Desperately Seeking - By Evelyn Cosgrave Page 0,51

was not the time to talk about it and of course he loved me but it wasn’t as simple as that. I had become the thing he dreaded – an out-of-control woman who could, at any moment, tip the finely balanced equilibrium of his life. I had transformed myself from an easy-going, self-contained, self-fulfilled libertine to a clingy, hysterical wannabe wife. I had really upset his day.

It was over that afternoon. It was only a matter of time before I realized it and he managed to say it out loud. We didn’t have sex again. When I was back home and I was left alone in my flat for the last time, one of the most heartbreaking things was that I couldn’t remember the last time we had kissed truly passionately, truly blissfully. One of the things he said to me was that I couldn’t have expected more from him. I’d known his situation from the beginning. I must have understood it could never be more than it was. I hadn’t expected more: I had discovered more, and discovered that I wanted it.

When we got back to the house Keith’s mother had cleared away the afternoon tea-things and was wondering if we’d like a bit of cold meat and salad as there was plenty left over from lunch. We assured her that we were still full of bread-and-butter pudding and Victoria sponge and, anyway, we had to be getting back. I had a suit to iron and Keith needed to check on the house in Clareview. We said our goodbyes and Irene told us again how delighted she was that we were coming to Breda’s wedding. Just as we were about to go out of the door Tom got up from his chair and strolled out to the car with us.

‘Irene can talk too much at times,’ he said, ‘but she’d never mean any harm.’ He spoke quietly and almost into my ear. His words were meant only for me.

‘Oh, I know,’ I said. ‘There’s no bother.’

‘No, no bother at all. He’s a good lad.’ With that he turned and went back into the house.

We drove straight back to Hartstonge Street. Keith wasn’t really checking on his house and I certainly wasn’t ironing a suit. I felt a casual day coming on – it might only be Monday but my mind was feeling Friday. I’d have to lie low at the back of the office and spend a lot of time in the library. I was getting to the point that I really didn’t care any more. I was begining to wonder how far I would push it. Would I risk a big show-down with my boss? Would I risk getting fired? Would I risk liberating myself from a job I hated? Was I capable of doing anything else?

I was thinking back over all the opportunities I had had to get off this ridiculous roller-coaster – I could have changed course in college when I saw how monumentally boring law was. Pride had prevented me. I could have not gone to Blackhall Place – but it seemed like the obvious thing to do once I had a law degree. I could have left the profession after any one of the three times I’d failed my professional exams. Pride had got me again. I could have not gone into the cushy job my dad had lined up for me when I got back from my year and a half of travelling. I could have left that job on any one of the days that followed on which I felt like an incompetent misfit. Yet I was still at the firm of O’Sullivan and Woulfe, feeling ever more incompetent and ever more of a misfit.

My conversation with Mike was the first time I had ever seriously contemplated packing it in. The idea was so huge, so scary, I didn’t know if I had the courage to go through with it.

As soon as we got back to the flat I ran a bath, pouring into it half a bottle of something blue and fragrant that Clarins promised would soothe away my troubles. It dawned on me as I sat on the edge of the tub that I didn’t have any troubles, yet I couldn’t shake off the general malaise that had overtaken me on the drive home. I felt as if I’d been drinking on an empty stomach all afternoon, and now I’d sobered up enough to feel tired, hungry and slightly hung-over.