‘qualified’ for further investigation, as if she had achieved something. But she hadn’t wanted it. She hadn’t wanted anyone to touch her, didn’t want to have to revisit those bleak hours. Didn’t want evidence of what she suspected.
And Mac, whom she’d hoped would break through her anger and tears, whom she’d hoped would hold her, reassure her, simply retreated. It was as if he couldn’t cope with her pain, or with the snotty, messy Natasha who didn’t get out of bed for a week and wept every time she saw a baby on the television.
By the time she had hauled herself together she felt betrayed. He had not been there when she needed him. It had only occurred to her long afterwards that he, too, might have been suffering. But by then it was too late. At the time she could see only that he chose to travel to another assignment, shouting at her, when she complained, that he couldn’t win, that she was always going on at him to do something. Their sex life grew non-existent. She became super-efficient, handling everything with icy resolve, and feeling furious with him when he couldn’t.
And all the while the girls kept ringing. Coquettish voices with Slavic accents, insolent teenagers who seemed indignant when he wasn’t there. ‘They’re just work,’ he would insist. ‘Those portfolios are my bread-and-butter. You know I don’t even like doing them.’
Given the lack of intimacy between them, she wasn’t sure what to believe. And all the while there was Conor – Conor with the brilliant legal brain, who understood disastrous marriages because of the spectacular collapse of his own. ‘A little matter of serial infidelity on my part,’ he would say. ‘God knows, some women are so unreasonable.’ She could see the pain behind the cheery mask, and something in her reached out to it, saw her own life echoed in it.
They had begun to have lunch together, so regularly that it was noticed in the office. Then it was the odd drink after work. What was the harm, when Mac was never around? Sometimes she felt that her flirting with Conor was justified. Mac was probably flirting with someone else right then, in some glamorous location. But when Conor leant across the pub table one night and lightly placed his lips on hers, she withdrew. ‘I’m still married, Conor,’ she said, wondering even as she spoke why she had included still. And wishing she hadn’t wanted so badly to return the kiss.
‘Ah. You can’t blame a lonely soul for trying,’ he said, and took her out to lunch the next day.
It wasn’t long before she came to rely on him. She didn’t feel guilty; it seemed of no consequence to Mac whether she was nice to him or not. They weren’t even arguing any more: their life together had settled into a series of polite enquiries and rebuttals, anger simmering under the surface, from where occasionally, it erupted into something that made him turn away or slam another door.
Their party, long planned, had originally been meant to celebrate Mac finishing the house, to herald their emergence from dust-sheets and plasterboard into something not just beautiful but aspirational. By then she hadn’t wanted to throw a party – she felt they had little to celebrate. But to cancel it seemed to make such a definitive statement that she felt she could not.
There were caterers and a four-piece band in the garden. To an outsider it might have seemed she and Mac were a dream couple, with Mac’s set, photographers with gazelle-like models and her legal friends mingling, their laughter lifting over the high brick walls. She had realised she should use it as a networking opportunity and, still slightly amazed to be living in a house so large and so smart, knew that the presence of this head of chambers or that QC did her no harm at all. The champagne flowed, the music played, the London sun filtered into the small marquee they had set up at the end of the garden. It was a golden scene.
And she was utterly
And Mac, whom she’d hoped would break through her anger and tears, whom she’d hoped would hold her, reassure her, simply retreated. It was as if he couldn’t cope with her pain, or with the snotty, messy Natasha who didn’t get out of bed for a week and wept every time she saw a baby on the television.
By the time she had hauled herself together she felt betrayed. He had not been there when she needed him. It had only occurred to her long afterwards that he, too, might have been suffering. But by then it was too late. At the time she could see only that he chose to travel to another assignment, shouting at her, when she complained, that he couldn’t win, that she was always going on at him to do something. Their sex life grew non-existent. She became super-efficient, handling everything with icy resolve, and feeling furious with him when he couldn’t.
And all the while the girls kept ringing. Coquettish voices with Slavic accents, insolent teenagers who seemed indignant when he wasn’t there. ‘They’re just work,’ he would insist. ‘Those portfolios are my bread-and-butter. You know I don’t even like doing them.’
Given the lack of intimacy between them, she wasn’t sure what to believe. And all the while there was Conor – Conor with the brilliant legal brain, who understood disastrous marriages because of the spectacular collapse of his own. ‘A little matter of serial infidelity on my part,’ he would say. ‘God knows, some women are so unreasonable.’ She could see the pain behind the cheery mask, and something in her reached out to it, saw her own life echoed in it.
They had begun to have lunch together, so regularly that it was noticed in the office. Then it was the odd drink after work. What was the harm, when Mac was never around? Sometimes she felt that her flirting with Conor was justified. Mac was probably flirting with someone else right then, in some glamorous location. But when Conor leant across the pub table one night and lightly placed his lips on hers, she withdrew. ‘I’m still married, Conor,’ she said, wondering even as she spoke why she had included still. And wishing she hadn’t wanted so badly to return the kiss.
‘Ah. You can’t blame a lonely soul for trying,’ he said, and took her out to lunch the next day.
It wasn’t long before she came to rely on him. She didn’t feel guilty; it seemed of no consequence to Mac whether she was nice to him or not. They weren’t even arguing any more: their life together had settled into a series of polite enquiries and rebuttals, anger simmering under the surface, from where occasionally, it erupted into something that made him turn away or slam another door.
Their party, long planned, had originally been meant to celebrate Mac finishing the house, to herald their emergence from dust-sheets and plasterboard into something not just beautiful but aspirational. By then she hadn’t wanted to throw a party – she felt they had little to celebrate. But to cancel it seemed to make such a definitive statement that she felt she could not.
There were caterers and a four-piece band in the garden. To an outsider it might have seemed she and Mac were a dream couple, with Mac’s set, photographers with gazelle-like models and her legal friends mingling, their laughter lifting over the high brick walls. She had realised she should use it as a networking opportunity and, still slightly amazed to be living in a house so large and so smart, knew that the presence of this head of chambers or that QC did her no harm at all. The champagne flowed, the music played, the London sun filtered into the small marquee they had set up at the end of the garden. It was a golden scene.
And she was utterly
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