Sob Story

6: The Husband

I picked Kate up first. It was a Thursday. She was doing self-study in the sixth form common room. I called ahead to the school and left the hotel without saying anything to anybody. There’d be gossip but let them. Paul’s shift started soon enough. There was nothing urgent to hand over. And Bev could wait. If she didn’t understand that, then she was an idiot.

It took a while to get to the girls’ grammar. I hit every red light, met every lorry doing a three point turn. I tried not to beep my horn. When I arrived I parked on double yellow lines outside and went in. I knew the road was narrow, but I didn’t give a shit what the other motorists beeping behind me thought. I hadn’t beeped and I had reason. I wanted Kate and Nathan. To take back to the hotel. To be with. My wife was dead.

Kate was already in reception waiting for me when I got there. She almost ran towards me.

“Dad. What’s going on?”

She had the strap of her bag in her hand. The bag slapped the floor in a dead heap. She was in uniform. Light blue blouse and navy sweater. Short pleated dark blue skirt. Blue tights. Black shoes. She suddenly seemed younger than I knew she felt she was. The uniform did it. I hugged her without saying anything. She let me, then she pushed me away and stared at me, trying to study my face. I couldn’t look her in the eye. She kept searching. Like my face was a puzzle. Eventually, I looked up. She said, “What did you do?”

I went on the defensive. “Nothing.”

She could’ve taken that either way.

I told her what happened in the car. I managed to get her to follow me without. She didn’t say anything. I thought she was going to hit me. Or blame me. Or burst into tears. Instead, after a moment of silence, she said, “When?”

I said, “This morning. After we left.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

Then: “How are we going to tell Nathan?”

I wondered what she meant by we. But then realised she’d decided something. About how we were going to be from now on. A lot had happened in that moment of silence.

I said, “We’ll drive down. Pick him up.”

Kate wiped tears that had started trickling down her cheeks off her face and sniffled. It was like she was gearing herself up for something. “We need to protect him.”

I was going to say from what but didn’t.

“He’s only young,” she went on. “Nothing bad has ever happened to him.”

Her eyes were red. Sadness and a hangover were so close. I put my hand on her shoulder. I knew what she thought she meant.