What Women Want. Fanny Blake

to coincide their busy lives to travel to one or two of these far-flung destinations. One day.

      A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. She glanced at her watch again. Only a couple of minutes until the floodgates opened.

      ‘Come in.’

      Pete, the senior partner, entered the room. His wispy beard and sandals gave him the air of a throwback to the sixties. He was thin, slightly round-shouldered and wore a succession of short-sleeved checked shirts that she suspected he bought in bulk from a mail-order catalogue. Kate often wondered why his teacher wife didn’t help him in the sartorial stakes. Too preoccupied with her own work, probably. Besides, not everyone was interested in what they wore. They must have higher things on their minds. She straightened her thick woven leather belt, which had swivelled to one side, retucked her coffee-coloured T-shirt into her patterned Hobbs skirt and pulled the front of her long buttonless coral-coloured cardigan together.

      ‘There’s bad news. And there’s bad news.’ Pete pulled up the chair to sit beside her desk. ‘Which do you want first?’

      ‘Oh, God. What’s happened? Break it gently.’

      ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this but Sally’s phoned in sick and won’t be in today.’

      ‘Again?’ She ignored his look of disapproval. Pete never questioned his colleagues’ reasons unless they threatened the practice. If the practice manager went sick with no warning there were always difficulties, and today was no exception. ‘But the IT people are coming in from the PCT. I suppose I’ll have to deal with them. Damn. And?’

      ‘And old Mr Cantor’s had a stroke by the sound of it. I’m going to have to go out there. I know, I know,’ he said, as Kate put her head into her hands. ‘But I’ll be as quick as I possibly can. Sonia will divide my patients between you and Jim. Anyone not urgent, you could ask to book to see me tomorrow.’

      Out of the corner of her eye, Kate could see the blue light on her computer screen alerting her to her first patient. Sometimes she felt like King Canute trying to hold back the waves and, once again, the waves were beginning to break over her, the swell threatening to increase by the minute. ‘All right.’ She groaned. ‘We’ll manage. Let the day begin.’

      ‘Thanks, Kate. I knew you’d understand. I owe you one.’ He slipped out of the door.

      ‘Bloody right you do,’ Kate shouted after him, before making a final check that her room was in order. She walked down the corridor, past a series of brightly coloured geometric-based prints given to the practice by a grateful patient, and pushed open the door to the waiting room.

      ‘Stewart Bowles? This way.’

      *

      She looked across the table at Paul. He was staring into the middle distance, as far away as she had just been. The difference was that she had snapped back to the present and he showed no sign of doing the same. More and more often recently, he had seemed to drift off into a world of his own and she couldn’t draw him out of it. Not that he was unpleasant, just increasingly remote. When she tried to talk to him about his day, he would clam up. Unlike her, he’d never really shared his working life, preferring to keep it to the office as much as possible. He had always maintained a strict divide between the two halves of his life, even to the extent that they rarely entertained his colleagues at home. That was what he preferred and she saw no reason for them to change things. Besides, as he said, hedge-fund management wasn’t a subject likely to bring much joy to her heart whereas he had always been genuinely interested in the nuts and bolts of her profession. He enjoyed hearing about the lives that came in and out of his wife’s practice. But not so much recently. And not tonight, obviously.

      ‘Have you heard from Sam? I wish he’d get in touch.’ She knew she was on safe ground here. They never had any trouble talking about any or all of their children. They shared the same sadness that their child-rearing days were over, as well as the excitement and pride in what the children were making of their own lives.

      ‘Nothing yet. Don’t worry about him. Let’s just assume his silence is a sign that he’s too busy having a good time or has a problem getting to the Internet.’ He tried to pour her more wine but she put her hand over her glass.

      ‘I’ve had enough. You finish it.’

      ‘Actually, I’m knackered. I think I’m going to have to go to bed.’ He put the bottle down.

      ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ Kate suddenly had a strange feeling that he was keeping something from her.

      ‘Nothing. Should there be?’ He looked up at her, questioning, before starting to gather their plates.

      ‘Don’t be silly. You seemed so far away, that’s all. I know I drone on about the practice, but if something’s worrying you, I’d like to know. If something’s not going to plan. Or if there’s anything I can help with.’

      ‘There’s nothing. Really.’ But he sounded far from convincing. ‘We’re just very busy and we’re taking a hammering at the moment so it’s all hands on deck. I’m just tired.’

      He looked it. Shadows ringed his wide-set eyes and the crow’s feet seemed etched more deeply than she had noticed before. She reached across the table for his hand to reassure him of her support. After a second, looking apologetic, he took it away. ‘I think I’ll just clear up.’

      He took the plates over to the dishwasher, loading them far more noisily than necessary, then piling up the things that needed washing up.

      ‘What is it, Paul?’ Kate persisted. ‘I know there’s something you’re not telling me.’

      ‘Kate, please. You’re not the only one who’s had a bad day. Leave it alone.’ He banged the soufflé dish onto the draining board, closing the subject. ‘I’m going up.’

      Kate flinched as if he’d struck her. No ‘Goodnight’. No kiss. This was a Paul she hadn’t seen for years, not since those awful months when their marriage had almost come to grief long ago – the children had been tiny. She remembered feeling this same distance from him then, as if they were standing on opposite riverbanks, unable to get across. Each was in the other’s sight but was unable to hear what the other said above the sound of the rushing water, unable to understand the signals the other was making. When Paul finally admitted to having an affair with a member of his team at work, Kate was surprised by the relief she felt. At least she knew what she was dealing with. He said he wanted to leave her and start a new life with this woman, but Kate refused to accept his decision. In giving her this unwanted knowledge, he had also given her power.

      Whatever Paul might believe he felt, she had not been prepared to give up on her family so easily. She had worked so hard in order to show him how loved and wanted he was, not just by their children but by her. She had shown him that despite lavishing so much love on Megan, Sam and Jack she still had enough left for him. She had just got out of the habit of letting him know. She was the one whose attention and support he needed, whose reassurance he wanted, whose love he treasured. When Paul had realised he still had all those things, and more, he gave up his affair, promising never, ever to have another, and Kate came to accept that, in many ways, having a husband was like having another child. Her feminist hackles rose as she tussled with the idea but, in the end, she decided to accept their unspoken pact because the rewards were greater than the cost. Paul made her life so much more than it was without him but, to keep him, she had to make sure all his needs were met. She accepted he was that sort of man and trusted him to keep his side of the bargain in return.

      Following him upstairs, she thought about their marriage now and what would happen when Jack eventually left home. Times had moved on, circumstances had changed, and so had Paul and Kate. They’d weathered the journey so far but were they going to make it together to the end? She recognised the dangers of taking one another for granted, having seen the same thing happen with so many of her patients who had been to, or were heading for, the divorce courts. But with so many things going on in their lives, it was all too easy to let things slip. Were Paul’s recent silences nothing more than