Page 62 of The Bordeaux Book Club

He nodded.

They sat in silence for a moment. Then he said, ‘One thing I can promise you. I’ll never cheat on you.’

‘Right.’ She still felt uneasy. But she couldn’t exactly tell Nathan he couldn’t see a counsellor because she was female. She herself was in a book club with two men – obviously neither of them appealed to her romantically, but Nathan wouldn’t necessarily know that.

‘So we’re OK?’

She sighed. ‘I don’t know. I think so.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m such an idiot. How long have you… well, suspected something?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. A few weeks… longer maybe. Since Scarlett saw you with someone…’

‘Scarlett did?’ He looked horrified.

‘Yeah, or she thought she did. A while ago, we were driving… Just outside on the street. But she… I could tell she thought something wasn’t right.’

‘Oh, God. No wonder she’s been so off with me.’

Leah caught his eye. ‘I think that might have less to do with you and more to do with her life stage,’ she said. ‘But yes, she said she saw you, and she was so panicked about it, I turned the car around. But then we couldn’t see you.’

Nathan shook his head. ‘Poor girl.’

They sat in silence for a moment. Outside, a tractor rumbled past. In the distance, a dog was barking and, in the fir trees in the field beyond their land, she could hear the rattling sound of a woodpecker doing what woodpeckers do best.

It was so idyllic, so beautiful. So peaceful. Yet in here, in the home they were building together, everything felt jangled, stressful. She wanted to get up from the table, move outside and let the sun warm her skin. And pretend that everything felt alright, that this life they’d chosen was a good fit. That Nathan was definitely faithful.

But the feeling wouldn’t come. She supposed it might, in time.

She set her cup down and looked at him, unwaveringly. ‘Look, I know you’ve reassured me. But… I need to hear it again. Properly. Just promise me you’re not having an affair.’

‘I swear I’m not.’

‘And no more secrets?’

He paused for a moment.

‘Nathan?’

‘I’d never hurt you,’ he said. ‘I promise that.’

Later, when she thought back, she wondered at his choice of words. Reassuring but always skating on the edges of a proper promise. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed that in the moment. But then, you see what you want to, she’d concluded.

‘We’d better have a chat with Scarlett, in that case,’ she said. ‘She’s obviously got to know that nothing is going on.’

‘Agreed.’

Leah stood up and moved closer to the door. ‘Scarlett! Can you come down here?’ she yelled.

‘Why?’ her daughter’s voice called back, muffled by the wooden door, the staircase, the empty hall.

‘Because,’ Leah said, trying to keep her tone even, ‘I asked you to.’

There was a snort of derision, but she heard the bedsprings creak and Scarlett appeared in the kitchen a few moments later, dressed in a black T-shirt and chequered pyjama bottoms. The contrast between the sweet pink of the bottoms and the rebellious defiance of the black top – emblazoned with the word ‘whatever’ – struck Leah. Somewhere under there, under that attitude, that apparent hatred of her mum (and whatever the books said, it really did feel like Scarlett despised her at times), her little girl was still there. At least, she hoped so.

‘What?’ Scarlett said again, her expression dark, eyebrows knitted together, hair adorably tousled, although Leah would never dare describe it that way out loud.

It struck Leah then that they ought to have decided exactly what they were going to say.Daddy’s not having an affairdidn’t sound quite right. After all, she’d already played down the ‘sighting’ to her daughter weeks ago. Scarlett probably had zero idea of what her mother had been worried about – and ‘reassuring’ her now would possibly just freak her out.

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