Page 4 of The Stranger in Room Six
‘Yes,’ I say shakily. Could this be Imran’s wife wondering who just called him?
‘Your husband’s behaviour towards Karen is disgusting,’ spits the voice.
‘Karen?’ I repeat. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Come on. They’re having an affair. Don’t pretend you don’t know.’
I’m so stunned that I’m certain I’ve misheard her. This must be one of those awful hoax calls.
‘They’ve been seeing each other for years,’ she adds.
I don’t normally get angry. But I find myself shouting now.
‘Get off this phone now or I will report you.’
‘Then you’ll be sorry,’ says the voice coldly. ‘I’m a friend of Karen’s. And I don’t like to see her being messed around.’
There’s a click as the woman rings off.
3
The phone rings again within seconds.
‘Right – I reallyamreporting you,’ I’m about to say.
But he gets in first. ‘Just me.’
My husband always uses that phrase on the phone. It irritates me beyond measure, though I can’t pinpoint why.
‘I believe I left my sandwiches behind.’
My husband wants to talk aboutsandwicheswhen a stranger has just called to say he’s having an affair?
The girls and I are always teasing him for his frugality, but his request brings life back to normality; to an ordinariness which, a few minutes ago, I’d been whining about, and yet now feels decidedly comforting.
I’m about to tell him about the prank call. He’d know how to deal with it. Gerald is good at that sort of thing. But his voice interrupts my thoughts.
‘Can you leave them at reception? Sorry, dear, I’ve got a meeting to go to.’
Then he rings off before I can say goodbye.
Dear? That’s not what my husband usually calls me. He’d said it with such warmth, too.
Of course Gerald isn’t having an affair. He isn’t like that.
And nor am I.
Carefully I rip up Imran’s note into long, tidy strips and put them in the bin.
‘Be grateful for what you have.’
That’s what my mother had told me after Gillian, my first, was born and I couldn’t stop weeping. ‘You and Gerald havea child together now. Children need security and your husband can provide that.’
Now, as if on autopilot, I put the breakfast things away, make the beds, slip into my spring coat and leave for Gerald’s office. It’s not far, just a brisk twenty-minute walk into the pretty Hertfordshire town where we’ve lived since the beginning of our marriage.
Despite my earlier conviction that the call was a hoax, I still can’t get those words out of my head. ‘They’ve been seeing each other for years.’ That was impossible. Surely.
When my father left us, my mother would mutter how ‘the quiet ones are the worst’. But just because Dad had been like that, doesn’t mean Gerald is the same, does it? Gerald may be what you call a quiet man, but he’s also steady and dependable. In fact, isn’t that why I accepted his proposal so eagerly? Besides, it wasn’t as if I could marry the man I really wanted …
