His Other Life. Beth Thomas

the kitchen side. ‘Oh, well, no surprises there, she’s been the hot favourite right from the beginning, it’s last year’s winner, it’s Mrs Grace Littleton!’ He raises his arms and makes whispery crowd cheering noises in the back of his throat, while glancing around the kitchen at his imaginary audience. I smile at him, charmed by his boyishness as usual, and, for the moment anyway, the mysterious text message goes out of my head.

      ‘Come on,’ he says, jerking his head towards the door, ‘let’s watch the lottery. Did you get the ticket?’

      ‘Yep, it’s in my bag.’ I retrieve the ticket from my handbag on the kitchen chair and follow him into the living room.

      Adam and I have been married just a year – today is our first anniversary actually. We exchanged presents over dinner. One year is paper – I know this because I Googled it a few days ago – so I bought him a book called Keeping the Magic Alive: How to Get and Give Satisfying Lifelong Sex by someone called Dr Cristina Markowitz. On the front there was a full-colour photo of a pair of gorgeous naked models pretending to be a satisfied married couple, and the whole thing was wrapped in clingfilm, presumably so that people couldn’t sneak into Smiths when they ran into difficulties, read up on a couple of tips, then dash back home again to finish the job. There was a nasty moment when I was paying for it involving Chloe on the till holding the book up in the air and shouting at top volume down the store ‘BRYONY! HOW MUCH IS THE SEX BOOK? BAR CODE WON’T SCAN’, but eventually I’d carried it home (in my fingertips, like a hot coal) and wrapped it in cool blue shiny paper, releasing a tense breath once it was finally sheathed. A small part of me half expected the steamy photo on the front to burn through the wrapping paper, like the lost Ark of the Covenant, leaving a naked-body-shaped scorch mark on the outside.

      I’d grinned as Adam opened it earlier, hoping he’d get the joke. I thought it was absolutely hilarious that someone had written a book about it, and more than that, that somewhere people were actually sitting down and reading it. ‘Ooh, look at this one, Steven, do you think we could manage that?’ ‘Oh I don’t know, Barbara, I’ve got that presentation tomorrow. What else is there?’ For crying out loud, people, stop reading books about it and do it!

      Adam looked at me quizzically once he’d unwrapped it. ‘Wow. Um, you trying to tell me something, Gracie?’

      I broke eye contact as I answered. ‘No, no, of course not, but don’t you think it’s hysterical? I mean, imagine Steve and Barb in bed together flicking through the pages …’

      ‘Who are they?’

      I frowned. ‘No, no one, just imaginary people, I’m just pretending.’

      ‘Oh right.’ He opened the book at a random page and read in silence for a few moments. ‘Very interesting,’ he concluded, then closed it and laid it on the table. It practically sizzled when it touched the surface. ‘Thank you very much.’

      I was disappointed. He had completely missed the joke. ‘You’re welcome.’

      If I’m completely honest, I was also hoping he might read it. The couple on the front looked like they were having such a tremendous time, and I so wanted to experience that. Even though we’d been married an entire year – or only a year, whichever way you look at it – Adam and I did not partake of the old horizontal refreshment all that frequently. From what I’d seen in magazines and films, newlyweds were supposed to be at it like they were stuffing turkeys every day, with great big grins on their faces and sweaty, shiny bodies. But this was not my own experience. ‘Hardly ever’ was closer to my magic number. Of course, films are fiction, and those magazine interviewees could have been exaggerating, knowing that what they said was going to become public knowledge. They probably were – their mates would see it. But even allowing for that, I still felt short-changed.

      My present was a gorgeous bunch of carnations, with guaranteed freshness for seven days. I’d put them in a vase immediately and placed them in the centre of the table. ‘Lovely, thank you.’

      He’d smiled, pleased with my reaction. ‘No problem. Shall we eat?’

      We haven’t won on the lottery again. I never expect to, and would be happy to stop doing it altogether – it seems so greedy when we already have so much – but Adam always wants me to buy a ticket on the way home. ‘It’s fun,’ he says, ‘something for us to enjoy together.’ I’m completely in favour of that, so I oblige, week after week, stopping in at the newsagents on the corner of our street on my walk home from town every Friday. The bloke behind the counter recognises me now, and has started to pre-empt my request with a ‘Still not won, then?’ remark. It irritates me probably more than it should.

      After the lottery results, we watch a cheerful film about a man whose daughter is kidnapped and sold into prostitution, and then we decide to call it a night.

      I’m in the kitchen finishing off the clearing up and, as I’m wiping down the tiles behind the sink, I remember suddenly Adam’s text from earlier. He hasn’t been in here since then so his phone must still be over on the counter by the kettle. I could have a very quick look at the preview, just to find out who it’s from. I won’t actually open it and read it, I’ll literally just look at the name. Of course, the first part of the message will be visible in the preview as well anyway, so it won’t matter if I read that bit – anyone could see it as it’s on display so it can’t be that private, and I won’t be able to help it. I glance up at the kitchen door, listen carefully for a few seconds and, hearing nothing, I move quickly over to the kettle and start hunting around. The phone must be here, but I discover straight away that it’s not where I remember last seeing it. I look behind the kettle but of course it’s not there either. I check the entire length of all three kitchen sides, in the sink, behind the microwave and have a cursory glance into all the cupboards, but it’s not to be found. Where the hell is it? Adam has definitely not come back into the kitchen since we left to watch the lottery earlier, so how could it have moved?

      Unless. A dart of frustration shoots through me briefly. He did get up once during the film, to go to the loo. ‘Ooh, pause it a second,’ he said, ‘need a wee.’ Then he was up and out of there like his trousers were on fire. Strange for him to move like that, just for a wee. But now it’s obvious: he must have suddenly realised his phone wasn’t in his pocket, and rushed to pick it up from the kitchen on his way upstairs. Bloody hell, that was probably my only chance to find out who the text was from. Although the three times that I’ve actually managed to get my hands on his phone since I’ve known him, it’s had an impossible-to-break screen lock code on it. No amount of combinations of his birthday, my birthday … well, they’re the only two things I’ve tried, to be honest, as I have no other information to go on. But I couldn’t unlock it. It might as well have been in a box, locked inside a safe with a secret key, buried underground, for all the good it did me.

      But there’s always the chance that the lock won’t be on. That’s what keeps me going.

      When I get upstairs, he’s already in the bedroom, but no sound is coming from the room. I remember to step over the penultimate stair to avoid making it creak, then stealthily cross the landing and peep into the bedroom through the crack of the door. Sure enough, there is Adam, standing motionless at the end of the bed, staring down at the screen of his mobile phone, the light from it illuminating his face bluish white. He’s not replying, not smiling, not reacting at all to what he’s reading. Unless you consider his non-reaction as a reaction in itself. It’s spooky actually, his complete lack of response to this message. He’s utterly immobile, as if frozen.

      ‘Ooh, it’s a bit chilly in here,’ I say, blustering in. I’m rewarded by him jumping guiltily and slipping the phone fluidly into his trouser pocket as he turns to me with a smile. I feel a small leap of hope: he didn’t get a chance to delete the message.

      ‘Come on then,’ he says, as if nothing has happened, ‘let’s get into bed and warm each other up.’

      A little spark of excitement fires in my lower belly at these words, and I shed my clothes in a single movement. This is it – it’s our anniversary, when better to indulge in a little happy dancing than tonight?