certainly giving a good impression of an agony aunt. One of those brisk, no-nonsense ones, Janey decided, who wouldn’t hesitate to tell you what a prat you’d been.
‘Well, Marje,’ she began with a rueful smile, ‘I suppose you could say I got myself involved with the wrong kind of man. I fell for the old chat-up lines, and even managed to convince myself that we weren’t doing anything wrong.’
‘Don’t tell me. He said his wife didn’t understand him.’
‘Quite the reverse. He said Nina understood him only too well, and that she didn’t mind.’
‘Of course.’ Guy’s dark eyebrows twitched with suppressed amusement. ‘And you believed him.’
‘I don’t make a habit of getting involved with attached men,’ Janey protested. ‘I know what you must be thinking, but I’m really not like that. I suppose I believed him because I wanted to.
And he was plausible,’ she added defensively. ‘I’m not trying to excuse myself, I’m just explaining how it happened. It simply didn’t occur to me that he might not be telling the truth.’
‘Until tonight, presumably, when you learned otherwise.’
‘I found out a couple of days ago,’ Janey admitted. ‘I asked Nina.’
‘Good God.’
‘I didn’t tell her!’ she said crossly. ‘I’m not that much of a bitch.’
‘OK. So what happened after you’d made your momentous discovery?’
‘You were there.’ To her shame, she felt fresh tears on her cheeks. ‘You heard the rest. I told Bruno what I thought of him and he retaliated.’ Fumbling for a tissue,she took a deep breath.
‘He ... he hit back where it hurt. I wasn’t expecting him to say what he did.’
‘About your husband?’ Once again, Guy’s tone was reassuringly matter of fact. ‘I didn’t even know you’d been married. How long ago were you divorced?’
‘I’m not divorced,’ said Janey, her voice beginning to break. ‘My husband ... disappeared.
We hadn’t had a fight or anything like that. He just went out one day and n-never came b-b-back.
Nobody knows what happened to him ... We don’t even know if he’s alive or d-d-dead.’
It should have been embarrassing, breaking down in tears all over again in front of a man she barely knew. But Guy took it all in his stride, allowing her to get all the pent-up despair out of her system, making more coffee and showing no sign at all of wanting to slope off.
‘Stop apologizing,’ he said calmly when Janey, lobbing yet another sodden tissue into the waste paper basket, mumbled ‘Oh hell, I’m sorry’ for the fifth time. ‘You haven’t exactly just had the best two years in the world. You’re entitled to cry.’
‘I don’t usually talk about it,’ she admitted in a small voice.
‘You should. It helps to talk.’
‘Did you?’ Janey hesitated, wondering if he would be offended. ‘Talk, I mean. After your wife died.’
‘Probably bored a few close friends rigid,’ said Guy. ‘But they were kind enough not to let it show.’
‘And now here I am, boring you.’
‘Not at all.’ He grinned across at her. ‘If I was hearing it for the twentieth time and knew the words off by heart, then I’d be bored. But I’m being serious, Janey. It doesn’t help, bottling it all up. You really need to get it out of your system.’
‘I know, I know.’ The tears had dried up now, making it easier to speak. ‘But it’s so ...
unfinished. If I knew what had happened, it would help. If Alan had wanted to leave me, why didn’t he just say so? Sometimes I think ... oh hell, it doesn’t matter—’ Mindful of Guy’s own past experience, she bit her tongue before the shameful words could spill out. But he was already nodding in agreement, having understood exactly what she was about to say.
‘Sometimes you think it would be easier if he were dead.’
Plucking at the sequins on her dress, Janey nodded.
‘Of course it would be easier,’ he continued gently, ‘but you can’t put your life on hold while you wait to find out one way or the other. You could carry on like that indefinitely and still not get an answer.’
Beginning to feel like one of those novelty dogs in the backs of cars, Janey nodded again.
Guy’s voice was wonderfully soothing and now that her nose was no longer blocked from crying she was able to taste the hefty measure of brandy he’d added to her coffee.
Guy, however, was really getting into his stride. ‘I’m going to be brutal,’ he said, fixing her with his unnervingly direct gaze. ‘If Alan is dead, he’s dead. If he’s alive, it means he did a particularly cowardly runner. Either way, the marriage is over.’
He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, but Janey still winced. Having clung so fiercely in those first few weeks to the total-amnesia theory, she had neverbeen able to discard it from her subconscious.
‘Yes,’ she replied obediently. ‘I know that.’
‘So what you have to do is put it behind you anyway and rebuild your life.’
Janey managed a brief smile. ‘That’s what I was trying to do. With Bruno.’
‘Heaven help us.’With a rueful shake of his head, Guy said, ‘Now that’s what I call choosing the wrong man for the job.Tell me, who would you go to if you needed brain surgery?
A lumberjack?’
