• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1263 0

kept waiting to be set upon by a group of frenzied animal liberationists. We had shark’s fin soup, and abalone and sea cucumber and whole fish and suckling pig and one dish that contained something that looked alarmingly like thin slices of a large animal’s penis (not out of the question that this would be on the menu) that I was later informed was pig’s trotter. I bravely tried everything on offer except the roast baby pigeon. I kept thinking about them pooping around Hyde Park fountain and got creeped out by their little carcasses, which earned me a sneer of condescension from our host. He kept trying to get the waiter to fill up everyone’s wine glass at every occasion too, in an attempt to get us all drunk. I explained to him with what I hoped was witheringly obvious sarcasm, ‘it might be alright for you to turn up to work half-pissed tomorrow but I have a responsible job to attend to, looking after my child.’

As luck would have it, Roger closed right in on Tony and droned on to him all evening, only interrupting his monologue occasionally to pass judgement on the menu, ply us with alcohol and helpfully comment to my husband, ‘I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes - first 9/11 and then SARS, and now the way oil prices are heading, well…It’s clearly an industry with its best days behind it.’ Tony’s face looked pinched with annoyance but he kept his mouth shut and I admired his forbearance in avoiding a punch up. I kept trying to catch his eye all night to commiserate, but he didn’t look in my direction very much at all.

As we were boarding the return ferry I spied a couple of seats away from all the others so I grabbed his hand and careered towards them, apologising to Lily as I went past, ‘I get a bit motion sick so we’re going to take those seats down the front.’ Relieved to have twenty-five minutes’ breathing space from Roger, I plonked down in the seat and whispered to Tony, ‘Sorry about that.’

‘About what?’

‘The whole evening - having to be ear-bashed by Roger the pompous prick. I’ll try and spare you in future.’

‘It’s okay. I did what you said and didn’t listen.’

‘What about all that crap he was going on with about the airline industry? Here’s me thinking you were about to kill him. What’s with you tonight? Have I done something to annoy you or something?’

‘No, no…just tired,’ he said, but he was definitely not there with me. He draped an arm around my shoulders, but even that seemed a distracted gesture. I gave myself a figurative smack in the head for not making that appointment with the couples’ counsellor I’d been recommended.

Tony didn’t speak again until we straggled off the ferry at the other end. We couldn’t avoid the walk back home with our hosts, but by this time Roger was feeling ‘off’ from all the wine he’d drunk and no-one seemed inclined to talk.

We’d organised for Myrna to stay overnight and she and Isabel were both asleep when we arrived home. Tony walked straight to our bedroom while I checked on Issy. As I retrieved her favourite teddy from the floor and tucked it in next to her I was struck by the first real twinges of anxiety I’d had since we’d arrived. Was I imagining it or was a barrier being erected again?

I entered our bedroom trying to will myself to talk to him: communication, communication - it was all about communication and it was clearly my responsibility to push it. I was just about to open my mouth when he walked over to me, took me in his arms in a tight clutch, and said, ‘I’m sorry about being a bore tonight. But I do love you, you know. I am so happy to have my girls here.’

He had told me he loved me. Unprompted. Something he’d never done before. I think he was trying to reassure me but it had the opposite effect.

He held me way too tight, you see. So tight it almost hurt.

He was afraid he was losing his grip on me.

And why would he be worried about that?

I left our ensuite door open as I removed my makeup and in the reflection of the mirror I saw him do something else he had never done before. He put his mobile phone inside the drawer of his bedside table, rather than