The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [59]
‘I… yes. I felt terrible. Worse. So I decided – we, decided, we talked about it – that that was it. I switched my tutorial with her to another student, she had another don so I didn't have to see her, and she stopped taking my lectures. Changed to Metaphysical Poets. And then a few weeks later, she just wasn't there any more. I realized she'd gone. I asked another student, a friend of hers, casually, in the cloisters one day, and was told she'd gone home. Back to Sheffield. Was homesick, or something, thought Oxford was too much for her. I hoped she'd transferred to a northern university, was reading English up there.’
‘And you never checked? Never found out?’
‘No.’
‘And have you thought about her since?’
‘No!’ He turned, almost frightened. He came across the room to me, took my hands in his. His eyes were wide, pleading. ‘I mean, once or twice, obviously, but no, I've been happily married to you, Evie, ever since. It was over seventeen years ago! I've never looked at another woman, truthfully, since then. Not in that way. It was something I needed to get out of my system, I suppose.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘A last hurrah, call it what you will. The final nerves of a single man about to go down for life – I don't think that's so unusual.’
No. It wasn't that unusual. What was unusual were the circumstances. I took my hands from his; walked back to the bed. My legs were a bit wobbly. I needed to sit down. I ran my hands through my hair. Then I shut my eyes and covered them with my hands in an effort to think. I pressed my fingertips into my sockets. Then I dropped them, turned to face him.
‘What was her name, Ant?’
As I said it, I saw something pass across his eyes. Something wary. A shadow. I watched his eyes slither to the window. Ant's eyes didn't slither about like that. Some colour rose in his cheeks. He swallowed.
‘Isabella,’ he whispered. ‘Her name is Isabella.’
I flinched as if I'd been struck. I stared at him, horrified.
‘Isabella? Anna Isabella? You called our child after her?’
I gazed at him incredulously. He looked helpless, caught.
‘Evie, look. It wasn't like that. I just liked the name, I…’
I needed something to throw, to hurl, and I needed it quickly. I'd never had the physical urge to hurt before, but I had it now, and as I got to my feet I picked up the first thing that came to hand. A jar of moisturizer, as it happened. L'Oréal, because I'm worth it. It was on my dressing table – small, round, but good and heavy – and I hurled it at his head. Happily he saw it coming, ducked, and it went flying through the window behind him with a spectacular smash, glass flying everywhere, sailing out to the empty street below.
I wasn't far behind. Not through the window, obviously, but seizing my bag and my car keys from a chair, I ran from the room, slamming the door behind me. But a moment later I was back, hurtling across to face my husband again, to deliver my parting shot.
‘Well, you're not trapped now, Ant!’ I screamed in his face. ‘You're free as a bird. Why don't you sod off to Sheffield?’ I was shaking with anger. Positively vibrating with rage. ‘Sod off to your ready-made family up there, to your other daughter, the mother of your other child, why don't you? You could slot in just like that!’ I snapped my fingers in his face.
He stood there, white and shaken, gazing at me dumbly. Then I turned and left. Across the landing, down the stairs, jumping the last two steps, and into the front hall, just as an astonished Anna, who'd walked back from her piano lesson, was coming into the kitchen via the back door. She unwound a silk scarf from her neck, put her music down on the kitchen table, and gazed at me, astonished.
‘What's wrong?’
‘Ask your father!’ I snarled.
I exited via the front door, slamming it hard behind me.
13
Outside in the street I stood for a second on the pavement, holding my head. I had to, actually: thought it might come off; felt I might go pop. The houses opposite were swaying alarmingly and I knew I was hyperventilating so I took a few