as he did day after day when he’d see me at the door to his office.
“Ruby!” he’d say. “Come on in.”
He’d stop whatever he was doing and give me all of his attention. Just one look from him and I felt as though I was wrapped in a warm blanket. As though I was home. In Paris he’d told me he loved me. Adored me. He wanted to live with me, to be together forever. And the way he’d looked at me, I’d believed him.
I frowned. Had it just been a ploy to flatter me? Why would he need to do that?
“It’s so easy with you,” he said. I’d laughed and he quickly apologized. “That came out wrong, didn’t it? It’s just that I can be myself with you. I don’t have to think about things or feel as though you’re second-guessing me. I can relax. I haven’t been able to do that for a long time.”
I’d known exactly what he meant. There was a closeness between us by then that I’d never experienced before. There was a song I remembered from when I was young, and the lyrics were something like Everything’s better when you’re around. That’s exactly how I felt. It was as though the world had been sepia and it had suddenly burst into Technicolor and it was all because of him. And I trusted him, pure and simple. I’d known at the time that people would’ve said I was naive, given he was married and having an affair, but I felt as though I knew the real him. I’d truly believed him when he told me he loved me.
I was so angry then, and I picked up my phone, ready to let him have it. I guessed he’d be at work now and I took the risk that I could call him on his mobile. I hesitated, then withheld my number, before dialing his.
“Hello?” I said when the call went through.
“Hello?” It wasn’t Harry; it was a woman. “Who’s calling?”
Suddenly my mouth was dry. “Can I speak to Harry Sheridan, please?”
“Yes, of course.” She sounded pleasant. Happy. “Who’s calling?”
I hesitated. I couldn’t give my own name. I didn’t know what she knew. “Jenny Leonard,” I said then. Jenny was one of my sister’s school friends. I’ve no idea where her name came from right then.
“Just a second, Jenny,” she said. “I’ll call him.” Then I heard her shouting, “Harry? Phone call!”
At the sound of her yelling, I realized that he must be at home. Nobody at work would answer the phone like that. Nobody would shout his name. That must be his wife! Emma. My stomach churned and I thought I was going to be sick. I didn’t want to talk to him now. Not with her there.
Then she was back on the phone. “He won’t be a minute.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’ll have to ring back. Another call’s coming through on my phone. So sorry.”
“I’ll tell him,” she said. “Can he call you back?”
“Thanks,” I said, pretending I hadn’t heard what she said at the end, and hastily switched the phone off.
My hands were wet with perspiration. What if he’d answered and she was standing next to him? What would he have said? My phone rang then—it was from a local landline number I didn’t recognize and my heart leaped.
“Harry?”
“Sorry, darling,” a man said. “It’s Danny here. Can you fit me in tonight at seven?” And then he told me exactly why he wanted to visit me. I could tell from his voice that he was calling from his house, trying not to be overheard by his wife.
He wasn’t Harry but I realized he could have been. If Harry had answered the phone while Emma was in the house, he would’ve spoken just like that man, in a low, deceitful voice, desperate not to be overheard, but desperate, too, to speak illicitly. Privately. I shuddered. This was the reality. There was little difference in the end, when you boiled it right down, between this tosser who was calling strange women and asking to meet up for sex, and Harry, the man