Page 16 of The Bordeaux Book Club
Nathan? Perhaps he was on his way home too, Leah thought.
‘Well, you do know your father lives around here, right?’ she said, half mocking, half annoyed. ‘He’s probably coming back from thevide-maisonhe went to.’
‘But he wasn’t in his car.’
‘Oh?’ Still, it wasn’t so surprising that Nathan might have stopped at a shop or something on the way home. It was hardly walking around the city centre as he’d claimed, but he was a free man. He could go to the DIY store or delicatessen without getting her permission. ‘Well, he’s probably…’
‘No, Mum. You don’t understand,’ Scarlett’s hand touched her arm. The contact was rare – Scarlett barely ever hugged oreven touched her these days – and somehow shocked her. ‘He was with a woman. It looked like they were… he had his hand on her shoulder.’
‘A woman?’ Leah frowned. Again, it was hardly a complete surprise. They knew several people locally, of both sexes. He’d probably bumped into someone and was saying a quick hello. It was just the combination of the tap on her arm and Scarlett’s scream made Leah feel a little… odd.
‘Yeah, and they were kind of… they looked sort of close, Mum. Like… together close.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly!’ Leah said, far too brightly. ‘It’ll just be one of the neighbours or something!’
She drove on for a moment, brow furrowed. She couldn’t shake the odd feeling – probably the result of the adrenaline rush caused by Scarlett’s sudden cry. But perhaps it would be nice to say hello. Ask how he’d got on at the sale.
‘Shall we go and say hello?’ she said, doing her best not to show her worry on the surface. She reversed in someone’s driveway, trying to ignore the barking dog that seemed to be threatening to rip them both to shreds if they so much as opened a door, and began to drive back along the road. More slowly this time.
‘Uh-oh, are you checking up on him?’ Scarlett said, with a grin that appeared slightly malevolent.
‘What?’ Leah said, her voice coming out a little more squeakily than she’d expected. ‘Of course not! I’m just… But seeing as you noticed him. I want to see if he’s managed to pick up some… uh, bananas.’
‘Right,’ said Scarlett, unconvinced. ‘And nothing to do with the woman he had his hands all over.’
‘He had his what?’
‘Oh, you know what I mean. They just looked, I dunno. Cosy.’
Was this all some elaborate hoax, or was her daughter serious?
‘Whereabouts was he?’ Leah demanded.
‘Mum! He won’t?—’
‘Whereabouts…’ she interrupted, fixing her daughter with a stare – as much as she could when driving a car, ‘Was. He?’
‘Just outside thetabac.’
‘Right.’
Forgetting there was a speedbump and almost launching the car into the air, Leah drove back up the road they’d just negotiated, eyes scanning for her husband and whoever ‘she’ was. She was being ridiculous checking up on him like this. It was just… The aftershave, the clean outfits. Popping out and not wanting her to come? But Nathan wasn’t like that, surely? He valued their marriage, their family, too much.
She wanted to see for herself what the woman looked like, whether Scarlett’s shout out had been one of horror or simply surprise. Whether it was an innocent situation or not. Her heart told her this was ridiculous, but somewhere in her gut, something churned. She’d known something was wrong. Hadn’t she?
Within minutes, they’d scanned the whole of the tiny road and turned around. There was a smattering of locals – children with their mums, people walking dogs. A group of schoolkids walking and talking animatedly. But no husband.
Leah tried to breath more slowly. ‘Scarlett,’ she said, trying to keep her tone as light as possible – although in all honesty, it was probably too late to try to appear nonchalant. ‘Are you sure it was your dad?’
‘Pretty sure,’ Scarlett said. ‘Although… I only saw the back of him, mostly. Then I looked back, but it was hard to…’
‘So you saw a man with short, brown hair,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘From theback?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘But you were sure it was your dad?’
Scarlett shrugged, blushing. ‘Well, maybe I got it wrong.’
