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

I’m just about to put the photos back into the envelope when I hear a knock on my office door and Maria walks in.

‘Hey. Not interrupting anything, am I?’

‘No, it’s fine,’ I say, shoving the photos back into the envelope and putting it back on my desk before attempting to cover it up with various papers.

Maria smiles and takes a seat in the chair opposite me before letting out a deep sigh.

‘God, what a day.’

She’s not wrong there, but I imagine she means it for entirely different reasons than I do.

‘Has Ed been round again?’ I ask, assuming she is ready for a good moan about our boss.

‘Yeah. Once, twice. Six times,’ Maria replies, and I laugh.

‘Thanks for what you did again earlier for me when I had to go out. You don’t have to keep covering for me.’

‘I know I don’t, but I want to. You’d do the same for me.’

Maria gives me a wink, and I guess she is right. I would cover for her too, because that’s what teammates should do.

‘Cheers,’ I say before glancing at the time in the corner of my computer screen. It’s six o’clock, so I should probably call it a day, but I’m not in any rush to go back to that empty hotel room and sit and think about my life.

‘Is everything okay?’ Maria suddenly asks me, snapping me out of my depressing daydream.

‘Yeah, fine,’ I lie. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I’ve worked with you long enough now to know when something is wrong. So what is it?’

I think about lying and saying it’s work pressure, or something with my health or just anything that means I don’t have to tell the truth and say Rebecca has left me, but I’m a terrible liar. I always have been, and I kind of hope that I always will be because surely that has to count for something, right? But I really don’t want to let anyone else in on what is going on in my personal life because this is between my wife and I, so in the end, I decide to tell a lie, no matter how rubbish it might be.

‘I’m waiting on some test results from the doctors,’ I say. ‘I’m sure it’s fine, but it’s hard to concentrate on anything else while I wait.’

The reason I am a bad liar is because I hate doing it and especially about something as serious as health, but I had to say something to get Maria to stop probing, and health is usually a good call. People tend to respect matters like that and leave it for the doctor to deal with. But I appreciate that saying things like that can cause worry and now Maria looks very concerned.

‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea,’ she says, looking like she really means it.

‘It’s fine,’ I say, batting the air dismissively.

‘You should tell HR. Maybe they could get Ed to go easy on you for a few weeks.’

‘I don’t really want anybody knowing. It’s personal, you know?’

‘I understand.’

Maria and I sit in silence for a moment, and I feel terrible for whatever sadness she is feeling right now. For all I know, she could be imagining me dying from some terrible disease after what I have just told her, which is not a nice thing to put somebody through. But I had to think fast and I’d rather this than have everybody around the office know that I’m living in a hotel because my wife found another woman’s pair of knickers in our bedroom.

‘How about a drink?’

Maria’s sudden invitation is an appealing one as well as a little surprising because we’ve never been out for drinks before as just the two of us. I tend not to go drinking that much with work colleagues, but if I have done then it has always been as part of a larger group. I would like a stiff drink right now, and a busy bar would sure beat that lonely hotel room. But I better not. I can’t be going out for a drink with another woman while I’m trying to figure out a way of getting my wife to trust me, even if it is just Maria, my long-standing colleague.

‘Thanks, but I better get some work done. Ed still wants that report tomorrow,’ I say, making an excuse even though I’m sure I could just get it done for my boss first thing in the morning before he gets in.

But once again, Maria surprises me.

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve already done it,’ she says with a smile.

‘You have?’

‘Yeah, I had a couple of hours free this afternoon, so I jumped on it, and it’s all done. Sorry, I should have sent you an email.’

‘No, that’s great! Thank you!’

I’m genuinely impressed at my colleague’s help, and it does feel nice that I at least get treated well here.

If only I had this kind of treatment at home.

‘So, you’ve got no excuse now, have you?’ Maria tells me, and I guess she is right.

‘Okay, one drink,’ I say. ‘But I’m buying. You’ve already done more than enough for me for one day.’

‘I’m not going to argue with that.’

I laugh as I get up from my chair and grab my jacket before pulling it on and logging off my computer. I definitely feel like I could use a good drink and a laugh, and this might be just the thing I need to take my mind off my troubles for at least an hour or so. Those troubles will still be waiting for me in the morning, as evidenced by the photos of Alexandra still sitting in the envelope buried underneath the papers on my desk, but for now, I’m going to try and switch off from the world, just like I’m switching off my desktop monitor after another day of work is at an end.

As I follow Maria out of the door, I have a moment of worry that somebody else in the office might see us leaving