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

‘Another pint, please, my good man,’ Sam says. ‘Make that two, actually. You look like you could do with another one, Phil.’

Phil nods his head. He definitely looks like he could do with another drink. Ally says she wants another one too, and now everyone is looking at me to see what I am going to order.

But what I want isn’t on the menu.

What I want is the truth from my husband.

How do I ask the waiter for that?

19

SAM

Well, that meal was a shambles. To be fair, I played a part in that, but I’m not the only one to blame. Rebecca contributed to the disastrous dinner too, and I’d feel sorry for Ally and Phil if I wasn’t feeling so sorry for myself. I accept that I had too much to drink tonight but can anyone blame me? I feel like I’m not in control of my life lately, and I had to do something to make myself feel like I was, even if that thing was to drink too much and let off some steam.

But did I go too far? Possibly. I regret mentioning Rebecca’s near-miss on site the other day to her best friend. There was no need to bring that up and cause undue concern and worry, and Ally looked very troubled when she heard about it. I also regret going one step further a few moments after that and explaining why Rebecca had been so distracted on site.

I told Ally and Phil that Rebecca thinks that I’m cheating on her.

Poor Phil. He seemed like a good guy, and tonight was supposed to be about us meeting him, but in the end, it turned out to be all about us while he was just a witness in a car crash of a meal. He was probably a little nervous about meeting his partner’s best friend and husband for the first time and possibly worried about saying or doing something wrong. But he need not have been so concerned. I did everything wrong for him. I knew I’d gone too far when Rebecca got up from the table and stormed off across the restaurant, leaving me sitting there awkwardly with Ally and Phil until Ally got up and went after her friend. That just left us two guys, and neither of us really knew what to say then. I tried to make a joke about women and how hard it can be to keep them happy, but poor Phil wasn’t really in the mood for jokes, and he just stared hopelessly in the direction of where Ally had gone, no doubt praying that she would come back soon and extricate him from the uncomfortable meal.

In the end, I apologised to Phil and stood up before also apologising to the waiter who had just brought me a fresh pint of lager before making my way out to try and find my wife.

Rebecca was outside the restaurant crying into Ally’s shoulder when I found her. It takes a brave man to approach his wife when she is upset with him, but it takes an even braver man to do so when her best friend is present too. But I was drunk, so bravery was in my armoury on that occasion, or at least false courage was.

I had tried to calm Rebecca down as well as tell Ally that this was all one big misunderstanding and that I wasn’t cheating on my wife. Of course, Ally took Rebecca’s side. She had to. It was her duty as her best friend to do so. I get that. But I was persistent and refused to go back inside the restaurant until I was able to speak with my wife alone, and thankfully, Rebecca gave me that opportunity in the end. She had told Ally that she was okay, even though the mascara running down her cheeks told a different story, and the friend had gone back inside, leaving the pair of us to try and have an adult conversation.

That wasn’t an easy thing to do considering that we were both drunk and standing in a public place, but I did my best by going first. I apologised to Rebecca for spilling our secrets, and I apologised for drinking too much and making things worse. I told her that I had been out of order at the table and shouldn’t have told Ally and Phil those personal things. They were secrets, and they were for her to share with her friend, not me. And then I ended by sharing a secret of my own.

I told Rebecca that I had contacted a private investigator to try and find out who that woman at the door was.

I’m not sure what kind of reaction I had been hoping to get from my wife by giving her that news. Maybe I had hoped that it would prove to her how innocent I was and how determined I am to get to the bottom of all the weird things that have been going on lately. But if that’s what I had hoped to happen, I was wrong. Again. Rebecca erupted at me as soon as I mentioned the PI. She took it really badly and made out like I was doing anything to avoid coming clean and telling her the truth. She begged me to just be honest with her and admit to whatever I had been doing so she could at least make a decision based on all the facts.

It was clear then that my wife fully believes that I have cheated on her.

But I couldn’t admit to something that I hadn’t done. I’m innocent, at least as far as being a faithful husband goes. That’s why I was adamant when I again told her that I had done nothing wrong and that I didn’t know how many times I was going to have to say it. But she wasn’t having any of it, and maybe it was the alcohol, or