Page 33 of The Soulmate

‘Who?’

‘A bartender. At Young and Jackson.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘No.’

‘Then why did you . . .?’

‘I don’t know.’ He went quiet and still. Then, suddenly, he smacked himself in the face with his hand, once, and then again. He made his hand into a fist.

‘Stop it,’ I said. And he did.

I closed my eyes. It felt undeniable. That this wasit. All the problems we’d had – all the nights out, the drinking, the ups and downs – they had been terrible but, ultimately, they hadn’t broken our vows. They hadn’t breached our marriage contract. But this . . . this was different. Our one non-negotiable had always been loyalty. And what was infidelity if not a lapse in loyalty?

Still on his knees, he grasped the hem of my shirt. ‘It will never happen again, Pippa. I swear. I will kill myself before I’ll let that happen.’

It wasn’t the first time he’d used that kind of emotive language. It worked to throw me off balance.

‘You were right – I need help. I haven’t been okay for a while now. I need to see a psychiatrist. Something is wrong with me; I know it is. Normal people don’t cheat on the woman they love with a barmaid they don’t care about.’

He knew the buttons to press, the things I needed to hear. It was cruel and comforting and humiliating in its mind-fuckery.

‘Let me prove how sorry I am by getting help and becoming the man you deserve. The father Freya deserves.’

It’s shocking how easy I made it for him. How, despite what he had told me, I actually felt hopeful. He wanted to get help. Heneededit. And so, at what should have been the lowest point of my life, I felt my heart lift. This was what I’d been waiting for.

I made an appointment for him within the hour.

29

AMANDA

AFTER

Iam starting to wonder where I am. It’s not heaven or hell. Not even purgatory. I’m still on earth, but removed; everywhere and nowhere at once.

It makes me question . . . what’s next? Or is this it? Will I spend eternity like this, suspended between life and death? I wonder if it’s to do with the suddenness of my demise. The unexpectedness of it. Perhaps someone upstairs is scrambling to complete the paperwork? Or maybe I won’t be going upstairs at all.

I am, after all, no angel.

Max is in my wardrobe again. It’s the second time he’s been in there today. I’m not sure what he’s doing, and judging by his uncertainty he feels the same. He opens a drawer, pushes my underwear to one side, closes it again. What does he expect to find? Then he just steps back and stares at my dresses, my jeans, my neatly folded T-shirts. He’s already looked through the photographs on my camera and those I saved to my computer recently. Clearly he hasn’t found what he’s looking for.

He hasn’t been in the office all week. Not surprising, some might say, given his wife’s unexpected death, but it is surprising to me. The office, after all, is Max’s church. His yoga studio. His place of work, but also his place of equilibrium. In the past twenty-five years, the only time I’ve seen him spend this long away from it was when we were on holiday and after his hernia operation. I wonder if I should be flattered.

It’s the visit from the police that’s got him rattled. The young officers, a man and a woman, arrived a couple of hours ago with my wallet and jewellery and other personal effects. They told Max my car would need to be collected, and they provided its location.

‘It’s on a small residential street, but the residents have been informed that it is there, so there’s no rush. And there are car collection services you can use, if you don’t want to do it yourself.’

They handed him my keys, a heavy bunch made heavier by the brass penguin-shaped keyring I’d added to make it easier to find them in my handbag. Max always laughed at my keys.

‘One day the ignition will fall out under the weight of those things,’ he said, even though it had been years since I’d driven a car that required me to insert keys.

As he took them from the police, he turned them over in his hand. It must have looked like he was examining them with sadness, but I knew better.

‘Where is the USB?’ he asked.

The keyring USB had been a present from Max. It was silver and engraved with my name and had enough capacity to store all of my photographs. USBs had always eluded me; they were impossible to find when you needed them and then lost a moment later. How many times had I strode around the house, asking Max where my USB was?