My suspicions prove correct. Michaelleaves the room after an hour or so and I move in closer to her side. Shesmells amazing and I take a mental picture of her face in the half light andtry to capture it all so I can recall this moment if I come upon hard timeswhen I’m away.
“Thomas, are you absolutely sure this isfor the best? I am worried about you. I know you’re going there on business butwhat if you run into anyone from your past?”
“We’ve been through all this, it’s fine,don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen, and I’ll check in regularly with you.”
“Well, if you go and see your mother, tellher I’m asking for her. I know she probably won’t know what you’re talkingabout but all the same.”
“Yes, of course I will.”
“You’re not going back to the croft, areyou? I know you don’t like to talk about your upbringing so I don’t fullyappreciate what it was like for you, but I know it wasn’t easy and I wouldworry about you going there, especially on your own.”
“Janey, honestly, I’m going on business sodon’t panic. Yes, I’m hoping I might get some time out and I’ll be able to dosome sightseeing, but I have no plans whatsoever to delve into the past.” Weleave it at that, neither one of us wanting to push it any further. We wereboth keen to end our last night together on a happy note.
Janey
Something just doesn’t feel quite right, and I can’t put myfinger on it. This was quite unlike Thomas to just up and leave for a couple ofweeks on business and at such short notice. And Skye of all places! I don’tlike it and I smell a rat.
Why could his company not draft in someonefrom their Inverness branch, wouldn’t that make much more sense? After all, thesuccessful candidate is to eventually work from the Inverness branch. It didn’tadd up. What did Thomas say? Something about all the experience he’s had in thepast with recruitment so that’s why they’ve asked him to get involved? Yes,don’t get me wrong, Thomas has climbed the ranks within the firm and doneexceptionally well (to have reached Directorship at his age was practicallyunheard of) but he’s not the longest serving member of staff, not by a longshot.
He’s also been acting pretty strangely thesepast few days and it’s quite unsettling. We are used to him being a permanentfixture downstairs, but my usually affable husband has become altogether moresecretive, spending a lot more time on his own.
There is also the matter of his phoneringing late at night, the bleep of messages going back and forth. He thought Iwas sleeping but I was only too aware of what was going on. Has he got himselfinvolved in something and he’s going to sort it out or (God forbid) is hehaving an affair?
This was my Achilles heel. If Thomas wasfound to be cheating on me, I really do wonder if I could possibly stand byhim. I have been sorely tempted to pick up his phone on many occasions, thesuspicious wife on the trail. I can’t decide what’s stopping me, whether it’s thefact that I do trust him, and I’m not prepared to go there, or is it that I’mfrightened of what I might find?
I also think back to a couple of weeks agowhen he’d got up in the middle of the night claiming that he’d thought therewas someone at the door. When I had approached him and laid a hand on hisshoulder, he’d barely registered this. It took him a long time to gatherhimself and when he turned around his face was a spectacle, he looked as thoughhe’d seen a ghost. He did a good job of trying to gloss over why he was there;that he’d heard a noise but ‘not to worry he was mistaken,’ but there was nomistaking the look of horror I saw in his face.
Perhaps most worrying of all was thepostcard. A random postcard depicting famous tourist hotspots on the Isle ofSkye; no stamp or postmark, just the words ‘wish you were here.’ He came upwith a lame excuse about how it must have been posted through our letterbox bymistake. I wasn’t buying this. As a journalist and now editor of a paper I havea naturally inquisitive nature and a good nose for telling when I’m being spuna story, and this felt very much like I was being lied to. I think he knew Iwasn’t taken in with it as he looked rather uncomfortable and flustered when Ispoke to him about it and couldn’t get out of the door quick enough!
Yes, there was no denying something wasup. A very strange postcard of Skye’s beauty spots is discovered crumpled in myhusband’s trouser pocket and the next thing we know he’s off to where – Skye!Pretty coincidental! Also, why did he hold onto the postcard if it was as hesaid, delivered to us in error?
And today when he was preoccupied, I had aquick look through his case. I know I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t helpmyself. Everything looked plausible to start off with, there were shirts andties at the top of the case but on rummaging further through the case I couldfind no trousers or work shoes. There is no way Thomas would attend work or goto a meeting without his work trousers and shoes on. The whole situation had mebaffled.
Itwould be great to think he was simply going on a business trip, but my mind wasbeginning to conjure up all sorts of weird and wonderful conclusions. Do I dareconfront him though? He has given me no cause to doubt his fidelity all theseyears. How could I simply accuse him of potentially cheating on me? Or if itwasn’t that then what was he up to and how would I find out? Thomas certainlyhas skeletons in his closet, that I know for sure. He has only ever given mesnippets about his childhood, and it leads me
