Junction X by Erastes (best autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

see you. One o’clock? Yes, if you want, you don’t have… All right, then. I submit to your superior taste buds. See you then.” She put the phone down and walked back into the kitchen.

I stalked after her. “You rang him?”

“Yes, I did. And why shouldn’t I? He was delighted to be asked and said he’d thought he’d done something to annoy you.”

“I don’t like you discussing me with him.”

She reached down and put the meat in the oven. “Why on earth not? And why are you being so defensive? I can’t wait to hear the truth about that night out you’ve been so secretive about.”

I could feel the heat of a guilty blush starting again, creeping up from my collar. “I’m not being defensive. I told you before. Phil had a good time, I didn’t.”

“That’s not what he says.”

“What did he say?” I was nettled, and off-guard. Phil and I had hardly spoken since my asking for an alibi that Saturday night; I’d kept away from him because he’d wanted details of my ‘girlfriend’ and I wasn’t likely to go telling him anything at all. So we’d never arranged a cover story about the nightclub.

“Nothing, really. He hinted that you’d been dancing with some beehived beauty or other, that was all.”

“He should keep his mouth shut,” I muttered.

“Oh, he’s promised to tell me the whole sordid story at lunch.”

I opened my mouth. Then I shut it again and walked out. Back in my study, I cursed my short-sightedness not to have had an extra phone line there. I would have called Phil and got some details of his story from him. Or put him off. I had a very bad feeling about this sudden burst of friendship between him and my wife.

I sat and stared at the side of Alex’s house, hoping for a sight of him, just a glimpse—a reckless wave through a window, anything. I was unlucky. There was no sign of him. The mystery was solved when I went outside to open the gates for Phil’s arrival and noticed that the Charles’s car was missing.

“I think they said they were going to visit friends in London,” Valerie said, as we got changed.

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know, for certain. I just vaguely remember Sheila saying that she hadn’t seen her sister since they moved here. Why should you know?”

I hesitated, caught out in my pettiness, without a glib lie to hand. I knew I sounded sulky, even as I spoke. “I thought they might have said.”

She came around in front of me. “Is this about Alec?”

This time I turned away, fast. The blush hit me hard, cold and violent. I opened the wardrobe door and peered inside a drawer, pretending to look for cufflinks. “No. Why do you say that?”

“Trains, darling. You spend far too much time with him and his trains. Honestly, you men never grow up, do you?” She laughed that silvery taunting laugh I knew so well, leaving me behind, sweating and shaking.

Lunch. It stands out in my mind as a turning point, when I started to be aware of the chasm between me and my old life. There was a surface me now, and that was all that I could give to my wife and my friend: surface, but no substance. What’s ironic is that no one noticed for such a long time. There I was thinking I was oh-so-different, and no one even noticed.

Chapter 19

It was a little like being with clients, that lunch. Like playing poker with emotions. Finding the chinks in the armour and guarding against your own. Conversations with people you had some things in common with.

I took the offensive at first, greeting Phil with a hail-fellow-well-met, and being suitably impressed with the wine he’d brought. But Phil was clearly there to outflank me, and before long, he had Valerie firmly on his side. Throughout the meal he was charming and entertaining. The children laughed at his stories of grumpy clients and impressions of various board members, which he play-acted for their amusement.

After lunch, Valerie banished them upstairs, and the atmosphere changed. Phil played the grass-widower well, and even though Valerie was loyal enough not to gossip about Claire to Phil’s face, she understood that, as Claire had moved on, so should he.

“Are you…” she hesitated, twirling her small dessert wine glass, “making any arrangements?”

“There’s no need to be coy,” he said. “Divorce?” He sat back with a sigh as she gave a brittle, unsmiling nod. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it a hundred times.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I could. But…”

Val threw him a look which had a lot of sympathy in it and rose, waving us back down. “Stay here and finish your wine.”

“Let’s go to your study,” Phil said, picking up the bottle. As we stood, he caught my eye and grinned. “You can tell me about the birds in the garden.”

When the study door was shut, he made himself comfortable on the Chesterfield and waited for me to sit down. “Well? I thought you’d have rung me by now.”

“It’s not something I could talk about on the phone.”

He threw the cork at me. “Eddie. Don’t be obtuse. To make an arrangement to come around, or go out somewhere.”

“And we weren’t sent in here to discuss me, anyway. I’m supposed to be giving you a shoulder to cry on.”

“Let’s just pretend we’ve already done that. This is far more interesting. If one of us is getting some, I may as well live vicariously. Come on, Eddie, you can’t keep me in the dark. I’m covering for you. What’s happening? It’s been weeks since I’ve even heard from you. Is it all off, or what?”

I told him to keep his voice down.

“Well, tell me then.” He raised his voice. “Or I’ll shout!”

“All right!” There wasn’t any way out of it now. “Just as long as you look suitably talked-to when Val brings the coffee in.”

He grinned