The Loving Husband Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyebrows went up. ‘Well,’ he said, and they were on their feet. ‘We’ll talk about it again. In the morning.’
    She could hear them moving about outside as she set Ben in his cot and walked, almost catatonic, from room to room, pulling curtains closed, checking bolts, going back to do it again. She went in to the bathroom.
    His razor sat on the basin, in a small puddle of soap not yet dry. He must have shaved before he went out and the sight did something to her. Because not knowing how she got there, suddenly she was on her knees, she was crouched under the basin, shaking and retching and it was there, folded into a foetal crouch, that she finally let go and slept. She woke some time later to creep on stiff, cramped legs into their bed and as she drifted back her last thought was that everything was changed, even the air in their bedroom, even the sheets, he was gone.

Chapter Four
Monday, still
    Pregnant with Emme she’d had bad nights, long, long nights with strange dreams. One morning when she rolled out of bed tetchy and spoiling for a fight, as big as a cow or so she felt, as swollen and shapeless as a field animal, Fran had heard a cool warning note in his voice, his back turned to her as he made her tea.
    ‘Are you OK?’ Patiently.
    If she opened her eyes Nathan would be there now. He was standing with his back to her in the corner of the room.
    It was light, and Emme was tugging at her shoulder. Groggily she surfaced, she tried to smile into Emme’s anxious face, then suddenly she was wide awake, and bolt upright, she was at the window. The day had come.
    Just visible through the skeleton of the barn was a tented structure, gleaming blue-white in the thin grey morning. ‘Mummy, is it late?’ she heard from behind her, and her hand to her head she turned.
    ‘Ben,’ she said. The red lights on the clock said 8.20. ‘What’s happened to Ben? He should—’
    Her face still crumpled from sleep, Emme looked confused, ‘Mummy?’ she said, head on one side. Then frowning, ‘You covered him all up, you silly.’ Fran turned to look to where Emme pointed, to the bed, and for a heartbeat she didn’t understand, then she did.
    Under the quilt Ben was flushed, but with the cool air he stirred. He was breathing. Her throat constricted, Fran stopped herself snatching him up and shaking him awake. ‘Silly,’ she said, trying to smile, calm, but in her head it whirred, calculated, recalculated. How, when . She must have woken in the night, gone and got him more or less in her sleep and brought him back to bed with her. She remembered standing at the window, but she couldn’t remember getting Ben – had she already got him? She tried to recover a single detail but she couldn’t: the thought was frightening. And if she’d been that oblivious she could have smothered him. He stirred on the pillow and she whispered to Emme, ‘Go and find your school clothes, baby, go on.’
    She saw Emme, as she retreated to the doorway, small as she was, taking in all the altered detail of their life without knowing it until she paused, solemn, and settled on her question.
    ‘Where’s Daddy?’
    From outside there was the sound of footsteps on the gravel; it gave Fran the smallest opportunity to look away, anywhere but at the small frown line between Emme’s pale, wide-set eyes. She got up from the bed and knelt close to her, putting her cheek against Emme’s. ‘He hurt himself, darling. He fell over and hurt himself and he had to go in the ambulance. He was very poorly.’
    She felt Emme pulling away, and released her.
    ‘Can we go and see him?’ said Emme, her mouth stubborn, and as for a long moment they looked at each other, Fran realised she was hoping, waiting for her to work it out for herself. She thought of Nathan and Emme, side by side on the sofa, staring up at her.
    ‘Not at the moment,’ she said. Fran didn’t want control of this moment, this pivotal moment in Emme’s small life, but she had no