Page 7 of The Affair
‘A bit. You could see he was getting upset.’
He sighed. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
Connie went over and put her arms round him. For a moment they embraced in silence. She felt his body almost limp against hers, as if the life had gone out of him. Pulling back, she looked into his face and saw tears in his eyes.
‘I don’t know … I just can’t seem to get anything right these days.’
She wanted to say that was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. She wanted to reiterate that he should get help, but she knew it would be pointless. She had a strong urge to shake him and make him wake up to what was going on, but she knew that was cruel and would be completely unhelpful. So she just hugged him again, until she heard her daughter talking to Ash in the hall.
Connie pushed Bash in the buggy as they made their way down the high street in the direction of the sub-post office and the Wells road, where they would turn right and come back into the village on a loop. It was a cool, breezy day, the spring sun briefly warm on their faces as it emerged from behind the scudding clouds. Ash strolled ahead, hands in his jacket pockets, seemingly deep in thought.
‘Dad’s in a right old state,’ Caitlin said.
‘Oh … I thought he’d been OK over the weekend.’
‘Really, Mum?’ Caitlin glanced at her, eyes wide.
‘Well, yes. Until the pen incident … and he didn’t mean to get at Bash.’
‘Mum! He looks dreadful,’ her daughter said, clearly shocked at Connie’s blindness. ‘Sort of defeated, don’t you think? And unnecessarily snippy all the time.’
She sighed. ‘Maybe I’m just used to it.’
‘Can’t you talk to that new doctor Dad was carping on about?’
Connie snorted. ‘And get us both killed?’
They turned the corner, Ash now a long way ahead.
‘So whatareyou going to do?’
She shrugged, mildly irritated that her daughter thought she could wave a magic wand and make Devan happy again. ‘I’ve suggested a million things he might enjoy. Things that keep him in the medical loop, where he can use his substantial know-how. All of which he’s aware of himself, of course. But I irritate him enough as it is, just by asking him, for instance, to take Riley for a walk or have the occasional shower.’
They walked on in silence. Connie greeted someone she knew, who was raking old leaves from the flowerbed near his fence as they passed. Riley barked at their snuffling old pug, which gave a half-hearted woof in response.
‘He’ll be OK, once he’s adjusted,’ Connie said finally.
‘And his back?’
‘I’m pretty sure that’s not as bad as he makes out. He’s using it as an excuse not to do anything at the moment. But, of course, the less he does, the worse it’ll get.’
Caitlin put her arm round Connie’s shoulders as they walked. She was taller than her mother, with shiny dark auburn – almost plum – hair and her father’s deep-set blue eyes in an intelligent, open face. ‘Very tough on you, all this,’ she said, giving her a squeeze.
‘We’ll get through it,’ Connie replied. ‘We always do.’
But she realized, despite her confident words, that there hadn’t been anything very significant to ‘get through’ till now. Their marriage simply hadn’t been tested.We’ve been lucky, she thought, looking back on decades during which they had shared their life on a mostly even keel. She felt a pang of self-pity. She spent so much time trying to work around Devan’s moods, these days, but it was wearing her down. And she didn’t even have her mum to confide in any more.
Connie thought back wistfully to the night they had met. She had been just twenty-four and had gone to Glastonbury with her American friend, Gaby. It was the first time the festival had been called ‘Glastonbury’ and the first year of the new Pyramid stage, which looked huge and impressive but was actually shed-work standard: metal sheeting and telegraph poles. Gaby was a dedicated Hawkwind fan and although Connie was a bit vague about space rock – her preference being Motown – she went along because she loved music, loved dancing, loved meeting new people.
But Gaby had surreptitiously taken one of the many unidentified substances circulating in the summer darkness and had suddenly begun to sweat and puke, becoming quickly disoriented. Connie, realizing thatsomething was very wrong, managed to stagger for what seemed like miles through the swaying, intoxicated crowds, the cold, churned-up mud squelching between her toes, clutching her limp friend against her shoulder, until she reached the medical tent on the outer edges of the field, where she almost threw Gaby into the volunteer doctor’s arms.
Devan and the nurse – who seemed to be the one in charge and way more experienced than the trainee doctor – took over, while Connie stared anxiously on, although Gaby was already coming round by the time they reached the tent.
To tell the truth, Connie was quickly distracted from her friend’s drama as she basked in the beam of Devan McCabe’s extraordinary, reassuring smile. It was as if she herself had been drugged, aware that she couldn’t help gazing back into those blue eyes. He’d looked so funny, so conservative and self-conscious in his tidy jeans and blue shirt, compared to the drunken, barefoot, T-shirt-and-shorts mob outside the tent. She wanted to hug him.
This is only a passing phase, she told herself now. But she was conscious of a new wariness when she was around her husband, these days. He was pushing her away and she was worried about losing the strength – and inclination – to push back.
Another tour beckoned in a week, which Connie decided would do her the world of good. She couldn’t keep worrying about what Devan was up to while she was gone. She had to focus on her job, enjoy her timeaway. Maybe by looking after herself, she’d feel stronger and better able to sympathize with Devan when she was at home.
