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.