glare at my husband, annoyed that he has told this story because I didn’t want anybody outside of him or my work colleagues knowing about it. The last thing I need is the story getting back to my parents because they’ll only worry, and I know they already feel anxious about me spending my time on building sites. They’d be much happier if I worked in a warm, cosy office somewhere away from big machines and burly men, but I wouldn’t be, which is why I chose the career I did. But it’s not helping my cause having Sam telling people how I almost died in my dangerous workplace.

‘It sounds worse than it was,’ I try, but Ally isn’t buying it because she knows me well enough to tell when I’m playing something down.

‘I’m so glad you’re okay. How did it happen?’

‘You don’t want to know, trust me,’ Sam says with a chuckle that irritates me. He only does that chuckle when he is drunk and in a mischievous mood, but the mischief on his mind tonight is not of the fun variety.

‘What happened?’ Ally asks again, taking the bait that Sam has given her.

‘It’s nothing. Seriously,’ I try, but Sam is happy to carry on the conversation even if I’m not.

‘It’s because she was thinking about me and some other woman and wondering if I had cheated on her,’ he says, sending the atmosphere at this table in a very unpleasant direction.

Poor Phil has no idea what to say to that, but he’s not the only one. Ally is looking at me like she can’t believe what she has just heard.

‘What’s he talking about?’ she asks me.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say, but Sam just gives that chuckle again.

‘Of course it matters,’ he tells the table. ‘My wife thinks I’m cheating on her, which I’m not, by the way. But she doesn’t believe me, and I’m not sure what else I can do. Phil, have you got any tips to help a guy out?’

I glare at my husband while he just sits there with a stupid grin on his face. Phil and Ally don’t know what to say or where to look, and it’s only the arrival of the waiter at our table that cuts through the tension and gives us all something else