I grow herbs on the windowsill in white ceramic pots: parsley, rosemary, fresh mint. I use the mint leaves for tea, which I make in my bright green mugs, with spoonfuls of dark brown sugar. I bought the mugs from the woman opposite, who rents the pottery studio. I feel a bit sorry for her. I don’t think she sells much.
I sip my tea. The sugar makes my baby dart inside me, like a fish. After university, Rory and I went backpacking in Morocco and drank fresh mint tea with sugar while we were camping out in the Atlas Mountains. Cold nights under scratchy wool blankets. The air was so clear, you could almost drink it. In the nearest town, the houses were painted blue to match the huge desert sky.
There’s a photograph of us there on my corkboard. We are on the ridge of a mountain, him in his grey alpaca jumper, grinning widely, his hair messy, sun-bleached, the snowy peaks reflected in his mirrored sunglasses. He has his arm around me, my hair is blowing over my face and I’m squinting in the sunlight. We are happy. It radiates from the surface of the picture, like heat.
We’d argued last night. He is still so upset about the interview. He can’t stop talking about it. The journalist had seemed nice, he said, genuinely interested in the development, in the company. In wanting to hear his side of the story. I couldn’t believe he’d been so naive. What did you think would happen? I asked him. You know what people are saying about the development. Why didn’t you just keep your head down? Why did you say yes? I knew the real answer even before I typed the name of the journalist into a search engine, brought up her smiling professional picture. But of course, it wasn’t just about the interview. Not really. He thinks he’s losing his grip.
He’d stormed upstairs. I knew he was going to have a cigarette on our balcony. He likes to think I don’t know about the cigarettes. Or the coke. He likes to think I don’t know a lot of things. I’d picked up the magazine, thrown it in the recycling. On the cover, his face looked like somebody I didn’t recognise.
Later that night, when he was asleep, I’d finally committed it to words. The question I typed stared back at me accusingly from the bright, white search box on the screen.
How do I know if my husband is having an affair?
I stared at them for a while, and after a few minutes my eyes strained under the white light of the computer. Then, I took a swig of Chablis and hit return.
Of course, there were thousands of results: articles, quizzes, tick-box guides. How modern, I thought, to turn to a search engine for answers. How many millions of women, I wondered, have sat, as I do now, in a beautiful home, wine glass in hand or a baby in their belly or both, tears pricking at their eyes as they typed these very same words?
I selected an article at random – one of the checklist-style ones. More Chablis. Then I clicked on it. But I heard Rory’s voice. He’d woken, noticed I was up. I deleted the search history, again. Snapped the laptop down. It is one of those paper-light ones: it had closed noiselessly, like an eyelid.
I watch the rain outside, how it washes the green leaves of the plants in my courtyard, how it pools on my chair, my metal table. I’ll finish my tea and stay another half-hour, wait and see if the storm dies down. But when I reach the last dregs, it seems to be getting worse, the sky darkening into an angry bruise. I flick the kettle on again, decide to get on with some developing. That’s when I hear the knock.
The first thing I notice about her are her feet. She is wearing lime-green flip-flops; her feet are bare, other than a chipped purple manicure. Her legs are bare, too, even though it’s freezing outside. The rest of her body is shrouded in a huge winter coat, the enormous furlined hood pulled down over her eyes, dripping onto the cobbles like the mane of a soggy lion.
‘Can I help you?’
I see the chin lift, but I still can’t see her face under the flap of the hood.
‘Sorry I’m late. Can I come in? It’s really cold.’
I stare at her, puzzled.
‘I’m sorry – are you my three o’clock?’ I pause. ‘It’s past six.’
‘The traffic was really terrible. Is that fresh mint tea? Lovely. Do you mind if I take this off? It’s wet.’
She turns away from me to hang the coat on the radiator by the front door, like a dead animal. Underneath she is wearing a blue velvet dress. The back of it is very beautiful, though a little old-fashioned. Both of us hear the growl of thunder.
‘So close!’ Her voice is excited, like a child’s. ‘We must be right under it.’
She looks up, as if she is expecting the roof to have blown off. The flash of lightning follows, flickering on and off like a faulty light bulb. I still can’t see her face.