Surprise Me

God, I hate the internet.

I especially hate the photo of Mary Holland that pops up every time I google her. She looks like an angel. She’s beautiful, successful and basically perfect all round. She runs an environmental consultancy and she’s done a TED talk on emissions and is on some House of Commons committee and she’s run the London Marathon three times. In all the photos I can find of her, she’s wearing what look like eco clothes – lots of natural linens and ethnic-looking cotton tops. She has clear pale skin and blunt yet gorgeous features and wavy dark hair (she’s got rid of the frizz) which sits around her face in a pre-Raphaelite cloud. Dimples when she smiles, obviously. Plus a single silver ring which she does not wear on her left hand.

Previously, I might have thought: Well, she’s not Dan’s type. All his other exes are more like me – fine-featured, fairly conventional and mostly blonde. But clearly she is his type. Clearly I know my husband far less well than I thought I did. He’s into gardening. He has a bunch of old friends I’ve never heard of. He fancies dark-haired girls in eco clothes. What else?

Dan, meanwhile, seems to have no idea what I’m going through. He seems locked in his own little bubble, preoccupied and even snarly. So, last night I decided I had to take action. I had to break through this weird vibe between us. At supper I produced notepads and pens and said, as brightly as I could, ‘Let’s each choose a new hobby for next year. Then we’ll compare and contrast.’

I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I thought it might trigger some light-hearted discussions or at least loosen the atmosphere.

But it didn’t work. Dan just scowled and said, ‘Jeez, Sylvie, really? I’m knackered.’ Then he took his supper off to eat in front of the computer, which is something we really try not to do, because we’ve always said couples who don’t eat together …

Anyway.

I don’t often cry. But I did blink away a couple of tears, because he sounded so hostile. So impatient. So un-Dan-like.

And now it’s Friday and we’re having breakfast and Dan’s just told me he has to work all weekend.

‘All weekend?’ I say, before I can stop myself. I’m aware I sound plaintive and even a bit whiny, which is something I always swore I’d never be.

‘Huge project,’ Dan says, draining his coffee. ‘I need all my wits to focus on it.’

‘Is that the Limehouse one?’ I say, trying to show an interest. ‘I’d love to see the drawings.’

‘No.’ Dan shrugs on his jacket.

No. Just no. Really charming, Dan.

‘Oh, and I’ve done an extra supermarket order,’ he adds. ‘For this supper party I’m having on Tuesday.’

‘Really?’ I peer at him in surprise. ‘That’s very forward-thinking of you.’

‘It’s all arriving on Monday,’ he continues as though I haven’t spoken. ‘I’ll do the Ottolenghi lamb recipe; you know, the slow roast one with all the spices.’

The slow-roast Ottolenghi lamb. The recipe he rolls out for special occasions or when he wants to impress. And I know Tilda would say I’m overreacting, but I can’t help it. My chest is burning with hurt. He hasn’t got time to spend at home with his family, but he has got time to plan a menu and do an Ocado order and make slow-roast Ottolenghi lamb?

‘That’ll be nice.’ I try to sound pleasant. ‘Quite a lot of effort, though, just for some old friends you haven’t seen for ages.’

‘It’s no effort.’ His eyes are light and unreadable. ‘See you later.’

He kisses me in a perfunctory way and heads to the door, just as Tessa comes charging in.

‘What’s your wish?’ she says, holding a piece of paper up at him. ‘What’s your wish? Your wish, Daddy?’

Oh God. I’d forgotten about that. The girls’ homework task was all about wishes. Anna’s began My mummy’s wish is: and I carefully spelled out ‘world peace’ for her, rather than ‘to know what the fuck is up with my husband’.

‘What’s your wish, Dan?’ I echo her. ‘We’re all waiting with bated breath.’

And if there’s a challenging, almost searing note in my voice, then so be it. Let him pick up on it any way he wishes. (Except, let’s be truthful, he won’t pick up on it at all. He never picks up on searing notes in voices, or sidelong glances, or pointed pauses. It’s all for my own benefit.)

Dan takes the piece of paper and scans it briefly.

‘Oh, I see. Well. I wish …’ He stops as his phone buzzes, glances at it, then winces and shoves it away again. Usually I’d ask, ‘What’s wrong?’ but today there’s no point. I know the reply I’d get: ‘Nothing.’

‘What is your wish, Daddy?’ demands Tessa. ‘What is your wish?’ She’s sitting at the kitchen table, pencil poised over her sheet.

‘I wish that … I could …’ Dan speaks slowly, distractedly, as though his mind is grappling with some other, far-off problem.

‘How do you spell “could”?’ asks Tessa promptly, and I spell it out, because it’s obvious Dan isn’t paying attention. The morning sun is catching the fine lines etched around his eyes. His gaze is distant and he looks almost bleak.

‘Could what?’ Tessa is banging her pencil on her sheet. ‘Could what?’

‘Escape,’ Dan says, so absently that I wonder if he’s even aware he said it. My stomach clenches in dismay. Escape?

‘Escape?’ Tessa surveys him as though suspecting a grown-up joke. ‘You’re not in a cage, Daddy! People who escape are in a cage!’

‘Escape.’ Dan comes to and sees me staring at him. ‘Escape!’ he repeats in a more upbeat tone. ‘Escape to the jungle and see the lions. I have to go.’

‘That’s a stupid wish!’ Tessa calls after him as he disappears towards the front door.

‘Just write see some lions,’ I tell Tessa, trying to stay calm. But my voice is shaky. My whole being is shaky. Dan wants to escape? Well, thanks for the heads-up.

It’s my turn to do the school run this morning, and I’m so distracted, I drive the wrong way, twice.

‘Why are we going this way, Mummy?’ says Tessa beadily from the back seat.

‘It’s nice to try different things,’ I say defensively. ‘Otherwise life gets boring.’

The minute the words are out of my mouth, I realize their ghastly significance. Is Dan ‘trying different things’? Is Mary a ‘different thing’?

I don’t quite know what’s happened to me. I feel like a pinball machine. Suspicions and worries and theories are careering around my brain in a way they never have before. I trusted Dan. I knew Dan. We were us. Solid. So what’s changed?

Or am I inventing problems for myself? The idea hits me as I head into a snarl of traffic, all heading to school. It’s entirely possible. Maybe I’m Othello, obsessing over a handkerchief. Dan is totally innocent, yet my irrational jealousy is an unstoppable force and I’ll only realize it, in anguish, once I’ve killed him. (Divorced him and got the children and the house. It’s the Wandsworth equivalent.)

My head is spinning more than ever. What would Tilda say? She’d say, ‘Focus on what you actually know.’ So. OK. Here goes. I know that I encouraged Dan to be adventurous. (Huge mistake; what was I thinking?) I know that something ‘woke up inside him’. I know that he’s cooking Mary his flashest lamb recipe and suggested that I be out of the house for the evening. I know he googled Mary Holland husband. And, of course, now I know he ‘wants to escape’.