← Back
Hannah looked at me for a long moment. Then she kissed my forehead and said, “Okay. If you say so,” and turned over and slept.
I didn’t say so. I just didn’t say anything else.
For five days I became the most polite man in England. I ate toast standing up. I did my bookkeeping at the library. I left the room when Jess laughed. Hannah worked nights and slept days, and Jess drifted round the house in her pyjama shorts with her curls tied up, wounded and confused.
On Friday night I came downstairs at midnight for a beer and found her at the table in a vest top and nothing else but knickers, her washing steaming on the radiator behind her. She’d been crying a bit.
“You’re avoiding me,” she said. “Have I done something?”
“No. God, no.”
“Then why do you leave every room like it’s on fire?”
I stood there holding the fridge door. She wiped her nose on her wrist and gave a small, wet laugh.
“I heard you too,” she said quietly. “Tuesday night. Through the wall. Your breathing, and the bed, and my name.” Her cheeks were scarlet. “I’m not going to do anything, Tom. I love Hannah. I just needed you to know I’m not imagining it.”
The fridge hummed. Her bare knee pressed against my leg.