Page 42 of Behind Her Eyes

‘What did you do?’ I ask again, but something in his face makes me wonder if I really want to know. He doesn’t seem to hear me. For a long moment he says nothing and I realise he’s not staring at me, but at something beyond me, something only he can see.

‘You’re fired,’ he says, eventually.

The words, cold and clinical, are so not what I’m expecting that I don’t make any sense of them.

‘What?’ It’s my turn to frown, confused.

‘Hand in your immediate notice tomorrow. By email. I don’t care what reason you give – make something up. You should manage that easily enough.’

I’m stunned. My job? He’s taking my job?

‘And if you think about telling Dr Sykes about our tawdry little affair, then I will show him this.’ He holds up Adele’s phone. ‘And then you’re going to look as obsessive as Anthony Hawkins.’ He leans in close to me, threateningly controlled and quiet. ‘Because only a fucking crazy person would start a secret friendship with the wife of the man they’re fucking.’ He pulls back slightly. ‘And Dr Sykes is a man’s man. He won’t care that I fucked you. But he won’t respect you for fucking me. He’ll find a way to get rid of you himself.’

I’m losing my job. Suddenly, this is all very real. David hates me, I don’t know if Adele’s okay, and now I’ve lost my job. I think back to that first night in the bar where we laughed and drank and he made me feel so alive, and then the tears come thick and fast and fresh and full of self-pity. It’s my mess and I should own it, but knowing that makes me feel worse.

‘You said you loved me.’ I’m pathetic in my mouse-like quiet.

He says nothing to that, but his face is twisted and sour and notmyDavid at all.

I want to cry some more, and what’s worse is that even now, even after it’s all out in the open, I’m still none the wiser about anything. For all my accusations, he hasn’t give me any answers.

‘David, just tell me—’ I start, hating the pleading in my voice, the need to repairsomething.

‘Stay away from me.’ He cuts me off, his voice like ice. ‘Stay away from Adele. Trust me on this, Louise, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from both of us. We are not your business, you understand?’

I nod, a cowed child, the fight gone out of me. What am I fighting for anyway? I can’t undo the things I’ve said, and I’m not entirely sure I want to. I just want answers, and those he won’t give me.

‘I never want to see you again,’ he says. The words are soft but brutal. A kick in the kidneys that leaves me breathless as he turns to go.

And then there is the click of the front door, and I’m alone.

I dissolve, crumpling to the floor, curling in on myself, weeping like a child, long, hard, uncontrollable sobs.

David is so angry. And I can’t even text Adele to warn her.

33

ADELE

He goes for a drink before he comes home. Always the need for a drink with David, but this time I don’t mind. I’d rather he gave himself time to calm down. I make sure that when I hear the front door open I’m sitting at the kitchen table, evidence of tears on my face. I’m not crying, though. He’s had enough of crying women for one night, I imagine.

I maintain my confusion about Louise. I apologise, over and over, for not telling him about my new friend, but I was lonely and I was worried he’d stop me seeing her, and that I was trying to be normal. I thought she’d be good for me. I ask where he went. I ask who she is to him, and why her name made him storm off like that. Of course he doesn’t tell me the truth, although he should really know better by now.

He says she’s one of his patients and watches me carefully for my reaction, testing me. He doesn’t quite buy my innocence here, he knows me too well for that. I let my mouth fall open into a slightly confused, ‘oh’. To be honest, I’m mildly disappointed in him. Even if Ididn’talready know he’d been fucking Louise and she was his secretary, surely this would make me suspicious. Much as I adore David, having one obsessive patient is believable, but two somewhat stretches the boundaries of credibility. Still, all I have to do is play along, so I do.

I ask all the right questions, and he bats answers at me. He doesn’t give the phone back, but his own guilt reeks from his lack of inquisition over our friendship. I feel sorry for Louise – he clearly took most of his anger out on her. But then he’s not used to being angry with her. I’m a whole different story. He doesn’t have the energy to stay in a rage with me any more. It would exhaust him.

‘We should maybe go away for a couple of weeks,’ he says. His shoulders slump as he looks down at the floor. He’s tired. So very, very tired. Of everything. Of me.

‘We can’t do that,’ I say. And, to be frank, we can’t. That doesn’t fit in with my plansat all. ‘You’ve only been at the practice for a few weeks. How would that look? Just move this Louise patient on like you did with that boy.’

‘Maybe for a few days then. So we can talk properly.’ He glances at me then. Suspicion. Nerves. All in that brief look. ‘Decide what we’re going to do.’

Good little Louise has kept our secret, but she mentioned the pills and the phone calls, and he’s wondering how much of that was accidental or whether I orchestrated it somehow.

‘We can’t keep running away,’ I say, all soft reason. ‘Whatever our problems, we should stay and face them.’

He nods, but he’s watching me, thoughtful. It’s Louise who deceived him, but he doesn’t trust me one little bit. Constantly trying to analyse my mood, my thinking, my actions. He’s not convinced I didn’t know who Louise was, but with her lack of confirmation, he can’t prove anything. I can feel the battle lines being firmly marked out between us on our expensive kitchen tiles.

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