The Long Weekend by Jennifer Chapman

Author:Jennifer Chapman [Chapman, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Odyssey Press
Published: 2018-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

7

Saturday Morning — Charlotte

I woke to the sound of the telephone ringing downstairs. At one time we had one by the bed but Dan said it kept him awake even when it was not ringing because he always expected that it might.

I got up. Dan was still asleep, his head barely visible above the cover. I could not remember him coming back to bed.

The phone kept ringing. I hurried, anxious that it should not wake Dan or Vicky but then Vicky was not there and I had forgotten.

Of course the phone would be bound to stop ringing just as I got to it. Wasn’t that what always happened, and I had no idea how long it had been going before it had succeeded in rousing me. I glanced at the clock in the hall. It was nine thirty. We had slept late with no Vicky to wake us. I picked up the receiver. No click. No sudden dial tone, the caller was determined.

‘Hello.’

‘Charlotte. It’s Nick.’

His voice sounded tired and battered and yet there was an urgency and insistence there too.

‘Marion knows. I told her last night.’

There was a pause.

It felt like a very big moment. A turning point. The crisis had come.

‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.

‘You must make your own decision.’

‘Where are you, at home?’

‘No, the office, it was impossible to stay in the house.’

‘I’ll come to you there.’

‘How long?’

‘I don’t know. As soon as I can.’

I put down the receiver. The house was silent again although beyond the garden I could hear Tamara braying to the morning, carefree and uninhibited. It was a wonderful sound, crazy and funny and sad all at the same time. I stood by the telephone, listening to the donkey and feeling as if my heart might burst out of my chest at any moment.

The stair creaked and a moment later Dan was standing at the other end of the hall, his hands plunged deep into his dressing gown pockets, his eyes filled with certain knowledge.

‘Who was it?’

‘Nicholas Matthews.’

‘What’s he doing ringing you on a Saturday morning?’

Why the question when he already knew?

‘He’s told his wife,’ I said, obliquely.

‘What?’

‘What do you think!’ I retorted, unfairly, unkindly. Why should Dan make it easy for me when it was so hard for him to take the truth, even, at last, to demand it?

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

‘I’m having an affair with him,’ I almost shouted. ‘No, that doesn’t sound right,’ I continued less forcefully. ‘It’s more than an affair, Dan. I’m leaving you.’ I turned away from him and went out to the kitchen. I started to make toast, mechanically, knowing there was no possibility it would be eaten. In the same way, whenever Vicky had fallen or suffered some minor catastrophe as a baby, I had immediately put her to my breast.

I waited for Dan to come into the kitchen, my kitchen with its expensive oak units I had chosen with such deliberation; the table I had found after months of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.