Nightingale Point

‘I already did. He does not come home often; I owe him my time.’

‘You’ve already given him so many years, years in which you’ve waited and waited. And now you want to pretend that I don’t exist for a month.’ He shrugs. ‘So go ahead, imagine that I’m dead so you can get on with playing husband and wife.’

Why can’t he understand? It’s only a month. She pushes the nets aside as she storms through to the bathroom, where she rolls a large ball of tissue in her hand to help her get through the bus journey.

Harris waits by the front door.

‘Let me at least drive you to work.’ His eyes appear watery, but he does not look emotional, only annoyed, probably from having to go up against a man much lesser than himself, of competing against vows made in another time and anxieties that manifest themselves in the form of twitching elbows and bad dreams.

‘Okay.’

He slides his feet into his brown sandals and picks up the keys from the slim wooden side table. As they set off towards the hospital, Mary tries to distract herself from the silence between them. His car is messier than usual: mud-caked walking boots and some shrivelled orange peelings on the floor, a pile of his students’ workbooks on the backseat. He fusses with the tape player as the car slows at the traffic lights, pushing in the Simply Red album she bought him at Christmas. The first song is their song: ‘You Make Me Believe’. They look at each other and smile.

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