Surprise Me

‘Crazy!’ I say, with a shrill little laugh. ‘Well, here you are. Are you getting cold?’

I hold his phone out to him, but he doesn’t take it. He’s staring, transfixed, at the arbour. He seems lost in … what? Thought? Memories? Memories of him and Mary, aged nineteen, all lithe and idealistic, building their reclaimed arbour?

Shagging in the arbour? When everyone else had gone home?

No. Do not have that thought.

‘What are you thinking about?’ I say, trying to sound light and carefree, thinking, If he says ‘Mary’, I will …

‘Oh.’ Dan comes to and darts an evasive look at me. ‘Nothing. Really. Nothing.’

TEN

It woke something up in me.

I keep recalling Dan’s words, and every time it’s with a sense of foreboding. I can’t stop picturing his transported face. Transported away from me, to some other, golden, halcyon time of scented flowers and honest earthy work and nineteen-year-old girls with radiant smiles and dimples.

Whatever that secret garden ‘woke up in him’, I would be quite keen on it going back to sleep now, thank you very much. I would be quite keen on him forgetting all about the garden, and Mary and whatever ‘different person’ he was back then. Because, newsflash, this isn’t then, it’s now. He’s not nineteen any more. He’s married and a father. Has he forgotten all that?

I know I shouldn’t leap to conclusions without evidence. But there is evidence. I know for a fact that in the five days since we visited the garden, Dan has been utterly preoccupied by Mary. Secretly preoccupied with her, I should clarify. On his own. Away from me.

I’m not a suspicious woman. I’m not. It’s perfectly reasonable for me to glance at my husband’s browsing history. It’s part of the intimate ebb and flow of married life. He sees my used tissues, thrown in the bin – I see the workings of his mind, all there for me to find on his laptop with no attempt at concealment.

Honestly. You’d think he’d have been more discreet.

I can’t decide if I’m pleased or not pleased that he didn’t clear his history. On the one hand it could mean he doesn’t have anything to hide. On the other hand it could mean he doesn’t have any sense of women, or any sense of anything, or even a brain, maybe. What did he think? That I wasn’t going to check his laptop after he revealed a secret long-lost girlfriend with dimples whom he’d failed to mention?

I mean.

He’s searched for her in various different ways: Mary Holland. Mary Holland job. Mary Holland husband. One might ask: Why does he need to know about Mary Holland’s (as it happens, non-existent) husband? But I’m not going to be so undignified as to bring the subject up. I’m not that needy. I’m not that kind of wife.

Instead, I deliberately googled one of my old boyfriends – I typed in Matt Quinton flash job big car really sexy – and left my laptop out on the kitchen table. As far as I could tell, Dan didn’t even notice. He is so annoying.

So then I decided on another tack. I bought a gardening magazine and tried to start a conversation about our garden, and whether we should go for hardy annuals. I persevered for about ten minutes and even used a couple of Latin names, and at the end, Dan said, ‘Hmm, maybe,’ in this absent way.

Hmm, maybe?

I thought he loved gardening. I thought that was his undeclared passion. He should have leaped at the chance to talk about hardy annuals.

And it left a question burning in my mind. A more concerning question. If it wasn’t gardening that he was thinking about so wistfully the other night … what was it?

I haven’t addressed this. Not directly. I just said, ‘I thought you wanted to garden more, Dan?’ and Dan said, ‘Oh, I do, I do. We should make a plan,’ and went off to send some emails.

And now, of course, he’s in a filthy mood because it’s the opening ceremony at the hospital this afternoon and he has to take time off work and dress up super-smart and be nice to my mother and basically all the things he hates most in life.

The girls woke even earlier than usual and begged to play in the garden before school, so Dan and I are sitting in an unusual quietness at breakfast while I tweak my speech about Daddy. I’m lurching between thinking it’s too sentimental, then not sentimental enough. Every time I read it through, I get misty about the eyes, but I’m determined that at the actual event, I am not going to cry. I am going to be a dignified representative of the family.

It is taking me back, though. Life with Daddy was golden, somehow. Or do I mean gilded? I just remember endless summers and sunshine and being out on the boat and corner tables at restaurants and special ice-cream sundaes for ‘Miss Sylvie’. Daddy’s wink. Daddy’s firm hand holding mine. Daddy putting the world to rights.

I mean, OK, he had a few forthright political views that I didn’t totally agree with. And he wasn’t wild about being argued with. I remember arriving at his office once as a child with Mummy and witnessing him tearing into some hapless employee. I was so shocked that tears actually sprang into my eyes.

But Mummy hurried me away and explained that all bosses had to shout at their staff sometimes. And then Daddy joined us and kissed and cuddled me and let me buy two chocolate bars out of the vending machine. Then he took me into a meeting room and told his assembled employees I was going to run the world one day and they all clapped while Daddy lifted my hand up like a champion. It’s one of the best memories of my childhood.

And as for the shouting – well, everyone loses their temper once in a while. It’s simply a human flaw. And Daddy was such a positive force the rest of the time. Such a jolt of sunshine.

‘Dan,’ I say suddenly as I reread my anecdote about Daddy and the golf buggy, ‘let’s go on holiday to Spain next year.’

‘Spain?’ He flinches. ‘Why?’

‘Back to Los Bosques Antiguos,’ I explain. ‘Or nearby, anyway.’

There’s no way we could afford to stay at Los Bosques Antiguos. I’ve looked it up – the houses are way out of our league. But we could find a little hotel and go to Los Bosques Antiguos for the day, at least. Wander among the white houses. Dip our feet in the communal lake. Crush the scented pine needles of the neighbouring forest underfoot. Revisit my past.

‘Why?’ says Dan again.

‘Lots of people go on holiday there,’ I assert.

‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea.’ His face is closed up and tentery. Of course it is. ‘It’s too hot, too expensive …’

He’s talking nonsense. It’s only expensive if we stay somewhere expensive.

‘Flights to Spain are cheap,’ I retort. ‘We could probably find a campsite. And I could go back to Los Bosques Antiguos. See what it’s like now.’

‘I’m just not keen,’ Dan says at length, and I feel sudden fury boiling over.

‘What is your problem?’ I yell, and Anna comes hurtling in from the garden.

‘Mummy!’ She looks at me with wide eyes. ‘Don’t shout! You’ll scare Dora!’

I stare at her blankly. Dora? Oh, the bloody snake. Well, I hope I do scare it. I hope it has a heart attack out of fright.

‘Don’t worry, darling!’ I say as soothingly as I can. ‘I was just trying to make Daddy understand something. And I got a bit loud. Go and play with your stomp rocket.’